More soldiers came running, arms at ready.
As they neared her, they slowed, then stopped. The sight of their comrades on the ground while she and Ture stood over them, unarmed, confused them.
“Zarya?” Someone shouted her name in relief while others questioned her identity.
She focused her attention on the one who knew her… Titon. He’d been one of her younger members, and because of that, she’d doted on him.
“It’s me, sweetie,” she said with a calmness she didn’t feel. “I’m here to stop this madness before it’s too late.”
His face ashen, Titon shook his head. “It’s already too late.”
“What do you mean?”
Before anyone could answer, an explosion knocked all of them off their feet.
Sighing in irritation, Darling held another cloth to his nose while he listened to reports of Resistance rebellion as they set fire to more businesses. He’d been trying to negotiate with their current leadership, but none of them would talk to him.
This has to stop.
Maris had already warned him that the League was moving in at the request of the CDS.
Stupid bastards
… Once the League declared martial law, the Caronese were screwed. He didn’t even want to contemplate what it would take to get their empire back from Kyr.
How stupid could the gerents be?
Oh wait, he’d known many of them most of his life. That single question in and of itself was moronic.
See what happens when you hang out with them? They suck out your IQ and leave you stupid, too.
Yeah, Giran alone could reduce his intelligence by thirty points in under two minutes.
“My lord?”
Lowering the cloth to hide how saturated it was in blood, Darling glanced over to the door of his office where Gera stood, fretting in the doorway.
He forced the irritation out of his voice and smiled at her. “Yes, Dame. What can I do for you?”
She hesitated before she entered the room. “I’m not sure if I should be mentioning this, but do you know where her ladyship is?”
Gods, what had the bitch done now? Did he even want to know? “My mother’s at—”
“Not the dowager, my lord,” Gera said, cutting him off. “Lady Starska.”
It took Darling a second to realize who Gera was talking about. How could he have forgotten Zarya’s title?
Because he didn’t think of her that way. She was much more intimate to him than her title made it sound. But then Gera was nothing if not formal.
Darling wiped at his nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding anymore. “She said she wasn’t feeling well, and went to her room.”
Gera swallowed audibly. “She told me the same, but when I went to her room to check on her, she wasn’t there.”
That wasn’t unusual. Zarya didn’t like being alone. He suspected it was from the same kind of ghosts that haunted him—old memories that refused to let him rest. “She’s probably with Lord Maris.”
“I already asked him, Majesty, and he hasn’t seen her either.”
Okay,
that
concerned him. Zarya very seldom ventured away from
both
of them. “Did you check with her sister?”
“Yes, Majesty. Lady Sorche said that the last time she spoke to her was at dinner last night.”
His throat went dry as he noticed Gera nervously clutching something in her left palm. “What’s in your hand?”
Biting her lip, she approached him slowly. “I went to her room to see if maybe she was in her bathing chambers. While there, I started picking up a few things she had scattered about and…”
She placed her hand on his desk. “I found this in a drawer.”
Don’t panic.
It was hard not to. And when Gera pulled her hand back and he saw Zarya’s engagement ring, he felt like someone had kicked his stones straight into his throat.
Don’t jump to any conclusions.
“She must have forgotten to put it back on after her bath this morning.”
Yeah, that must be it. Zarya didn’t forget her ring often. Just every now and again.
It did happen. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Just a forgetful one.
“Perhaps… but still I’m worried about her, Majesty. Given all the madness that’s going on… you don’t think someone’s kidnapped her, do you?”
Okay, the panic beast was no longer stalking. It now had him on the ground and was stabbing him hard. Where was she? “Let me check with my sister. Maybe Lise—”
“I already called her, my lord. She said that she hadn’t talked to Lady Starska since day before yesterday. The same was said by both Lord Drake and your friends Hauk and Fain.”
And he hadn’t seen her since early that morning…
His heart racing, Darling rose to check it out himself, but before he could take a single step, his office door flew open.
It was Giran.
Nothing could have shocked or appalled him more than to see that noxious bastard in his home. “What?” Darling asked drily as he tried to keep the contempt he felt from showing on his face. “Did hell freeze over?”
It must have for the gerent to be here alone.
Now armed with a guard to attack and dethrone him—
that
would have made sense. But for the gerent to be here as he was…
Yeah, this could not be good.
Giran grimaced as he stepped into the room and ignored Gera completely. “This isn’t funny,” he said to Darling with a note of hysteria in his voice. “We have a bad situation here.”
No, shit. Most of it caused by
him
.
What? Did the genius just wake up and realize that calling in the League was a blunder of epic proportions? It ranked up there with inviting a pack of mountain lions in to kill the mouse in your basement.
Not that it mattered to him right now. Giran was the last person Darling wanted to deal with. The bastard was lucky he was still upright and not gutted.
Disgusted by the gerent, Darling started past him. “I’m a little busy with something else.”
Giran stopped him. “Your Majesty, please…”
Those words and the sincere pleading beneath them stunned him into complete shock.
Hell really had frozen over.
“What’s happened?” Darling asked, dreading the answer. It had to be extremely bad for Giran to address him with respect.
Giran’s eyes teared up. “The League… they’ve declared martial law on us. As a result, they’ve moved a large number of their troops into Taranyse.”
Great. He needed that like another body part that spasmed out of his control. He ground his teeth. “Are you happy now?”
An actual tear fell down the man’s face. “Majesty… the League overran Resistance headquarters and then went for the council building where they’ve set up their own people to rule us.”
No surprise there since that was League SOP. Darling had tried to warn them that this would happen.
Their response? They’d laughed in his face and publicly insulted him through the media. With this particular asshole being their ringleader.
He’d started to remind Giran of that, when Giran spoke again. “Every gerent who was inside the CDS building on Taranyse was arrested and taken into custody…” His voice cracked from emotion. He locked gazes with Darling. “They have my son, my lord. And my younger brother.”
Even though Giran’s brother had been one of Darling’s worst critics, he winced at what was most likely being done to both of them while Giran was here. A Caronese noble in League custody ranked right up there with Darling Cruel being held by the Resistance.
“Did you contact the League?” he asked Giran.
“I tried. But the agent I spoke to said that they were all considered radicals who are being held to secure the peace, and that so long as the League was here, they would remain in custody. She also intimated that if I persisted or protested, I’d be viewed as such and seized, too.”
Darling gave him a droll stare. “Did you not know this?”
Giran sniffed back his tears as he ignored Darling’s question. “My son was only there so that he could go home with my brother after the meeting and visit with his cousins. He’s barely fifteen, my lord. Just a baby.”
Darling ground his teeth. A kid that age wouldn’t do well in a League prison. Especially not with an uncle who most likely had never been in so much as a fistfight to protect himself…
Gods have mercy on that kid.
“I don’t understand why they did this. The League was supposed to help us.”
Darling wanted to ask him what form of hallucinogen he’d consumed.
Please tell me you’re on something.
The thought that he’d be sober and do this…
Honestly, it had to hurt to be
that
stupid.
Giran cleared his throat. “Did you know that when the League is invited in by the ruling body of a planet or empire, they are allowed to take over all facets of the government, and place all of the reigning aristocracy, not just the ruler, in League prisons?”
Again, no shit…
“Yes, I did. What? Did you sleep through your government classes?”
Giran raked his hand through his hair. “There were so many laws to read and remember. And they were ever changing. I never could keep half of them straight. And honestly, they were so boring that I usually cheated to pass the classes.”
Darling let out a short, bitter laugh. “Yes, they were extremely dry and boring, and in between my sucking off thousands of men, stealing the money from our treasury and embezzling funds from the pleb schools, getting shanked and filmed every afternoon by Nylan, all my stints in and out of mental wards where I, as a boy your son’s age, beat the staff to the point they were all terrified of me, and raping and brainwashing the Resistance leader I’m
only marrying for political reasons, I committed every single one of those laws, our laws and my father’s code, to memory. And in between my numerous extracurricular activities, superhuman that I am, I’ve kept up with every change to every law that has been made in my lifetime.”
Shame filled Giran’s eyes over Darling’s sarcastic reminder of what he and his brother had been publicly alleging every time a news camera came near them. “I’m so sorry I said those things about you, Majesty. It…
I
was wrong to do so, and I apologize deeply.”
Pride must have choked him hard to admit that. And the fact that he did, that he was here begging for Darling’s help after attacking him so viciously, also let him know just how desperate Giran was. Not that he blamed him. If someone had
his
son, he’d bust Kere’s domain wide open to get him back.
Gods help whomever was dumb enough to touch someone
he
loved.
Still, Darling wasn’t as forgiving as his father would have been. Not after everything they’d been doing to not just him, but those he loved.
Giran’s words and actions, in particular, resonated loudly in his memory.
“You publicly and cruelly insulted my fiancée, and then aired the most humiliating moment of my entire life to everyone who might have missed it, all the while insulting my integrity, intelligence, and sanity with lies you knew to be untrue. Why should I
ever
help you?”
Giran averted his gaze, but not before Darling saw the agony and shame he was trying hard to hide. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come here for a favor. I have no right to ask you for anything. What I did to you was beyond cruel and it was wrong. And I’m ashamed of the fact that I took pleasure in hurting you.”
Yeah, right. The only thing Giran was ashamed of was that after having held Darling’s head down and rubbing his nose in the past, he now had to belly crawl to him to get his son released.
Tears fell down Giran’s cheeks. “I only pray that whoever has possession of my son is showing him the compassion I
should
have shown you.”
There, Giran had finally stumbled onto the magic phrase. Darling wanted the bastard to admit to not only him, but to himself, what he’d done and how wrong it’d been. And why it was wrong. It was the only way to make sure Giran didn’t do it to someone else.
“Scars are there to remind us of the price we pay when we learn a vital lesson. Never hide them, Darling. Revel in the fact that you’ve grown as a person. Embrace the newfound knowledge you learned about yourself.”
His father’s words rang in his ears. No matter the situation, his father always knew what to say or do to make it better. How he wished he had one tenth of what his father had possessed.
Instead, he stumbled through his life blindly, hoping he was doing the right things.
Giran started for the door.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you,” Darling said coldly. “I only wanted you to understand that I’m under no obligation to do so, and that I have every reason to turn my back on you as you did me when I went to you and the CDS in good faith, expecting you to help me do the right thing for our people.”
“I understand,” Giran breathed. “Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d help me if I were you, given what all we’ve done.” He met Darling’s gaze with a burning sincerity in his eyes. “And this is a favor I won’t forget, Majesty.”
Darling inclined his head to him. “Good, because if I succeed in getting them back, you are to set the record straight with the media about my past. I want you to recant every lie you’ve spewed.
More than that, I expect you to support and back my governorship before the rest of the gerents and CDS.”