“What is it, Vhalla?” Aldrik asked worriedly.
Aldrik
... Vhalla tried to process what she saw.
The palace was a magnificent display of architecture, like the grandest tree house a child could ever dream. Stone and wooden buildings were connected by arched walkways suspended at every level. It was as if someone had hollowed out the palace in the south and exposed its innards on the outside, a spider’s web of narrow footways and tunnels. The trees were so old and tall that some had been fossilized, or magically turned to stone, others had been carved into and hollowed out to make living spaces.
The castle grew denser as it moved upward and inward. The highest center point had a long, single catwalk extending from it, an access point that had only walkways leading into it. Connected to the access point were other rooms and buildings. Vhalla had no doubt that the Chieftains made their bed in the highest point.
But it was not the architecture that gave her pause. Nor was it the seemingly impossible construction. What made Vhalla stop in her tracks were the people.
“Vhalla, what is it?” Aldrik repeated into the silence.
Vhalla continued to ignore him as the scene settled on her. Northern men and women of every shape and size had built hovels within the inner wall, a tent city that mirrored the surrounding Imperial army’s. The palace seemed to be housing more than just the people who had lived and worked there previously. A great number of refugees had set up camp, fleeing from the encroaching Southern army. There were too many people, even for such a massive space, so everyone seemed to be on top of someone else.
Their quiet and somber faces imprinted themselves on her memories. Life continued. People went about their daily tasks. Children played, women tended to livestock, men cooked and mended things that needed mending. But all the shoulders sagged with the heavy weight of truth.
It hit her at once. It was an earth-shattering and humbling revelation. It made the anger and bloodlust vanish in the wake of shame. It made every night she’d spent wishing the Northerners dead for Sareem, for Larel, seem less meaningful.
These people were not mindless killers.
They were not a faceless enemy that was half wild and half mad. They were not less than human. They were not different from her just because they came from somewhere else, spoke differently, dressed differently, or looked different.
They were just like her. They were people who had lost their homes, their possessions, and likely their families as they fled to the last safe place they had, the last sacred place that was still their home before the Southern Empire swallowed it up and took their names and history and consumed them, turning them into “the North”.
Everything Vhalla had heard and learned about the war had been from the mouths of the Empire. It was the collective tongue that wagged on behalf of the Emperor. It had been watered down through excuses and explanations to seem logical. But there was nothing logical about this. This was not for faith, or peace, these people died for greed.
“Vhalla, say something,” Aldrik demanded.
She had thought she knew what war was, but as their empty eyes and too-thin bodies etched themselves onto her soul, Vhalla realized she knew nothing at all. They were all boys and girls playing at war, writing their own songs the bards would sing. But the bards never sang about this.
Suddenly the faces of the people she had killed came back to her.
We are monsters.
Vhalla was frozen in time. Those people, it had seemed so justified, so logical at the time. She realized she was the one who had invaded their home. She rode with the people who were destroying their way of life. Now she came to help deliver the final blow. Shaldan had not been a war-torn state until the Empire had made it that way.
“Vhalla, you are not a monster,” Aldrik said firmly. His voice was louder and she felt a strange warmth wash over her cheeks. “What do you see?”
She knew he was away from his papers by the proximity of his voice, by his hands on her face. He asked for her sake, not for him or the war.
They’re huddled in mass. There are so many people, but most don’t look like they are warriors.
She began to walk through the tent camp.
There are children, Aldrik
.
“Inside the walls?” he asked.
Yes, with their families, or perhaps not. I don’t know ... They’re so thin.
Vhalla saw the way the clothes hung off some of them.
“The siege has gone on for more than eight months now,” he explained. “But we pressed upon them more than a year ago. Their stocks must be low. Can you find out where they keep their food stores?”
There are children!
Vhalla exclaimed, horrified. She watched two boys play, somehow oblivious to the adults around them whose eyes were empty from staring so long at bodies that would too soon be corpses.
“That doesn’t matter.”
Vhalla knew he was forcing himself to be stoic and strong, to be the prince that had to make a decision when there were no right answers. She heard the emotion under his words, the pain at having to say them. But she suddenly felt so angry at the fact that he could say them at all.
It
does
matter! I won’t murder children,
she exclaimed. “You don’t have a choice.”
Vhalla tried to regain her composure. She fought and struggled with the scene before her, to justify it with the reasons the Empire had fed her all her life. The Empire fought for peace, but all Vhalla saw were desperate civilians clinging to weapons they’d never been trained to use. The Empire fought for prosperity—and children starved. The Empire fought for justice—and broke the laws it touted in the process.
Murderers, they were murderers under the command of the greatest murderer of them all.
I can’t, I can’t do this, Aldrik.
Vhalla didn’t pull into her body once more; she didn’t go forward, she didn’t do anything.
“You can,” Aldrik encouraged.
We’re taking their home from them!
“Their home is lost,” the prince said grimly. “What do you think will happen if you refuse? Do you think you can stop the inevitable? This was set into motion long before we met, long before you had Awoken to your powers. The North was going to fall from the start. They dragged this out with their resistance.”
Of course they did! It’s their home.
Vhalla had never imagined she could find any understanding for the people she’d been brought here to kill. But in that moment, she wondered if she would fight with the Northerners if given the choice.
“Their Chieftain did this. She put her people here. And now she’ll see them starve before she forfeits her city.”
Did they have a choice?
“All leaders have the choice to take responsibility for their people,” Aldrik affirmed. “The North is a beast that’s wounded and bleeding. They’ll die with or without you. If they die faster, they’ll suffer less. You can give them that, my love.”
That’s horrible
.
“It’s the truth,” Aldrik insisted defensively. But he did not deny that it was horrible.
She knew it was the case, but to hear it from his lips was harder than Vhalla could imagine. This was worse than anything she’d ever been put through, but he didn’t understand. Vhalla had envisioned she would be fighting on a battlefield. In every mental preparation for the battles to come, Vhalla had imagined herself squaring off against a faceless enemy. Something shapeless and corporal, she envisioned herself battling against the North as an entity, not as lay people.
This was an enemy who couldn’t stand. It was an enemy that was bent over and begging. Pleading for the last scraps of happiness they could stitch together with the remnants of their lives. She wasn’t here to be the Empire’s soldier or champion. She was here to be the greatest executioner the Empire Solaris had ever deployed.
It wasn’t war any longer: it was an impending massacre.
“The food stores,” Aldrik reminded, the magical warmth of his palms tingling across her Projected cheeks.
She had to move. He was right. This would end with or without her and she could ease the suffering by hastening it. Vhalla wanted to sob and scream with each step forward. The people were oblivious to the enemy in their midst. Vhalla steeled her heart. She’d learned to do it as Serien and the shadow of the other woman protectively hovered over her.
As Vhalla ventured deeper, searching for a location where they kept their primary food stores, she heard something she hadn’t expected: Southern Common. Vhalla stilled, trying to make out the origin of the familiar words. The speaker was one of the Northerners, judging from their heavy accent.
Vhalla walked unimpeded into one of the massive trees. It reminded her of the Tower of Sorcerers, a large central room and a curving stairway that led up to the next landing. Vhalla followed the sounds upward and across an exterior hall to one of the constructed rooms attached to the outside of the tree.
“... you said they would be dead.” Vhalla passed through a door to see the archer from earlier pacing the small room.
“And you had promised to deliver the Windwalker to us,
alive
.”
Vhalla’s blood ran cold as she turned her attention to the other half of the space. A Western man, dirty and tired looking, sat one of the low, flat benches. His hair was greasy and his face gaunt. But he didn’t seem uncomfortable. He wasn’t chained nor bound. He sat easy in the Northerner’s company despite his Southern-style armor clashing oddly with his surroundings. “Why do you have such love for the Windwalker?” the woman sneered in her thick accent.
“My men kept their part of the bargain; they disoriented the troops at the Pass despite yours having gone rogue at the Crossroads and deciding to kill the girl after we had so generously hid and tended to them.”
Vhalla’s world stilled as the man spoke.
“
Gwaeru
,” the woman said a series of impassioned words that Vhalla could only assume were profane.
Vhalla studied the Northerner carefully. Long black hair was coiled into many braids, pulled into an intricate knot at the back of her head. She had skin the hue of dark melted chocolate, rich and glistening with the heat of the day. She wore the similar clothing of the other Northern warriors Vhalla had encountered: wrapped leathers and what seemed like an intricately embroidered pennon with a hole cut for her head, belted at the waist.
Vhalla noted the stony-looking pieces of bark that had been strapped over her shoulders as armor.
She’s not a Groundbreaker
.
“What was that?” Aldrik’s voice layered over the conversation. Vhalla had forgotten her thoughts would echo back to him.
I’ll fill you in soon. I need to listen
, Vhalla said hastily, not wanting to miss any more of the discussion before her.
“We will help you see that the Imperial family is slain in their beds as long as you deliver the Windwalker to the Knights of Jadar; this has always been our deal. And need I remind you again before you run off to fire more arrows, we want her
alive
.” The man leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Any further attempts to kill her and we’ll be forced to assume the deal is off.”
This sent the woman into a rage. “You south peoples make no sense!” She stomped around the room. It was strange for Vhalla to hear a Westerner be referred to as southern. “We make new deal. You kill the Solaris family without the Shaldan’s help and take the Demon when she is unprotected. In thanks, Shaldan will give you
Achel
.”
This made the man pause with thought.
“You have the axe?” he asked with genuine interest.
“Shaldan knows its history. We have not forgotten like southern peoples,” the woman answered cryptically.
Vhalla’s mind made a sudden connection. The axe they were speaking of, it couldn’t be the same one as what Minister Victor had mentioned to her, could it? He had told her it was an axe that could cut through anything, that would make the wielder invincible.
“Why have you not used the axe, if you have it?” The Westerner raised his eyebrows. “The Sword of Jadar helped the knights stave off the Empire for ten years.”
Vhalla had never read of any special sword in the battles of Mhashan.
“You think we keep such a thing here? Inside sacred Soricium?” The woman scoffed, “No, that monstrous blade rests where it should under watchful eyes of ancients.”
“If what you say is true—”
“I speak true.”
“I shall need to consult with my comrades.” The man stood, favoring his right leg. “You will send the message tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” The woman nodded and cursed under her breath as she stormed past Vhalla’s Projected form and into the hall, slamming the door behind her.
Vhalla followed the man with her eyes as he walked slowly over to the window, a slight limp to his gait. She raised her hand, seeing his form blurred on the other side. If she could use her magic in this form, she could blow him out the window. She could send him tumbling head over heels down the side of the tree and into the unforgiving ground four stories below.
“Vhalla?” Aldrik distracted her from her murderous thoughts. “Have you found the food stores yet?”
No, I’ll look again
. She dragged herself from the room with every ounce of willpower she possessed and back downstairs.
“Again? Have you not been searching for them?” His concern was apparent.
I’ll tell you when I’m no longer Projecting. I’m very tired
. Vhalla looked up at the sun when she reemerged on the bottom floor.
She’d spent longer Projected than she had before; returning to her physical body was already going to be difficult. Aldrik stayed silent while she wandered the camp once more. The conversation she’d overheard only served to darken her mood and confuse her feelings further. She was back to loathing the Northerners, but only the select group who furthered the war for their own personal agendas.
Vhalla was discovering that it was not a region or race of people that soured her, it was a type. It was the leaders who would do anything for their legacy. She hated those who clung to the past at the expense of the future. More than anything, she couldn’t stand the type of person who cared only for themselves at the expense of others.