Hail to the Queen (Sage Trilogy, Book 3) (10 page)

“Strike me down if you l
ike. It won’t work,” he said as Kyran put a hand to her shoulder.

“Calm down,” Kyran said. “I want to he
ar what he has to say.”

“Are you joking?
” Scarlet yelled, sheathing her eidolon. “He can’t bring the dead back to life!”

“I’m very capable,” Thorn assured her. “And I wouldn’t even be so cruel as to ask you to combat your friends. All I want is for you to cease your mission and stay out of my way.”

“Why?” Scarlet scoffed. “Because you’re afraid of what we can do?”

“Not particularly, but one can never be too careful. See, there is a reason I’ve kept my ‘Kingdom’ secret
for all these years. In the beginning, I was quite vulnerable. You or Kyran could have dispatched me without batting an eye, but I’ve worked hard, and those times are now behind me. With most of my preparations completed, I’m no longer afraid…of you or anyone else. Not because you can’t fight back, but because my power far exceeds your own. It’s just a fact that one way or another, you will have to deal with.”

“If you’re so powerful,” Scarlet said. “Why are you hanging around the house all day? Why don’t you just attack
us?”

“Because my dim-witted friend,” Thorn chuckled. “The ether has not yet covered your Kingdom. But ask
me that same question tomorrow and I promise that my answer will have changed…”

“CATHERINE!” James shouted as he sat up quickly in the bed. He winced and ru
bbed his forehead, then squint his eyes to examine his surroundings. It was completely foreign to him and that immediately put him on guard. Thankfully, there were no weapons on him that an enemy could confiscate. All that he needed was inside him.

James threw off the blankets and wiped the sweat from his arms, trying to think of what to do next. Run off and hope for a familiar marker? Wait for someone to return? What happened to Catherine? Did she drop him off at this place to recover?

James grunted and ran a hand through his hair as he heard the sound of two cups clang together. He turned and saw a woman staring at him, her eyes glowing with excitement and recognition. He couldn’t identify her, but she was eerily familiar, like seeing an old photograph as an infant. The woman cleared her throat and put up her hands in surrender as she slowly approached.

“No further!” James shouted and she stopped. She brushed her hands on the dirty apron strung over her shoulders and smiled warmly.

“James, you probably don’t remember me, but…well, I’m your mother.”

“What?” James snapped
in shock, then he promptlyclutched his head in agony. Keeping that manifestation together had done more damage to him than he thought. The woman who claimed to be his mother took the opportunity to scurry over and sit beside him. James glanced at her and studied her face. He was just about to dismiss the possibility when he finally settled on her eyes.

There she was.

Perhaps they had seen a lot of suffering, stung by rivers of tears and bloodshot with a combination of stress and old age, but there she was nonetheless. The same eyes that stared deep into him when he was child, rocking him to sleep, humming lullabies and whispering tips of how to become a man though he was still a baby...

But why was she here? Why now?

“You are my mother,” James said emotionless. Neither budged from their position.

“You must hate me for leaving you.”

“No,” James chuckled. “No, I hate my father, especially for not playing his role properly, let alone yours. You, I don’t feel anything for, whether it’s hate or love.”

“Fair enough,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “But can I at least tell you why I left?”

“What are you doing here, anyways?” James asked as he shook his head in disbelief. “Why appear now?”

“I can ask you the same question, son,” she said. “You’re the one who appeared in Quietus.”

“Is this where we are?”

“Yes. A lot has happened since you went unconscious. I intercepted Catherine
, and we had a mutual understanding. Don’t worry, there’s no animosity between the Quietus villagers and the two of you. All that endangered your lives are dead.”

“Then where is she?”

“I’ll tell you,” Nadia said as calm as she could. “But I have to tell you the truth first.”

“It can wait.”

“No. No, it can’t. Because I’m certain that I won’t see you again once you leave.”

James looked at
his mother curiously but nodded in her direction, giving her permission to continue.

“You’re half-Quietus, James,” Nadia sighed. “I’m sure you
’ve realized it by now. Perhaps if you had stayed in Allay where there was nothing to trigger our warrior blood, you could have lived a normal, human existence, but since you joined Allay’s soldiers, I’m sure you’ve…transformed by now.”

“Twice,” James stated truthfully. “And both times I had no clue what was happening. In the first occurrence, I was being tortured. I don’t remember much of the ordeal, but I know I killed a lot of Langorans.”

“Your awakening,” Nadia said. “That’s what we call it. The first time a Quietus transforms. It’s our version of puberty. From that point on it gets easier, but in the beginning, it’s always bloody. We usually quarantine a young one when we suspect they’re close…so, what about the second?”

“I was already a Sage,” James sighed. “I was fighting another Sage that was stronger than I was. He struck a fatal blow and I heard a voice speaking to me. It came from somewhere deep inside…I don’t know. It was something li
ke that. Anyways, it spoke…and afterwards, I pulled out another eidolon, far different than the first. It was of my Quietus side, I think. It looked black and rippled with energy – a whole lot stronger than my Allayan one too.”

“Fascinating,” Nadia said in awe. “
Kingdoms don’t mix their populations so it’s very rare to see a child like you exist, let alone one that is able to harness the power of both people.”

“Yeah, how did that work? Dad…um, well, he doesn’t have a lot of charm.”

“Oh, no,” Nadia laughed. “Absolutely none. I can’t say I was in love if that’s what you’re wondering. No, I was a Quietus trying to get away from her Kingdom, especially since the King you killed took the throne. He cared nothing for us. It was all bloodshed and fashioning an elite army. The general public barely gained his notice. Well, I grew tired of the deteriorating conditions in the village and I left. I figured Allay was my best bet since I couldn’t mimic the massive size of the Langorans. Prattlians would execute me on sight if I was discovered and Zen-echelon was a death sentence. Allay was really my only option. But I was so naïve and young. By the time I made it there, I was exhausted, hungry and unable to keep this form. My hunger was so ravenous I was beginning to dream about eating others.”

“Gross.”

“Don’t judge, James. Sometimes it’s our only option when food is scarce.”

“Okay, whatever. Go on.”

“Your father found me in the forest beyond your Kingdom. By then I was on the brink of death. He had been hunting when he came across me, panting and crawling on my belly in the dirt. I was obviously in my full Quietus form and I was ready to gobble him up if he got too close. But do you know what he did? He just knocked me out with a nearby rock, put me in a large sack and brought me to his home.”

“That’s insane!”

“I know,” she laughed. “And I wasn’t grateful at first either. I was trying to swipe at him any chance I got, but he had tied me to the bed and took care of me well. He fed me, washed me and made sure I made a full recovery. Once I was in my right mind, we would talk, first as enemies you could say. But eventually, we reached an understanding. I told him my story, and he accepted me. For him, it was also beneficial as he said he was lonely and hadn’t found a suitable companion.”

“I can only imagine,” James chuckled.

“So life was actually quite good, and occasionally thoughts of a life together would swim to the surface. That is how you were conceived actually.”

“Again, gross…so what happened? Why did you leave?”

“It was around the time of the siege, and James, this also why you must never again listen to that voice within you.”

“What do you mean?” James asked in alarm.

“Quietus are not completely human,” Nadia said. “Everyone in the other Kingdoms are different. They’ve just been given powers from their stone. But not us. Every Quietus has some human tissue within them, sure, but primarily we were genetically created from a mixture of chemicals and rare elements.”

“I don’t understand. How would you even know that?”

“I’m not sure if it’s the most reliable source, but when the King of Quietus took the throne, he gave a speech discussing how he would lead our Kingdom into a great age, specifically because of the knowledge he acquired of our origins. He told us we were made unique, and that we were slaves to a being that had yet to reveal himself. In order to please this being, we had to offer our allegiance and follow the King’s every command. Few believed him, until the siege of course.”

“What happened?”

“That voice you heard. I’m not sure of its origin, but it has the power to control us if it chooses. The siege was testament to that fact. The King of Quietus claimed that Allay needed to be crippled, its Sages annihilated. No one at the time was willing to go to war with Allay and so many refused. The King said the being that created us was displeased, and therefore, if we would not comply, we would be forced to in time. I left a few weeks after that particular speech, but I never forgot those words. And true to his word, a month before the siege occurred, I completely lost myself. It was the first time I heard the voice speak within me, but it didn’t want to converse. It gave me orders. And one of those orders were to leave Allay for good. To this day I am unable to leave the confines of this Kingdom and its forest unless the voice allows. We’ve attempted small resistances here and there but they never got very far, though with the King’s death, we’re hoping we may have gained our freedom. No one has heard the voice since he died...”

“So that’s why the siege occurre
d,” James said. “You were all controlled to attack Allay.”

“Exactly.”

“Then that gives us two pieces of valuable information. One, if what you’re saying is true, then the Quietus are not our enemy like we once believed, and two, whoever is behind your control, is very afraid of the Sages.”

“James, don’t listen to this voice again. It may try to control you. Perhaps it can only do so much since you’re only half-Quietus, but I suspect the more you transform or use the Quietus eidolon, the more likely it can gain a
permanent hold over you.”

“I’ll be careful, and thank you fo
r telling me your story…I can’t just turn my feelings on or off at will, but at least I can understand now why you left.”

“I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

“And I don’t mean to rush you, but I need to know…where’s Catherine? I’m one of her bodyguards, and I need to be by her side at all times.”

“This is going to be har
d for you to hear…but a man took her.”

“WHAT?!” James shouted, jumping to his feet. “WHERE IS SHE?”

“James, please, you have to hear this. This man, he claims to come from Zen-echelon, and he says that his master is the one who created us. The same who speaks to us and controls us. If that’s true, then Zen-echelon is not only behind her capture, and our slavery, but also the siege of 88 and the near extinction of the Sages. They’re behind it all.”

“We received a letter from Catherine’s father making that claim
,” James replied, examining his clothes. ”He was taken hostage during the siege and part of our mission is to find him and his wife. So if that’s true, that means Zen-echelon really is behind the ether as well…it’s starting to make sense. Zen-echelon doesn’t want us to combine our forces. With us hating one another and fighting amongst ourselves, that Kingdom is free to do as it pleases. Allay was the only one that didn’t hate anyone, that is, until the siege. With the Quietus as our enemy, everything was complete. A full circle of hate with Zen-echelon nowhere to be found in the mix.”