| |
––––––––
She had no dreams that night.
The balcony lay before her in the moonlight, the high, vaulted frescoed ceilings unable to cast a reflection on the cool pink marble floor against the backdrop of the candelabras glowing from the electricity that fueled them. The city lay asleep before her, the steamships docked in the harbor.
With no intention of sleeping, Skylar stepped out onto the balcony, walking until reaching the railing. The deep plum color of her dress gave her eyes an intense hue of their own as they stretched their gaze out across the city, across the spotted lights and into the moonlit sea where the blazing light of a ship glowed.
A ship that had caught on fire.
Skylar placed her hands on the railing, her chest rising with her deep breath. She had only looked at her appearance once before trailing to the balcony, of seeing the plum dress with its gold lacing that draped across her shoulders and attached to her sleeves. The rest of the dress bowed around her into a long train, its design created to match the royal crown sitting on her head, the gold and amethysts twinkling in the night air.
She continued to watch the ship burn, a breeze rustling the curled ends of her hair that fell into a soft V down her back. Her skin tingled as she gripped the railing, and she didn’t have to look away from the sight to know his presence was next to her.
As quietly as he had approached, Harlin’s bare hand covered hers. She looked from the burning ship to his right hand, admiring the fact that he had taken his glove off. On his ring finger was a gold band which matched hers, which was snug against her own finger on her right hand.
Skylar smiled at the memory, leveling her eyes on him. Harlin smiled back, the eyepatch unable to take away the handsomeness that would always be his. But she saw in his gaze that the news he carried wasn’t pleasant. “The ambassadors from Bellumortis are here. They have brought their Declaration of War.”
Skylar nodded, looking back down at his hand and intertwining her fingers with his. “Have any survivors been found yet?”
Harlin’s gaze stretched out towards the collapsed structure, at the work crews who were still not pulled from their hourly task. “No, not yet,” he replied. “They’re still looking.”
Part of her knew it was pointless now. The only reason he didn’t mention ending the search was because of her hope to find someone alive. No matter the thought, it was temporarily pushed aside when Harlin slipped a small object under her hand, which she hid by pretending to mimic his stance. Skylar turned and started for the next room, and Harlin put his glove back on before following her.
The men who stood in the middle of the room were nothing Skylar had expected. They were built solid, tall yet defined, dressed in black and outlined in red. Their white eyes made her skin crawl, their white hair slicked back against their skull, and their pale faces already glaring at her from where they stood.
Stopping at a safe distance in front of them, Skylar kept her hands perfectly folded in front of her, the object and ring shielded by her left hand. She opened her mouth in order to address them but was immediately cut off.
“There are rumors that you have married, though no one quite knows who it is.” The man who spoke, the one standing on the left, narrowed his eyes on her hands. “For your sake, you’re lucky they’re just rumors,” he finished upon seeing her left hand bare.
Skylar gave no inclination she cared, despite feeling relieved that her choice to put her ring on the opposite hand had proven beneficial. She remembered when Harlin had followed her lead, and feeling his presence standing behind and to the right of her, she confidently addressed the men who stared coldly back. “What is it that you want?” she asked.
“The deal we had is long overdue,” the other man replied, his voice deeper and harsher. “Cross Lutherus, your advisor, has not sent word on what the agreement is between you and our prince. If we cannot reach an agreement, we will offer our Declaration of War.” He smiled unkindly, adding, “That should be fuel enough for you to make the right decision.”
“Cross Lutherus has been discharged of his duties,” Skylar replied matter-of-factly.
“He’s no longer in your service?” the original man interrupted.
“You’re dead right,” she quipped. “And as such, if you’ve heard rumors of matrimony, then you should have heard the rumors of my torture. Or are these rumors simply heard when convenient?”
“Rumors or not,” he replied, straightening himself up, “you cannot rule this kingdom by yourself. No woman has. No woman will.”
Skylar narrowed her eyes but kept her tone even. “And yet here I am.”
“You will not have a kingdom left if you don’t submit to us.”
Skylar stared at him, giving his harsh and deep-toned companion the opportunity to ruminate on the threat. “We have qualms about what we’ll do to your people,” he warned. “We will burn them, we will torture them, and when we feel like being merciful, we will allow them to die.”
“Threaten all you want,” Skylar told them both, “but eventually, the bully will get a taste of his own medicine.”
“Do you dare threaten our king?” the harsher voice demanded.
His companion didn’t allow her to answer as he cut in by holding his hand up. “All you have to do is sign, or we’ll take you by force, which you may or may not find pleasurable.”
Skylar slightly turned to glance at Harlin, who saw the look and walked past her. He was passing by the ambassadors when they became suspicious of the knight’s demeanor.
“There is no one else in the room,” the man reminded her as his harsh companion continued to eye Harlin, even turning his body in order to keep his stance. “And two of us against one knight is nothing—”
A shot screamed out, cutting through the man’s forehead and out his skull. His harsh companion spun around, stunned to watch the body fall back onto the floor. His white eyes rose to Skylar, who held the smoking gun, the small pistol that her knight had slipped under her hand while standing on the balcony.
“That makes it even,” Skylar announced, lowering the pistol. “Now that I have your attention, you’re going to do me a favor. You’re going to go back to your king and notify him that this war started the moment he thought he could antagonize us.”
“I will never say that to my king,” the man growled deeply.
“Who said you were going to say anything?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer before Harlin came up behind him and ran the blade of his short sword across the man’s throat in a quick swipe. His body had barely fallen to the floor when the doors across the room opened, and two wooden caskets were carried in as already instructed.
“The ship’s been destroyed, and the crew has been taken care of,” a castle guard reported.
Skylar felt the remembrance of the burning ship flickering in the back of her mind as the ambassadors’ blood started to pool at her feet.
“Any tracking device that would have been on it is long gone.”
“They have such capability?” a young page quietly asked his companion who was helping him carry one of the caskets.
“One of many,” Harlin answered him, stunning the boy before turning back to the guard. “Did you preserve one of their lifeboats?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hurry and get the bodies on it. Set the coordinates to their home, like I’ve showed you.”
Skylar felt herself shudder upon hearing Harlin speak so easily of the technology that only hours ago had been foreign.
“Bellumortis already knows about the signal being lost,” he continued. “It’s only a matter of time before they act on it. Seeing the signal from the lifeboat will pique their curiosity, and they’ll wait to see what’s on it before acting.”
“Do you think he’ll understand the message we’re sending him?” the same page spoke up again.
Skylar had pulled away from the scene, standing at the entranceway overlooking the balcony, facing the thoughts of a benighted age of technology and barbarism. It was an unknown world now, an illusory future broken by chaos.
The darkness that had suppressed her in her captivity came crawling down through the smooth pillars, moved against the corners of the floor, and came towards her by slipping in between the shadows of the men who worked to remove the bodies. Slowly, it made its way towards her until she saw it in her peripheral vision: a faceless grin against the wall.
Do you think he’ll understand the message we’re sending him? it, too, asked her.
Skylar didn’t say a word as she looked out past the balcony, watching the luminous ship burn between her city and the sea.
