The Bladed Tiger's Empress, page 17
part #1 of Claiming Her Empire Series
At Marilla’s blank expression, Hayden reminded, “As you know the emperor upheld a certain lifestyle despite the starvation of his people due to weather changes.”
“A drought dried up the land enough that food was scarce, and it was worse back then I hear,” Blythe explained. “So he paid handsomely to other kingdoms he held trade with for luxuries and became in debt, to pay he raised taxes on his subjects despite them being close to starvation as it was.”
“They revolted eventually.” Liath sighed into his cup, having barely sipped the cider, just gently twirling the cup lost in thought. “The war was short, no one was fit to fight at the time. Many of the towns you passed were probably war zones now abandoned, but the battles were practically slaughter. Many lost their lives before there was peace.”
“Or as close to peace as the dead and those who feared death could get,” Blythe snorted.
Marilla’s eyes were focused on Hayden’s who felt the need to say, “This kingdom has fallen on hard times in the past, and without you it looks like it won’t be getting much better anytime soon.” Marilla wasn’t sure how true that was. She felt helpless and naïve still to the turmoil of the kingdom.
“What side were your parents on?” Marilla asked at a whisper.
“My father fought for the emperor. He was friends with the general before me.” Marilla breathed a little bit easier at that, at least he wasn’t an orphan directly because of her father. “My mother died giving birth to me, so when my father was slain my predecessor basically took me in out of respect.”
Marilla vaguely remembered her introduction to the filthy orphan child she had come to love. The general before Hayden had been a harsh man, not at all interested in caring for a child so Hayden had been raised by the castle as a whole until he was old enough to be shipped off to the temple to become a useful addition for the castle that owned him. The general had died while Hayden was gone, and almost as soon as he returned the emperor had declared him his new general.
Marilla laid her head gently against Hayden’s shoulder, her fingers lightly tracing his bicep. “I am truly sorry.” She had been oblivious to his hardships. He was her friend yet she hadn’t paid much attention to his troubles, he hid them so well. She regretted not asking more questions. About him and the kingdom. She had been content being oblivious. She hadn’t even tried to understand, to know the troubles going on all around her. Thinking back, the pain everyone endured was obvious but she had turned a blind eye to it. She had liked her life just the way it was without everyone else’s troubles weighing her down.
Now those same troubles had become her own.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Hayden assured.
“It wasn’t you who raised taxes and plunged the kingdom into debt,” Blythe snorted.
“But you know what they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Vince teased, though at Hayden and Liath’s collective glare he ducked his head.
“You aren’t wrong,” Marilla admitted delicately, biting her inner lip. “From what I’ve seen however, I wonder if I ever even knew my father. I thought he was a great ruler, but I was living inside the walls of denial and lies. I’ve seen what his rule brought and I wonder…” I wonder if his being removed from power was such a bad thing, she finished within though the pitying looks from her friends showed they had heard her regardless of how silently she had thought it.
“Regardless of how little you knew of him as an emperor, you did know him as a father and that he loved you,” Blythe comforted.
Her lips pulled into a shadow of a smile. “He loved me, and I him. He was a good father, but I am growing less and less surprised that someone took power from him.”
“I’m just sorry it was through you,” Hayden whispered and Marilla averted her gaze.
“Well, on that note,” Vince said and stood, “the night is calling. Gentlemen, my lady.” He smirked at Marilla, bowing deep but as his brown eyes came back to meet hers they seemed to tremble, wobbling and jetting from side to side. His pupils were suddenly unfocused, his skin suddenly deeply pale.
“Vin—?” Marilla and Blythe both started before he collapsed.
Vince was the first to fall to the sickness.
12
The Past Resurfaced
“Water,” Vince croaked, heaving and gasping. It had been only days since he had first fallen ill but it felt like months.
The epidemic spread through the temple like wildfire as if they weren’t isolating the stricken.
“This never happened under my command,” Liath grunted to Kayda, spasming as his abdomen clenched.
“That’s fine, old man. Blame me,” Kayda grumbled as she pressed a soaked cloth to his forehead to bring down his fever. She, like Marilla, was working tirelessly to aid the sick regardless of her position, showing her compassionate leadership through nursing her fallen warriors.
“I doubt you’d be as good a nurse under your command,” Marilla added as she lifted a cup to Vince’s chapped lips.
“The warriors under my command didn’t need nursing. They never fell ill, they were stronger,” Liath snorted.
“Pretty sure we were under your command once too, Gramps,” Vince managed to snort between gulps.
“Stop calling me that,” Liath grumbled.
Hayden handed Marilla a new jug fresh from the river. “More water,” he offered, panting with sweat along his brow as even the unknown sickness seemed to be affecting him though the moisture could also be due to fatigue. Neither he nor Marilla had slept more than an hour the past few nights.
“How are you feeling?” Hayden asked for the hundredth time that day, laying a palm against her forehead.
She shook him off, lacking her usual patience. “I feel fine, Hayden. Perhaps my time unconscious from poison strengthened my immune system some.”
Hayden frowned at that.
“Water!” Kayda snapped, grabbing the jug from Marilla and pouring a stein for Francine who was shaking profusely against her cot. “Take a break, Princess,” she ordered. “He’s right to be concerned, you’ve been without rest for longer than all of us.”
Marilla had covered the last few shifts so Kayda and Hayden could rest. “I’m fine,” Marilla protested, but the deep, pitted circles beneath her eyes told a different story.
“Go,” Kayda ordered. “Rest and rejuvenate so you don’t also become ill.” Her voice dropped an octave, dropping its sternness and becoming a much softer timbre. “You’ve worked hard taking care of others, now you need to take care of yourself.”
“You both need a break,” Hayden said, nodding to Kayda who scowled at him. “I’ve got things handled here, go and rest both of you.”
“I am the commander here and—”
“You need rest,” Hayden finished for her, his tone heavy.
Marilla didn’t feel the need to take a break either, until she saw Kayda’s own sunken eyes and pale skin. She was exhausted. “Let’s take a walk, Kayda. Some fresh air might do us good.”
Kayda turned her glare to Marilla but stood reluctantly and followed her from one of the many cabins holding the stricken. They had been trying to isolate but there were few who had remained healthy, so many of the cabins were full of the ill.
The air felt strange to Marilla’s lungs, too cold somehow, too fresh. She’d been stuffed into the cabin with the heat roaring for long enough her body recognized the tainted air as normal. One glance at Kayda, the way she swallowed and seemed almost confused confirmed that she felt the same. Neither one spoke at first as they walked the temple, doing a revised perimeter check in silence, becoming accustomed to the sunlight and the freshness of the afternoon breeze.
Days had passed Marilla realized. Time had gone on much to her surprise. She hadn’t seen the sun rise or set, yet it had.
There was a certain comfort in that.
There were some healthy children wrestling noisily in the courtyard between the stricken cabins filled with the ill and the healthy section of the temple. Kayda stopped to watch them, smirking in approval as the smaller of the two used his lesser weight to throw the larger off balance and to the ground.
“That’s how Hayden started when he first came,” Kayda said suddenly. “He wasn’t large, not until later. He had to improvise which made him stronger in the end. He didn’t rely on any one skill, he honed all of them.”
Marilla watched the boys tussle, a smile pulling at her cheeks. The first in days.
“How much has he told you about his time here?” Kayda wanted to know.
“Barely any,” Marilla admitted. “He doesn’t speak much of his past at all. I knew he was an orphan. That much I remember from when we were children before he was sent away. He understood what it was to miss a parent, to lose one through death. When my mother died, he was a great comfort to me.”
“I suppose he’s always been that way,” Kayda sighed. “Always locking away his past and focusing more on the future. You have to be that way to an extent or risk going insane.”
So Marilla was learning. If she didn’t focus on what was ahead, she would surely go insane focusing on what she had lost in the past. Time kept moving, and she had to move with it.
They resumed their walk, once again shrouded in silence when Kayda suddenly blurted, “I admit I was interested in Hayden back then, but he never expressed the same interest in me. He’d spend nights with women, but always those who wanted the pleasure of his company, never those who wanted his heart.” Kayda offered Marilla a rare shadow of a smile. “Probably because his heart already belonged to someone back home.”
Marilla felt her face redden, unable to hold back her triumphantly giddy smile. She placed her sleeved hand over it and averted her face from obvious view to hide it as Kayda continued.
“He talked of the castle often in those days, often mentioning the young princess who lived there and what a great ruler she would one day become,” Kayda went on to say, causing Marilla to again return her intensely serious gaze. “It is relieving to see he was not wrong.”
Marilla was speechless so Kayda filled the silence again. “You’ve done a lot for the temple, for the warriors here, and they all love you. You’d have made an amazing ruler and though I don’t know the details of how your future was taken from you, I’m just sorry I wasn’t there to help Hayden stop it.”
“You wouldn’t have recognized me back then,” Marilla admitted. “I was a spoiled, whiny—”
“We wouldn’t have been friends then,” Kayda admitted, amused. “But you became a warrior so maybe all this happening to you…” she broke off.
“Was necessary for me to become who I am today,” Marilla finished for her, granting her permission to speak her mind. She hated what had happened, even if it meant finding Hayden and her friends and becoming a better version of herself. She missed her father despite his obvious shortcomings. She missed Edna and the castle still at times. She was happy at the temple with Hayden by her side, but she hated what had to happen to bring her there.
Kayda regarded Marilla’s depressed expression before admitting, “You know it was almost my home too.”
Marilla looked back up at her, waiting for her story to commence.
“Your father tried to purchase me along with Hayden. We were the best of the best and he wanted us both, but I couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing Hayden’s dance of lust and love with whoever he had back home. I didn’t realize it was you at the time, but I opted to be an entrepreneur mercenary and it brought me back here eventually. My one true home. My sanctuary. I’m sure the castle could have been that for me, if I’d have sucked it up and gone.”
“It was corrupt. I didn’t know it but it was and now that I know of Hayden’s feelings, I fear he only stayed for my sake.” Marilla smiled reassuringly up to the commander. She had felt threatened by Kayda at first due to her shared history with Hayden, but she felt more connected with her now. “You made the right decision. There was nothing you could have done that horrible night. It was going to happen regardless of what any of us did to try to prevent it.”
“And now you’re here.”
Marilla’s smile deepened affectionately. “And now I’m home.”
More days passed and more fell ill. The sickness turned deadly sometime on the fourth day. Five warriors perished around the same time and Kayda was devastated as was Marilla and the others who somehow remained healthy. Or at least healthy enough.
Marilla felt her stomach clench often, she was nauseous and painfully bloated. She didn’t mention it to Hayden, but she felt he probably already suspected. He was just as attentive to her as the other stricken but didn’t force her to lie down. She didn’t have a fever yet, and her muscle spasms were mild so she could still work to defend her new home against this strange enemy.
Confusion seemed to be one of the last symptoms to come. The warriors became combative, frightened, or horribly angry. They would have to be tied down then, the end near.
Marilla wiped sweat from her brow, stripping a cot clean of soiled bedding and throwing it into the pile. She had to do this often so the disease wouldn’t spread or keep re-infecting its current hosts. For now the sickness seemed to have eased. There was more clarity, less feverish gibberish and cries for water mingled in with the other cries of intense agony as their abdomens clenched. Marilla was relieved to see progress, but Hayden and Kayda remained uneasy, tense even.
“The calm before the storm,” Hayden explained, and Kayda had grunted her agreement.
Hayden was currently pouring cups of fresh water just fetched from the river for all the stricken, taking special care with Liath who was the worst afflicted. He was elderly, but a father figure to many of the warriors of the temple including Hayden. It wasn’t realistic to think he would survive, but Marilla and the others held out hope.
Blythe had fallen ill for a short time and though still having abdominal pain and nausea, he managed to sit with Vince. Vince had remained near unchanged since falling dreadfully ill. His lips remained crusted no matter how much water he drank and his fever high. Most of the time he remained unconscious.
Some of Marilla’s patients seemed well enough to move about and so were placed into the less serious isolation cabin. They were trying to keep them as contained as possible, but also keep those who were better in different cabins so they didn’t become re-infected. It wasn’t until the sun had again begun descending that evening that Hayden and Kayda’s prediction came true. Every warrior from the healthy district of the temple came in with newly sprouted symptoms and the already fallen warriors grew worse.
Marilla could barely process the change with her lack of sleep and symptoms of her own. “You should lie down,” Hayden finally ventured to say. He and Kayda were now the only two who had shown no sign of the disease.
Marilla had half-jokingly asked if they were even human.
“I’m fine.” Marilla breathed, feeling the fever coming on like fire being expelled from her lungs. “I’m taking the laundry down to the river,” she announced at last, withdrawing from him before he had a chance to check her forehead. He saw she was pale, he hadn’t yet noticed the burning beneath her skin.
“Get us more water while you’re down there,” Kayda called from Vince’s cot. She hovered over him, her streaked brown hair hanging in sweaty strands around her face. Vince was still heavily unconscious though he muttered some form of gibberish from time to time. Blythe had had to lie down again so leaving his friend in their commander’s care.
Marilla passed her with her bundle of linen and heard her whisper. “I haven’t seen anyone this far along make it,” her voice breaking into a sob which she quickly stifled with her palm. The sound was broken and agonizing, but no tears came. She simply refused to grieve for someone that wasn’t yet dead.
Marilla felt her mind instinctively turn to denial. Vince wouldn’t die because he simply couldn’t die. He was too important. Regardless of her blind faith, she had no words to comfort Kayda, so she carried the laundry out into the setting sunlight and stumbled down the path towards the river.
It was hard for her to walk a straight line. She felt too cold, too tired, and as she approached the roaring of the river her stomach suddenly spasmed, abdomen cramping and she collapsed, the contents of her basket spilling along the riverbank. She ignored the agony of her stomach and scrambled to gather the fallen linens. Gasping and heaving, she refilled her basket and reached for the last of the soiled material now half submerged in the water. When she tugged it free from the river however, she dragged two dead fish floating beneath it onto the bank.
Only then did she notice the smell.
The river rushed as quickly as always, but some dead fish had washed up onto the bank. She counted five which was highly unusual. She placed her palm to her stomach which cramped again and realized she had felt that particular pain before.
She gasped as realization dawned and she dropped the basket again, her stomach pains forgotten as she sprinted back up the hill to the temple. She was panting by the time she slammed into the cabin where Hayden and Kayda tended the stricken and shrieked, “It’s toad oil!”
Hayden and Kayda both jumped, whipping around with their eyes frantically wide, hands half reaching for their weapons. “What is?”
“The sickness, this illness,” she signaled all around her. “Someone has poisoned the river!”
Kayda took a step towards her, looking around. “How do you know?”
“There were dead fish along the bank, and our training exercise gave me a tolerance but no immunity, so I’ve had symptoms. I recognize it.”
Kayda’s eyebrows threaded together, contemplating the possibility of this and coming up short. “If the river had been poisoned, everyone would have immediately fallen ill and stayed ill or died the more water they consumed.”
