The Bladed Tiger's Empress, page 25
part #1 of Claiming Her Empire Series
“Yes,” Marilla admitted. “She would tell me stories about my mother when she was my age. Things my father never knew or found too painful to discuss.”
Cornelia’s dark brown eyes softened for the first time since Marilla had employed her help with birth-control. She said nothing more, but Marilla could tell she understood loss and deeply understood there was no ‘I’m sorry’ that could possibly free her from grief, so she remained silent as they trekked along the garden path.
The garden opened up into the clearing that Marilla knew so well. It was slightly different than she remembered, Hayden’s training equipment carelessly discarded with weeds and brush growing up around it, the pond was mucky and stones slick with algae though Marilla could still see Koi poking up from within. Someone still came and fed them.
“She isn’t here,” Marilla said, looking around the empty clearing.
“So what now?”
“We’ll wait for a bit,” Marilla said, peeking down into the small pond of Koi which saw her reflection and rose to the surface for whatever tasty treat she would no doubt provide them. Marilla wondered absently if fish felt disappointment.
“And then?” Cornelia asked.
“And then…” she didn’t know. Could she smuggle herself and Cornelia into the castle without Edna’s help? “And then we figure it out.”
“Brilliant,” Cornelia grumbled.
“What are you two doing out here?” An old voice, cracked with age spoke sternly from behind them and Marilla felt her skin heat, anticipation and relief flooding her system. She recognized that voice, had known it her entire life. “All the servants are on duty now, so what business could you possibly have in the garden?” she huffed, that irritated old grumble that Marilla knew by heart. It made her heart ache being able to hear it again.
She turned to Edna, who unlike the garden surrounding them looked exactly the same. Her hair as salt and peppered as Marilla remembered, face just as wrinkled and pulled into a tight and stern pout though it slackened as soon as she regarded Marilla’s face. “Princess!” she breathed as if the air had been knocked from her. She placed a hand to her chest, her heart aching as much as Marilla’s.
Marilla hadn’t expected that reaction to seeing her old handmaiden, but tears sprang to her lids instantly and she blubbered as if she were a little girl again. She had missed Edna the most, she realized. Her constant badgering and fiddling, her stern lessons and kind touch. She’d missed her and felt herself revert back into a child at seeing her again.
“I’m so relieved you’re safe,” she crooned as she pulled Marilla into an embrace. She smelled of roses, another familiar. “When you disappeared after your father’s murder, I feared the worst,” she explained. “What became of you?”
Marilla sniffled and wiped her cheeks, Edna helping brush her tears away, cooing to her soothingly. “Frederick k-killed father and,” she broke off to sniffle again, “Hayden fled with me into the forest before I could be killed too.”
Edna’s fogged-with-age eyes widened in surprise, “Emperor Frederick—”
“He is no emperor,” Cornelia interjected, and Edna looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“Edna, this is Cornelia. She’s a friend I’ve made on my journey. There are many of them actually, waiting outside the wall ready to attack once I give the signal.”
“Attack,” Edna gasped, her hand back on her heart. “What for?”
Cornelia looked somewhat irritated, not having the patience to explain what should be obvious though taking the time to speak with condescending slowness, “Emperor Frederick assassinated his predecessor. He is unfit to rule, and so Empress Marilla has come to reclaim her throne.”
“Empress,” Edna breathed, cracking a slight smile despite the delivery of the word. “You can’t just attack the castle, dear. It isn’t how things are done.”
“It is now,” Cornelia snorted.
“Edna,” Marilla said gently, laying a hand against her shoulder. “He has to be removed from power. You didn’t see what I saw out there. Our kingdom is falling apart, but I can save it.”
Edna was shaking her head, and Marilla remembered the thing that frustrated her most about her old handmaiden. She believed women should be seen and not heard. They should be happy in their roles as wives and mothers, but nothing more.
“Help us,” Marilla said, her voice suddenly as stern and commanding as Edna’s typically was.
Edna looked taken aback by the sudden power and authority resonating from her princess. It was nothing she had ever seen from the young girl before though she supposed life as a fugitive had hardened her. “How?”
“Smuggle us into Frederick’s tower. If I can corner him, I can prevent this battle from going on too long. We are trying to limit the casualties.”
“How do you plan to corner him?” Edna asked, her voice still soft with disbelief.
“With weapons,” Cornelia answered, and Edna sputtered.
“Certainly not,” Edna said, shaking her head. “General Hayden has not been doing his duty if you’ve been fighting like a brutish barbarian.”
“Edna—”
“And sending two women in here alone to corner a man, well he has lost his mind, certainly not doing his duty as your sworn protector…”
“Marilla, do we really have time for this?” Cornelia grumbled.
“Edna,” Marilla said again, resisting the urge to shake her and instead raising her voice as loud as she felt safe doing. “We are going in with or without your help, but if you value my life you will help because I doubt I would get very far without you.”
Edna’s lips pursed again, wrinkles snapping back into place. “Forcing my hand in cards had never been very lady like, Marilla,” she said stiffly. “But it was always effective, I suppose.” She looked at Cornelia with a clear eye of distaste before giving one curt nod. “Very well, I will help you commit murder.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Cornelia murmured.
17
Retribution
They barely spoke as they infiltrated the castle, Edna leading the way and only speaking when guards were around to hear her. She scolded the two girls as if they were handmaidens, and it was effective at keeping the guards at bay. Edna was well known for her stern tongue which could be turned onto any castle worker, so many avoided her. Marilla just hadn’t realized Edna knew her scolding held so much power.
“Where is he?” Marilla demanded, her shoulders tensing the deeper within the wall they traveled. Memories all came rushing back, the lack of windows recreating the darkness Marilla had walked through to get to her father’s room. The halls felt the same as that night, empty and ominous.
“His room. He’s preparing for a banquet he’ll be hosting tomorrow. Your husband is a fan of beauty sleep, and I’ve become quite accustomed to his schedule. He usually naps at this time.”
“He’s not my husband,” Marilla said under her breath as they hiked yet another winding staircase.
Edna made no comment as she pointed down the barren hall. “I will go no farther. I’m going to gather as many servants as possible and hide below ground. When all this foolishness is finished, come and find us.” She cupped Marilla’s face between her palms, eyes softening at that last quip as if realizing what this battle meant. The possibility of this reunion being a short one finally settling in the old woman’s mind. “Be safe, my empress,” she whispered then pressed her wrinkled lips to Marilla’s forehead before releasing her and turning away.
“I will be,” Marilla promised, another she intended whole heartedly to keep.
“Which room is his?” Cornelia asked, looking down the abandoned corridor. “And why aren’t any guards posted?”
“He’s cocky,” Marilla whispered as she started walking numbly down the hallway towards her illegitimate husband’s chambers. She knew where it was. Her old bedroom.
How disrespectful, though she supposed less disrespectful than using her father’s.
She stopped at the door, but it felt as though she weren’t in her own skin anymore. It was as if she was outside her body, watching her movements while holding her breath. She was scared, terrified but also furious and determined. That mix of uncommonly intense emotions all fighting for dominance seemed to actually encase her psyche so all she could hear was a distinct buzzing sound, she felt so much emotionally she could no longer detect her fingers physically as they reached for the knob and touched the metal that should have felt cold against her flesh. Her eyes were keenly focused forward, alert to her surroundings yet tunnel-visioned through the door where she knew her greatest enemy waited for her.
“Your dagger,” Cornelia reminded, and if not for those words, Marilla may have forgotten that she had a weapon resting against her ankle.
As she gently pressed the door open silently, she reached down and retrieved her blade from her boot. Unlike the knob, the metal felt hot to the touch as if itching to be used, begging to be. It wanted blood.
Please, oh please, Marilla, it seemed to say. Use me. Kill him.
She stepped into the room on tiptoes, not even really noticing the changes he had made to her bedroom. How all her girlish flower portraits, clothing, and curtains with the tapestry stitched into every inch of fabric were all gone. Replaced with self-portraits of him, big game trophies mounted on the wall where landscapes had once hung, black curtains that draped like shadows over the windows and made the room dark and impossibly gloomy. She noticed none of that, she was too focused on the lump in the bed that would have been theirs under normal circumstances.
The way the lump moved up and down as something beneath it breathed.
Not for long, the blade whispered to her, overpowering the buzzing somehow. Blood. Blood!
Perhaps she could blame that little voice for losing her mind… just a little. She forgot her promise to Hayden and Edna, she forgot her promises to herself as her raw emotion took hold of her mind and body.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you?” she asked in a voice much deeper than her own.
Menacing. Deadly.
She had crossed the room but hadn’t recalled doing so, still floating outside her own consciousness, watching powerlessly as the blade controlled her. Rather, as her own bloodlust took control.
Frederick, with his golden hair straight and wispy flaring behind his head, jumped awake at her voice, gray-blue eyes flying open in alarm. At first he twisted quickly, then took in her appearance. Her hair was coiled tightly around her face though most was contained in a very poorly tied bun, the blade which hovered above his left ear as if she intended to stab his skull instead of his throat, most importantly though, his eyes finally reached hers and he gasped at the murderous intent resting inside those irises he hardly recognized. So narrowed and fierce he could see why his soldiers had called her the Bloodthirsty Lioness when they finally told him they hadn’t managed to assassinate her.
She had changed since being the timid, cowering creature he had stood up on an altar with.
“Because I am your husband,” he said evenly, and suddenly she snapped back into her own body. The trance was broken and instead of feeling hot, the blade felt heavy in her palm.
“Y-You are not my husband,” she stammered, grasping for that easy rage that had erased the terror and made her fearless.
There she is, he thought as he pushed himself into a seated position, his hair falling forward around his ears. She stumbled back and he recognized her then, the girl he had gone on walks with. The incredibly dull and timid, quiet and delicate girl who had bored him with her talk of gardens and tapestry. The girl whose world was no larger than the four walls that surrounded them now. “Did you not say ‘I do’?” he asked her, leaning forward as she leaned back, her dagger still pointed towards him.
“I did,” she whispered, the hardness creeping back into her eyes. “Till death do us part.”
He watched her appearance change again and jumped back just in time as she lunged forward with a sharp swipe that echoed through the room. The blade caught air then fabric as his robe got caught around his ankles and he rolled less than gracefully off the bed and onto the floor.
“Cornelia, sound the alarm!”
Frederick hadn’t noticed another girl in the room, not until she was rushing to rip down his black curtains dressed in a handmaid’s uniform as the princess currently was. A fitting disguise. She was nothing more than a servant now.
Cornelia pulled the curtains down and rushed for the door, running into the hallway with the fabric streaming behind her. She sprinted for the staircase at the end of the hall, she needed to get to the roof.
Frederick lunged after her, but Marilla stepped into his path, her bun completely useless now as all her hair had broken free and was now tangled in a gnarled web around her face. “It’s over,” she said to him.
“Not as long as I’m breathing, wife,” he spat back. As different as she looked to him, she found him to be different too. More disheveled having been surprised in his bed. Whenever he presented himself before her he had been perfectly groomed, his hair pulled back neatly instead of hanging in long strands about his shoulders, his lips always curved into an alluring smirk instead of the threatened sneer she witnessed now, and his clothing always of the finest quality though now he wore only a robe similar to the one she had had to flee wearing. Silk. Not good for the outdoors she had learned. “You know why I chose this room?” he went on to ask. Marilla did not bother to answer, standing perfectly in the fighting stance she had learned in her forced travels, ready to fight if he dared move towards her. “I chose it because it’s the biggest room in the castle besides the great hall. Your father’s chambers weren’t even this massive. He saved the best for you, his spoiled little brat of a Princess.”
She screamed, rushing him and he brought his hand down onto her wrist, twisting painfully until she dropped the blade with a clang onto the hardwood floor.
She lunged for it, but he was already there, lifting the copper dagger Hayden had purchased her and turning it on its owner. He was smiling now, pleased with himself for goading her into defenselessness, but the sudden sounds of battle below the window made him falter in his triumph.
He looked past her, not noticing her smirk as he looked down from above at the army of peasants and temple warriors attacking the castle. Her army had arrived. Her rescuers, her cavalry was there. “Hear that, husband?” she asked, waiting for his surprised eyes to reach hers again before humming. “That’s the sound of your very short reign coming to an end.” and before he could respond with an attack, she turned and fled from the room.
The signal was given before nightfall, that was good right? Hayden wasn’t certain, but he was choosing to see it as a good sign. It meant his princess, his empress, was safe, right?
Yes, because she had to be.
He had imagined it went down at night, the cover of darkness shrouding him and the rest of the army in shadows as they stormed the castle, but he supposed a midday, overcast battle was the next best cliché. He hoped it would hold off on raining, however. He hated fighting in the rain.
As he said he would, he sent the archers in first. The soldiers were confused, but only briefly before jumping to get organized. Despite Kayda’s earlier comments on his poor leadership skills, he had trained the castle soldiers well. Their reaction time was a bit slower than he would have liked as their general, but they quickly formed ranks and met the archers head on.
That was when Kayda gave the signal, and the rest of the army charged.
They clashed like a wave onto the sandy shore, men flying everywhere as the sound of metal clanging together filled the open air and echoed between the stone walls of the castle. The rush of blood filled his ears, adrenaline pulsing within his skull and keeping his blades active as they sliced brutally into any enemy who dared come close enough.
He vaguely remembered wanting to keep the death count low and try to achieve their surrender before spilling a deadly amount of blood but being back at the castle seemed to bring it all back. The memory of his own soldiers herding his princess as if she were a cow ready for slaughter. How they had held a knife to her throat. Had managed to cut her.
One of his blades ruthlessly skewered one soldier at the memory, his green eyes flashing and appearing almost red. These betrayers had helped murder their emperor and attempted to murder their future empress, and for what? What had Frederick given them in exchange?
“Why did you do it?” he asked the next soldier that met the tip of his blade. Coughing blood, the light from the soldier’s eyes died before he could answer.
Frederick must have given them a great deal for them to be fighting now. There wasn’t any heart in their struggle, however. Where Marilla’s army fought with purpose, with drive, remembering every misdeed done to each of them, either directly because of Emperor Frederick or because the emperor did nothing to help them, help pushed Marilla’s army forward. Frederick’s army was just fighting because it was their duty, their job to defend the castle but battles didn’t typically last long when one side was determined and driven by a strong emotion while the other just fought out of obligation. Such battles scarcely lasted. It became obvious early on in the onslaught which would defeat the other.
They were falling back now, pushed back by Marilla’s forces and starting to realize their struggle was futile. The temple warriors pounded them from the front with the peasant farmers and mill workers grabbing fallen weapons to join the fray. Archers stayed back around the wall, shooting arrows only when the castle archers came into view from the windows. They couldn’t rain down arrows from their position, so instead they shot theirs at the enemy archers trying to get into position above them.
A few fell from the wall, arrows jutting from their chests, landing with a thud on the rocky path below them. Hayden watched them plummet, eyes following their descent until they overlapped with someone standing much closer. His blond hair caught on the wind and blew into his pale face, shadowing his gray-blue eyes.
