Earth's End (Air Awakens Series Book 3) (22 page)

Vhalla’s words faded away into the stunned silence, and everyone held their breath, watching for the Emperor’s reaction.

V
HALLA FELT LIKE
she was ready to burst from trying to keep all her nerves tightly bundled and stashed away. The Emperor had yet to display any reaction and everyone remained locked in limbo. She had just called Emperor Solaris a monster to his face, and now they waited for his reaction. His blue eyes studied her and she studied him. Vhalla searched for any scrap of humanity that lived within the man who was on the verge of conquering three countries, an entire continent, in his name. If he had any humanity, it was so far pushed away that he would not show it to her.

The Emperor finally opened his mouth to speak.

“Are we in agreement then?” Aldrik spoke over his father. The table looked between the current and future Emperors in confusion and uncertainty. “That we will prepare to launch an all-out assault of Soricium?”

“I thought that’s why she was brought here to begin with.” Jax nodded at Vhalla. “Not to just tell us where they’re keeping their vegetables.”

“Unsurprisingly, Vhalla’s logic is sound,” Daniel voiced his support.

Vhalla was surprised by the other majors who nodded their heads. She tried to find any who opposed her or who could be the potential spy. She had no luck.

“Zerian,” the Emperor finally spoke, having noticed the appreciative affirmation the grizzled major was giving Vhalla. “You side with her?”

“I do, my lord.”

“You side with a
little girl
?” the Emperor nearly sputtered.

“I side with the course of action that I feel will best lead you to victory.” Zerian was too old and too tested to fear the Emperor. “We will plan to attack in less than two months’ time,” Aldrik declared. “I see no reason to draw this out to spring.”

Her head darted to Aldrik in surprise.
It clicked together
, all of it. The puppet master’s plans had come to fruition so effortlessly that no one had seen their invisible hand.

“Agreed,” Baldair voiced his support of his brother. “Excellent.” Aldrik assessed his younger sibling. “Baldair, I trust your guard to begin assessing how we need to mobilize the troops for such an attack.”

The Emperor glared openly at his oldest son. A dangerously bold rift was growing between them. Other majors noticed, and Vhalla was beginning to see them shift with the tides of power, casting their lot in for whoever seemed a better bet long-term. Right now, that was Aldrik.
But what if it changed?

“Lady Vhalla, if you will come with me.” Aldrik stepped away from the table. “Your time will be better spent in the fortress learning as much as you can.”

Vhalla nodded in agreement, following behind Aldrik.

“We look forward to your insights again, Lady Vhalla.” Major Zerian didn’t even glance up from the paper Daniel had handed him when he spoke. But the declaration earned Vhalla a few other nods of support.

She followed Aldrik down the back hall, gripping and un-gripping her fingers nervously.

“Did you intend for that to happen?” Vhalla spoke first when they entered the room.

Aldrik arched a dark eyebrow questioningly.

“When you asked me to find the food stores, did you really want to know in order to destroy them? Or did you have me find them so you could lead someone else to suggest it? So you could squelch the idea of prolonging the siege past your father’s deadline on my success?”

The prince crossed over to her, a wicked and appreciative gleam in his eyes. “You put that together?”

Vhalla swallowed and nodded, his expression making her skin flush.

“You are brilliant, my love.” Aldrik descended on her and Vhalla’s body became centered on how her mouth fit against his. “But,” his expression changed as he pulled away, “you must be careful. You speak like a lady—they are beginning to see you as one—but we are not there yet.”

“You’re talking about your father.” Vhalla stepped away, tugging off her armor in frustration.

“He is still the Emperor,” Aldrik sighed, sounding no more pleased than Vhalla felt.

“Why
is
he the way he is?” Vhalla turned. “How is he so cruel?”

Aldrik stilled, and Vhalla bit her lip. He cut off her hasty apology for speaking about his father. “He wasn’t always like this.”

Vhalla stilled, hanging on Aldrik’s words.

“When I was a boy, he hardly spoke of war or conquest.” Aldrik stared straight through her. “But, it changed ...”

“What did?” Vhalla encouraged.

“Emissaries from the North, long ago, refused something he wanted, and it turned my father sour.” Aldrik was so still his lips barely moved.

“What did they want?”

“The knights had one, and they—So, Egmun told him that it was necessary. He told Father the history of the continent and Egmun had said, he said it was necessary, that it was the last one. Father would never let it fall into the knights’ hands ...”

“What, Aldrik?” she pleaded, waiting for the prince to form cohesive sentences. Her flesh crawled at the name of her most hated senator. “What did Egmun want?”

“Knowledge,” Aldrik pressed his eyes closed tightly. “Above all else, he wanted knowledge—and then me.” The prince’s eyes snapped open, and there was something crushingly horrible about the way Aldrik looked at her. “When the North refused, Egmun said I could help, that I could still make my father proud. I gave it to him. I gave him that glimpse of truth, and
I
turned my father into this.”

“What?” Vhalla gripped his hands tightly. “Aldrik, you’re not making any sense.”

“No.” Aldrik shook his head and pulled out of her grasp. The action seemed so foreign now that they were so close; Vhalla didn’t even know how to react. “I won’t speak on this.”

“Aldrik—”

“
I said no, Vhalla!
”

She shrunk away.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Aldrik shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh. “I told you, there are some things that I will never want to talk about. I need—” He swallowed thickly. “I
need
you to just accept that.”

Vhalla studied his face as he continued to avoid eye contact with her. There was a dangerous line she’d toed up against. The last time he had acted so out of sorts was the time she had confessed to having knowledge of his suicide attempt.

Taking a step closer, Vhalla reached out and pulled him to her, resting her cheek against his chest. His arms hung limply for a few breaths before sliding around her shoulders. Vhalla closed her eyes. “I accept it. I’m sorry for prying.”

“My Vhalla, my lady, my love,” he sighed.

“It’s all right; I understand.” In truth, she didn’t. Vhalla didn’t have any dark secret so horrible that it scrambled her mind. She didn’t have anything that would shut her down and turn her to stone at the mention of it, not even the Night of Fire and Wind.

But she understood that whatever it was must be horrific. Anything that could inspire someone to take their own life must be. Vhalla swallowed. There was a darkness at the very deepest part of her prince she had yet to penetrate. The fear it ignited in her paled in comparison to her desire to spend enough time with him to bring light into that void.

Their exchange raked against both their thoughts, making them silent throughout her Projection. Vhalla mindlessly traversed the long distance between the camp palace and Soricium. She kept her thoughts locked away within the innermost part of her mind to prevent any from reaching outward to him.

That cloud hung over them into the evening. Her time in the palace wasn’t very fruitful, some basic tidbits of information but nothing that could shift the tides of war in their favor. Aldrik told her to try to find out more information on the spies, but she couldn’t even find the Westerner. Wherever he was, the informant did an unintentionally good job of avoiding her.

In all, it felt disappointing and useless, and Vhalla was forced to swallow the fact that she couldn’t find a wealth of information every time she walked Soricium. Aldrik managed to swallow the same facts, with the help of a strong drink or two, and slowly the cloud dissipated. Their days fell into a repetition of short meetings with the majors in the mornings and evenings and of Projections during the day.

They tried to weed out the spy and debated it often in private, but to no avail. However the spies were communicating, it was well-orchestrated, and they seemed to have it down to a science. Vhalla would scan the faces of the majors at meetings, wondering who among them would put a knife through Aldrik’s shoulder blades. But nothing ever came of their search.

It was the monotony that finally began to rake against Vhalla’s brain. Her curiosity and hunger for new knowledge was stinted by the fact that she seemed to be taking a lot of steps to get nowhere. It didn’t help that Aldrik was intent on keeping her under house arrest. After the attempt on her life while moving the tower and the knowledge of spies in camp, he intentionally kept her busy within the camp palace at all times.

After two weeks of it she was ready to go crazy, and the fates took pity on her.

Vhalla pushed herself through the stone walls of Soricium as she had before, ignoring the oblivious Northerners. She wandered upward, through the various stairways within the trees and onto the platforms and walkways beyond.

She was beginning to learn the palace well enough that she would soon feel confident telling Aldrik she could lead someone through its walls. That was a whole different fear. She knew who would be leading the charge, and it stayed her tongue when Aldrik would ask how well she had learned the maze-like passageways.

He would be at the front. He would trust no one else at her side, and the idea of leading him headfirst into the most hostile environment in the world filled Vhalla with uncontrollable dread.

Up, around, countless switchbacks, and up further still, Vhalla retraced the previous days’ steps until she was in uncharted territory. She came to a wide platform with a low and intricately carved rail. Leaning against a beautifully sculpted alcove was a lean and sharp-looking woman, the archer Vhalla had seen before, and a younger girl no older than fourteen. The archer was on one side of the alcove and the girl on the other, the woman between them.

“Why do they move as they do?” the lean and sharp-looking woman asked.

Vhalla assumed the woman was the head clan’s Chieftain due to her delicate headdress.

I finally found him
, Vhalla reported to Aldrik. She stared at the Western man addressing the three woman.

“The Westerner?” Aldrik asked.

Yes, but I need to listen.

Her prince withheld further comment.

“Have you considered our new deal? Perhaps my insights could be improved then,” the Westerner responded.

“You dare withhold information from me?” The woman’s Southern Common was clearer and finer than the other Northerner’s.

“Most certainly not, my lady. I only meant certain things could further improve our relationship.”

“
My lady
,” the woman repeated with malice. “Spare me your Southern notions of nobility.”

“I am not Southern.” The man bristled. “My people were enslaved by the greed of Solaris, much as yours are currently threatened by it. He turned Mhashan’s rich history into nothing more than a compass point on his map.
I know your suffering
.”

“You presume too much.” The Chieftain tilted her head back only so that she had further to stare down at the Westerner. “All are southern to Soricium.”

“Will you give us the axe?” the Western man asked, shifting the conversation back to its original topic.

“The axe. Tell me, what do you want with Achel?”

“That is inconsequential.” The man folded his arms over his chest.

“The Emperor brought war because we refused him Achel. But Achel sleeps in its stone tomb, under the eye of the gods. It has slept there since the days of great chaos when light was dark.” The Chieftain fingered the carved archway behind her. “We will not let it be taken by southern hands who have lost the old ways.”

“Are you going back on your offer?” the man asked with a frown.

“Za had no place offering Achel,” the Chieftain said with a sideways look that radiated displeasure.

The archer Vhalla had seen before,
Za
, averted her eyes in clear shame. Vhalla followed the woman’s emerald stare to what they focused on instinctually. The Imperial camp stretched out below, a long distance to the burnt track that ran around its outer rim. But at the top of that rim was a splotch against the forest.

The same sensation Vhalla’d felt on the night of patrol lingered on the wind.
Old Soricium
, that’s where the archer was looking. Vhalla had no doubt.

“If Achel is out of the deal, then I will need to contact my allies in camp,” the man threatened to stall further.

“Go ahead,
southerner
. We would never give Achel to you.” The Chieftain sent the Westerner off in a huff.

Vhalla pulled back from her Projection, blinking her eyes slowly. Aldrik sat at his small table, pinching the bridge of his nose. He seemed more exhausted as spring inched closer.