Crystal Crowned [ARC] (2 page)

“Fritz,” Vhalla interrupted her friend before he could protest again. “We need to go. We’re a danger to your family if we stay.”

“What?” The blonde’s expression changed dramatically.

“Victor is announcing that the whole of the Solaris family is dead, that I am dead. His monster demanded that all kneel before their new king so Victor could bear witness to their loyalty. Those who did not met a horrible fate. A fate I would never want to see brought upon your family.” She spoke gently, but she wasn’t going to spare Fritz the truth. He had been to war, he knew horrors, and he needed to know that it would be at this doorstep if they didn’t leave.

“But . . .”

“She’s right,” Elecia interjected. “If—
when
—Victor finds out Aldrik is still alive, it will turn into a manhunt. What do you think will happen to anyone who is known to harbor or help us?”

Fritz slumped.

“You can stay.” Vhalla reached out, lightly touching her friend’s knee. “We have to go, but you don’t have to. They’re not hunting you, Fritz, and you can lie about your involvement. I will understand if you stay.”

“Don’t be stupid, Vhal.” Fritz squeezed her hand. “The Charems aren’t a bunch of weak flowers. We can protect ourselves. By the Mother, Cass can be more frightening than anything I’ve ever seen Victor create.”

Vhalla tried to maintain an appropriate expression in the face of Fritz’s determined smile, but she was certain she fell short. Her friend hadn’t seen what Victor had created. He couldn’t comprehend what type of magic the former Minister of Sorcery was capable of now.

“If I leave you now,” he continued, “Larel will come back from the dead and haunt me ‘til my dying breath.”

She squeezed his hand in reply. Vhalla felt genuinely guilty about taking her friend from his home when he had just returned, especially when the world was so uncertain. But she also felt relief that he would remain by her side. Fritz was a man; he could make his own choices, and, as his friend, she had to let him.

“Now that that’s settled,” Elecia gave Fritz an approving nod, happy as well that he’d be joining them, “the fastest route to Norin from here would be the old roads. But if we took the Great Southern Way through the—”

“We’re not going to Norin,” Aldrik stated, reclaiming the conversation.

“What?” Elecia asked in confusion that mirrored Vhalla’s.

“My uncle will raise the banners at the first word of what Victor has done, with or without me.”

“Mhashan will never support a tyrant who has murdered their prince and seeks to oppress them.” Jax gave Aldrik an approving nod.

“However, the East is not so simple.” Aldrik’s eyes fell on Vhalla. She straightened, trying to grow into the role he was not so subtly placing upon her. “The East is uninterested in war. They’ll side with the victor—” Aldrik grimaced at the word, as realizing the brutal irony at the same time as everyone else, “—with the
winner
, if they think it means preserving the peace and government for their people.”

“Bleeding heart Easterners.” Elecia rolled her eyes.

“Stay your tongue,” Aldrik warned his cousin. “They are part of this Empire, and we need them for our army.” He turned his attention to the silent Northerners in the room. “We will need your people as well.”

“As long as our deal remains, you shall have them.” Sehra, princess of Shaldan, Child of Yargen, gave an affirmative motion.

Vhalla’s stomach clenched, but her expression betrayed nothing of her uncertainty at those words.
If
she and Aldrik wed and she bore him an heir, their child would be sent to the North as a gesture of good faith and a promise to look after the people in the recently conquered land. Sehra met her eyes, as if trying to root out Vhalla’s turmoil at the thought.

“Your deal remains,” Vhalla spoke on behalf of her and Aldrik. She would say the words that they needed—that she knew he wasn’t prepared to speak again.

“Come north with us until the Eastern cutoff.” There was a cooling hostility between Aldrik and the Northern women. It was almost tangible in the way he had changed his speech patterns toward them. Now that he was no longer in a forced engagement with the princess, things were more relaxed between them. The deal for his child aside, there were signs of hope for the future negotiations between the Northern clans and their new ruler. “We will all be safer in a group.”

“I protect Sehra,” Za proclaimed in her broken Southern common.

“You will,” Aldrik agreed with a graceful nod of his head, “but it will be easier when you have extra eyes to keep watch at night so that you may rest.” This seemed to satisfy Za, so Aldrik continued, “When we arrive in Hastan, I will send word regarding plans to regroup in Norin.”

“So we
are
going to Norin then?” Elecia couldn’t hide her eagerness at the idea of returning home.

Aldrik nodded as he confirmed, “We must. If there are no further questions, then we should spend the day prepar—”

“There is something else,” Elecia spoke over Aldrik, eliciting an arch of a dark eyebrow from her Emperor. Her eyes turned to Vhalla. “She should stay here.”

“No.” Vhalla wasn’t sure who said it first, her or Aldrik.

“You can stay hidden among the Charem girls.” Elecia was now appealing to Vhalla. “If Southerners passed for you on the march, you could pass—”

“No.” Aldrik wasn’t hearing another word.

“Aldrik.” Elecia’s attention shifted. “I know you want her to come. But you also want her alive, don’t you? She can’t protect herself.”

“This is not up for discussion.”

“She cannot come!” Elecia finally snapped. “If she does, you are a reckless fool, and your life is worth far more than hers!”

“Don’t you dare,” Aldrik snarled at his kin. Magic flashed dangerously around a clenched fist, red sparking to orange fire.

Elecia remained unfazed and didn’t back down. “If you die, who will the banners rally behind? If she comes, you will throw your life away for hers the first time she needs protecting. And such a need
will
arise, especially since she’s just a Commons.”

“Elecia, I am your Emperor now—”

Vhalla’s heart stopped at those words said aloud.

“Then act like it!” Elecia clearly was not struck by the same awe. “Think of the people you are responsible for. They need
you
, Aldrik. They need their Emperor. No one will stand to challenge Victor if not you. No one can unite the banners like you can.”

“Do not assume for a moment that I do not know how many lives I am responsible for.” Aldrik’s voice deepened. “This is not your choice.”

“And it’s not yours either, Aldrik.” Vhalla finally spoke up, silencing the group. “It’s mine.”

“Vhalla . . .”

Her lover’s eyes searched her desperately. Anger quickly turned into fear that she would agree with Elecia. That she would leave him. Vhalla knew that logic defined it as the “right” choice. But what they were, everything she and Aldrik had ever been, defied logic.

“I will go.”

“Are you mad or just selfish?” Elecia snapped viciously.

Aldrik ignored his cousin and gave Vhalla a slow, relieved smile.

“If I stay,” Vhalla began, tearing her eyes from the quiet joy that a smile on Aldrik’s lips gave her to look at the seething Western woman. “What will happen the first time Aldrik thinks me in trouble?”

The woman had no response.

“How will constant worry about my wellbeing impact his focus?”

Elecia still said nothing.

“Who will push him when he needs to be pushed?” Vhalla stole a glance at Aldrik, hoping he didn’t take offense to her words. “Who else is unafraid to say what needs to be said, when it must be said, to him of all people?”

She met Elecia’s disbelief with a challenge. Aldrik and Vhalla had wrapped their lives around the “appropriate” decisions as dictated by the world. They’d hidden their wants and pushed aside what they had known to be true.
What had it earned them?
A world of death. She’d had enough of doing what the world wanted.

“I am not helpless,” Vhalla insisted. She had been training for weeks with Daniel. “Give me a sword, and I can defend myself.”

“Damn you both.” Elecia wasn’t giving up gracefully. “You’ll get yourselves killed, and that’s the end of that.”

“Nothing will happen to either of us.”

“You can’t honestly believe that, Aldrik.”

“Oh, enough,” Jax groaned. “If you’re that worried, I’ll do it.”

“What?” the three said in unison.

“ ‘Cia is right, Aldrik.” Vhalla had never heard anyone other than Aldrik use Elecia’s childhood nickname, but Elecia made no objection to it being uttered by Jax’s lips. “You must live, and you know it. But me? My life means nothing. So I’ll be her sworn defender.”

“Your life isn’t nothing,” Vhalla couldn’t stop herself from objecting.

Jax tilted his head back with laughter. “You still don’t really know much about me, do you?”

Vhalla pressed her lips together in frustrated thought. She searched for a way to object, and yet she couldn’t, which was all the more aggravating.

“Why?” Aldrik seemed more curious than disbelieving.

“For Baldair.”

Vhalla inhaled a sharp breath, the name like an ice dagger to her gut. She remembered what Victor had said about the late prince, about quartering his body and feeding it to the dogs. Her hand rose up to massage the angry scar that covered her shoulder to chest.

“The last order I received from him was to protect her—”

“Fine job you did of it,” Aldrik remarked curtly.

Jax faltered a moment, a wounded expression overcoming his face.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Vhalla insisted, equally sharp. “What happened is on my shoulders.” She wasn’t going to let Jax take Aldrik’s ire for it.

“Let me have another chance.” Jax was relentless. “I am owned by the crown. It’s a fitting duty.”

Elecia averted her eyes at the reminder, as though she could un-hear the truth that spilled from Jax’s lips. Vhalla knew his situation had been similar to her previous enslavement, but she had no idea how it had come to pass. It was now something she desperately wanted to know.

“That leash now transfers to you, my Emperor.” Aldrik seemed more bothered by what Jax was saying than Jax himself.

The conversation was moving too fast for Vhalla to inquire about what leash.

“Order me to do it, and I’ll defend her to my dying breath. I’ll treat her life as my own. I’ll do it for Baldair and for you, my sovereign.”

Aldrik considered it, much to Vhalla’s shock.

“Come now, I’m not the hero type. Let me have this moment as we go out and save the world.” Jax gave a toothy grin as easily as if he was talking about the weather.

“Jax, I am not in the mood for levity.” Aldrik pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Very well.”

“Excuse me?” Vhalla finally entered the conversation,
sharply
. “I get no say in this? I said I can take care of myself.”

“Then use me only for those times when you can’t take care of yourself,” Jax countered easily. Sensing her continuing objection, he added, “Don’t take Baldair’s last order from me.”

It was part threat, part anger, part sorrow, and all determination. Vhalla bowed her head, frustrated. He was tugging on just the right heartstring to get what he wanted, and she hated him for it.

“All right,” she agreed weakly. “But find me a sword the first moment we can.”

“Well, if there is nothing else.” Aldrik cast a wary eye toward Elecia. “We leave at sundown.”

They followed their Emperor’s decrees, every last one of them. They tacked the horses and filled their bellies with the last hot meal they were likely to get for the foreseeable future. The Charem family swore their secret loyalty even as Aldrik ordered them to bend knee in body—but not in heart—to Victor. After the moon had begun its journey into the sky, they rode out swathed in the darkest cloaks the Charems owned.

The Emperor Solaris led his loyal few into the uncertain darkness.

They had underestimated Victor, specifically the speed at which his abominations could be created and moved. Those forced to follow his will were going to be subjected to death by ten thousand papercuts from witnessing those they loved being turned into horrors. And this would be before Victor began mobilizing an actual structured army to take the continent. That is if any survived to object to Victor’s rule.

As the Emperor and his loyalists arrived at the first tiny town beyond Fritz’s home, they discovered it painted red with blood.

Half frozen bodies, glistening crimson, littered the ground in the mid-morning sun. Men, women, children—the young and old—were reduced to shades of former life. Vhalla stared on tiredly. It shouldn’t hurt any longer, but pain sat rooted in her chest. She had seen this before. She had lived this blood-stained life recently, now more real than when she had filed books away in the Imperial Library.

Vhalla unfurled the vise-like grip she held on her reins and raised a hand to her shoulder, soaked through to skin from the heavily falling snow. Her fingers massaged the angry scar tissue. It ached and stung all the way down her arm. The physical pain was a mask for the visceral guilt that tore its way through her.

This was her fault.

“He didn’t spare anyone, did he?” Elecia whispered. Whatever had caused the carnage was long gone, but she still kept her voice low, in homage to the dead surrounding them.

“Why didn’t they kneel?” Aldrik’s brows knotted together, deep lines appearing between them. He asked the question they all were thinking.

“They never would’ve.” Fritz swayed in the breeze, nearly falling out of his saddle. Vhalla wondered if he’d known people in this town like she’d known people in the neighboring town to Leoul. “For centuries, the eldest in every family went to serve in the Imperial guard, back to when the South was just Lyndum.” The Southerner shook his head. “They’d never accept someone who wasn’t a Solaris on the throne.”

Aldrik’s mouth pressed together into a scowl. Vhalla struggled to find something to relieve his pain, but there was nothing she could say when her guilt was just as heavy.