They were coming in from every corner of the realm for the Autumn Feast. DG had explained the Otherside holiday, Thanksgiving, to Az, and it sounded like the rough equivalent. Gathering to thank the OZ and the gods for giving them bounty (scant though it was), and for blessing them with another year of their lives.
Az didn't quite grasp where the Royalist servants had appeared from, but they were scrubbing and stitching and baking to bring the Central City palace back to its former glory.
(She thought that the suddenly noble nobles who had spent the coup in foreign countries might have had something to do with it. She chose to ignore the fact that were so anxious to reestablish their own royal lines that they were willing to do anything to guide the Queen away from the fact that they were cowards and to just simply accept that under their directions and their servant's sweat the palace looked as if the Witch had never been there.)
And now the Autumn Feast would go on as it always had in the annuals before the Witch, with the Queen proclaiming in the invitations that, "We have been granted a second chance, given our lives and our country back. This year, above all others we are grateful for what we have been given."
It wasn't really about gratitude though.
The Resistance leaders were coming. They were the heads of every guild within the OZ, and they were coming to see for themselves the proof of this new beginning.
Az was terrified.
The lot had fallen to her to explain the political layout of the OZ to DG, and the only thing these people had in common anymore was their hatred of Az.
The Eastern Guild DG already had an acquaintance with. (She referred to them as the "blankidee-blank turkey people".) Though when not threatened with an impending hoard of Longcoats they were quite pleasant. They were a warrior society, with strict codes of honor and loyalty, and if you could abide by those you were trusted like kin. There were plenty of OZ-ian men who counted themselves as part of the Eastern Guild, but not specifically as Munchkins.
The Southern Guild was the broad name under which the Viewers fell, along with other races. In those woodlands, lakes and marshes all the wilder things of the OZ found their home, including the Papay, the Weres, the Merfolk, and at that point Az had been forced to stop explaining because DG had already interrupted her with questions about what she deemed "fairy tale" creatures. (As far as Az could tell, DG had grown up in a much tamer world, one that had had the magic beaten out of it by technology.) It was this Guild that Dg was bursting at the seems to see – being particularly thrilled at the concept of amphibious Merfolk rather than the solely water bound variety she knew from stories.
The Western Guild were men, plain and true. They found themselves good prairie land and farmed so that the OZ was fed. DG was thrilled to discover that this was where Cain had come from. (As if there could be any doubt, most lawmen came from this backbone of the OZ.) They were bred with a sense of duty out there, and a love of their fertile land and their blessed country. Most of the soldiers to fuel the Resistance had come from the Western Guild; folks who wanted nothing more than their natural born right to live their lives in an uninterrupted manner.
Az's terror laid in seeing the Northern Guild. They were the faerie folk. Gilikins, by their proper name, and every last one of them had the gift of some slight magic. A blacksmith among them might sharpen a sword that would never dull, or a seamstress could bless fabric that it might never tear. Things ever so simple, but extraordinary in their humble way.
They were all perfectly useful little tufts of magic that would never be able to challenge the House of Gale. The Witch had made sure of that. There had been experiments run on the Gilikins; magic tapped and bled from them as though they were maple trees, bred solely for the Witch's use. Of all the people's in the OZ, all the wretched things that the Witch had done in her name, experimenting on humans, trying to harvest their gifts and put them in bottles, was the worst.
And now it was a few nights before the Autumn Feast, and members from each faction of the Guilds were arriving. And Az was hiding in the royal chapel rather than face them.
It was a simple layout for the giant room within the Central Palace, just a long aisle with soaring windows along the sides magiced to match the weather outside and conceal the fact that these windows were actually glass laid over stone. The rest of the room was white marble. Smooth and clean bricks that grew to thick columns that spread themselves into the rib vaults along the ceiling. It was all white but for the benches and the pulpit, those were made of a dark redwood that was older than the House of Gale itself.
There were no paintings to disturb the flow of the white. The room was to always look clean and crisp, which didn't seem so terribly out of place in their world of more modern architecture, but the thousands of years ago in the elder days when it had been built, the crisp lines and unfettered white were the greatest gift the people could give the gods. Something clean and civilized in a world of war. As many times as the Central Palace had been torn down and rebuilt with regime changes, this Cathedral on the ground floor had been left untouched.
Az stood in the dead space between the benches of the quire, which ran parallel to the walls, and the sanctuary, which held the altar. Ahead of her was the altar for the sacrament, where she would kneel as a little girl and offer up her prayer of repentance. Behind her were the few rows of chairs for the choir to sit and sing praises to the gods, voices with angelic sound that she always prayed she'd had.
Az kept herself in the middle of that space, standing in the center of the only decoration in the hall. In long, unbroken strips of brown marble laid a triquetra on the floor, with a circle interlaced among its branches. She kept her feet firmly planted in the heart of it and stared at the altar, wondering what kind of alms she would have to give for the High Priestess to declare her forgiven. And just how many times would she go through that before she thought herself clean?
"Do you know what it means?"
Az whirled around and started at the rather distinguished man who had snuck up on her. His red hair streaked with white and an ethereal look would have set him off as one of the Fae even if Az didn't feel the magic in him. He was a Gili from the Northern Guild, and she could see in his stance the same invincible roguish look that followed around the other Resistance leaders.
"It's the Holy Triquetra, the mark of the gods. One arm for each of the creators." He opened the buttons on his formal jacket and slipped his hands into his pockets as smiled at her. There was something friendly about the gesture, as if he were settling himself down to talk to an old friend. But there was a teasing glint in his eye, as if he expected more of an answer than that.
"One for Kern, the Farmer and guardian of our homes, our land, and our peace. Another for Bo, the Seafarer who rides the waters, gives us our storms, our culture, and gives us war. And the last for Ak, the Woodsman who rules the wild and provides the balance between the two."
"Very good Highness. I confess I'm surprised that ancient history and religion weren't wiped from your mind with your possession." He slowly walked towards her, holding her gaze in his. There was still that teasing nature in his eyes, but there was an edge of malice to it now. Like a wolf toying with a bird before it sinks in its jaws.
"Tell me Highness, what brings you to this holy place?"
She stared at him for a moment, and made to step past him, but he blocked her way, and in that moment she could go no place other than his grey eyes, and felt the truth sucked out of her.
"Deeg collapsed." She bit down on the last consonant, trying to stop herself form speaking, but the words kept spilling out. "It's my fault. I've been making her talk to the soldiers for me, tell her their stories so she could tell me, so I could know everything that the Witch did with my body. Deeg has too kind a heart. She blames herself, and I didn't even think about what the knowing would do to her.
"I told her what the Guilds have become in the last fifteen years, all the pain that I caused. She just started to cry. She was just so tired from all the magic she's used, and all the guilt that she's felt." There were tears seeping down Az's face now and she was pleading with whatever merciful gods their were in the universe to make the bodyguard standing outside the hulking cathedral doors decide to check on her.
"She just collapsed; all the life gone out of her. She couldn't take any more horror stories. She's been watching us all kill ourselves to maintain the peace, and her heart couldn't take it any more. I came here to pray for her. I did it constantly when we were small, but I can't kneel at that altar. I can't plea to the gods when I can't feel them anymore."
Az heard the gun cock at the edge of her mind, and the Gili broke with her gaze when he felt the cool metal of a gun press up against his temple. "What are you doing to her?"
"Put the gun down Jeb."
"Conall, don't make me ask you again."
"He's a Gili, Mr. Cain. A Fae, with the gift to pull truth from people."
Jeb's crystalline eyes flashed to her for a moment before rounding on the man again. "All the information you got from Longcoats, and for some reason I thought you were just a fan of the torture. Turns out you've been magically sucking folks dry."
Conall snorted and stared at Jeb, not at all phased by the fact that Jeb was now standing between him and Az and the gun was pointed between his eyes. "Why do it to her?"
"Because I had to know Jeb. Your opinion carries weight with the Resistance, and I respect your opinion about just exactly what happened here, but I had to know for myself. Had to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. The rest of the Resistance will never speak another word against the Princess now that I've seen into her."Gili
"Seen into me?" she sputtered.
"I see more than just truth, child – when I'm looking for it. You've been caged and abused just like the rest of us." Conall stepped away from the gun as he bent his back in a slight bow to her and said, "You will hear no seditious mutters now. And I know you'll consider it a worthy exchange."
He took his long stride down back down the aisle, and Azkedelia kept her chin up as she watched him go. She made sure that the door was sealed before she muttered her thanks to Jeb for stepping in.
"My privilege, Princess." Jeb holstered his gun and started is walk back down the aisle, assuming Az wanted to be alone again. He made it only a few feet before he stopped and turned, fidgeting with the butt his gun, which Az had come to learn meant he was nervous.
"You should know that he means it. The whole Resistance takes his word as law. With him speaking for you and your family…you've just won the heart and mind of every person in the OZ. Despite the fact that he's a tactless twit for rooting around in your mind without your permission."
She gave him a small smile and made it a few steps down the aisle towards him before her legs began to shake and she felt Jeb's arm wrap around her waist, steadying her. He pulled back after a moment, but kept his hand on her far arm, making it look as though we was simply being protective and not carrying most of her weight.
"Are the rumors true? That the Resistance all throughout the OZ was scheduled to come out of hiding and attack during the Eclipse? And that's why there have been so few aftershocks of fighting?" She knew the answer to that. She had been in the mind of the military commander of a martial state for the last fifteen annuals. Had DG not destroyed the Witch then she would have seeped even more of her power out into her Longcoats and the Resistance would have been all but destroyed by now.
Despite the success of the Resistance surprise attack the real reason there had been no Longcoat uprisings was that their supplies had been cut off. Az had laid out directions to and numbers for every weapons cache and food store. Whatever will they had to fight was negated by being weaponless, leaderless, and starving.
She knew all of this, and Jeb knew she knew all of this. But making casual conversation seemed to be a better option than silence.
"Yes, Highness. And for that we're grateful. Gives men a chance to tend to crops and work on rebuilding rather than just trying to stop folks from tearing down."
Az didn't try to make conversation again. She just let them walk, and chose to ignore the fact that every time she tried to fidget out of Jeb's grip and carry her own weight he simply tightened his hold, refusing to give way to her stubbornness and let her been seen stumbling around hallways while he followed after.
They made it to her bedroom door where Jeb gracefully left her with a polite, "If there's anything else I can do for you Princess…." He tipped his head, slightly unsure about just how much of a bow was required of him.
"There is actually, Captain." Az twisted her hands for a moment before choosing to adopt honesty rather than regality in this moment. After all, putting on a front seemed to be partially what got DG into this situation in the first place. She was a girl looking out for her baby sister, not a princess handing down commands.
"Forgive your father."
Jeb's eyes grew wide while her more permanent guard who had followed them from the cathedral studiously kept his gaze on the wall opposite him and Az found it strange that she seemed to revel for a moment in throwing such a stoic as Jeb Cain off his guard.
"You know what happened to Deeg today." He nodded. "Of all the things that she's worried about, this is one of the easiest to fix. Well, perhaps easy isn't the right term. But whatever turned between you two in the last week is killing your father. And," Az paused to slightly blush, as if she were giving away her sister's grand secret, "we all know that whatever hurts your father, hurts my sister. I know it's not my place to ask Jeb, but…"
Jeb snorted and ran his fingers through his hair, looking painfully young in that moment. "My father woke up from a tin suit with the sure knowledge that my mother and I were gone. Everything he'd ever loved dead and buried for the last eight annuals. In that moment Glitch, Raw, and your sister became his reason to live, and if that's not family, I don't know family is.
"We'll have it out Princess. If it was really just him and me we might stay in our stubborn until one of us lay dying, but we won't hurt our kin to save our pride."
Az just stared at him for a moment, then in a surprisingly DG like move she threw her arms around him and whispered in his ear, "How do you still love like that? After all you've seen? All you've lost?"
Jeb squeezed her back, a full armed hug with his hands firmly fisted to make it obvious that his palms were to himself and the hug was nothing but brotherly. "Because I've got people who love me like that. Can't help but love the world when you've got folks in it that love you."
Az slid from his grasp with a peck on the cheek and slipped into her room before Jeb was even aware that she'd moved. He stared at the closed door for a moment, suddenly very conscious that the guard studiously standing out of Jeb's direct line of sight had actually been one of his soldiers, and had he been under any other man's direction there would have been no end of gossip in the morning, about both Cain men.
As it was, Jeb nodded to his man, muttered "Night Highness" to Az's door, and walked down the hall with his slightly sweaty hands squarely in his pockets. Not until the words meant to comfort had actually passed his lips did Jeb realize that Wyatt making family out of folks meant that they were Jeb's now too. A package deal.
And for some reason all the rage Jeb was expecting at having to share what he'd been missing for eight annuals, wasn't there. He had triple the family he'd ever had, all of them loyal and loving, and Jeb didn't think he had the energy in him to hate that.
He was off to find his father.
Unaware of Conall standing down the hall.
