Chapter Thirty-five: The Broken Seal

When Ilya arrived at the Heartland palace, Durbe and Mizael were already there in their human forms, deep in conversation. Mizael had tied his hair back in a tight braid, threaded with gold ribbon that matched the embroidery on his red robes; Durbe wore the same white suit he usually wore to diplomatic functions. They didn't seem to be arguing, for a wonder. Mizael gazed off to the side, nodding or shaking his head as Durbe ticked off a list of questions on his fingers, and when Durbe was finished, he smiled. Neither seemed to notice Ilya approaching.

"Probably tonight, then," he was saying in response to one of Mizael's questions. "You aren't to sleep that way, though, in case it relapses. And you'll continue drinking it until you're one hundred percent back to normal."

Mizael sighed and crossed his arms. "Haven't I had enough?"

"Good morning," Ilya said loudly, and Mizael tensed. If Durbe was startled, he hid it well. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"Not long at all." Durbe's fingers fiddled with a button on his coat. "I would just like to get this over with."

So did Ilya, though the other lords wanted it to be a slower process. Don't build up animosity, Polara had warned, and Koche agreed. Don't announce that you're taking over. List Lord Heartland's crimes, but don't be overly accusatory. Durbe was convinced that Heartland hired assassins to kill him. He was certain Heartland, backed in a corner and desperate, would stop at nothing to remain in power. "Where is he?"

Durbe's lips tightened. "On his way, so his lieutenant claims."

"Preparing a discreet way to kill us, more likely," Mizael muttered, and Durbe gave him a strained side-glance.

"Well, we can hardly accuse him of something like that without evidence," Ilya said, shifting her parasol. Purple, today, and smooth silk inlaid with pearls instead of lace. It was a more powerful color, more authoritative than pink. She wanted to remind Heartland who the real rulers were. "But General, I am pleased to see you up and walking about. Are you feeling better?"

"Yes," he said stiffly. At a lifted eyebrow from Durbe, he closed his eyes and sighed. "Yes, Lord Ilya."

He still spoke in a clipped voice, but his near-death experience seemed to have humbled him somewhat. More likely Durbe had warned him expressly that one slip would ruin the both of them. They needn't worry too much. Ilya had no plans to out them, not when she benefitted so much from Durbe's schemes. "Lovely. Do you have the papers ready, Durbe?"

He patted his coat pocket. "Of course."

"Papers?"

Lord Heartland had finally arrived, dressed in clashing pastel colors that made Ilya cringe. They had shown up unannounced, so she couldn't blame him entirely for being in more casual clothing, but she remembered the last time she had seen him in those colors. He had dragged her and Pherka to one of his stadium shows, where she had been forced to watch the most revolting "sporting" event she had ever seen; there was a creature – one of the last of a clan of wild woods people, so Heartland claimed – that was more like a wolf than a human, and it had literally ripped its opponents' throats out. It made her sick, then, and she swore if she ever saw that thing again, she'd put it out of its misery herself.

She forced a smile. "Of course, Lord Heartland." She curtsied, and her companions bowed stiffly. "We have a number of serious issues to discuss with you today."

"Serious issues, you say?" Heartland glanced at Durbe, who glared back. "Hm, well, it must be serious for them to send two lords." He pulled off his absurd cylindrical hat and twirled it in his hands. "I was going to go to an event this morning, so would you like to-"

"No," Durbe said sharply before Ilya even opened her mouth. "I will have no part in your barbarous sporting events."

Heartland pressed his lips together as he considered Durbe. Ilya counted to fifteen before Heartland finally responded. "Very well. I've had the servants throw together a quick breakfast, if I may have that honor."

Durbe nodded and gestured for Heartland to lead the way. Mizael followed, hand on his sword hilt, but Ilya caught his arm.

"General Mizael," she said softly, "would you escort me?"

She had never stood this close to him before, and had never realized just how tall he was compared to her; the top of her head barely reached his chest. From this angle, she could see that the red marks on his face trailed down his neck and under his collar. She'd always wondered about them. Tattoos? Or something else?

Mizael shrugged and held out his arm, which she linked with her own. He was tense.

"You can relax, General," Ilya murmured to him as they walked, Durbe glancing back once before returning his attention to Heartland. "He can try whatever he'd like, but at the end of the day, he loses. Remember that."

He clenched his hand. "He tried to murder a lord."

"He failed, thanks to you."

Mizael snorted but didn't say anything. He kept his gaze fixed on Durbe and Heartland as they walked through the ludicrously adorned marble entrance hall. The hideous heart-shaped mosaic that spanned the entire hall was the same as Ilya remembered it, but Heartland seemed to be indecisive when it came to picking colors for everything else. Tapestries in various shades of blues, pinks, purples, and greens were draped along the walls, and the rugs on the sweeping staircase were now a putrid shade of orange. The whole layout reminded Ilya too much of the travelling circuses and sideshows she had been part of as a child. The thought made her sick.

Durbe and Heartland were still conversing as they ascended the staircase to the dining chamber, so Ilya turned her attention away from a brightly dyed wolf pelt on the wall and back to Mizael. "General, what do those markings on your face symbolize?"

He tensed again. Durbe glanced back, but at a slight shake of Mizael's head, resumed his conversation with Heartland. Mizael touched the markings with his free hand; his jaw clenched. If he was stalling, that was fine. She would stop him in the hall before they entered the dining hall for breakfast and wait for him to tell her.

Fortunately, his shoulders slacked and he sighed. Proud Mizael always walked with his shoulders back and chin up, eyes striking through everything they came across. But now he looked so sad, with his eyes staring unseeingly at the carpet in front of them and his chin down.

"A mark of my status," he mumbled, and Ilya remembered his hearing, where he admitted that his parents had rejected him because of his physical abnormality. "When the military conscripted me, they wanted everyone to know what I was." He pulled his shoulders back and lifted his head again. "A reminder to everyone, human and Barian, what I was."

How cruel. Ilya couldn't help but feel bad for him. It had certainly stirred up a lot of debate when Durbe announced that Mizael was to be his personal bodyguard. An incomplete Barian meant that his parents had backed out of his creation before the ritual was finished. Incomplete in body and soul. A broken Barian. She had heard the names the others called him back then, and even still on occasions. He was a freak, a monster, unwanted, unloved, disgusting.

She had heard those things about herself once, a long time ago.

Heartland pushed open a door. "After you."

Durbe swept past without looking at him, and Mizael released Ilya's arm, allowing her to enter first. It was a largely undecorated room, mercifully free from Heartland's pastel nightmares, and had spacious windows that overlooked the nearby river. She settled in the seat at the head of the table and folded her parasol.

If Heartland was disgusted by her presence before, he was doubly so now.

He sat across from Durbe and Mizael and picked up his wine glass. A servant hurried to fill it. "What can I do for you?"

Durbe eyed the wine being poured into his glass with narrowed eyes. "Please send your servants out of the room. This is a private matter." He pointed at the young man standing by the window. "Lieutenant Okudaira, you may stay."

Heartland's mouth thinned but he ushered them away, pale-faced Okudaira remaining where he was. When the door closed, Durbe reached into his coat and pulled out a stack of papers and a pair of glasses, which he put on right away.

"We have some serious accusations to level at you, Lord Heartland," Durbe said, setting a piece of paper on the table between them. "Possibly the most serious being that you hired assassins to murder me."

Halfway through a sip of wine, Heartland spat it back into his goblet. "On what grounds-"

"If you'll read the paper, it will be made clear," Durbe said, shuffling through his papers. Heartland snatched it from the table. "Furthermore, the Seven Barian Lords have come to the conclusion that your… games… not only violate what we assume is supposed to be basic human decency but also kingdom treaties dealing with kidnapping."

"Kidnapping?" Heartland abandoned the first paper. "Every individual in my stadium is a criminal or unemployed member of my kingdom."

"A long time ago, there was a clan of wild people who lived in the mountains on the Astral-Heartland border," Durbe went on, undeterred. "They were, according to no fewer than four peace treaties" – he tossed a few more papers on the table – "within the boundaries of the Astral Kingdom when you invaded and either murdered or kidnapped them." He looked up. "We know this because of information we gained from possibly the only living clan member who hasn't been driven insane from mistreatment."

Ilya couldn't help but admire the complete apathy on Durbe's face as he tossed paper after paper at Heartland, as he leveled accusation after accusation, before finally settling back in the chair after calling Heartland out for not adhering to proper customs taxes. Heartland's face went from pale to red to almost purple with each word Durbe spoke and by the end of it, his hands shook so much Ilya was sure he was going to rip the paper in his hands in half.

"This is my kingdom and I can do what I please with it," Heartland hissed. "I have built the most economically sound kingdom on this continent."

"In part through illegal acts, Lord Heartland," Ilya piped up, picking up her goblet. "I would be careful not to boast too much about that."

She was about to take a sip when Durbe's hand pulled it away from her. Some spilled out onto her dress and she shot him a scowl as he slammed it back on the table.

"Don't drink that," Durbe murmured, fumbling in his coat pocket.

"Why?" She didn't bother hiding the irritation in her voice as she dabbed at the wine on her dress.

He pulled out a small vial and dipped the contents into her goblet. It sizzled and smoked; when Ilya glanced in it, the wine had turned into a fine brown powder.

"Poison," Durbe said calmly.

Heartland pushed his chair back and made to stand, but Ilya was already on her feet and shoved him back into the chair. How dare he; how dare this filthy monster of a human do something like this?

"Ilya," Durbe said, and for the first time, his voice carried a note of alarm. It took her a moment to realize that the unlit candles on the chandelier were now blazing, as were the candles on the table. They were burning much brighter than was normal, and even from a few feet away, she could feel the heat from them.

She forced herself to take calming breaths. She'd lost control. She hadn't lost control like this in years.

The hatred and fear in Heartland's eyes was more pronounced than ever. "A witch," he spat.

Despite herself, she gave a little laugh, lower-pitched than usual. "Nobody's dared call me a witch in fifteen years, Lord Heartland." She leaned close. "Back then, you could have. Everyone did." She adopted a showman's voice. "'Come one, come all, come see the Barian Witch! But don't get too close or she'll burn you to cinders, the same way she did to her own parents.'"

Heartland's breathing was more rapid. "Y-you get away from me, you witch, you monster, or I will see you burn the way you deserve to be burned."

"Lord Ilya." Mizael, this time, and a quick glance to the side showed her that he was halfway to his feet before Durbe grabbed his hand and pulled him back in his chair.

She didn't care. "You can call me a witch again," Ilya said softly in Heartland's ear, "but I think you should consider the consequences."

Heartland squirmed in his chair, trying to move as far back from her as he could. It was comical; he wasn't even trying to mask his disgust now. "What are you going to do, hex me?"

She had to applaud him for his bravado. "Hex you?" She laughed. What a vile, filthy, insulting man. "My dear sir, do you take me for some sort of backcountry savage? No, no." She leaned on the table conversationally. "What's that phrase you use with all of your charming little games?" She pursed her lips in mock thought. "Ah yes, heart burning!"

"Lord Ilya," Durbe said warningly, but she waved him off and leaned next to Heartland again. He was plenty scared now; she could see it in his shifty eyes and by the way his hands tightened on the armrest furthest from her.

"What if I were to change that little catchphrase, Mr. Heartland?"

He clenched his teeth. "How dare you speak down to me-"

"I rather like the sound of… Heartland burning, don't you?" She gave him a tight-lipped smile.

The color drained from his face. "You would burn my city?"

Ilya placed a hand to her chest and feigned insult. "What? Burn as lovely a city as this? No, no, Mr. Heartland, that would be a waste. No, I was talking about you." She leaned down and placed her lips to his ears. He shuddered and tried to pull away, but she grabbed his chin and pulled him back. "You burn witches in this city, but do you burn cowardly, backstabbing traitors?"

He whimpered. Good.

"Ilya," Durbe said again, louder.

"Quiet, Durbe." Ilya glanced over at him. Mizael was tightlipped, staring at her with slightly widened eyes, and now Durbe was half-standing. "He hired assassins to murder you. He almost killed your general. He tried to poison us again, and he's threatened to burn me at the stake. He deserves to reap exactly what he has sowed." Surely Durbe didn't feel as though they should actually spare this monster.

"I know." Durbe pushed himself to a full standing position. "It is, regrettably, not our decision what fate will befall him. We will take him back to Baria for trial for his crimes."

"To Baria?" Heartland's voice was a strange mix of indignation and dread. "I will never receive a fair trial there."

"Who said anything about a fair trial?" Durbe said tonelessly. "General Mizael, see to it that Mr. Heartland is placed on the nearest ship back to Arclight. We'll transport him overland to Baria from there."

Mizael inclined his head at Durbe's retreating back. When the door closed behind him, Ilya smiled again. "Well, General, would you object if some mysterious mishap befell our beloved former king?" She squeezed Heartland's face the way a grandmother would squeeze a small child's.

"I do as Durbe says," Mizael said in the same toneless voice that plagued Durbe's speech. He walked around the table. "I do not wish to countermand him."

She sighed. "Ever faithful to your lord, are you, Mizael?"

Mizael grabbed Heartland's arm and ignored the vile names Heartland hissed at him. "I am ever faithful to the Barian Empire, Lord Ilya."

Good answer, she mused, watching him drag Heartland to his feet and bind his wrists. The pale-faced lieutenant stood rigidly nearby, watching the scene in front of him with wide, watery eyes. She couldn't blame him for Heartland's ineptitude. He was, after all, only following Heartland's orders.

"Lieutenant Okudaira," she said in what she thought was a soothing voice. "Come here, would you?"

He turned to her and swallowed. "Y-yes, my… my…"

She held out a hand. "No need to be frightened of me, Lieutenant. Or may I call you Fuya? It's so much easier to say."

He walked with shaking steps until he reached her side. "If… if you would like…"

"Lovely." She wrapped her arm around his shoulders. Predictably, he tensed up, but at least he was smart enough not to shy away. "You know how things are done around here, so I would like you to be my lieutenant."

"Don't get dragged into that witch's web, Fuya!" Heartland said in a strangled voice before Mizael rolled his eyes and shoved a piece of cloth in Heartland's mouth. The former king continued to yell incoherently as Mizael shoved him out the door. Mizael would have to be careful to find a back way to the shipyard unless he was going to attract every passerby in the city with Heartland's muffled slurs and insults.

Fuya made a quiet noise of longing as the door slammed behind Mizael. Ilya pulled him closer. He was a handsome boy. Well-mannered, polite, soft-spoken. He would make a wonderful personal guard. "No need to worry, Fuya," she said, patting his cheek. He flinched. It was going to take some time to get him to warm up to her. That was fine. "The merchants' council distributes edicts in this kingdom, correct?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Excellent." She picked up the final piece of paper. Durbe's proclamation. How kind of him to allow her the honor of ruling over this kingdom. The first thing to go would be Heartland's disgusting gladiatorial death matches. They simply weren't humane. "Do you know the best way to contact them?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Here." She scribbled a note on the bottom of the paper and rolled it up. Heartland's stamp sat next to a ball of wax on the table. She pulled her own out of a fold in her dress. "Take this to the council, and inform them that I would like a meeting with them."

"A meeting?" Fuya tilted his head. "They never meet directly with the king."

She lit a small flame in her palm and warmed the stamp over it. Fuya took a small step back. "Things are going to be different in this kingdom, Fuya." She pressed the Barian crest into the wax and sealed the declaration. "Please inform the Guard to change the banners. As of today, Heartland is part of the Barian Empire."

Rio was still shaken by her dream – her nightmare, her vision, whatever it was – so Ryoga and Kaito offered to find some food for breakfast. None of them had eaten much since the escape from Arclight, in part because there was nothing to eat in the Waste. They had run out of smoked rabbit and dried fruits that Cathy had collected along the way. Rio didn't know the girl well at all, but Kotori seemed convinced that she was generally good at heart if not very odd.

Kotori held her by the hand with both of her own, the same way she had when they had first met. Rio, Mara, and Ryoga had stumbled onto palace grounds in the dead of night ten years ago, covered in scrapes and burns and blood. Most of the blood wasn't their own. Kotori had been a trainee Healer then, not even fourteen years old, but she had cleaned Rio's injuries with the professionalism of a fully trained one, and offered her sympathies. When Rio was taken from her brother and friend, their injuries being more severe, Kotori had sat by Rio's bedside for the entire night, holding her hand through Rio's tears and memories.

Time had only changed Kotori Mizuki for the better, and Rio would be forever grateful for Kotori's friendship.

"I'm sorry," Rio said quietly, offering Kotori a gentle smile. "I wish I didn't have to burden you with my tears again."

"Don't be sorry." Kotori gave her hand a tight squeeze. "This is hard for you. You're the strongest woman I know. I can't imagine being back after…" She trailed off.

Rio merely nodded. She had nothing more to say about it; Kotori knew her well enough not to ask.

If fate had brought them here, maybe there was something they had to find, to discover for themselves. One question had plagued her and her brother for a decade. The village was supposed to be protected against the Barians. There were four wards that protected the village, and only the elders knew where they were. Did one fail, somehow?

Rio stood, and Kotori rose with her. The elders may have been the only ones who knew where all four wards were, but Rio suspected she knew the approximate location of one of them. She and Mara had been chastised by the elders for digging in one particular part of the forest – they had been ten and twelve, respectively, and searching for rubies – but even though they had dug nothing up before they were caught at it, the elders seemed concerned. It made sense to Rio that there had been something there.

It was a long shot, and she still had no idea where the other three were, but given the culture's obsession with circles, she had a feeling if she found one, she could map out the others.

"Where are we going?" Kotori asked, glancing back at the dying fire. "They'll be upset that we wandered off."

"They'll get over it." It wasn't too far from here, the part of the village where Rio and Ryoga had grown up, and she remembered vividly where she and Mara had been digging. "If they get back first, they can wait on us."

Ten years and a destructive fire had changed the vegetation, but Rio's feet led her along now-unseen paths that she had walked on every day. She swallowed back a lump in her throat when they passed through a nearby clearing where their mother's best friend had lived.

"She made good pumpkin bread," Rio whispered, and Kotori's hand gripped hers again. She hadn't meant to say it out loud.

They finally reached a sparse part of the forest, visually indistinguishable from the rest of their path. But Rio could feel it, feel something that she had never felt while living in this village, and she knew she was in the right place.

She knelt where the feeling was strongest, grabbed a sturdy-looking stick and began digging at the ground. Kotori knelt next to her, despite her white dress, and smiled at Rio.

"Whatever you're looking for, we can find faster this way," she said, and Rio smiled back.

They dug into the earth for an hour, judging by the shifting sunlight, and they had made a hole about three feet deep before Kotori brushed some dirt from a small tablet and grabbed Rio's arm.

Rio knew before touching it what it was, and she knew before taking it from Kotori's hands that she was right. It was heavy and made of a sturdy mineral – quartz, from the look of it – with three faded swirls etched into it. The Dragoon symbol for the Astral World.

And it was cracked right down the middle.

They knelt together in the hole for several long minutes, Rio's mind swimming with questions. Who had done this? Why? No one was allowed in the village boundaries without permission from the elders. This had taken a long time, and it was a Dragoon who did it.

But what kind of Dragoon would betray their entire people like this?

"We should get back," she whispered finally, standing up. "They'll wonder where we are."

She helped Kotori out of the hole and they headed back together, leaving the tablet behind.

Sure enough, Ryoga and Kaito were waiting for them when they entered the clearing. Kaito was prodding the fire while Ryoga skinned what looked like it might have been a chipmunk.

"Where have you two been?" Ryoga grunted, tossing a chunk of skin aside.

Kotori pointedly looked away. "Looking for something."

"Looking for what?" Kaito sounded irritated.

Rio sat down near her brother. "Ryoga, you know how this village was warded against the Barians?"

"Of course. Why?"

Kaito was watching her carefully now. She looked down at the chipmunk that Ryoga was now stripping of its meat. It was disgusting, but it didn't faze her nearly as much as what she had discovered. "Kotori and I found one of the seals. It was broken."

Ryoga's knife slipped and he nearly sliced his finger off. "What?" He dropped the knife and the chipmunk onto the dirty forest floor. "How is that possible? Only Dragoons-"

"I think someone in the village did it deliberately," Rio said quietly. Her voice trembled and she couldn't stop her leg from bouncing. The words sounded absurd out loud. But they were true, weren't they? They had to be. "The ward was cracked very deliberately. It wasn't an accident."

Ryoga's entire body was rigid and unmoving, and Rio wasn't sure if he was even breathing. Kaito leaned over him and picked up the poor creature that was to become their breakfast, placing strips of it on top of stones placed near the fire. Each piece sizzled as it touched the hot stone. "My court librarian said something to me about those pictographs I had you translate."

"With that damn legend?" Ryoga was still paying attention, then. His gaze snapped toward Kaito. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Kaito finished tossing the meat onto the heating rocks and straightened up. "He figured one of two things about them. One, they were fake."

"They weren't," Ryoga said curtly.

"I know they weren't, thank you," Kaito snapped. "Shut up and let me finish." Ryoga rolled his eyes and Kaito wiped his hands off on his filthy robes. "The second was that someone in the Dragoon village knew the village was going to be destroyed and so they shared the legend with an outsider."

"No one would share the clan's secrets with an outsider." Ryoga stood. His hands were balled into fists. "And no one would know the village was going to be destroyed and do nothing to stop it."

Kaito leaned close to Ryoga. His voice was quiet. "No one would destroy the only protection from the Barians either, would they?"

Rio could see the muscles working in her brother's face. His jaw was clenched, his eyes twitched, and his eyebrows were furrowed so deeply they almost touched. But he tore his eyes from Kaito's and looked at the ground.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Kaito whispered. He held himself with all the haughty authority of his status, somehow managing to look down on Ryoga despite being ever so slightly shorter.

Ryoga's mouth moved wordlessly. Finally, he closed his eyes. "Unlike you, none of my people would have any motivation for betraying their own race." He opened his eyes again and met Kaito's piercing stare. "We served the Astral World, not ourselves."

He turned and strode away without another word, hands still clenched. He didn't take his lance, so he wouldn't be going too far, but Rio sighed and went to follow him. Kaito grabbed her arm.

"He needs to understand that people have their own motives for things," Kaito said in a low voice.

Rio pushed him away. "And you need to understand our culture. We knew every single member of our clan. Imagine how hard it is to hear someone say that one of those people we knew, that someone we loved and trusted sold us out to the Barians. Just… try."

She didn't know how Kaito responded. She didn't turn around to see.