Chapter 9

A cool wind blew in through the window when Alex opened it. In the grim, grey glow of dawn, the entire world seemed to be covered in shadows. Yet, despite the poor visibility, the guards that now patrolled the grounds far below were still clearly visible to him. Their sword-wands were giving them away, as they emitted an aura of light which was used to illuminate the mages' path, much like a flameless torch. But just in case, Alex switched to thermal vision to verify their number by their heat signatures instead.

After a quick count, Alex found that the number of guards patrolling both inside and outside the palace had more than doubled compared to earlier that night. He was not surprised. In fact, he had expected something like this. Both Mazarin and Wardes had made it clear after his and Henrietta's brief excursion into the city that they were keen on stopping it from happening again.

Mazarin. Alex's lips curled at the mere thought of the old man's name. Without thinking, his hands wrapped tightly around the windowsill, cracking it from the immense amount of pressure. The conversation he had overhead between the Cardinal and Henrietta was still fresh in Alex's mind, and it irked him to no end. If you want me dead, come and try to kill me yourself, bastard.

It was the way that Mazarin had tried to turn Henrietta against him that angered Alex so much. It was a conniving method. More than once after that Alex had mulled over the idea of taking preemptive action against Mazarin; take him out before he could cause any more trouble. Alex was not the type of person who was content with sitting back and letting his enemies make the first move, if he could help it, after all, and Mazarin had clearly labeled himself as an enemy.

He was not the kind of enemy that Alex was used to, it was true. He was a new type, one that came at him not with guns and tanks or claws and fangs, but rather with words and arguments. But that did not change what he was, nor did it do anything to abate Alex's temper.

Ultimately, what stayed Alex's hand was the knowledge of what would happen if he killed Mazarin.

It was as though circumstances had deliberately conspired to make this new type of enemy infinitely more frustrating than both Blackwatch and the infected. In a way he was invincible. Whether Mazarin knew it or not, he had girded himself in an armor far more complete than any tank or ship or hive or fortress. He wore an armor known as Henrietta.

Despite their clash of opinions, Mazarin still had Henrietta's trust, and he was still one of her closest advisers. Should Alex kill him, then as the newest arrival to the palace he would naturally become the number one suspect, with or without evidence. And it was possible then that in death Mazarin would do what he could not in life: he would prove himself right about Alex in Henrietta's eyes, and turn her against him.

When he had first arrived in this world, Alex found it hard to believe that he had been summoned for the sole purpose of being Henrietta's friend. He had been convinced that she had some ulterior motive in summoning him, if not prior to his summoning then surely after she learned of what he could do. As such, he regarded her with no small amount of suspicion, and until last night he had no real attachment to either her or to whatever bonds she claimed to exist between them. Had Mazarin made his proposal then, Alex would not have been so troubled right now.

But in spite of his suspicions, Alex had followed Henrietta because he was curious about what he could find if he stayed by her side, in the hopes that perhaps his suspicions were misplaced. And over these past few days, he had begun to wonder if being her friend was truly all that Henrietta wanted from him. He wondered if there truly wasn't some other ulterior motive which he had not yet uncovered. At the very least, he had yet to see anything that suggested to the contrary. And when he thought like that, he began to wonder what a life here might mean for him. Peace. Companionship. Foreign words. Words that he had experienced only through the lives of others. Words he wanted to know for himself.

If Alex had followed Henrietta out of curiosity before, then he did so now because he was invested.

And yet there was still a part of Alex that held back. He was willing to give Henrietta the benefit of the doubt – more than that, in fact – but he could not reciprocate her trust. He could not take hold of the hand she reached out to him with. A not insignificant part of him still hesitated, and he remembered the last time he put his faith into someone so blindly. He remembered his, or rather the original Mercer's ex-girlfriend, Karen Parker.

When he first met Karen, he thought that the two of them would be able to put a stop to the viral outbreak in Manhattan, together. Even though there were so many enemies all around them, he had her by his side. And he thought... he thought that would be enough.

He was wrong.

Karen Parker betrayed him. She sent him into a trap that was meant to – and almost did – kill him. She even helped create the cancer weapon that was used to try to take him down, tricking him into collecting the very material that was needed to make it. And although he survived, it had been at the temporary cost of his powers, and a great deal of pain. When he later regained control, he killed her for her treachery.

It was a bitter memory. He took no pleasure or gratification in it. It was just something that had to be done, both to punish her for her betrayal and to ensure that she could not help produce the cancer weapon again.

But even that was only a small part of why he hesitated now. It was not just Karen he remembered when he thought of Henrietta. She was more of a periphery. It was Dana. It was always Dana. His sister.

What Alex wanted was for Henrietta to know what he had done, why he had done it, what he had become and to... what, forgive him? No, it was not forgiveness he sought. There would be no forgiveness for that. But he did want her to accept him. To understand him. Only, he wasn't sure that she could.

Henrietta knew that he was going to kill those two would-be rapists. He hadn't said it, but he could tell from the look in her eyes that she knew, and she had trembled at the thought of it. And although she had chosen to either ignore or accept what had happened and move on, Alex couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if he had taken it just a step further, if he had followed through and torn those scum limb from limb.

Would she have accepted him then? Or would it have been too much for her?

It was Dana he was seeing again, flinching away from him as he tried to tell her, to make her understand, what he was and would do, what he was meant to do.

Alex frowned. Trust was a two-way street, but right now it could only go one way. What he needed now was time. Time to think, time to process, time to figure out what it was he wanted to do next. But there was one thing he did know: whatever he decided to do, simply abandoning Henrietta was no longer an option for him.

The sun was rising over the horizon now, and the world was turning gold and bright. The guards were getting ready to change shifts. Alex turned away from the window and switched his eyes back to normal. It was time for him to make his move as well.

He first went over to the full length mirror in his room and transformed himself into a nondescript man wearing the garb of a knight. After making sure that his disguise was complete, he grabbed the bag of gold and silver coins he had raided from the treasury and pressed it up against his stomach. His flesh trembled as it swallowed the bag whole, storing it inside a newly formed bladder-like organ. As he did this, Alex couldn't help but to muse about Henrietta again. It was things like this that had made him reconsider how he viewed Henrietta. It spoke well of her character and humanity.

Switching back to his thermal vision for a moment, Alex checked the hallways and made sure that no one was there. Once he was clear, he quietly opened the door and slipped outside.

Alex took the long way outside. Without having consumed and stolen the appearance of a true knight, Alex was banking on the fact that he could still hide himself in plain sight by mingling in with the heightened number of guards. It was for that reason that he had chosen the face of a man as plain as could be, to minimize how much he stood out. He also did not want to risk encountering one of those who might actually recognize him for what he was, or rather what he was not. Conveniently, the path that he was taking now also happened to take him away from Henrietta's room, which was where the bulk of the guards seemed to be centered around.

His luck held. Alex soon found himself out in the courtyards without trouble. There he joined the outgoing knights past the inner walls, but while they headed for their barracks in the outer courtyard, Alex slowed his pace until he was at the end of the line and slipped away from them. He used the buildings as cover, moving from alley to alley until he arrived just short of the outer walls.

With the wider perimeter that the outer walls covered, the knights here were more thinly spread, but they still had nearly perfect coverage with each other. There were no blind spots for Alex to take advantage of, and any changing of the guard would move inward, while he needed to go outward.

I need to think about this, Alex mused. With the sun rising, he couldn't go over the walls without being seen. The gates were likewise not an option. So if both above and through the middle were closed to him, then the only option left was to go below.

Alex found himself a secluded area and got to work. His fingers turned to pointed spears, which he used to stab into the earth. There they grew and extended, hardened and thickened, twisting left then right as they tunneled their way forward. Once he felt his fingers break just below the surface of the ground on the other side of the wall, he expanded his arm into a hollow tube and then broke it off, letting the biomass reinforce the tunnel so that it wouldn't collapse in on itself, much in the same way he had seen Elizabeth Greene use infected biomass to reinforce captured buildings well beyond their original structural integrity.

Alex crawled into the tunnel, using a large nearby stone and some dirt to hide the hole he left behind. He would fill it back up properly after he returned. Once he was out on the other side, he disappeared into the trees and bolted for the city, abandoning his disguise.

Compared to their late night excursion, the city was so much quieter at this time of the day. Everyone was asleep, whether in their homes on a comfy bed or in the bars in a drunken stupor. It made it easy for Alex to quickly make his way back to the Charming Fairy Inn, as he did not need to worry overmuch about someone seeing him.

When he arrived at the inn's doorstep, he withdrew the bag of coins from inside of him and placed it on the ground. But as he was about to knock on the door and leave, he suddenly smelled something odd, yet also incredibly familiar.

Alex raised his nose to the air, sniffing deeply as he strengthened his olfactory system. Is that... oil?

Finding it strange, Alex followed the scent, tracking it around the inn to its fenced in backyard. The lock on the gate had been broken, and was hanging halfway open. Alex crept inside, and what he saw there made him silently snarl.

Hunched over the edge of the building were the two men he had chased away the night before. One man had a small cask in hand, emptying its black contents all along the inn's foundation, while his partner held a flickering torch.

Did they come here for revenge? Alex briefly mused. Probably.

Alex's response was as swift as it was silent. In an instant both of his arms transformed into a swarming host of smaller tendrils, which wrapped around the two men, choking them by the throat so that they could not scream, tightening around their arms and legs so that they could not move. A single tendril split off to catch the torch and smother the head, extinguishing the bright-orange flames, before flicking the smoking remains far away.

Completely immobilized, Alex drew the two rapists-turned-arsonists in towards him, looking into their eyes, wide with fear.

"I told you that if I ever saw either of you again, I would kill you," Alex growled. "You had a chance to walk away from this."

"Mmnngh!" the blond man rasped, as his face turned purple from lack of oxygen and his eyes bulged from their sockets.

"No, don't speak," Alex said, his tendrils gripping into their throat-flesh all the more tightly. "I'm about to know everything you have to say anyway."

When morning came, Henrietta found herself standing alone before the doors to the queen's chambers. It was an enormous thing, easily twice as tall as Henrietta and five times as wide, and beautiful as well. It had been carved from pure white oak, and was engraved with the symbol of the Tristanian royal house in the center: a blooming lily, normally white but encrusted with gold here in order to better stand out against the wood. When the doors were opened, so too was the flower.

Normally, the doors alone were enough to make it obvious that this was a room for kings and queens. But today all Henrietta could think of when she looked upon it was the gateway to the underworld. The dour stench of misery was a palpable thing here, even through the thick oak and walls, and it made Henrietta grimace.

"Mother?" Henrietta knocked on the door. When no response came, she knocked again. "Mother, are you there? It's me, Henrietta."

When the response finally came, it was slurred like a drunkard's, and muffled by the thickness of the door. "Leave me, Daughter."

"Mother, please open the door," Henrietta said insistently. "I need to see you."

"Seek the Cardinal if you need help," Queen Marianne replied. "I cannot help you. Leave me to my grief."

"I summoned a familiar." Henrietta tried twisting the doorknob, but it remained firmly locked in place. "I wish to introduce him to you."

"I have seen hundreds of familiars already. I do not need to see another."

"This one is not like any of the others," Henrietta said. "He can think and speak, just as we can, and more. You will not believe this, but he hails from another world!"

"A fanciful tale. But what of it?" the queen sighed. "Your father was of this world, and now he is gone, so I care not for this world or any others."

"Father is dead," Henrietta said desperately, "but I am alive. Your daughter is alive. And these are trying times. I need you with me, Mother, now more than ever."

"Forgive me, but there is nothing I could do for you. For anyone. My heart is gone, and only my body remains behind."

"That is your grief speaking."

"Grief and sorrow are all I have left. Leave me to them."

"Are they so much better company than I, your own daughter, that you would spurn me, Mother?" Henrietta said. "I am still here with you. If you cannot stand on your own, let me be your strength. Let me help you, Mother. Please open this door."

"I do not want help. I only wish to be left alone."

Henrietta sighed, leaning forward and pressing her forehead against the door. "Mother," she said quietly. "In a week I will be leaving for Germania. There I will meet with Emperor Albrecht in order to finalize the details of our wedding and alliance. Once I am wed, chances are good that I may never return to Tristain again. This may be the last chance we have to see each other. Please, Mother. Open the door."

There was no reply.

Henrietta sighed again.

"I will come back tomorrow, and the day after, and again until I must leave," Henrietta said. "Please eat and take care of yourself in the meantime, Mother. I love you."

Wardes stared at the report in his hands, the inked words reflecting in his steel-grey eyes. Leaning on the wall across the room was a man with long, thick hair tied back into a bushy tail. He stifled a yawn and watched Wardes through half-lidded eyes.

"So, Foquet has infiltrated the Academy." A thin smile spread on Wardes's lips. "First the familiar, now this. Such opportunities these wild cards bring." He looked up at the knight. "When did this happen?"

"Eh. 'bout a month ago, I guess?" The knight shrugged nonchalantly. "A brother crossed paths with her a long time ago, so he was able to recognize her when he happened to be there when she duped that old man at the school into giving her a job."

"Wait, Foquet is a she?" Wardes's brows lifted in surprise. "No, never mind that. It's not important. What matters is why you and your brother did not report this to me much sooner."

The knight shrugged again, causing Wardes to scowl. "He was drunk and forgot. Only remembered it recently when he happened to go back to the tavern he saw her at."

Wardes grunted in disapproval, but said nothing.

"So," the knight pushed himself off the wall, flashing his too-white teeth, his golden eyes gleaming, "should we go kill her?"

"Hm..." Wardes stroked his beard slowly. "No. Not quite yet."

"Ah, come on!" the knight sighed explosively. "I swear, ever since you became a fuckin' knight, you've become so slow!" The knight became plaintive. "What happened, Wardes? What happened to the old you?"

"I learned the value of patience," Wardes said icily. "Of cunning and discipline. I learned that sometimes one needs to take the longer path in order to achieve one's goals, and that shortcuts do not always exist. I've grown, Marrok. Have you?"

"Tsk." Marrok crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall again. "You were much more fun when we were younger."

"This isn't about fun."

"No," Marrok sighed and unfolded his arms. "I guess not. Still, why don't you want to act on this? You would raise the princess's opinion of you."

"True," the wind mage agreed as he set the report down on his desk and made a steeple of his fingers. "But there are many ways to move a piece on the board. To kill her is one way. To use her is another. And Foquet may prove to provide a most unique opportunity in the near future. Keep me updated on this matter."

"I don't really understand," Marrok frowned, "but if that's what you want."

"It is," Wardes said. "In the meantime, how would you and a few of your brothers feel about becoming the princess's new personal guard?"

Marrok snorted derisively. "Sounds fucking boring."

Wardes pursed his lips together. "It would be most beneficial for us all if you were to agree."

"Why don't you do it yourself, Mister Captain of the Guard?"

"My place is here," Wardes said. "Once the princess and the cardinal have left for Germania, I will be free to secretly sow more rumors and further dissent against the crown, and continue the search for allies."

"Fine, fine. If you say so," Marrok grumbled. "You really have become slow, you know that?"

"Do not complain so much, old friend," Wardes said. "Do your part and I promise that the kill will belong to you and your brothers."

Marrok's lips slowly spread into a wide grin full of predatory hunger.

"All hail Reconquista."

Wardes smiled back.

"For the Holy Lands."