Chapter 14
"Y-you received my letter, your highness?"
The young king blinked, scrutinizing every ruffle and tear adorning the man's clothes. The old gentry's glasses clung to the bridge of his nose lopsidedly, a crack spider webbing through both lenses, as he looked up at the king over the copper rims. Pale, blue-green veins rose vigorously under wrinkled skin with every jittery movement the man made to fiddle with the ends of his weathered tunic. Elias trekked his gaze down to the ripped trousers that clung onto his knobby knees and frowned.
After all this and you still come to me immediately upon new knowledge, he thought to his self with a swell of guilty gratitude in his chest. Elias rested his elbows upon the oak table and knitted his fingers together.
"Of course." Elias said. "If you don't mind Ferdinand, would you explain to me again what happened?"
The man flinched, casting a weary gaze over his shoulder at the two men from the Southern Isles on board with him who nodded back at him. He turned back to the round table and sucked in a deep breath through his thin lips. As soon as the boat had docked in the fjord, Ferdinand and the remaining crew members were whisked through the port and into the war room of the castle. The curtains were drawn tightly, letting a red-violet wine light flitter through the locked room. Ferdinand swallowed thickly under the earnest gaze of his king; the glares from his king's right hand and the king's closest ally merely pinning him to the spot.
"Your majesty," the man's voice cracked, his tongue growing heavy and dry as he licked his lips. "The negotiations with the northern kingdom failed."
Ferdinand shivered at the icy glare creeping beneath Ingvar's eyes while Elias folded his hands on the table, leaning against the edge intently.
"We arrived at the kingdom—deathly cold it was—and we approached their king with all due respect and earnest. I told him of the Draugen's rise and the pressing need for their assistance in the legion. But…" Ferdinand's brows furrowed. "Their king refused. He said that he wouldn't bring his people into a war of invisibles without a hefty pay. So he turned us away."
Elias's lips thinned out into a deep frown as he murmured, "I see." His finger tapped the table absentmindedly, a streak of ice spiraling underneath the wood from the prying eyes of his court. "And the others? What of them?"
Ferdinand darted his eyes to the floor, saying softly, "They're dead your majesty." Elias's eyes widened slightly. "I'm afraid their king wanted to show that he did not wish to be bothered by matters that would not benefit his self. We barely had time to escape onto the ship when the storm hit."
Elias stared at the man as the ice beneath the wood scratched the surface of the table ever so slightly. King Westerguard slammed his fist on the table with a snarl crossing his lips.
"Damned savages!" he growled. "Of course they'd only seek for their own personal gain."
Ingvar barely nodded, glancing over at the young king with a furrowed brow. Elias rested his palms on the table with a stony expression.
"Thank you Ferdinand." Elias said. "You've risked more for me than I could ever ask."
Ferdinand winced, nodding earnestly as he turned on his heel towards the door. The two men from the Southern Isles wearily glanced at their king, receiving a dismissive wave from him as they moved towards the door as well. Ferdinand's fingers brushed along the lock of the door when Elias rose from his chair.
"Ferdinand." The man froze, shivering as he looked back at his king. A stray lock of ivory fell over Elias's eye, but he didn't stop to brush it from his face and asked, "Were there by chance any stowaways on board?"
Ferdinand's lips twisted in thought until he shook his head. The color drained from Elias's face as he sank back into his chair. "Oh." Ferdinand's stomach wrenched tightly at the vacant look in Elias's eyes until he waved his hand. "Thank you Ferdinand. Please go rest."
The man quickly scurried out of the room with the two men in tow, shutting the door behind them loudly. Elias buried his face in his hands as King Westerguard leaned back in his chair.
"I knew they couldn't be trusted," he spat fiercely. "The nerve of them! Insulting the legion of the seven kingdoms and killing my men!"
"Not to mention leaving us open to the Draugen," Ingvar said. He looked over at Elias. "My king, what are our other options?"
"That was our other option," Elias groaned into his hands.
"Your highness," King Westerguard gasped, "surely you have another plan…"
Elias snapped his head up from his palms and glared at the other king. "Don't you think I would have said it already?" His fingers found themselves massaging his temples roughly. "The sanity of our legion and kingdoms lied in unifying it with our estranged neighbor."
"Aside from the legion then?"
"Of course." Ingvar cut in. "The seven of us will pool together our resources and be on bay to safe guard each of our kingdoms. If one of us is attacked, then we all attack. We're also gathering more information on the Draguen through secret intelligence as well."
King Westerguard hummed, rubbing his chin as the information sank in. "Then what will we do about the 'sanity' of the legion?"
"They'll be informed of this of course," Ingvar proclaimed, "as soon as we settle…"
"No." King Westerguard and Ingvar stared at Elias quizzically. "We tell the people now."
King Westerguard's breath caught at the back of his throat as he spluttered, "And tell them what? That we're declaring war with…invisibles?" He last word left a bitter taste in the king's mouth.
"And if we don't," Elias said, his eyes steely, "who's to stop a loose mouth from spreading petty gossip that will spiral out of control and cause more uprising than the actual threat? You've heard the whispers yourself in your own kingdom Westerguard—they've seen proof of the Draugen with their own eyes before we did." Elias sighed, holding the side of his head. "The sooner we tell them their fears are real, the sooner we can mold that realization into a shield."
King Westerguard opened his mouth to retaliate only to close it again. His fists tightened, his knuckles growing ashen as they popped under his skin. Despite the list of disagreements on the tip of his tongue, he knew—deep in his core that was wrenching at the thought—that Elias was right. He swallowed thickly, coughing roughly at the dry patches growing at the back of his throat.
"Alright then," he murmured wheezy. "I'll have my men report back to the Southern kingdoms immediately."
"And I'll inform the west and the east." Ingvar said, rising from his chair. King Westerguard walked towards the doors of the war room with the former king regent at his heels. Just before Ingvar stepped out, he glanced back at Elias. "I trust the announcement is in your hands."
Elias nodded grimly as he stared at the ice crinkling up through the table's surface. White-gray splintered through the oak wood, sending an earsplitting crack to echo throughout the room. Elias let out a resigned sigh and rose from the table. Moving towards the door, he whisked his hand behind him where the ice instantly melted into the torn table.
"Remind me to replace that." Elias mumbled.
The corners of Ingvar's lips twisted into a tight frown.
"Elias." Elias stopped in his tracks. Ingvar reached out and rested a hand on the younger's shoulder, trailing it down to his bicep that he rubbed tenderly. "Don't let your emotions get in the way of your decisions."
Elias snorted mockingly, "Have you met me?"
"Yes." Ingvar's brows knitted together. Leaning close behind him, his breath tickled the shell of Elias's ear. "But that was when you had him locked up in a pretty little safe of a castle."
Elias whipped around towards Ingvar who greeted him with a flat smirk. The young king flushed, brushing the stray lock back into place and crossed his arms. Ingvar shook his head, saying, "Don't let this little stunt of his threaten your good judgment."
Ingvar walked past him as Elias caught his self and replied firmly, "He didn't run away. He wouldn't."
Ingvar stopped mid-step and glanced back at Elias; the young king's eyes lit with an icy flare rarely shown in the daylight with a firm glare burning its way through him. To think that I almost snuffed that out of him, he silently chuckled. The former king regent smirked somberly at Elias.
"Of course," Ingvar mused, "because leaving in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye in a state of crisis isn't running away." Elias's stern mask fell, clinging onto the edge of the table as his knees gave way. The words stung the hollow of his chest while Ingvar spat bitterly, "Right Elias?"
The door slammed shut, accenting the words prying the bars off the cellar of memories buried deep in Elias's mind. He swallowed heavily around the knot in his throat. Elias's fists curled and uncurled, murmuring, "He wouldn't run away."
Something in Elias forced him to his feet, be it the ice in him or his duties lulling him out towards the hall. He ran a hand through his hair and reached the door. His fingers curled around the metal that trembled underneath the coldness in his touch as his eyes narrowed. The door slammed behind him, shaking on its hinges from the force that left a crack zig-zagging down the white wood. He stalked down the empty hall with a lone thought gnawing at the back of his mind. Every whisper—every sly glance—thrown at his brother festered through Elias's memories as he growled to the ghosts in the hall, "He wouldn't run away."
Not like that man.
"Odell! Odell! Stop dazing out and bring that crate up now!"
"Oh give 'er a break Otto." A man pestered, scratching at his knobby chin. He rested his cheek on his fist, drawling, "The girl's not as stout as she used to be."
Otto grumbled tiredly, tapping his fingers on top of the small bar. He glowered at the shadows casted along the walls of the tavern. Voices bickered and plumed, chortling about news and gossip that churned within the Wall. Otto bit the inside of his cheek as he barked down at the cellar, "Odell!"
A heavy thump greeted his ears. The back of a brown dress poked up from the dimly lit cellar as the girl heaved upwards. Sweat beaded down the girl's brow as she slowly inched her way up the stairs and behind the bar, a large barrel meeting her waist following after. With a grunt the barrel clattered onto the floor as the girl keened over it, wheezing for stale air that made her nose and lungs cringe.
"Atta girl!" The man behind the bar cheered. "You see Otto. You got to give women time to come out on top."
A flushed pink spread down her face and neck, her aqua, blue eyes glowering at the floorboards as she wretched herself straight up. She tilted her face over at the man with a faint smile while Otto hauled the barrel to the back of the tavern. The man's eyes lit up.
"Is that what I think it is?" he gaped.
"Yep," Otto grunted, shoving the barrel into place. He returned with dust caking his sleeves.
The man licked his flaky lips. "I don't suppose you could let an old mate have a spare cup, hmm?"
"You can wait like the rest of us."
The man pouted as Otto slid him a glass of bubbling ale across the counter. He shot an eager glance at the panting girl and grinned. "It's been ages since you've made us a good batch. I'm looking forward to it."
The girl, finally having caught her breath, feigned a faint smile, murmuring softly, "I'll do my best."
She yelped unceremoniously as Otto roughly jerked her arm and dragged her her to the back of the tavern. She stumbled after the man into the pantry of the tavern.
"'I'll do my best,' really?"
The girl's brows furrowed, grumbling in a lower voice, "Well someone didn't tell me what she used to say."
Otto rolled his eyes and yanked a stool out from under the cupboards. Dust plummeted from the shelves, drifting a thick coat of dirt in the air. The girl hacked at the dust sneaking into her nose while Otto heaved a barrel out from one of the shelves. The barrel slammed onto the floor with a heavy thud.
"Your ingredients are in the cupboard over there," Otto said, pointing to the shelves across from them.
The girl squinted through the grimy dust flittering through the room. The man nodded his head at the shelves, lightly patting her arm to move forward. The girl stumbled over spare wood, brooms, and corks until she reached the shelves. An array of jars stretched out across the shelves, each holding thick estranged objects bobbing in peculiar liquid.
"Your jar's the fifth one to the right," Otto called.
The girl skimmed through the jars, ogling at the array shapes of the objects until she reached the fifth jar. She looked at the thick glass, squinting down at the contents resting at the bottom of the clear liquid. The girl tentatively tapped the jar, calling over her shoulder, "What is this exactly?"
"Mice."
The girl felt her heart drop. Piled at the bottom of the jar were tiny, pink frames that barely stretched over the masses they were; black beads of eyes veiled over by the skin that had yet to fully form. The girl jumped away from the jar and bit back a yelp.
"What am I supposed to do with…" she shuddered, realizing the infants long since drowned at the bottom of the jar, "mice?"
Otto sighed, jutting his finger to the barrel on the floor. "You drop 'em in the moonshine and let 'em sit."
"S-so," the girl stuttered, "he was asking for…" Otto nodded as she held the side of her head. The color drained from her face as she spluttered, "Why?"
"It's your delicacy." Otto shrugged.
"It would be, if someone told me how to make it." The girl snapped.
"Well Odell can figure it out on her own," Otto snapped back. He groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. He lowered his voice and muttered, "Get a grip boy or else someone will."
Otto thundered back to the front of the tavern, leaving Odell in the pantry. She plucked out the thick cork sealing the contents of the barrel, grumbling ever so quietly, "It's Andy."
The cork popped out of the barrel's seal and a sharp bitter scent greeted Andy's nose, causing him to stagger back. The bitterness wafted through the room while Andy went back to the cupboard. Holding the jar of mice at arm's length, Andy moved back to the barrel. The opened seal revealed a wide hole gaping into darkness. Andy's fingers twisted the lid of the jar off and tilted it over the opening.
The pink carcasses swished downward, toppling over the rim of the jar and splashed into the moonshine within the barrel. Andy's nose wrinkled at the sterile and bitter scents colliding with each heavy drop of the mice until the jar was empty. Setting the jar on the shelf, Andy quickly lodged the cork back into the barrel's opening and wiped his fingers down the dress; grimacing at the dark, greasy film glistening on the fabric.
"Odell! Grab me the goat's milk!"
Andy groaned and leaned over to the shelf on the left side of the pantry.
"Left is milk, left is milk," he murmured, squinting through thick dust coated bottles.
He lightly blew on the bottles—only to gasp as a twister of dust engulfed him. Andy hacked and wheezed in the cloud of dust. Tears stung the corners of his eyes as he swatted at the air and snatched a bottle from the shelf. Blinking away his tears, Andy wiped his sleeve on the bottle. As the dust cleared, Andy squinted down at the bottle and froze.
Glaring up at him in the dim, copper light of the pantry were glassy orbs stained with red webbing. A crown of dust littered the boy's matted brown hair that sloppily draped his cheeks. Andy tentatively toyed with the ends of his hair that now rested at the nape of his neck; he brought his hand away to stare at the mud crumbling in his fingers. Andy frowned at the dull reflection and sighed heavily.
"Odell!"
Andy groaned silently, quickly racing over the maze of forgotten tools and dirt on the floor towards the front of the tavern.
How long has it been, he pondered, tracing the outline of his reflection before cracking a sheepish smile to Otto, since I was Andy?
A/N: Thank you for reading, sorry if this chapter was shorter than usual. Let me know how its going so far and as always...warm hugs!
