Chapter Five
Cain had a dream last night.
It was a dark dream, full of shadows and whispers.
He was outside of the dream. Watching as the whispers turned into screams and the shadows turned into cold, bloodless faces. He felt as if he knew the faces in his beating heart as if he owed them something. But he said nothing, turning away.
Cain woke up.
He didn't feel anything, not a rush of fear or a tear in his eye. It was how he had always been. He hardly ever cried as a child. Nor did he dream. He never felt the tugging feeling in his heart to act differently than what his mother and father wanted of him. It was how he was designed to be.
Cain tasted metal in his mouth.
He stopped gnawing at his cheek and felt a faint sting. When he was younger, he wondered what blood felt like. When he asked his elder sister, she sneered and offered to cut him with the silver dagger that Uncle Marnin had gifted her from his days fighting in Paloma for the kingdom. Two weeks later, he had cut himself on the blade when Kitra had abandoned it after she had received the news about Uncle Marnin's death in Sumner.
"Cain."
He shifted his vision from the canopy of his bed to the sight of his elder sister in the doorway.
"Cain, get up." Kitra ruffled out the pastel blue gown she was wearing, likely a new creation since they rarely wore formal clothing. "And wear the new suit that Grégoire made for you today. Mother is insisting that we all go formal this week as practice for the Selection." She rolled her eyes. "And I have no idea how we're going to afford six new dresses for each Selected girl when we can barely afford food for ourselves. Mother is crazy," she added as a sarcastic afterthought.
Cain didn't comment on his sister's remarks, knowing better than to agree or disagree with Kitra. "Is that it?" He asked, aware that his sister didn't like to talk to him unless sent or forced.
Kitra, who had just been about to leave, sighed and turned back around. "Yeah, well, mother is about to go insane on a servant unless someone tempers her. And we both know that person is not me. Since you're the favourite child, it's your job to deal with this stuff."
"Really?" Cain rose an eyebrow. "Which of your boyfriends is it this time that mother caught you with?"
Kitra narrowed her eyes at him.
"Aren't you cheeky for someone who just woke up?"
Cain shrugged without saying anything, pulling his duvet off the lower half of his body and stepping out of bed. He glanced back at his sister, who had not left the room. Her eyes were focused on the corner of his mouth with a face of disgust.
"Is that blood?" Her sight switched to his eyes and she scoffed. "You're disgusting. Clean up and come downstairs."
Cain lifted a finger to the corner of his mouth and watched as Kitra left the room, slamming the stone door behind her. Blood is disgusting, he repeated to himself in thought. His hand dropped down to his side. His fingers ran over the skin on his hand, gently touching the thin, white scar on his palm from thirteen years ago.
As the youngest Prime Minister and only the third woman in the history of her country to serve in the position, Gabrielle Khanna of the Northern Commonwealth was fully aware of her responsibilities. Early in her political career, she had been criticized for her youth, gender, and inexperience with war, as she had been born in the first generation of Northerners that had not been forced into participating in the war. The Commonwealth was greatly advanced in developing technology and eliminating poverty and hunger, but behind in the equality of the sexes.
Gabrielle was forty-one years old when she was elected to the position of Prime Minister, and two years later was in the second year of her eight-year term. She came from a typical Northern family—she and her wife of eleven years Gisèle had two children Alexandre and Édouard. She herself was a descendant of a war refugee from the kingdom; her grandmother Leonora. Gabrielle was a fresh face focused on developing the Commonwealth's budding culture and technology centres, not on the war hundreds of miles away. But, in the Northern Commonwealth's absence, there was another foreign country making its moves in the war.
"Please, Prime Minister Ramírez, this will violate the peace treaty that has been set up with the kingdom," begged Gabrielle. She did not want to, but Prime Minister Julieta Ramírez of the Southern Democratic Republic was being a real marde of an ally.
"I have consulted with my Ministers and I have made my decision, Prime Minister Khanna," Julieta said with her famous iron tone. When Gabrielle was first entering the world of politics, she greatly looked up to the S.D.R war hero and survivor Prime Minister Julieta Ramírez. But, as they say, never meet your heroes. Now Julieta was being a real pain for her. "I have made my final decision."
"Please, Prime Minister Ramírez, there are other ways," Gabrielle insisted, doing her best to urge away the intimidating seventy-six-year-old leader from her plan through the screen.
"Prime Minister Khanna," Julieta began sternly, "you are young and new to this type of war. My parents, siblings, husband, and children were killed by Scarlet bombs—bombs that your country invented and supplied."
"Prime Minister—"
"No." Julieta silenced her with a glare. "You do not understand the stakes. My Minister of War and I have great reason to believe that Scarlets are currently targeting my people at the border, which is something that I cannot stand for. I cannot simply sit while my people die. No one can act neutrally in this war anymore. To act neutral is to give into the enemy. Prime Minister Khanna, as the leader of your country, you have the obligation to fight for your citizens and do what you believe is best for them. But neutrality will not put you on the right side in this war. We must fight and finish this war once and for all."
"There has to be a more diplomatic way than sending state-sponsored soldiers into war!"
"And what might you suggest?" Julieta asked, raising a grey eyebrow.
Gabrielle paused and held her breath. She diverted her face from the screen camera and mouthed the words "the letter, now" to her assistant Aiméry. He responded quickly with a nod and pulled out a folder of correspondence, fished through the papers to find the transcript they were looking for. After a few painfully long seconds, he found the letter and handed it to her with a nod. Gabrielle nodded in thanks and cleared her throat.
"Prime Minister Ramírez," Gabrielle began, making her voice as strong as possible and looking Julieta in the eyes. "I'm sure that you have received this letter from Katriel." She held up the letter she had received from the foreign Queen to the camera; careful not to mention Katriel's official title for the sake of keeping Julieta on her side.
"The letter?" Julieta eyed the paper. "It sounded more like a demand to me."
"I think it would be a good chance for diplomatic relations," Gabrielle offered, "it would be good to have an influence in the kingdom. Especially on the country's future leaders." Something flashed through Julieta's dark blue eyes that Gabrielle couldn't quite pinpoint.
"It's a dangerous motion," Julieta critiqued. "How will we be able to determine and ensure the safety of our diplomats? We don't even know the current location of the Royal family."
Gabriele spared a few seconds for thought. "We can send teams to accompany our diplomats, as well as a few gifts of money and food to prove our peace."
"This could be seen as siding with the kingdom instead of being neutral," Julieta pointed out, "as well as acting submissive to the former rulers of both our countries." She knew what Julieta was thinking, that soothing people over with gifts and money were a classic, submissive Northern traits. But history proved that the tactic often worked.
"There have been rumours," she reminded the older politician, "that the kingdom is going bankrupt. The least we can do for their people, our former fellow citizens, is provide them with some relief as the inevitable result of the war takes its place. If we want them to cooperate, we have to show them that we are willing to cooperate as well."
"War Minister Ilia Velez will not be so willing to cooperate," Julieta reminded Gabrielle, referencing the notoriously blunt and harsh United Republic Army Minister. "Especially with Katriel's comment about the Sota territory."
At least I'm finally getting through to her, thought Gabrielle as she bit the bullet. "We can send a message to Prime Minister Asa Emem since he tends to be the more empathetic one," she added, although Julieta still looked unconvinced. So Gabrielle swallowed and said, "we don't need to communicate with War Minister Velez directly. She is not in charge of dictating relations between countries; that's the Foreign Relations Minister's job. Not her's."
Julieta looked at her sternly and unbreakingly through the screen, and Gabrielle did not back down. "Very well," she conceded after a long pause passed, "we will each send one diplomat along with a team of a dozen soldiers, cooks, artisans, and gifts as a show of our peace and for the protection of our diplomat. As a gift, I will allow temporary produce trade between the S.D.R and the kingdom."
"And for the Commonwealth's gift," Gabrielle continued, thinking quickly, "we shall provide examples of Northern technology to the Royals."
"In addition," Julieta added strongly, "the kingdom must allow the S.D.R to enforce the boundary and trade between our two countries. As well as control the soldiers—Scarlet and Southern—who are in charge."
"In doing so, you will halt your proposal to allow soldiers to legally enter the United Republic Army?" Gabrielle inquired to confirm their agreement.
"For now," agreed Julieta with a note of cautiousness, which quickly turned into something more serious. "But if I hear of a single attack on my people from the Scarlets, I will not hesitate to retaliate," she said fiercely.
"And I, the same," Gabrielle admitted with only a hint of satisfaction.
"This cannot be the correct letter," shouted the Queen at the quivering servant girl. "This must be a forgery! There is no way that woman would think that I'd so willingly give up the border to her, that—"
The unlocked doors to the Queen's study burst open and in walked the Prince and Princess. "He's here," proclaimed Kitra boredly. She left her brother's side to lazily slump in her favourite velvet armchair next to an old globe.
"Don't sit like that," seethed Katriel to her daughter.
Kitra huffed but complied and sat up, then mumbled, "looks like someone didn't take their mood stabilizers this morning."
Whether her mother heard her or not didn't matter because Katriel's eyes were both focused on her son, whose simple presence seemed to relax her immediately. "Cain," she said in a miraculously calm tone, "you know your Selection is coming up in less than a month."
"Yes, mother." He bowed his head, being ever such a dutiful son. "Why do you ask?"
"I have recently received a letter signed by both the leaders of the Northern Commonwealth and the S.D.R—"
Kitra tuned out her mother and brother, choosing to make eye contact with the terrified servant girl by her mother's side and subtly waving the girl to her. The girl noticed immediately and came over, bending down as Kitra gestured.
"Go get the Queen's mood stabilizers," she told the girl, adding very specific instructions. "They should be in blue pill bottle on the third shelf that's left of the door to her washroom in her suite. Be subtle. Don't remind the Queen that she forgot them this morning."
The girl nodded at the instructions. "Thank you," she whispered before silently leaving. Kitra looked at her confusedly, not sure if the servant was thanking her out of obligation or true emotion.
"—that's why I think it would benefit our country to have the Northern Commonwealth and the S.D.R on our side. The S.D.R agreed to open up trading again, which means we won't have to worry about Hayte's Disease as much as we do now. We can let them control the border for now, but we can still have our soldiers there to make sure nothing has changed. It's the choice we have to make for the good of the country," Cain finished, presenting his argument is a calm, collected tone to their mother.
Wait. His argument?
Kitra had to hold back an angry gasp. How dare he! That was her idea! She'd let it slide the first time when mother used her suggestion—originally to Cain—of inviting diplomatic Selected from the Northern Commonwealth and the S.D.R. But now. To use her own argument about supplies and her "for the good of the country!" argument. Kitra had no idea why their mother trusted him. Cain was a complete liar.
Katriel sighed and smiled at her son. "If only Kitra was more like you, Cain. What a wonderful family we would be."
"Mother—"
"Quiet, Kitra."
"But—"
"Be quiet. I'm listening to your brother's fantastic proposal."
Kitra couldn't hide her shock. Cain refused to look anywhere in her direction, only looking at their mother with the faintest smile. That little…
"You know what?" Kitra threw her hands up in anger and slapped them back now on the armrests of the chair. "I'm leaving. I can't be around you two."
"Wait, Kitra," her mother commanded.
"Yes?" She turned around impatiently.
"Tell the servant girl who just left to find my medicine, I didn't take my pills this morning."
Kitra wanted to break something.
"Fine." She turned back around and reached for the doorknob, which was her key to freedom.
"And Kitra."
The girl spoke to turned around once again, fury in her eyes "What, mother?" she snapped.
"You look fat in that dress, go change into something else."
Kitra's upper lip twitched. "Fine."
Hello everyone! Sorry for being absent for two weeks, I was out of the country and spending a lot of time with family so I didn't have much time for writing (but at least the netherlands are cooler than canada, lol). Also, I'm going to do a quick little Q&A!
PhoenixBird8: I admit, I have a very rough updating schedule that I made out of my own procrastination. I try to update between Friday-Sunday at around nine pm pacific standard time so when everyone else in the world wakes up, there's an update. I hope that helps and thank you for your review!
GreenWithAwesome: I'm a bit Romanian so the name Ioan is after a cousin of mine. Because there are so many variants it can sound like, it's a little confusing (especially to me since I don't have the accent), but we pronounce it like roughly like "ee-wahn". It does sound a little like "owen" so feel free to keep reading it that way if it's easier!