mmm enjoy 8k words of Winslow trying his best and utterly failing. I haven't looked at this work in a while because of real life going on and whatnot, but I'm going to do Joveson for my NaNoWriMo project so hopefully I'll be able to finish it up by the time November's done. I hope you enjoy :)
I would also like to note the rating of T might change to M for safety, depending on where and what I end up writing.
Winslow, first son of King Jupiter the Great and eldest of the royal children, was sure he was going to die. Not much took him to think that, really, just the hawks attacking First Warren like their lives depended on it. A wall had caved in just outside the library, trapping the family inside. It felt claustrophobic.
It was clear all of them were trying to ignore the panic and stay calm for the sake of everyone else, like Lauren and Heidi playing a hand clapping game. It was unnerving. Pretending they weren't about to die.
Well, nearly all of them. There was Nathaniel. "We're going to die," he said slowly, shakily, warningly, opening a book. That seemed fair, dying while reading a book. But this specific situation didn't seem very fitting. Maybe he was trying to pretend everything was okay. Like all of them were.
"Where are the twins?" Regina demanded, tripping over a shivering Smalls. The second youngest of them all, Smalls was not taking the explosions happening outside very well. Again, fair. Regina glanced around the room, scanning for her pranksters-in-arms, and her face paled when she realized they weren't there.
Winslow tensed when he drew to the same conclusion. They had all been in the library, awaiting their father returning home in victory. The library was like the family refuge, away from stuffy lords and uptight servants who annoyed Winslow to the ends of the earth. It was the royal family's safe place.
It didn't feel very safe anymore. It felt a bit more like a prison than anything.
"Where'd you last see them?" Nathaniel asked in the silence that followed Regina's question. His voice was still shaking, and he had put down the book.
"I dunno," Regina said, scrubbing her face furiously to keep it free of tears. She sounded on the verge of crying.
"Um," Lana cleared her throat. "They're safe, I know it. Probably hanging out with the cooks right now."
Unless the cooks are dead.
He probably should not say that out loud, should he?
Winslow dared to glance outside the window. Right before his eyes, he could see a hawk tear at a bricked building, spraying broken bricks and dust everywhere. Even with the glass and the distance between him and the hawk, Winslow could still hear the blood curdling screech of victory.
Yes, he was going to die.
He wondered if his father was close on the invading forces' heels. He didn't dare think of the other option in such a bleak situation. It was a terrifying option, and the eldest prince slowly backed away from the window to get rid of that thought. It lingered, in the back of his mind.
"I don't think this is going to end well," Luke pronounced. Somehow, he had gotten to the top of the bookshelf, but was too terrified to get down. It showed in his eyes, that quivering fear. Jacen was halfway through joining him, awkwardly frozen a few feet in the air.
"Dad will be fine," Heidi said, breaking the rhythmic clapping. Lauren dropped her hands. "Right, Win?" she looked up to her brother with beseeching eyes, practically begging him to confirm that their father was alright and everything was fine.
He glanced outside the window again. Wolves poured into the streets, catching and killing, their teeth flashing either white or blood red in the dying sunlight. The streets were already littered with bodies, caught in the crossfire between the struggling reserve forces and the unstoppable army of wolves.
Winslow opened his mouth to respond. He was a decent enough liar. But his siblings weren't idiots.
There was a crack, and the royal children flinched as the door that had trapped them fell off its hinges, dust pouring into the room dramatically. Winslow squinted. Through the smoke and dust clouds, he could see vague rabbit shapes moving the rubble that had blocked them in. The smoke cleared, and there was one of their father's closest friends, Wilfred Longtreader.
He looked like he had crawled through hell, wrestled with the devil, and then crawled back alive. Dirt and blood caked his clothes. Winslow didn't know if it was his or someone else's. He hoped it was the latter.
"Lieutenant?" Whitbie ventured carefully, his voice sounding small in the shocked silence.
"You—" Wilfred seemed to fight down a gasp of pain. "Smalden—I need Smalden—" He nearly doubled down, grabbing his side, as Lana unfroze herself and gently picked up a still quivering Smalls and handed him over to Wilfred.
Winslow and Lana and Whitbie, the three eldest of the Jovesons, they knew all of a sudden. If Wilfred needed Smalden, the heir to Jupiter's throne, that meant the kingdom was falling. And it meant that Smalden needed to be safe.
At any costs.
Even their own lives.
Winslow cringed at the thought.
"What's going on?" Phoebe demanded. She didn't get her answer, because Wilfred grabbed Smalden's hand and tucked his sword away. Blood was fast spreading across his side, and he pressed a hand to his torso. He didn't have any free hands to use his sword, Winslow thought.
"I don't have time," Wilfred bit out. "I'll be back to get you—find your siblings—" It sounded like a weak promise, something to assure them all. Winslow chose to believe it. And then Wilfred was gone, as were the faceless companions he brought along with him.
Lana was first to move, peering down the hallway. "There's too much dust," she said. "I can't see anything that's going on."
Before anyone could stop her Regina was darting down the hallway, yelling over her shoulder that she was going to find the twins. She disappeared into the dust before Lana could grab her.
"Dad's dead, isn't he?"
And there went his peaceful silence. As peaceful as it could be. Right out the window. Winslow took a deep breath. The question was loud in Winslow's ears, like Lauren was intoning a curse of some sort.
Dad couldn't be dead. He couldn't. There was no way. He had left with the largest force ever made in rabbit history, and he was dead?
"That would be a correct assumption."
Everyone's heads turned to face Ambassador Garten Longtreader standing at the door, practically Jupiter's right hand man. Unlike his brother, Garten looked like he hadn't even fought today, perfectly dressed in every single way. It seemed wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, Winslow's head screamed at him.
"Ambassador? What's going on?" Phoebe was desperate for an answer now.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong—
"Where's the heir?" Garten asked simply.
"Gone," Fleck said, barely glancing up. Luke and Jacen made their way down from the bookshelf.
Garten's smile flickered slightly, giving way to a terrifying anger for just a few seconds. Long enough for Lana and Winslow to exchange fearful glances.
Wrongwrongwrong
"What's going on?" Phoebe pressed. "No one's telling us anything—"
Garten smiled disconcertingly, cutting the girl off from her tirade of questions. "Let's say there's been a change in authority."
For the record, whoever was keeping it, Winslow never liked Ambassador Longtreader.
.
.
.
Regina and the twins were nowhere to be found after the wolves and the traitorous rabbits in Garten's employ swept the palace. He was less than happy about that and the fact that Smalden and baby Emma were missing as well. Five royal children were gone, including the heir.
Winslow was glad.
If Regina and the twins were alive, and if Wilfred had made it out, then that meant they were safe. Right?
He just hoped that they decided to stay away forever.
There were wolves, wolves who came to separate the Jovesons. It was clear what the separation was. There were the Jovesons by blood, like Winslow or Lana, and there were the Jovesons by name, like Lauren or Luke. Winslow hoped he would see them again, but he didn't have very high hopes. Separation typically meant bad things.
The biological Jovesons were herded into an office. It was already stripped bare of the paintings and the tapestries, leaving cold stone wall instead. They were robbing the palace of everything that had made it a home. Winslow wondered if they would burn the books as well.
Garten, who accompanied them to the room to make sure none of them dashed away, appraised them all like they were particularly useless bits of trash.
Winslow wished he had a weapon so that he could stab Garten in the heart. Dad always carried one around, a knife buckled at his belt, and he always told his children that at one point, they might need one as well. Assassinations and all of that.
The fact that his father was dead had not sunk in completely yet. There was still a lingering hope that perhaps he had not died on the battlefield, but managed to crawl away to regroup with his Captains. Though, with the amount of traitors the palace was crawling with, Winslow felt his hopes sink lower and lower with every passing minute.
He hoped about a lot of things, but it didn't seem like it would work right now.
"Why'd you do it?" Whitbie asked. "Why'd you kill Dad?"
Garten's eyes fixated on Whitbie. The light cast an eerie glow on the buck. He didn't deign an answer, simply stared at the prince, as if daring him to continue. Whitbie didn't seem to catch the message.
"Why'd you betray us all?"
Winslow was torn between telling him to shut up, and agreeing with him. Why did the Ambassador betray them all, throwing their lives away for…what? Power? Probably.
Lana was the one who made him shut up. She grabbed his shoulders and hauled him backwards. Garten didn't even break eye contact. Whitbie seemed to get the message, and turned away, drawing his arms tighter.
Whitbie should've never talked. He couldn't bear to think about what would've happened if he had kept going. There were, after all, two giant, fierce wolves guarding the door. And the ambassador had a sword. That he knew how to use.
"At least you have a brain on you, girl," Garten told Lana. She scowled, turning her head away so he didn't see the angry expression on her face. He didn't turn away.
"You," he said, causing everyone to stop pretending like he wasn't there and that everything was fine. "Will be under the guardianship of Daggler, and you will obey him without question." He said it like it was a special thing, to be under the guardianship of whoever this guy was-
Lana looked pale.
"You will remain here until Morbin can find some use for you in his glorious cause," Garten said. "Or you can die. It's your choice, now."
They all glanced at each other. No one said anything. Winslow's heart hammered in his ribcage.
"Hm," Garten smiled. "I'll be back. I need to check on some things."
"We'll figure it out," Lana whispered to Winslow as soon as the door shut. There was the click of the lock. Of many locks.
.
.
.
They did not, in fact, figure it out.
"Can you stop pacing?" Winslow snapped to Whitbie, hands hovering over his ears. He was, they all were, in an exceptionally miserable, foul mood.
"We're all going to die," Fleck said, not helping at all.
Lana snorted. "Not unless Morbin can find some use for us in his glorious cause," her voice pitched higher in mockery of Garten.
Winslow gritted his teeth. "Thanks for that, Lana," he hissed out. "That makes everything feel better." That statement didn't sit right with him at all. What use would they be to Morbin? Most of them were children or teens. They wouldn't be useful in any situation at all.
"You're welcome," Lana said stiffly. She was stressed. She was especially prickly and sarcastic when things got hard. According to Mother, it was her way of dealing with emotions. It didn't very much seem like dealing with emotions, more like bottling them up and putting on a brave front.
Though Winslow wasn't someone to talk. He tended to do the same thing.
"Jace, stop clinging to me like a lost child," Lana snapped.
Jacen, very quickly, dropped her hand like it burnt him.
"Thank you," Lana sniffed.
Phoebe sighed miserably. There were traces of tears on her cheeks. They had been locked in here for who knew how long and Phoebe had been the only one who visibly reacted to everything in such an obvious way.
No one else had cried. Winslow wanted to cry, but he felt the overwhelming need to remain emotionless for his siblings. He knew Lana and Whit, the three of them, felt the same. The eldest could not cry, ever.
Whit was staring at the wall, done with his pacing now.
It was bleak.
Horribly bleak, and Winslow didn't have the strength in him to say anything comforting. None of them did. They were separated from half of their siblings, who could be dead for all they knew, and their father was dead.
Was their mother even alive? She had to be. Winslow grabbed that single hope that she was alive and clung onto it. He didn't know what he would do if he lost that strand of hope.
.
.
.
Night eventually fell. The fires outside did not die out, seemingly being fed by the dark legions of Morbin and his wolf allies. There was no more screaming. When Winslow peered outside the window, very cautiously, he could see rabbits huddled together in large crowds, guarded by wolves and overlooked by hawks. No one was in their houses, because all of those were either turned into rubble, still blazing with orange-gold fire, or were occupied by Garten's legions, celebrating their treacherous victory.
Nearly everyone had fallen asleep, splayed on the uncomfortable chairs or slumped against the walls, drawing tight into each other to keep warm. The cold seeped into the stone and into the individual, making it hard to fall asleep. Winslow wasn't even trying. He had started to fall asleep, but his brain began to conjure up horrible images of his father's dead body. And now he was just keeping his eyes open so he didn't have to see them again.
"Are you still awake?"
Winslow turned his eyes to Whitbie. "Yes, obviously," he managed to say, his voice coming out thick and not at all calm like he wanted to.
"I can't sleep."
"Neither can I."
"Well, let's just sit together then," Whitbie said, sitting crosslegged next to Winslow. "I don't think Lana's asleep either."
Winslow glanced over at Lana, curled up in a chair. She didn't look asleep. Her eyes were drawn to the window, and her finger absentmindedly traced shapes on the table.
"Yeah."
"Is Mom alright?" Whitbie didn't look right frowning. Mother always said Whitbie's face was made for smiling, which is why the frown looked so off for him.
"I don't know," Winslow said, resting his head on his arms. "She's not here."
"She went out to the garden an hour before the wall caved in. Do you think she escaped?"
Winslow swallowed, something pressing inside his throat. "I don't know, Whitbie," he said, after a long moment of deliberation.
"I hope she's safe."
I think she's dead, the pessimistic part of Winslow, who seemed to be rearing its head more often now, said. If she was outside when the attack came, she's most certainly dead. It was another horrible thought, but it was less painful.
Winslow had never been particularly close with his mother—or his father, for that matter. It made him feel even worse when he realized he wasn't actively mourning his parents. Did that mean he was happy they were gone? No—no—he clearly wasn't. So why wasn't he crying?
Did the knot in his chest, insufferably aching and painful, count as crying?
"Hey, Win," Whitbie waved his hand in front of his face.
"What?"
"I think we'll survive," Whitbie said decidedly.
"What makes you think that?" Winslow asked.
Whitbie smiled. "I just have a feeling, you know?"
Yes, Winslow was sure feelings would get them out of this. But he remained silent.
.
.
.
Phoebe was the first to leave.
"I'm being sent to Akolan," she told them in a quiet whisper, like she could get killed for even saying this.
And she very well could be. Daggler ruled with an iron fist, and the slightest word out of the line could result in…anything, really. He had eyes and ears everywhere. No one was safe from him.
Not even his own comrades, which was the one of the most disturbing part of it all.
"Why?" Lana whispered back.
Phoebe shrugged. "I don't know," she said honestly. She looked remarkably calm, not showing a single trace of fear on her face. "But I doubt it's anything good. I got told today."
"Obviously," Lana snapped, losing her comforting voice. She was even more highstrung than ever. Winslow wanted to tell her to stop swinging back and forth between moods like a pendulum. It was getting unpredictable.
(And sometimes Lana's anger scared him more than he was willing to admit.)
Phoebe only smiled. "Well," she said, patting Lana's head like she was the elder one instead of Lana. "I'll be fine. I'm smart at surviving."
"You don't drown once, and all of a sudden," Fleck muttered mockingly, more sullen for some reason. Winslow had a suspicion he and Phoebe had a shouting match.
Phoebe rolled her eyes. "Sure, Fleck," she said fondly.
She adjusted her satchel on her shoulder, and Winslow wished he had paid attention to how light it was, or to how much Phoebe trembled as she joined her escort to Akolan. Because otherwise, maybe he would've been able to wrangle a deal out of Daggler in exchange for Phoebe's life.
The last of Phoebe they ever saw was her waving them goodbye, her neck adorned with a scarlet kerchief, and something sparkling in her eyes. They were tears.
Phoebe was the first to leave.
.
.
.
Winslow would be king. A regent for Morbin.
And it felt strangely odd, like he had been expecting this for ages.
Why else would he still be alive?
The knot in his chest tightened every time he drew breath.
"Just stay quiet. And keep your head down. Listen to what they tell you to do," Captain Tim of the Black Band instructed him. Captain Tim wasn't nice but he wasn't overtly cruel, either, like his many bloodthirsty, criminal comrades.
Winslow was still going to do that.
Advice was advice.
Lana wasn't useful in this. She crossed her arms and scowled at him. "I can't get involved," she said. "We all have swords hovering over our heads. None of us can stick out our necks for the other."
It hurt Winslow a little more than he admitted on to.
More pressure to his chest.
But that wasn't the point, wasn't the problem at hand.
The point was he was supposed to look at his father's subjects and tell them to listen to the monsters who had enslaved them. And continue to do so, on the anniversary of his father's death, charmingly named Victory Day.
It was like Garten wanted him to be miserable. And he probably did.
Morbin worked with brutal efficiency. In a matter of months, Victory Day was established. There was Akolan, the beginnings of a slave city in the High Bleaks, where Phoebe had been taken off to. There was the Black Band exercising their control and flushing out the lingering cause who seemed to cause more trouble than they were worth.
On the matter of the cause, Winslow wished they would just leave.
He hated waking up to the scent of heavy ash and charcoal in the air, another just rebuilt building smoking and charred. They were reckless, desperate, throwing out their chances in exchange for mindless violence. It just made everything worse, because the cause had the numbers to fall back to, and the wolves and hawks needed to blame someone, so to the innocent folk they went!
Winslow couldn't do anything other than repeatedly tell everyone to just stop.
Not one causer listened, of course, because he was sure they all saw him as a disgusting traitor now.
If trying to stop meaningless deaths from destroying First Warren from the inside out meant he was a traitor, fine.
Deep down, he knew it wasn't as black and white as that.
.
.
.
"Luke?"
Winslow had not seen Luke in a long time. Or any of his adoptive siblings. The castle was split into two parts. He was supposed to stay on one side, and they were supposed to stay on the other.
His brother was perched on a seat. He looked terrible, eyes sunken in and dressed messily in a black shirt and pants—eerily like the Black Band's uniform, actually. He wore the same red kerchief that Winslow wore.
It was law now.
"Winslow!" Luke seemed to brighten a little, before sinking back into himself. His face was half-hidden by shadow. His eyebrows were drawn together, pinching his face in worry. "Um—I haven't seen you in a while."
Winslow absentmindedly pressed a hand to his chest, attempting to relieve the aching.
The tension in the castle soured between nearly everyone, the bonds between the siblings stretching and breaking under duress.
"Yeah," Winslow said dully. He couldn't muster any excitement about seeing his sibling again. The world felt drained from any type of joy at this point.
"I'm not supposed to be here," Luke jumped from his seat, hugging himself tightly. "But I had to see you."
Winslow flinched. "You can't break the rules," he hissed out, eyes darting around for any servants under Daggler's payroll. His days were spent dredged in paranoia.
"But I can," Luke insisted. "Tomorrow's Victory Day, and that means Daggler's busy right now, so I snuck away."
Tomorrow marked one year of Father being gone. That momentarily distracted Winslow.
"Wait—" Winslow took a deep breath, heart hammering in his ribs. "Daggler's watching you?"
Luke nodded. "He is. Has. He always has, I thought you knew that. I mean, everyone knows. He teaches me games," Luke brightened.
Winslow felt sick. "What games?"
Luke hesitated. "'M not supposed to say," he finally decided upon pronouncing to his older brother. "But sometimes they're not fun, and they get scary."
"Luke—"
"I have to go now!" Luke suddenly seemed scared; terrified, in fact. Like he'd seen a ghost. Or worse. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that," he muttered, backing away from Winslow and darting down the corridor.
Winslow needed to talk to someone. And fast.
.
.
.
"Didn't know you'd come down to see us commoners," Lauren said sarcastically when Winslow managed to escape later that day. She subtly slipped a slip of paper in between the pages of a cookbook, hiding it from him. Winslow pretended to not notice.
She looked similar to Luke—sunken eyes, a worried expression, dressed in black, but she looked happy to see him. Supposedly. Winslow couldn't read faces well. If she was pretending to be happy because she was being watched…
Then Winslow was screwed.
But he could deal with that later.
Lauren and Heidi were set to work in the kitchen, apparently. Heidi was away right now. Lauren gave Winslow a poor excuse that she was getting roots from the cellar right now, and seemed to be dawdling.
"What happened to Luke?"
Lauren inhaled sharply, caught off guard by such a question. Winslow almost didn't want to know why. "He went to see you?" she asked.
"Yes."
Lauren slammed the knife with a little too much force onto the cutting board. "I haven't seen Luke since a few days after Dad died," she finally confessed, wringing her hands in her apron.
"What?" Winslow breathed out.
"I don't know why," Lauren continued. "But he was taken away. Garten came 'round and took him personally. We get updates, letters Luke writes for us every other month, but other than that," she said, miming zipping her mouth shut. "Not a single word about him, and the last time someone asked—well, Nathan got hurt real bad."
Nathaniel. Was he alright?
She took a deep breath. "Not that'd you'd care, right?" she asked, throwing the chopped carrots into a pot. "You've been busy giving speeches and doing who knows what with the higher-ups, huh?"
"It's miserable," Winslow defended himself. "And I haven't seen anyone in ages."
"You don't know where the others are?" Lauren's shoulders sagged. "Thought I would ask you for an update on them. We aren't allowed to ask for them." She put the cutting board back down and crossed the kitchen space towards the bucket of icy cold water.
"I only saw Lana last month," Winslow said. "And we didn't talk. She was getting yelled at by a Lieutenant."
"Those lieutenants," Lauren snorted. "Tell me she was at least fighting back," she asked, rubbing the knife with a clean cloth.
"I don't know," Winslow returned. "She just looked really angry." An understatement. Lana had looked like she wanted to murder multiple people and then set something on fire to cool down.
"Of course," Lauren said, sliding some mushrooms into the soup.
She watched the soup simmer in the pot for a few seconds. "You might want to leave," she finally said, turning to face him again. "I don't know how well Heidi's going to take seeing you here."
Winslow left, but not before grabbing the slip of paper Lauren had tried to hide.
.
.
.
To All Those Fighting.
We Are Still Here.
These Horrors Cannot Continue.
It Will Not Be So In The Mended Wood.
Lauren was reading revolutionary pamphlets.
Didn't she know that would make things worse? For them all? For everyone in First Warren?! If people saw the Cause still fighting, then there would be even more deaths.
And of course, it would be Winslow's fault.
He needed the cause to leave. And leave now.
His chest hurt. The knot tightened.
.
.
.
Daggler was more than happy to oblige in Winslow's request to strengthen the attempts to get rid of the rebels.
It left Winslow feeling oddly sick. Aching.
But he ignored it.
It was for the best, he told himself. Less deaths. Less people getting blamed for the sins of the cause.
Until Victory Day.
The first Victory Day of many, Daggler promised. A sick celebration of their victory over Jupiter and a celebration of Morbin.
Garten was attending the one in Akolan, but he sent his regards. He would be there next year.
"The rabbits must pay for the crimes of the cause," Falcowit said, eerily echoing what Winslow had told himself just a few hours before. "They must pay in blood, as repayment for the blood you took from us."
50-something tiny children were rounded into the square, torn away from their parents by the Black Band. Winslow wondered if Captain Tim was among those stealing the children away.
The younglings looked horribly tiny from the balcony. Draped in blood red, their cries were loud in the terrified silence of the crowd. Not a single person protested as the hawks swooped down on Falcowit's screech.
And carried the children away.
Winslow found it difficult to tear his eyes away from the morbid sight.
The children's sobbing cut off as quick as it had started. He couldn't pinpoint when they died. Some of them didn't. Their voices simply caught in their throats as they were raced away to Akolan.
Someone yelled something, pointing up at the balcony. A defiant cry, a promise of vengeance, and a hawk doubled back and raked his claws where the buck was standing on an elevated platform, causing him to topple. He didn't get back up again.
The cobblestones were stained as red as the scarves they all wore.
Winslow was sure he had pointed to Winslow and yelled traitor.
.
.
.
"Fleck ran away."
"What?"
Lana crossed her arms. "You heard me, Winslow," she said impatiently. "Fleck ran away. Just last night. According to the guards, he slipped away in a gap of patrolling. Daggler's angry."
"Is this a warning?" Winslow tilted his head at his sister.
"It is," Lana scoffed. "Someone has to watch out for your neck."
"I thought we were supposed to keep to ourselves," Winslow couldn't resist saying. "Not stick out for each other."
Lana looked hurt.
Good.
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.
.
"I'm only allowed to see you for five minutes," Elizabeth announced.
"What? Are you leaving as well?" Winslow asked, shuffling the papers mindlessly. The Jovesons were shuffled around like a pack of cards.
Hell, even his cousin had been moved somewhere "safer".
"Yes," Elizabeth confirmed. Like Phoebe, she didn't seem sad or anything. But not scared. Never scared. Elizabeth was never scared. Not outwardly, anyways.
"Oh."
"To Akolan," Elizabeth said. "Apparently, they need school teachers."
Two years, and they already had enough children to create a school? That made sense. The Outer Warrens were growing less and less populated as the days went by, the population relocated to either Akolan or different slave camps.
But Elizabeth was too young to be a school teacher.
He didn't say that, though. "Good luck," he finally decided upon saying.
Elizabeth frowned. Clearly, she wished he had said a little more in support of her. "I'll miss you," she said.
"Yeah." Winslow returned the sentiment, of course, but the words caught in his throat. He couldn't force them out.
Elizabeth's face dropped. "Bye, Win," she said quietly.
Winslow didn't respond. He couldn't.
Goodbye.
He never saw Elizabeth after that.
.
.
.
Lauren was the next to make a break for it.
It was risky, with the Black Gap, given she tried to go out of First Warren. And dangerous, with the patrols, and right before Victory Day as well. Maybe she wanted to spend Victory Day in freedom.
It didn't matter to her what sort of punishment that would garner. How many younglings, Winslow wondered, would be added for their dark rituals? He hoped she watched.
This was her fault.
But Lauren leaving gave him an idea.
His mind was a muddled mess of loyalties, but he managed to garner one clear thought from it all: he needed his siblings out.
For many, many reasons, truly.
One, so Daggler never got the idea of adding them to the clumps of younglings being offered up. Two, so none of them were killed under the guise of getting taken away…or getting taken away in general. Three, so that they could convince the cause to get away and stop making things worse for him.
He just needed to time it well.
And make sure he didn't get associated with the escapes.
But it would make everything better, right?
It had to.
It had to fix at least something.
If he just pretended long enough, he could fool himself into believing he was a selfless person.
.
.
.
He met Jacen in the Hall of Paintings, as everyone in the palace called it. Though it wasn't very much a Hall of Paintings now, seeing as there were no paintings. All of them had been stripped away and burnt in a huge pyre, robbing the castle of all of its redeeming qualities.
"Lana's wrong," Jacen said when Winslow offered to help him. "We should be watching out for each other."
"Lana's talking to you?"
"When she can," Jacen said. "Haven't seen her in a while though. I'm starting to think she got relocated."
"And have you seen anyone else?"
Jacen rubbed his neck. "I've seen Heidi. Not Nathaniel. And no one's seen Luke in ages."
"Do you think Heidi and you could make it together?" Winslow asked forwardly.
His voice felt too loud, but he knew no one checked this hall anymore. There was no point in looking at an empty hallway, after all. This entire wing of the palace was practically deserted, due to everyone being moved around like they were in an elaborate chess board game.
And the dying. The executions for suspected dissenters. All done in the miserable lair that Daggler held. The palace reeked of death.
"Heidi hates teamwork," Jacen joked lightly. "But I can make it work. She wants to leave. It's obvious."
"Right."
"Have you seen Whit?" Jacen asked, fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve nervously. "Maybe I can take him."
Winslow froze. He hadn't seen Whitbie—in months, maybe. "I don't know," he finally decided upon staying. "I've been kept separate from everyone," he reminded Jacen.
Jacen nodded slowly. "Makes sense, and three's a bit risky anyways." He straightened himself, rolling his shoulders to relax. "I'll tell Heidi, and you—uh, what is the plan, anyways?"
"There's a gap in the guards switching," Winslow rattled off almost immediately. He had thought about this for a long time, covertly studying the wall plans whenever he could. "It's big enough for you two to get out—but you can't hesitate, and you can't dawdle. You run alongside the walls—there's drainage you can crawl through, and then you're free in the woods. I'd recommend bringing weapons, there's wolves roaming around."
Jacen blinked. "Wow," he whistled. "Makes me wonder why you haven't tried yet."
Winslow shrugged. Isn't it obvious why I can't leave? Instead, he focused on the gray wall in front of him.
"I guess I won't see you again after this," Jacen said, and it was admirable how he managed to keep his tone happy, like Elizabeth had. Except he wasn't—probably wasn't, anyways—walking straight into a death trap. "Thank you, Win."
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A servant had overheard them all.
A servant under Daggler's charge.
She stared at Winslow, and Winslow stared back.
If she didn't report it, she would get killed or tortured in brutal ways.
But if she did, Winslow and Jacen and Heidi and who knows how many more would get killed.
But Winslow couldn't kill her.
They were at an impasse.
"I won't report you," the servant finally offered, her voice high-pitched in panic. Like her offer sweetened the ordeal. Winslow's words dried up in his throat. Jacen didn't know. Maybe he could double back and get to him, inform him of the danger of Daggler knowing—
But he kept staring, locked into place.
If he said no, she could report him for insubordination.
She could do anything, just to save her own skin, save her family if she had one from an unimaginable punishment.
And Winslow couldn't blame her.
Because that was what he was going to do.
He let her go.
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Four years.
He never found out if Jacen and Heidi died. Not for a long time.
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Five years.
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Six years.
Nathaniel made a grand exit, killing two guards. It was sudden, no warning, not even hints of Nathaniel preparing to leave. Apparently he had just grabbed a weapon while walking down the courtyard and made a mad dash for it.
Nathaniel was a rule-follower. He didn't have the same tendency to question things.
But he ran anyways.
Right before Victory Day. That was becoming an annoying pattern.
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Seven years. Eight. Nine.
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Ten years.
Whitbie was going to die.
Treason, Daggler's right hand reported in a monotone, practiced voice. Winslow didn't want to know. His brother, though lacking in confrontations with him for the past eight years, always seemed to be on the bad side of Daggler and of Winslow. Like he was purposefully trying to goad them all.
Whitbie crawled out by himself, dragging himself from the claws of death, and left miraculously. Went somewhere to nurse his wounds and return to full health. Winslow knew that would be the last they ever saw of him.
Winslow pretended not to care. It was easier this time, not caring. Easier to pretend that Whitbie was just another faceless rabbit making a desperate break for freedom.
He could pretend Whitbie never existed. It was better.
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.
"You need to leave," Winslow told Lana, barely glancing up when she finally huffed out an impatient and angry sigh. He needed to get everyone out but himself, because then his plan from who knew how many years ago would be finished.
That plan had made things worse, but Winslow wanted to see it finished.
She glared at him, even though she had been the one to walk into the room and stare at him for awhile, trying to goad him into speaking. "The puppet king speaks," she said bitingly. "And I'm not leaving."
"Why not?" Winslow asked. "You hate me." You should.
"Of course I hate you," Lana threw out a hand to gesture all around her. "Look what you're doing! Stop fooling yourself into believing you're doing something right."
"So why are you staying?"
Lana pursed her lips. "Because I can't leave you," she finally said.
"That's very contradictory."
Lana groaned in exasperation. "You don't understand," she said harshly, dragging out the sentence for emphasis. "Nearly everyone—actually, no, everyone is gone—we don't even know if Luke is alive. I can't leave you here, as much as I hate your guts. You're my brother—"
Winslow stiffened. "You've been acting like that, haven't you?" he muttered bitterly, pettily. Lana stared at him, hands dropping helplessly to her sides.
"You're—you're truly pathetic, you know that?" she whispered out, the words jagged and pointed because they were true.
Winslow just wanted her to leave.
"And paranoid," Lana pressed on. "And delusional, and a traitor, and Father would never be proud of you-"
"Get out, now." It was louder than Winslow intended, but Lana stopped her tirade, mouth still open and hands shaking.
"Fine," she spat out finally.
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Eleven years. Or was it twelve? Winslow had long since lost count.
An explosion rocked First Warren.
Winslow wanted to pretend it never existed, but Daggler yelling at his subordinates to start doing a thorough search for causers told him otherwise. The causers they had spent so long routing out were back, and they would bring death and ruin to them all.
And Falcowit was angry.
Children would die tonight. So many of them would, all because some causers decided now would be a brilliant day to blow up half a wall.
Winslow could only thank his stars that Ambassador Longtreader was away in Akolan.
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Twelve years, nearly thirteen.
And only now did Whitbie decide to show his face.
He never did find out what Daggler did to Whitbie that day. Well, the extensive, cruel scarring on his face was answer enough.
Then there was the boy. And his master. They were familiar, because the boy looked too much like Ambassador Longtreader to not be related to him and Winslow was sure the old buck was Lord Captain Helmer.
He could be wrong though.
He hoped he was wrong.
Because if it was well and truly Lord Captain Helmer, everyone was screwed. Everything would go wrong.
Everything. All of it would come crashing down miserably.
"Do you swear allegiance to Morbin?" Daggler asked sharply, not even bothering to wait until Whitbie had finished saying his piece.
"I'm speaking to another member of the royal family, Daggler," Whitbie said sharply, in a way that he wouldn't have said years ago. Winslow wondered if this was a new development. "I will address you when I'm ready-if I so wish." Yes, a new development. Daggler would've killed him right then and there if Whitbie wasn't backed up by Probably-Lord-Captain-Helmer and Longtreader-Number-Two.
"You come back this day?" Winslow ground out finally. Victory Day was truly cursed for his family. "Of all days, you choose this one?" Surely Whitbie knew what sort of...reputation Victory Day had amongst the Jovesons. Unless he was an idiot, which Winslow strongly believed he was.
"Do I still have your safe conduct?" Whitbie insisted, fixating on that one point of conversation. "And that of my companions? I only brought two, as per the terms."
"Yes," Winslow said, agitated. "Daggler, please sit down."
Daggler did so, which was a little surprising, and began whispering to his very creepy lieutenant, who Winslow thought he knew from somewhere. He couldn't focus on that right now, however.
"Thank you, brother, Lord Governor of Morbin's Second City of Slaves," Whitbie bowed sarcastically.
Winslow resisted the very strong urge to throttle him. "So you come here, a disgraced failure, accompanied by almost a child and an old cripple, by the looks of it. Though the cripple looks familiar." If Whitbie could throw out insults, so could he. He had quite a few stewing in his head for years and years. "What does it mean, Whitbie? Do you turn yourself in and beg for my mercy? You're right to. The resistance is so pathetically small now, and it's reach grows shorter every single day. What can you mean by coming here?"
Just leave. I can't protect you anymore.
Whitbie's eye twitched. "I am the second son of Jupiter the Great, killed this day years ago, by your master, Morbin Slaver. Our youngest brother and the first rightful heir, young Smalden, died fighting for Father's cause. Did you know this?"
Oh, so he was dead.
It didn't hurt anymore, hearing about people dying. It stopped hurting for a long time.
"And so the rebellion outside is dashed to pieces and that little upstart is silenced forever," Winslow muttered bitterly. The cause had done nothing to help. "I call that good. I am the oldest."
"Our father was not the oldest brother," Whitbie said, and Winslow resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He knew that. "You had a chance to be better than Uncle Bleston and accept the decision Father made. But you were only too eager to assume a hollow throne and accept a false crown."
You don't know anything about what happened. Because Whitbie didn't. He hadn't paid attention, he had assumed things about Winslow and Lana and everyone in the palace. Or, that was what Winslow was operating under.
"The bearer of the Green Ember is dead," Winslow retorted, "and so I am right to rule, by all accounts. It is settled. No more troubles. Rabbitkind can unite behind Ambassador Longtreader's outlook for a new world based on peace and prosperity for all." He sounded robotic in his own ears. "But why are you here?" Repeating the same thing over and over and over, a Joveson always gets in trouble on Victory Day. It was like fate.
'You are wrong," Whitbie said. "There is an heir. Peace with Morbin is slavery and degradation for rabbits."
"My patience is at an end, my sad little brother," Winslow said. Whitbie truly needed to stop dodging the question. "I say again, and for the last time, why are you here?"
Whitbie looked even more annoyed now, that he didn't get to go on a spiel and vent out frustration at Winslow. "I will trouble you no further. We will share our message, and I invite the Lord Captain of Her Royal Highness's Arm to bring it." Two things: a) Winslow was right, it was Lord Captain Helmer, because no other Lord Captains had survived to his knowledge, and b) which sister was leading the army? If it was Lana-
Definitely-Lord-Captain-Helmer reached into his cloak, and Winslow tensed.
Definitely-Lord-Captain-Helmer whipped out a scroll and began reading. "So Says Princess Emma, heir of all Natalia and rightful bearer of the Green Ember," Helmer began. "To the usurper's marionette, Winslow the Coward, greetings. You were once my elder brother, but I disown you. I disinherit you and will soon turn you out of the palace you have stolen."
Emma was alive and was heir now.
That made complete and utter sense, Winslow thought sarcastically, because he deserved to think a few sarcastic thoughts from time to time. Helmer raised his eyes and made eye contact with Winslow.
"Your time for pretended rule is at an end. Your savage policies are overturned. When the sun sets tonight, I will have made an end of your intrigues with our enemies, and rule shall be returned to its rightful place in rabbitkind. You are warned, therefore. Fly before my wrath, Winslow Coward. Or stay and face it, I beg. But know this. The reckoning that has long haunted your steps will this day overtake you and strike the pretended crown from your head."
Winslow was reminded of Jacen, and how often he felt like the ghost of his brother was haunting him.
"So says my princess, and my message is ended." He made a curt bow.
"What are you at?" Winslow said. Oh, well, he knew. He knew the cause would repeat the horrible pattern of Victory Day. "Is this a jest, Whitbie?"
"I assure you, it is not," Longtreader-Number-Two said coldly.
"That part is not in the letter," Helmer added. "You and I will meet this day, and you will never see another sunrise," Helmer said to Daggler, pointing at him.
"I will hang you by the feet and beat the life from you-" Daggler said furiously, and Winslow was just about at the end of his line.
"Stop, Daggler," Winslow snapped, before the buck could say anything more uncouth. "My brother has safe conduct here for himself and his guests. But I ask you now," he said to Whitbie, "to leave my house this instant."
The two brothers held eye contact for the briefest of seconds, almost as if Whitbie was asking things Winslow didn't want to answer, before Whit nodded and then turned away, followed by his two companions.
Victory Day was truly a cursed day.
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"Are you sure you can handle that?" Winslow asked, barely fazed at the knife pointed to his throat. He had had a lot of knives pointed at his throat. Truly, the Black Band had the shortest tempers on the planet.
Whitbie blinked. "What?"
"The knife," Winslow gestured towards it, and Whitbie tensed.
"I can handle it just fine," Whitbie finally said sharply. It was clear in his tone he was trying to communicate Winslow wasn't in a place to negotiate or even speak.
There was a silence, and Winslow stared out at the explosions shattering the home he had grown up in. Again. It felt achingly familiar.
He said so. "Isn't this familiar?" he asked calmly. Why was he so calm? He always expected this day, no matter how hard he tried to stop it. He knew it would come. It was always nagging at the back of his mind. But he was calm.
"No, not really," Whitbie said shortly. "Because last time I wasn't holding a knife to your throat, our siblings weren't dead, and you weren't a traitor."
The words don't hurt.
"Our siblings aren't dead," Winslow said. "At least, if they are, I didn't have anything to do with them."
Whitbie's words are drowned out by another explosion and yells.
"What does that even mean?" Whitbie snapped again.
"Well, if our siblings are dead, I didn't have anything to do with it," Winslow repeated, as honestly as he could. Jacen sprung to mind. He doesn't think about Jacen.
Whitbie scowls, gaze whipping to gaze out at the battlefield.
There is a beat of silence.
"You're right," Whitbie said. "It does look familiar."