Neleci
I’m aggravated over Malandore’s intense paranoia. Humans in their realm are now more suspicious than other races visiting. Pegasi, dragon, ecthore can enter Malandore’s gates without question. The gates will open before they even reach it. Humans, however, must show constricting loyalty identification and answer questions. And that’s for humans coming in.
It’s worse for humans getting out.
Thoraus labeled everything as suspicious: hunting outside the walls, visiting the cemetery; general traveling gets the offender reported to the rangers who send a spy falkon to make sure you’re not headed toward any Unconquered Camps. Impossible to sneak out, since the wood, spike-topped walls reach twenty feet and leave no gaps large enough for squirrels to slither through.
I stole a spade from the gardening shed on the castle grounds. The spring dirt will be hard to chisel a hole big enough under Malandore’s wall for me to crawl under, but my determination to return to camp overpowers the difficult task of getting there. Between Mother and Cohthel, they won’t allow me to go beyond the castle walls. I’m allowed only in the castle garden — also surrounded by a wall. They warned the general public will kill me on sight if they see me, which is false. I know, from Thaen’s recruiting reports, that many humans sympathize with the Unconquered, even recognizing us as the Unconquered and not the slang of “Nightmares” the Kingdom branded us; a spoof on the Dreamer’s moniker. They won’t kill me on sight. They’ll come to me and I’ll liberate them, giving them the courage to buck poisonous traditions requiring humans to deny their self-worth forcing themselves equal to the inferior.
I’ve recruited Ahinoam to escape with me. Cohthel is wrong. I excel at recruiting Unconquered. I’d even recruit him, given more time. He’s confined me to the castle for five days which was enough for Ahinoam who just yesterday asked when we could escape. Cohthel thought he could bring me to the castle to “fix” me. I laugh now, not only am I escaping but rescuing my sister as well. My heart swells thinking about returning to camp.
And Thaen.
Oh! What damnable timing for Cohthel to kidnap me!
Waiting till dark is the obvious choice. Ahinoam meets me in my room after dinner. I’m not welcome to dinner. Banned by Father who hasn’t once seen or asked about me since I arrived. I’m more upset over his resistance to see the damning destruction tearing down the human race and preventing us from achieving our Paragon-given self-worth and purpose.
“I packed everything you said I’d need,” Ahinoam says, holding the leather bag over one shoulder. Where I mirror Mother with my flat black hair, narrow chin, and short legs, Ahinoam matches Father’s blond curls, height, and round face. She wears a dark, long-sleeved, high-collard dress, favoring my advisement on it. Nights are cold, but we need the camouflage, too.
Cohthel kidnapped me out of my tent in my white sleeping gown. Stealing one of Mother’s dresses was too risky, so I rolled my white gown in the ashes of the cold fire until it was crypt-gray. He also kidnapped me without shoes, so I stole several pairs of thick wool socks out of the castle laundry, a pair I will use to keep my hands warm, too.
Following my little sister, since she knows the habits of the patrolling knightlords, we leave my room.
Ahinoam moves with extraordinary care, checking every corner, making mad little dashes from one point of concealment to the next, all the way until we reach the servants’ door leading outside to the castle grounds. Ahinoam said she knew of a loose stone in the courtyard wall and could get us through it if I could get us passed Malandore’s wall. I hope I can, with my stolen spade and determination.
Big blocks of stone construct the courtyard wall. Ahinoam sits on the ground, puts her little boots on one block, and pushes. I help it along until we push enough space to crawl out.
“Go ahead,” I say.
Ahinoam gets to her feet and stares at the stone for a long moment.
“Ahinoam?”
She stares longer, then shuffles her feet, and my heart splits. “I don’t…” She looks behind her, back at the castle. “Neleci, I don’t…know.”
I grasp both her shoulders, heart pounding in my knuckles. “I know it’s scary at first. All great important things are very scary. But we cannot stunt our growth just because big choices scare us. Scared is just a feeling. It’s not an action.”
“I’ll miss Mother and Father.”
“I miss them too. We will come back for them. We’ll come back for the entire Human Realm and live in the castle again, only we’ll do it as queens.”
She shuffles more. My gaze darts across the courtyard looking for knightlords who might spot us and come investigate.
“Will I have to kill anyone who refuses?” she asks.
“Kill? Ahinoam…” I lower until our eyes meet, softening my voice until my words lose all syllables. There is no appropriate way to tell a twelve-year-old the higher meaning of the Dreamer’s — of the Unconquereds’ — desire to save humans from their self-inflicted destruction, which, similarly, is why masters kill their injured horses. Because an injured horse loses all potential, it no longer claims a valued life brimming with quality. A life stunted of potential is no life at all.
Mercy.
There is no way to tell a twelve-year-old the higher meaning of mercy. “I promise, you will not have to kill anyone.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
I can’t handle her complicated questions, not while my escape hinges on timing. I have to get back to camp. Have to get back and tell Thaen.
I squeeze her shoulders. “I want you to come with me.”
She stares a long time back at me, flicking my gaze away, and returning. I’m losing patience.
“I love you, Neleci. I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”
I grip her shoulders harder. “This is a rescue. Both you and I are prisoners here. I know it’s hard. This is a hard thing.”
“I can’t, Neleci.”
“Come with me to Malandore’s wall. If you’re still unready…you can come back.”
“I can’t.”
“Ahinoam, please.”
“I can’t!”
I suck her into an embrace. “I will come back for you. I promise. I love you.” I release her, kneeling to crawl through the hole we made.
“You can’t leave without killing her,” says a man’s voice.
I freeze, rising back to my feet. The voice sounded muffled, familiar, like it came from the other side of the wall.
A rustle of fabric and the slap of boots on cobblestone reveal a black-cloaked man jumping from the top of the wall. A blue metallic mask covers the right half of his face. “You can’t leave without killing her,” Cohthel says. “What do Nightmares call it? Mercy killings?”
“We are not Nightmares!”
“But you don’t deny the mercy killings, do you?”
I scan the courtyard again. No sign of knightlords yet, but my rising panic drives me into action.“If you’re here to stop me, Cohthel, then grab me and force me back into the castle. If you’re not, then I’m leaving.” I drop to my belly and worm forward.
“I’m not stopping you,” he says. “I’m joining you.”
I stop, looking over my butt to see him. “I don’t believe you.”
“I agree with your mercy killings. They make sense. If Ahinoam won’t come with us, I will prove I’ve changed by killing her myself.”
I detach from my body — reduced to a floppy animation of flesh — watching Cohthel draw his gold-colored sword out of the sheath at his back and drive the blade through Ahinoam’s chest.
I scream. Loud enough to crack stone. Ignite the chill spring night. Make stars explode. Scream and scream until no other sound exists on Mortal Earth. Until nothing else remains. Until it replaces my blood. My flesh. My soul.
He pulls his sword from Ahinoam’s chest who continues standing there, unaffected, hands clasped in front of her, face a mask.
I stop screaming. My chest aches and I taste blood. Adrenaline slams through my veins. feet, legs, and hands shake as I rise to stocking feet, knees bucking. Out of breath, as if I’d just run the breadth of Malandore. “Wh—what?” I don’t know what I’m asking, my mind broken, looping looping over that word. “What?”
Cohthel sheaths the naked gold blade. “You’re not Unconquered. You’re not a Nightmare. You’re a big sister who loves her little sister. Which is why you won’t mercy kill her. And because you won’t mercy kill her, you can’t be Unconquered. You can’t pick and choose who to mercy kill and who to spare. You killing someone else’s little sister is the same as me killing yours.”
“I haven’t killed anyone!”
“But you’ve accepted you’ll have to, Neleci. I heard your entire conversation from behind that wall.”
I sweep my chin from him to Ahinoam, and back, full understanding turning my moment-ago-terror into rage. “You set me up! You…” I shoot my next glare at Ahinoam who has yet to say a word, move her clasped hands, or change the expression on her mask-like face, “and you.”
“Neleci, I planned this before I kidnapped you. I planned with your mother, sister, and the knightlords on the grounds tonight, which is why they are not running over here this instant to investigate your screaming. Your sister cares about you so deeply, she didn’t hesitate when I told her to trust me, because I was going to stab her.”
I look at my sister, unable to look away, — healthy and alive. “Why didn’t your sword hurt her?”
He doesn’t answer my question. “You apprenticed for Government in school, because you wanted to be torc one day and lead the realm. But look at you now. You’ve reduced yourself to ruling nothing but a camp of self-admirers. You want to be a queen? Elevate yourself and become the torc you always wanted to be, leading the entire Human Realm instead of a camp.
“The first kindred you kill will be someone’s little sister, little brother, a girl’s father, a boy’s mother. If they don’t want to become Unconquered, then let them go. Don’t mercy kill them. But mercy killings are the focus, isn’t it? And I can prove it. These last five days I’ve been investigating at the city clerk’s office and counting how many verified deaths happened by Unconquered hands. The number? Four thousand eight hundred and sixty-four. So I say again, if you cannot kill your sister, you cannot be Unconquered.
Which means you are something better. Something bigger. You are the future torc of the Human Realm.”
My shaking jaw aches. Not trusting my soft knees, I sit on the ground. Cohthel kneels beside me, wrapping an arm and half his black bladehand cloak around my shoulders. Ahinoam kneels on my other side.
They hold me while I sob.
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