Chapter 109: Blood (3)
Prince Mikhail struggled to stand, but the floor was slick with his own blood. The pain was staggering. Each breath he drew was an almost impossible effort.
He could not die yet! Even as his brother stood over him hissing evil, unintelligible words, he knew that he somehow had to get back to the Princess. She was in danger! Grieta had sent something that would-
"Cowards!" The Princess shrieked beside him. "What sort of cowards-"
He could feel her small hands on his back, scrabbling desperately to stem the flow of blood, and even though he opened his mouth to scream at her, to demand that she run, to warn her that she should not be in the room with him and the Emperor, he realized that something was off. That her face was blurry and the Emperor had become a shadow and the proportions of the room had stretched beyond the possibility of the natural world.
I am dying, he realized. I am dying and this is a hallucination. His own brain was doing him a last kindness, allowing him to believe that she was by his side.
He lay still, and though he could not see her, and she did not speak again, he could smell her, and feel her closeness, and then the darkness engulfed him.
It might have a been hours, or years, or even a millenium later, when he next opened his eyes. He was lying on his stomach, and the pain in his back had dulled substantially.
It was Grieta's bed, he quickly realized, and Grieta herself sat in the chair beside him. He should have asked how she had managed to escape the guards, or why she had brought him back to the brothel, but the only thing that mattered to him at that moment was the Princess.
"Where... is she?" He tried to ask, but the words would not form.
"I need to speak with him!" Ilya insisted, dropping to his knees beside the bed and reaching out to shake Mikhail's shoulder.
"My Prince! It is Ilya!"
Grieta smirked at him over Ilya's shoulder, as his aide shook him furiously. She could see that he was awake. It was odd that Ilya could not.
"Can you hear me?" Ilya asked.
"Yes!" Mikahail said, but even to his ear, his voice was little more than a whisper.
Grieta leaned forward in her chair.
"You'll have to speak louder than that, my Prince. He can't understand you," she taunted.
Mikhail grit his teeth. How could Grieta understand him while Ilya couldn't? The situation was infuriating!
Are we in danger? Are we accused of treason? Can you squeeze my hand?" Ilya demanded.
"Speak with Sir Anton! I have a writ! There is proof!" Mikhail did his best to shout.
He wanted to ask why they had fled to Grieta's and where the Princess was, but Ilya had disappeared like a shadow before the sun, and he was left alone with Grieta once again.
"Where..." he began, but the question died on his lips as he lost his voice once again.
"Where is the Princess?" Grieta guessed. "Gone to the north to finish what her sister started. Don't look at me that way! You know well enough that the Emperor cannot be defeated so long as the ancient ones stand ready to assist him! How long has your family depended on their power to bolster their own? You don't even know how long, do you?"
Horrified, Mikhail strained to move, to get to his knees, to crawl if he had to! How did the Princess escape this time? What had possesed her to think that she could defeat the ancient ones alone, when even Queen Ora had failed? He could stop her still! He had to! If he could just-
"Look at you struggle!" Grieta sneered. "As if you could stop her now. She must fufill the prophecy. That is why she is here. The prophecy never said your family's curse would be lifted. The words are that it will end. The curse will be ended when there are none left of your line!"
Mikhail grit his teeth, still straining to rise to his knees. His body felt as if it weighed as much as a warhorse. Somehow, Grieta had managed to convince the Princess to sacrifice herself to the ancient ones-- but that made no sense! If Queen Ora's blood had not poisoned those creatures, or at least contained them, what would make her believe that her sister could possibly succeed where she had failed?
As if she could read the very thoughts in his head, Grieta smiled cruelly and leaned back in her chair.
"Oh, come now. You must have at least suspected it... I figured it out ages ago! It was never meant to be about Ora. If she was the girl of the prophecy, why was she so desperate to protect the young princess? Queen Ora seemed to believe that her sister's life was more important than her own. She even-"
"NO!" He roared, finding his voice at last. "You lie! She... she..."
Grieta watched him expectantly, but Mikhail was suddenly distracted by a realization. Grieta could not normally speak about such things as the prophecy or Queen Ora without pain and great difficulty, and she did not normally attempt to provoke him to the point of anger.
It was also highly unlikely that she would had remained at the brothel after he dispatched soldiers.
"This isn't real," he whispered. At his words, the room and Grieta faded to darkness, and he found that he could, at last sit up.
He was no longer sitting on a bed, but on the ground. The dark forest around him was eerily silent and the smell of smoke was very strong.
Something about the place seemed familiar to him, though it looked nothing like the woods around Bludston. There was no snow on the ground and the trees still had their leaves. He was somewhere south of Unaria... perhaps...
It was Vezda, of course, and the moment he realized it, he heard voices-- faint at first, but they steadily grew louder.
"There's an arrow. Did you know? Just there, sticking out of your side," explained the little girl.
Mikhail crawled towards the voice, ignoring the pain in his back. The shadows receeded enough for him to see her-- that brave, small child with the large blue-green eyes, kneeling in the forest in her torn and dirty white dress.
How well he remembered this night! The dark shape huddled against the tree beside her, was his own body. He remembered the pain and annoyance he felt at that moment.
"You should clean it, you know. Oleg always says: leave dirt in wounds, and you'll land in the tombs! I don't have any water or bandages but..."
The child stood and brushed her skirts. With a quick, decisive movement, she bent and tore a strip of fabric from her own dress, holding it out to the younger version of him.
When he did not take it, the girl bent and pushed it into his hand.
"There!" she said and just as she moved to step back, the boy he once was, shot forward and snatched her by the neck.
"Foolish princess!" The boy growled. "Never show compassion for the enemy!"
With his other hand, he grabbed the dagger from his boot and cut her arm.
The young princess screamed in pain, and staggered back, struggling to break from his hold.
"No!" Mikhail insisted. "That isn't what happened! I never-"
"You considered it," a gentle voice at his ear reminded him.
Mikhail turned to find that Queen Ora had crouched down beside him. She wore the blue gown he had last seen her in, and stared back at him with concern in her eyes.
The princess and his younger self had disappeared by the time he glanced back.
"I am in hell," he muttered. "I lost my life at my brother's hand, and now I will spend eternity tormented by every evil thing I have ever done."
"You considered it... but you did not actually do it," Queen Ora continued.
She stood and extended her hand to him as if to help him up. He wanted to explain that he could not stand, that he was injured, but that made no sense. He was dead and had no body to confine him any longer.
He took her hand and found that he could indeed stand, though for some reason he could still feel sharp pains in his back.
"Why didn't you hurt her then?" Queen Ora continued cocking her head slightly to the side. "You clearly knew exactly who she was and how well-loved she was by all. You could have gotten your revenge for the defeat you suffered at Gelt. If you had no stomach for hurting the child yourself, you could have taken her as a hostage... but you let her walk away unharmed."
"I was... gravely injured," he muttered.
"You fed her," Queen Ora reminded him. "You allowed her to treat your-"
"I'd never seen any creature like her before," Mikhail admitted. "Born during the war, starved to near death for years, surrounded by fear and blood and pain her entire life, and yet..."
Prince Mikhail scowled and fell silent.
"And yet?" Queen Ora prodded.
"Always laughing... teasing... running along the high wall... riding on her brother's shoulders. That child was so filled with life and joy that it infected everyone she encountered. I watched her... I... I did not understand how it was possible. How she could be happy. How she could laugh, and say such clever things. She was a child as rare and precious as a flower grown from a field sown with salt."
Queen Ora hummed in agreement beside him.
"But how terrifying she was as well... that she was so small a thing... so weak and trusting... and so completely ignorant of her own vulnerability. She could disappear from the world at any moment." he said and shook his head.
"And yet that tiny, weak creature managed to save the life of her strong and terrifying enemy," Queen Ora reminded him.
Prince Mikhail smiled faintly.
"I suppose so," he agreed.
"She is stronger than you credit her for... both then and now," she said lightly.
"And yet you made me swear to protect her," Mikhail replied.
Instead of answering, Queen Ora began to walk, her hands clapsed behind her back. After a moment, Mikhail followed her.
"You have no answer for that?" He asked.
"I saw the way you looked at her, you know," she called back over her shoulder. "When you came to negotiate for my surrender. You never spoke to her or about her, but your eyes followed her everywhere. Why do you suppose I made you swear?"
The dark forest grew much colder, and a light snow began to fall as they continued to walk.
"I thought it never snowed in Vezda, he muttered.
"I could have asked Sir Aron to protect her," Queen Ora said. "I could have asked that he married her and protected her with his life. He would have done so. I could have given her in marriage to any of the neighboring countries. She would have been safe that way, and Vezda would have gained allies. My father always thought that would be the best way to protect her. I could have even sent her away to Frem or even farther... but I asked you, the Emperor of Unaria's bloody right hand, to protect her. Have you truly never wondered why?"
The snow began to fall harder, and the ground was soon covered. Queen Ora continued to walk steadily ahead, as if she knew the path well. Behind her, Mikhail stumbled in the darkness and the ever-deepening blanket of snow. He was starting to fall farther behind.
Her words made him uncomfortable. It wasn't as though he had never before realized that her request had been an odd one, it was the fact that he had never thought deeply about it for a reason-- what he didn't know (or understand), he couldn't be forced to tell the Emperor.
"We all have a destiny in this life," Queen Ora said and sighed heavily. "We must all do what were born to do, and what Talia was born to do-"
A distant scream silenced the Queen, causing her to stop, and glance knowingly back at him.
He did not have to ask who it was. He knew. The instant he heard it, he knew. He was running toward the sound before it even ended.
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