Heretic Spellblade 6 - Ch25

Chapter 25

Murmurs and movement caused Nathan to stir late at night. He felt Ciana’s warmth shift away from him, but nearly fell asleep again. The presences near him were familiar and his ears didn’t hear any alarms going off.

Three hands pressed against his side. His mind stirred and attempted to work out why exactly three.

Finally, his eyes snapped open. Fyre and Ciana stared down at him. Given Fyre was fully clothed, he suspected she wasn’t interested in waking him up for a threesome.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured, voice croaky as he pulled himself up.

The palace remained almost whisper quiet. With Ciana in his bed, Nurevia or Sunstorm usually pulled guard duty outside. But if Fyre was in here, she had likely taken over. They trusted her on her own now that she was sleeping with Nathan as well.

“Reine needs you in the control room,” Fyre said.

Ciana’s face tightened.

Given how quiet everything was and the blanket of darkness coating his bedroom, it had to be past 10PM. If Reine needed him at this hour, things had gone wrong.

But not cascade-level wrong. Fyre would be panicking more in that case.

Which meant one of two things: Falmir had done something, or Soreaux was on fire.

He and Ciana quickly dressed. They’d showered before sleeping, given how much time they’d spent lazing around and having sex in the evening instead of returning to camp. It wasn’t the best use of his time, but what were subordinates for?

Afterward, they entered Alice’s bedroom. She sat on the end of her gargantuan bed, putting on her shoes as Sunstorm watched.

“Well, at least I haven’t missed anything,” Alice said darkly.

They entered his mental world together using the blue door in her bedroom.

Reine stood inside, accompanied by Astra and Tarako. Nobody else was present. Likely as they had work to do, possibly because Nathan had vanished for an afternoon to play with his favorite unicorn. Unless there was a higher priority, Reine kept a gateway active between their camp and the palace, which was guarded by units of knights of both ends and a duogem Champion deployed from Castle Aleich on the palace’s side.

The question of why they’d been awoken was answered the moment they stepped through the door. Reine’s spy monitor showed a brutal brawl stretched across a plaza in Soreaux. Magical flames roared from the arches and rooves of one of the oldest cathedrals in the city, while droves of beastkin ran screaming amid packs of armed soldiers wearing red and black uniforms.

Alice gasped. “What is this?”

Squaring his jaw, Nathan strode up to the central console and leaned against it. His Champions joined him while Alice caught up, then grabbed his hand. Cold, hard fury upset Fyre’s face as she watched her kin cut down. Almost every one of them bore a slave tattoo.

Reine’s face was distraught, as her mask was off. “Not long ago, one of the protest masses held by the beastkin was assaulted by… soldiers dressed as the Inquisition, at the very least.”

“Protest mass?” Sunstorm asked. She’d missed a lot of the briefings on Soreaux, as she’d been busier with dealing with problems outside the city.

“Soreaux’s population of beastkin slaves have been holding large scale masses in the evenings, praying to Omria and Fyre for liberation,” Reine said. “They’re held near churches and cathedrals, as the Inquisition still guards those. Sometimes they run extremely late, but we’ve been warding off Falmir’s mercenaries as much as possible. Not that they’ve made a serious attempt to start a massacre.”

“The Monarchists might hate Fyre, but most of Trafaumh doesn’t. Slaughtering countless beastkin would turn the city against them and give Baudelaire free rein to utterly crush them,” Nathan said. “We already saw at Deverese’s fortress that the tide is turning regarding opinions toward beastkin.”

“Then what is this?” Fyre snapped. “They’re…” Her voice broke and she stopped mid-sentence, strangled with rage.

“We don’t know,” Reine admitted. “Soldiers in Inquisition uniforms descended on the mass and began attacking them. Our own agents and guards from the Populist faction responded, but that worsened the situation. The Inquisition soldiers in the cathedral joined the fray. Many of the beastkin got caught up and…”

Nathan didn’t need to hear a blow by blow. He was watching it.

He’d told Alice that things could get a lot worse than the sound and fury he’d seen. Well, this was that “a lot worse.”

A dense melee of a thousand-plus bodies tore across the cathedral plaza while fire burned across the buildings around them. More soldiers descended from all directions, wearing all sorts of uniforms. Some were private guards, others agents of some form, and many were from the Inquisition. Civilians fled into them, but tempers sparked in the process. Weapons were drawn and used.

The violence spread block-by-block. Fires began to roar across the city. Both the Populists and Monarchists deployed their cells of soldiers, mercenaries, and revolutionaries to protect their territory. Mobs formed faster than Reine could even track, to the point that she stopped trying to zoom in on them.

Whatever and whoever started the mess mattered less and less with each passing minute. Half the city fell into a mess of violence by midnight. Fires raged.

“They’re focusing on the churches,” Nathan said, noticing a grim pattern.

Reine followed his hint and the results were as awful as he’d worried.

Every church, shrine, and cathedral in the city remained under the Inquisition’s protection in some form. Some form of skeleton crew defended each site, especially now.

Which meant there was a target on the back of every single holy site in the city, due to the massacre that started it all. Not long after midnight, even as the fighting ground to a furious stalemate in the wealthier sections of the city, furious throngs descended on the churches spread across the poorer areas of the city.

The guards might not have wanted to fight, but a handful of armed soldiers, even if they had a battlemage, meant nothing in the face of hundreds of angry people. Buildings burned. Soldiers went down fighting the very people they were supposed to be protecting.

“Nathan?” Alice asked quietly.

“I know,” he said, just as quietly.

Somebody had made a move tonight. They’d struck deep.

Because while Baudelaire could sit back and watch her political enemies tear each other apart, she couldn’t ignore this.

The church formed the heart and soul of the Order of Trafaumh. The nation was, after all, named the Order of Trafaumh. Any assault against the church was a strike against the authority of the Inquisition, and needed to be responded to.

If Baudelaire did nothing, she’d lose her grip on the clergy and likely the entire nation.

And so, the gates of the citadel finally opened. Companies of the Inquisition’s elite soldiers poured forth into the night, spilling out across the bloodied streets to the defense of the holy land of the Order of Trafaumh.

Baudelaire’s die had been cast, and it had landed in the blood of Soreaux’s people.

If Falmir organized the assault on the beastkin mass, they’d successfully forced the Inquisition into brutal suppression of the riots. No matter how restrained Baudelaire might try to be, she’d taken a step that the city’s people would remember.

Fyre certainly would. Her body shook as she watched the bloodshed and flames overtake the city she’d spent plenty of time in for the past year.

“I don’t think we need to see much more of this,” Nathan said. “Fyre—”

“These are my kin. I’ve seen so many of them while I visited Soreaux,” she choked out. “I won’t look away when they’re dying.”

“Will watching bring them back?”

She recoiled as if slapped. Nathan admitted to himself that his line had been cheap, but he needed her to stop flagellating herself.

“The Inquisition is doing exactly what it’s expected to do. Enforce the law and its authority. That’s why we’re moving out tomorrow.” He shot Tarako a look. “You can get there faster. Give the order that everyone is to prepare to march tomorrow morning. I’ll be there at first light.”

The fox nodded, unwilling to interrupt the scene with one of her usual comments.

Reine’s vision moved elsewhere, at least briefly. Fyre glared at the ground.

“Everyone is suffering there, Fyre,” Nathan said. “More than just beastkin. You wanted to know last week whether I needed you? Well, I do. And not as an angry figure of vengeance, but as the prophet. A unifier of everyone. You’ve seen that as well as I have.”

“The Inquisition—”

“Are part of the problem. But what do you plan to do about everyone else in the city? The beastkin are praying to you, but so is everyone else. Soreaux saw you and Charlotte work miracles a week ago. Half the city is still waiting for you to return and work another miracle, one that will give them their lives back. Or do you only care about helping some, not others?”

Fyre leaned forward, placing her hands against the central control console as she glared at the ground and her wings flexed behind her. Seconds passed in miserable silence.

“When we retook Aleich, I let you lead, Nathan. And wanted nothing more than to just break free of your chains and simply slaughter every Nationalist sympathizer and noble, then put their heads up on stakes outside the palace,” she said. “I still wish that sometimes, when Alice puts me through long days at the Diet and I need to listen to their whiny platitudes and the pretenses they use to beg me to support whatever bullshit they ask me for.”

Alice grimaced but remained quiet. This wasn’t exactly news to her, even if the relationship between the two women wasn’t as bad as it had been when she first took the crown.

By contrast, Tarako’s face became something unrecognizable. Marred with fury and regret as she glared into the corner. When she noticed Nathan looking, the foxed composed herself and pretended to smile. A deep sorrow lingered in her eyes.

“You took me to Trafaumh. I saw the slaves and thought history would repeat. I… I hated the city. Wanted nothing more than to see it burn.”

“And?” Nathan asked. “It’s burning now. What will you do?”

“… what should I do?” Fyre’s voice was little more than a plaintive whine.

“No, Fyre. You’re the prophet. I think you finally need to make the decision.”

And, hell, Nathan hoped he didn’t regret this. He was certain Fyre had matured enough after all their discussions.

She gulped and finally looked up at him. “I can’t help but think of all the faces I would see whenever I gave a speech in Trafaumh. Not just of the many beastkin slaves, but the countless workers, clerks, and merchants that would mass wherever I went. They’re suffering right now, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Then I need to be the prophet for them as well. Omria is supposed to be everyone’s goddess.” She stroked her horns for some reason, eyes distant. “I want to make that true, somehow.”

“Then try. We’ll be there to prevent anyone from disrupting your speeches. Remember that Falmir is still there, and that they’re our true enemy.”

Her eyes hardened. “I won’t. Charlotte nearly took Soreaux from me and started this mess. Now this… I won’t forgive her. I won’t.”

The hatred that filled Fyre’s voice toward Charlotte caused a slight pang in Nathan. After all, he had once loved Charlotte.

Could he say he loved the apparently insane woman driving Doumahr to the brink of destruction?

“Reine, can you glean anything from the citadel and the inquisitors?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The command structure is remaining underground, where my scrying cannot easily reach them. I cannot tell if Baudelaire is involved in this or some other rogue element pulled it off.”

As he had expected. The fact Baudelaire had reacted so slowly made him suspect this was an act by Falmir.

He hated to admit this was possibly Gareth’s work. Or at least Beatrice’s, given her expertise with shapeshifting and deception.

Then again, Gareth had pulled off a similar attempt on Anna years ago, when Nathan had first visited Aleich. At the time, the attackers had pretended to be Nationalists in an attempt to instigate Gorthal into some sort of response.

The possibility of battle against his old mentor caused Nathan to sleep uneasily. Or maybe that was the knowledge of what he’d walk into tomorrow.

He still tried to sleep, though, and even dragged Fyre into his bed to prevent her from doing anything rash. No sex, just cuddles. Ciana sandwiched her on the other side. Nathan’s hands stroked Fyre’s side and silky hair while she pressed her face into his shoulder.

With dawn came the march on Soreaux itself.

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Commentary: This is the final chapter for $5 patrons. The book's out in a week, with a bunch of changes. I'll be posting the remaining chapters in batches each day until it's out for Messengers.

Otherwise, Fyre finally makes a decision herself whether actually support Trafaumh. She's gotten a lot of screentime over the past couple of books.