“Yes,” she said.
“There is no room for you inside the castle walls, but just down that path next to the well is a vacant summer home, and you are welcome to stay there.”
He pointed to a small cottage secluded by trees, covered in vines.
“I would be very grateful,” she said.
He took her arm and was about to walk her there, but then a girl emerged from the bushes. She was lovely, Ceres thought, with blonde hair and brown eyes, her skin as smooth as silk, her lips blood red. She wore a white silk dress, and when a breeze gusted against Ceres’s face, she noticed the girl smelled of roses.
Feeling a bit awkward, Ceres pulled her arm away from Thanos’s.
“Hello, Stephania,” Thanos said, and Ceres could detect a slight irritation in his voice.
Stephania smiled at Thanos, but when her eyes reached Ceres, the girl frowned.
“Whom have we here?” Stephania asked.
“This is Ceres, my weapon-keeper,” Thanos said.
“Where are you going with your weapon-keeper?” Stephania asked.
“That is none of your concern,” Thanos replied.
“I am certain King Claudius would be thrilled to know you are meeting with your female weapon-keeper late at night, escorting her to unknown destinations,” Stephania said.
“I’m certain the king would be equally thrilled to learn you are wandering around the palace grounds late at night in your sleepwear, unescorted by your handmaidens,” Thanos snapped.
Stephania lifted her nose up, turned on her heels, and vanished down the paved walkway and back into the palace.
“Never mind her,” Thanos said. “She’s just upset I refused to marry her.”
“It was her?” Ceres asked.
He didn’t respond to her question, just jutted out his elbow, offering it to her again.
“Perhaps she was right. Maybe this is inappropriate,” Ceres said.
“Nonsense,” he said, and then he paused before smirking and saying, “Unless you were considering making it so?”
“Of course not,” Ceres said, bothered, her cheeks flushing hot.
When she looped an arm through his to prove her point, she became irritated with herself for liking it, and immediately, she strengthened her resolve to not let the charming prince anywhere near her heart.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Standing atop a hill overlooking Cumorla, the capital of Haylon, a remote isle in the Mazeronian Sea, Commander Akila’s heart soared with joy as he watched the statue of King Claudius come tumbling down. He inhaled the air, and the sweet sensation of justice filled him, as smoke from the king’s castle rose into the azure heaven above the city.
Justice, Akila thought. Justice was finally being served today. Every last royal relative of the king had been locked inside that abominable seven-spired structure, and now it had burned down.
Wind pushed at his armor as he beheld the thousands of men on the hillside, their red banners flapping for the revolution’s cause. Before twilight, he would lead them into a battle that would free them, finally, from centuries of oppression. His chest swelled with pride.
The people of Haylon had suffered long enough under the rule of tyrannical kings. They had paid unreasonable taxes, sent their best warriors to Delos, and bowed their heads to the ten thousand Empire soldiers that plagued the streets day and night. His entire life, Akila had watched women and daughters raped, children flogged and arrested. The young were forced to work long days in the king’s fields, returning with welts and dejected eyes. He knew it was long past since they needed to take back their freedom, to take back their lives.
A messenger approached.
“Western Cumorla has been secured, sir,” he said.
“The Empire soldiers?” Akila asked.
“Fleeing to the east.”
“How many civilian lives lost?”
“Three hundred, thus far.”
Akila clenched his fists. It was less than expected, but each life lost was a weight on his conscience, another son or daughter dead, a mother, brother, sister, father butchered while defending this land’s freedom.
He dismissed the messenger and signaled to his lieutenant to alert the final wave of militias. They would trap the invaders on the western entrance and treat them with the same courtesy with which they had treated his people. Not much would be left of them after that, and that brought great joy to Akila’s heart.
Akila kicked his horse forward, leading the lieutenant and his men into battle. He rode down the hill and in through the northern city gates, past balconied passageways, closed inns, and padlocked work shacks. He passed families huddled in corners, children lying facedown on the stone streets, and horses on the run without riders. The militias followed Akila without the city walls, hiding behind trenches to await the thousands of Empire soldiers that would soon flee through the gates and try to escape toward the harbor.
Not a one must escape, Akila had told his men this morning as he had ordered hundreds of men to stand guard at the docks. For even one escapee meant word would get back to Delos – and then the king would send tens of thousands of Empire soldiers to Haylon.
Minutes passed, and minutes more, until they had been lying in wait for nearly an hour, as twilight descended.
Then, suddenly, the first Empire soldier rode out on a horse, holding the Empire ensign, Akila saw.
“Long live King Claudius!” the soldier yelled.
Three flaming arrows hit him in the chest.
He fell off his horse, into the canal below the bridge.
Three more Empire soldiers followed, all felled, too, as they rode through the gates.
Soldier after soldier then trickled out of the city gates, and a brutal battle ensued.
Akila led the way with a fierce battle cry as night fell. All around him men were losing their lives to the cause of freedom, a freedom they would never see, but that perhaps their children would.
Akila gathered his most ruthless warriors to ride with him into the city, and he looked side to side to see them now, their horses thundering in his ears. He led the group of three hundred through the southern entrance, and then as they rode split them into four groups of fifty, each to search for Empire soldiers in different directions.
With torches and swords, Akila led his men down winding streets, stopping at every house, searching – hunting high and low, not a single enemy to be found. Almost at the end of their search, they happened upon a stable behind the high priest’s mansion, and Akila thought it looked like an excellent hiding place for Empire soldiers.
As he was about to command his men to search the stable, the high priest stepped out from his house.
“Have you seen any Empire soldiers this way?” Akila asked, descending his horse.
“No,” the priest said, his hands clasped as if in reverence in front of his body.
But there was something unsettling in the priest’s eyes that made Akila think he was lying.
“Search the stable,” Akila told his soldiers, and they immediately headed toward and entered the building.
There was a sudden uproar, and when Akila turned toward the commotion, the priest took off running down the street. Akila ran after him, but when he arrived at the street, he saw the priest galloping on a horse in the direction of the southern entrance.
Akila whistled, and once his horse was by his side, he hopped onto it and rode after the escapee. Through the city gates the priest went, with Akila on his heels, but Akila couldn’t quite catch up to him.
Riding eastward, Akila whipped his horse onward relentlessly, his eyes on the escapee. He passed palm trees and hopped fences, rode through grassy fields and sand dunes. Following the priest down a steep sloping hill, it was then he saw a makeshift dock, hidden below a dome of trees. None of his men had been ordered to watch this dock because no one knew it was there.
To his dread, he saw the priest push away in a small sailboat, the wind catching the red sail immediately.
Almost there, Akila wondered if his horse would make the leap from the landing pier and into the boat, the distance increasing by the second. The horse’s muscles tensed beneath him, but Akila drove it forward.