Yesterday's Enemy [AoT]

MEMOIRS OF HAVAS [12]

(SET TWO YEARS BEFORE HAVAS IS BREACHED)

'With the planned siege of the Underground City now just a year away, Havas moves into tunnels to prepare for the coming conflict. We place all our hopes, all our hearts, on one man, Warren Krüger, and the future he will build for us.'

-An extract from a recent Havasian newspaper article detailing current events.

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MEMOIRS OF HAVAS

12

Wall Maria, North Region, Havas, The Krüger Tunnels

Warren had done it. After years of bargaining, years of bartering, his dreams had been realised.

The Krüger Tunnels were complete.

Warren had begun a lowly miner's boy, with nothing to his name but his wits and a head full of dreams. All those days he had suffered, freezing below the icy ground had led him here. His father had led him here. Lorelai had led him here.

It had been a long journey to the top. So long Warren had worked, so much he had sacrificed; he had gone such a long way, he felt he was no longer even the same person.

As a child, scrounging just a speck of gold from the mud would have been enough. Warren would have raced home and presented it to his father with a toothy grin.

And now here he sat, all of Havas' gold at his feet. Innumerous weapons, wealth beyond description, power untold. And yet, he had nothing.

His dreams had been realised. He now controlled all of Havas' military. He was about to write his name in the history books, never to be forgotten.

So why?

Why was miner's boy richer than the nobleman?

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Lorelai spent most nights dreaming of O'Haen.

After the tunnels had been completed, she had followed Warren down into the earth. It was all she could do; she had nought, no power, no influence. All she could do was follow him, and hope she might be enough to turn his mind from destruction.

But that was a fool's delusion.

Lost faces swam in her dreams. The boy she met in the caves, the pain he saved her from, the laughter that had echoed around those forgotten places.

Her alarm broke her from the peace of her past.

"Goodmorning, Lady Bervik. It is 0700 hours; the weather is mild-"

"Mute," Lorelai muttered groggily. Hephaestus' voice immediately silenced. She dragged her body from bed, blankly gazing around the cold metal chamber that had become her sleeping quarters.

She ignored the shocking frailty of her body in the mirror. Down here, it was easy to waste away.

"M'Lady, I do suggest you take the supplements Lord Krüger left-" Hephaestus began once more.

"Mute," Lorelai repeated, harsher. She ran a comb through her hair, making a point to ignore the steaming breakfast Warren still continued to leave her. A placation. Always a placation.

The days had dragged into each other since she got here. The siege was now barely a year away. Her fiancé would murder the impoverished in the thousands, and she would sit powerless.