Darkness Falls, Light Rises #Wattys2015

Ch. 24

Ch.24
Looking up, I watched the sun set behind the patch of trees where everyone was hiding under. We had been running for hours, only taking breaks when Anya needed a break. We needed to keep going since the night was our friend, but everyone else needed rest.
Climbing up one of the nearest tree, I sat on one of the branches that gave me the best view of everything around us. Mason and James were tending to Anya, leaving me to keep watch for any guards. I would've teleported us to the farthest village but after Anya felt my dark magic, she couldn't deal with it again. I didn't blame her, the first time I really felt it, I screamed. Of course that didn't sit well with my uncle and I went without food for two weeks.
"Brandy!" Mason yelled, knocking me out of my haze. "I need to talk to you."
Nodding, I turned over and hung from the branch, swinging back and forth until I got enough momentum to jump to the ground. Rolling when I hit the ground, I stood up quickly and ran my fingers through my hair.
"What's wrong?" I asked, observing his grim appearance.
"How exactly are we going to get back to my territory? Surely Kevin is planning to attack my palace to take my place." He said, his voice revealing how worried he was.
"He won't. He wants power but he wants you to fight so that his victory is worth more. He wants theatrics."
"This isn't a game!"
"Yes it is, Mason, and the sooner you accept it, you'll be able to use it to your advantage." I snapped, not bullshitting him anymore. He needed the plain old truth or else he wasn't going to do shit. "We aren't going back. You need to do offense instead of damage control."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"Easy. A coup."
"A coup? Are you insane?" He yelled, his eyes bulging.
"Mason, it's the only reasonable thing to do. You need to weaken him, or just kill him altogether."
He scoffed, pacing as he shook his head. "I'm not going to kill him."
"Then I will."
"No." He said sternly like it would stop me.
"Mason, he needs to be ended. He wants to kill you for goodness sakes." I shouted, throwing my hands up in utter frustration. "Stop being a bitch and grow a pair! If you don't do this, he will kill you! What don't you understand?"
"I understand everything very clearly. Obviously you don't. Every life has meaning and no one deserves to die. I will not kill him or have you do it."
"And yet you're soldiers take the lives of thousands of Rider children!"
"You act as though this between Kevin and I is a war between life and death."
"Oh my fucking God! I cannot believe you! It is between life and death! He wants you dead, without life, whatever you want to call it. Stop acting so naïve."
Silence.
Staring at each other, I didn't regret a word that I said. He needed to take his head out of his ass and see the world for what it really was: a place full of carnage and devoid of anything you could call true happiness.
"Brandy! I see torches!" James yelled as he helped Anya up. How she slept through that entire fight was beyond me.
Picking up my bag, I glared at Mason before sprinting along the road, hidden from prying eyes. Looking behind me every so often, I kept a look out for guard in the village. When the coast was clear, I came to a halt and told them to hide in the shadows.
"I'm gonna get us a room, so look out for three candles in the window." I instructed, jogging in the direction of the bed and breakfast, stopping when Mason came up next to me.
When I gave him a look, he sighed, taking my hand. "Brandy, I'm not letting you go in there alone. Now can we put that fight behind us?"
"You can't come with me. You'll be recognized. You and Anya will come through the window. I'll take James." I stated, gesturing for James to come over. "Now go hide."
When he finally left with much protest, James and I went inside, instantly hit with the smell of burning flesh. Covering his nose, he looked at me curiously when I had no reaction. After those sessions with my uncle burning and shaving off the skin on my leg for punishment, the smell had grown on me. Surprisingly, giving your child a small burn was a punishment that many villagers used on occasion.
Ringing the bell on the front desk, James busied himself with opening a window.
"Just a minute!" A man called out from the back room.
Shrugging, I leaned against the counter and picked up a family portrait. It wasn't a large family, it just consisted of two parents and four children. Compared to the woman, the man was significantly lower in status. A farmer or something of that effect, while the woman looked to be a member of a viscount family.
"Excuse me." The owner of the bed and breakfast said, taking the picture out of my hands. "How many?"
"Two." I lied, eyeing the many scars on his face, neck, and arms. They weren't blade marks, but acid looking or burn marks. Studying him further, he wasn't the husband in the picture, but one of the children. The youngest boy from what it looked like.
"That'll be forty silver coins." He stated, his eyes full of frustration.
"Of course." I mumbled, handing him a pouch from my bag that held forty gold coins, much more than he asked for.
"I believe you've made a mistake. Forty silver coins."
Honesty. I liked it. "No mistake, but I would like to ask you a few questions in return."
Looking between James and I, he sighed, slamming his fist on the countertop. "I know that I didn't pay my dues for this month, but no one visits here anymore! I'll give you the money when I have it. Tell the king that I've taken up a new job and I have half of the money." He shouted desperately.
Smirking, I glanced over at James, wondering if he had the same idea.
"What's your name?"
"Andrew Daniels." He paused, confused. "Aren't you from the palace? The tax collectors?"
"No, but I think I can help you." Opening my bag, I pulled out a picture of my brother. "This is the king. But as you may know, he's quite unfair in his rule. So, I want to kill him."
"W-What? You can't kill the king! He's the king!"
"Have you not felt rage when he sends his men to take your well earned money? What about your family?"
"He took my wife to be his whore and my son is now crippled." He growled, the anger growing in his eyes.
"Then you know how it feels to want his head on a stake."
"But this is all speculation. This will never come to pass." He whispered, leaning closer. "We will surely be killed if anyone hears of this."
"We are going to plan a coup. But we need people and an impeccable plan."
Clenching his jaw, he handed me back the pouch of money, making me groan in frustration.
"You do not have to pay me for my services. I am already loyal to your cause. And I know you have friends outside, let them come inside."
"Thank you." I said in Rideran instead of the "in between" language that both sides used to communicate.
***
We had a problem.
Anya and Mason didn't know Rideran.
Of course they didn't, those Sedentians hated us, while it was mandatory for our children to learn every language out there, including the slang or mixture used in the anarchist area.
"Stop pronouncing the consonants like vowels!" I shouted at Mason, ready to rip my hair out. "You're hopeless!"
"It's not my fault that it's so choppy and harsh!"
"It's not my fault that it's so choppy and harsh!" I taunted, rolling my eyes at his excuses. "Throw Sedentian out of your mind and think of German from the ancient days."
"We didn't learn German. We were only required to speak Sedenian, the middle language, and English." He mumbled, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Fucking idiots." I swore, kicking a stool into the wall, watching it break into a thousand pieces. "Go over the simple phrases." I ordered in Rideran, sighing when I saw his confusion. "Simple phrases. Do them." I translated into his native language.
Groaning, I threw myself next to where James and Anya were sitting on the bed. Shutting my eyes, I tried shutting out Mason's pitiful attempts at saying the most simple phrases in my language.
"Can I rip out his tongue, please?" James begged, covering his ears with his hands.
"Feel free to do whatever you want."
"He's not that bad." Anya interjected, absentmindedly rubbing her stomach.
"Anya, it's atrocious. It's like a hundred nails on a chalkboard." James cried, getting up and walking to the door. "I'll be back in time for the meeting."
Waving him off, I sighed when Mason stopped speaking. He needed the practice but it hurt like hell that he was butchering my language.
"Okay, please just take into consideration what I said. Consonants are quick and sharp sounds in the word. The letter 'v' sounds like 'w' and the letters x, c, and q sound exactly like 'k'."
"I'm sorry about this." He said, blushing slightly. "But does this mean that you'll tutor me?" He asked, walking over to me and taking my hand.
Chuckling, I nodded, knowing that he was truly hopeless. "I could try, but you, good sir, are a lost cause. You suck."
"Come on, not all of us are as talented and perfect as you." He paused to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. "But I am a king. So that trumps all of that."
Rolling my eyes, I let his comment slide, exhausted from spending the entire morning teaching him Rideran. Hauling myself up, I grabbed the notepad that I had written Rideran phrases on. "If I can't speak it, you have to at least be able to read and write it."
Glancing at the paper, he sighed and took it out of my hand. "We should do something. We've been cooped up in this house planning all of this nonsense, which you forced me into."
"I only said I would break up with you if you didn't. It's not my fault that you're obsessed with me." I laugh innocently.
"I can't deny that, but I can argue that you're obsessed with me as well."
"You would need proof, which you don't have."
Without a word, he pulled me to him, no hesitation in his actions. Lowering his lips to mine, his hand gripped my waist tightly, giving me no room to move.
The kiss started off slow, agonizingly slow, but soon morphed into something urgent. As his teeth pulled on my bottom lip, I reached up to run my hands up his shirt, needing to feel him, he pulled away going back to a tentative kiss.
Growling, I tried to quicken the pace of the kiss, hating the teasing.
"My point exactly." He whispered before nipping at my ear.
Backing away, he smirked when he saw the disappointed look on my face.
"We're going on a date at midnight."