The Princess of Wrath

Echoes from the Past - The Gray Death, Part IV: Suicide Mission

The path the carriage was traveling in the direction of Ralkutan was plunged into darkness, with only two lanterns in the upper corners of the carriage being the only sources of illumination to face the night. The irregular terrain and surrounded by dry land gave a touch of abruptness to the trip, between jumps and shudders, while the driver's companion, armed with a rifle, was in charge of watching that nocturnal beasts do not try to attack the horses.

In the small cargo hold, Lucy was perfectly hidden and stalking the three soldiers seated in the bright and comfortable compartment. They were arguing amongst themselves.

"...or will they continue to pretend they have no idea what they are doing? You have known as much as I have about the alchemists'complaints for months." The young Wraith apprentice began to listen to that soldier named Krios, his male voice overcoming the constant sound of the turning of the iron wheels and the countless amounts of ammunition moving inside the boxes. Staring into the dark outside through one of the holes and her head almost pressed against the wall, she focused. "If the higher ups had listened, possibly none of this would have happened."

"You assume that the cause of the fire was because of the inferior level of industrial security, but haven't you thought about sabotage?" the woman named Nisha asked. Lucy pursed her lips when she heard her voice, cold and hoarse but cunning; enemies like her were the first that needed to be eliminated. "We are at war, no matter how much those imperial pigs want to deny it and continue to fantasize about diplomatic missions. It's too opportune that the nation's only military laboratory is being burned to the ground as we speak. What do you think, Uri?"

"I don't care about the cause. But if there is an excuse to go to the front lines against the Imperials..." The remaining soldier's bloodlust-laden voice put Lucy on alert, at the same time she heard the sound of knuckles cracking. "...then let this one be. I want to go and cut their fucking pompous heads off."

Laughing and showing more hostility against the Empire, Nisha and Uri continued talking. Krios, Lucy could deduce from his continued silence, stood aside.

"Damn traitors... I can't wait to see the light fading in their eyes once they step outside and I have a chance to kill them," the young apprentice thought, feeling fire running in her veins. She required all the mental fortitude she could summon to not lose her temper and jeopardize her hiding place.

Minutes later, the carriage began driving down the lightly-traveled road that cut through the two largest neighborhoods on the outskirts of Ralkutan. Looking through the crack in the wooden wall, Lucy found very strange the quiet darkness that reigned between the endless rows of ancestral architecture homes made of marble and that were crowded together like small foothills. Could the most ordinary citizens of the city afford to rest amid the euphoria of rebellion and the promise of war?

No... The reason was another, and infinitely worse than she thought. It was only a matter of passing through the dark arched stone door made centuries ago for the light of truth to illuminate her face through the small slit through which she peeked, as the screaming and music of drums echoed in her ears.

In other circumstance, Lucy would have found Reykana's capital as a picturesque place rich in artistic culture, manifested in its tall, lined brick buildings, red-tiled roofs, and carved stone columns that depicted history from archaic drawings to modern, elegant mosaics... But that night, and so many others after the secession, everything was stained with the blood of innocent Imperial citizens.

The streets were filled with floating torches supported by thick ropes connected between opposite buildings, banishing the shadows of the night for Lucy to see countless corpses hanging from their necks, charred and burned to ashes. Beaten and dismembered women and children tied to columns or iron bars, and Reykanite citizens, from the ragged of the most forgotten castes of the periphery to the wealthy wearing luxurious robes, singing and feasting around the dead as it was a massive pagan festival in honor to a malevolent god.