Chapter Ten

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The common area is quiet in the mornings. Nobody wants to break the cold silence that hangs over our heads.

Wooden spoons scrape against matching plates and bowls. Remaining hot oats mixed with shredded eggs wait to be served to those who have not woken up yet.

I poke at my food with the spoon, stirring it. I sit alone in the large room. There's a ring around me in which people avoid, choosing instead to eye me from the other tables, whispering when they need to speak, eyes darting away when they catch me looking at them. I take a sip of the crocotta milk from my metal cup.

Where have they been keeping a croca cow? I wonder, keeping my eyes on my food. The image of a hidden farm room pops into my mind.

The silence is broken as voices in the hall grow. They are angry, mixed with loud footsteps pounding on the stone ground.

Sebastian and Robin round the corner of the arched doorway, a blonde, pale woman in a starkly clean Bellioana uniform marching behind them. She holds the hilt of her sword tightly, eyes scanning everything around her. She did not look uncomfortable, only ready to pounce upon the first thing that posed a threat. In her other hand she holds a long rolled up paper.

"...if we go now we can at least start something. Yalean is big, how many citizens there?" Sebastian's eyes glide over me, looking around the room.

"At least a few thousand," the woman pipes up.

"Everybody out! Now! Meals can be taken to your rooms," Robin hollers. He begins shooing everyone from the common area. I do not move from my seat at the center of the room. Instead I choose to watch Robin and Sebastian kick benches and seats away and shove two tables together.

The woman throws the paper on the table and unrolls it. She unsheathes her sword and sticks it through the edge of the paper on one end. The woman catches sight of me.

She gives a quick bow, bending at the waist with a fist to her chest, before coming over and grabbing my cup.

"Need this, your majesty."

I do not even attempt to protest, too curious as to what they are doing. She sets the cup on the other end of the paper.

I crane my neck so that I can see. The paper is actually a map of the kingdom, long and green and blue, spots of brown where the desert lands stretch in the middle of vast green lands and forests. Robin ducks behind the serving stations and grabs the coal pencil used to write on the board.

Twenty onions, eighteen eggs, and thirty-two bags of oats are scribbled across the paper pinned against the wall. Only so much food was left, and every day more lost citizens were finding their way here.

Sebastian takes the pencil and draws a circle around Yalean. He sets his fingertip in the center of a forest far to the northwest.

"We'd have to walk, a lot. There's not enough teleporter blood for everyone." He taps the empty end of the coal pencil on Yalean. "They're certain that her forces have lessened?"

The woman nods. "They needed more forces in Osaynthas. Citizens have been trying to take up arms, and too many of her people are stretched across the Kingdom."

Sebastian purses his lips. I stand quietly from my seat and move closer, looking between them and the map.

"Are we sure this isn't a trap? Yalean is large, why would she leave it weak? And not empty her power in the smaller towns and villages?" Robin taps his arm. "As well as the nymph city. They don't have much resistance power there, the nymphs have always been on their own. The only thing I can think she is trying to keep any hold on there is the water resource, but that barely supplies any power to the castle. Maybe she just wants to threaten power loss to the cities and towns near it?"

Sebastian leans over the map, looking.

"It would be amazing if Agni were here," he mutters.

Agni, the scrawny analytical guardsman, who my father had always used to devise his war plans. This here was definitely a war plan. I study the map, looking at the strange markers between each major city and town, the odd symbols for different heavily resource-filled lands, and the tiny words labeling the spots most populated by a certain type of creature. I fixate on the eastern forest, closest to the main castle. Centaur is written beneath its name.

"I want to help... with whatever you're doing." I pick at the edge of the table.

"We're going to try and ta-"

"No," Sebastian interrupts Robin as soon as he catches on to what he is saying. "Absolutely not. You die, everyone else dies. You're the hope of this revolution. The center. The core. You. Do. Not. Fight." He slams his fist on the table. I jump.

"You can't stop me," I tell him, heat rising to my cheeks. I turn to the woman. "What do I need to do?"

She glances at Sebastian. He gives her a look that says he'd punish her for telling me anything.

"I take my orders from the Phoenix blood," she says sternly. The woman salutes to me again. "Haunika Bard, Your Majesty. I was apart of the guard team dispatched to Yalean to keep peace. I escaped a few days ago with forty-two other guardsmen. We have trusted intel that majority of The Stone Queen's forces that have been stationed there are being moved back to the main castle. For what reason we don't know. But if we can take back Yalean we could have a huge footing. We could move the people here back into real houses and have the chance to take the nearby towns and villages and have farming land to keep supplying food."

I glance at the map again. "How much suffering are they going through?" I ask quietly. A strange prickling sensation crawls down my spine.

"Very little, surprisingly," Haunika says. I can hear the confusion in her voice. "Nothing has faltered since she took the throne. Any revolts against her are stomped out very quickly and with little incident. The most she's done is put Belliona guardsmen in jails and prisons and replaced them with her own forces."

I frown. "Weird... After what I... what she..." I shake my head. "Doesn't matter, she needs to be gone."

"And we'll handle it," Sebastian interjects. "You're not going to fight. Especially not right now. You're far from ready. Need we speak about yesterday?" He gives Robin an angry glare.

Robin simply grins and crosses his arms, unbothered.

"I think she's ready. She just needs a reason to fight. She's been practicing for weeks now. It's fine. I believe in her."

"No-"

"It's not your decision," I snap. Haunika raises an eyebrow in surprise. "I'm fighting."

I put my hands on the table and lean forward, staring at the map. "They don't know which direction we'd be coming from. They haven't found us yet... Romilda's spells make that happen."

Haunika pulls the coal pencil from Sebastian's reluctant hands. She marks eight lines around the circle drawn around Yalean.

"We could come from each side... They'll have no guess as to which direction we're coming from, on the off chance one of her men escape and make it back with information. It'll at least deter them from finding this place, in case we need to come back."

I look at her. "You don't think we'll do it?"

She shakes her head. "That's not what I'm saying. I have the belief that a little bit of pessimism is always needed, even if things look hopeful." She sets the pencil down. "It keeps you from getting hurt all the time."

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