The Lost War (Hectic Series: Book One)

Chapter 8

She could hear the flickers.
The flickers of conversation, of muffled voices, distant talking.
"But she-"
"...how long..."
"Three days ago..."
"...find it..."
"Tell them to wait..."
And then she would sink back into the blackness and the flickers would die out, only to resurface again later.
The flickers became clearer as time went on, until suddenly they were no longer flickers but actual conversation.
There was a sharp pain in her head as Kim opened her eyes. Ignoring it, she sat up.
She was in her bed. Oliver was sitting next to her in a chair, dozing. Sunlight streamed through the open window.
She blinked hard a few times.
It had been a few days, she knew that. The bedsheets were slick with sweat and her clothes stuck to her body in a rather gross-feeling fashion.
And she had to pee really bad.
Swinging her legs out of bed, she managed to stand, not pass out from the dizziness, and quietly make her way to the washroom.
Her legs didn't quite understand the concept of walking and she had to move slowly. Kim noticed that her wings, which usually felt
so light, were heavy and pulled against her back.
Shutting the door behind her, Kim slipped out of her clothes and into the bath basin, which she filled with hot water from the pump in the wall. She would have preferred a shower if she trusted herself not to fall on her face.
She soaked in the water for quite a while before she heard shuffling from outside.
She assumed Oliver must be up, drained the water, and attempted to flex her wings. They straightened out slightly before weakly dropping. Sighing, Kim dried off and got dressed into her Empress gown, noting that it was a little loose.
She didn't bother to comb her hair. At this point her legs were so shaky a few tangles weren't really a problem.
Oliver had brought in a tray of food and set it on her nightstand. "What do you think you're doing out of bed?"
"Getting dressed," she said as she dropped back down onto the mattress.
Oliver pushed her back onto her pillows and handed her the tray of tea and soup.
"How are you feeling?" He took a seat on his chair and set his cane against the nightstand.
"Much better," she said with a weak smile. She was, honestly, feeling a lot better, but a lot better still felt like complete trash.
He didn't look like he believed her. "You were out for a week. A healer came and said he didn't know what was wrong with you. He said you had probably caught something out in the mountains."
At that moment Dex trotted in with an entire cooked chicken in his mouth. He hopped up onto the bed with it, curled up next to Kim's leg, and tore into his meal.
She smiled and scratched his head. "Either the cooks have been feeding him or he's been stealing from the kitchen."
"Both," Oliver said, "now eat before you die and then I'll have to send the Council home with the sad news that the Empress is gone."
"The Council? Which one?" Kim sat up.
A swish of Oliver's hand sent her back into the pillows. "Both. Now eat. After you've rested you can see them."
"I have been-"
He pointed a finger at her. "A week spent in a near-coma does not qualify as rest. Shut up and eat."
Ignoring her spoon, Kim picked up the bowl of soup and drained half of it. "There. Now let me do my job-"
He pushed her back down onto the pillows again.
"You can't even let you do your job when you're sick."
"I'm not sick anymore, I'm just tired. I'll be fine."
"That's what you said before you passed out a week ago. You are going to sit here and eat your soup and drink your tea and maybe if you're good you can have dessert."
Kim hid her smile behind her tea cup, but her shoulders and wings were shaking from silent laughter.
"What's so funny?" By the look in his eyes it looked like he was trying not to laugh, too.
"You," Kim said, "there's something about you bribing the Empress like a five year old that I find incredibly amusing."
He smiled. "You are a five year old. Now shut up and eat."
Kim ate with her spoon this time and drank her tea.
A little while later a healer came in and announced that she was perfectly fine.
Kim asked a guard to gather the Councils from their rooms.
After she had combed her hair and convinced Oliver that she felt fine (which was a lie. Her wings had never felt so weak.) she made her way down to the throne room.
She was met with 84 eyes staring at her; one blue, one brown, two green, and eighty Violet.
As Kim entered the room eighty pairs of wings lowered while her's raised up-a mark of authority in the Hectic world.
The political council, consisting of the two kings and two queens, sat at the long table in the middle of the room. The remaining eighty Hectics stood crowded around the room, all of their wings brushing the ground.
Kim sat on her throne at the head of the table and appraised the roomful of people, her wings fanned out as much as her depleted strength would allow.
"Domonic," she addressed the King of Sarrin, a kind, stocky old man with a funny looking mustache and brown eyes, "I have made arrangements with the..." demons "humans to occupy a small portion of Sarrin."
He dipped his head. "Of course. How many humans do you expect?"
"At this point I can't say for sure. The strip of land I'm granting them rights to can hold about 3 billion. Any more than that is out of the question."
She addressed the others; Queen Riley of Tamera, who had blue eyes, Queen Sarah of Leanah, who had green, and King Martin of Releigh, who also had green.
Kim was on casual, even friendly, terms with all of them, but she knew Riley the most, as Carrain was the capital of Tamera.
Riley lived in her castle on the outskirts of Carrain, while the Empress' Palace was in the heart of it.
Riley, a very no-nonsense type of person, spoke first. "But what happens when they want more? The soldiers said that they are responsible for the death of their own planet. Surely they'll end up killing ours, too."
Hushed whispers of the impending apocalypse swept throughout the room.
Kim gave a hard flap of her wings.
Silence fell like a curtain.
"We do not know that they will cause any disturbances here. Until there is reason to believe so they will be treated respectfully." She swept her gaze around the room. "But any disturbances will absolutely not be tolerated. They are on our land and therefore must follow our rules.
I will have the army at the ready. Make sure that the soldiers stationed in your kingdoms are well prepared."
All of the eyes in the room were serious.
This was their world, and they were prepared
to fight for it.