Renagade

Part 7

Rebellion drove at the hearts of the conquered and then unconquered alike, but he burned them all. Each rebellion, small or large was quelled before any action could be taken. Poljal fell in seven years. It was no longer the beautiful and sprawling empire, but a ragged and war torn country. It's people died in the streets from hunger and thirst, while nobles died of pleasure and drunkenness. Races were divided, the dwarves from the mountains burrowed deep and refused to aid the humans. The elves, once prosperous and wise, disappeared and traveled in nomadic camps. The Sekhmet people of the jungles hid, and the Aikens of the Southern Isles closed their borders. Places of learning and healing were raised and burned. Taxes were heavy and the law was swift. Swaver had turned into a nightmarish king, and his daughter, the one that people had chosen to follow and love, was gone.

She listened as Baelish told her over and over what her father had done, and what she allowed to happen. She had been young and hungry for power, and she had done terrible things to achieve her goals, and yet why did the people yearn for her return? She had killed hundreds or even thousands of people by her men's swords, all to prove her loyalty to the crown, and to her father. There was no way that these people, her people could have forgotten that.

The things her father had done...he had never loved the mages, but he had trained his daughter with the best magic tutors across the realms. He had allowed her to flourish, but he had also trained her to need more power. Evelyn tried to block out the memories of the times he had shouted at her for being weak...the time she had refused to kill the cook's son's sickly dog. She remembered all the times he had banished her to the library to study, because she dared to do something that he had not told her to do. She recalled...and she remembered.

These people were under the same scrutiny that she had been a child. She had had the chance to fight back and to please him, and in return she had earned wealth and power beyond imagine, but these people, they weren't seeking his approval. No. They sought their health and their well being, and they needed it. They were innocent, and she was not. She had to save them from the pain and misery her father inflicted on them. She was going to break the wheel of oppression and raise up a new power that would heal all wounds and all strife. She was going to save her people and become the queen they needed.

The following weeks were grueling. Evelyn could walk, though she heavily relied on Styx, Baelish, and Hedda. They helped her stand and were kind. She didn't need their kindness, but she swore in her heart that she would repay them for the times they were forced to be with her. Her skin would always be a mass of twisted scars and tissue, but Baelish worked endlessly to allow her knees to work like they had before.

She cried the first time she bent her knees and used the chamber pot by herself. Ten years ago, she had been on her swift path to queendom or even empress, and looking at her now, you would have never known. She had glimpsed her reflection in the water of her bath one night and shuddered. She had always been a thing of beauty, but that night with her sister had left a twisted scar running down her right cheek and eye, and her face had grown hard and hollow. Dark rings, seemed like a permanent feature of her face, but that's what she would be from now; hard and hollow.

As her body healed, she worked tirelessly on her magic reserves under the close attention of Baelish. She had been obscenely close to obliteration in the caves, but she had come through that fire with more knowledge. Baelish, though firmly schooled in the art of protection and healing, taught her control. The sweet moments of rest, found her mind turning over new information with heightened fervor. Her father had forced her to learn magic beyond her capabilities, but with Baelish's help, she might just make herself into the greatest magic wielder of all time.

While she healed both her body and mind, Chauncy hovered. He never said much to her, since their fight, but she knew he was only feet away in another room. Ev tried to recall every detail of meadow, but true to her mind, she had pushed it so far away that she had trouble recalling the tenderness that he had claimed they had. When she had fully exhausted herself from trying magic practicums from Baelish, or had simply enough of trying to walk, she slept. Her dreams were filled with images of her father and of Chauncy. No matter how hard she tried to ignore the growing infatuation, still it grew and preoccupied her mind. He was always there.