Morgan Rice - A Rule of Queens

Darius was concentrating, finding a weak point in Raj’s strike, about to land his first blow—when suddenly, a girl’s voice cut through the air.

“Darius!”

Darius, distracted, turned at the sound, and as he did, he lowered his guard and received a mighty blow on the ribcage.

He cried out and scowled at Raj.

“Unfair!” he said.

“You let down your guard,” Raj said.

“I was distracted.”

“In battle,” Desmond said, “your enemy hopes for distractions.”

Darius turned, annoyed, and was surprised to see who had been summoning him. To his shock, there was Loti, fast approaching, looking distraught. He was even more surprised to see her eyes were red from crying.

Darius was baffled; he hadn’t seen her for the entire moon cycle, and he was certain she never wanted to see him again. He didn’t understand why she had sought him out now, or why she was so distraught.

“I must speak with you,” she said.

She was so upset her voice broke, and he could see the agony across her face, deepening the mystery.

Darius turned slowly and looked at Raj and blank.

They nodded back, understanding.

“Another day,” Raj said.

They turned and walked off, and Darius and Loti were left standing alone in the clearing, facing each other.

Darius walked toward her, and she surprised him by running into his arms, embracing him, and hugging him tight. She cried over his shoulder as she did. He didn’t know what to make of it; the ways of women were endlessly mysterious to him.

“I’m so sorry,” Loti said, crying, over his shoulder. “So sorry. I am such a fool. I don’t know why I was so mean to you. You saved my life. I never thanked you for it.”

Darius hugged her back, holding her tight. It felt so good to have her in his arms, and he felt redeemed to hear this, after all they had gone through. All the suffering and anguish and disappointment and confusion he had felt over the last moon cycle began to melt away. She really did love him after all. As much as he loved her.

“Why didn’t you—” he began.

But she cut him off, leaning back and raising a finger.

“Later,” she said. “For now, I have urgent business.”

She cried again, and he looked into her face, wondering, then reached out and held her chin.

“Tell me,” he said. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

She paused for a long time, looking down, then finally she looked up and met his eyes.

“I killed one of them today,” she said, her voice deadly serious.

Darius saw the seriousness in her eyes and knew this was no joke. His stomach dropped, realizing.

She nodded back, confirming it.

“They tried to harm my brother,” she explained. “I couldn’t stand by. Not anymore. Not today.”

She broke into tears.

“Now the Empire will come for me,” she said. “For all of us.”

Now Darius understood why she had sought him out; he pulled her to him, and she held him and cried over his shoulder as he held her tight. He felt sympathy for her, as well as compassion—and most of all, a newfound sense of respect. He admired her actions.

He pulled her back and looked at her meaningfully.

“What you have done,” he said, “was an act of honor. Of courage. An act that even men were afraid to do. You should not feel shame—you should feel pride. You saved your brother’s life. You saved all of our lives. We might all die. But now, thanks to you, we will all die with vengeance, with honor in our lives.”

She looked at him, and she wiped away her tears and he could see he had comforted her; yet her face flashed with concern.

“I don’t know why I came to you first,” she said. “I guess I thought…that you would understand. You among all of them.”

He clasped her hands.

“I do understand,” he said. “More than I could say.”

“I must tell them now,” she said. “I must tell all the elders.”

Darius took her hand in his and looked at her meaningfully.

“I vow by the sun and the stars, by the moon and the earth below it. No harm shall befall you while I live.”

She looked into his eyes, and he could feel her love for him, a love spanning centuries. She embraced him, leaning in close and whispered into his ear, the very words he had been longing to hear:

“I love you.”

Thorgrin, joined by his Legion brothers, walked slowly, cautiously, through the land of the dead, blinked, and wondered what had happened. He felt as if he had lost all sense of time, as if he had been down here for weeks, perhaps even an entire moon cycle, walking through a strange vortex of time and space as he marched through the endless tunnels in the land of the dead. He knew it was not possible to be marching for so many days, yet he felt so weary, his eyes so heavy. Had that much time really passed?

He blinked several times, peering through the reddish vapor that came and went in these massive caves, and looked over to see his companions looking equally disoriented. It was as if they were all finally just now stepping out of the fog, back into the present time. Thor remembered the riverkeeper’s warning: a few steps in this land can last many moons .

“What has happened to us?” Elden asked the question on all of their minds.

“Have we been marching all this time?” O’Connor asked.

“And yet it feels as if we’ve just entered the tunnel,” Reece said.

Thor looked all around, taking in the surroundings, thinking the same thing himself. He was immediately on guard, squeezing his fist around the hilt of his sword, as he felt a cold draft cling to his skin. Creepy noises filled the gargantuan cave, echoing out of nowhere in this place of blackness. The only thing to light their way were the sporadic fires shooting up from the ground, every twenty feet or so, flaming along the sides of the cave. Occasional geysers of fire shot up, some of them sparking, others slowly bubbling. More so than any place he’d ever been, this place felt like a place of darkness and gloom and death. Thor felt that they had entered another dimension, a place where no human was supposed to travel. He began to wonder if they had made a very big mistake in coming here.

“Guwayne!” Thor shouted.

His voice echoed off the cave walls, returning to him again and again, as if mocking him. He looked about, stopping, listening, hoping for any sound of his child. A baby’s cry. Anything.

There came nothing but cruel silence in response. Then, after a long pause, the sounds picked up again—the distant drips and squeals and fluttering of wings, the myriad hidden creatures in the darkness. There also came the distant sounds of hisses, of soft moans, of chains rattling. Endless moans and cries echoed in the air, the sounds of souls in anguish.

“What is this place?” Indra asked, her voice gloomy.

“Hell,” Matus answered.

“Or one of the Twelve Hells,” Elden added.

Thor walked carefully, avoiding small pools of fire, and he felt a deepening sense of apprehension as he heard a distant roar and rumble of some sort of creature.

“If everyone is dead, what is that?” Matus asked. “What are the rules down here?”

Thorgrin stepped forward, gripping his hilt, and shook his head.

“There are no rules,” Reece said. “We left the rules in the land above.”

“The only rules here are told by the edge of your sword,” Thor said, drawing his sword with a distinctive ring. The others followed, all holding their weapons, all on edge. Reece held a mace, Matus a flail, Elden a sword, O’Connor his bow, Conven his sword, and Indra her sling.

“I don’t think these will be of much help,” Reece said. “After all, these creatures have already been killed.”