The King Trials 2: Beyond.

It is time to send Solaris home.

Before dawn awakened, I was already bathed and dressed only to find Solaris’s cloak with my belongings. I forgot that he had lent it to me when we were seaborne. I wear it over a black gown overlaid with a mesh of lace. The cloak still smells like him, his stubborn scent remains, a slither of him lingering. With the hood drawn, Greer accompanies me. Kelan called her back and ordered her to observe me closely in his absence. We travel to the front courtyard near the Gatehouse where the colossal gates are opened, and the portcullis is raised.

Between each spaced stone pillar are the distinct groups. On the opposite side is the Adons, all the military officials and their guards. On our side it’s Primus Kelan and the entire squadron along with Duce Merian. I align myself with the assembled Herems, their attendants far-flung.

Soon a percussion of clomping hooves sounds. Two rows of mix-breed stallions make their way towards the opened entrance. The horses are brought to a halt when the attached, topless wagon pauses right in front of us. Perched on top of it is a six-sided, hexagonal coffin crafted of furnished wood with an honorary shroud wrapped over it.

Hot tears scald my cheeks.

The coachman’s whip crackles before the horses begin their march, the wagon lurches forward and rolls away, passing through the gateway, receding with the distance, going further and further away. But he is already far gone. Sniffling, I wipe away my tears with gloved hands.

The Adons and officials abscond, their guards follow. I move to leave, but I lock eyes with Markiveus, and a look of burning hatred melts away his mask of grief.

“Why are you even here?”

“What kind of question is that?” Treyton snaps.

“The kind that needs answering.” He stiffly raises his shoulders. “I never knew of murders that attend their own victim’s funereal. Killer’s remorse?” He scoffs indignantly. “As if you have any.”

“This was not even his funeral,” Vince states.

“That is beside the point.” He slinks away from them and steps towards me. “And I am sick of you both defending her. Nothing excuses the atrocities that she has committed, taking us out one by one. People think that the Ulris is the greatest threat. They are wrong. I am staring right at it. Am I wrong?”

I glance at Treyton, and he remains silent, averting my gaze. Brennon regards me with the same measure of loathing as Markiveus.

I blink, revolving. I stride away, accelerating my pace with Greer at my rear.

“Why such haste?” He exclaims. “You can never outrun what you have done!”

I round a corner, out of view. I flatten myself against the wall only to drop forward, my hands clutching my knees, my head hung in abysmal ignominy. I regulate my laboured breathing, trying to dissolve the fog of billowiness in my mind.

“Hera, Aurora?” She bends over to search for my eyes. “Are you alright, do you require medical attention?”

My lips part, a shuddering breath escapes. “No.”

I straighten and continue onwards. The armchair I demolished is replaced with another, the debris collected, floors swept clean, all evidence of my unravelling has been removed. I move to sit myself on the duplicate armchair, adjacent to the one with the parchment and the hardboard still on it.

“Shall I light a fire?”

I shake my head, staring absently into the deceased hearth.

“What about something warm to drink then?”

I remain as I am.

“How pitiful.”

I erect. I rotate my head to see the apparition of Rimnick standing before the window. The feeble light shines from behind, his frame engrossed in darkness, his silhouette haunting, the tips of his hair rustles as if blown by a ghostly wind.

“You were gone,” I whisper.

“Supressed. But now I have been released.”

I rise from my seat quickly. Rimnick cocks head to the side curiously.

“And where did I go, Hera?”

I whirl around to see Greer stare at me, both perplexed and concerned.

“In fact.” I swallow hard. “I could use something warm. Herbal tea would be nice.”

“Right away, Hera.” She turns to open the door but freezes with her hand on the handle. She twists her shoulders to peer over at me timidly. “I did not know him well but Herem Solaris was a kind soul. He treated me with a respect rarely shown to people like me.”

Hurriedly, she continues and exits the bedchamber.

I whip around to see nothing there.

“You even have foreign servants in mourning. Saint Solaris was truly loved by all.”

I swivel and stagger back. He looms before me, pinpricks of crimson in his devoid eyes. He floats away from me and roams near the cold hearth.

“What a sad tale since all he loved was you.”

A twinge pinches my chest. “He cared for me. But it was not me that he loved.”

“Because he loved your sister?” He snorts and lowers himself to inspect the hearth thoughtfully. “He lied; you fool. He told you that he had feelings for your sister to ward suspicion off himself because he sensed your obvious mistrust. Think about it. You only started to trust him when he confessed to that distorted truth. He knew that you doubted his intentions for approaching you because you assumed that he would use your past histories as a plot to deceive you into trusting him. And when he is close enough.”

Rimnick lengthens and faces me. Shadows swirls around his hand like black mist and in a sleigh of hand, he fashions a dagger in a quick flourish, one identical to the one that my father gave me.

“Lodge a blade inside your back. But the plot twist is that you were the one to do that to him.” He throws it at me with sheer rigour and the dagger evaporates into a plume of black smoke before vanishing in front of my face.

I have lost it all. Here I am musing the perception of a dead Herem.

“No, I am compelled to believe him because I trusted him,” I say in finality.

Rimnick glowers down at me, a malicious smile lacerates his face. “Because of those heart-warming stories and poignant monologues about your sister? Yes, he wanted to know her, only so that he could know you even better. What valued most to you. To quote his words: What matters most to her, matters to me. Do you genuinely believe the ‘her’ was Seliah? Because everywhere Seliah was, you were not far behind.”

Doubt cracks my resolve. I deter my gaze.

“You are mad as you are dead.” I harden my resolve. “I confided in Solaris about my saga with Vince, and he even gave me counsel as if he were my brother. As well as with Primus Kelan, I told him where my heart belonged, and he encouraged me to follow where it led. Why do all of those things if he desired for my heart to be his?”

“Because unlike them both, he placed your welfare and your happiness above his own.”

I turn away from him. Hands curl at my side.

“When you two were reunited at the Pantheon after all that time. And the King Trials had just begun with you all bright-eyed and innocent, departing to the Orombuc Tribe. He made you a promise. Or do you not even remember that?”

I clench my eyes closed.

“I offer you my friendship. Friends are there for each other, they protect one another. And I want to be that for you. Oh, how must that have pained him to the depths of his innermost being. Why do you think he passionately counselled you against being with Vince? In his eyes, the brute was not worthy of you. That is why: You are better off with that emotionally impaired Primus of yours.”

“Stop!” I bark. I tear my eyes open, and I glance down at the golden light strangled in my grip, emanating from both fists, shining through the gloves. I try to draw breaths, but I struggle to catch even one. My chest tightens like its contracting; the cords of my heart strained.

“Stop?”

Rimnick disappears and I recoil as he reappears at me rear. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Good. Imagine the agony he felt.” He circles me devilishly. “He endured all of that, all because he wanted to see you happy. Being in your presence was enough for him. You alone were enough for him, regardless that you desired another. He just wanted to see happy because as he famously said: That is what true love is; it is putting the other person first.”

“Stop,” I whimper.

“And that is what he did for you more times than you can count, because you were unaware. You never saw him. All this time he was safeguarding your best interests when he should have been safeguarding his own life. I am sure it is because he did not expect that from all the perils he faced. You were the biggest one.”

Rimnick pauses in front of me and grips me down under his scrutiny. “Even I am stunned. People thought I was heartless, but they just had not met the real you yet. Before Solaris perished, he did. Even if it was a glimpse before death blinded his eyes.”

“I never meant to!” I scream back, my voice hoarse. “We were—the Ulris was attacking us. What should have I done? Nothing! And let us all die, I tried to save us all—”

“But in the end, you destroyed Solaris. You lacked control and not because you are untrained, but because you did not want to. You loved the exhilarating sensation of all that power coursing through your veins. You did not want it to stop and that is what killed him. Killed us all.”

“You needn’t be so hard on her,” Another voice says, more gentle but just as unnerving. I turn my head to the right to see a ghoulish pale Tamani beside me. “She is after all the Sagetai. She must do what she feels is best, no matter who or how many she slews as a consequence.”

I jerk left only to snap a step back at another ghoul that materialises.

“The great saviour that destroys,” Zekei says with mock reverence. “Ballads of mourning will be sung, tales whispered in terror of her power will be echoed through the ages. No-one will forget the corpses left in her wake. The Mistress of Death.”

I edge backwards and halt. Another ethereal presence behind me.

“I like the Seductress of Death better.”

I gradually revolve.

“She always had a bewitching allure to her that merely has a way of inspiring loyalty, enticing fools like me to their deaths.”

Solaris’s spectre stares back at me serenely, the most life-like between them all, the voice even sounds exactly like him.

I shake my head vigorously. “You are all in my head,” I murmur, blinking erratically. “A manifestation of my guilt and greatest horrors.”

“And your darkest truths,” Solaris adds. His expression mutates into one of true despise, a look I have never seen on him. “The truth that now I have joined the honouree club of Aurora’s slain victims. The dark truth of what you are will be the damnation of all. They are living proof of that. I am living proof of that.”

Tears blur my vision.

He frees a resonant, derisive laugh. “Pardon my inaccuracy. Dead proof. Since I am no longer among the living. I had many qualms about the future, but never did I think that the final blow would come from you.”

He reaches out for me, his fingers inches from my face. “Not from the one that even in death still holds my heart. Why do you think I named that stone the soul of the seven seas? It was for every shade of your eyes when you are happy, it varies from the lightest, crystal blue to a deep azure. Oh, how I wanted you to see me. But you never did. Not before and even not after.”

His hand lowers but he walks forward, closing the gap between us. “To love you was to soar unimageable heights. But I flew too close to the sun and found myself burnt.”

His face leans alarmingly closer, drilling dread into me but still I do not move. “Is it strange that I see her in your eyes?” My heart slams against its cage. “A plethora of wonders.”

I fumble backwards, shaking my head brokenly. I spin around to see that Rimnick and the others had vanished. I dash desperately to the door.

“You cannot outrun what you have done, my love.”

I peek behind me to glimpse an empty room. I vacate the bedchamber. I examine my hands. I set my attention forward and I hastily walk ahead, down the stone hallway, only four guards posted here. I need to leave. I do not know where and I do not want to know.

Greer emerges on the stony horizon with a tray in her hands. Once she spots me, she hurries in my direction. I glance at the soldiers who begin setting their sights on me warily.

“Hera, where are you going?”

I consider that on our way to Nure. I saw two villages close by.

“A ride. I need air.”

“Shall I join you?

“No, I will be going beyond the gates of Aelvebore,” I say, and I brush past her.

“Forgive me, but I cannot let that happen.”

I wheel on her and her gaze flicks to the surrounding soldiers. “Guards!” She shrieks. They rally to her cry. “Hera Aurora, a guest of this court. She is under strict orders not to abscond from the premises. Can you—can you ensure that she is safely escorted back to her bedchambers.”

My gaze transfixes her. She visibly shrivels.

“Hera Aurora,” one beckons from behind me, inching closer and closer.

My eyes stay punctured in Greer. Seething, I say, “I do not resent you for following orders. As you must not resent me for following my own.”

Before his hand can touch my shoulder, I seize his wrist and whirl around rapidly to bend it at an unnatural angle, echoing a harrowing crack. The guard howls. Distracted by his pain, I yank out his sword from its scabbard. With my other hand I grab him to me and grip him in a chokehold. I hold the blade across his throat.

“Stay where you are!”

The guards stumble into a halt, the other three level their swords at me menacingly. The one in my siege coddles his wrist to his chest, breathing heavily, muffling his grunt and groans.

“I do not want to hurt anyone but if you force me, I will strike you down where you stand. I may be in your court, but I am of foreign nobility, and beyond reproach. I will not be held prisoner for no cause. Not unless you want a diplomatic incident on your hands and for that you are the cause.”

I relinquish my siege and shove the guard away from me as another clutches onto him and draws him behind them protectively.

“Move.” I sway the sword to have it aimed at all four of their hearts. “Or you will be moved.”

A shrilly sound like clinking glass swells, rattling behind me as I glance at Greer, the tea set trembling in her grasp.

I look ahead and chuck the sword away from me as it skitters across the floor with an ear-shattering clang. I walk straight ahead. Bitterly, the guards yield and they part way for me.