Chapter 3: - The Leash

  It was early when Exia was dragged from his bedroom. The maid had awoken him with news of the General’s summons. He almost ignored it but decided against that particular course of action— dreading a flogging from the bastard.

  In nothing but his pyjamas and with sleep in his eyes, Exia followed the maid, stumbling his way past corridors, walking down the stairs and eventually finding himself out in Mother’s garden.

  He tried his best not to look at the wall where she and Father had been slaughtered. A month since, and the building still bore the wounds of gunfire like they had been inflicted just yesterday.

  The General wasn’t listening to his demands that it be taken down, perhaps he might try to reason with the bastard, make him see some sense and cease his senseless cruelty. One thing Exia knew however, was that he was not going to beg. That was simply not the Vanfoster way. He would not shame his father’s legacy.

  Volkov stood to the side of the garden, where grass gave way to inorganic marble. He looked as rigid as ever, chin up, eyes hard, and posture stiffer than the stone underfoot.

  In front of Exia was a monster of a man. Broad frame, scarred face and tree-sized arms. He looked like a wild bear which just so happened to have a striking resemblance to a human being.

  The man wore the same colours as Volkov, identifying him as a Bessmertnyy soldier. He carried himself in the way Exia expected of their kind, all straight-backed and bearing eyes that seemed to cut through him.

  “Good morning, King Exia,” Volkov greeted.

  “Good morning, General Volkov.” Exia replied the way he’d been taught to.

  “I would like to introduce you to your Leash,” the General said, pointing at the ugly man. “This is Captain Morozova, a Disciple of the Warrior gods. He will be the noose that is tied around your neck, the guillotine that hangs above your head, the protector of the people’s will.”

  Exia looked up at the captain, down at his boots and spat on them. He might as well have done so to a statue for all the reaction that elicited. “He doesn’t look like much.” Exia replied.

  He was a Warrior, that was rare, Bessmertnyy didn’t have that many Warriors. Most of their warriors came from the southern region of Lezviye, that was beyond the kingdom and perpetually chaotic, home to a wild pack of squabbling warlords.

  It shared a border with the Southern Sorcerer Kingdom of Voin—the very nation that warrred with Bessmertnyy at this very moment.

  Father never liked the Lezviye; despite claiming to be neutral, they fraternised with Voin, so it was no surprise that most spies within the military often hailed from the south.

  To be told that he would have one lurking about him and deciding whether or not he lived till the end of his days filled Exia with a unique dread.

  “He will also be your combat tutor,” Volkov aded. “In the future, you will be tasked with eliminating enemies of the Republic, for that you will need to learn how to properly disable an opponent.”

  The pit in Exia’s stomach only grew. This massive beast would be responsible for training him? He reckoned the odds of him actually learning anything before the oaf caved his skull in were quite low.

  “From now on, you will be denied meals in the mornings unless you are able to land a single hit on the Captain.” He explained, making Exia’s predicament worse with every word.

  “You can’t do that!” Exia snapped at the treacherous bastard.

  From the gaze the General met him with, it appeared he had in fact just done so, and there was nothing Exia could do about it.

  He was suddenly aware of the titanic form gazing down at him with an expression carved from stone. The Captain didn’t move, didn’t blink—fuck, he barely even breathed.

  Exia’s hands were shaking, fear sinking into his guts. Calm down Exia, he’s just a man. And you’re a royal—blessed by Zcigmagus himself, destined to lead Bessmertnyy to paradise. You have the blood of legends running through your veins!

  Exia ran at him with a roar, fists racing for the man’s belly. All he had to do was strike the bastard once and this would be over with.

  He was met with a boot to the chest instead, which sent him rolling to the ground coughing.

  Legs givingin underneath him, his breaths tasted purple and everything sounded like he was hearing it through water. “Fuck…” he croaked.

  The captain looked unmoved, like he hadn’t even changed posture to strike him. Exia stumbled to his feet, sucked in a thick lungful of air and charged at the man again.

  He met the ground again, and again, and again. Each time not even managing to get close enough to grasp the soldier’s jacket before he was sent rolling once more.

  It was the latest strike that marked an end to Exia’s charges—a well timed punch to the liver and he was on his knees, coughing up vomit and emptying his bladder.

  He wobbled onto his feet and fell onto his knees again, barely able to keep his balance. He was crying again, he realised, crying like a pathetic thing. “I… I can’t beat him.” He sobbed. “I can’t.”

  “I see,” General Volkov said, tone like ever—as if he were merely inspecting the uniform of a subordinate and finding it subpar. “You will try again tomorrow. Until then you are welcome to find your meal waiting for you… In the afternoon.”

  The footsteps were what told him that General Volkov was leaving, the Captain followed soon after. Exia was alone now, with nothing but the sound of his own worthless sobs to keep him company.

  He’d kill them, he decided , he’d kill them all. Traitors, bastards, scum, scoundrels, wraiths and monsters. He didn’t care how long it would take or whatever the sacrifice may be, Exia would kill every single last one of them.

  ###

  Sasha had not expected Gorodlzhi to be buzzing with activity, but she had also not expected it to be this devoid of life. The train station was a cemetery, with only few people walking about and none seeming particularly pleased that they were.

  “Nothing like a good serial killing to get people to stay in their homes,” King Exia said with a giddy buzz, and Sasha quickly found herself just as displeased to be here as everyone else was.

  She’d heard stories of the Vanfosters, heard of their tyrannical rule, the way they crushed innovation, clung to serfdom despite the wave of industry buzzing through the continent.

  She’d even heard of the Fantrix Famine, where thousands, near-millions, had died because of a misappropriation of funds.

  What she’d not heard, and what she could never have been prepared for, was how fucking annoying they were.

  It was like dealing with a child that you couldn’t kill, which was horrible because that was what made babies tolerable, the knowledge that if it came down to it, you could just squeeze the life out of the little babbling terror.

  She spotted a boy selling cigarettes and made her way to him. “I need a pack and a matchbook.” He gave her it quickly enough and soon Sasha was filling her lungs with sweet smoke.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You really should quit smoking Captain, bad for your longevity I hear.” The King hummed.

  “I know,” Sasha said after letting out a luxurious puff.

  “I see, what made you hop back on it?” He asked.

  She only stared at him blankly.

  “Oh.” He blinked. “Oh!” he added again, grinning at the realisation like it was some badge of honour.

  Sasha let out a sigh and began to make her way to the stairs and out of the station.

  The King stepped past her, his long legs allowing him to exceed her pace easily with each stride. The upper classes were often taller than the lowers—much to do with their receiving proper nutrition, and her eating whatever crumbs dribbled down the corners of their lips

  Even at that, however, the King was taller than most she’d seen.

  He was not mild mannered, but regardless if he had been there would be no denying he was Vanfoster. His mid-back length pitch black hair and ocean-blue eyes were a clear sign of his heritage.

  Sasha, for a moment, wondered what he thought of his position in the republic and the fall of his family during the Republican war against the Monarchists.

  Probably not much, he gets to live in a palace and make that his real life playhouse. That’s more than most men could possibly dream of.

  In the back of her mind was time, time spent wearing her gloves to be exact. It had only been a few minutes, which was no issue, but if she had been wearing them for a few hours then there might be a problem.

  The longer a Mage wore gloves, the less effective they were at separating them from the beyond, to the point where touching the beyond after being gloved for three hours straight would be no different from touching the beyond directly. And that was a fate Sasha wished on no man.

  She picked up her pace as they stepped out of the station and into the city. Gorodlzhi was just as deserted here, if not more so.

  Military men stood in place of citizens.

  There was the expected shock in their eyes at seeing a gloved woman, and then a salute as proper procedure dictated when in the presence of a military Mage.

  Sasha gave them a sharp nod back while the King snickered, as if finding the whole exchange amusing.

  She drew in a breath, ignoring him. “We should get a carriage.”

  They did, though finding one was harder than might have been expected. A soldier had to personally fetch a coachman who seemed to pale at the revelation that he would be forced to travel through the city.

  Sasha took some comfort in the relief flooding his eyes at the sight of their gloves. ‘At least I’d be safe from the killers while with two Mages,’ he must have thought. On his way back though… Well, fingers crossed.

  The ride itself was much more uneventful than the tension in the air would have made it seem. Gorodlzhi was a typical Republican city, it was the term for those built after the fall of the monarchy. They were known for lacking any symbolism or reference that might even be misconstrued as an allusion to Bessmertnyy's pre-republic past.

  The layout felt more like a military barracks than a place of population. The buildings were devoid of colour and the thick black smoke of churning factories dotted the landscape. It was a thing of efficiency, it wasn’t pretty but it was what was needed in a time of war.

  Just where are you, Morozova?

  They made their way past a statue the size of a building. It depicted the image of a man—[Mage] by his gloves and established by his badges. He looked down upon the city with what the sculptors had surely intended to be a contemplative gaze, but came across as contemptuous.

  In one hand, he held a sabre, in the other was a book.

  “Zcigmagus’s arsehole , and people say I have an ego,” King Exia chuckled.

  “That’s the man we’re going to meet, my King. I would appreciate it if you did not voice your opinions about his choice of city design.”

  He was right though, giant statues were perhaps one of the worst inventions of men. Ah yes, I would like a massive stone version of me to commemorate how great I am. That is certainly a sane thing to request and not something that is more in line with the machinations of a child.

  “Ah, Governor Danilevsky.” The King hummed, nodding.

  Sasha raised an eyebrow. “You know him?”

  “No, know of him would be the appropriate term, Captain,” he clarified. “Mage, Twentieth magnitude. He was very instrumental in the war for the Republic, for his mind, not his magic. However, he always took pride in that, you see, to him magic is the tool of a coward and an instrument of the weak. It is the brain where might truly resides.”

  Sasha nodded, drinking in the new facts and bolstering them with old ones. “The battle for the island of Vodnyymir. I remember reading about it, he was able to mobilise his ships the fastest and stop the Island’s navy from coming to the aid of the Monarchists. Impressive stuff.”

  “I concur.” The King agreed. “Made him a legend in the Republic and rightfully so. However, I believe what’s stuck with him more is the Battle of Poteryakhos.”

  Sasha rifled through her classes and her studies but couldn’t find any mention of it. “Poteryakhos?”

  The King didn’t seem surprised by her ignorance, and for some reason that needled Sasha. “It was long after the war had been won and the Republic formed. It happened in the Barony of Prodazharyby. It had refused to recognise the Republic—they were Monarchist, you see, and rather than accept their loss, officially, they wished to secede from the Republic and form their own nation.”

  “Prodazharyby is still a part of the Republic,” Sasha noted idly. She didn’t remember word of any huge battle for it.

  “Well, yes, because it was all bluster you see,” The King sniffed. “The nobles, especially Prince Ektov—my uncle—were all willing to publicly renounce their titles, recognise the Republic and lay their gloves down peacefully if only one thing could be granted to them.”

  “That they get to keep their heads.”

  “Bingo,” The King said, snapping his fingers for effect.

  It was the obvious request, heads were rolling left right and centre back then. The realisation hit her that the King’s mother and father would also have been executed not long before the events of this story.

  King Exia however, made no note of it and Sasha certainly wasn’t going to ask about that of all things. “Wait, so if Prince Ektov was going to give the region up without a fight, then why was there ever a battle?”

  The King sighed.“Ah, well that’s when Miss Zhenya comes into the picture—wife to a young Governor—then Lieutenant—Danilevsky, who just so happened to be assigned to the unit of an even younger Prince General Ektov.”

  Sasha knew where the story was going and felt her guts squirm in dread.

  “The Prince had a liking for her, but she had none for him—not that that mattered of course, and neither did the multiple times she had expressed as much to both him and her husband. On a certain day and during a certain night, Danilevsky was sent on a random assignment, leaving his wife unattended in the barracks. All the Prince had to do was journey to her quarters and—”

  “Spare me the details. Please,” Sasha demanded, perhaps a few measures sharper than she had intended. “Your Grace,” She added after.

  He shrugged. “Very well then,” he said. “Long story short, the truth of what happened was never acknowledged, all Danilevsky was able to gain from his complaints was deployment to another unit.”

  She could already imagine the exchange now, ‘Boys will be boys,’ she’s sure he would have heard from the superiors he begged for justice. Well yes, they were correct, if ‘boys’ meant filthy raping bastards then boys would in fact be boys. It was perhaps against the natural laws of the universe that they could be anything else.

  The King for his part looked positively bored at recounting the whole event. That didn’t surprise her, if anything she was shocked not to see him belly laughing at the whole ordeal.

  “So, Danilevsky led a force to Prodazharyby in order to claim Prince Ektov’s head before he could officially form a deal with the Republic,” Sasha assumed.

  “Of course he did.” The King nodded. “It went horribly; turns out a man’s mind works terribly when it’s filled with adrenal malice and vengeance. Their forces met on the coast of the city of Poteryakhos and the Republic was sent back in shambles.”

  “That must have been harrowing.” Sasha sighed, finding her fists curled up into a ball.

  “I believe he would have been more distraught at the loss of his son in the battle.” The King added—almost as if as an afterthought.

  “What?”

  “Yes, he had wanted to avenge his mother,” The King explained. “Did not go as planned—to say the least, that is.”

  “Oh,” Sasha breathed, finding that hollowness in her grow.

  “And then the grief from the whole thing took his mother’s life.”

  “And Prince Ektov?” Sasha asked, hopeful for some sort of penance, despite knowing the answer. It was a tale as old as time.

  “Oh him, in exchange for signing away Prodazharyby to the Republic he managed to bargain for safe passage out of the country with a significant chunk of his fortune in tow too.” He replied. “I’m sure he’s swimming in whores right now as we speak—and probably doesn’t have to hunt enemies of the state countless times a year either. Lucky bastard.” He snorted.

  Suddenly, a creeping dread dawned on Sasha. “So when the Governor sees you he’s going to-”

  “Absolutely loathe me, yes,” The King finished, grinning ear to ear as if suppressing a laugh. There was something uniquely disconcerting about being in his presence; he was either beaming at the most inappropriate of times or completely indifferent when she might have hoped to see a shred of emotion.

  And his smile—his fucking smile. It was perfect, dare she say ‘beautiful’, as bright as a little boy’s maybe. But that was what made it all the more wrong, the way he looked at people. Like we’re all children's toys to him.

  The carriage came to a stop outside of the Governor's estate and the King’s eyes lit up. “Oh goodie we’re here!” He beamed, leapt out of the carriage and practically sprinted towards the gates despite Sasha’s yelling for him to stop.

  Sasha drew in a breath, checked to make sure her gloves were worn and stepped out of the carriage.

  She was really, really, starting to hate her new job.