Story:Kings of Strife/Part 41

Part Forty-One
Vainia walked up to her Knight with disbelief. “What are you doing here? What happened to your mission?” She was in disbelief, but she was not disappointed. A hint of an awed smile peeked on her cheeks, rosy with heat. The two Mortisian soldiers looked at her with confusion and frustration, but she waved them off and gestured for Veit to come inside the gates.

“It happened. I have something for you,” Veit said, but he looked back at the two guards with trepidation and thinly veiled resentment.

The princess understood. “Follow me.” She commanded quietly, and started off the long walk through the dark courtyards towards her Tower of Isolation. “You shouldn’t be here,” she realized.

Constantus Veit bit his lip and frowned. It was foolish to think that nobody in the castle would recognize him as Gin Taoris, the Crimson Death. “Neither should you. What happened?”

His smooth avoidance of the topic was not something that went beneath Vainia’s notice, but she let it go and answered him after a moment. “As you can see, I lost at Icarun.” She looked back at him with a glare, making it clear that she wasn’t in the mood for any spite. “The Nneonians betrayed us, and Inusia had reinforcements.” She frowned, hard. “They knew of the attack beforehand. Nneoh was going to betray me from the start.”

Veit sighed. “You are the only one you can trust in this world.” He spoke with resignation – and experience.

“Only myself?” Vainia looked back at him once again, with a raised eyebrow this time. “I trust you.”

“Don’t.”

“You presume to command me again.” She spoke lightly and easily, the presence of her Knight temporarily wiping clean the burden of the politics she had been dealing with for an entire day now. “Tell me, what happened in Honris? Did President Jolynus agree to my terms?”

She could hear the pause and hesitation that Veit had. “She recently… resigned. A new president took over, and she’s… dangerous.”

“Wait, what? A new president? I heard nothing of this. Why didn’t Baron Kamanus tell me about any of this…?”

“The soldiers there didn’t seem to have any answers either. She was…” Veit involuntarily shivered. “A lesser man would have failed. She didn’t agree to your terms, so I brought what appears to be the source of her power. It is now yours.” The tall man increased his stride to walk effortlessly next to Vainia, and held out a medium-sized bright blue jewel to her.

The princess looked at it with surprise. “A jewel…? What am I supposed to do with this, Veit.?”

“Another one, yes. These objects… They have power.” The Knight’s brow furrowed as he looked down at the magical artifact with disgruntled ignorance. “I brought you a similar one in Shorekeep the other day, and the new President had one of these. The abilities she had…” He had nothing to say. The President had defied logic, and if he didn’t have his own inexplicable immortality, he wouldn’t have believed his own tale.

“Wait, you brought me…?” Vainia took the Crystal gingerly, and thought back to the last night, when her and her Knight had spoken in her room. Another Crystal - that was the gift he had given her? She had put it away in a drawer and didn’t even remove the canvas around it. Was that a mistake?

Regardless, by now the two arrived at the Tower of Isolation, and Vainia nodded at the sole guard standing nearby. He was dozing off, and probably didn’t even realize that his princess and a guest had walked past him. Vainia almost immediately realized that Veit spoke the truth; the gem had power, and seemed to radiate it into her very veins. Instinctively she held it close to her chest with one hand and held up the hem of her long violet dress with the other.

“Where are you taking me?” Veit inquired as he followed her up the stairs in the back of the stone tower. “Are we going to plan something? How long will you be staying here?”

“At least another week. I have obligations here, for now, including the one I took a break from to find you about to kill my guards.”

Veit had no shame, and simply nodded his head in agreement. “You’re not wrong. But, a week? Are you keeping in contact with the Barons?” Deep inside, he wanted to return to Shorica. The chances of Inusia attacking the country were high, and he would meet battle on a large-scale for the first time in ages.

“Not yet,” Vainia admitted. She had sent out word to Shorekeep earlier, but made sure her messenger was staying safely incognito. It was likely that the Queen’s Gulf was being heavily patrolled by Inusian forces. “I will return. The nation will survive.” They arrived at Vainia’s room, and she unlocked it with a key she kept in her bra. She nodded at the inside of the room as she held the tall oaken door open. “You will be sleeping inside here.”

Her Knight was not amused. “You’re keeping me locked up in your room,” he said bluntly, “like I’m your pet.”

“I told you that you aren’t supposed to be here. If my father saw you, I don’t know if I could keep you from being executed. How would I justify you being here?”

A laugh from Veit erupted, followed by a confident smile and narrowed eyes. “He can try and execute me. But it won’t work. You know that.”

“And you know that I won’t let you kill my own soldiers,” Vainia rebuked with a somber look. “Just work with me here. It’s only for a week. I can’t have you strutting around the castle. Not in Mortis.”

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Too bad. You’re going to, and that’s an order.” The princess looked over her scowling Knight with a hint of concern. “You were hurt.”

“I’ll be fine. I always am. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Of course not…” She sighed. “Look, I have to return to the feast. I have favors I need my parents to do for me, and they won’t do them if I ignore all their invitations.” Veit growled but walked inside her room, taking a moment to bow his head and duck under her door. “I didn’t know you could be so immature and stubborn,” Vainia said with a quiet chuckle.

“Being stubborn is what keeps me alive. I won’t let death take me, not yet. I have not fought my last battle yet.” Veit removed his cloak and looked back at Vainia with a toothy smile.

“And you won’t, not for a long time.” She tried to hide her disturbed concern as she passed him the Crystal to keep in the room. “Promise me that. For as long as I am Queen and Empire, you will not die.” An image of her grandmother came into her head, old blind and boisterous Savage Queen Nolterya, and her prophecies. Nolterya’s spirit would live on with her, Nolstuvainia Sestrum So’octio, and there would be no further disappointments.

The Knight Constantus Veit could only smile back at her grimly as he sat down and crossed his legs. “I will never die.”

*****

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