Chapter XIII | The Cannibals

“This place is deranged,” Timothy said. “I’m leaving, Tommy. I’m going back home.”

Tristan stared in shock at the condition he found Timothy Tom in. He was bloody and bruised all over. His sword was shattered, and his arm hung limp from his shoulder. “Leave? What happened?” He had just been enjoying a meal in the comfort of his home when Timothy barged in like this. The wedding ceremony hadn’t even started back up yet.

“Morris Morsylis is dead. The king is probably next. I’m done. There’s no fixing Pyraleia, Tristan. Can you get me on a ship to Typhon?”

“I can get you out of here in five minutes,” he said, but he was already feeling overwhelmed. “Is Claude really in danger? What do I do?”

Timothy held out his hand. “Come with me. Let’s go back to Typhon together. The Cities are sure to rally around us. ‘The World is Our Home.’ Those are our words. Remember?”

“I can’t, Timothy. You know that. Give me the key to the security network. I can still fix things.”

Timothy rummaged through his pockets until he found a small metal box. It was the key. He handed it to Tristan and started back out the door. “If there isn’t a ship on the south side in five minutes, I’m a dead man.”

By the time the Minister of Transport reached the security hallway and bypassed all the locks, the Battle of the Train Platform had already began, and by the time he got a high-speed train down to it, the Kid King was already dead. He barely got the doors open in time for Lana to escape into.

The moment the train was back up and moving, he dashed out from the driver’s box and down the carriages until he reached her. She still sat in the same seat, far more hurt and far more bloody than Timothy had seemed to be. But when she saw him, she smiled. Her injuries were so severe, you could hardly tell that there was a beautiful girl under it all, but her smile still managed to remain perfect.

“Can you take me somewhere far away?” she said. Her voice could barely scratch out the words. “Someplace no one knows me.” She fingered the handle of the hammer she brought with her. It almost seemed to simmer and smoke from her touch. There was something about it. Something she was only beginning to feel. Something she couldn’t understand.

“We’ll go to Vergalis,” Tristan said. “We’ll give you a new name. A new life. Everything. Just leave it to me.”

Lana wiped a tear from her eye and smeared blood across her cheek. She laughed a hurt laugh and slumped deeper into the seat. “Why are you so good to me? I’ve done nothing for you. You barely even know me.”

Tristan seemingly ignored her question as he slung her arm around his shoulder and stood her back up. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up a little before the next stop.” He walked her all the way back up front to find the healing box that came with every train module. He settled her in there and watched as the needles and sprays inside fixed her up best they could. Then he answered her question. “I’m good to you because… you remind me of my younger self.” Lana closed her eyes, and Tristan hung his head. “Although I think you have it far worse than I did.”

When night fell on the day of the Kid King’s untimely death, the JANITORs of the High Church marched for the Great Spire of Layer 1. Armed with E-15s and charged batons, they charged through the front doors, nearly a hundred strong. The Morsylis House Guard made way for them, too frightened to draw their weapons, and so the bulk of the High Church’s military might made it all the way up to the Throne Hall uncontested.

Fifty JANITORs entered, two at a time until they filled the width of the hall, as close to the back as possible. Before the throne itself stood six of the nine RINGKNIGHTs. Electricity sparked about them as their augments ran, cranked to the max.

Tristan was already seated near the back of the central table when the JANITORs entered. He seemed unperturbed by the ruckus. August Caecilius, dressed in thick padded armor, emerged from his rows of JANITORs and patted his fellow minister on the shoulder.

“You have a lot of courage, Tristan.”

He sloshed his bottle of vodka in response. “Liquid courage, perhaps.”

August was about to laugh, but just then, the western wall on high was knocked down in one go. It crumbled into neat piles of debris and smoke, and blinding white floodlights poured in. Dozens of GUARDs emerged, dropping in all at once from a noisy hovercraft above. They bore the colors of House Kavesta, pale white and blood red. The gust from the blades of the craft swept the cloud of dust back out through the entrance they carved, and the thundering noise receded into the night as it left.

Quiet fell upon the Throne Hall, so the old River Ringknight stepped forward to address the knights and soldiers who gathered there. “The king is dead!” he declared. “The impossible has taken place and the king is dead. So now the Cities sit in wonder and ask, who next will lead us? You’ve all come here tonight to give your answer. You come with guns and steel. Fine then, we say. This is our answer.” In perfect sync, all present RINGKNIGHTs unsheathed their blades and turned them outward. “Only a child of House Morsylis may sit on this throne. Those who refuse, die.”

In response, the GUARDs of House Kavesta opened up a path, and Baron Jean Kavesta stepped into the hall himself. “Our house pledged its undying loyalty to House Morsylis when it was formed. The RINGKNIGHTs have our aid.”

“Lord August,” Sir Kamran addressed. “Your reply?”

August Caecilius simply took a seat beside Tristan and twiddled his thumbs. He let the seconds tick by, and those in the hall waited patiently for a response that never came. Instead, the twin doors opened again, and the rows of JANITORs made way for another.

The hem of her wedding dress crackled as it dragged across the floor, brown of dried blood. The long black hair that she’d grown in the months since her inauguration had been cut short again, and its strands curled into messy knots like it used to. She moved barefoot down the hall, quietly as she approached her own order. Lilya Caecilius only stopped when the swords were at her throat.

“Move aside,” she commanded, but none budged an inch.

“Your loyalty has been put into question,” said Sir Sam Embers. “We’ve all seen the footage.”

Lilya’s expression crumpled, her lashes and lips like smears in an oil painting. Animated in dribs and droplets, whites on black until they took perfect shape again, by rage and by will. “They’re twins,” she said, with a voice too sweet. Lord August clambered back to his feet, his face curiously pale, but he quickly regained himself when Lilya’s hand twitched. When she lifted it to the fabric just above her pelvis, where her flesh and womb sat beneath. “Claude’s twins.”

❧☙

The troops that had all assembled in the Throne Hall that night quickly disappeared again once it became clear the line of succession was secure. The GUARDs of House Kavesta remained to repair the wall they had destroyed while the JANITORs left back the way they entered.

In the corner of his eye, Tristan caught sight of the little boy he had met in Vergalis. Oliver Evans, he believed his name was. He was following that woman out of the Throne Hall, but their gazes met at the last moment, so Tristan waved him over. The boy seemed conflicted at first, but chose to go and see what the minister wanted to say to him.

Without a word, Tristan gestured for Oliver to open his palm, which he did, and so the short minister left him with something and shooed him back away. Confused, Oliver jogged back to rejoin Lisica on the way out of the Great Spire and didn’t open his palm again until he was back in his base’s locker room. It was a single round, wrapped in a small piece of paper with a note scribbled onto it.

“This is Marion’s fourth, called Desecration. A rootsteel round. It should be compatible with your standard equipment. Use it only when necessary. And stay far from the Ends in the coming weeks. Trust me. My contact information is on the back.”

This note came with so many questions. Where did Tristan the Train get access to rootsteel munitions? If it was this Marion person’s fourth, did that mean he possessed at least three more? For now, he pocketed the round and tore up the note for disposal, and went home as if it were like any other day.

The house was quiet when he opened the door. Alina must’ve already fallen asleep, either on their couch or back at her own home, rare though that was. And his father. His father sat in his study, half-drunk like always, and didn’t say a word. For the most part, everything seemed normal, but it wasn’t. The king was really dead. And in his place, they had two unborn children and the will of the church.

The twins were born in the new year. And while the Dowager Queen delivered her children in the medical bay of the Great Spire, her father moved in the shadows. Her father and his followers. The Ends killed our king, they cried. Out with them all. For the good of the many. By the will of the Lady. For the good of the good. So deep into the night, the might of the JANITORs were assembled, and they marched into the Ends to purge the filth.

Alex and Lisica Longrove did not kill a single soul that night. They were among the last to be deployed, and when they arrived, the concrete was already soaked with blood, and the rows of flowers were all crushed under corpses. How many were already dead? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds? No. Lisica could not shield her eyes from the truth. The truth that on this night, the High Church had ordered millions to death. Defenseless millions until the Ends fell into horrible quiet.

But while the gunfire still sang across the layer through the night in flame, Lisica dragged her brother away from the carnage. Her brother who could barely believe what he saw, just as she, and who emptied his stomach sooner than she thought he would. Back up an elevator and even further. Higher. High up until you could easily look up and see nothing but night sky. But stars. It almost seemed to them that for every star they could see then, an innocent person had just been slain.

At fourteen years of age, the Lucky Lilies Institute for Abandoned Children discovered that I could sing, and so decided they would broadcast my voice down the street to attract visitors. They had me singing all sorts of songs, and there were more than a few who came to visit only to find a child too old for their taste. Eventually, the visitors stopped coming, and the staff stopped pestering me, but I still sang. Just for fun this time. Just because I knew that people liked to hear it.

And almost like a miracle, we had just one more visitor. A pair, actually. Through some wondrous work of fate, Hall Areille found me there, attracted by my voice down a street they had chosen to visit by random on another visit to Vergalis. Sarah and Adam, that odd couple I had met so long ago on the train. A time I could already barely recall.

“Would you like to come live with us?” Sarah said. This time, my autumn girl could not stop me. A family was all I ever wanted for as long as I could remember since I landed in that place. I took her hand and walked out with them before the day was out, and the Annamarie Kavesta who had died was reborn as Annamarie Areille.

Meanwhile, the twins Arthur and Freya Morsylis turned four of age an ocean’s distance away. And at four, the Church granted them the right to the crown. Claude could only take it at eighteen, but the first kings of Morsylis were also twins, and both took the throne at the same age. It was the guidance of heaven, they declared. Reincarnated into flesh, the first kings of their royal line would lead them to salvation. To Infinite Heaven, as described in the holy text.

To Infinite Heaven, then.