Chapter Fifty Eight: A Rat in Need of a Caging

Charlotte had always loved to play pretend and imagine her wedding day. Those envisionings had never ended with her groom voicing his hatred for her of course, admitting that he was forcing himself to marry her, then getting attacked from above by an assassin, as the doors of the cathedral blew open, the guests all fell to panicking, and her own aunt held a pistol to her head, trying to threaten their way back to order. Charlotte had felt the solid urge to just sit down, cover her ears, and start crying in those horrible long minutes, but she had resolved to be stronger than that. She had resolved to save Carnen’s life, even if he despised her, and to stop him and Aya from fighting.

All she could really do in the end however, was scream at the stranger who was attacking her prince. She shouted for him to stop, but only Aya seemed to hear her over all the chaos and gunfire, so Charlotte made the choice to abandon her comatose aunt. She set Clara on the floor and sprinted to hurl herself bodily in between Carnen and his bronze-skinned attacker once Carnen got his sword stuck in an oaken bench and that scimitar whipped down to take off his head.

Aya took much more effective action to end that fight, stepping out to shield Carnen and battering aside the deadly stroke coming to end him. Charlotte felt glad for that, but also shamed and rather useless. That shame only deepened, as she wound up tripping on the train of her dress and plunging face first toward the floor.

The stranger caught her though. He dropped his scimitar and slid forward on his knees in most dramatic, agile dive to catch her before she hit. My, but he had the most beautiful, big eyes, colored a heart-melting chocolate. “You caught me.” She did not know why she felt the need to state the obvious with such gratitude and wonder, and she gave a self-conscious blush, eyes lowering in shame.

The stranger smoothed back her hair. “Of course. I would dive into the pits of hell itself to save you discomfort, my bride.”

“Your…? What?”

“I am the man your father truly intended you to marry,” the stranger explained, raising her hand to his lips. “Kareem, son of the great marquis, Razier.”

“O-oh?”

“Stop slobbering on her, and get moving,” Aya snapped, fixing a hand in back of his shirt and yanking him back from his declared-to-be bride.

He stumbled forward a few steps and muttered beneath his breath in Arakesh that Aya was a most un-womanly demon, daring to man-handle him like that.

“Do not be so rude to her!” Charlotte chided in perfectly fluent Arakesh. “She is looking out only for our safety, and we surely must run from here before we are surrounded.”

Kareem’s eyes widened, fixing back on her and giving the broadest smile. “Your grammar and accent are flawless,” he praised, putting a tender hand to her cheek. “Your tutors have long been preparing you to serve as my wife, I can see.”

“They-they have?” Charlotte squeaked, back to a stuttering butchering of the common tongue.

“We were destined to be, and I will love you forever.”

“You… love? Oh… oh my.” Charlotte had never been treated to those words. Even Carnen with all his charm and pulse-quickening lines of flattery had never spoken to her those words, hard as she had fished to hear them. Now here was this most dazzling stranger, Kareem, with his shining eyes and perfect teeth, and tender hold, declaring so earnestly… “You really love me?”

“With all my soul.”

“Don’t believe him, Char,” Aya retorted, yanking on her arm. “He’s fickle as a breeze. Now move your feet, both of you.”

They charged toward the back of the chapel and sprinted up the stairs to the bell tower. Kareem had not once let go of Charlotte’s hand, even when they had to force their way past an armored pair of northmen. Kareem cut them down one-handed with his scimitar, as Aya guarded their rear, and before long they were sliding down the slanted roof toward the rope that Aya had left anchored there.

Charlotte felt her stomach drop when even glancing at that most dizzying drop. She could not help but close her eyes. Aya reached out to aid her, but Kareem had already taken her into his arms, telling her to hold tight. She gave a jerky nod and kept her forearms locked in rigid hold around his neck as he made the climb down to the ground.

Charlotte felt her toes touch ground, and her eyes opened, though she still kept her rigid hold around Kareem’s neck for some reason, struggling to calm her pounding heart-rate. “We are safe now on the earth, my love,” Kareem assured her, gently lifting her arms from their rigid hold around his neck and turning around so they were face to face. “Still, you may keep cradled close against me if you wish, and I will guard you from all--”

“From all six dozen enemies hemming us into this alley? I don’t think you can really,” Aya snapped, jumping down the six feet of rope she still had left and staring warily at the contingent of black armored knights charging around from the front of the church. “The back way. Move--”

A gunshot clipped the ground right by Aya’s foot, and she jerked back in surprise, turning her eyes to the opposite corner of the church. Another warrior of Arakesh was standing there with rifle in hand, and a dozen of his countrymen were already flooding in to cut off their only escape route. “You will not be running off again, Aya,” a familiar voice chided, and Charlotte’s eyes widened, fixing on the figure limping his way to the head of these foreign troops with a bronze-topped cane. “especially not with my daughter. And you will get your hands off of her,” he snapped at Kareem, “you dishonorable--”

“You are not one to speak of dishonor, my friend,” the richly armored leader of the Arakesh laughed, clapping Marseir on the back. “My son has done nothing dishonorable in rescuing his bride, the bride he was promised whom you tried to replace with a common-blooded fraud.”

“I have already explained, Razier, that was for the protection of my family and my people,” Charlotte’s father calmly excused. “I could not let it be known yet that my daughter was a captive. I was tricking the Gristhms into thinking that they had abducted a fake to wed their prince, and I had fully intended to unite our houses once my operatives rescued my daughter and brought her back to us.”

“Alas, my dear, old friend,” Razier sighed, hands still clamped tight around the shoulders of his much shorter peer. “I do not at all believe you now. You have far too often broken that trust.”

“Then I apologize, but this is hardly the place to discuss it,” Marseir snapped, keeping his own pistol trained on the line of black armored knights at the opposite end of this alley.

The northmen had formed into threatening ranks and sealed off their exit, but they were making no move to attack. Still, Charlotte’s father seemed nervous with them looming so close to her like that. “Those northmen have not yet attacked our children, no doubt due to our line of trained rifles pointed at their chests, but the fight for this city is far from done for the day, so we must detain that treasonous peasant,” he most insultingly labeled Aya, “and draw back behind better defenses.”

“How wrong you are, my former friend. Those men are no threat to me.” Razier raised a finger, and the Arakesh warrior at his side fired his rifle directly into the face of Marseir’s only guard, Tom, blowing out his brains.

Charlotte screamed, and Kareem clamped a hand over her eyes to shield her from the sight, cradling her against him as the strength went out from her knees.

“I apologize, my dear, that you had to witness that,” she heard Razier most earnestly announce, and she opened her eyes to find he had the blade of his scimitar raised right to her father’s throat.

She screamed even louder and started toward them, but Kareem held her back. He was staring at his father in clear confusion as he demanded, “What is going on?!”

“I was just about to explain that, my son. So do calm down please,” he prodded Charlotte, and she gave a nervous swallow. “I wish you no distress, but your father, Duke Marseir, is a most serious criminal as it turns out, abusing his power and breaking all rules of honor and proper society. He must be held accountable for those acts.”

“I am the king of this country, you treacherous--”

Razier’s hand clenched around Etienne’s throat, and his word cut out with a gasp of pain. “Treacherous, now you term me? You must stop being so very hypocritical, my friend. You are the king of nowhere, not since you betrayed our bargain to unite our houses and sent an assassin into bed with my son.”

“She was not to hurt him--” Marseir excused, but Razier clenched his fingers and the duke fell silent with an angry hiss.

“You deceived the house of Gristhm in an identical manner,” Razier continued on, his tone as mild and earnest as it had been since the beginning of this stand off. “and when your cousin, Queen Clara, sent me her missive explaining all this, I was most disturbed and incensed, I must say. Now, seeing the true Charlotte for myself, standing side by side with the fake you tried to foist upon us, I find myself in complete agreeance with her majesty that she is in fact the rightful queen of this country, and you by contrast are a rat in sore need of a caging.”

He shoved Marseir off into the hands of his guards, and the duke’s cane went clattering to the ground. “Stop! Don’t hurt him! Please!” Charlotte cried, pulling against Kareem’s restraining hands. “He was only trying to protect me…”

“Perhaps, my dear,” Razier apologized, “but justice must be served. I will let his own cousin and country pass judgment on your father, but you will not share in that trial. You, my dear daughter, are not to blame for his sins. You will marry my son, and the heir you produce will take the throne of Stalis once he is grown, just as my former friend, Duke Marseir, did promise us.”

“That is…” She looked once more to Kareem and felt her dismay soothe over somewhat. “That is… Okay. But… father…”

She looked again to Marseir, and he gave a heavy sigh, forcing himself to meet her gaze with resolute assurance. “All will be well, Charlotte. Razier is an honorable man, and that is why I first agreed to this match. They will care for you well in Arakesh.”

“Good man.” Razier beamed, clapping him on the back and making him grimace. “Now off to the dungeons with you!” His men dragged the duke off down the alley, and Razier lifted his gaze to the captain of the black-armored northmen, still standing rigid guard on the opposite side of the alley. “You, Captain Von, may retreat back to the castle with your men. I have not seen her majesty the queen yet, but I trust she is unharmed?”

“Rendered unconscious by Marseir’s assassin,” Von denounced, glare fixing on Aya, “just like our prince. Still, they are both of them unharmed, yes.”

“Excellent. Then we’ve only one last matter to see to.” The marquis motioned forward his men, and they rushed to seize Aya. She looked toward the rope at her back, but she could not truly do much to either fight back or escape, not with a line of loaded rifles being pointed at her chest. “Aya Ronin, assassin of Marseir, you too will be off to the dungeons.”

“Father, stop! She is not Marseir’s agent. I have claimed her as my--” Kareem insisted, even as Charlotte rambled over him:

“What? No! She has done no wrong! She is my friend and--”

“Quiet, both of you,” Razier boomed, and the force of that tone and that deadly gaze as he raised his voice for this first time shocked them both into flinching silence. “This assassin may have betrayed her former master, but that does not erase her sins. She has committed most serious crimes of her own initiative,” the marquis claimed, back to mild-mannered benevolence once again. “Aya Ronin will stand trial for the murder of this country’s lawful king, Yuri Gristhm.”

“What?” Aya appeared genuinely shocked by that accusation, and so was Charlotte. She had seen Yuri just that morning. How could he be dead now? Had Aya truly broken into the castle and put an end to him, just as Charlotte’s father had earlier ordered?

She met her friend’s gaze, and she knew the answer in an instant. This accusation was a lie, but Charlotte was powerless to do anything to protest it, powerless as she had ever been, as the Arakesh warriors and the northmen worked in tandem to clap Aya’s hands in irons and haul her off to prison.