Page 78 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 78- HESTAN

T he house that was once mine, was now Kaspian’s.

I stood in my own sitting room, surrounded by several people I did not know. They were scattered across my furniture, sprawled across the countertops, leaning against the walls.

And at the centre, settled down into a large seat by a log fire, Kaspian sat, staring now, at the child beside me.

“Is he yours?” Kaspian asked.

I gritted my teeth, “Of course not.”

Kaspian twisted his lips. “How would I know? Look at him. He’s clinging to you.”

“That’s because I saved his life.”

Kaspian laughed. “I see. So exactly like with you and Our Majesty then. No wonder you think it’s normal.”

“It is generally normal to have positive feelings towards someone when they prevent you from dying,” I replied starkly.

“Positive feelings,” Kaspian nodded yes. “But that?” he pointed at the child whose fingers were so tightly clenched into my clothing his knuckles whitened.

“He’s a child,” I pointed out.

“You aren’t.”

“I was.”

“ Was ,” Kaspian emphasised.

“What do you want?” I bit.

“It’s actually good for us that you possess such a strong attachment to the King. You’re going to stay here. No doubt that niece of his will reach the Palace and tell him all about your predicament. Then, assuming the King won’t want you to be dismembered, he’ll finally feed us.”

“You think you can keep me as a hostage?” I asked. “You think that will work?”

“I’m sorry but there’s no think about it Captain. You are our hostage. Look around you.” He gestured at the several people occupying my house. “Where is it you think you can go? You’d have to kill every single last one of these people to escape. You could probably do it, but your conscience wouldn’t allow it.”

I huffed. “If you’re going to start removing my fingers and toes, my conscience won’t be a problem.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Kaspian stroked his chin with the back of his knuckles. “I’ll let you keep the child…as a gesture of goodwill.”

“The child isn’t something to be kept,” I replied irritated.

“It’s only a phrase,” he replied defensively. “Anyway, if you refuse and decide to try and fight your way out of this, then you won’t be able to prevent that boy from death this time.”

My facial expression, which I normally could keep utterly unaffected by my emotions, warped in disgust.

“You…you were never this way,” I remarked. It’s true that Kaspian had always been brash, honest, and at times insensitive, but he had also been idealistic, brave, and selfless.

“Perhaps I always was, and you just never stopped to look?”

“No. You’re threatening children now. The very children you made your speech about when—"

“When you dismissed me, yes, I remember it well.” Kaspian tilted his head.

I clenched my fists. “Kaspian. No matter the situation. This is wrong.”

“The situation?” He laughed. “It must have been lovely for you in Vasara, all that food, that wine, those refreshments.” His lips parted, the tip of his tongue tracing his canine tooth. “But here Captain…here we are starving. And a starving person doesn’t care much for how they fill their stomachs. Hunger can do things to you. It doesn't come from here, no." He placed his hand on his abdomen. "But here." He pointed at his head. "It's this maddening living thing, an itch you can't scratch, ricocheting through every fibre of your body. It forces you to be alert, while you weaken and tremble. It screams at you to eat, its hands around your throat, threatening to choke you, laughing and yelling its taunts, driving you to the edge, loosening your tongue, and clouding your thoughts. At first, perhaps, you can ignore it, but after a while, those thoughts grow more fragmented, your mood more erratic, who you are lost to those hands around your neck. Nobody , I have come to understand, can stay noble while hungry. And not even because they choose to commit sin, or do wrong, but because hunger worms its way inside their heads. If it can't have food, it will have you mind. If it can't eat bread, it will eat your heart, until nothing is left inside you chest. Until its as hollow as your stomach. That is what hunger is. It is not a growl in your core but a grip on your soul."

I had stiffened up. I remembered, I too, had once felt this hungry. But as with any physical sensations, they were dulled by time, replaced with others. With a blade tearing the muscles in my leg, with another pressed to my neck, with fingers brushed against my face, or fear, or unease, or confusion.

"You don't believe me, Captain?" Kaspian watched my reaction. I didn't respond. All knew I had been born in one of Kalnasa's poorest villages, Shinoba, but none knew the true extent of my family's poverty.

Kaspian continued. “I’ve seen it…I’ve seen people lose their minds, I’ve seen them eat their own children, I’ve seen them eat their own flesh. I’ve seen…” he trailed off for a moment. “How easy it is to say this is wrong. How easy to look at those of us on the ground, clawing and fighting for the scraps, and regard us with disgust…and yet you would turn and look up at your King, praise him, glorify him, when he is the reason we are driven to such depravity.”

I shook my head. “People are pushed into situations which they cannot fathom or imagine,” I spoke. “They are faced with choices others may never have to endure. But what they do when they are faced with them is entirely their decision. They cannot blame others for their actions.”

“You haven’t changed at all, Captain, and here I thought Vasara might expose you to some difficult realities.”

My brow dropped. Expose me to some difficult realities?

“You are wrong,” I replied. Too often people believe that someone who endeavours to make moral, or just decisions, must do so simply because they have not been exposed to those difficult realities, to the harsh truth of the world, and too often we wash away the deeds of those who do not, with the reason they were exposed to them too much, and for too long. But it is far more often that those who endeavour to give this cruel, cold world a slither of warmth, do so, because they know its worth far more than the rest. It is not because they are na?ve, but because they are not.”

The room fell quiet, those who had been picking at their fingers, or playing with their weapons, or sipping from my cups, stopped moving.

Kaspian sighed. “I was wrong. You have changed. You’re even more ridiculous than you were—"

The house shook.

The smash of objects falling to the floor and breaking, the half-yells, half-mutterings of people in the room, all sounded at once.

“What the fuck was—" Kaspian started.

But the house shook again, this time rumbling far more violently. The boy clung to my leg even tighter. I took several steps forwards to grab onto a beam from the floor to the ceiling.

Kaspian turned to me, a suspicious look in his eyes.

“I’ve only just arrived. How would this be my doing?” I snarled.

Screams sounded from outside. Screams of agony and of terror. Toe curling ones.

I moved towards the door.

“Where are you—" Kaspian tried to grab my arm.

“Do you really think you can keep me hostage now?” I retorted, shaking free from his grasp.

I swung the door open and ran out into the street. Kaspian, several of the other individuals, and the boy followed me.

We turned to the right, where the wails were coming from.

“It’s not coming from the Palace,” a woman behind me remarked.

“It could still be the King!” a man said, “Kaspian, I told you that he’d—"

“Shut up!” Kaspian barked without turning around.

A cloud of darkened dust travelled up the road towards us, the distinct sound of pounding against the ground.

“Horses…that many…” the woman said.

“What’s…that smell?” the man asked.

As if in response to the question, a screeching sound, high pitched and ringing, followed by a thick and booming explosion of flames.

“Grenades! Fuck! Those are grenades!” the man wailed.

Another one, closer to us now, the smell of burning wood, of charred flesh curled all around us. Dark, smoky tendrils that travelled up our nostrils and slid into our mouths.

“We have to go!” Several of the people started running, in the direction of the Palace, the only direction in which they could go.

Kaspian and I didn’t move, staring at the incoming sea of smoke, fire, and dust.

“Why aren’t you going with them?” I asked him.

“Why aren’t you…and him…?” He pointed down at the boy who was still by my side, trembling.

The next explosion was so close we could feel the heat.

Kaspian and I didn’t think for another second. We both spun around, he with his grey jacket trailing behind him, I with the boy under one of my arms, and ran.

As if those fires had been waiting for our attempt to flee, they flared all at once, chasing at our heels. Kaspian jerked back, his eyes widening as some began to swarm in through the side, wood flying into the air, howls with them. He ran into my side accidentally, then glanced behind him over his shoulder.

I was running alone.

I stopped.

“Kaspian! What are you—"

“It was the King,” Kaspian muttered ahead of me. He was staring into the distance, his expression blank and distant, resigned and lost.

Hope bloomed in my chest. In the distance, a blurred image of a crown of dark red hair and pale eyes emerged.

Vasara’s King was here.

“He’s come to—"

But my voice was strangled by the look plastered across the King’s face, miring that hope.

Vasara’s King had not come to our aid.

For around him, were hundreds of soldiers, some atop horses, some on foot, glistening in golden and blood red armour.

Cutting down everything in their path.