How Journeys End Chapter Twenty-Two: Mile Sorrel

How Journeys End by Pineapple | Content warnings

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The barracks were on fire when they arrived back at the castle. Chrysan was exhausted—his eyes and his head hurt, but… he had to know. He had to know if everyone had gotten out safely.

He tried to see who was outside, if there was any sign of Viola, of Yarrow and Tarra, of the general in the midst of the battle. He knew there would be sacrifices. There was always death when something changed. There was always death when there was a disagreement. He knew this, and he couldn’t help but try to search for people he cared about.

Camellia stopped Her Highness’ maidservant as she fled.

“Cam,” Chrysan said, unable to hold himself back, “I’m going on ahead.”

She nodded, and he clicked at his horse, urging it into a gallop towards the battle. When the animal became timid, scared to get too close to the noise and the flickering light of the fires, Chrysan hopped off, letting his ride flee as he scanned the area.

“Tarra!” he shouted, spotting her yellow hair in the rising light.

She kicked into the chest of the man she was fighting and spun around to see Chrysan.

“Chrys!” she shouted back. “Where did you—where have you been?”

He shook his head, running to her side. “What happened here?”

She shrugged. “Viola was on night watch. I don’t know.”

“Is she—”

“I don’t know,” she said, clipped. She scanned him quickly, and her eyes darted to his flank. “Chrys!”

Tarra pulled a bow that was looped over her shoulders and tossed it to him. He caught it seamlessly, running at her like it was practiced. He pulled an arrow from the quiver on her hip and shot it as she slashed just to his left, a blaze of fiery magic left in the path of her attack.

He felt hot blood spray across his back. He saw the man Tarra had been fighting before he distracted her fall, a few feet away.

They turned to face each other.

“Thanks,” she huffed, blowing hair out of her blood-splattered face.

Chrysan raised the bow before letting it fall. “Same to you.”

She unhooked the quiver from her hip and handed it to him. As he latched it onto his own body, he watched Tarra, some of the tension in his arms easing. She’d slid on a breastplate before coming out to fight, apparently, but her legs were mostly bare. She’d put on her boots. Her hair was a mess—braided for sleep, and now coming undone from fighting. “What do you know?”

“I woke up to fire, to General Narsi shouting in the hall that we were under attack. I don’t know much more than that.”

“You barely know how to shoot and you bothered to grab a bow?” he jibed.

Tarra couldn’t help but smile as she rolled her eyes. “I thought it might come in handy, and wow, look at that. It did.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, fondness bleeding into his voice.

She furrowed her brow. “What?”

“Don’t die,” he said instead.

She barked out a laugh. “You either, huh? Yarrow is around here somewhere, keeping everyone he can alive. See him if you need any patching up, alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Chrysan shot back smoothly. “I’m more worried about you on our frontlines.”

“You know me well enough.” She tossed her hair out of her face with a shake of her head. “You shouldn’t worry.”

He felt himself smile at her confidence. “I’ll go check in with the general,” he said.

“Last I saw, he was over by the barracks, counting survivors.”

Chrysan nodded in thanks and took off running. Instead of the barracks, he ran straight to the castle. General Narsi would have briefed them on what was happening if he knew… which meant that Lady Via was likely safe, if she really had anything to do with it. She would be in the castle, probably with King William. And during an attack like this, there was only one place the reigning monarch would go.

So Chrysan fought, quickly firing arrows into anyone who turned a corner that he didn’t recognize, without waiting to see if they’d attack first or not. He might have been more merciful, had he been in less of a hurry. Resentment and regret were already building in him and he could feel it, but the violence wasn’t doing much to ease it. There were a few bodies he recognized, some puddles of blood he had to step carefully over. Luckily, it seemed the further in, the less people there were.

The throne room was mostly undisturbed as Chrysan surveyed it. A few things knocked over, a few of the potted plants that normally hung about had been torn from their spots, splattering greenery and flowers and dirt across the otherwise clean tile floors.

He paused in front of a large portrait of Queen Ann, looking up at it. He relaxed the pressure keeping the bow taut in his hands, the muscles in his arms aching as he did.

She was—she had been—beautiful. She smiled down at Chrysan in a way he could barely remember. It… hadn’t been long since she died, but thinking about her clouded his memory with a thick fog of anger, of promises of revenge and to survive.

He wondered if today would be the day he broke those promises to the queen—to his mother.

Chrysan hung his bow over one arm and lifted the painting, placing it gently to the side on the ground. Behind it was the faint impression of a door, a seam in the dust on the wall indicating its presence.

He pulled the knife from his boot and cut lightly into the back of his hand, wiping it on the wall in front of him. A thrum of static pulsed through him.

Chrysan tucked the knife into his belt and tried to recall the words Queen Ann had made him memorize since he was a child, just in case. King William hadn’t bothered to tell him about the secret room, made to protect the royals and the court.

Chrysan took the bow and an arrow in hand, pulled it taut, ready to fire as the door opened soundlessly.

There was a sword at his neck before he could even see who he’d be aiming at.

“I knew you weren’t worth the trouble,” the voice came, a second later.

Chrysan stared up at King William, his hands trembling with rage. He’d been in the middle of raising his weapon, but he was a few seconds too late, a few seconds slower than the king.

“How did you know it was me?” Chrysan asked. His eyes flickered to search the room behind King William. Lady Via was sitting perched on a table behind him, staring at the floor in a daze. “Her Highness could have been trying to enter to safety.”

“The door opens differently depending on the method of its opening,” the king said. “Siana doesn’t need her blood to prove herself.”

Chrysan looked back at the king. He was imposing in all aspects. He was tall. Broad shouldered, like Helianthus had been. His eyes were hard in a way that Chrysan prayed his weren’t, and every bit of William was unflinching, confident in his power, unafraid of the archer in front of him.

The blade at Chrysan’s neck inched forward, and Chrysan felt the sting of it, forcing him to take a step back, away from the safe room. “Don’t look at me like that,” King William warned.

Chrysan swallowed, feeling the cold of metal against his skin. “I wasn’t aware I was looking at you in any particular way.”

“Like you know something,” King William explained, assessing him slowly. “Like you have any right to judge me.”

“I had an interesting conversation last night,” Chrysan said. He took another step back of his own volition, increasing the space between them. The king settled into a stance that looked more ready for murder than intimidation, and Chrysan felt his arms ache as he raised his bow, ready to fire.

“You’d shoot your own king?”

“Why did you have Queen Ann killed?”

The king’s eyes narrowed.

“Why kill her and then—then use her death as an excuse? What was this all for? What was so important about Gladiolus that you had to pretend to be allies just to turn around and invade them?”

“Your Majesty,” a voice rang out from the room. Lady Via took a step out from behind the king.

King William barely spared her a glance.

Chrysan did—he looked straight at her, at the expression she kept in a careful mask of polite submission. “Lady Via,” he said. “You know—you know that he… But you…”

“I also heard an interesting conversation last night,” she said with a smile. “Did you know that I was the one who told your father that there was a plant in Gladiolus that could be brewed into immortality?”

King William looked down at the woman beside him. His face betrayed no emotions, but the very action of looking told Chrysan that the king was shocked that she knew Chrysan’s true identity.

“Immortality isn’t possible, even for the best magicians,” Chrysan said. “Queen Ann has always said that. She always told that to everyone she taught.”

Lady Via nodded, smiling solemnly. “If he’d ever listened to her, he’d have known that.”

Chrysan felt his hands shake. They’d never done that on the battlefield before. “You loved Queen Ann,” he said.

Lady Via nodded, tears in her eyes like real affection. “I did,” she said. “I would have started a war for her, and my reasons would have been honest. Not like an invasion for a fake plant. Not like having my wife killed for opposing my plans and saying it was someone else.”

 Chrysan swallowed the lump in his throat. “Did you trick him into starting this war?”

King William swung sideways, and Lady Via leapt away from the strike. Chrysan released his loaded bow. The king’s blade caught, slicing only Lady Via’s cape as she stumbled away. The arrow hit straight on, landing in King William’s shoulder, and he turned his glare on Chrysan.

Chrysan prepared his weapon again.

King William threw the arrow on the ground and it slid towards Chrysan, covered in blood. “Don’t point that at me,” he ordered. “If you’re truly prince Mile Sorrel, aim at the traitor of our kingdom.”

Lady Via tilted her head. “Everything His Majesty did, he would have done on his own,” she said, her voice airy. She smiled, but it was strained. “He killed her when she advocated using magic to aid Gladiolus. He used her death to continue to invade and grow his own power. I wonder what Queen Ann would have thought of his actions had she been alive?”

King William bristled, and when she fled, he started after her, but Chrysan released his hold on the arrow. It went straight into the king’s back.

He stopped in his tracks and turned on Chrysan, who was already reloading.

“You were never fit for the throne,” the king said through gritted teeth. He swung his sword in a circle in front of him, creating a wall of flames between the two of them.

Chrysan fired, clearing a line of sight through the inferno, but it was no use.

The king wasn’t there.

Chrysan searched frantically until a hand grabbed him by the neck, lifting him. King William tossed him across the room like he was nothing, and Chrysan hit the wall of the secret room hard, his head rattling as he landed on the floor.

He heard the door slam, popping back open at the force the king must have used.

He struggled up on his knees, reloading through the fuzziness in his mind. Limited space wasn’t good for an archer like him, but he’d be okay. He’d managed in worse situations.

Chrysan fired at the moving blur in his vision. He watched it hit the arrow out of the way. It swung and Chrysan’s vision cleared just enough for him to see King William’s sword smash his bow into pieces.

“I should have killed you when—”

Chrysan took the knife from his boot and threw it at the king.

It landed in his thigh, but perhaps not deeply enough. Chrysan’s aim was good, but he wasn’t used to knives and… Cori’s weapons were fiddly things—he knew that already.

William tore the knife from his leg and tossed it aside. “You worthless traitor!” he growled.

When Chrysan dove for the knife, the king stepped on his hand, squashing it beneath his boot.

“Your only redeeming quality has been using you to keep Narsi in line,” William said. “Have you no loyalty to your mother’s country?”

“Isn’t it funny that she’s only my mother when it’s useful to you?” Chrysan grit out. He tried to free his hand, feeling the full weight of the larger man on it. He slammed his face into the ground, trying to think of a plan. He had one last resort tucked away, one last ditch effort. He wasn’t there yet, he could still—

“You’ve outlived that usefulness,” the king said, raising his sword. And with one clean, decisive strike, King William cut through Chrysan’s forearm, separating his hand from the rest of him.

Chrysan screamed.

He pulled his newly freed limb close to him, curling in on himself in pain. Blood pooled beneath him despite his efforts to stop it.

“You can die as a reminder not to oppose me, just like your mother.”

Chrysan heard King William step off his dead hand, heard him step away. Where was he going? Was Chrysan going to fail here?

Panic and adrenaline flooded his body.

When he looked up, he saw his hand lying on the floor, a few feet away from Cori’s knife. He wanted to throw up.

He saw King William’s back, heading towards the door.

“When my mother died,” Chrysan said, pushing himself to his feet, “she ordered me not to die until you did.”

He started to turn, and Chrysan ran at him. Chrysan pulled the knife from his belt and stabbed King William in the neck.

King William stumbled backwards, and Chrysan collapsed.

As his vision blacked out, he saw the figure of the king fall a few feet away.