Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book... - Chapter 49: Chapter 49

Mhera was startled out of sleep by a shout from the hallway outside of her apartments. She sat up in bed and looked at the door. Cold fear swept down from her scalp to her toes in a numbing wave, and for a moment, she could not move.
The door burst open an instant later, and the two guards who had stood outside of her bedroom doors came in. Oela slammed the door behind her and slid the bolt home, and the other, a tall man named Neson, charged toward her curtained bed. She shrank back on instinct, lifting an arm in defense.
"Your Grace, intruders in the palace," he said, breathless. He snatched the robe that hung over the chair next to Mhera's bed and threw it over her lap. With shaking fingers, she reached for it, but she did not even think to put it on.
A shout came from the other side of the door—a loud voice, a man's voice—and there was a crackling sound and a clank, as of metal on metal. Then came a thud, which was somehow more terrifying than anything else Mhera had heard.
"Out of bed, Your Grace. To the wardrobe, please."
Neson had unsheathed his sword and stood between Mhera's bed and the door, tightening his grasp around the hilt. Mhera slid out of bed the other way, nearly tripping over the bed clothes and dragging the robe he had given her with her. She swung it over her shoulders as she ran to the wardrobe. She fumbled for the handle and wrenched it open, then threw herself inside.
As she stood there in the darkness, breathing unsteadily, Mhera could not help but think of Hastor, the guard who had tried to defend Uarria and had been slain. He had been stuffed unceremoniously into a wardrobe just like this one for Matei and Eovin to find. His wide, empty-eyed gaze flitted through her mind, and quick on the heels of this tortured memory was the thought of her daughter's face and a bone-deep ache for her husband.
Matei. Please be safe. I love you. I love you. If I die...If I die...
There was a rattle and a crash. More shouting. It sounded like someone was trying to break down the door. "Open! Open and make way!"
There was a muffled curse, and another thud, and Mhera flinched, sinking back past the layers of clothing that hung in her wardrobe. There was a final, tremendous, splintering crash, and then the sound of racing footsteps and a shriek.
"Lower your weapons!" shouted Neson.
An arrogant laugh sounded. "Lower yours, you ink-faced bastard, or I'll gut the bitch where she stands."
Mhera's heart dropped into her stomach. Oela. She clenched her hands into fists, staring wide-eyed through the darkness and wishing she could see what was happening outside of her hiding place.
"I did warn you. Kill her," came the same voice.
Fear lanced through Mhera's gut. She was moving before she could even think; in the next instant, she had burst out of the wardrobe, crying, "Stop! Stop!"
There were four strangers in her room, and more in the parlor beyond. Her two guards had backed up as the intruders forced their way in; Neson was holding his sword in a defensive posture, facing off with two strange swordsmen, and Oela had her hands open, one at her hip and one at her shoulder, her palms welling over with glowing red magic. She seemed ready to strike, but there was an archer with an arrow leveled at her heart; it would be a close thing were they both to loose their weapons at once.
"Your Grace! In the wardrobe!" shouted Neson. His normal expression of calm obeisance was gone; he looked at her now with desperate fear.
"Lower your weapons. Do not harm my guards, and I will come with you," Mhera said, addressing herself to the one intruder who was not on the offensive. He stood with a dagger hanging from his fingers as if he had forgotten it, looking on with an expression of amusement. Sparing a glance for Neson and hoping he could read the plea in her eyes—Don't risk your life for me, we are outnumbered—Mhera continued, "You are here for me, are you not?"
"Your Grace, stop!" Oela said.
Mhera's knees were shaking. She did not know who these strange, armed men were, nor whence they had come or where they would take her, but she could not bear the thought of Neson and Oela dying to keep her safe for another few moments. It would only be a matter of time, if these intruders had come to the palace, before they found her; they'd slay the two guards and then search the room. They must have come in force to have broken past the line of defenses that bordered the palace on all sides, which was a terrifying thought. The palace was well-guarded. And it must have all happened so quickly, for just the evening before she had looked out across the rooftops of the Holy City with a cup of tea in her palms and had wondered at how peaceful it was, when in the south at the border of Penrua and Narr, all was bloodshed.
"Please," Mhera said softly. She looked at Oela, raising a hand. "Please. I have the utmost faith in you both, but we are quite outnumbered."
With an expression of such tragic despair that it broke Mhera's heart, Neson lowered his hand. Oela seemed unable to believe what was happening; she clenched her fists, and they trembled at her sides, the streams of magic trembling around her knuckles.
"It boggles the mind, but the bastard's whore has seen reason," said the commander. He gestured, and one of the swordsmen switched focus, leveling his sword at Oela. "Both of you, drop your weapons."
Neson dropped his sword, which fell to the marble floor with a clatter that made Mhera flinch. Oela backed up a few paces, but she did not relinquish her command of the magic. The archer narrowed his eyes. Mhera stepped forward, drawing breath to plead or to scream or to command, but in that moment, a dark shape rose up in her parlor, coming up behind the armed men, and her breath dried up in her throat.
It was a shape she recognized. The set of those shoulders; the angle of his head; the sound of his footsteps. Even after all this time.
Koren emerged into the gentle moonlight that filtered in through Mhera's window. He was massive in the small space. She was reminded, perversely, of a day long ago when she had crouched in a tiny prison hut in the rebel village of Hanpe. That day, another broad-shouldered man had stepped toward her, there to take her into custody and drag her to her death.
"Cousin." Koren gave a tight smile, casting his gaze around the room. "You're rather at home here in Mother's chambers, aren't you?"
Mhera couldn't breathe. She stepped backward. The strength was fleeing her body; her legs felt weak.
"Kill them," Koren said mildly.
In an instant, the blade that had been angled toward Oela swung through the air. She had no time to scream; it took her at the joint of her neck and her shoulder, cleaving down into her chest. She fell onto the carpet, dark blood pooling beneath her. Neson, who had already dropped his sword, lunged toward it—but in an instant, the archer had changed his mark, and the arrow took him clean through the throat. He fell to his knees, clutching the shaft of the arrow with a gurgling sound of panic.
"No!" Mhera screamed. She darted toward him, arms outstretched. "No!"
Koren stepped between Mhera and her fallen protector. She did not quite catch herself in time. She barreled into his chest. His large hands fell onto her shoulders and grasped her hard, pushing her back from him. He looked down at her, studying her face with a critical eye.
"I can tell you are not happy to welcome me back home; you've probably grown used to the comforts that accompany the stolen crown that you wear. Do not worry, sweet Mhera. I'll unburden you soon enough."
He turned, pulling her with him, and seized a fistful of her clothes from the back, marching her before him as he stepped out of the room. "Soeni, take her for me, will you? Be gentle; I suspect we'll need her to draw my bastard half-brother out of the shadows. Let her conserve her energy until her tears are useful to us."
Shaking so badly she could barely stand, Mhera was handed over into the custody of a dark-haired soldier, who took her arm none-too-gently and guided her through her parlor. There were more men here, at least ten of them. She glimpsed their faces, seeing no one familiar. When she was thrust into the hallway, she tripped over the sprawling leg of another fallen guard.
At last she sobbed, straining for a sight of his face. These people had died to defend her, and from the beginning all had been lost. Soeni turned her, pushing her down the empty hallway. She focused on keeping her feet. What awaited her, she could not know.