Book 4: Chapter 37: The Dowager |
Michael and Gabriel stayed completely still. The implications were clear, and neither wanted to risk anyone getting hurt.
“Welcome home son. I see you brought company this time.”
They remained silent. Michael was gauging his distance to the children. He could cross it quickly, but not quickly enough to prevent his daughter-in-law's throat from being slit. He may be able to heal it before she died, even if she was beheaded, but it was a heavy risk. He began to channel his healing anyway, preparing.
“Hello Queen Dowager. I see you expected us. Can I ask how?”
“I received reports of illicit border crossings. It was a small footnote, but I intuited a possibility from it. Seems like I did so just in time.”
“How lucky for you,” replied Gabriel, his voice thick with venom.
“Your brand is gone. You wouldn’t have made this attempt if it wasn’t,” she said it as a statement, she already knew. She looked at Michael. “This one. The ‘Hero of Lataxia’, I’m guessing. Haven’t heard of many other selfless heroic healers recently. Does he know that it’s your fault he lost comrades in Cantalia?” she asked.
Michael didn’t have to wonder how she’d figured that out. He’d gotten more than a few tastes of how advanced spycraft was across the nations of Hume.
“I know,” responded Michael before Gabriel could speak. “It was war. They knew that, and you were the one that pushed him into it.”
“He’s not the one holding children hostage at the moment,” replied Michael.
“But he has taken children hostage before. Sure, they’re in gilded cages, but a hostage is a hostage.”
The insectoid man opened his maw.
“He is Aur-ma. He will not negotiate or make peace. He hates my kind too much. He frees those that would terrorize our people and slaughters us with flames. He hates us more than he would ever hate Castor.”
“This is pointless,” said Gabriel, standing up a bit straighter, causing Sylus to flinch his blade arm for just a moment. “I no longer have a brand. Your personal guard is dead, and even if it wasn’t Michael and I could kill them all ourselves easily. Surrender.”
“We have other resources,” replied the Queen Dowager with a look at Sylus.
“Not anymore,” replied Michael. “They were likely burnt to a crisp minutes ago.”
Sylus didn’t frown, but his hair of thick antennae did flare for a moment and his mouth peeled open a bit farther to reveal teeth sharper and longer than any humans.
Michael activated his Eyes of Love, looking at the strands that spread from the Queen Dowager.
“Come on mother,” Gabriel practically spat the word. “Surrender peacefully and I can guarantee one of those gilded cages. Otherwise, you die here. You’ve been a number of things to me throughout my life, but I’d never consider you to be a fool. Don’t act like one.”
She was silent for just a moment, then turned to look at Sylus, opening her mouth.
Before she said anything the insect smiled, and closed his armblades together, passing them cleanly through the young Queen’s neck as if they were scissors.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Yuna!” screamed Gabriel, seeming to vanish from sight, his shoulder slamming into Sylus and sending him into a wall even as he turned toward the children with his blades extended.
Gabriel cradled her as she brought hands up to her neck, her eyes wide with fear. She felt there for a few moments, but there was nothing. No marks, no blood. The children gathered around her too. Golden light was emanating all around them and they turned toward the source of it.
Michael was walking across the room, nearly standing in front of Sylus. His eyes were full of cold rage that Gabriel had never seen from him before.
“None of my family is going to die today,” he said as he reached Sylus.
The creature shrieked and lunged at Michael, both of its arms split into blades and two more blade arms revealing themselves near its waist. Michael caught the two larger blades with his hands, grasping them as they cut through his gloves drawing a thin line of blood. The smaller blade managed to pierce gaps in his armor and drive themselves deep into his side.
“You threatened my daughter-in-law.” He tore the blade from the creature’s arm, causing it to shriek again in pain, pulling its lower blades back and driving them into him again. Michael didn’t even feel it.
“You threatened my grandchildren.” He tore his left arm from him as well, tossing it aside.
It tried to withdraw its smaller arms from him, but he grabbed them just as they were loose and tore them from Sylus's carapace.
The monster stumbled backward, spreading his dragonfly like wings and turning around to try and gain some distance. He hit a barrier before he could gain any distance, and Michael dragged him down to the ground, tearing the wing off in the process. After that he removed both of its legs, and its remaining wings in quick succession. Finally, he placed a hand on the back of its head hearing the god’s roaring approval in the back of his mind. Holy fire spread from his palm, immolating the creature completely and turning it to ash.
Michael stood up when he was done and turned around. The Queen dowager was in a stunned silence and Gabriel, after checking to make sure his wife and children were okay, turned his full attention to her.
Michael followed him, keeping a few steps behind.
The dowager managed to regain some of her composure as they approached. She didn’t shrink back in her chair. Instead she fixed them with a proud straight-backed stare.
Michael could see that Gabriel’s knuckles were white around the hilt of his sword as they approached her.
“What were you going to order?” he asked.
“I was going to surrender,” she replied.
He looked at Michael, who already had his Eyes of Judgement active.
He shook his head. “I don’t think she knows what she was going to say. Not really.”
Gabriel raised his sword. “When I remove her head from her shoulder, will it stay severed? Or is your healing still active?”
“She’ll die,” said Michael simply. “But are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“You want me to spare her?” asked Gabriel incredulously.
“No. I want her to die. That doesn't make it the right thing to do though. I’ve spared a lot of people who’ve done me wrong since I got here. Some wound up as allies, others came back to haunt me. I won’t make this decision for you, but she is completely at your mercy. She cannot control you with a brand, she has no guards, and her only remaining ally is dead along with all of his brood. Is killing her necessary?”
“I spared you,” she said calmly, staring at Gabriel with a face much like his own. “Had I truly done my duty, you would’ve been left to starve in the woods. I gave you a life, a kingdom.”
“She’s dangerous. Even without teeth and claws she’d find some way to be a threat again. You don’t know her like I do,” said Gabriel, his sword arm staying perfectly still.
“I know that your children love her, and I even see some affection from you to her. I know it’s a twisted thing, but you should consider how her death will affect you, and them.”
He turned to look at Michael.
“And does she love us back?”
Michael nodded. “In spite of everything she’s done to you… yes. I see that she loves all of you, even Yuna.”
Gabriel’s expression sank, the coldness of it thawing into something melancholy.
“That makes what she’s done worse, not better.”
He drove his blade through her heart in a perfect single motion. It pierced through her and the stone chair she was seated in. As he closed into her he brought her into an embrace.
“Don’t worry. Your corpse will be whole. I’ll have you buried with the former King.” He paused for only a moment. “You succeeded. I’m a great king, and I’ll be even greater now that both of you are gone.”
Her body went still as the light left her eyes.
Gabriel let the hilt of his sword go and took a few steps backward.
Michael put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry Dad. I just couldn’t let her live. Not after everything. Not with the threat she represents.”
Michael sighed. “I understand. Or… I understand that I don’t understand. We’ve been apart a long time. You have a better idea of this situation than I do. I don’t expect you to do exactly as I want you to or I think you should. You’re your own person, and I love you.”
He stepped past him and closed the dowager’s eyes, muttering a soft prayer to the gods for her as Gabriel returned to his family, wrapping them in a warm embrace.
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