New Chapters!

And finally, ladies and gentlemen, I have something to show for the days I have not blogged.  :)

So here is what I've been working on for the past couple of weeks.  These are the two chapters that correspond with Outline Part 2, Chapter 4 and 5.  I made one change in the whole outline of it all, being that instead of showing the hanging from Pleibea's point of view, I move it to Patrya's point of view.  (Pleibea will still get her chapter, but it cuts off at her arrest.)

Please enjoy!

~ ~ ~


An Unfinished Speech
December 15, 3013
8:17 A.M.



  Patrya faced herself in the mirror with satisfaction.
Dressed in a pressed white blouse and sleek navy blue skirt, she was suited for the oncoming execution.  It would be her first public attendance to such an event, and she wanted to be presentable as the media would undoubtedly be gathering details for a news story.  Her father had initiated the idea in consideration that she was now halfway through her seventeenth year of life and headed towards an occupation of politics.  She needed to understand every public function, he had said, including the violent ones.
Patrya smiled at the thought.
Tarkin was a diligent, focused father.  It didn’t matter to her what Syne had said the other day, and it definitely didn’t matter how he had tried to frighten her.  Until he took matters into his own hands, Syne’s threats were as solid as marshmallow fluff.  The black-haired man would never change her loyalty.
Suppressing her grin, Patrya turned from the mirror to where Tarkin sat on her bed.  “Do I look okay?”
Consil Tarkin eyed her up and down and touched the tight corners of her mouth with his finger.  “What’s this?  You can smile in front of your father, you know.”  She giggled like a toddler, and he nodded.  “There.  Much better.”  Wrapping her in his broad frame, he gave a heavy sigh and added, “You’re nothing but trouble, you know that?  I’m going to have to hire another bodyguard for you alone to keep all the men away.”
“And think, Tarkin, you still have two more daughters to go.”
Acel, the Starrs’ one bodyguard and closest advisor, spoke from the doorway where Pellia, fourteen years, and Pai, nine years, were standing with him.  The two girls were Patrya’s sisters, practically smaller versions of herself without glasses.  Acel, on the other hand, was a walking wall of solid muscle and masculinity, trained his whole life to defend the family with no regard for himself.  As a side, he also taught the three girls the ways of a Consil in case any of them desired to follow their father’s footsteps.
Having constantly depended on Acel for protection, Patrya held a subconscious belief that without him, assaults would dominate her life.  It wasn’t abnormal for an Excellian to recognize her face and begin a mob, nor was it uncommon for a stranger to attempt kidnapping her for ransom.  If not for Acel’s steady gun hand and calm threatening, she wouldn’t still be living.  His mere presence was like a warm blanket, relaxing every muscle in her down to her toes.
The bodyguard had cropped sandy hair and sparkling blue eyes on a kind and brave-hearted face.  Even at thirty-four, the man still had sharp physical prowess and could carry an aura of power when necessary.  But for now, he was relaxed, leaning against the doorway with a grin on his face.
Tarkin nodded at his longtime friend with a smile of his own--more of a grimace in reality--and rose to his feet.  “Thanks for the joyous reminder.”  Acel ruffled Pai’s hair, and the two men filed out of Patrya’s bedroom in deep conversation, leaving the three sisters to their own devices.
And what devices, Patrya thought grimly as Pai waited, tensely, for the men to leave out of earshot before exclaiming in her most theatrical voice, “It’s just not fair!”  The small, plump girl crossed her arms grumpily and huffed ruefully.
Patrya didn’t bother to turn from the mirror as she finished her make-up.  “So you want to see a bunch of people die?”
“Well...no.”
“Then don’t say that.”
“But I did.”  Pai stuck out her small, pink tongue and wiggled it back and forth.  “You get to dress up and go with the adults and do all the fun stuff and eat all the fancy food.”
“And see a bunch of people die.”
“Aaand,” she continued in a singsong tone, “you get to see Myreeeaaap!”
“Oh, shut it.”
Pai broke into a wild grin, and she used her hands to mimic forcing her lips closed.  Pellia eyed her younger sister’s antics and intervened when Pai began to mime a struggle between her mouth and her hands.
“Pai, that’s quite enough.  Someday, when you’re a teenager like Patrya, you’ll also get executions and dances and stuff like that.”
Pai perked at the prospect.  “You mean, stuff like chocolate fountains?  And pretty dresses?  And...and...like boyfriends?”
“Yeah!” Pellia dimpled enthusiastically. “Exactly like boyfriends.”
The girls tittered, and Patrya regarded them coldly, putting her back to them.  “Yeah, well, who knows?  You might get to see an execution sooner than you think.”
The two younger girls cut off mid-laugh and turned to their older sister in honest surprise.  “Really, Patrya?  You think so?”
“Of course, I do.  And I myself will be the one wringing your necks.”

It was cold and cloudy as Patrya stood in the front row of the gathered crowd with her mother and father.  The courtyard of Haven 1‘s capitol building, also called the Haven Hall, was packed.  Most of the floor space was being occupied by the sentenced, and any remaining ground was covered with a viewer.
For the seventeenth time in five minutes, Patrya caught herself gawking at the mess of condemned.  They looked far more wounded in real life than they did on television.
And for that matter, they smelled ranker too.
There had to be at least a hundred men and a hundred more women and children, all of which were in a pre-hanging condition or worse.  They wore ragged clothes, and some were moaning in a semi-comatose state.  The poor, skinny things.  If Patrya didn’t know that they had gone on strike, she would have felt compelled to get them to a hospital as quickly as she could.
Glancing over to where Myreap stood, Patrya wondered if he felt the same way.  But from the stern countenance he wore, she realized he wasn’t affected.
Eventually, there was a quiet of the murmuring crowd, and Patrya returned her gaze to a small orator’s stand, feeling the hairs on her neck stand up as her father, dressed twice as smartly as she, trudged up a few stairs, boot heels thudding on the wood like death drums.  He reached the microphone and cast a sweeping gaze over the crowd, connecting with few eyes but appearing to drill holes into every forehead.
“Sons and daughters of Excellia.”  This was the voice of thunder, not her father.  Patrya held her breath, enthralled.
“You all know of Excellia’s current plight, her looming clouds of civil war.  Excellia’s highest classes clash with her working people, and this friction will not continue without a collision of arms.”  Tarkin swept his glance again, and loosened now, from the grasp of eloquent charm, Patrya studiously made note of his every move, hoping to one day perfect her own similar action.  “I seek not to arouse that danger but to end it.  Counter to Excellian law, these men and women, the building blocks of Excellia, have rebelled against their authorities by taking industrial action.  Some have even openly mutinied.  As a result, their death is wholly just.  This is a demonstration, a cry of warning to other slaves.”
Turning to the accused, Consil Tarkin continued, “We have given you, commoners, every necessity and comfort.  We neither starve you nor beat your, harass or oppress you.  You are like children to us nobility.”
A few slaves screamed protest behind their gags, but the sound was carried off in the wind.
Tarkin lowered his voice and eyed the slaves now with his eagle-like gaze.  “But you have strayed wayward, and like any unruly child, you must be punished.”
A freezing gust of wind scurried passed the site, tightening death’s ominous grips.  But the was-to-be dramatic silence was broken after a short second by a lighter, more expressive voice saying, “The shedding of blood brings only more blood, Tarkin.”
Patrya instantly recognized the tone, the dripping condescension, and familiar growl.  Unconsciously, she clapped her hand in her mother’s.  Tarkina, aged but still beautiful, looked down at her daughter with her pale blue eyes and raised an eyebrow.
‘What’s wrong?’ the gaze asked.
“Syne!” Tarkin bellowed, “What are you doing?”
Trailed by his father Dibane Eden, Syne cheerfully waved his hand to the rustling crowd like a celebrity on red carpet.  Patrya released her mother’s hand and clenched her jaw as the man gracefully ducked under a chain railing and leapt onto the public platform, taking a stand next to the microphone Tarkin had just been using.  “I am representing my people, Consil Tarkin.”  Patrya suddenly realized that the man had a sword sheathed at his side.  He wasn’t planning on defending the prisoners against so many guards, was he?  A thrill of fear ran through her cold body.
“I command you to return to the crowd, Syne.  Dibane Eden, please explain yourself.”
Syne shook his head and smiled.  “As it is, I voluntarily will not, Consil, nor will my father.  Forty minutes ago, Consil Narcos passed away in his sickness, and I became his desired successor.”  Seeing questions form on Tarkin’s lips, he added in a louder volume to drown out the crowd, “While the paperwork is legalized, I agree to no civil war.”
Syne is Dibane Eden’s son, Patrya realized, her fear turning to nausea, If they’re of one mind, Excellia could be swayed however they wished.
“I am releasing these slaves.  Consil Narcos had given them a week’s holiday, and they were merely celebrating, not striking.  They are my father’s people, and he has more right to them than you, Tarkin.”
“Then let him speak.”
With a face of absolute pride, Syne bowed once and helped his aging father onto the crowded stage.  Eden’s old, dry voice shook into the microphone.  “All my son has said is true.  We had received word of Consil Narcos’ sickness from his bodyguards this morning.  We went as quickly as possible to the hospital, but death was already certain.  His will nominates Syne as heir.”
Tarkin quickly came across Patrya’s previous conclusion; with the unification of Consil and Dibane, Excellia would no longer be under the threat of civil war but would now be facing possible tyranny.  He stared down Syne and said quietly, “A country poll is still required for your inauguration.”
Syne nodded.  “I understand that, and perhaps I will not make it as Consil.  But regardless, these slaves are to be released.”
“Syne, you can not--”
The black-haired man unsheathed his sword, and the crowd broke out in screams as he thrust it through the Consil.
His lips formed the unheard words, “I can.”

~ ~ ~

Sudden Flight
December 15, 3013
9:12 A.M.



Patrya opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged.  The crowd suddenly became a shrieking wall of flesh and clothes, every man pushing against her as she stumbled forward, silent tears streaking down her face.
Why aren’t the guards shooting him?!

  Syne withdrew his blade in a swift reversal of his thrust, and Tarkin’s body dropped to the ground, a pool of blood soaking the wood.  The slaves were cheering now, and as Syne sliced their ropes, bullets suddenly came into existence around him, punching into skulls or chests.
With sweat crawling down her back, Patrya looked to identify the guards, realizing that they fired to obey Tarkin’s final wish but were too confused to pick off Syne himself.  They had no time to consider further.  Other bullets flew, and the shooters, those who hadn’t been bribed by Syne, fell throughout the crowd.
One thought kept pounding across Patrya’s temples, and it was betrayal.
She ran.
It wasn’t safe any longer.  It was time to go.  It was time to flee.  Syne had taken matters into his own hands, and now his threats were real and living and slaughtering.  Who would he take next?  Who knew why he chose to kill Tarkin?  Why he was doing this, what he had in mind next, where he would stop.
A hand shot out of the crowd, grabbing a fistful of Patrya’s collar, stopping her mid-stride, and choking her.  She took a hard seat on the pavement and struggled up to her feet in her restricting skirt, fighting the hand futilely.
“Patrya.”
The hand was joined with another, both gripping her shoulders and forcing her to stop her floundering.  Patrya looked behind her through her tears and saw Myreap.
He was deadpan.
He didn’t care.
He was with Syne.
That’s why Dibane Sextus wasn’t dead.
Because they were with Syne.
Then Patrya looked passed Myreap’s shoulder to where Syne stood.  The black-haired man was handing his sword to Dibane Sextus.  The man took it in a gloved hand and raised it, welding an alliance by united goals.
The world went silent.
Patrya felt swamped like the air had turned to breathable water.  Unearthly noiseless.  She tried to shake herself past Myreap, but the movement seemed to take every ounce of her strength and determination.  The weight of the sky tumbled across her shoulders as she took a step forward.  He shoved her back.
The crowd had parted enough for Patrya to see her mother’s dark blue hair in the hand of a guard, her anguished face.  The glint of Syne’s blood-dripping sword in Dibane Sextus’ fist.  A smile on Syne’s lips.
Then time, having made sure that Patrya was sufficiently agonized, collapsed in on itself, and the world turned at twice its normal speed.  A sword through her mom, Patrya turning back slapping Myreap with the fire of vengeance, her release, and a sprint to the parking lot.
He chased her.
She screamed a curse at him, her words all but unheard through her sobs, fear strangling her.  Chest heaving with breath, she hammered her feet, one after the other, into the ground towards her family’s car, feeling that any second, a bullet would appear between her shoulder blades.
But none did, and she reached her car, opened the driver’s door, got in, and slammed it closed.  The car screeched as she rammed her foot on the accelerator, and the smell of burning rubber filled the car.  Out of her rearview mirror, Patrya saw Myreap in the parking lot, shouting at someone, waving with his arms.
Betrayal.
Unwilling.  She was unwilling to believe it.
They couldn’t be dead.
They couldn’t be gone forever.
They couldn’t just be dead.  They couldn’t...this couldn’t...
Patrya wanted to scream.  She could hear the blood in her ears, feel the bump in her throat, the annoying, crushing weight on her chest.
Did they know?  Was it painful?  Were they still alive?
Her feet turned cold, her hands turned cold, but the rest of her body was burning.  Patrya felt clammy sweat gather and drip down her spine and neck.  Tears formed in her eyes, but she blinked them out fiercely.  She needed to drive.  She needed to escape.
Syne’s plan was obvious.  With a Consil, nobility would cross his will.  Without one...
Dibane Eden was his father; the two had already shown themselves compatible.  Dibane Sextus seemed on-board as well, though for what, Patrya wasn’t sure.  Money, maybe, or fame.  Undoubtedly, for his act of releasing those slaves, Syne would be voted as Consil.
And that left an open space for one last Consil.
He must have had been planning this takedown for years now.  Patrya scrunched her brow, swiping the tears from under her glasses with her fingertips.
As for her own plans of escape, her remaining family needed to go: Pellia, Pai, and infant Percie.  Acel would come too.  The thought of her burly protector struck hope in Patrya, and she pulled her cellphone out from her purse, speed dialing her home number.
He answered after half a ring.
“Patrya?”
“Acel!”  Patrya’s voice cracked, and she suddenly realized how terrified she was.  Tears began to flood down her cheeks again, and she couldn’t control her sobbing.
Acel was talking anyway.  “Patrya, once Syne made his move, they began to air the execution live on TV.  I saw it all, Patrya.  Tell me where you are now.”
“In the car,” Patrya replied through her hiccups of breath, “Coming home.  I think they’re following me, Acel.”
“Okay.  All right.  Don’t stop for anything, understand?  Get home as soon as possible.”
“I am, Acel.  I need you to buy plane tickets and pack.  We need to get out of Excellia...to...to Chymea, especially if we can contact Emperor Jeon, a...a friend of my father.  I’ve met him once or twice too when I was young.”
“I know.  I am.  Be safe, Patrya.  And hurry.”
The car ride was over in another five minutes, enough time for Patrya to control herself.  She parked and leapt out of the van, running down her front walkway.  Pellia, Patrya’s fourteen year old sister, opened the door, and Patrya rushed inside, locking the bolt.
“Acel wants you to pack for Percie,” Pellia informed before back up the stairs to her room.  She looked excited; Acel probably hadn’t allowed her to watch the execution with him.  She didn’t know she was now orphaned and running for her life.
Fueled by powerlessness, Patrya paced quickly down the hall to Percie’s room, catching a momentary glimpse of herself in a hallway mirror.  Tears had left white trails down her cheeks, but her bright blue eyes lit up with a spark only created by hopelessness.  Much to her chagrin, her navy blue hair needed a new dye and was looking like the innards of a vacuum cleaner.  She combed it with her fingers as she walked, almost laughing through her sorrow at her priorities.
But those priorities would have to change, Patrya knew.  Robotically, stiffly, she gathered the things Percie would need--food, diapers, toys, a blanket, clothes, more diapers.  The boy had yet to turn two, and he was in his playpen when she came in.
Putting every item in a backpack, she paced out to the hallway and dumped the bag near the front door.  Four more minutes, Acel called down the stairs, and they’d be ready to go.
But when Patrya stood again, she instinctively glanced out the window and realized Syne wasn’t giving them four more minutes.  Three cars were parked outside, Syne exiting from the passenger’s seat of the sleekest black one with his two swords strapped to his back.  Six guards fell in step with him, each holding a gun.
Dread fell over her, and Patrya struggled to keep a presence of mind.
“Acel!” Her voice cracked again.  “He’s here!  Syne’s--”
“I see him.”  A gun clicked, and Acel leapt down the stairs, four at a time, a determined loyalty on his face.
“Stay with Percie, understand?”
“Is that Syne outside, Acel?”  Pai peeked down the stairs with Pellia, confusion on both their faces.  Pai had always liked Syne for the small gifts he had given to her, but a new emotion was evident when she asked, “Why do they have guns?”
“Pai, stay upstairs, and if they tell you to do something, do it.”
A pounding began on the front door.
“What’s going on, Acel?!  Who are these people?”
“Pellia, keep packing.  Go, Patrya!”
Obediently, she ran back to her brother’s room, closing the door just enough to see out through a crack into the hallway.  There was a rustle upstairs.  Then quiet.  Just the infrequent beating on the front door.  Acel’s shoulders heaved once as he unlocked the bolt.
Totally ignoring the bodyguard, the small group of men shouldered passed him with a bustle and thud of boots on the tile.  A gruff voice yelled out, “Patrya Starr, you are commanded by Consil Syne to come to the front door.”
“She’s not here, sirs.”
Upstairs, Patrya knew Pellia and Pai would be found, holding their breaths.  She closed her eyes in fear, willing them to stay silent.
“What do you mean, ‘She’s not here’, Acel?”  Syne’s voice was deceptively emotionless along with his stance.  Patrya knew instantly that he was offering Acel the freedom to capitulate or stay trusted.  Offering death or life.
She bit her tongue in between her incisors and held the muscle firmly as silence rang through the house, more effective than the war cry of ten-thousand men.
“I mean,” he answered in a low growl, “I will not tell you, Syne.”  Patrya felt her heart leap, almost shutting down in relief, but the next second, her soul sunk twice as deep in fear for her faithful bodyguard.
He had chosen to die.
“Now get out of this house!”
Almost reluctantly, Syne shrugged in submission to his circumstances and motioned to a man.
They were leaving?  Like that?
Two shots fired before Patrya could blink, followed by the bone-chilling sound of Acel’s brief cry of pain and one of Syne’s men hitting the floor.
Dead.
A darkness had fallen over Syne’s face when he snarled, “We can try again, Acel.”
The man dropped to one knee, blood seeping out of his thigh.  He reloaded his pistol only to have his weapon batted out of his hand by Syne.  “Find them yourself, Syne.”
“Oh, no,” Syne refuted with a chuckle, “I’m much too cruel for that.  Besides,” he turned straight to Percie’s door and smiled at Patrya, “I have an audience.”  Before she could even gasp in shock, Syne brought his foot up and kicked Michael dead in the face.  Even though the bodyguard had blocked, the force of the attack still knocked the bodyguard into the wall, and Patrya felt tears climb back into her eyes.
No, Acel.  No!
“Anything jog your memory yet?”
Acel tried to get to his feet with a growl, but Syne unsheathed his sword and thrust it point-down through Acel’s other thigh.
“How about now?”
Patrya squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth, but tears were still making their way out of her eyes.
“Now?”  A thrust through Acel’s shoulder.
“What about now?”
Acel yelled.  Patrya slammed her palms on her ears, slid to the floor, and pressed her knees on her arms, panting in agony.  The sound still crept in.
“Are you ready to talk yet?”  Another thrust.
“No?”  Another thrust.
“We don’t have all day, Acel!”
The mental torture was too great.  Patrya slammed the door open and ran straight towards Syne.  Her best efforts at tackling him only nudged him slightly off balance; he quickly pushed her off him into the opposite wall of the hallway with a pleased, “So the fire brought out the real gold after all.”  He laughed.  “Always does.”
She screamed in rage, hurtling to him again.  He caught her shoulder with his left hand, letting her continue in momentum, and cut her in the upper waist with his sword.  She hardly noticed the pain as she turned and failed her fists at his chest and face.  The reckless movements only earned her another two cuts across the face.
By then, pain and sorrow and despair had caught up with her anger, and when he slugged her mouth, her knees buckled.  She felt a foot hatchet her stomach, then the ground a moment later.  Pellia and Pai shrieked, and Patrya groaned, her palm covering the wound on her side.  Her eyes fluttered open, and she could see Acel, wheezing his life out, bleeding in a dozen areas.
“Search the house,” Syne ordered, “And take the girls out to the car.”  Pellia and Pai screamed again in objection; Patrya could see her sisters futilely kicking Syne’s men as they hoisted the girls on their shoulders.  Three of the men walked out of the house deferentially, one of them holding Percie, and Patrya struggled up, still clutching her bleeding side.  The cut was deeper than she had thought, and her vision was growing blurry as pain pervaded the wound’s vicinity.
Managing to prop herself against the wall, she murmured weakly, “What do you want, Syne?”
He smiled ruthlessly at her and leaned down, touching her cheek with his hand; she had no strength to bat his fingers away.  “You can still speak?  I suppose I underestimated your tenacity--”
“What do you--”
Syne suddenly grabbed a fist of her hair, yanking her a half-foot off the ground and kneeing her against the wall in the diaphragm.  Patrya choked off a cry of distress.
A headache began to pulse violently on her temples, and Patrya felt tears of pain and drops of blood streak down her cheeks.  Weeping over came her.  Shaking sobs.
It seemed so worthless now.
To fight on.
“You ask me what I want?  I want you to forget today.”  He smiled again, gray eyes penetrating her own like the sword strapped to his back.  “I want you to live happily.”  Patrya could barely hear Syne’s voice, barely decipher his low growl.  He paused, leaned close to her ear and whispered softly, “I want you to remember, to always remember, it was I who gave you your life, pet.”
Patrya moaned in response.
“Syne.”
One of Syne’s men walked into the room, breaking the spell of darkness he had cast.  “They have a flight logged to Chymea in fifteen minutes.”
Syne released Patrya’s hair, and she hit the floor, new pain roaring to life as her fleeting strength sapped away.
“Good,” he intoned, “Make sure the girls and the boy get on it.”

Write on!
Clove