Clash of Captains

Chapter 12

"You did what?" Devyn clenched her fists tighter, forcing herself to stand still as the man's quiet laugh morphed into a cold cackle. The low lantern light glinted off of the chancellor's dark eyes; his raven's own milky white eyes practically glowed. The girl watched, maintaining a careful silence, as the man's pale-skinned fingers tapped on the handle of his staff. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"I told you, your highness," Devyn mumbled in response, keeping her voice as calm as she could so as not to anger the man further. "There was no point in going further. I bested her and saw that she was—"

"You let her go." Chancellor Kemble growled. His voice was dangerously low, in a tone that Devyn had only heard a few select times, when she had managed to piss him off more than his usual amount. "You let the Ledian captain go instead of capturing her or taking her down. That was not my request. So why did you decide to take such an idiotic course of action?"

Devyn swallowed, squeezing her fists tighter until she felt the bite of her nails digging into the skin of her palm. Cool it, she reminded herself. He wants you to get flustered. "I saw that the captain was afraid. I could have easily taken her down then and there, but I let her go. I wanted her to warn her soldiers that we're a force to be reckoned with." Besides, I wouldn't have wanted to kill her so simply like that. I would have wanted more of a challenge. Devyn remembered the hopeless expression she had seen on the blonde captain's face when her blade touched the crook of her neck. If I was in her position, I wouldn't have wanted to die like that either.

Kemble laughed again. Chysgod made a soft clucking in response, as if he couldn't believe how dumb Devyn could be. The man stroked the bird's midnight black feathers, ruffling them as he continued to chuckle. After a while the laugh had turned from amusement to mockery, and Devyn wished she could somehow slap the smug expression from the chancellor's face without getting herself executed. Instead, she stood as patiently as she could until his laughter finally died down.

"First of all, you were caught watching the girl. I would have thought you stealthier than that, but you had somehow been completely oblivious about your surroundings. And secondly, you had the enemy in a position to take her down once and for all, and instead you decided to let her fly off and warn all of her friends." The man let out a single sharp, bitter laugh. Devyn felt unease creep up her skin. She no longer felt like making a joke out of the ordeal.

Kemble stood and Devyn instinctively took a step back, worried she was going to be struck by the man. Instead, he eyed her warily before his gaze moved upwards, staring off at something only he could see.

"Our kingdom, Dreg, was created on the grounds that darkness is just as powerful as light. We were blessed by Nyswell himself from the beginning, so long as we carried out his plans. 'There is no light that shadows cannot quench,' he had told our first chancellor. He told us to be ruthless when someone had wronged us, and so we do the same to this day." Kemble's dark-eyed gaze returned to Devyn. "I am beginning to question whether you are still of use to me here, Captain."

The girl straightened, her spine going rigid. She should have expected the chancellor to tell her as much; she had gone against his orders in allowing Aneira to escape. And yet the words — especially the mention of the shadow god — still sent a shock through her body. She opened her mouth to argue, but Kemble caught her eye and gave a slight shake of his head, a warning that he wasn't finished speaking quite yet.

"You have not been showing as much potential as you ought to," the man continued in a low voice. "And you no longer fit Dreg's plans. Nyswell would not approve of your behavior, nor would he believe that I should keep you in our ranks, especially in as high a position as you currently hold."

"Chancellor, I—"

Kemble gave a soft tut and shook his head. He tilted his head, a hint of a smirk on his lips. "Captain, I long for you to give me one good reason as to why you remain in your current position."

"I— I'm still—"

"I thought as much," the man snapped. Devyn thought she saw the whites of his eyes as they rolled in their sockets. "You are of no use to me if you fail to follow simple orders. If you cannot—"

The chancellor was cut off by a resounding crash just outside the walls of the stronghold. Chysgod ruffled his feathers at the sound, hopping from his perch for a moment. Kemble's eyes narrowed as the crash was followed by the echoes of screams and the familiar rumble of dragons landing. An attack. That's... unexpected.

Devyn saw Kemble turn his focus back to her, but before he could continue to chide her, she shook her head. "There's a battle out there waiting to be won," she growled in as commanding of a voice as she could muster. "And I'm going to use it to make you see that I'm still of value to Dreg." Before the man had the time to voice an argument, Devyn spun on her heel and raced out of the throne room.