Revolution

Chapter 13: Aadya's son

News of the soldiers capturing Zeb and Chief spread like a horrible disease. Every time someone mentioned it, Althea wanted to cover her ears and scream until her throat was bloody and raw. It was even worse when people looked at her with expressions of pity, as if patting her a few times on the back would solve all of her problems. She wanted to slap their hands away.

Instead of sitting around crying, which would have not helped in the least, Althea translated her feelings of anger into her training. She worked until her hands bled from the friction of her sword and ran until it physically hurt to sit. She found that the pain helped to dull her thoughts.

Althea had never felt so stiff and fragile at the same time. It took her a lot of effort to remain cold and collected, but a dying voice in the back of her head cried that any more mental straining, even the slightest, would cause her to collapse, like an unrestrained damn. Often at night, she couldn't help herself from letting her tears lull her to sleep.

Within a few days gruelling days, the leaders had all arrived in her village requesting to see her. They sat around the same round table, on the same wooden chairs. But this time there was an empty seat, it's presence weighing on everyone in the room.

"If you're only here to mourn, I suggest you leave." Althea spat through gritted teeth when nobody said anything. Normally she'd never talk like that, especially not to the leaders, but she was their one way ticket to freedom. And if she was going to be the fire of the revolution, there was no way she would be taking orders.

"Actually," Aadya cleared her throat and adjusted her eyepatch, "we came to discuss the situation at hand, since Chief is gone, you'll be his successor until we figure out what to do."

"My job," she made sure every letter ended with a degree of sharpness, "is to dethrone the Royals, not to babysit a village."

"Actually," Sabella offered, "if you're looking for an opportunity to infiltrate the castle," Althea's ears perked up, "they're looking for workers."

"Brilliant." She concluded at the same time Aadya had said, "Absolutely not."

"Excuse me?" Althea sneered, "how stupid do you think I'd have to be to not take this opportunity?"

"Speak like that to me one more time and I'll cut your tongue off." She snapped, pointing an evil looking finger.

"I d-don't think we should-d do it-t. Y-You know Chief w-would h-have disapproved--" Coren said, his stammer intensifying.

"Chief is dead!" She screamed, slamming her hands on the table and slightly enjoying the startled looks on their faces, "This is the perfect opportunity to start a revolution. This is what we've been waiting for."

"I forbid it."

"I don't care." Althea let out a huff of air, almost like a taunt. "See if that will stop me." She eyed at everyone at the table, her lip curling with fury. For a group of people who called the 'leaders,' they sure as hell didn't act like it. They wanted change without the risk and in her opinion, you just couldn't have one without the other.

"We need to wait this out-" Aadya argued, but Althea didn't pay her any attention. She stood up and walked straight out of the door.

***

"Honey, slow down."

After a few moments of contemplation, she stopped and waited for Sabella to catch up. Had it been anyone else, she surely would have kept on walking. Sabella was by far the most tolerable.

"Why is she so against me going?" Althea complained, throwing her hands up in the air with frustration. Aadya was by far the most irritable person she had ever met. Her face never gave away her true emotions, trying to read her was like deciphering an impossible code. The information was underneath all the scribbles and ink, but she could never twist her mind around it.

"It's kind of personal. I'll tell you, but you didn't hear it from me." Sabella put a finger across her lips, "she had a son called Daniel. He was pretty good looking," she recalled, looking off into the distance with an appreciative nod. "One day a group of guards came on behalf of the Royals, they offered men a job in the army in exchange for a better lifestyle."

"And did he take it?"

"Girl, he practically snatched it." She huffed indignantly, "Daniel left Aadya to work as a soldier for the Royals. It broke her heart to see him go, but she convinced herself that he would ultimately return and come back to her."

Acacia never thought that Aadya would ever pass for a mother figure. The thought was so bizarre, it contradicted everything she knew about her.

"But then," Sabella's eyes went wide, "during a raid a couple of years ago, she saw her poor baby Daniel skewer her husband and slice him in two. All before her own eyes," she smacked her lips with distaste. "He was drenched in his father's blood."

"I'm not going to betray you, if that's what she's worried about." Althea told her, her voice softening from the sentiments spiralling in her head.

Sabella played with the thought for a few moments, rolling her tongue in her mouth and cocking her head to one side.

"Are you dead set on going?"

"Definitely," she set her lips into a firm line and looked at her determinedly, "this is my chance."

"Well," she laughed, "before you go hurrying off and doing something rash," Althea opened her mouth to protest, but was silenced by Sabella's pale hand and a pearly white grin spreading across her face. "Let me give you some advice. After all, it'd be such a waste for you to die on the first day."