Imperialist: The Voyage

Chapter Twenty-one; Slaughter on the Beach

"Elia!" Moutassim screamed, beyond reason as he grabbed the edge of the boat and prepared to jump. But then thick arms enveloped his chest, yanking him away from the edge of the boat.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Moutassim screamed, bucking and heaving against the arms of steel. "I said let me go! I order you!"

Even as he struggled, more crew members held him down until the beach was just a distant line, separated by almost a mile of ocean. And just like that, the invisible power that had been spurring them through the water at breakneck speed disappeared. The suddenness of the stop almost dumped them overboard.

"Elia!" Moutassim cried up at the dawn sky. The emptiness within his soul told him that there was no one left to answer to that name.

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Kelita traced the elaborate patterns on the sarcophagus. The carved figures of warriors in the middle of battle. Traced a diminutive spear, as it was about to be thrown in artistic combat. Traced one of the many fallen heroes that surrounded the edge of the stone coffin.

The bodies of the other fallen imperial soldiers from the battle had long been claimed by family, who were presumably washing and preparing them for honourable burials. But Agdel was no ordinary soldier. A Genda royal, heir to his father Agamon's crown and the apple of his father's eye. Agdel would be transported later today, past the besieging Sieberons if need be, back to his kingdom. 

Before that, Kelita intended to spend time with her cousin, reminiscing. She was dressed for mourning, in a long black gown with intricately carved silver waist beads. She sighed and sat next to the coffin, looking inside.

Agdel lay in black dress armour, his hands crossed on his chest over the golden hilt of a sword. He could have been sleeping, but his face had the dull pallid look of the dead. More tears rolled down her cheek as she stared at him. Sheba breathed rhythmically in a corner of the room as she slept.

"You will be avenged, cousin," she murmured, as she propped her jaw and braced on the sarcophagus. "You will be avenged."

Even as she fantasized about Votrek's severed head at her feet, her mind ran on the last time she had seen her cousin. How he had probed her about her sister. One of several people, including her husband, who she had hidden the reason for her hatred to her sister from.

Yes, it was hatred. Kelita wasn't ashamed to admit it to herself. She and her sister were once close, even if she did always feel a little resentment at her sister's rapidly developing magical powers that she inherited from their father.

That was until four years ago, when she discovered a new, more violent reason for resenting her sister. And it all started one sunny day when Moutassim arrived in Genda, to bring her home after one of her visits with her family.

Kelita had been practising her dancing when a servant ran in to announce that her husband had arrived. Six years into her marriage, there was still hope that she would conceive an heir. She was still happy and in the honeymoon period. Excited, she had immediately fled from her dancing instructor, giggling all the while.

She had taken the stairs two at a time, leaping as gracefully as an antelope and burst on to the balcony.

Sahelia was there, staring down at Moutassim as he trotted in on his stallion, followed by Agdel and a long retinue of attendants. People lined the street leading up to the palace, cheering and throwing flowers in his path. The Emperor's smile was infectious.

But Kelita's own smile died while she stared at the enraptured look on young Sahelia's face. Something inside her broke, as Kelita recognized the lovestruck look she always wore when she was in Moutassim's presence. In that moment, she realized just how replaceable she could be, if Moutassim wanted to maintain an alliance with Genda and beget an heir.

"Sahelia!" She had snapped.

Sahelia had jumped and almost fallen from her perch on the edge of the balcony. The guilty, shuttered look that had enveloped her face was unmistakable.

Not another word was said about it. But since that day, she kept one eye on her husband and two eyes on her sister. When Sahelia moved into the imperial palace, she watched. On her seventh wedding anniversary amid the trumpets and the dancing, she watched. Every dinner they held as a family, she watched. When she sat next to her husband in the throne room while he heard petitioners, she watched.

And every time she caught Sahelia staring at her husband in the lovestruck, enraptured manner she once had, the coldness and torment in her heart grew.

There was a rapping on the door. In fact, it slowly came to Kelita that someone had been rapping on the door for the past five minutes.

"Enter," she called.

A servant opened the door and bowed, the morning sunlight streaming in over his bent back. She squinted, while Sheba lazily raised her head.

"Yes, what is it?" Kelita asked.

"I'm sorry, your Majesty," the boy was practically trembling. "But Morabi has escaped from the dungeons."

"Oh." She said. The boy looked confused. Probably expecting the famous Kelita temper tantrum. She had a sudden insane urge to laugh.

"I mean, oh no! How could this happen? Find him!" Kelita said in an unconvincing tone. The boy bowed and retreated. 

She turned back to Agdel and resumed tracing the outline of the coffin.