Soldier, Brother, Sorcerer

CHAPTER TWO

Ceres came out from the Stade borne on the shoulders of the crowd, into the sunlight, and her heart soared. She looked out at the aftermath of the battle, and as she did, a wash of emotions fought for attention within her.

There was the joy of victory, of course. She heard the crowd shouting its victory as it poured from the Stade, the rebels of Haylon alongside the combatlords, the remnants of Lord West’s forces, and the people of the city.

There was relief, that her desperate attempt to save the combatlords from Lucious’s last Killing had succeeded, and that it was finally over.

There were bigger reliefs, too. Ceres scanned the crowd until she found her brother and her father, standing together arm in arm with a group of the rebels. She wanted to run to them then and make sure that they were all right, yet the crowd was determined to carry her halfway through the city. She had to make do with the fact that they appeared to be uninjured, walking together and cheering along with the others. Amazing that they could still cheer. So many of these people had been willing to die to stop the crushing tyranny of the Empire. So many had.

That brought the final emotion: sadness. Sadness that all of this had been needed, and that so many had to die on both sides. She could see the bodies in the streets where there had been clashes between the rebels and the soldiers. Most wore the red of the Empire, but that didn’t make it better. Many were just ordinary people, conscripted against their will, or men who joined because it was better than a life of poverty and subjugation. And now they lay dead, staring at the sky with eyes that would never see anything again.

Ceres could feel the warmth of the blood on her skin, already drying in the heat of the sun. How many men had she killed today? Somewhere in the endless battle, she’d lost count. There had been only the need to keep going, keep fighting, because stopping meant dying. She’d been caught up in the smooth flow of the battle, carried along by the energy of it, with her own energy pulsing inside her.

“All of them,” Ceres said.

She’d killed all of them, even if she hadn’t done it with her own hands. She’d been the one to convince the people of the stands not to accept the Empire’s idea of peace. She’d been the one to convince Lord West’s men to assault the city. She looked around at the dead, determined to remember them, and what their victory had cost.

Even the city showed scars of violence: broken doorways, the remains of barricades. Yet there were also signs of joy spreading, too: people were coming out into the streets, joining up with the crowd that flowed down the streets in a sea of humanity.

It was hard to hear much over the yelling of the crowd, but distantly, Ceres thought she could hear the sounds of combat continuing. Part of her wanted to charge forward and deal with it herself, but more of her wanted to put a stop to it before it all spiraled out of control. The truth was that in that moment, she was too exhausted for it. It felt as though she’d been fighting forever. If the crowd hadn’t been carrying her, Ceres suspected that she might have collapsed.

When they eventually did put her down in the main square, Ceres went looking for her brother and her father. She pushed her way toward them, and reached them only because the people there seemed to step aside in respect to let her through.

Ceres hugged them both.

They said nothing. Their silence, the feel of their hug, said it all. They had all survived, somehow, as a family. And the absence of her dead brothers was felt deeply.

Ceres wished that she could stay like that forever. Just stay safe with her brother and her father, and let this whole revolution run its own way. Yet even as she stood there with two of the people she cared about most in the world, she became aware of something else.

People were staring at her.

Ceres supposed that wasn’t so strange after everything that had happened. She’d been the one at the heart of the fighting, and right now, between the blood, the dirt, and the exhaustion, she probably looked like some monster out of legend. Yet that wasn’t the way people seemed to be staring.

No, they were staring as if they were waiting to be told what to do next.

Ceres saw figures pushing their way through the crowd. She recognized one as Akila, the wiry, muscled man who had been at the head of the last wave of rebels. More wore the colors of Lord West’s men. There was at least one combatlord there, a large man holding a pair of fighting pickaxes, who seemed to be ignoring several wounds as he stood there.

“Ceres,” Akila said, “the remaining imperial soldiers have either retreated to the castle or have started to look for ways to leave the city. My men have followed those they can, but they don’t know this city well enough, and… well, there is a danger that people might take it the wrong way.”

Ceres understood. If Akila’s men hunted through Delos for fleeing soldiers, there was a danger that they would be seen as invaders. Even if they weren’t, they might be ambushed, split up, and picked off.

Yet it seemed strange that so many people should be looking to her for answers. She cast around, looking for help, because there had to be someone there better qualified to take charge than she was. Ceres didn’t want to assume that she could take charge just because her bloodline gave her a link to Delos’s Ancient Ones’ past.

“Who is in charge of the rebellion now?” Ceres called out. “Did any of the leaders survive?”

Around her, she saw people spreading their hands, shaking their heads. They didn’t know. Of course they didn’t. They wouldn’t have seen any more than Ceres had. Ceres knew the part that mattered: Anka was gone, killed by Lucious’s executioners. Probably, most of the other leaders were dead too. That or hiding.

“What about Lord West’s cousin, Nyel?” Ceres asked.

“Lord Nyel did not accompany us in the assault,” one of Lord West’s former men said.

“No,” Ceres said, “I guess he wouldn’t have.”

Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t there. The rebels and the people of Delos would have been wary enough of a noble like Lord West, given all that he represented, and he had been a brave and honorable man. His cousin hadn’t been half the man he had been.

She didn’t ask if the combatlords had a leader. That wasn’t the kind of men they were. Ceres had come to know each of them in the training pits for the Stade, and she knew that while any one of them was worth a dozen or more normal men, they couldn’t lead something like this.

She found herself looking to Akila. It was obvious that he was a leader, and his men clearly followed his example, yet he seemed to be looking for her to give the orders here.

Ceres felt her father’s hand on her shoulder.

“You’re wondering why they should listen to you,” he guessed, and it was far too close to the mark.

“They shouldn’t follow me just because I happen to have Ancient One blood,” Ceres replied softly. “Who am I, really? How can I hope to lead them?”

She saw her father smile at that.

“They don’t want to follow you just because of who your ancestors are. They’d follow Lucious if that were the case.”

Her father spat into the dirt as if to emphasize what he thought of that.

Sartes nodded.

“Father’s right, Ceres,” he said. “They follow you because of everything you’ve done. Because of who you are.”

She thought about that.

“You can draw them together,” her father added. “You have to do it now.”

Ceres knew they were right, but it was still hard to stand in the midst of so many people and know that they were waiting for her to make a decision. What happened if she didn’t, though? What happened if she forced one of the others to lead?

Ceres could guess the answer to that. She could feel the energy of the crowd, held in check for now, but there nonetheless, like smoldering embers ready to burst into wildfire. Without direction, it would mean looting in the city, more death, more destruction, and maybe even defeat as the factions there found themselves at odds.

No, she couldn’t allow that, even if she still wasn’t sure she could do it.

“Brothers and sisters!” she called out, and to her surprise, the crowd around her fell silent.

Now the attention on her felt total, even compared to what had gone before.

“We’ve won a great victory, all of us! All of you! You faced the Empire, and you snatched victory from the jaws of death!”

The crowd cheered, and Ceres looked around, giving that a moment to sink in.

“But it’s not enough,” she continued. “Yes, we could all go home now, and we would have achieved a lot. We might even be safe for a while. Eventually, though, the Empire and its rulers would come for us, or for our children. It would go back to what it was, or worse. We need to finish this, once and for all!”

“And how do we do that?” a voice called out from the crowd.

“We take the castle,” Ceres replied. “We take Delos. And we make it ours. We capture the royals, and we stop their cruelty. Akila, you came here by sea?”