KGWrites

Alyx

Apartments, Falcon’s Nest Palace, Kingdom of Aldiron

Alyx was sat on the couch in her apartment in the palace, elbows balanced on her knees with her hands linked in front of her, staring into the fire burning in the hearth. She still found herself unable to entirely process what had happened that morning, even as she sat in her own personal space within the palace.

She was to be a member of the royal guard. A personal protector to Princess Iona Ravellan. She was to be trained to fight with sword and shield, to become a knight in all but name. She was to live in the Falcon’s Nest as part of the royal court. Just how and why the hell had that happened?

Elsewhere in the room, James was pacing the floor in front of the fireplace, occasionally cutting into Alyx’s view of the flames. His arms were folded across his chest as he stared straight ahead, lost in thought.

Lillian was the only one of the three of them who seemed unbothered by the revelations their breakfast meeting had brought them. She was lay on her stomach on Alyx’s bed, eating grapes from the vine, her legs kicking in the air as she hummed a tune to herself. And she really didn’t need to worry at all, as long as her wards stuck to the duties they’d agreed to undertake, then she was to be raised in the palace, safe as can be.

Alyx and James meanwhile, had plenty to worry over. A lot had gone unsaid during that meeting, either unaddressed entirely or skimmed over with implications and clever wordplay. What would happen if either one of them didn’t perform their duty correctly? Or if the crown decided it no longer had need of them? Was the threat of being raised up so high only to be dropped like a stone when no longer needed set to hang over them the rest of their days?

But the biggest and most worrying unspoken implication had come throughout the conversation. The King had said dark days were coming for Aldiron, that Iona would need a personal guard able to act differently to other knights and soldiers, and then Meghan Whiteoak had said all that stuff about the demon lord from Shetani.

One thing had been painfully clear to everyone around that table at breakfast. King Samuel believed war with Draconeus of Shetani was coming, soon. And the tasks he had given the Cobalts dropped them right in the path of that oncoming war.

And both of them had been wrestling with the doubts that knowledge put in their heads since the meeting had come to an end.

“We could always meet with him now? Tell him we’ve changed our minds?” James suggested, putting words to a thought that had snuck through Alyx’s subconscious more than a few times in the past hours.

“What, so he’ll just strip us of this place? Drop us back into Winter with busted ribs and hands, leave us starving and sitting waiting for Trident to cut our throats? That’s the grand plan there James? No. This may be a rough position to be in, but it’s a lot fucking better than the alternative.” Alyx snapped back, lifted her head from watching the fire to fix her brother with a glare.

“This plan is a joke, Alyx. You’re no royal guard. And I’m no scholar. It’s doomed before it starts.” James replied icily. Alyx’s shook her head in frustration, turning her gaze back to the dancing flames.

“They’ll train me. I’m a good fighter. If they need someone who can keep the princess out of trouble when she sneaks out, I can do that much.” She said after a moment, keeping her voice calm. James laughed bitterly.

“This’ll be the same princess whose life you saved before and said nothing about? Who you’ve kept a lovely silver ring from even though selling it could have helped keep us fed? Who you were so sure would come to your rescue when you sent that ring up to her with the guard captain? Is this about you becoming a guard to her? Or the mad fantasy you might find your way beneath her skirts whenever the two of you sneak off together?” He snapped, a bitter chuckle in his voice.

Alyx said nothing in response. It was true at least that she’d kept the ring as a reminder of Iona, and she’d be lying if she said that Iona’s pale skin, fiery hair and forest green eyes hadn’t haunted her more private moments a few times over the past month. But still, Iona hadn’t even crossed her mind when she’d accepted the offer.

“Look around James. Giving the guard her ring did save us. She did help us. And no, it’s not about that. It’s about keeping us safe, all three of us.” She replied after a while, her voice low, her breathing slow and controlled as she pushed her frustration at her brother down into as small a box as she could manage.

“By dropping us in the way of approaching war? That’s keeping us safe to you? Or did you not think that far ahead?” James replied, his voice cold. The lid buckled on the box of Alyx rage.

“Oh, because you have such a difficult task being locked in libraries with a woman who is terrifyingly beautiful reading through all the old stories that Mother used to read to you! That you read to me! You want to sit there and tell me I’m the one who took on the mad job? You’re being asked to dig through fairy stories for a fucking myth James!” She said, not quite raising her voice enough to yell but standing up enough to face her brother.

“Exactly!” James said, reaching forwards with both hands to take Alyx by the shoulders. “It’s crazy. We’re trading what we know for fairy stories and childish dreams. We should leave.”

The voice was his, but the words weren’t. Alyx could see that now. James had always had a plan, a way forwards to get them out of the Winter District. But in Winter, he’d always known what they were up against, and he’d been able to control the trajectory of their path. But now, he wasn’t in control, he was being set on a path that someone else had built, and he was scared of where it would end.

Slowly she lifted her hand up to her brother’s cheek.

“James, look around. We’re stood in the palace. In our own apartments in the fucking Falcon’s Nest. We’re out of Winter, all three of us ate better this morning than we have in months, and that was just breakfast. There’s no Trident hanging over us here, no Spyder ruling the district. We don’t have to worry about where the next meal will come from, or whether we’ll spend the night in the cells just for trying to survive. We’re getting jobs to do where we get paid to do them rather than stealing whatever we can get our hands on. James, for once we don’t have to worry about the next bend in our paths being our last.” She told him, pulling her forehead forwards and pressing it to his.

He sighed, a long deep sound. Then he opened his eyes to look into hers.

“We can’t see where this road ends Alyx.” He said softly, his voice strained and sounding tired.

“I know,” She replied, tightening her grip on the back of his head, pulling his forehead against hers. “But we know it goes beyond the next corner. That we keep going.”

The two held there for a moment, clutched to each other, grounding each other in the moment, before the took a step back from each other. Alyx’s hand lingered briefly on James’ cheek before it dropped to her side. James stretched and shook himself out.

“Alright… alright.” He muttered, more to himself than either of Alyx or Lillian before he looked around at them both. “But if this goes the way we think it’s going to, then we’ll need to get out before we’re caught in a war. And to do that, we need a plan. Suggestions?”

Alyx looked down at the floor, chewing at her lip.

“You can’t just… try and leave when you want?” Lillian asked and James shook his head.

“We’ve traded the Winter District’s mud and blood for marble and wine, but this palace still has us just as trapped as before. If we abandon our jobs, we’ll be hunted down and killed for treason. Whatever we do, it’ll need to be more subtle than that.” He told her and Lillian frowned, rolling onto her back and looking at the ceiling while she thought.

“We could save the money we’re paid. Try and hire a ship or cart out of the city and then sneak away?” Alyx suggested. James considered it, before giving another shake, sucking on his teeth in annoyance.

“We’d need to go a long way from here before we’d be safe. And we’d need whoever we hired to be subtle and willing to hide traitors, so a criminal. Who most likely would be owned by Trident, which puts us right back in the shit. Besides, between apartments, clothing us, training us and feeding us, I doubt the pay we’re given will be that good. We’d need a long time just to make the money, time we don’t have.” He said. He was right, Alyx knew that. But it still didn’t help.

“So, we steal the money.” Lillian’s voice came soft and low, like she was scared that the walls themselves would tell the King what she’d just suggested. Alyx and James both turned to her in surprise.

“What?” Alyx asked, unsure if she really had just heard what she thought she had.

“We steal the money we’d need.” Lillian repeated, confirm Alyx had heard her correctly. “The King has lots of money, so we just find it and take it.”

“You want us to… plan a heist on the palace treasury, while living in the palace?” James said slowly, staring at Lillian, who just nodded her head. After a moment of silence, James turned his head to look at his sister.

“It… could work.” Alyx said, clearly voicing exactly James’ thoughts. He nodded slowly.

“We don’t know anything about the treasury, about the guards or locks. Hell, we don’t even know where in the palace it is.” James said, leaving an unspoken “But” hanging over the conversation. Normally, these issues would be a solid stop to the plans of any heist, but as the Cobalts found themselves now…

“We have time. We can work on finding out. And if we spread that out over the time we’re here, do it carefully. Then they’ll have no reason to even suspect something is wrong.” Alyx concluded, a smile creeping up to her face. A matching one was coming across James’.

“We work it all out, wait until they get distracted with the war, and we take the gold for ourselves.” James finished, excitement clear on his face as he reached out to take his sister’s hand in his. “And with that gold, we’re free and clear. Pay our way out of here, out of the Kingdom, across the Ramm and away. We disappear and no-one can catch us. No more royals, no more Trident. Just us, safe.”

Alyx beamed and nodded, and James barked out a victorious laugh. He hugged his sister before hurrying over to the bed to scoop up Lillian in a tight embrace, the girl giggling as he lifted and spun her.

Their plan was a long way from a realised thing, Alyx knew. And like any theft it would come with more than a few complications that would slow them down and force them to change plans. But right now, even just having the plan at all meant they had options. They weren’t backed into a corner, and the Gravekeeper would still have to run to keep up the chase with them.

“Okay then,” James said as he put Lillian down. “That’s the plan, we do our jobs, get our pay, and keep our ears to the ground about the treasury. Get all the information we can, and we work out how to get in and out with as much as we can. And when we feel ready, when we get a chance, we take everything we can, and we get out of here. Then, we start a new life, away from it all.”

James fixed Alyx with the smile she’d gotten used to seeing over their years in Winter. The smile of a man with a plan.

“We just have to chase some fairytales and look after a princess for a while.” He concluded.

Alyx wasn’t sure the plan would be as simple as James made it sound. And in fact, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure they even really needed the plan at all. But for now, at least, she was glad to have it as a fallback. And, in whatever case, Alyx could feel the freedom they’d all dreamed of was just beyond their fingertips now.