Bloodguard

chapter 53

Maeve

I stare at Tut, waiting for the punch line to this terrible joke, but he only stares back at me.

Free the phoenix? The same monster who swallows people whole and spits out their bones? No way will that ever happen. I push to my feet, ready to hurl my lamp and light this ogre aflame.

He points at himself, voice calm despite my clear hostility. “I’m the head of surveillance. I am sent to survey the outskirts of Arrow, where Erth-wide disasters have begun to encroach on Arrow’s borders. I’ve seen the destruction with my own eyes.” He blows out more steam. “Aurora was never your grandmother’s to capture. She must be freed. Only then will Old Erth regain its peace.”

He’s serious. “Regain its peace or be massacred, Tut?”

As if he wasn’t expecting this reaction, he does a double-take—an odd motion, considering ogres barely have a neck.

“The great phoenix was meant to roam the skies—”

“She’s a harbinger of death!” I all but strangle him with my words.

“She’s not,” Tut insists. “That’s only what she was purported to be. Untruths that your grandmother and Vitor spread and exploited for their own gain.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Tut, that makes absolutely no sense. You’ve seen her. She’s a monster!”

“Ya. It does. Aurora balances nature. She keeps the winter in mountains where it belongs and drought in the desert where it should remain.” He blows out more steam, but it’s pathetic at best, mimicking his defeated state. “Your grandmother stole her from the skies to use as a weapon and to keep Arrow in power.”

I set the lamp on the nightstand, still within reach, and sit again. “My grandmother didn’t just take her from the sky. She killed her because Aurora was killing our people. There was no weapon to be had.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I’m wrong. Tut, though, spells it out for me.

“Avianna killed her so she could rebirth the phoenix into something that she could control. She wanted Arrow to be great, and thus stole Aurora’s greatness to make it so.”

“You act as if Arrow is only what it is because of Aurora.” I spread my arms wide as I motion with my hands. “Look around at all we’ve rebuilt that was once squalor. We did that, Tut. My grandmother and Papa did that. This has nothing to do with the phoenix.”

Tut stands. I do, too, both of us squaring off. “You built those homes with wood from trees that grow tall and strong in the areas surrounding Arrow. You fed those workers and yourself with the bountiful harvests Arrow produces. You feasted on game that’s hearty and plentiful from thriving off a land rich with nutrients while those around Arrow, those without the phoenix, starve and suffer and die.”

I lower my hands. Okay. He has my attention now.

“You eat the best, you have the best, and you are the best. You know this to be true, Princess.” Tut starts to pace. For someone tasked with subterfuge, he makes a lot of noise.

Slap, scratch.

Slap, scratch.

Slap, scratch.

Ogres’ feet are so tough they don’t need shoes. But this one damn well needs his toenails clipped.

“You hear the stories the immigrants share, Princess—about floods that ruin their crops, about freak ice storms in summer that freeze mothers holding their babies as they rush to shelter. Princess, you’ve cared for those who arrived sick with unheard-of infections that plague the young and strong.”

Tut is right. I don’t want him to be, but he is.

“Immigrants rush to this kingdom, wanting what they can’t have in theirs because Aurora doesn’t soar over their land to give it to them.” He blows out more steam, this time in the shape of a circle that might as well be a broken heart. “My realm is dying, Princess. My people are so sick from decades of malnourishment, we haven’t seen an ogren Liburi child born in more than seventy years.”

I approach him slowly, and Tut eyes me warily. He should. But I don’t mean him harm, at least for the moment. “If Aurora is set free, all the realms will benefit just as Arrow has?” He nods. “And if she is kept trapped, the rest of Old Erth will continue to suffer?”

Tut nods again, his lack of a neck causing him to tilt his entire upper half. “The great phoenix only exists to balance nature. It’s the sole reason Nature created her.”

I know the story of the phoenix. I learned it as a child and saw it play out within the stained glass windowpanes in Vitor’s office.

Damn it. Vitor .

Still, there must be more to this. I find it hard to believe this ogre and others risked certain death to infiltrate Arrow royalty so they could release the phoenix on the unproven theory she will heal the world. It’s more likely he wishes to take it for his own kingdom or sell it to the highest bidder. “What do you want from me, Tut?”

“I want you to help me release her.”

I want to believe his theory. I do, but the risk is too great. “No.”

“Princess,” he snaps, affronted. “It’s the right thing to do. Not just for your people but for all the world.”

“What if you’re wrong?” I ask, my voice harsh and louder than intended. So many people have died because of this creature. In the wrong hands…

He flaps his meaty hands downward, trying to silence me. “Hush. We mustn’t be heard.”

I pull my knotted hair forward and attempt to braid, trying to settle and not appear like a woman who’s lost her damn mind. Even if she has. “What’s wrong, Tut? Are you worried you’ll be discovered and, I don’t know, fed to the phoenix?” I drop the strands of my hair.

He grinds his fangs, less than pleased by my reaction. “You don’t understand,” he growls.

I saunter closer. “Don’t I? Aurora needs blood, needs people to survive. Say you do free her. If— if —I don’t alert Soro to your plan, what’s to stop her from eating every last person she can get her beak on?”

Tut’s shoulders stiffen. “Aurora only eats dead things,” he says as if I’m the one missing the point.

“What?”

Steam funnels from his nose. Poof. Poof. Poof. If he’s laughing at me, I’m going to ram one of his tusks up his nose. “Soro killed Vitor, and Aurora feasted. Gladiators die in the arena, and Aurora nurses from their blood and bones.”

“Do you really think this is motivating me to help you?”

There goes Tut, looking all offended again. Well, too damn bad.

“Aurora was never a threat, Princess,” he says. “When she appeared at all those battles, it was only to feast on the dead. She’s part of the ecosystem. But she was painted as a monster by the monsters who desired to keep her.”

“How did she rise?” I take a moment to compose myself when his mouth shuts tight. I must demonstrate patience, even though I severely lack it. “General Tut, I know you don’t want to tell me. But considering I haven’t sung like a canary to Soro, the least you can do is tell me how.”

“Two soldiers—Bloodguards, actually—bled upon her nest,” he says. “Back before there was a coliseum, when it was just empty ground used for training and tournaments.”

Horror replaces my anger, making my stomach turn.

“When Aurora was killed, Avianna and Vitor waited for years for her to be reborn from the ashes,” Tut says. “But she didn’t rise. They carved catacombs into the porous stone beneath your castle so no one could find her and left her ashes on an altar. When those men died, fighting each other for glory and coin, their blood soaked the sand where the arena now stands. Vitor—I think it was him—felt the ground quake. When he went down to the catacombs, he discovered a hatchling had stirred to life and was reaching up to catch the dripping blood of the fallen warriors.”

I rub my face, wanting to scream at how truly sick and twisted this entire tale has been.

“Aurora was gentle,” Tut says, eyeing me like I’m close to the brink of insanity. He’s not wrong. “She let the queen and Vitor hold her. The queen sliced her own arm to nurse her, but Aurora wouldn’t take her blood. They tried animals, with no luck. It wasn’t until they offered her the corpse of a soldier that they figured out that Aurora only fed on the dead…”

“And that’s when their murdering spree began?”

He sighs. “Yes. Servants first, because they were readily accessible and already within the castle… But her true purpose is out there.” He inclines his arm toward the window. “It’s why she soared around the realms. Eating dead things left behind—”

“And thus, creating new life with her spirit,” I finish for him. “Balance.” I curl into my stomach. “They didn’t build the arena around the dead Bloodguards to honor them,” I say. “They did it to feed Aurora.”

“Ya,” Tut says. “The bigger she got, the more she had to eat. And they killed and bled and fed her so that every ounce of magic she could muster would be trapped beneath that cursed arena. So Arrow would grow strong.”

I understand all of it.

The games, the gladiators, the “criminals.”

Every brutal action taken to ensure Arrow’s dominance among the realms.

And look what it has done to the world. If freeing her will balance out the Erth so every realm can thrive, can I really fault Tut for his actions? Like Vitor said, a small sacrifice for the greater good. But what…what if Tut has no plans to free her at all and this is only a cover for something more sinister? Could I live with myself if I was fooled into Arrow’s demise?

“I…I can’t free Aurora,” I say.

“I don’t need you beside me, Your Highness. My people and I just need a distraction. Something that will occupy Soro and his cohorts long enough for us to get to Aurora and set her free.”

His small black eyes blink back at me hopefully.

“I’m listening,” I say, not because I’m going to help him but because I need to figure out what is really going on here.

“All you have to do is keep Soro busy,” he says, licking his fangs. “The only way to Aurora is through the dungeons. Keep Soro with you, distract him and anyone else close to him, please .”

Something isn’t adding up. I clutch my hands to keep them from shaking. This is the moment I’ve dreaded since Tut swore on the honor of his people and I knew he was telling me the truth about Papa. “What will happen to Papa if I say no?” I ask. Save one life for thousands? Grandmother and Vitor did all the wrong things, yet here I wait, tasked with the same choices.

Tut dips his head, and I steel myself for what is coming. Free the phoenix or lose my papa.

“A smart man would use him as leverage,” he says. Slowly, he raises his head. “But Soro took everything from you, and Andres remains that little boy I saw grow into a good man. I’ve made terrible choices, Princess. But I won’t be so terrible to you.”

I don’t fully trust him, even as I fear something worse will happen if I don’t. “I’ll think about it,” I say.

He stands and bows. “That’s all I ask,” he says.

It’s a hell of a thing to ask.

“You don’t trust me, do you, Your Highness?”

I shake my head.

“Then let me prove it. I can kill Soro,” he offers. “Break his neck in his sleep and stuff his skull with candy for you.”

“As, um, sweet as that is, it won’t work,” I say. “You were there, Tut. I can’t play any intentional role in his death, direct or indirect. It’s one of the many provisions of our bond. And you killing him to prove your loyalty to me? Well, I’m not willing to bet my life on it.”

“Then tell me what I can give to earn your trust,” he says. “Whatever you want, you shall have it.”

I glance past him and through the open window. I may not trust this man or his motives, but that doesn’t mean an alliance with him couldn’t be useful. “There is one thing…”