make me remember.

eight

"and you are absolutely positive that it is necessary?" barlas crosses his arms over his chest, repeating his question from just a moment ago.

"barlas." i say, my tone nothing less than harsh. "do as i have asked of you. i want them here by tomorrow night."
at this, my officer nods his head and with a sigh reluctantly agrees. "you know my standpoint on this, your majesty. their presence will only cause more uncertainty."

"they, and especially him, are the only surviving ones that can offer insight in the history of the castle. if you can provide me with that information in any other way, i am very open to it, barlas. if not, do as i ask of you-"

suddenly, the door to my office is flung open, atlas standing on the other side of it. he has graham by his collar, the guy stumbling behind my brother until he reaches the door as well.
i cock my head to the side. "what is it?" i ask, snapping atlas out of his trance as he looks between barlas and i.
"no, you first. what is this?" he shakes his head, moving a finger between the barlas and i.
i lean back in my chair. "how can it be this difficult to take simple orders from me?" i ask, my eyes landing on barlas and atlas afterwards.

"the princes." atlas says, stepping forward so graham can enter the room. he closes the door behind the two of them before turning back towards barlas and i, lowering his voice. "they have been here before, haven't they?"
at this, barlas nods. "it seems so, yes."
barlas is one of my commanding officers, just below both graham and atlas. he is older than any of us, a precious warrior. usually, he consults with me but recently, i've been leaving him out of any actual business and only filling him in whenever i would see him in person. i wanted to try and avoid any crisis but as it seems, that won't be possible.
"while talking to prince atticus, i realised that i didn't know much to anything about their kingdoms. i know the basics from the files i was provided with, and i would have expected the princes to have received similar briefings about our kingdom. but why would it be deemed necessary to learn about our crops in previous seasons? prince atticus would only know that if he had been here before, specifically the outer-ring. and why would he visit the parts of the kingdoms that north was trying to hide away?" i let the question hang in the room for a second before graham suddenly steps forward.
"fuck." he breathes out, running a hand through his hair. i nod at his reaction, still waiting on the others to catch on. "they wouldn't have any reasons to visit the outer-ring in previous years because the only person they knew here lived in the castle."

i nod. "the princes never set a date to return back to their kingdoms and i strongly believe that is because they don't intent on leaving until they finish their business here."

"and what would that be?" barlas steps in.

i shrug, meeting his eyes. "i have no idea, but i am suddenly understanding more of why north left so easily and civil four years ago."

four years ago, after beginning the project to rebuild the castle, i had seemed to realise that on the blueprints of the new castle, i had made plans for several spare rooms. but somehow, i hadn't assigned any of them to anyone. i didn't want them to stay in the castle. i actually wanted them gone, just not beneath a tombstone. so, i sent them off to the outer-ring. all of them.
illium, north, maeve, wesley and harrison. and i hadn't contacted them since. i had sent officers with them, just to ensure that they didn't starve or die from an infection or what else, but their orders were to only inform me of any issues. if they were fine, i didn't want to be contacted.
so far, i had only been contacted a few times over the past four years. once when ilium managed to catch a high-riding fever and spread it onto everyone else and then a few other times with smaller issues where my guards simply needed my permission to handle it in certain ways.
i hadn't talked to any of them directly in years, and yet, i preferred it that way. there wasn't any trust to rebuild between any of us and i had come to terms with that.
despite what barlas believed my reasons to be, bringing them all here was merely business.