For the Rebellion

Chapter 13 - The Honorable Thing

Hello My Friends!

A quick note. In working through this draft, I realized it needed a little something...more. A splash more suspense. I decided to make a change, not a huge one. I've made slight updates to chapters 10 and 11. 

Change: Sophie Lasker is now engaged to be married. I decided that having her engaged, despite her chronic headaches felt more realistic to the time period, and added a ticking time bomb aspect to the story. More suspense! Dun dun dun. As Lord Lasker puts it in chapter 10: "It doesn't matter where her sickbed is." Or something along those lines. Be it in her husband's house or her father's house, she's sick regardless. So hey, she might as well be married off!! Isn't that all ladies are good for these days?? (his beliefs, not mine!!). 

So, keep that change in mind as you embark on this next chapter so that the references to Hawthorne (her betrothed) are not confusing. Happy Reading!

--Mel

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The castle was in an absolute uproar all morning. I tried not to let myself smile as I went about my morning routine. I'd gotten a decent night of sleep, for once, and there wasn't a single headache to be had—yet. I'd even eaten a heartier breakfast than usual.

Edric was free. He was free! It made no sense. None. Yet, as much as I wanted to question it, I was simply thanking the gods for the turn of events.

"They say the rebels found a way to infiltrate the castle," Tatiana said as she readied my hair. "Your father is furious."

"Is he?"

I wanted to laugh for so many reasons.

I loved my father...or, I had. In many ways, I still did. How could I not? He was the man who'd sat me on his lap to read me fairytales. The man who had patched my scraped knees when I'd gone climbing the parapets; instead of scolding me, he'd comforted me. The man who had wept when my mother died.

I loved him as a father, but I hated him as a ruler; as our dragondom's lord governor, he'd failed his people. All of this made what I was doing more difficult. Sometimes, when I considered the desired outcome of this rebellion, my heart ached. Lord Lasker did not deserve his title. If justice was properly meted, he deserved to lose it. It would hurt him. Seeing him hurt would hurt me.

Loving someone didn't absolve me from doing the right thing. If anything, it was because I loved him, that I refused to watch him destroy people's lives. I couldn't let him do it anymore.

"Oh, yes," Tatiana continued. "So angry that he killed the guards on duty. He had the rebel's second in command in his grasp, and lost him."

"And no one knows how they accomplished such a feat?" I found myself asking. "The rebels, I mean?"

I was desperately curious. We'd considered freeing our prisoners in the past. My father had taken many of our people, but his dungeons were impenetrable.

"No idea whatsoever," Tatiana said.

I bit the skin of my bottom lip, contemplating. Could Sari have pulled it off? Could she have found a way without me? I needed to speak with Amelina, see what information she had, but it might be too risky. We were laying low after the botched attempt to raid the sawmill. Besides, she'd gone into hiding.

I looked at my face in the reflection, pressing my lips into a flat line. Only my dancing eyes gave away the relief I felt. Edric was free. If I could get to him, he'd have answers.

My stomach soured, the breakfast I'd eaten turning to a hard lump. I hated to think what Edric must have suffered at the hands of my father and his guards. At the hands of his torturer.