Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)

Chapter Eight: The Rebel

Nala Merson was running. She had been running since they had been ambushed, a few hours past dawn, and was still running, as dusk whispered across the sky.

They were dead. Five rebels had died, five people who had fought with her, over long ,hard days. That wasn't why she was in a state of shock. She felt grief for them, but it was the same pain felt when a musician played, because they had known the strings so long that their calluses were mostly formed.

There had been a spy amongst their ranks. She felt betrayal for that, but no longer any surprise. She was used to traitors, and they were simply more strings brushing across her fingers. The reason she was so shocked was because she had seen her dead nephew wearing soldier's armour. Dying fellow rebels no longer shocked her. Spies in rebels she barely knew was one matter.

But the dead coming back to life, and beloved nephews betraying you?

Even Nala Merson was surprised by that.

And by the fact that her rebellion must have been hiding it from her, because there was no way they couldn't know what her nephew had become.

Four years ago, she had disappeared. It broke her heart to do it, to let her husband and the nephew she had raised believe she had died. But it had been necessary. She had met an entirely different rebel organisation: a group with deeper roots and more power than the more well-known scattering of insurgents she had been part of.

The remnants of Tarua Teris, the last human city to fall to Medea. Unlike all the others, Tarua Teris was ruled by a chancellor who wanted to make a difference. He had fought for his city, combined it with many others when Medea began to conquer the Deserted Lands. The chancellor was not selfish and cruel and although his nation was poor, he had tried to build it into something that might resemble the North or the Archipelago. Tarua Teris had been wiped from history in Medea's attempts to portray herself as their saviour, and not their oppressor.

But Nala had uncovered the truth: Tarua Teris was not some children's nursery tale. It had been real. She had done a some more digging and found the Chancellor and all those still alive in his court and army. They had been the ones to explain to her that her rebellion would never make a difference but were still necessary. To distract the Empress. To hide them in plain sight.

Once she had found them, they hadn't let her return to take her family with them, and when they finally trusted her, her husband and nephew were already dead.

It hadn't been Tarua Teris in the prison wagon, and the people who were captured trying to save them would have taken the poisons intended to stop them from giving information to the Empress. Their secret was safe for now.

The ruthless methods of Tarua Teris had been a shock to Nala at first, but they had explained that to her as well: the reason her own rebellion was failing was because they had not set their hearts in stone.

Whenever the rebels from the other rebellion were captured, the people of Tarua Teris would try to save them. They couldn't risk bringing anyone in with them but the captured, who could be proved without doubt to not be spies.

These missions had failed more often than not in the past few months, so Nala had braced herself for a spy. The useful element of Tarua Teris was that other than the highest-ranked members, nobody knew they were working for them and not the other rebellion. The spy could never reveal the existence of a second rebellion.

These thoughts went through Nala's mind in the way practical things were done automatically, but not with any real soul to them.

Her nephew was alive. Her nephew was a traitor. The nephew she had given her all-important true Name to. The Name that belonged in every person's heart and told a deep and undeniable truth. She'd given it to him-and he had spat it right it right back in her face.

Her nephew was wearing the armour of a queen she despised. Her nephew-her son in all but name-had saved her. The first thing that went through Nala's head was that he was a spy. But this was impossible: she was on the Council for Tarua Teris, and somebody would have told her if they had a spy with a captain's badge in Medea's army. She also knew every spy in the ranks of the rebellion that used to be hers.

Once spy was eliminated, that left traitor. The word felt bitter in her mouth. Jasper had been brave. Noble. He wouldn't have-couldn't have betrayed them. Not the thirteen-year-old boy she had loved. A voice in her head struck back at her.

He was thirteen. Four years ago, he was that boy. Then his aunt died, and you have not seen him since.

Her nephew was a traitor. A captain of traitors.

Nala Merson should hate him. She hated every traitor to either rebellion.

Yet she could not.