The Last [Mage] King - Chapter 37: - Myrodvor By Midnight (Patreon)

Chapter 37: - Myrodvor By Midnight

Cadet Sasha Osin,

Having met all requisite standards through the satisfactory completion of qualifying trials, and pursuant to nomination by Mage Captain Sergei Vlasenko, you are hereby selected for advancement as a Mage Candidate.

Further directives will be issued under separate cover.

It felt unreal when Sasha had found the letter in her mail, like some sort of waking dream, and even now, a day later, sat in the waiting room and only minutes away from the final trial, she still didn’t believe it.

She was going to become a Mage.

I’m going to become a Mage!

The door separating her from Magehood was right before her—oak, Republic grey, and weathered by age. She was the only one who had not yet gone through, all the other candidates had been called in groups of tens and the last one—despite only having nine boys in it—had not included her. Sasha was simply far too excited to care.

That did not mean there was no inkling of worry worming its way through her guts; she could hear the sounds of retching, coughing and hurling bleed through the door—the sounds of cadets who failed to successfully eat the hearts of Fae. Would she be one of them, turned away after making it this far due to the gods rejecting her? No, she could not humour such ideas; they did nothing to calm her nerves.

So Sasha just sat there, leg tapping against the tiled floor with rising anticipation. Would she go home? Or would she be the first Mage from her tiny little Village. A Mage from little old Duplo, now that would be a folktale if there ever was one.

The door opened, defeat stumbled out, and it had taken the form of nine cadets. In their eyes was anguish, on their lips was the red smear of Fae blood. One fell to his knees and hurled the contents of his stomach onto the floor; the others just shuffled out of the room, heads hung low, and skins green with sickness.

Not one of the nine made it…

She didn’t have time to process the sight before her when a bark caught her attention. “Osin!” It came from beyond the door.

Sasha got to her feet and made her way in. It was a classroom, green walled and with a chalkboard against its far wall. Sat in front of it were four unwelcoming looking uniformed men. One looked bored, another looked angry, the third seemed amused and the fourth… well the fourth was leering at her chest.

She searched for sight of the Captain but didn’t find him—it was custom for the nominator to witness the attempts of their candidates. Don’t let that unnerve you. She was here wasn’t she? And that was all she needed, herself.

“Get into position!” The angry one barked and Sasha jumped.

There was only one table with a heart on it, so Sasha stood in front of that one. She had seen a Fairies' heart before—it had been brought forth for students to see more than a few times in class—but Sasha had never been so up close to the organ before. Perfectly spherical and bulging with veins that seemed the same shape as the runes she saw on gloves. It was an intimidating thing—and terrifyingly so.

“Are we really going to carry on with this sham?” One man groaned—the bored one. 

“Why not? Let’s see what happens,” the amused officer replied.

“It’s a waste of perfectly good hearts to give to some fucking ditz,” bored man growled back.

“No, no, I agree with Stavo, let’s see if the little minx is as good as keeping Sergei’s seed down her throat as she is Heart.” It was the leerer that said that, of course.

“Let’s just get this over with,” the angry one grumbled. He ranked above the other men so luckily they obeyed—some with more hesitance than the others. 

Next, their eyes fell on Sasha expectantly, she cleared her throat, inhaled, exhaled, stiffened and then saluted. “Cadet Sasha Osin, requesting permission to consume Angel Cardia.”

She saw eyes roll, heard scoffs and did her best to ignore them all.

“Proceed,” the senior-most officer told her.

Sasha picked up the heart, raised it to her lips, widened her mouth, pushed it in and swallowed. The mass slid down her throat like a jagged rock against sandpaper—uncomfortably and painfully—but the sensation was almost soothing in comparison to what came next.

It started as a gentle burning in the pit of her stomach, and then quickly doubled, then tripled, and quadrupled, until it felt like there was an inferno raging in her guts. 

Sasha collapsed to her knees, hissing, whimpering, and clutching desperately at a belly that would not stop tormenting her. Her body wanted nothing more than to eject the foreign object within it; the heart was anathema to human matter, it was anathema to all that was her. She could hurl it up, free herself from the agony, and in truth many a time she almost did, but Sasha had not come this far to fail.

So the pain continued, the torment persisted, and Sasha suffered it all—whimpering, crying, but never giving up. And eventually it stopped, like she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that it would.

The world still swam at the edges of her vision, the air tasted sickly, and she was drenched in sweat. But it was over now.

Slowly and shakily, Sasha pulled herself up to her feet. She saw the array of emotion cast towards her—rage, anger, amusement, lust—all vanish in place of one singular expression: shock.

She would have grinned had she not been far too occupied with the now terribly complex task of standing upright.

All eyes fell on the senior officer—the one with the perpetual scowl—and he seemed almost offended to be confronted with what everyone in the room knew he had to do next. He got to his feet with the eagerness of a man on his way to bed a wrinkled hag, and cleared his throat. “Congratulations on your commissioning, Mage Second Lieutenant Osin.”

Through the agony, the sickness, and the exhaustion, Sasha smiled. I’m a Mage now…

###

Pavel hated Tsaryovohrad. 

The gem of the south? The beauty of the south? The heart of the south? Nonsense, all utter nonsense. If any city would hold that title, it was Znaniye, his Znaniye, and now that the idiot Belavkin had gone and gotten himself killed he was going to make it what it always should have been.

That was not a task for today however, and it was certainly not a task for right now.

Right now he was stuck in far too small a carriage for his liking, accompanied by his idiot guard, Matvei, while the coachman—who lately seemed bent on finding the most uneven patches of road to ride on—took forever to find a simple fucking spa.

“Can you stop doing that?!” he growled at the idiot.

“What, Your Grace, breathing?” the idiot asked, idiotically.

“Yes, breathing! It’s loud, it’s annoying, and it's distracting!” Pavel hissed. 

The soldier nodded, tried and failed to stop being obnoxious by turning his bull-like breathing into the nasally piercing sound of a whistle.

Pavel groaned. “Fucking, oaf!” he vibrated with his rage. He would not have chosen so small a carriage had it not been for Leonid’s idiotic insistence that he keep a low profile—the coward. It was not him that had to suffer close quarters with Matvei, or the indignity that came with travelling second class in his journey to the city. Luckily, Pavel had the sense not to listen to the latter request.

Hiss.

Hiss.

Hiss.

Pavel slapped the idiot across the face, hissed himself because the baboon’s skin was so tough, and settled to yell at him instead. “I said, stop breathing so loudly!”

“I’m sorry sir,” the moron begged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Stick your head out the window while you pant!” He barked, enraged at the inconvenience of having to think for the idiot. He supposed that was the task of noble blood: to rule, to guide, to decide. It was not the poor bastard’s fault that he grew up in a world that did not respect such ontological truths anymore.

Matvei nodded, turned around, pushed aside the curtain, opened the window and stuck his head out. Pavel—fool that he was—found himself in the start of relaxation when the simpleton for reasons that completely eluded him decided to stick his head back inside the carriage.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with y—”

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered with such intensity and heat as to drive away the fury in Pavel and replace it with terror.

Pavel looked out of the window and found that he did not at all recognise any of the buildings he was currently looking at. They were squat, decrepit things more fit for rodents than man. With a dawning horror, Pavel realised that he was in the lands of the peasantry. Almost in sync with his thoughts, the carriage lurched to a stop. Oh my, oh my, I’m about to be killed, raped, killed and raped. That was in fact all their kind was capable of doing to both each other and their betters. Calm down Pavel, you’re of noble blood. Powerful, strong, and brave blood. Use that courage to take action. “Matvei, investigate the disturbance!” he roared, slapping the soldier’s back.

Matvei thankfully had just finished sliding his gloves on. The slap hurt Pavel’s hand.

He leapt out of the carriage, and Pavel waited for the sounds of terrible magics flying in the air, and men dying, but heard none.

“Hi!” outside, a voice he did not recognize chirped. “I’d like to offer you an opportunity,” he said. “She resides within the late Sixties, I reside within the early Eighties. One of us is against the idea of killing a fellow soldier; the other would love to kill a soldier. As a compromise, we’ve decided to offer you the same deal we gave the coachman: one thousand zlakta to do as we say. In his case, it was to bring the Duke to a secluded location and leave. In yours, it is just to leave—aren’t you lucky! So, what do you say?”

There was silence, Pavel waited desperately for the oaf to do the one thing he was good for and resort to violence. But instead the sounds that came from his lips were far more sickening than any blood curdling scream could have been. “Sounds like a plan,” the filthy traitor said.

Pavel heard him catch something, heard the crunching of retreating boots—Matvei’s retreating boots—and knew he was alone, left to the devices of these conspirators. 

He retreated backwards, pressed his back against the side of the carriage, fiddled against his hip, withdrew a dagger, and pointed it shakily at the door. Whatever would come through that door, he would fight it, he would kill it, and barring all of that, he would face it like a man. Of noble blood, of true blood of—his vision began to darken at the side, there was a tightening in his heart, and a dull pounding in his head. He was being attacked, fueled by magics he was not familiar with. And soon the world went black.

###

“Oh, he’s awake!” The King chirped.

He was correct. Duke Krutoyarov was in fact awake—or rather stirring awake. He was truly awake when he jolted at the sight of the two strangers looming above him.

Frantic terror flashed into the man’s features. He tried to stand, realised he was tied to a chair, tested his strength against Sasha’s rope-tying abilities, found it wanting, and then began panicking. “Where am I?!” he asked, trying his best to sound commanding and instead conveying weakness with an almost perfection. “What did you do to me?!” he turned his head frantically around, as if deathly certain something was going to leap out of the corner of his eyes the very next moment. 

Sasha couldn’t help but feel bad for him. She replied as soothingly as she could. “You’re in an abandoned warehouse at the far end of the city, and we haven’t done anything to you. You were unconscious when we got to the carriage…and with a little bit of wetness between your legs. I think you passed out from fright.”

It was nothing to be ashamed of—pissing itself was what the body did in dangerous situations—and she had to admit that the King and her could be classified as such. The Duke did not seem pleased, and in fact seemed affronted at the very fact that she had pointed it out. Then he seemed to remember the situation he was in—being tied to a chair in an an empty warehouse while at the mercy of two strangers—and went back to being terrified. Finally, he seemed to recognise Sasha, and quickly enough, rage followed. “You’re that girl-Mage!”

She sighed. “Mage Captain Sasha Osin, correct.”

His rage seemed to redouble at the confirmation. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, woman?! Unbind me! Right this very instant, unbind me!”

“Certainly,” the King agreed. “We just need you to tell us what you’re doing here and what dear old Dragomirov is up to.”

The Duke’s eyes fell on him, frowned and nearly spat his words out. “And why the bloody hell would I tell you that?! Do you know who I am? Do you know what I’m capable of, I’m—I…” his words died on his tongue and his face paled as the King began approaching him, slowly, like a stalking leopard readying for a kill. 

Grinning brightly, and with a cat’s cruelty in his eyes, the King lowered his lips to the man’s ears and whispered something either at a volume or in a language that she could not decipher. The Duke certainly knew what it meant because he was near shivering now, nodding desperately and unable to keep his eyes off the King as he stepped back.

His answer came quickly and frantically after that, so quickly that Sasha had trouble actually keeping track of his words. She got the general gist of it though: The Twin Consul was planning to make an announcement, he summoned his allies, and those who could not attend sent forth someone to represent them.

“So, who are you representing?” The King asked. 

“Wh-what?” the Duke replied, jaw slack with terror.

“Belavkin’s a corpse now, so who are you representing?” He inquired further, and this time Sasha could see something genuinely dangerous flicker behind his eyes.

“I…I…Vasili Raskolnikov—he’s going to be announced as Belavkin’s replacement. He’s a good friend of mine, I’m just here in his place while he deals with things at home,” the man’s words spilled past his lips quickly, eager to appease the murderous being now standing above him.

The King grinned, but looked far from appeased. “I’m going to take a guess and say that Raskolnikov is under your thumb in one way, shape, or form,” the King noted. “Making the city of Znaniye essentially yours to control.” The Duke did not deny the claims, whether that was due to its integrity or his terror, Sasha could not tell. “So you had a lot to gain from Belavkin’s death didn’t you?” Sasha realised where the King was going with this and that chilled her.

“No! I—” The Duke began, only to be cut off once more by the monarch.

“You’ve lied to me twice now. Do so again, and I will begin removing testicles. As a treat, I’ll let you pick which one goes first.” He smiled, stepped forwards, rested a hand on each arm of the chair and leaned in until the space between him and the noble were mere inches—leaving the Duke with no escape.

Again, Sasha wanted to interject. Again, she let it happen. She was also rather desperate for answers.

“Dragomirov told me he was going to clear a path for me to control the Governorship—I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, he just told me to be ready, and I was—I didn’t have anything to do with Belavkin’s murder!” he pleaded, trembling, crying, drenched in sweat, and looking mere seconds away from another bout of fear induced unconsciousness.

“So, you know nothing of Navtej Volkov?” The King asked, voice soft and slippery, like a serpent mere moments from striking.

“The G-general’s boy?” He shook his head with such intensity Sasha thought he might snap his spine. “No—not a thing! I was called for a meeting, I’m here for a meeting, I’ve told you all I know!”

Silence filled the warehouse now. The King broke it with the sound of breath filling his lungs. He patted the man playfully on the cheek. “You’re lucky I believe you,” King Exia propped himself back fully on his feet and turned to Sasha. When he spoke however, his words were not aimed at her. “When and where is this meeting to take place?”

Like with perhaps everything he asked Duke Krutoyarov now, the answer came quickly. “At the twenty third hour of the day. On the highest floor of the Myrodvor hotel. The passcode is ‘legacy.’”

The King’s eyes fell on her watch and his eyes glinted with a plan. “Oh, if I leave now I can make it.”

“You’re not actually thinking of going there, are you?” Sasha asked, voice edged.

“Well, we need to figure out what’s going on. I might as well use what is likely our one opportunity to do just that.” The King replied as if it were simple maths.

“Why don’t I go instead?!” Sasha countered.

“I doubt there would be many women there, Captain, you’ll stand out like a, uh—woman in a room filled with powerful old men.” He shrugged.

“I think I’d stand out less than someone with your face!” Sasha retorted.

The King waved a hand vaguely toward his visage. “This?” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t appear in newspapers, I don’t attend public events, and the handful of officials who’ve seen me did so with a very large, very ugly man standing beside me—a good number of which did so when I was a boy. And frankly, they had bigger problems to worry about than my face. So relax, Captain—no one’s going to recognize their King.”

“Y—you’re the King?” The Duke whispered, eyes widening in realization, jaw dropping with shock.

“See!” King Exia grinned.

Sasha turned away from the Duke and set her eyes back fully on the King, who, much to her chagrin, was wearing one of his stupid, boyish smirks again. “I guess it’s decided then,” the King said. 

Sasha took a long sigh. “I guess it is.”