A bruised and beaten woman who had tattered clothes entered the hall. It was bathed in light that shone like the sun. The fixtures were intricate and plated in gold. There was a platform and a throne that was raised. Catalyna hung her head as she knelt before the golden throne. She had never felt so humiliated in her life she recalled the past scenes where a mere Knight was able to hold her off with a bow and arrow.
"Your Grace, I have failed you," her voice quivered.
A raspy voice replied to her statement.
"How can you have failed if you were not tasked? Your mission was to only observe. However, in this respect, you have indeed failed."
"Well, it did not make sense for the cancellation of the original mission. The objective of Faerie is to gather children of great potential and Ezra is very special indeed and he shows gargantuan talent. I don"t understand why you sent that letter cancelling the order to abduct him. Well of course given that Ezra is so special we could not swap him with other newborns. But his abilities alone could topple the current Rex in the future. If he were to join others in opposition it would be a catastrophe! I know we do things secretly but I a.s.sessed the mission as critical. We do have eyes and hands all over Rex Imperium and we do things in the dark but sometimes we need to use brute force to achieve our objective. Your Grace, Ezra may become a great threat in the future. It is better to have him on our side even if we expend a bit of force. Indeed we are trained to disobey the orders if the situation calls for it. I a.s.sessed it and concluded that the order was a deterrent to Faerie, " Catalyna explained.
"Ezra is indeed special, but not in the way that you think he is."
"What do you mean, Your Grace?"
"You will know in time, Blaise. In the meantime. Go to the debriefing area. Proceed to make a written report about the details of the matter also go to the healers so that they can tend to your wounds while I will plan what to do next"
"As you instruct, Your grace."
Ezra and Evan tried to pursue Catalyna but was stopped by Aerwyna. She limped toward Evan and hugged her baby boy.
"Ezra. My baby. My son. I thought I would lose you forever." Aerwyna simpered and let loose a wail as she embraced her son. Ezra felt a bit awkward at this as he was thoroughly smothered and squished by his mother"s chest.
It was a sight looking at it from afar. A woman crying and hugging her son surrounded by the corpses of a myriad of men.
The whole block was destroyed in the battle and only ten out of the hundred normal soldiers had survived. The two knights were exhausted and were brought to the healers to recuperate. Aerwyna did not suffer too many injuries her greatest one was on her right foot. It would fully recover in two weeks time. The survivors of the battle were told to hush about Ezra"s prowess but Aerwyna knew this was only a temporary fix. Sir Evan was already very much aware of Ezra"s capabilities and also the civilians who had survived. Fortunately, not many people were aware of Ezra as most of the subjects fled the vicinity after Catalyna cast her magic.
Sir Evan was punished with twenty lashings due to him not following the orders of Aerwyna, but because of Ezra"s insistence, it was cut down to five. Ezra told Aerwyna that it was by his command that Evan disobeyed her orders but Aerwyna did not have it. She told him that he had no place in giving orders to her personal guard and that he was too young to give any orders to anyone at all. Technically the age at which the little lord could give orders to Knights was five years old. Ezra was in a bad mood because his mom was so adamant about this. He told her had it not been for Evan she would have died and would have lost him. Her heart quivered a bit because of this but she still pushed through with punishing the knight because it was the law.
Evan was then relinquished by Aerwyna and was given to Ezra as a retainer. His job was now to guard the lordling from then on. The next day Reitz returned back to the castle, he rushed when he had heard the news of the abduction of Ezra. He only had a few knights that came with him and his main force was still on its way from the battlefield. The battle was overly one-sided as Reitz brought with him the most elite forces as well as some n.o.ble va.s.sals he had. Apparently, the bandits were paid to ransack the nearby town. They did not know who was behind it only a name and a promise. They were paid a handsome sum and were told that they would be given double after they did they accomplished the raid.
Upon his return, Reitz hugged his wife and child,"I am sorry I-I failed to protect you," he told them as his voice cracked.
"I will never leave you like this again. I will have to restructure my army to have them be able to handle these situations. I need someone I can trust to lead them to battle when the need arises."
The next few days Reitz and Aerwyna tried to rat out every spy they could find. They discovered plenty of them in Bren. However, the servants in the Castle were airtight. The guards that had betrayed them to Catalyna before were weak links as they were just recruited six months prior. They tried to find the apparent husband of Catalyna. He was caught and questioned. He told them that he was given gold in exchange for claiming to be Catalyna"s husband three years ago and that Catalyna gave him some personally every week. He did not see anything wrong with this and just went along for the gold. The baby that she had a year before was nowhere to be found. He told them that the infant was only brought in once a week and really did not stay in his house. Reitz and Aerwyna became even more puzzled at this. They tried to inquire about who Catalyna sent the letters to but they found out that she only ever sent one letter and received another as for the messenger they were two different men apparently. They became even more vigilant.
The new information that had come baffled them even further. There was seemingly no connection between the ones that had plotted against Reitz"s life and the people behind Ezra"s abduction. Both of the motives were too far away. The party who wanted Reitz life was most probably a n.o.ble who wanted more land because if Reitz were to die, some of the land that was awarded to Reitz for his services in the Augmenti would go back to the Rex Imperia. He also had some squabbles over the new border which was shared by three domains as there had been a magic crystal mine in the area. Reitz knew that the insistence of his sovereignty over the mines captured the wrath of some dukes. Before it was a matter of pinpointing who exactly it was now it seemed that not only did they know who exactly the enemy was but also it appeared that they had more than one.
Two weeks after the incident Ezra was scheduled to be presented to Bren. This was a tradition of n.o.bles in Rex Impera to announce the new lord that would succeed the next. There was a rumour about the little lordling, some said he was a messenger from heaven and some said he was possessed but as these rumours went on the security had tightened as the preparation for the festivities commenced.