Battle-Ready

She left the hall before the next fool decided to step up and try to make a vow. She had no idea how long it would take for them to realize that it was a fool’s errand or notice the slip in her words, but she didn’t care.

Her Shield was alive, somewhere. He would return to her, she knew that. It was just a matter of when.

Part of her wished she could have just issued a full run of the Shield Games again. It would have been exceedingly healing to watch them all have to fight to the death or surrender, but she doubted that any of them would have undertaken it. It would have just angered them further. And while she would relish the chance to slaught them all, she couldn't be sure that she would be up to fighting any of them and winning in her current state, but the thought of standing on that challenge ground across from anyone that was not her soulmate, washing that sweet memory away with new blood, made her chest tight.

She wanted to preserve the sanctity of that memory and place for as long as she could. It had given her more comfort than she had ever imagined being able to stand there and picture him that day: covered in blood, dust, and dripping with sweat, chest heaving, but his eyes full of pride and joy as they stood across from each other, mutually disarmed to a draw.

Equals.

The look in his eyes when he’d dropped to one knee and looked up at her, swearing an oath of fealty and respect, as every Shield before him had. And later, when he’d found her alone and asked the question she had already answered a million times in a million different ways beneath the myron tree he’d brought to her as an offering to enter the Games.

Her eyes burned. Her chest ached, so full that she could barely breathe around it, but she cut through the garden quickly.  There wasn't a lot of time. She had to get Telari sequestered in the high temple along with all the few loyal members of her palace staff. She nodded at the statues as she passed, taking in the way their eyes burned bright with blue fire. They would all be ready to go when it started, as she had been planning for years. She reached the hallway of Telari’s room and nodded. The guard there nodded and opened the door for her.

Telari was sulking on the other side of the room. Penelope closed the door behind her.

“I need to get you somewhere safe. Come with me.”

“I don't want to.”

“I'm not giving you an option. Either you can come willingly, or I can carry you. Think of your precious child—”

“Don't mock me.”

“I am not.” Telari looked at her. “You care for this child, for him, then you will come with me. Were you not kept here like a sister? Sisterly resentments aside, I am not speaking to you as your sovereign, and I am done being next to you. If you choose to stay here, I take no responsibility for what may happen to you. Do you understand that?”

She hesitated, but eventually, she rose to her feet. “I'm leaving the island as soon as I can.”

“If that is what you wish, there will be a ship waiting for you in the harbor.”

Telari flushed and grumbled, but she followed Penelope down the hall and outside through the garden to the palace’s temple doors. The few she had called to the temple came to meet her. They all looked worried, but upon seeing Telari, their concern vanished.

“Are you certain, Kyria?” They eyed Telari. “She—”

“He left her in my care. And until the day she decides to leave this island, she will be in my care. No matter how many foolish decisions she makes. You will watch after her as if she were heir.”

The woman hesitated, but they nodded and waved Telari inside. “It will be so, Kyria.”

Then, she left, sending a message through the island, mobilizing every statue to start guiding those who were to be saved through the secret passages to the high temple.

They were not to come out until the storm had passed and silence filled the palace grounds. She could feel the island’s anxiety thrumming beneath her feet, but no one questioned the order, nor tried to bargain for those who had not been chosen.

When they were safe, she returned to the royal living spaces through the gates. The gate took her directly into her own room. Did she have enough time?

She could feel the moments ticking down, as the palace prepared for what was to come and held its breath.

Her plan was risky, but it had to work.

She had no other options. No other way forward or back. She closed the door to her private altar room. This was not the one she usually prayed in these days, but it was the only place for what she planned. She took one last glance around to be sure that everything she needed was in the right place. Water to the west, a high window to the east, the basin for fire to the north, and fresh earth to the south. The goddess’s statue sat against the far wall, spear in hand and eyes full of blue fire.

She went to the drawer on the far side and pulled out a more functional tunic, shorts, and then armor. Her father had taken her spear and cursed her so that even if she could get to it, picking it up would be painful, but his co-conspirators had never thought to bar her from mundane weaponry. It was less effective, but less effective was better than nothing. She adjusted her armor and centered herself. Her crown glimmered on her brow, golden and glowing. As soon as the suitors decided that the vowfire trials were a waste of time or figured out that it was simply a way to buy time, they would be swarming the palace grounds.

And if by some chance one among them, other than her soulmate, could swear that oath of fealty with enough strength, she would be dead and none of this would matter, but that wasn’t a possibility she was worried about.

Thunder grew closer, louder. Lightning struck the ocean just offshore. She estimated maybe another hour and a half at most before the storm would be over the island. And the true battle would begin. That was enough time.

The air rippled around her. A warning flicker of light came across the wall. The statue turned its head towards her main door. Someone was coming.

She knew with certainty that it was either Naos or Sorenas. Viridian would know that the statues in the royal quarters were far more dangerous than anywhere else on the grounds.

She closed the door to her private altar and draped herself in a cloak to hide her armor. Then she went to the window as the door drifted open with a whisper of sound.