The Guild Book I - 3. Chapter 3

Chapter #3

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Estelle now knowing she had been used, avoided all the Prime Minister’s attempts to placate her. But as her pregnancy progressed, extending her belly, she felt a growing compulsion to return to the south wing.

One night… in the fourth month of her pregnancy she had gone to bed early only to wake to find herself standing in front of the security door leading to the Guild quarters. Waiting there was Falcon. “Decided to take a midnight stroll?” he snickered.

“What am I doing here?” Estelle demanded, disoriented.

“Looks like you were sleepwalking.”

“I have never walked in my sleep in my life!” she said as she looked at her belly suspiciously.

“You are right to look in that direction.” Falcon nodded.

“What is this child doing to me?”

“Our child is searching for its soul mate. I told you Terra is also pregnant. As the child grows inside you he will become more insistent that he be near the person he is destined to protect.”

“Protect.”

“Yes, as I am a Guild Protector so will our son… the sole purpose of his life, as it is with my own, will be to protect his Guild Mistress.”

“So my child will be a slave.”

Falcon chuckled at Estelle. “Do I look or act like a slave?”

Estelle did not answer… she was filled with too much rage. “You don’t even love me, do you?”

“I am fond of you and find you amusing, which is about as much as you can expect from a Protector.”

Seeing she only had one card left to play… she played it. “What if I decide not to have this child?”

“My dear, go ahead and try and end this pregnancy. It is already too late. Even though he is not pure-blood, the child’s desire to live is already too strong to let you kill it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Go to the doctor then… just try to ask him to end your pregnancy. The child won’t let you.”

Wanting to exactly that, Estelle tried to turn around with the intent of making her way to the court surgeon she found however that she could not even move.

“See,” Falcon sighed. “Now show some sense and come with me.”

“No…” Estelle refused even while her left foot took the first step toward the south wing. The steps came painfully slow at first while Estelle tried to fight the will of her own child, but as soon as she was within arm's reach of Falcon, she collapsed against him, letting him take her inside the south wing, for while she knew the Protector did not love her she could not stop herself from loving him or more precisely her child from doing so.

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“So she has finally decided to join us,” Terra snickered. She too had felt her own child’s desire to be with its counterpart but with her Guild training she had been able to resist it. Now with Estelle in the same room with her, the near panic she had felt coming from her child faded away.

“Yes sister, so please be nice,” Falcon pleaded as he led his wife to the bed so that both women were lying next to each other.

Estelle also felt the panic that had gripped her fade away into a deep calm.

“Now isn’t that much better,” Falcon asked as he watched both woman place a hand over the other’s belly.

“Yes… much better, brother, so why don’t you leave so I can have a nice chat with my sister-in-law.”

“Very well.” Falcon grinned as he took Leopold’s hand in his and led him out of the room.

Once the two were alone Terra’s gaze turn hard. “You might be my brother’s toy for the moment and the bearer of my child’s future Protector but do not think that makes you a Guild Mistress. Your mask will always be of clay.”

“I never asked to bear Falcon’s child,” Estelle said defensively.

“But you are,” Terra spat as he pushed Estelle’s hand away from her stomach.

“Why do you hate me?” Estelle asked confused.

“I hate you because you can have what I cannot. I hate you because my brother chose you to bear his child.”

“And you wish you could? Give birth to an abomination?”

“Our child would have been pure-blood!” Terra said as she made to strike Estelle with her fist only to be frozen in place.

“I see you too are a slave to the thing growing inside you,” Estelle laughed.

“For the time being I am, but do not think my brother’s love, nor my child will be able to save you once your brat is born,” Terra swore as she settled back down on the bed.

Estelle wanted to flee… to run away and never come back but now that her child was so close to its soul mate, it would not let her.

“Get used to this bed, my dear, for until our children’s birth we will not leave it,” Terra said, not able to hide her bitterness.

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It was a long five months for both women. Estelle living in fear knowing her time was running out as Terra counted off each day with her threats. Estelle appealed to Leopold to save her, but soon saw he was nothing more than a puppet… a husk of the man he had been before. It was Falcon who seemed to be in command while his sister was indisposed but he only laughed when she would tell him of her fears.

So time passed as it always does. The nobles of Wor, led by former Prime Minister Toran, were now in full revolt. Falcon, convinced in his control of the royal navy, did not fear the rebellion as he should. He forgot that while all the officers were now Guild’s men… the grunts that manned the guns, fueled, and piloted the ships did not have any love for him. So when the royal navy itself turned against him… it had taken Falcon completely by surprise.

By this time his sister’s and lover’s pregnancies were near the end.

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Gerick could read the writing on the wall better than anyone… the rein of King Leopold was coming to a violent end. He had watched from a distance as his former lover forgot his duty to his people… entering into a life of blinding hedonistic bliss while the people suffered under the harsh rule of Prime Minister Falcon.

Gerick knew the king’s days were number but he had not expected to be ordered to hasten the day. That was exactly what he was asked to do however.

Reading the letter given to him by a man working for Toran and the resistance, Gerick could not believe what he was being asked to do… assassinate the king, his dearest friend. But then that was why Toran had asked him to do the deed, as very few groundlings were allowed close to the gold-masked monarch these days.

In the end it was not a hard choice to make. No matter what he decided to do, Gerick knew Leopold was doomed. Gerick needed to think of himself and his sister… how they would be viewed by the new government that was certain to rise after Leopold’s downfall.

There was also the matter of Estelle’s child. During the short visits he had been allowed with his sister he had felt something strangely familiar… something he had felt in another life. His sister’s child was going to be special… Gerick was certain of that and for that reason alone he would kill Leopold to ensure the child’s safety.

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With the growing strength of her child, Estelle had became lost in its thoughts. It was almost as if the child was singing in her mind, radiating happiness. At times she even felt she could hear another voice… a deep voice singing a complex counter melody. She did not understand all that was happening to her but she was beginning to comprehend Terra’s anger to her for taking away a brother that she had known and loved before birth.

Then the explosions began… the sound of klaxons filling the air.

“We are under attack!” Terra said in fear as she tried to get out of the bed, her brother shouting mental order’s into her head.

“What are we going to do?”

“We?” Terra spat.

“Do you think your child is going to let you leave without me?”

Giving off a grunt, Terra helped Estelle onto her feet. “We need to make our way to the pier… a Guild ship is coming to evacuate us.”

Together, taking care to stay close, the two women hobbled their way through the palace till they were outside, where the sky was filled with manta-shaped warships, their canons pounding away at the few ships still loyal to the puppet king.

“This can’t be happening… the navy can’t be betraying Leopold!” Estelle said in shock.

Suddenly, out of the clouds with all cannon’s firing, came the Guild war-liner, quickly destroying five of the largest rebel vessels. It was then… out of their mutual fear and stress that the pains of birth hit both women simultaneously, forcing them to the ground. That was how Falcon found them.

“Brother save me!” Terra pleaded when her eye's came in contact with her brother’s red glow.

“I can barely save myself… rebel soldiers already control half the palace. Leopold is dead…. Gerick killed him.

“Our child, Falcon… please save our child,” Estelle begged, as she clung to his leg.

“I can only carry one of you. I can only…” Falcon said even as more wreckage fell on the palace.

Terra, enraged that her brother would think of leaving her, went cold. “Brother… you are my Protector, you know what you have to do.”

“Yes… yes… I have to get help.”

“No brother. As your sister and Guild Mistress I am ordering you to save me.”

“But,” Falcon said as tears stung his eyes.

“BROTHER!” Terra said with a mental sting.

His face now pale, Falcon went down on one knee and lifted his sister up in his arms. “I will be back for you, Estelle, I promise,” he said before running away towards the Guild ship. He never did come back.

Estelle was therefore alone when she gave birth to her child, Falcon’s desired son. She did not remain alone for long, for soon she was surrounded by familiar faces, the faces of the once exiled nobles.

“Lady Estelle… consider yourself under arrest,” came Toran’s aged and harsh voice as he took her clay mask and smashed it on the stone floor.

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“Guild Mistress… Guild Mistress?” a clay-masked servant asked with fear in her voice.

“Where is my daughter?” she asked with some relief… no longer did she have that damn singing in her head.

“Mistress…” the woman squeaked before running away.

Sitting up, Terra saw that she was aboard the Guild ship, the blackness of space outside her window. Sitting in her room holding a babe wrapped in a blue blanket was Falcon, tears running down his face.

“Brother… bring me my daughter,” Terra asked.

“Daughter… you have no daughter,” Falcon spat, his red eyes darkening. “Estelle is dead… they executed her.”

“Brother, I am so sorry. I know how much you cared for her,” Terra said with false sympathy. “Now bring me my daughter,” she said more insistently.

“I told you… you have no daughter.”

“Then whose child you hold?”

“Yours.”

“But?”

“Terra… you gave birth to a son.”

“But that means!”

“Yes… sister you gave birth not to a Guild Mistress but a Prelate… a rival to the Guild Throne. You have doomed us all.”

“Where will we go… what will we do?”

“We and all aboard this ship have been sentenced to death… already three Guild war-liners are making their way to intercept us.”

“We can flee!”

“Flee where… there is nowhere in the light that we can go.”

“To the dark worlds then.”

“Sister… I could survive it, but could you? Even there they would hunt us down.”

“Then we will die.”

“Yes we will, but not your child. Not him. I will send him into the darkness and let fate take its hold. He will be our revenge against the Prelate.

“Yes he will,” Terra agreed.

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Gerick stood before the court a look of anguish on his face. “Why… why do this thing!” he demanded.

“The child is a half-breed and the son of a traitor… why should you care about his fate?” Toran demanded from his seat on the throne.

“Regardless of the crimes the parents committed… this infant is an innocent!”

“Be as that may… the court has already made its decision… the child is to be sold as a slave… has already been sold in fact.”

“But!” Gerick protested… feeling he had killed his friend for nothing.

“Gerick you served us well and will be rewarded for your loyalty to your people but when it comes to the fate of this child… he is not worth your time or effort.”

“That is not for you to decide!”

“But it is, Lord Gerick… it is,” Toran said with a sinister smile.