Estranged

Eyrie Towers

Gringe stood next to a wooden stool. Across from him were a row of seven, high-backed seats set in a semicircle, each of them occupied by a member of the Seven. They sat there, backdropped by the heavens themselves like they were divine beings.

“Please, sir,“ Serevus insisted—a tall, lanky, middle-aged man who cut quite the figure in a dashing suit—standing between the District Head and the Seven.

Gringe recognized him, as he recognized everyone else in the room. Their faces were burned into his mind, seared from months of research and plotting. And at long last, he had finally achieved his first step—an audience with them; all seven of them. He sat on the stool, wordlessly, and remained quiet.

Serevus made a gesture at the woman who had brought Gringe here. The short hiss that followed from the door behind meant that she had been dismissed. Serevus smiled at the District Head, “Your men did not as much as bat an eyelid. You instructed them to stand down in the event that you were taken, didn’t you?”

Gringe shrugged, “Makes no sense taking on an enemy ten times your number, wouldn’t you agree, Aide Stitch?”

Serevus’ smile broadened. “That is—“

“You don’t fear us. Why?” The voice was airy and light, yet firm, absolute. From the middle of the Seven, Wilda addressed him, staring down at him through eyes that were too cold for one so young.

It was common belief that the Seven were equally matched, a system in which none of them was able to trump the other six, and so a reluctant truce had to be formed. But it wasn’t entirely accurate. There was one who ranked above them all in manpower, riches, influence, and intellect: twenty-seven-year-old Wilda Damij, owner of Eyrie Towers.

“You trooped down to the Ministry with an army a thousand strong,” Gringe responded. “That’s mighty extreme, even for you. Almost like you’re incapable of doing the most extreme thing and it pushed you to overcompensate.”

Wilda blinked. “You’re not wrong; it would be most…troublesome if we were to—“

Gringe snorted, “I might be what I am, but killing me would still be more than enough to draw them here. And facing the Royal Family’s ire is more than troublesome. It’s your absolute worst nightmare.”

Serevus trudged off to the side; he was no longer needed in this conversation. The rest of the Seven remained silent, deferring to Wilda’s authority very easily. Pale and beady-eyed, Wilda did not say anything to Gringe’s claim. Instead, she asked, “What do you want?”

“To clean up Doranne.”

A burst of laughter came from the left. Serevus waved his hand, fighting a chuckle. “Forgive me, I couldn’t help myself.”

Wilda looked mildly irritated by her aide’s interruption. “Clean?” she asked, the one-worded question laden with disbelief and confusion. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Whatever do I mean?” Gringe asked back with equal disbelief. “Beyond this cloud-piercing tower and its surroundings, beyond your areas of residence, life is wretched. You’ve made it so that without picking up arms in the name of the Seven, no one can be anything. You control the avenues to attain prosperity and then dish them out based on who you favour, on who’s willing to grovel at your feet. Crime can’t be the only way forward. I will not allow it.”

Wilda shook her head, a pitiful look in her eyes. “You still cling fiercely to the ideals of those who have forsaken you. I hail the Founding Fathers in that respect. Theirs is a level of control I can only hope to achieve. But all in its due time. I ask you, District Head, is it so wrong that we have tried to create a new world for ourselves, governed by our own laws, free of the Royal Family and their sterile rule?”

Gringe only said, “I don’t care who is in power. I care that people suffer. And I will do all I can to stop that.”

They were at a foreboding impasse. Something had to give.

Wilda went first. “This ‘cleaning up’. What would it entail?”

Eradicating you from relevance. Making you utterly toothless. But saying all that wouldn’t help. “First of all, restarting RoseField. It is industrialization, arable land, and mineral sources rolled into one. Doranne can’t get those three things anywhere else. Left dormant as they are now, they’re a huge waste. The sooner we get those factories running, increase food production, and acquire more valuable resources— which will have knock-on effects on employment, trade, revenue— the sooner things can get better for everyone.”

She c****d her head. “But RoseField is our leverage against your government and the masses. Do you ask us to willingly give up what ensures our power just because you’ve spouted some altruistic bullshit, Mister Gringe?”

“You’ll still retain control, still be in charge of hiring, supervision, distribution. But you have to allow things to start working.”

Wilda paused. There was no talking between the other six. Their opinions counted for nothing when compared to Wilda Damij’s. “We do not find your terms favourable, District Head Gringe, and so it seems that we shall meet again at RoseField, awaiting your unmitigated wrath. Serevus, see him back to his office.”

***

“Just a bribe? You were banished for being committed to the law?” Aliyah scratched her freckled cheek absently, brows wrinkled in confusion.

Gringe, who was taller than her by a head and some, was able to see above most of the crowd. He kept an eye out, monitoring the warmly lit hallway as he conversed with Aliyah. He wouldn’t be caught unawares like he was that night on Revel Ave when the stampede had forced him into the Irryhian. Not with her by his side. “Imagine how I felt, finding that the institution I’d devoted my life to was a farce. The rules, the beliefs, the righteousness,” he spat, his expression twisting into a scowl, “all a ploy to control, to command.”