"Josselyn Craven, you stand accused of crimes against the human race. Your title, family property, and your wealth is hereby stripped."

The intricate patterns of the old woven carpet came into focus under Josselyn's face. Though each curve was as familiar to her as the bricks of her home, she had never seen them so close. Nor had she seen the sticky crimson stain now marring the once rich texture. Her hand shaking, she ran it by her face, knowing before she looked that it was blood. The acrid smell was all too potent as it curled into her nostrils. There was too much of it to be her blood. But whose? A servant? Were they all to be slaughtered?

Sacrelue!

Her muscles ached from the hours spent running around her large castle home, fighting off her attackers. She'd lost her sword below in the corridor by the main hall and now had no weapon--not that she had the energy to lift much beyond her own weight. Josselyn's father had seen to it she was trained as well as any man, but she couldn't fight off the endless stream of soldiers that seemed to fill the halls. Sneaking through secret passages--those hidden behind the stone walls--she made her way from her bedchamber only to nearly escape through a high window. Her sides were scraped from the tight fit, but the ache was dull compared to the sharp stab of her broken ribs, the burning pull of a dislocated shoulder, and the myriad of bruises. All injuries were left by her Florencia Moon Coalition peers turned Federation lackeys. How some of the men looked like they enjoyed hitting her, watching as the last of the mighty Craven family fell.

Though they claimed it was the Florencian government, the so-called rebels knew the truth. The Federation was behind the new policies ruining their freedom and their lives. Like the classic Earth tale of the nobleman who hid his true nature in order to save his people from a corrupt government, so too had her family hid in the limelight of society.

Now, for their troubles, there were only three Cravens left. She'd seen her father fall, her three older brothers, too. The oldest, Jonathan, to a sword, the next in line, Peter, to an axe, and Ralphe to a dagger. Their dead bodies were strewn all over the castle, their blood staining the floors, marring her gown from where she'd held them. Hopefully one brother, the one whose body she had yet to find, had escaped. Rainier was the youngest at ten and two years, but resourceful. Then there was her mother, Lady Craven, who thankfully was off planet. At least she was safe. Lady Craven was not a fighter. She was a good, gentle woman with a heart big enough for the whole galaxy. The lady was protected by her family from most of their rebellious affairs.

If only Rainier had gone with Lady Craven, as had been the original plan, then Josselyn wouldn't have to worry about the boy's safety. Even as she thought it, she knew the most likely scenario was that Rainier lay on a bloody, stone deathbed. The idea of him, alone and dying, tore at her. Even this blood stained carpet beneath her could have been his resting place.

Shaking, she pushed up, her heart aching with the carnage she'd seen. Grief overwhelmed her spirit, even as it drove her body angrily on. She didn't think on tomorrow, to the time when she'd have to face what had happened. It was all gone. Her life. Destroyed. Empty.

It's only a matter of time before they kill the rest, her mind whispered. Rainier and your mother will fall. We will all fall. What point is there in fighting?

Live, fight, and die with honor, her father's voice answered, a distant memory translating the family crest. Her eyes lifted to the doorway, to the old Latin words etched into the stone, 'Ago pugna quod intereo per veneration'.

They gave her strength as nothing else at the moment could. All around her, the chamber was in shambles. They'd ransacked her father's old study, knocking aside the candelabras and overturning the furniture she'd sat on so many hours as a child. Taking a blue candle that rested by her hand, she flung it at the man who spoke, knocking his foot with the hunk of wax. He merely laughed at the weak defense, kicking the candle aside.

Shiny white boots stepped closer, now smudged with the faintest trace of blue. The man leaned down, the low bass of his voice just above a whisper. "Just like your father and your brothers. Fighters all until the very end. Is it fear or pride that drives you on?"

The end?

At that she managed to lift her head, though her eyes were still on the white boots. "Rain?"

"Even the boy," the General in white answered. Josselyn caught her battered reflection in the boot, a stretched version of her face. His tone soft as a lover's, he added so only Josselyn could hear, "He died well. Have no fear of that."

Then it was true. The last of her family had fallen, save for the mother who would come home to a dried crimson river that was once her life. Would they wait for her mother? Would they kill her, too? Even as she thought it, she knew the answer. It was etched into the irritated lines of the General's face. A tear slipped over Josselyn's cheek. It would seem she still had energy enough to cry, even if she couldn't push all the way up from the floor on her own.

Josselyn gave a cold laugh. What else could she do? Tell him she hated him? Tell him he was a monster? Call him names and curse his children's children? She'd already done as much when he and his men were beating her senseless. They wanted names and she could die knowing she never gave them.

Ago pugna quod intereo per veneration.

"Get it over with," she croaked. No part of her wanted to die a failure, but her family was gone and she knew they had failed to win an impossible war. All that was left was to die well.

Was it wrong to be tired of the fight? To want death so she may again be with those who loved her? How could she live with the loss of so much? Forget that they'd failed. Forget that soldiers were taking over the land and there was no one left to stand up to them. How could she live knowing everything she loved was gone? Pain rippled through her at the thought.

"Lift her," the General ordered, his shiny boots walking away from her, taking her reflection with it.

Two men hauled her to her feet, holding her up by her arms. Josselyn suppressed a cry as they jerked her dislocated shoulder. She couldn't see their faces, didn't need to. Her body hurt so badly she couldn't tell where the pain was coming from anymore.

The one who'd betrayed them stood before her. General Jack Stephans. He'd deceived her family and the fifth moon settlement. He'd traded them in for money and power. Josselyn lifted her gaze briefly to the hard depths of the steel green eyes before her. She wanted to kick, to give one last good blow, to go down fighting, but she couldn't raise her limbs.

"Poor little Josselyn, so heartbreaking," the General grabbed her chin and swiped beneath her eye. He looked young, was in fact very young for his position, only a few years older than her six and twenty. And yet they all knew so much more of fighting than anyone their age should, than anyone ever should.

"We gave you a home," she whispered. "How could you do this? How could you join them?"

"You gave me a place in your stables," he spat, his grip tightening on her chin, bruisingly so. "Not a place at your table. Not a place by your side. Not equal. They gave me a rank, a title. They give me respect. They give me a place in this world."

"Jack," she said, her voice softening for the orphan boy they'd found over twenty years ago. If she begged him, maybe fate could be turned around; maybe this day could be erased. Fate had spit them out in a whirlwind of chance and deceit. Maybe all that had happened wasn't his fault. Maybe it wasn't hers. None of it mattered. None of it changed the fact that he had taken everything she held dear, everyone, and now he was robbing her of her family home. Her tone hardened and she closed her eyes. "General."

"Look at me, Josselyn," he said. His tone caught even as his grip on her face tightened until his fingers pressed the inside of her cheeks against her teeth. "You're so cold. Even now, your face is composed. Is one, lonely tear all the passion you can muster?"

"I am Lady Josselyn of the House of Craven." Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on the shiny white of his uniform. It gleamed with the orange glow coming from the fireplace. The material looked odd in the drabber earth tones many on the fifth moon wore. Theirs was a world based on Medieval Earth. Each moon in the Florencian system was different, each settlement patterned off a singular time in the human past, times that history had almost forgotten. But the principals of the ancestors who'd established the colonies no longer applied. Times were different now. What had started as preservation of history had turned into reality, into laws and a way of life they all believed in as generation after generation was raised into the worlds of the Florencian moons.

The General shook her by the face until finally she forced her eyes to meet his. He looked angry, hurt, wildly hopeful. "I can save you. I can say you had nothing to do with the treachery of your family. No one wants to kill a woman of noble blood. The line of Craven doesn't have to die. I will take your name; the name denied me by your father."

Was he serious? She knew he'd asked her father for her hand in marriage. In fact, she'd dismissed the proposal with the full knowledge he only asked because he wanted power. Did he think she could love him now? Want him? Take him into her bed?

He must have read the answer on her face because his own expression hardened. She knew Jack. He wouldn't ask again.

"I suppose not," he said, almost sad. "Even if you agreed, I could never trust you not to take a blade to my back. Not after today." He sighed heavily. "Not after this."

"Ago," she whispered, even her voice beginning to fail in its strength, "pugna quod int--"

"Quiet your tongue! This house is mine. Mine." He let go of her chin and her head drooped. "And you can die knowing that I have taken more than what you all refused to give me in life."

"A place at our table," Josselyn said, her tone softer still, the will to live leaving her. Her heart called out to her ancestors, to her dead family, begging them to come and get her.

"My table," he answered, stepping away. The General lifted a gun, pointing it at her head. She heard the telltale click of metal on metal. The weapon was not one found on the fifth moon. They fought with swords and axes, like the old medieval ways. Though technology was available, not using it was a point of honor. He must have brought the weapon from another moon. Perhaps the Victorians? The Elizabethans? It appeared to be too old to be from much later in time.

"Do it, Jack." She didn't look at him as she waited for the final discharge of the gun, the loud bang before the end. When it didn't come, she repeated, the words a mere mouthing of her lips, "Do it."

"Speed you to a quick end, Josselyn Craven," Jack whispered. "You all brought this on yourselves."