Aeron Returns (Guardians of The Realm Book 2)

by Amanda Fleet

  He made a courteous bow and left. I glanced around. No one seemed to be paying me any attention, so I headed back towards the buildings to explore the area around the Great Hall.

  Just as I reached the door to the hallway, Faran came out and my heart sank.

  “My Lady Aeron.”

  He made an ostentatious bow, making me laugh, despite myself. “You can cut that out or I won’t let you join me.”

  He poked his tongue into the side of his mouth. “Where were you going? I told you to wait for me in the garden.”

  “Yeah.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Will you ever do what you’re told?”

  “Probably not.” I smiled, trying to lighten the moment.

  He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Father was asking more about your progress. I told him that you fought well today.”

  I looked up. “Well for a Guardian? Or well for an Outsider?”

  He answered with a silent smirk.

  “How diplomatic. Though at least you’re looking battered.” I indicated the bruising on his face, wondering if he’d deliberately eschewed using salve.

  “That certainly helped.”

  He offered the crook of his arm to me and we strolled back into the gardens.

  “Mathas was here a moment ago,” I said.

  “I know. He spoke to me. After he’d left you.”

  “Uh, huh?”

  “He told me why you’d invited Aegyir in.” He cleared his throat. “I wish I’d listened to him when he tried to tell me, two years ago.”

  “So do I. You might not have punched me yesterday.”

  He chewed his lip and didn’t speak for a few minutes, steering me down a side-path next to the fruit trees. The pink slabs changed to gravel underfoot and the flowers from the borders on our right filled the air with a sickly-sweet scent that took me straight back to the funeral parlour full of lilies.

  “Aeron,” Faran said eventually, his voice strained. “I’m so sorry. I should have talked to you. After the trial. I’m sorry.”

  “Mm. You could have saved yourself two years of hating me and being hurt.” I stopped, forcing him to a halt. “Maybe you should have believed in me a bit more.”

  He held my gaze. “You confessed to everything. I found it hard to believe in you after that.”

  “Did you never ask yourself why I did it?”

  “What would it have mattered why you did it?” He glanced away. “I couldn’t see further than you admitting you had promised yourself to Aegyir and promised him my life. I’d wanted to hear you deny it and you didn’t.”

  “And let me guess, all your enemies jumped in and told you how terrible I was? That you were right to hate me?”

  He bit his lips together. “Aeron, I’m sorry.”

  I glared at him. “I could have been hanged, for trying to protect The Realm.”

  He paled. “I know. Can you forgive me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I started walking back towards the buildings, tugging him after me, my hand still in the crook of his arm. A cluster of Guardians passed us, including Lady Morgan. She smiled at Faran. He didn’t smile back, and she scowled at me.

  “Don’t you ever just want to run away from all of this?” I asked as we negotiated another set of hypocritical bows from a group of middle-aged Seers, that made my skin crawl. Only Seers and Guardians seemed to frequent the Courtyard Garden.

  “Yes. That’s why we usually went off to the labyrinth after walking here. Until we were married and could escape to our rooms.”

  “Is the labyrinth reserved for your family?”

  He steered me deftly away from a group of hard-faced men and down a side path near some fragrant roses. “It’s for the family of the First Lord and the family of the Elected Successor and anyone they wish to take in there. Of course, at the moment, the First Lord and the Elected Successor are in the same family, but that isn’t necessarily the case.”

  Lord Elwen joined us, asking to speak to Faran, and we stopped. My guts tightened, but he barely acknowledged my presence. He wanted to bend Faran’s ear about some agreement over providing leather to the Technicians and I tried to make sense of what the issue was.

  The back of my neck prickled, and I turned sharply, just in time to duck beneath a whirling sword blade. Not in time to avoid a bone-splintering blow to my chest that knocked all the breath out of me, though. Faran disarmed the man – Cerewen – and pinned him to the ground by his throat. I sensed rather than heard the follow-up attack behind me. Another man slashed at me with a dagger, but I twisted aside and chopped down on his wrist, sending the dagger clattering to the ground. I grabbed the man’s arm and turned him, dragging his arm up behind his back. Despite his size, I forced him to the path and knelt on his back, trapping his arm between his shoulder blades. As I ground his face into the gravel, I realised it was Valgan – the unkempt Guardian from the night before. The one with the reputation. I snatched up the dagger. Faran looked across at me, clapping his hand across his communications button.

  “Guards,” he said curtly, then mouthed, “You okay?” at me.

  I indicated so-so with my hand, but he frowned at the gesture, not understanding it. He summoned the guards to the courtyard, holding Cerewen down with his boot across his throat. I rested the dagger point against the base of Valgan’s skull. Faran scanned the courtyard, his eyes narrowed.

  “Move back,” he demanded of the crowds. Lord Elwen hesitated and Faran flicked the sword up to rest at his throat. “Not you.”

  I took a moment to study the dagger. It was the spitting image of the ones Lilja had left for me and a cold pit formed in my stomach.

  The guards arrived. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to work out who to arrest from the scene before them. Faran watched with thin lips as Valgan, Cerewen and Lord Elwen were handcuffed and marched away. He shucked out of his jacket and handed it to me. “Put it on.” His focus was on the receding figures, but he turned to me when I didn’t take the jacket. “Aeron, put it on! Button it to the neck.”

  Lord Eredan arrived as I finished buttoning it.

  He glanced at the drawn sword in Faran’s hand. “What happened?”

  “Assassination attempt.” Faran reached an arm out to me, winding me close to him. For once I was grateful for his size and protection.

  “On you or her?”

  “On Lady Aeron.”

  “How many assassins?” He didn’t look surprised at the news.

  “Three. Lord Elwen, Cerewen and Valgan. They’ve all been arrested.”

  Lord Eredan glared at me. Faran’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly.

  “Anyone hurt?” asked Lord Eredan, his eyes still boring into me.

  I shook my head just as Faran said, “No.”

  “She has no leathers of her own?” He turned back to his son.

  “No. I’ve spoken to the Senior Technician. They’ll be ready tomorrow.”

  Lord Eredan nodded tersely, spun on his heel and strode back to the main building.

  “Well, at least the training is paying off,” I said lightly. “No one beheaded me and no one stabbed me.”

  “Don’t joke.” He turned back to me and burst into laughter.

  I flopped my arms up and down. “Yeah. This might be a bit big on me.”

  “Nonetheless you’ll wear it until your own protection arrives.”

  We made our way back to our rooms, Faran’s eyes watchful.

  “What will happen to those three?” I asked as we walked.

  “They’ll be tried tomorrow morning. We’ll both have to give evidence.”

  “What will happen if they’re found guilty?” The crowds in the gardens set my heart racing and my palms sweating.

  “They’ll be sentenced to hard labour, I suspect. Stone-breaking in the quarries. Assassination is a serious offence. Father is usually severe, but…” He tailed off and bit his lips.

  “But because it was an attempt on me not you, he might not be?”
I said and he nodded. “Is your father the judge?”

  “The Council will hear the evidence and decide. Father will set the sentence.”

  We reached our rooms. I shrugged out of his jacket and handed it back to him. “Three Guardians. Realm soil. They tried to behead me and stab me with a dagger exactly like the ones I was given. They thought I was a demon?”

  Faran tossed the jacket over the back of the sofa. “They thought you were under Aegyir’s command, yes.”

  My stomach churned. Cerewen was one of the group going Outside. No wonder Faran needed me to be better at fighting if I was going to have to defend myself from the Guardians, as well as from Aegyir.

  Faran held his arms out to me. “Come here? Let me hold you?”

  I hesitated. He wasn’t who I wanted, but I craved a hug. A few milliseconds difference and I could be dead, my head separated from my body. The remnants of the adrenaline made me jittery. I stood in front of him and he cradled me against his chest. The wool of his top was soft against my face and I burrowed against his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him in deep lungfuls, tentatively tucking my arms around him.

  “Thank you for protecting me. Only Finn has ever defended me before.”

  “Finn… Finn… The man who taught you to fight. The man you were with Outside.” Jealousy threaded through his voice.

  “Yeah. The man I loved. The man Aegyir killed. The man I buried yesterday.” My voice broke, brittle and sharp.

  There was a moment’s silence from Faran.

  “You defended yourself well.” He smoothed my hair down. “How did you know you were about to be attacked?”

  “I don’t know. Something felt wrong. The way the man who was speaking to you kept peering behind me? I don’t know… Faran, does the magic cream work on headaches?”

  He leaned back and brushed my hair back from my brow. “No. But I have a drink here that does. You’re pale. Let me fetch it.”

  The drink turned out to taste utterly disgusting, but it cleared my head in a trice. I wondered what was in Guardian medicine that made it condense healing into a few seconds, but there was no point asking Faran. He’d just tell me he didn’t know because he wasn’t a healer.

  “Better?” he asked, taking my empty cup.

  “My head is.”

  His brow puckered. I waved my hand in front of me. “I need some of the magic cream.”

  “Where are you hurt?” He rummaged in his pocket and handed me a jar of ointment. “May I see?”

  “Chest mostly, so no.”

  I took the pot from him and scurried to the bedroom. Behind me, I could hear Faran talking to someone and wondered who was visiting. When I re-joined him, the room was empty apart from him. He must have seen my confusion.

  “Lord Sondan, Cenan, and Mallan will join us for dinner.”

  I groaned internally, yearning pizza and a beer or six, not meat and gravy and water.

  12

  Cenan and Mallan were new to me. Cenan was Lord Sondan’s younger brother and I could see the family resemblance in the strong jaw, though there was no white flash in Cenan’s hair. Mallan was about the same age as Cenan – perhaps eighteen – and, like Cenan, had wavy black hair bordering on long, certainly for here. They both appeared to have recently finished a growth spurt but forgotten to fill in the muscle.

  The four men surrounded me as we walked. No one would have managed to breathe in my vicinity, never mind attack me. In the Great Hall, I wrinkled my nose at the smell of casserole and boiled cabbage. Faran scanned the room, then indicated a quiet corner and an empty table, far from everyone.

  “Who attacked you?” asked Cenan, sitting opposite me, next to his brother.

  “Cerewen, Valgan and Lord Elwen,” said Faran, eyes watchful. “They’ve been arrested.” He shot a glance at Lord Sondan. “Cenan, we can’t talk about it. Your brother is on the Council. It would invalidate the trial.”

  Cenan closed his mouth abruptly, looking sheepish.

  “Tell us about Outside?” said Mallan, his eyes bright with excitement.

  I glanced at Faran to check this was okay. He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “What do you know about Outside?” I said.

  Mallan sat up straighter. “There is a Council, as there is here, though the name of it is different and escapes me. There’s a First Lord too, although I seem to recall that this is determined more by birth than election from the Council. It is mostly agricultural, and wool is the main trade.” He raised his brows for confirmation.

  “Er. Kind of. The First Lord is currently a First Lady, Queen Elizabeth, at least in the area immediately beyond the portal.”

  Their faces filled with horror.

  “Never a First Lady here?” I said.

  “Only as the wife of the First Lord. She wouldn’t lead. She would be having children,” said Lord Sondan as if I was an imbecile.

  “What, and you can’t do both?”

  Lord Sondan frowned. “No.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “Anyway… Trade has moved on a bit from wool. The Council is elected and called a parliament. Unlike The Realm, everyone over eighteen gets to vote on who should be in the parliament.”

  “And does that system work?” Lord Sondan sounded both surprised and alarmed.

  “Well enough. I wouldn’t say it was perfect.”

  “It seems as if what we are told about Outside at school is far from the truth.” Cenan buttered a hunk of bread and passed the basket on to Mallan.

  “Mm. I think that the Outside you’ve been told about is the Outside of a few centuries ago.”

  “If everyone elects the Council, isn’t it anarchy?” asked Lord Sondan, his thick, straight brows beetling.

  “Surprisingly not. There are many countries Outside and the least stable places are often where there isn’t a free vote. The people feel disenfranchised and rebel.”

  Cenan and Mallan exchanged wide-eyed looks. Faran’s breathing became less steady.

  “We were told that Outside, there’s something called money but none of us really understood it,” said Faran, clearly wanting to steer the discussion away from rebellion.

  I smiled. “It’s not a difficult concept. Though if your only experience is The Realm, it’s possibly perplexing. The Realm clearly doesn’t do anything as capitalist as money.” They all frowned. I might as well have been speaking Greek. “Can I check that I understand how The Realm works, before trying to explain how Outside works?”

  “You don’t remember?” Cenan’s face crumpled with confusion, his wavy hair falling forwards into his eyes.

  “Not everything, though it’s coming back. The Realm is like a giant commune, right? You all have your roles – there are farmers who produce the food, there are cooks who prepare the meals, there are people who make clothes – everyone has a role and it all gets pooled?”

  “If people need anything, it’s provided,” said Faran. “In exchange for service.”

  “Well, Outside is different. Everyone works for money. Then we use that money to buy the things we need. So, if I made clothes, people would buy them from me. I would then be able to buy food. The farmer would then use his money to buy wood and so on.”

  “I don’t understand why you need it at all.” Faran frowned. “It seems like a layer that’s not necessary. If one person grows food and another makes clothes, why doesn’t the farmer exchange the food he doesn’t need for the clothes that he does? Or send everything to the centre for fair distribution, like here? This is what I never understood in school.”

  “Because Outside, some goods and services are considered more valuable than others.”

  “A day’s work is a day’s work, surely,” said Faran. “If you must use money, why doesn’t everyone get the same amount for working?”

  “Fair point. But that’s not how it works Outside. Outside, a person who cleans all day would earn a lot less money than a healer, for example.”

  “Why?” said Faran, his face screwed up.


  I shrugged. “I don’t know. They just do.”

  Lord Sondan leaned forwards to speak more softly to Faran. “Do you think The Realm is beginning to think like this? That some services are worth more than others? The farmers are stirring up dissent. They could hold The Realm to ransom as everyone must eat.”

  “But if they withheld food, they wouldn’t be entitled to a house, or clothes, or any of the other things they get in return,” said Faran, effectively closing down the discussion. “Tell us about the different countries Outside?”

  I spent most of the rest of the meal describing the different land-masses around the world and the general populations in them. Questions rattled forth from them and the topics shifted easily from countries to politics to sport and leisure. They were astounded that some sports players earned more money than the leaders of major countries.

  “Because they’re good at a game?” Cenan said.

  “I know. It’s mad.”

  It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to the inequalities in the world. No one, including me, understood why the people with lots of money didn’t just give it all to those who didn’t have anything. My only explanation was greed and a lack of humanity. The more I talked about Outside, the more it seemed like a terrible place.

  As bowls of a stodgy sponge and cream arrived, Mallan peered at me. “You have experience of both Outside and The Realm. Which is better?”

  “The Realm,” I said without hesitation. Everyone smiled. I wasn’t sure I believed it though.

  Lord Sondan turned to me. “And yet, you wanted to destroy The Realm. How do we know that’s not still your aim?”

  We’d finally reached it – the point where people wanted to clear the air.

  “I can’t change what happened in the past.” I measured my words carefully. “All I can do is follow the guidance of the Council, the First Lord and my husband. They’ve accepted my return. The past is behind us and although I may have appeared traitorous before, I’m loyal.”

  “Appeared traitorous?” Lord Sondan glared at me. “You cuckolded your husband with a demon and betrayed The Realm by inviting the demon in and trying to give him full power.”