Journey of a Betrayed Hero- Volume 2

by Brandon Varnell

  “Bayard, Caslain, hold those two down,” Justice commanded.

  Her eyes widening as Caslain placed his arms underneath her armpits, she tried to struggle out of his grip, but she’d already been pinned in place. Caslain was also much stronger than her. Beside her, Fellis was also in the same position, though she struggled and kicked a bit more. Sadly, they both knew that struggling was pointless. They were in a room with several powerful magicians and warriors.

  Justice stepped up before her. His long wand went to her neck, pulling out the chain until the otherworld gate key popped free of her outfit.

  “It’s true,” Justice muttered. “This is definitely the otherworld gate key.”

  “But that means…” Caslain’s eyes widened. “You’re the thief that I’ve been chasing all this time!”

  “She must have summoned the beasts in an attempt to find out where the otherworld gate is,” Abstinence accused.

  “That’s not it at all!” Enyo shouted. “In case you haven’t realized, my magic is light magic. I can’t use summoning magic.”

  “So you had an accomplice summon them for you.” Abstinence waved off her attempts to defend herself.

  “Enyo,” Queen Alice said, and her gaze was both cold and conflicted. “Are you the one who stole the otherworld gate key while it was being transported?” Enyo said nothing. The queen closed her eyes, then opened them and yanked the otherworld gate key off Enyo’s neck, ignoring Enyo’s wince as the action rubbed her skin red. “Throw these two in the dungeon. We will decide on how to deal with them later.”

  Enyo thought about struggling. It wouldn’t have been difficult to break out of Caslain’s grip if she used magic. She decided not to, though, as doing so would have made her into more of a criminal and forced her to run. If she fought and escaped, she’d never be able to return to Avant Heim, and her dream of traveling to Jacob’s world with him would disappear.

  And so she said nothing as Caslain and Bayard escorted her out of the Great Hall.

  ***

  It had been over a month since Jacob had been imprisoned, and in that time, not much had happened. Jacob spent most of his days exercising or meditating. The guards never said anything to him. He had the feeling they were afraid of him.

  In the morning, his exercise consisted of push-ups and crunches. He did as many as he could, usually getting to a thousand before stopping for a break. Then he would rest and meditate for an hour before moving on to his next set of exercises.

  The guards provided him with three meals a day. All the food was fairly delicious, considering he was a prisoner. Alice must have been the one responsible for that.

  It was unfortunate that Durandal was no longer with him; he missed that sword. Since no one but he could even touch Durandal without being injured, it made sense that Durandal was probably locked away somewhere, cursing up a storm. His guess was the royal treasury. That was where all of the most valuable treasures were kept. Jacob wondered how difficult it had been to put a sword in there when it couldn’t be touched.

  I’ll grab him when Enyo and I leave.

  It was just as he thought this that the door to the dungeon opened. He frowned. The guards didn’t change shift for another two hours, and Alice hadn’t visited him since their last conversation.

  Could it be Fellis again?

  “All right, prisoners! Get in those cells!” someone shouted.

  Jacob heard shuffling feet and a thud that sounded like someone being shoved forward. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he walked over to his cell bars and looked out. He needed several seconds to comprehend what he was seeing. Enyo and Fellis were being shoved into separate jail cells next to his. The cell doors squealed closed and were locked shut with a click.

  “Looks like you’re going to have some company from now on, Hero,” the knight who’d done the shoving said, spitting out the word “hero” as if it was a poison. He turned back around and muttered as he left. “I can’t believe we once believed in this traitor.”

  Something had changed. That guard’s disposition had been different from the last time they had spoken, which was respectful and apologetic. Just what had changed, he didn’t know, but there were two people from whom he could gather information from.

  “I’m guessing you two were found out?” he said.

  “Astute observation,” Fellis snarked. “What gave us away?”

  “I’m just that amazing of a detective,” Jacob replied before turning serious. “What happened?”

  “Someone summoned several orthos to attack Avant Heim,” Enyo said. She was sitting on her cell’s cot, her knees drawn up to her chest. “We fought them off, but then Chastity came in and announced that we were the ones who summoned the orthos.”

  “But you’re a light magic user,” Jacob said, careful not to mention that she could use dark magic too. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, since dark magic couldn’t summon anything, but he didn’t want the guards overhearing that.

  “They didn’t care,” Enyo muttered. “Once Chastity informed them that I had the otherworld gate key, everything else became irrelevant.”

  Jacob leaned his back against the wall and placed his hands on his face. “I see. So, someone found out that you were carrying the otherworld gate key. I’m assuming they confiscated it when they took you away.”

  “Yes.”

  “What I want to know is how Chastity found out,” Fellis said. “It’s not like we advertised the fact that she was carrying it, yet somehow, he found out in the middle of a combat situation.”

  Jacob wished he had an answer, but there was no way to figure that out. There could have been any number of methods. However, even as he thought them up, Jacob discarded practically all of them. Not even Queen Alice’s magic, Foresight, had let her know that Enyo was carrying the otherworld gate key.

  “What should we do?” Enyo asked.

  “For now, let’s wait,” Jacob said. “Alice and the White Council will deliberate over what to do with you. Once we know their verdict, we can make our next decision.”

  Enyo said nothing. There wasn’t a whole lot that she could say. She had stolen a royal treasure, the only key to the gate that was used to summon a hero. Only one possible outcome could come from this.

  For stealing such valuable property, Enyo would be put to death.

  INTERLUDE III

  DARK PLAN HATCHED

  They were in the White Council conference room again. However, this time they were not discussing the attack on Kindness and murder of two other White Council members; they were discussing what they should do with Enyo. As always, Alice sat at the technical head of the table, listening to the four remaining White Council members as they argued like a couple of children.

  “We should sentence her to death and be done with it!” Abstinence shouted, slamming his hand onto the table as though doing so made his argument stronger.

  “That sort of thinking is why nobody likes you,” Kindness said.

  “What was that?!”

  “Queen Alice, I believe our first priority should be to find out what she was hoping to accomplish,” Kindness said. “The fact that she offered to help us, that she saved my life when she didn’t have to, should be enough to prove that Enyo is a good person.”

  “A good person?” Abstinence scoffed. “That woman is a member of the Dark Clan. There’s not a single good person among them. They’re all savages.”

  “That sort of unintelligent thinking is why everyone makes fun of you behind your back,” Kindness retorted.

  “Shut up!”

  “This fighting is getting us nowhere,” Alice said, interrupting them both. “I suggest you two calm down.”

  The debate thus far had been heated, with Abstinence calling for Enyo’s death and Kindness defending her. Alice thought Kindness’s defense of Enyo was because she was a foreigner. Unlike everyone else here, she’d not experienced the horrors of the war against the Dark Clan. She knew nothing of what they’d gone
through.

  Alice shifted in her seat. Despite the comfortable softness underneath her, her butt was getting numb. They’d been sitting there for at least two hours now. In that time, the only thing they’d done was argue, and she was getting sick of it.

  “While I would normally agree with you, Kindness, do not forget that she had the otherworld gate key in her possession,” Justice said. “Her rescue of you could have all been a ploy to get inside of Avant Heim.”

  “It could have, but I do not believe so,” Kindness said. “Do not forget, there was no way for her to know who I was at the time she rescued me. It was the middle of the night when I was nearly killed, and she couldn’t see my face.”

  “She might have been the one to sic those beasts on you to begin with,” Justice said.

  “What proof do you have that she did?” asked Kindness.

  “What proof do you have that she didn’t?” rebutted Justice.

  Alice wanted to hang her head as she listened to these people bicker like children. She shifted again and looked at Listy, whose expression was carefully blank. Bayard and Caslain stood behind her, and while she couldn’t see their expressions, she could well imagine them. They were probably as annoyed with this farce as she was.

  “This sort of circular argument is getting us nowhere,” Chastity said so suddenly that everyone stared at him in surprise. “Regardless of her reasons, it does not change the fact that she stole a royal treasure from Queen Alice, nor does it change that she is of the Dark Clan. A precedence has already been set for instances such as this, has it not? In which case, we have no choice but to go through with it.”

  Those who stole from the royal family were sentenced to death. It was a long-standing precedent set down by the first monarch of Terrasole. Not even nobility could escape from death if they stole something from the monarch.

  Enyo, who was a Dark Clan member, had it even worse. She was their enemy. Quarter could not be shown. Mercy could not be given. To give mercy to a member of the Dark Clan was akin to allying oneself with them, and that was something they needed to avoid at all costs.

  Alice closed her eyes. She didn’t want to do this, but there was no other choice. To remain a a beacon of light and hope, to be viewed as an unbending leader to her people, a choice had to be made.

  “I understand what everyone is saying. However, the ultimate decision still rests with me,” she said, opening her eyes.

  “That is indeed true, Your Majesty,” Justice allowed. “The decision on what to do rests entirely on your shoulders. What do you think should be done?”

  “For her crimes against the crown, Enyo shall be sentenced to death,” Alice announced.

  She had made the obvious choice, the right choice, the choice that any monarch would have made.

  Even though doing so left her sick to her stomach.

  ***

  When the meeting ended, Chastity stood up with everyone else and filed out of the room. He took note of Kindness. She had rushed off in a seemingly random direction. He assumed she was going to sulk. Out of all the people there, she was the only one who tried to defend Enyo.

  Justice and Abstinence were also leaving, though unlike the upset Kindness, they were exuding auras of smugness. He could practically feel their smirks as they congratulated each other on a job well done.

  Chastity decided to leave the old men alone. Let them have their moment of arrogance. He would be the one standing on top in the end.

  Since he already knew Avant Heim well, he wandered to the room that he had been given. It was located on the second floor of this wing.

  Entering the room and locking the door behind him, Chastity took several steps into the luxurious chamber. His boots sank into the soft carpet. He looked at the few pieces of select artwork that hung from the walls with a frown. It was an atrocity that Queen Alice only gave him a room with these small comforts. She should have received him with her most luxurious room, preferably the same one that she used.

  Of course, most of his attention was focused on the woman lying on his bed.

  She was lying on her side. Her long, pale legs stretched out to the end of the bed, unhidden by the blanket that just barely covered her shapely hips. With her head resting against the palm of her hand, and her eyes absently scanning the pages of a book that lay in front of her, the woman looked both inhumanly alluring and intellectual. It created an aesthetic that somehow enhanced both aspects of her.

  As the door closed behind him, she looked up, her hair swaying.

  “Did everything go as planned?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Chastity said as he took off his boots, and then his shirt. He left his pants on as he crawled onto the bed. “It went exactly as you said it would.”

  She scooted back as he moved into the bed and laid down. The mattress lingered with her warmth and scent.

  “Didn’t I tell you? It is very easy to predict the outcome of all this. Now your position to the top has been secured.”

  Following her instructions, Chastity had created a crack in the barrier surrounding Avant Heim, which had allowed her into the castle unimpeded. She’d then destroyed the barrier from the inside out and set loose several orthos. While the orthos had attacked, he’d run off, presumably to draw their attention. What he’d actually been doing was meeting up with her.

  She’d informed him about Enyo, who she was, and how she was the thief they’d been looking for. It had been easy to place the blame for the orthos on Enyo once everyone learned that she was in possession of the otherworld gate key. They hadn’t even bothered questioning her.

  Chastity felt goosebumps rise as the woman drew circles on his chest. “Yes. Now all that is left to do is use the lack of White Council members to cement my position.”

  “Indeed,” she said, a smile curling her lips.

  ***

  Many years ago, Kindness had lived in a world filled with war. People died every day, either because someone had killed them, they’d died from famine and disease, or they simply lost the will to live. Being one of the few people in her country with an aptitude for magic, her kingdom had tried to turn her into a weapon.

  It had been many years since she’d thought about the life she left behind. Thanks to her mentor, who’d been humane and kind, she’d escaped from that life. After arriving in Terrasole, she had made a name for herself by helping people with magic. She would travel the country, aiding everyone who needed it. Her aptitude for magic had eventually caught the eye of the Royal Family. It had been the former king himself who’d requested that she become a member of his magicians. Kindness had agreed, but only if he promised not to use her powers to kill.

  Having grown up in a place where death and lawlessness were common, Kindness had a strong sense of justice and a hatred of violence. She knew when something wrong was being committed upon someone by another. Thanks to her kindness, she also had trouble standing aside and letting it happen.

  That was why she had snuck out of her bedroom in the middle of the night and traveled to the dungeon. Two knights stood guard at the door. Kindness frowned. She didn’t want to kill them, which meant…

  “Circum. Globus.”

  Kindness felt a small tug on her navel as the words helped channel her magic. Two spheres coalesced before her, perfectly round, gleaming with the brightness of metal. It wasn’t metal, however, but energy given shape and changed into the same consistency of metal. It looked like metal, acted like metal, but it wasn’t really metal. This was her magic: Conjure.

  Conjure could create any object that existed, so long as Kindness had the imagination and energy to create it. Of course, the more complicated objects couldn’t be conjured unless she had knowledge of how they worked. That said, conjuring simple objects like these spheres was easier than breathing.

  The two spheres hovered in the air for but a second, and then they shot forward, striking the two guards in the neck, between the junctions protected by armor. Her attacks had been precise. The guards droppe
d like sacks of bricks.

  With her path clear, Kindness entered the dungeon tower and walked down. Voices reached her from below. They were loud and raucous… and slurred. She really hoped the guards weren’t drunk.

  She reached the door. It was old and rickety, and it squealed when she opened it a crack. Peering inside, Kindness, for a moment, wondered if she’d somehow been transported to another world, one in which strange and delusional happenings were commonplace. It was the only way to explain what she was seeing.

  The guards were dancing, merrily, gaily, as if they’d gone on an all-night drinking spree.

  They were also doing so on the table.

  They were also naked.

  Standing outside of their cells, clapping in time to the guards’ dancing, Enyo, Fellis, and someone she recognized as the Hero Jacob, all seemed to be enjoying themselves a good deal. At the very least, Fellis had an amused grin.

  She opened the door fully and stepped in, shutting the door behind her with a solid thump.

  “What are you all doing?”

  Enyo, Fellis, and Jacob stopped clapping to look at her. The guards were still dancing, however.

  “We’re watching these two make fools out of themselves,” Fellis answered.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Kindness said dryly. “Let me rephrase that question. How did this happen?”

  Fellis’s eyes were alight as she spoke. “Well, you see, I had previously come down this way to speak with Jacob the other night, and these guards were the ones who’d previously fallen sway to my magic. I already them under my mind control, so I thought to myself, ‘Why not have a little fun?’”

  After staring at Fellis and her unrepentant grin for several more seconds, Kindness looked at Enyo. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “I could have, but I was bored,” Enyo admitted with a shrug.

  Kindness stared at Enyo some more, and then looked at Jacob. He shrugged. “If you can’t beat them, join them.”