I paused, looking back over at Lance who once I had grabbed a piece of bread had begun to eat as well. “Um, might I ask what will happen to that other one in the dungeon? The boy?” I didn’t want my question to sound too impertinent.
Lance shrugged. “There is nothing here that concerns him. I will have him killed if he attempts to escape.”
My eyes widened. “No!” I squeaked. “I—I mean,” I stammered to amend as casually as I could, “why don’t you just let him go? He’s just a common boy. Surely he would not even survive the dangers of the forest were you to let him loose.”
He shot me a questioning look. “I’m afraid, in these times, we cannot afford to be careless. He could be a spy from another country in disguise. We cannot just let him go.”
“Oh, why not?” I implored with a dismissive wave. “It’s not like we’re in a war or something, are we? What would it hurt?”
Lance looked at me for a long time. “You needn’t worry about things like that right now. Just trust me that it is better to be always careful.”
Trust me… The phrase bounced around in my head. I looked back at Lance. I wondered if I could truly trust him.
I had begun to trust his great-great-great-great-whatever-grandfather so many years ago but he had betrayed me. I had only just met Lance and Dantilian’s blood flowed in his veins.
I supposed I hadn’t trusted anyone for a long time.
I wondered if he would trust me.
I took a deep breath. “That boy has the legendary relic.”
Lance simply looked up at me from his food.
Okay. I furrowed my eyebrows, even more confused. I had thought that that revelation would have brought about some fuss, maybe some shouting, some running down the dungeon to seize the powerful relic, but nooo…
I nodded to confirm. “It’s true. He has succeeded in taking that which had been sealed away within the Mystic Lake. If you believe all things are meant to be, perhaps the relic was meant for him. Perhaps he has a purpose. You cannot just kill him.”
Lance turned his attention back to his food. “I do not care about the relic.”
I blinked. What? Did he just say—what did he just say—? Did he just say he didn’t care about the relic? He wasn’t at all interested that probably the most powerful object in existence was sitting in his dungeon? What the hell was wrong with him?
He noted my flustered look and seemed to hesitate to explain. “There’s a lot of glory in my ancestry’s history. I’m not particularly proud of how some of them were acquired. I don’t want to share it. I don’t want to pursue it. That is not my wish.”
My jaw had dropped earlier and I stared at him in awe. I didn’t even know what to say. I felt like bowing down in gratitude, in reverence.
He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable, and went back to eating. “After we’re done with the meal, maybe you’d like to see the kingdom? I could give you a tour,” he offered, changing the subject completely.
I blinked out of my trance and got my bearings back. “Actually,” I started quietly. “There is something I would like to see.”
I sneezed. Dantilian may have kept a lot of records but he sure wasn’t one about fastidiousness. I sneezed again as I unrolled a dusty page from one of the thick compiled records from those days.
After a quick tour inside the castle, Lance had taken me to the library where there was indeed a whole section in the back reserved for Dantilian’s chronicles.
Lance had helped me to bring some of the readings back to my room. I’d thanked him before he left to see to something.
I pulled out another set of parchments from the pile and wrinkled my nose, trying not to disturb the dust as I unrolled it.
I released a breath in a gasp of wonder once I saw that the set of parchments contained lots of drawings.
Sketches of the castle at Cephiron itself and some of my Forest. Some of the trees as seen from a distance near the Mystic Lake. There were quite a lot of me—well, a hazy forest nymph wearing pink that is.
Dantilian, it seemed, also had a good hand for sketching.
I fiddled with my necklace again and sighed, saddened at the fact that he’d turned out to be just another treacherous human. The relic just wasn’t meant for you… I traced the sketches with my fingers gingerly. And Lance doesn’t want it.
My thoughts turned to the boy, whom by this time tomorrow may already have been executed.
Hundreds upon hundreds have died for the relic. What was the consequence of another one? I mused. Even the one who actually succeeded in obtaining it?
You protect something in a lake that’s so important, you’re willing to take people’s lives for it…
I pursed my lips before I set aside the sketches and pulled out another set of rolled-up parchments and spread each of them out.
My lips parted at what I read. They were Dantilian’s journals during his trips to the Forest. I pulled out what looked like the very first encounter and scanned it. My eyes caught ‘forest fairy’ in the middle and started to read.
“…an unpleasant and rude forest fairy seems to stand guard near the accursed lake. She hovers atop a very tall tree and snaps at people who pass by.”
I wrinkled my nose, almost in mirth.
“There have been many before me who have attempted to seek the glory of the relic. I have seen some of them fall with my own eyes…”
I blinked. It seemed he had also been around watching the others for a while before he walked up to attempt the relic himself.
I moved on to another scroll.
“I can sense her loneliness—”
That was the first line. I held my breath and continued to read.
“—it is a hard task to comfort her. I cannot even get her to come down. The tree must be her sanctuary. This forest, her only home… I wonder if it is best for me to accomplish my duty, leaving her with no reason to be…”
I sighed again. Oh, Dantilian… I paused for a moment and something occurred to me.
Tossing scrolls around, I searched for the last written piece of record hoping to discover what I’d wanted to know for eight hundred years.
What was it that had made Dantilian leave those last few days and then return only to take his own life?
My shoulders sagged lower as I read off the tops of each page. I pulled out what looked like the last scroll out of the pile and scanned through to the end of it.
“Let it end like this for there is no other way. I must endure…”
That was it. I skimmed the page again. Nothing. There was no reason stated to say why he did it.
Damn, I groaned. Damn it to hell. I shook my head. You idiot, I thought and swallowed hard to keep tears eight hundred years unshed back.
Chapter Nine
I read the entire afternoon in my room. Then Lance insisted that I take a break to have dinner. After which, we had both looked through his other ancestors’ paraphernalia with the same degree of curiosity. His people certainly kept a lot of records.
I couldn’t stop myself from studying Lance as well. Dantilian aside, he seemed to have a strangely determined will to attain an end disparate from his blood. He had absolutely no interest in the readings about the relic. He didn’t care that someone in his dungeon might truly possess the highly sought-after artifact. He wasn’t concerned about it at all. This was definitely a first.
Perhaps he already had all the power he wanted. Perhaps he was content with everything he had. Maybe all he wanted was to change—change history.
“To change my blood. To make atonement.”
I cast him a glance as he had not spoken the words. This desire in him was so strong, his thoughts, his very essence screamed amends.
Headstrong, unbendable, I observed, increasingly stubborn. So very Dantilian, but so very not.
He met my gaze and I looked back down at what I was reading. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smile.
Fighting my blush down, I cleared my throat. “Uh, where i
s everyone else? It’s so quiet around here.”
His smile faded. “My family are my men and my house wards. Unfortunately, I am the last heir of the Cephiron Kingdom, which is well in some aspects, of which I’m sure you will agree. The tainted blood will die along with me.”
“You…are all alone?” I asked, sympathizing with him, and was going to add that I knew how he felt when he said it for me.
He met my gaze. “Yes. We are.”
I don’t remember how I ever got to sleep on the soft bed but I was asleep when I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. I moaned groggily as I turned to see who it was.
“Shh, wake up. Let’s get out of here before anyone suspects anything,” he whispered hoarsely, leaning over me.
I tried to wake up enough to recognize him. Dark hair, green eyes… My eyelids fluttered, trying not to sink back to sleep. “Josh…” I whispered.
He was so close I felt my breath against his cheek. Josh stopped short, surprised at my use of his name and he met my gaze in the dark for a moment, his forehead creasing as his face hovered above mine.
A commotion outside made both of us snap to attention.
He whirled around. “Oh shoot,” he cursed and shook me awake. “Get up. Get up. We gotta go.”
I sat up, starting to heave in the startle. What? Go? Leave here? I looked back at my door, panicked. I was supposed to stay for as long as I wished. Then again, I was supposed to guard the relic. I was supposed to—aargh! I didn’t know what to do!
Josh was keeping a lookout on the balcony. He waved me over. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
Eyes wide, I swallowed and started to stand up slowly.
Lance would be alone again. I had to help him make his amends. But Josh had the relic. I had to watch over its safekeeping. I looked around once more. This was Dantilian’s home. My Dantilian.
The disturbance outside sounded louder, closer.
“Come on!” Josh called. “You come on or I’m leaving without you,” he warned, starting to turn away.
Dammit! I groaned aloud and cursed under my breath before I heard myself yell, “Wait!”
Josh paused in mid-stride and waved me over again. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Gasping, I went to grab some of Dantilian’s scrolls to take with me and with a flourish, tore off my old necklace to leave on the pillow.
I took one last look at the room, a room so very mine, before I whirled around to catch up with Josh.
He scooped me up off the floor and leaped off the balcony into the trees.
After a staggered landing in the bushes below, we made a break for it and ran as quickly as we could toward the forest at the end of the kingdom to get as far away as possible.
***
We stopped to camp out in the forest for the night. Josh was trying to make a big show of ignoring me.
But I didn’t notice since I was curled up under a tree, reading more of Dantilian’s journals in the firelight.
Everything had just happened too fast—learning about Dantilian and Lance.
And I was strangely wishing to relive the past that had once again become fresh in my mind. Too fresh.
Josh stoked up the fire, looking around furtively every so often for any sign of danger. He paced back and forth, seeming to be deep in thought as his forehead was creased, but he didn’t say anything.
I was so deep into my reading that I jumped when he finally cleared his throat and I looked up at him in question.
He pursed his lips before he blurted out, “Are you okay?”
I blinked, having trouble reintegrating myself into the present time before nodding a “yes.”
“Did they—what did they want from you?” he asked with a slight scowl.
I paused, looking distant. I was hesitant to tell him about what I had found out and what Lance had offered me. Josh was obviously very put off by him. It wouldn’t matter how nicely I painted the picture.
“Nothing,” I fibbed. “And you were right, they didn’t know about the relic at all. He wasn’t even interested in it.”
“Yeah well, what the hell was he interested in?”
I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to understand his mood. “Are you worried about me?” It was mildly astonishing to note his concern since between the two of us, I was the mystical being, hardly the one in need of protection.
He met my gaze for a moment before looking away with a huff. “No. I just want to know what the hell happened.”
“What are you getting so angry about? We don’t even know those people.”
He pointed disdainfully back to the direction of the castle. “That was the Kingdom of Cephiron,” he told me. “If you knew anything, you’d probably know that they’re the most notorious kingdom in the whole of Arcadia. They’re deceitful, they’re greedy, they’re rude, you name it.”
I glared at him. First of all, I did not not know anything. Second of all, he didn’t even know what he was talking about. He was there for all of a day and he wanted to pass judgments? I frowned in remorse at his prejudice and his harshness.
I knew I should’ve stayed behind. I wanted to hit myself over the head. Way to make the wrong decision, you stupid forest nymph.
I shot him a mocking look instead of responding and just turned my back to hunch over my reading again.
He threw his hands up, shaking his head in exasperation as he turned and walked away.
“Are you leaving?”
“I’m getting some firewood so that your highness doesn’t get cold,” he called out in reply, not turning back.
I rolled my eyes and let him be.
Besides, I was just getting to the good parts in my reading, the parts where Dantilian had begun starting every paragraph with the word ‘she’.
“She is in my thoughts even when I am away from the forest. Her smile haunts my every waking moment. There has to be some cruel magic at work in this. Cruel, as it may never be. We both have important duties to fulfill and each one cannot coexist…”
“I think I may be in love with her…but she has a greater love for this forest than anything or anyone else… A deeper love that not even I may be able to match.”
“This conflict is consuming me. I may be unable to make a decision but I can rely on noone else to make it. I foresee this conclusion, bleak, coming close. Time is no longer an ally. Even as I ponder it, I cannot construe a better way. This, my decision, may bring about further loss for which I yearn to be ever forgiven. She will not understand. In time, perhaps…”
I frowned over the scrolls. What bleak conclusion was coming close? What decision did he have to make? What was I supposed to understand? To forgive?
I balled up my fists in frustration. Tell me why, Dantilian. Why?
Chapter Ten
When Josh returned, he dumped the firewood near the base of a tree and went about his own business. He glanced over at me a couple of times while I pored over the scrolls. He was probably wondering what I was reading that had me so entranced.
But my eyes distracted back over to him when I saw him trying to tap something onto a flat rock on the ground. The crystal casing glimmered in the firelight.
He whacked it onto the side of the rock then again, against some other types of coarser rocks lying on the ground around us.
He looked up at me.
I didn’t say anything.
He grimaced. “You wouldn’t have any idea as to how to open this damn thing, would you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Nobody’s ever taken it from the Lake before. Nobody’s ever used it.”
“Yeah, yeah, as you so often reiterate,” he replied dully.
“Here, let me.” I held out my hand.
He tossed me a look of disbelief. “Yeah right!”
I huffed in defeat. It was worth a try.
Josh peered at the crystal cylinder as if to try to find a seal, or a lock, a wedge, an opening, a crack, anything, to no avail. He shook his head in frustrat
ion. “How the hell are you supposed to use this thing if it’s locked inside this damn case?”
I couldn’t help a smirk. “You don’t even know anything. Nobody can use the relic. It was hidden away for millennia for safekeeping.” I blew out an exasperated sigh. “It’s like it’s pointless to explain to you all. It doesn’t matter if you manage to steal the relic. One would need the highest level of Aquarian magic training to even wield it. Nobody has this. Not even me.” I shook my head. “I’ve never even seen the relic outside of its case before, let alone be used.”
He gave me a wry look. “Then you can send my compliments to whoever cast that spell. They sure thought of everything.”
“The spheres of protection.” I nodded nonchalantly.
“The what?” He wrinkled his nose.
I looked at him, surprised he wasn’t already familiar with the concept.
“Everything has its own sphere of protection. You just can’t see it,” I explained. “The trees, the villages, the kingdoms, Arcadia, even this blade of grass here.” I touched a long green blade on the ground. “Some spheres are weak and some are not. And then there are certain things that not only have stronger spheres but layers upon layers of protection around them. Like the relic.”
“Oh, I get it.” He nodded, looking thoughtful. “First the forest, then the lake, then this stubborn little case thing.” He frowned again as he tried to scratch through the crystal encasement.
I shook my head again. “It will have had several more,” I informed him. “Some might just be eluding your senses.”
He nodded again as if in approval. “That is so cool. You know there isn’t much interesting stuff like this where I come from. Stuff back there’s boring.”
“I’m sure that cannot be true,” I disagreed. “It is more likely that you have taken them for granted since they have always been available to you. Surely, having been away from your home so long now, you have realized that you yearn for certain things to which normally you would not have given a second thought. Is that not why you want to go home in the first place?” I ventured.
The Curse of the Arcadian Stone: Vol. 1 Stolen Oath (Nameless Fay) Page 6