by Lizzy Ford
He reached the personal residences of the Hanover’s at the top of the pyramid.
“Father!” Arthur shouted and strode past the guards stationed at the door leading into the apartments.
It was just past dawn, early enough in the day that his father should still be present in his quarters.
Arthur hurried down the hallway and stopped in front of his father’s door. He pounded on the door.
“Father!”
Seconds later, a slave opened the door. Arthur pushed his way in, eyes wildly seeking his father’s familiar form in the living area of the personal quarters of the Hanover ruler of Lost Vegas.
“Arthur,” Edwin said and lowered his teacup. He sat near the window, reading the Shield’s morning reports, appearing relaxed and rested.
Arthur bent over at the waist, sweating, dirty from the muddy path to the city, and panting.
“I did not believe I would ever see you again.” Edwin rose and approached. He kept his distance with his hands clasped behind his back.
When he caught his breath, Arthur rose. “I negotiated my release with the promise of wealth,” he reported.
“Your sister?”
“She is being held by our enemies,” he said.
“And you return without her.” The disapproval was clear on Edwin’s face.
Arthur hesitated, uncertain how to respond. His father had rarely ever asked about Tiana let alone cared for her circumstances or even her health. Arthur had tried to convince himself the message he carried in his pocket – sent by his father to Chases Deer’s father – was somehow misread, or perhaps, was an attempt for Edwin to manipulate someone into doing his bidding by using Tiana.
“You will have to return and negotiate her release. After you have rested.” Edwin turned away and walked back to his chair. “And bathed.”
While there was never affection in their relationship, Arthur was accustomed to some small display of warmth or at least, pride.
His father sat, picked up the report, and began to read again.
Arthur stood awkwardly after the dismissal. What had changed? Why was he, his father’s heir, being rejected?
“I rode night and day until I reached the city,” Arthur heard himself saying. “Are you not pleased to see me?”
“I will be pleased when you bring your sister home.”
“You have hardly ever asked about her welfare at any point in my life,” Arthur said. “I have been gone for weeks, Father.”
“I did notice both your absences, if that is what concerns you,” Edwin said with a glance.
Arthur waited.
When his father made no other response, a flicker of sadness settled deep inside him.
Is this how Tiana feels? The fleeting thought was replaced by another.
“Are you not interested in what I have been through?” he asked. “In the war brewing outside the city? The alliances among the Natives are shifting, and not in our favor.”
“It would not be the first time in the history of our family that we faced such a situation,” his father replied. “They know they have no chance to take the city. Do not concern yourself with such matters, Arthur. Your usefulness to me is your ability to bring back your sister.”
Had Arthur heard his father right?
“The Cruises,” Arthur tried a third subject. “Is it true what I heard? They are dead?”
“Traitors to the city and our family,” his father said. “My own Cruise wife tried to murder my daughter, and did Marshall Cruise not try to murder you?”
“Yes, but –”
“Has your adventure outside the city made you soft? How can you forgive anyone who hurts our family?”
Arthur said nothing. His exhausted mind was filled with emotions and thoughts he had never considered before. The sense of having entered a parallel world, one that looked like his but was starkly different, returned. His father had always awed him in his calm handling of every situation he dealt with. Before this, never had Arthur considered the idea his father was incapable of feeling. He thought Edwin was a master at dealing with his emotions.
“You want me to bring back Tiana,” Arthur said.
“Immediately.”
“Father, I …” Arthur drifted off.
He had intended to warn his father about the vision. But his cold reception, and the experiences and insight he had collected outside the city, left his intuition whispering he should keep the vision to himself. For now.
“… I will go immediately when I am rested,” Arthur finished.
“The sooner, the happier I will be with you.”
“Very well.”
Arthur turned away and left his father’s quarters.
Deep in thought, he stood in the cul de sac where the bedrooms of all the family members were located.
He was accustomed to returning from the Winter Hunt to a parade and a feast, with his father speaking warm, glowing words about him in front of everyone in the outer city. Edwin Hanover had never been this cold towards his heir.
What did the newfound chill between them mean? How could his father claim Arthur’s only use to him was to find the forgotten sister who only survived because Arthur ensured she did?
The vision of Tiana being chased by their father entered his mind again.
Whatever had changed with his father, it was potentially dangerous for more than Tiana.
“Sir?” George spoke and cleared his throat. “Your bath is being prepared, and food has already been delivered to your quarters.”
Arthur blinked. How long had he been standing in the hall?
His eyes settled on his loyal slave, who had been the only person Arthur entrusted to check in on his sister for over ten years. Arthur motioned for his slave to follow him and entered his quarters. The scent of roast meat and vegetables and fresh bread struck him hard. Arthur’s stomach roared to life. He had discarded his food the day before in his attempt to purge extra weight from the horse.
Arthur crossed to the table where another slave had just finished unloading a tray of food. He sat and began to eat, almost sighing at the flavors he had missed for several weeks. He wolfed down his food and waited for everyone but George to leave.
When his stomach was full, Arthur leaned back. “George,” he started. “Something is wrong here.”
George was quiet.
“Do you sense it as well?”
“I do,” George confirmed. “Aside from your father ordering ten times the amount of people to be burnt each day, he all but declared you dead and Tiana his heir.”
While not expecting this news, neither was Arthur completely caught off guard by it either. It explained the sudden change in his father’s messages to Chases Deer. “Has he spoken to a clairvoyant?”
“I would not know, sir.”
“From where does this change of policy – and heart – come?”
“No one knows. It was sudden. You missed his proclamation by no more than two days.”
Arthur shook his head and stood. “I can explain nothing anymore,” he said, mind racing. His father’s rejection solidified resolve that had been building since he last spoke to Marshall. “I need for you to arrange a private meeting. In the inner city.”
George raised an eyebrow. “You know no one approves when you visit the inner city.”
“No one will know this time. I will take no Shield members with me,” Arthur said. “Only you, I and this person are to know. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Arthur provided the name Marshall had given him and only those details George would have to convey to convince the high-ranking member of the outer city to meet him. Once his slave had left, Arthur went to the bathroom for a much-needed bath and to think.
Several hours later, after resting, Arthur sneaked out of the pyramid in a slave’s cloak with its hood up and walked through the outer city. Spring rendered the streets busier than they had been, and he passed through two small markets tailored to the pleasures
of the upper class before crossing the bridge into the fish market and walking into the inner city.
The late afternoon was pleasantly warm, though mud still mired the streets. Arthur took a roundabout path to ensure no one followed him, his senses trained on the activity of the streets belonging to the poorer classes. Fatigue from his time outside the city lingered, and his tired mind and body wanted nothing more than to sleep until he was recovered.
But sleep was a temptation he dared not allow to lure him away from his visions. The political landscape had been dramatically altered by his father in the short time Arthur was away, to the point Arthur was not certain if he could trust anyone in the pyramid or outer city at all. Tiana had been tolerated but not valued by Edwin, and Arthur did not want to press the limits of where he stood with his father any more than necessary before he had some feel for all that had happened and what approach he could take.
He reached the rendezvous point – a market in a barn where illegal merchandise was bought and sold – and sank into the shadows to wait and watch for the man he sought. After an hour, he began to think either Marshall’s ally was spooked after the mass burnings of the Hanover’s political rivals, or that no one would trust any Hanover after all that had occurred.
His body grew stiff from the lack of movement, and he paced a few times around the small market. On his third trip through, he spotted the white hair and well-tailored cloak announcing the arrival of the man he sought.
As instructed, Gavin Ingram had left his personal guard outside. He stood out among the thieves and criminals in rags, and Arthur made a mental note not to meet somewhere quite so public, when his potential ally did not know how to dress to fit in.
Arthur tugged his hood down and approached the clueless Ingram.
“Follow me,” he directed quietly.
Ingram jerked away.
Arthur led him out of the market and to a neighboring tavern populated by the same clientele as the market. No one looked up when they entered, and no one would ask questions.
Arthur sat on a bench at a table with enough room for Ingram to sit beside him.
Ingram did so. The wealth of his dress drew the attention of more than one criminal.
“You are not likely to leave here with your cloak and wallet,” Arthur said with a half smile. He kept the hood to his cloak up. His father had mastered the art of finding those planning to kill him through a combination of visions, clairvoyants, and spies. Arthur would take the smallest risk possible, given he was sitting with one of his father’s dissidents.
“This place is beyond unsavory,” Ingram replied. “But I understand why you chose it. Your father would not think to put a spy here.”
“You would know.” Arthur lifted his hand to order food and drink in an attempt to fit in with the locals. “Does he still entrust you with the doings of his spies?”
Ingram waited until the server had left before responding. “He has become very reclusive. More so than usual. But it is his prerogative, and I do not question the man who keeps our city safe.”
Arthur chose to ignore the claim to loyalty. “I imagine he changed after my sister disappeared.”
“Two days after,” Ingram admitted in a low voice. “Also his prerogative. Why have you asked me to meet you here, Arthur? Why not in your father’s council room, where we normally talk?”
“Do you have to ask?” Arthur asked with some amusement.
From the expression on Ingram’s features, he was suspicious.
“We have a mutual friend,” Arthur began carefully. “Marshall Cruise.”
“Cruise?” Ingram echoed. “Traitors, all of them. Condemned to burn for their crimes against the Hanover family.” The words were spoken in a rush.
“Marshall is alive,” Arthur continued. “He is being held hostage by our former allies beyond the city. He is safe, if you are concerned.”
Ingram wore the purposely-blank expression he always did when Arthur had seen Edwin address him during dinners and public events.
“He will not be safe for long, if my father discovers he is alive,” Arthur added. “Marshall and I discussed the future of the city, and I understand your … group has big plans for it and for me.”
Ingram glanced around.
“I know you intended to speak to me about this upon my return from the Hunt. Marshall confessed he was supposed to evaluate me and, if I were the person you all think I am, he would approve the decision for you to approach me,” Arthur said.
Ingram was silent. Arthur assessed he was trying to decide if this were a trap or not.
“My father will destroy the city and everything around it for many miles,” Arthur whispered. “I cannot stop him, if I do not have allies.”
“How do you know this?” The question was careful enough that Arthur suspected more than Marshall knew the Hanover’s were deformed.
“I have had a vision,” Arthur said and drew a deep breath. “A very bad one. One that would unite me with your cause, even though I care for my father and my family’s legacy. I cannot rule a city that does not exist, now can I?”
They fell into an uncomfortable quiet as the server brought each of them a plate of food. Ingram scowled at the dirty plate and fatty meat, but Arthur dug in.
“What exactly have you seen?” Ingram asked and poked at the undercooked root vegetables on his plate.
“It is as much what I have seen as what I know,” Arthur explained. He quickly shared his insight into the brewing alliances among the Natives as well as the vision. He spoke of everything he had learned or foreseen – except for the visions about Tiana. Unable to explain his sister’s presence in his vision, he had yet to decide how much to tell anyone about her deformities.
Ingram listened, his food ignored.
“I owe Marshall my life twice over,” Arthur finished. “At first, I did not care to hear anything he said. But the more I saw of the world outside our city, and the longer I listened to Marshall, the deeper I understood the danger my father poses.”
For a moment, the head of the underground opposition party sat in contemplative silence. He was too much the politician to reveal what he thought or felt in his expression, but Arthur guessed he was, in part, surprised.
“It is believed, among those few of us who have protected the knowledge of your family’s capabilities, that your sister has inherited your father’s unique traits,” Ingram said at last. “And this is why he replaced you as heir.”
“I have my own unique traits,” Arthur replied.
“You do not display the level of deformity your father and his predecessors did.”
“My father trained me, but always told me I would learn the true secrets to ruling only when I assumed his position.”
“My theory is that he was waiting for your full abilities to manifest. They did not. But perhaps, Tiana’s did.”
It was Arthur’s turn to be perplexed. “To what abilities do you refer?” he asked. “I have revealed my own deformities. They are not undeserving!”
“They are not,” Ingram agreed quickly. “They will protect the city. But your father wields a different kind of deformity. The ability to move things with his mind, to change the composition of anything with a thought, to control the future he foresees, to replace the thoughts of others with his own. We do not know his limits, because he is very strategic in how he uses these gifts. He can alter the fabric of our universe itself.”
Arthur could not recall ever witnessing his father use this kind of unnatural power at all. When he demonstrated to Arthur how to use his own abilities, Edwin had only used what power Arthur had. Arthur had no reason to believe his father possessed any other abilities than what he had displayed in private.
For the second time since returning home, Arthur had the sense he had never really known his father, or the depths of the secrets the Hanover leader maintained.
“Your father, and your forefathers, wielded absolute power, Arthur.”
“And you think Tiana does n
ow?” Arthur asked doubtfully.
“What you and I think is irrelevant. Your father appears to believe she is his heir.”
Arthur wiped his mouth and dropped his fork, no longer hungry. “How did you plan to oppose my father? A man allegedly possessing absolute power?”
“We had intended to pit you against him by murdering your sister before her eighteenth birthday, while you were on the Hunt, and sending word to you that your father was responsible,” Ingram admitted.
Arthur’s mouth dropped open.
“Perhaps this is better.”
“Better?” Arthur managed. “How so?”
“To replace one man possessing absolute power with another would condemn us to four more centuries of mad rule. You do not possess these deformities. You truly can become a different kind of leader,” Ingram answered. “You might even save the city from this war you believe is coming.”
Arthur’s protective instinct stirred once more. Ingram did not address what he wished to do with Tiana, assuming she possessed these abilities.
“I must speak to the others,” Ingram said. “How may I contact you?”
“Through my slave, George. I trust him with my life,” Arthur said. “My father wishes me to return to the Natives soon to negotiate Tiana’s release.”
“I will contact you within the next two days. You must not leave here before you hear from me, Arthur,” Ingram said. “In the meantime, do as your father says. Keep his trust and if you are in danger, flee and send me word.”
“Danger?” Arthur smiled. “Your concern is misplaced. He is my father. I do not fear him and his power.”
“Have you never wondered why there are no cousins of Hanover blood, even though every leader bears two children at least?” Ingram asked.
Arthur’s smile faded. He had cousins – but they were from his mother’s and grandmother’s kin, and not directly related to the Hanover’s. He was about to reply that his family had a history of young deaths but abruptly realized that four centuries of siblings who died suddenly at young ages did not paint a very healthy picture of the intra-family politics of the Hanover’s.
He had never thought to ask his father anything other about his uncle than his name and when and why he died. Edwin’s brother had been poisoned, and Arthur assumed it was by the enemies of the Hanover’s, and this was why his father was adamant about security.