by Lizzy Ford
He accompanied the Shield members down the elevator, through the ground floor, and underground to the prison level. At no point did his escort decrease in number below six, and he found no opening to run, either.
By the time they reached the isolation cells on the far end of the prison, he had accepted that for now, he was trapped here. Arthur entered the cell. His smile slid free only once the door was locked. He looked around at the narrow space and the bed inches off the floor.
“Quite a difference from my usual accommodations,” he observed with some amusement.
But he was alive, which he would not be, had his father’s plan succeeded this morning. All he had to do was play whatever game his father wanted to play, and bide his time, until either Ingram came to find him, or his father did.
Hands bound, Arthur sat and waited for hours before the sound of the door being unlocked jarred his attention out of his thoughts. Heart pounding hard, he stood, prepared to meet whatever his destiny held for him on the other side of the door.
To his relief, he did not see his father in the doorway but Ingram. The older man passed the Shield member a pouch.
“Five minutes,” the soldier said. He turned and walked away.
“It pleases me to see you alive, Arthur,” Ingram said.
“Does it?” Arthur observed Ingram coolly. “I was under the impression you had decided to betray me.”
“It was not what you think, Arthur,” Ingram glanced around him and then stepped into the cell, leaving the door open. “We found out before dawn your father was trying to draw your uncle out of hiding by leaking the information to us.”
“If you are saying my father did not intend to murder me, you are lying.”
“He planned to murder both of you.”
“And letting me die was easier than warning me,” Arthur said with a nod. “Great plan.”
“Listen, Arthur –”
“No. You listen, Ingram!” Arthur allowed rare anger to enter his tone. “Tell my uncle I learned one of his little secrets about what my father kept in the attic. If my uncle wants to know where this thing is, he will do everything in his power to prove today was an accident!”
“What are you talking about?” Ingram asked, frowning.
“Tell him.” Arthur turned his back to his father’s advisor. “We are done here, Ingram.”
His words were followed by a pause, then the sound of Ingram shuffling out the door. Arthur released the breath he was holding, irritated by the visit. Whether or not Ingram’s claim was true, he had learned something about his uncle’s plans.
His uncle was willing to sacrifice Arthur to further his own goals, which meant, his uncle probably did not intend to turn over the city to Arthur at all. Simon Hanover could not be trusted, except in his desire to take out the Hanover chief.
But Arthur was not about to become a pawn in someone else’s war. He had been raised by a man whose control of the city stemmed from a brilliant combination of strategy and intimidation. He had learned from the best and, even if he were not willing to burn whole families at the stake, he would sacrifice the select few who betrayed him.
He settled onto the floor. Unable to tell the time without a window, he began to doze.
The moment the vision formed in his mind, his light sleep turned deep.
*
Arthur was caught in a whirlwind, spinning out of control downward into a gaping hole in the ground. He struggled to right himself without success and gasped in air that did not seem to reach his lungs. The sky was dark above, the city below being slowly torn apart and dragged asunder, into the blackness.
The air of the energy was too charged for him to identify whose magic was tugging him apart.
Arthur neared the hole and was sucked in, only to be pulled out by none other than his father.
Angry energy swirled around Edwin Hanover. His touch was cold, his eyes colder.
“Don’t worry, son. She’s gone. You will continue our line unopposed, as it should be.”
*
The vision ended. Rather than awaken, he slid into a new premonition, this one calm and quiet.
*
Arthur looked down at himself and then around at his surroundings, recognizing his father’s quarters. It was not his father’s portrait on the wall judging him, however, but his own.
Arthur stood and crossed to the window to overlook the city he now led, and his breath caught.
Only the wards in the immediate area surrounding the pyramid remained intact. The rest of Lost Vegas had been turned into ash or rubble, with one entire area nothing but a gaping hole.
Protestors jammed the streets while smoke came from the direction of the grasslands surrounding the city.
“What are your orders?” the Shield member behind him asked.
“Burn them,” he heard himself answer.
*
Shouting outside his cell awoke him. Arthur snapped awake, sweating and shaking. The images in his mind shone a light on one of his greatest fears.
What if he possessed enough power to become mad like his father and every other Hanover leader? What had brought the city in his vision to the condition he witnessed? Had he done it? Taken over once his father was gone?
Arthur stirred and took a deep breath, struggling to understand the meaning of the vision. His father had already all but disowned him. But if Tiana died fighting their father, Arthur would become the heir again.
Was that not what he always wanted? All he had ever been trained and molded to do?
He stood in silence, deep in thought, replaying the visions. The first had to have been the result of her sister challenging – and losing to – their father. The second? Had he destroyed the city? What could possibly push him down that path?
Tiana. Warner. His instincts whispered the answers. His father ruled alone. Every Hanover leader ended up alone with his madness.
Black Wolf had claimed premonitions were exactly what they appeared to be, that no attempt at interpretation should be undertaken.
Smoke slid under his door, and someone smashed into it. Arthur stepped back and dropped into a fighting stance.
Gunshots rang out. The hinges of the door exploded. Arthur covered his ears and turned his back to the door. It slammed open, and he faced it again, not about to be caught off guard if someone attacked.
His uncle stood in the doorway, grim and surrounded by smoke. The sounds of fighting came from down the hallway.
“I received your message,” Simon Hanover said. “Come on.”
“I thought you could not enter the city.”
“When have you ever known a Hanover to tell the truth?” His uncle disappeared from Arthur’s view.
Arthur followed cautiously but fast. Simon strode down the corridor between cells with no concern for the chaos behind him. He led Arthur out of the dungeon area and into the subbasement above then kept going. Arthur trotted after him. Simon did not hesitate to turn corners and never slowed to consider where he was or which direction he should go.
Anger fluttered through Arthur as he considered how well his lying uncle knew the route. He shelved his unhappiness for a later discussion rather than make a scene that might get them caught.
Simon led him to the stairwell leading to the main floor of the pyramid.
“We will have to go disguised,” he said. “You’ll be recognized. Stay close.” He started up the stairs.
Arthur caught his arm. “Any chance you will free me first?” he asked. “And what do you mean disguised? I do not have …”
His uncle turned around, and Arthur stopped. His mouth fell open but no words emerged.
Rather than the red-blonde uncle he recognized, his faithful slave, George, stood before him.
“Stay close. I can change both of our faces as long as you are within three feet of me.”
“Are you George or is George you?” Arthur managed.
“We will discuss this later.” Simon charged up the stairs without freeing Art
hur’s hands.
Arthur stood in shock for a moment before taking the steps three at a time to catch up to his uncle. He said nothing more as they entered the main floor of the pyramid. Whatever his uncle did, no one glanced at either of them as they made their way through the crowd.
When they broke free of the pyramid, Arthur released a deep breath and glanced back over his shoulder. No one pursued, and no alarms went up to warn others of the escaped prisoner. His focus returned to Simon.
“I need answers,” he said and halted in place.
“We need to hide you.”
“Now.”
His uncle sighed and turned. The mask of George remained. The two men – one loyal, the other manipulative – could not have been more different. How had his uncle pretended to be George? Because, like every other Hanover, he had a purpose to his manipulation that outweighed the personal cost?
“George is an illusion. The raid to help you escape, also illusion. My deformity allows me to trick people into seeing what I want them to,” Simon explained.
“None of that was real? The fighting? Smoke?” Arthur asked, surprised.
“None of it.”
“You are George.” Arthur could not help feeling disappointed to realize his greatest confidante had been a stranger in a mask. “You left me outside the city to die. If you think I’m going anywhere with you, you’re a fool!”
“I am your uncle, who spent two decades protecting you and your sister, to the extent I could, in the only way I could,” Simon replied. “I saved Tiana when your father tried to burn her, and I masked the truth about you not being his heir until Tiana’s powers emerged. I have been a part of your life since you were born, Arthur. Trust me when I say I had every intention of being there for the raid, but I was prevented from doing so.” His uncle eyed two passing Shield soldiers. “I will tell you everything, but we need to hide.”
Arthur studied him, hurt by the latest betrayal from a Hanover and stunned by the truth. Without another word, he began walking again and breezed past his uncle, who trailed him.
“Where are we going?” he asked shortly.
“To hide in the city for now.” Simon joined him. “Did you really set the skinwalker in the attic free?”
“You knew about her, too?” Arthur swore loudly. “Why did you never tell me the truth about any of this?”
“Because, until a few weeks ago, I believed you to be either too weak, conceited, or blinded to the truth about your father. I asked Marshall to test you and see if you were worth saving.”
Arthur said nothing. He understood Simon’s position too well. It was the same Marshall Cruise had shared. He did not ask what uncle would have done, had Arthur not passed Marshall’s test.
Simon led him into the inner city and to a building close enough to the fish market for the smell to overcome the scent of burning bodies in the neighboring ward. No one looked up or spoke when they entered, leading Arthur to believe they were masked again. Simon led him to a small room on the second floor and closed the door before unlocking Arthur’s chains.
Arthur dwelled on all he had learned in the walk from the city and was left feeling like a stranger in his own world. He rubbed his wrists.
“Your rebellion. Do they know you’re George?” he asked.
“No. They believe me to be forbidden from entering the city. I do not fully trust my allies, and neither should you. They are selfish men eager to shift the power and do not care who it goes to.”
“Were you serious about not wanting to take over the city?”
“My concern has always been ridding Lost Vegas of my brother. Truth be told, I do not think any Hanover should lead the city,” Simon replied. “You may have complicated my plan by hiding the skinwalker. Your father will know something is going on. We may not be able to remain beneath his attention for long.”
Arthur sat down. “No more games. Tell me what is going on and why you spent twenty years lying to me.”
Simon rubbed his jaw. His seasoned features, very unlike the smooth face of George, returned.
“Convince me to trust you,” Arthur added. “And I will help you find the skinwalker, whose importance I do not understand at all.”
“She holds the key to crippling your father.”
“I’m listening.”
After a moment of internal debate, his uncle’s features softened, and he sat opposite Arthur.
“I came into your service eighteen years ago, when your sister was born. Premonitions run in our family, and I had one of what she would become, if she lived,” Simon explained.
“She barely lived.”
“The influence of a slave, or a brother, does not go far, as you well know by now. Both of us should have done more.”
Arthur lowered his eyes, once again besieged by the vision he had experienced before his uncle rescued him.
“The madness. It runs in all of us, does it not? Even those of us who are not heirs?”
“It does,” Simon confirmed. “I used as little as possible, but … the signs are there. You asked what I wanted, and why I didn’t want the city. The answer is simple. Because I, too, will go mad by the time this is over. You may have a decade or more left until you are crippled.”
“A decade,” Arthur murmured. He had not seen his reflection in a mirror in the vision to know how old he was when he had gone mad. “As for what you wanted?”
“The skinwalker you freed. Their kind are from neither this world nor the next. The Hanover magic comes from elsewhere, and the skinwalker keeps the breach between this world and the next open, which allows your father to rule without challenge.”
“The next world. You speak of the spirit realm?”
Simon nodded.
“There has always been mystery surrounding the appearance of the first Hanover,” Arthur mused. “You are saying we did not wander into this city during the Age of Darkness, as is widely believed.”
“I am saying we did not wander into this city from this world. Whatever our ancestor was, that knowledge has been lost. But enough of that creatures remains in each generation to allow the heir the access unimaginable depths of power, at a price.”
“Madness.”
“If not more. We cannot know with certainty.”
Arthur dwelled on the new information. The secrets in his family were shared only from ruler to heir, upon the deathbed of the ruler.
“How do you know all this?” he asked.
Simon drew a breath. “At one point, I discovered the passageway, the benefit of being a slave no one looks twice at. I went to the top to see what was there, and I found that … creature. In return for answers to my questions, I helped her escape, which turned out to be one of the greatest mistakes of my life.” His uncle shook his head. “In any case, your father found her eventually and imprisoned her again. No slave was permitted access to your floor for nearly a year after that. Tiana was born then. I do not know how she survived, or if anyone even fed her. I convinced your father to spare her, but that was all I could do for many months. When I was permitted to see her again, she was tiny, frail, on the verge of death again. I was too terrified to risk leaving either of you alone up there to do anything that might draw your father’s ire ever again. I never went back to the attic, but I always knew what was there, and how valuable it was to your father. Until you and your sister were safe, I could do nothing.”
Of all the explanations Arthur had expected, this one caught him off guard the most. His instincts gave him no warnings about Simon, even though he did not want to trust his uncle.
“The skinwalker is free,” Arthur said. “How do you plan to usurp my father?”
“Nothing short of a full blow insurgency. And … praying. If the breach begins to close without the skinwalker, your father will eventually run out of power to face us.”
“That is your plan?” Arthur asked with a snort.
“We have allies among the Natives who have supplied us with weapons. We can use the skinwalker as
a decoy to lure your father from the pyramid. If we can take the pyramid, we might be able close the breach, with the help of your sister, and therefore render Edwin vulnerable.” Simon rose. “Come. I’ll show you the details.”
Arthur remained seated. He doubted the details would make him feel any more confident in Simon’s plan, not when he understood the confrontation coming. If his sister challenged their father, as his vision led him to believe she would, all of Simon’s planning would not matter. The best Simon could do was distract Edwin long enough for Tiana to strike.
Unable to determine how they were going to succeed against a man with unlimited power, Arthur stood slowly and glanced towards the window, which faced north.
It was possible working with Simon was the only real action he could take to help his sister, even if it proved ineffective at the end. What else was there? He did not even know for certain where Tiana was.
With misgivings popping up in his thoughts, Arthur did not follow his uncle to the door. Of everything he had to worry about, he could not stop seeing the image of himself ordering the protestors outside the pyramid to be burned.
“You do not trust me,” Simon said, lingering in the doorway.
“Why would I? You have lied to me my entire life,” Arthur retorted. “If you meant to protect us from my father, how did you let my father murder our mother? Tiana’s twin? You have deceived us from the beginning.”
Simon sighed. “I had hoped never to have this conversation.” He pulled his chair out from the table and sat once again. “First, you are Tiana’s half-sister. Your mother was the sister to Edwin and me. Inbreeding runs in many of the wealthy family in order to preserve their standing and wealth. The Hanover’s hoped to preserve their deformities as well. Edwin and I were the sons of siblings as well. The son of two Hanover’s, you were supposed to be the guaranteed heir. It has been this way for generations.”
“That makes it worse,” he stated. “You let your brother murder your sister.”