Shayne rubbed his eyes. "Nazar never saw it quite like that. He just saw it as whatever I did, father fawned all over me and when he did the same thing his response was somewhat…shall we say…muted. Receiving this response made Nazar insane with jealousy."
Shayne sighed heavily and closed his eyes in pain. "Nazar was never 'right', even as a child. There was always something wrong about him, something twisted and dark. Too much of the dark elf's blood. I got the good part of the magic, he inherited all the bad."
Shayne rubbed his face and forced himself to continue. "I never wanted to compete with him. I was just being me. But Nazar turned everything into a competition. He saw everything I did and said as a sign of weakness from me. And it got worse as we matured to the point where I began to avoid him like the servants did. He only saw this as an act of cowardice and would purposely hunt me out to torment me.
"I began to take long trips into the countryside to get away from him. I would travel everywhere within this kingdom, often in disguise so people wouldn't treat me any different. I loved the land and its people, from lowly farmer to highest noble. I just didn't love my brother.
"It was easy for most people not to love Nazar. He tormented the castle staff mercilessly. All while I was gone, I was relieved I didn't have to deal with him. But I also felt guilty because I realized the castle servants didn't have such luxury. They had to deal with him every day of their life. Every time I came home, it seemed I always had to rescue one of the servants from his vicious tongue and brutal hand. I could not be everywhere at once and neither could my poor father who was growing grayer day by day in the struggle to manage both his kingdom and his cruel son. People whispered there would be a bad end of it someday. Oh how right they were!"
Here his voice lapsed into silence and his eyes stared blankly off into the distance. He was still for so long, Rhi almost believed he had turned into one of the castle servants, blank faced, empty and soulless.
Rhi crept closer to him. Quietly she reached through the bars and laid a sympathetic hand on his arm.
"Shayne?" she whispered.
He didn't stir. He continued to stare blankly off into space but he began to speak again, moving on with the story of his life.
"I came home from one of my trips to find my brother drunk and beating a serving girl until she could no longer see. I fought him off of her, an easy task when your adversary is so disgustingly drunk. I ordered the castle guards to lock him in his quarters until he sobered up. I then took the serving girl to her quarters and doctored her wounds myself. I did my best to console her parents this would not happen again. It didn't. But what happened next was worse, so much worse."
Shayne uttered a soft noise which sounded like a sob and turned his face away. Rhi pressed closer. He held up a hand begging for patience.
"The next night I was having dinner in the main feast hall with my father and some other distinguished guests when my brother arrived, late for dinner and drunker than I have ever seen him. He came blasting into the hall, rude as a troll and smelly as an ogre and proceeded to blame me in front of all gathered of crime after crime. I literally jumped over the feast hall table to silence his claims and we tussled right there. Drunk as he was, he was much bigger and stronger than I and landed a lucky shot which dazed me into helplessness for the next few moments. While I lay on the feast hall floor, my vision spinning crazily, he rushed our father and stabbed him to the heart. My father was dead before he hit the floor."
Rhi covered her mouth in shock.
"And that's what really happened?"
Shayne glanced back to her. His eyes were glassy and very tired looking.
"I know he told you I killed my father. But I didn't. Nazar has no memory of that night. He was too drunk to remember anything. I know it is his word against mine, but this is really what happened. And I will tell you or anyone else the exact same story a million times over until someone believes it. My brother killed our father in a drunken fit. Nazar remembers nothing of the incident. So, of course, I had to be the culprit."
There was a long silence between them.
"What happened next, in the kingdom I mean?"
Shayne shrugged. "The impossible. Nazar was crowned king."
Rhi gasped in horror. "What? How is it even possible? He wasn't punished in any way whatsoever?"
Shayne shrugged. "Well, something like this had never happened before. There was no contingency plan in case the king died before his time and his successor was not fit to rule. The kingdom was without a king. And Nazar was next in line for the throne. The coronation was quick. The land had to have a king, even a crazy one."
"Where were you in all this?" she asked.
Shayne's face grew dark and he receded. His emotional shield went up again. She almost expected him not to tell her what had happened and just avoid the issue altogether.
But tell her he did. "I ran away like a coward."
"What? Why?" she asked.
He hung his head in regret. "Because I didn't want to be king."
Rhi just stared at him. "But…look here. I'm just a simple farm girl and I don't know what I'm talking about but it seems to me the next step would be to muster an army, which knowing how people despised your brother, probably would have been very easy, and challenge him for claim to the throne."
A small smile flickered briefly across Shayne's face. "My dear you may be 'just a simple farm girl' as you put it but you understand the matter well enough. Yes, that is exactly what I should have done. But I didn't. I ran away before Nazar was even crowned. Because I was afraid of being king. And challenging my brother's claim to the throne also meant I might have to kill him. And somehow killing one's sibling no matter how wrong and irredeemable they are, just didn't seem right to me. I really don't want to be a kinslayer in any way whatsoever. I don't want that on my conscience."
Rhi was silent for a moment mulling over his story. She still couldn't get past the fact he ran away when his kingdom needed him the most. "If you had to do it over again, would you still have run away?"
Shayne sighed, crossed his arms in front of his chest, frowned and thought hard. "I have considered this question many times because my actions back then have caused me a lot of regret and guilt since then. I think I would challenge his right to the throne. I think I would raise an army. But I would also try not to kill him. I would move heaven and earth to avoid that outcome. It is never right to kill your own brother even if he has have done everything to deserve it. That is just not the right punishment from me to him."
His words redeemed himself in Rhi's mind somewhat. Shayne did have blood on his hands; the blood of every common person in this land who needed salvation from their king and didn't get it. At least he had the conscience to regret his decision even if it was too late to do anything about it.
"And...how does the dragon play into all this?"
Shayne rubbed his face. "That's where everything gets a little murky. I was away from the castle so by the time I heard any news, it had been passed down the gossip chain and gotten very convoluted. Word among the people was soon after his coronation, Nazar hired on a 'court wizard'. Nazar wanted to learn how to work magic to strengthen his hold on his new kingdom. The gossip matched with my personal experience growing up with my brother. He was always fascinated by magic things, good or bad. But this particular wizard had a cloudy reputation. It seemed he liked to mix white magic with black to get more power out of his spells. Doing this is walking a slippery slope. Nazar didn't care. This was just the kind of thing he gravitated to. Then all of a sudden, the wizard disappeared."
Rhi sat up straighter. "Why? What do you think happened?"
Shayne gave her a smug look which hinted at nothing good. "Knowing my brother, Nazar learned what he wanted from him and then killed him. That sounds like just the kind of thing he would do."
"Outside the castle, word had gotten out their new king was crazy. People were packing up and leaving the kingdom, fearing for their lives an
d the lives of their families. As some left, their relatives inherited their taxes so they had double the taxes to pay. This only pushed more people to leave.
"People everywhere in this kingdom saw the writing on the wall. The king could not be trusted to take care of his people. The politics of the land were about to implode. Leave now or be swept up in the destruction which would follow.
"Then word came from the castle the king needed new staff. There were rumors the only reason he needed them was the old staff were mysteriously disappearing at an alarming rate."
A shiver of ice went down Rhi's back. "What was he doing?" she whispered. She was afraid of the answer.
"Experimenting with his new found skills. He needed 'volunteers'!" Shayne replied.
Rhi shuddered in dread.
"Then word got around the king was redecorating the castle. All my family's plaques were being torn down and smashed."
"The falcon!" Rhi suddenly cried out. "Your family sign was the falcon!"
Shayne grinned widely and nodded. "Nazar never liked the symbol. He always liked dragons. He wanted father to give him a pet dragon for his birthday. Every year for quite some time he begged for a pet dragon. I forget when he stopped asking. I concluded the plaques and the missing staff had something to do with this dream. He was trying to catch a dragon."
Rhi's face wrinkled in confusion. "Can you actually do that? Get a pet dragon?"
Shayne laughed. "No!" he chuckled. "But you can trap one. This is what I think he's done, found a dragon and trapped it. The missing staff were just practice. He was practicing taking their souls out of their bodies and trapping them so he could do what he wanted with their forms. It didn't work with humans. You remove a person's soul and their body dies. But all these servants are frozen at the point just before death, therefore still somewhat useful to Nazar, unspeaking and uncomplaining."
"And it is magically possibly to ensnare a dragon this way?"
Shayne frowned and sucked his teeth. "Not exactly. Nazar was able to remove the dragon's spirit and trap it in something. Then he could inhabit the dragon's body for a short time, say from dusk to dawn."
"What about at night? Does the dragon body get its spirit back?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"If the dragon ever got its spirit back in its body where it belongs, then this castle would be leveled to the ground. Dragons do not like to be caged!"
"And what if the dragon was freed?" Rhi suggested.
"Everything and everyone in this castle including you, me and Nazar would be burned to a crisp. Probably. Dragons do not handle captivity well."
Rhi thought hard, chewing her lip. "But it also might not. It might just go after Nazar."
Shayne shook his head. "My dear, that is one mighty big IF!"
She grabbed the bars of the cell tightly. "Freeing this dragon might just be the only way to save you and me. I'm not becoming one of his soulless slaves and I'm not marrying him. I'm willing to risk it. Are you?"
Shayne gazed into the details of her face for a moment. He reached through the bars and stroked her cheek. "I'm tired of being a coward. This isn't much of a chance but I'll take it. I'd rather die burned to a crisp than to run from another fight I should have faced and didn't."
Rhi pulled back away from him and smiled. "You still have one lie to make good on," she said.
He raised his eyebrows. "And that is?"
"I know you know what the inscription on the medallion says. Tell me."
Shayne took a deep breath and nodded. He reached out and picked up the medallion from where it swung about her neck, flipped it over and read it to himself in the dim flickering light of the torch.
"This is the emblem of the children of my family. Every child is given one on their eighth birthday. Children in my family are called 'feathers' in the old language of the realm until their coming of age. And the inscription on the back of the medallion is magic, it changes for each one who wears it. This one reads:
"Falcon born with wanderling heart,
Wanderling born with falcon heart,
Two souls with one true goal,
To let it be and to live free."
His eyes met hers. "I knew the day long ago when you named your horse 'Falcon' that you would be important. I just didn't know how much."
THE DRAGON
Rhi's next thought was to find where Nazar had hidden his "pet" dragon. But she was quickly running out of daylight. She wanted to go looking for the dragon immediately. Instead she had to turn her mind to her obligatory dinner date with Nazar.
She returned to her room, her thoughts spinning. She requested a change of clothes from her night servant making sure she gave clear instructions the attire was to be male. The servant nodded and returned with the requested clothes. They were the garments of a man but they also had the embellishments of royalty, dark velvet with bright metallic trim. Rhi sighed and gave in. It seemed if she insisted on wearing a man's clothes, Nazar was determined she would not wear commoner threads.
Before she left her room, she hailed the servant who had brought her the clothes. He faced her and awaited her command. She looked him up and down, considering her next words carefully.
"Do you know where Nazar keeps his dragon?" she asked.
The servant blinked once and then shook his head in denial.
Rhi sighed in frustration and ran a hand through her hair. She thought harder. They could only answer yes, or no so she had to be very specific.
"Does any of the staff know where he keeps his dragon or how to get there?"
The servant blinked twice, hesitated and then nodded.
Rhi's eyes narrowed. No servant had ever hesitated before responding.
"Bring this man to me at once," she ordered.
Again the servant blinked twice, hesitated and then left. Soon after he left there was a gentle rap on the door.
She told the servant to enter.
A middle-aged woman with black hair and hazel eyes stepped in and stood awaiting her command.
Rhi did not expect it to be a woman.
They just stood regarding each other for a long moment.
Rhi then remembered she had to tell her something. She cleared her throat loudly.
"Thank you. You may return to your duties."
The woman did not blink but curtseyed and did as she was bid.
Rhi immediately left her room and made her way through the many hallways of the castle to the great feast hall.
She stepped into the feast hall and stopped.
Nazar was there in his customary place at the head of the table. But behind him, lined up along the wall were five of the loveliest women Rhi had ever laid eyes on. They all wore fine dresses of five different colors and were dripping with expensive jewels which flashed at the slightest ray of light as if they were lit with an inner fire.
But their skin was colorless and their eyes empty, devoid of spirit just like every other person who occupied the castle.
Rhi bit her lip in worry. It seemed Nazar had ulterior motives for her to wear fine clothes. The suspicion made Rhi tremble in dread.
Nazar was narrowly looking her up and down. He was still frowning but this time he nodded.
"Not a gown but it will do," he said gruffly.
Rhi took a deep breath and steeled herself against what was to come. She seated herself at the setting by his side.
"But sire!" she said in mock surprise. "It's still the wrong attire."
Nazar scowled at her attempt for humor.
"My dear, you would be lovely in rags! But I must demand certain appropriate attire for the feast hall. This seems to be a workable compromise."
He seated himself and waved for the servant to serve them.
"I'm glad we can come to an agreement on something," she replied.
He nodded as he sipped from his glass.
For some reason, Rhi didn't seem to have much of an appetite. Her eyes kept returning to the five women who stood motionless as
statues behind the king, their blank eyes staring off into space.
Nazar seemed amused by her attention to them. She could sense he was smugly waiting for her to ask the inevitable question.
She struggled with how to breech the subject, knowing all the while he would turn her words against her.
"Sire, shouldn't you introduce me to your guests?" she finally asked against her will.
The corners of his mouth twitched. "No. If they had souls I would," he replied. "But they have no souls. Therefore they are nobody. They're not really people anymore."
Rhi took another deep breath. "Then what is the purpose of their presence, Sire?"
He smiled. He was enjoying every moment of this! She wanted to slap the smile right off of his face. "They are here as reminders only. Reminders of what happens to people who say no to me."
Rhi swallowed carefully. "If they refused your advances then they are brave women indeed."
Nazar's fist suddenly hit the table with such a force the dinnerware clattered. Rhi jumped nearly out of her skin and dropped her knife in fright.
"NO ONE has any right to refuse anything I order them to do! I am the king! What I say is law!"
Rhi took three deep breaths before she could trust her voice to speak again. "Then why go through all the trouble of asking anybody anything? If what you want is what you want, why don't you just order it instead of asking?"
The question seemed to surprise him. He sat back in his great chair considering her for a moment.
"I asked the first three women to marry me. They refused. I even gave them plenty of time to consider their decision. They still refused. I ordered the next one to marry me, told her she had no choice. She still refused me. The last one just wouldn't give me an answer. I got tired of waiting and took what I wanted from her."
He sighed. "The question I have for you, is which woman will you be? I want you to marry me. Will you say yes, or no?"
The question she had dreaded had been put to her.
Wanderling's Choice Page 8