“The old Rilden Estate,” Hairem replied, grimacing slightly as though he could read Jikun’s rising temper. “He may be there. I tried to convince him to accept it as a gift for his rescue of Ilsevel, but last time I spoke with him he was still residing at The Whistling Glade. Erallus, however, said that—when he went by the inn a few nights ago—the innkeeper said Sellemar had left.”
“I would leave too if my reward was that shithole,” Jikun muttered.
Hairem’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped incredulously. “The Rilden Estate is one of the most prestigious homes in all of Elvorium. It belonged to the brother of the last True Blood king before the Schism. It was only left unoccupied because my father was using it for just such a purpose as I granted it to Sellemar.”
Jikun raised his hands to halt the king in his winded defense. From the outside, that building had fallen to resemble something of a human morgue. “There is no need to justify yourself. I will try the Rilden Estate,” he insisted stiffly. ‘Gods know I’m relieved to be receiving my payments in coin.’
Hairem stood as well, leaving the parchment on the table despite the number of maps he undoubtedly knew Jikun already possessed. “You have my permission to move out against Saebellus whenever you deem you and your troops are ready. I will leave everything to your plans. And if there is anything I can do to assist you, please bring it before me and it shall be granted.”
Jikun paused, a thought heavy in the back of his mind. He turned his head slightly away as he spoke, his stomach tightening as a flicker of snow and ice hung at the edge of his mind, “…What about Darival?” he demanded sternly, though he could hear the doubt ebbing into his voice. “…There were no letters since I have been back. No word of any kind…”
There was a long moment of uncomfortable stillness in the room. Reivel himself had looked away, as though he too expected an unfavorable answer.
Hairem’s voice fell empathetically. “…The council voted against assisting Kaivervale. I sent my own personal guard, but I have not heard from them. With your troops having been in frail condition prior to this and Saebellus now moving again, I’m afraid I am quite certain that the council shall do nothing about Darival at this time.”
Jikun lips twisted sourly as he glanced to his left. He could see Hairem’s fist tighten over the map and heard the brief hiss of breath as the king inhaled and held it for a moment.
“But after this battle, I assure you, you have my word by Sel’ari that I shall send several hundred soldiers north as soon as you return, regardless of the council’s wishes.”
Jikun raised a brow at his sudden strength of tone, turning his body in full to face the king. “Thank you… Hairem.”
There was a flicker of acknowledgement at the dropped title and Hairem smiled. ‘It took you long enough,’ the amused eyes read. “Good luck to you, Jikun. With the blessing of the goddess, this may be the last battle from Saebellus this kingdom has to endure.”
Jikun raised his hand against the king even as his mouth closed in what he no doubt had hoped were inspiring words with which to send off his military dogs. The general gestured once to the flaps of the tent, signaling that there was more on his mind. “If you could excuse the king and I for a moment, Captain.”
Reivel started, glancing from male to male with a subtle flicker of confusion crossing his features. “Yes, General…” he replied, sliding his chair back and rising to his feet. He bowed deeply before the king, turned, and stepped briskly from the tent.
“There is something else,” Jikun dared, his icy eyes hardening as his gaze fixed upon the king. He felt the flicker of light reflect against the chiseled structure of his face and imagined his appearance was not unlike that of a particularly twisted wraith. He leaned forward slightly, drawing on the resolute and powerful picture in his mind. “You said to ask if there was something you could do. There is. I need my captain.”
Hairem blinked, looking mildly unnerved. “You have your captain…?” he raised a hand slowly and gestured to the outside. “I—”
Jikun regarded him steadily, knowing he skirted in vain around the topic. “No. Captain Navon.”
Hairem’s hand dropped. “Captain Navon,” his words came out stiff and hollow. Jikun could see the struggle behind his eyes as he sought his next words. “General, Captain Navon has been found guilty of the practices of necromancy and is to be hanged in a few weeks’ time. You were requested at his trial, but you did not attend… I thought someone had informed you of the court’s decision…”
Jikun remained stoic, not allowing the king to see his emotions. Yes, he had been informed. His eyes shifted warily to the tent flap and he hoped to Ramul that Reivel had been wise enough to distance himself from their conversation. He pushed down his discomfort and forcefully continued, “I heard. However, Captain Navon is the most experienced male I know. Reivel will not suffice to fulfill the position. Not this quickly. Not with imminent battle approaching. Not this time. As you stated, this may be the last battle this kingdom has to endure. Do you want to put that in the hands of Reivel or the best captain this country has seen? Navon is second to no one.” His eyes narrowed in their intensity. “And I will not go into battle without him.”
Hairem’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What are you saying, General?”
Jikun raised his chin, inhaling sharply as he drew himself up. “I am saying, Your Majesty, that if Captain Navon is not by my side, then you shall have to find a new general as well.” His breath caught as his sentence finished. Was he mad? Putting his career on the line for that damn necromancer…?! He could see Hairem’s face contort and twist, emotions flickering in a dozen expressions as he deliberated over the general’s words.
Finally the emotions faded and the king’s face grew indecipherable. He paced across the tent several times, eyes occasionally flicking to the flaps of the tent and then back to Jikun. “You drive a difficult bargain, General Taemrin,” he finally breathed. “But I shall grant you your request. Navon shall receive a royal pardon. This will, I hope, make amends between us for past misunderstandings.”
Jikun felt the weight on his chest fall away and he exhaled audibly.
“However, General, I must caution you. Navon’s practices will not be tolerated. He is being pardoned for past crimes, not future ones. If your captain so much as breathes the word necromancy, his previous fate shall meet him. And there shall not be a second royal pardon: war or no war. Now, go, get your captain and end this war.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“This way, General,” the voice ahead of Jikun urged him forward, the echo a soft beckon from around a bend in the narrow stone staircase below.
Jikun turned away from the towering windows of the entrance hall; they were closed to the chill of the autumn’s breeze that stalked about outside, bellowing against the panes—an unnaturally violent wind for a Sevrigelian autumn. He let his brisk steps pull him down into the darkness, away from the daylight and into the damp stench of the prisons. It wafted up to him not unlike the stench of bloated, rotting corpses on a battlefield. Still, it was faint, as though the elves had tried in great desperation to hide the world beneath them.
But the scent was as familiar to Jikun as the flowers coating their city life.
His eyes strained to adjust to the dim, blue light of the prisons, the illumination steadily streaming down from the small orbs floating near the crevices of the vaulted ceilings. Their magic was merely minor spells of light, just enough to give the stairs a safely visible glow.
“This way,” the warden carried on as he stepped down onto the smooth marble tile of the prison hallway that reached out toward them at the staircase’s final step.
Here the light brightened and the hallway widened. Great pillars cascaded from the ceiling, ornately carved and lined in gold, as glorious as anything outside the criminals’ walls. Vast windows of painted glass spotted the ceiling above him, showering the floor in vivid arrays of color. He had seen something of their brilliance
before—in the Temple of Sel’ari. Why the elves would waste such grandeur on this place…
Even in the prisons, the Sel’vi had spared no expense.
Jikun brushed his hand against the side of one such ornate pillar as he passed, surprised by the smooth and dustless surface. “How many prisoners are contained within?” he asked, unable to push aside the awe he felt by the care at which his surroundings were clearly maintained. The hallway stretched away into the distance, seeming just as immaculate as far as Jikun’s vision allowed him to see. In Kaivervale, the barracks also housed the city’s sparse prisoners. The last time an execution had taken place had been long before his birth. Still, for all of Darival’s peace, Elvorium had still touted its unrivaled lack of crime.
“His Majesty’s dungeon can hold fifteen thousand prisoners—comfortably. We are somewhere around three thousand right now, I believe. Fairly high for the city. But things haven’t been the same since the True Bloods left,” the warden spoke longingly, gesturing to the ground at their feet where the marble had given way to tiny colored stones.
Jikun’s eyes quickly swept the ancient mural and his stomach twisted suddenly. A lean and regal figure of a True Blood king stood before the body of a decapitated, kneeling male, a red sword in one hand and the head in another. Unlike the council and king now, the True Bloods had been enforcers of justice—unwavering, merciless justice. Perhaps, before Navon, he would have found the scene admirable.
But it could have just as easily been Navon’s head the True Blood king held.
The warden glanced back before continuing. There must have been something about Jikun’s expression, as the warden’s voice grew into a tone of soft reassurance, “In the time of King Silandrus, this prison was nearly empty. And to have men in the lowest cells awaiting execution was rare indeed.”
Jikun wiped his face of expression, drawing himself up into a stiff, confident exterior, as he did so well. “Nearly empty, you say? Well,” he chuckled, “clearly Hairem is doing a better job than our previous kings.”
The warden turned away, giving no reaction. Jikun’s brow knit, wondering if his silence was a testament of respect to the general’s thoughts or something more personal. They turned to the left, away from the mural, to a staircase leading lower into the dungeons. Here were signs of dirt along the crevices and a mingled stench of urine half-heartedly masked by the aroma of autumn’s last flowers.
“How far down is Navon?” Jikun inquired hesitantly, glancing down into the dim light.
“All the way.”
Jikun swallowed his anxiety and followed the grim male down the winding staircase as it narrowed deep into the earth. Here, the air grew stale and the smell of flowers was all but lost.
“This is the last floor,” the warden informed him as he stepped off the last chipped and beaten stair: it was thousands of years worn and not a day repaired. Here, the vaulted ceiling and great hallways had long been left behind; Jikun was surprised to find that his head nearly scraped along the top of the low stone and the opposing walls were hardly an arm’s width apart. It was not a place comforting to those easily vexed by tight spaces. Even the general found himself stifled, pinched in on either side between the old and dirty stone with the ability to move but one direction. He began to want to reach out and push against the walls—demand his space. No longer were there ornately carved pillars and brightly glowing orbs—rather, torches flickered dimly from the walls, consuming what little oxygen had managed to crawl down below.
It was the underbelly of the dungeon for Sevrigel’s most heinous criminals: rapists, murderers, human prostitutes and their company—and other bestialitists—and of course, those who dabbled in the dark magics.
Necromancy, namely.
Jikun wrinkled his nose, the stench of decay and sewage hanging heavily in the muggy air. It was unlike the elves to govern such environments of low quality, but Jikun assumed that little care was given for the kind that were housed here; what conditions they were forced to endure were likely seen as a form of recompense for their crimes.
Their deaths, after all, were imminent.
Jikun swallowed, the odor in the air tangible as he opened his mouth to speak. “How long has the captain been down here?” he found himself asking as the warden stopped before a cell door, the iron jangling softly as he raised a key. There was a side of him that did not want to know the answer and he hoped that perhaps even the soft jingle had blocked his words out.
“Since he was convicted at his trial,” the warden replied solemnly, glancing once over his shoulder. “That would be over a month ago, I believe. I’m afraid I didn’t follow your captain’s particular situation.”
He turned back and the bolt in the door clicked into the iron. With a grunt against its weight, the warden pushed the door open and stepped aside, remaining still as its unnervingly shrill squeak echoed down the hallway and into the darkness behind him.
He nodded his head forward.
Jikun put a hand to the pounding at his throat, the force of his heart rising up from his chest. He peered into the solemn darkness of the cell and extended an anxious hand. “A torch,” he commanded. But he did not wait for the male beside him to react; rather, he leaned to the right and yanked the nearest torch from the wall, ignoring the twisted webs that clung to his hand, desperately hoping for a fate other than the endless and abysmal haze about them.
Jikun raised the light before him. “I can take it from here…” he trailed off, stepping once into the cell. The warden gave a reply, but it fell on deaf ears. At the back of his mind he could hear the armored footsteps fading down the hall, but Jikun’s eyes were locked onto the male inside the cell.
Two months without the light of Aersadore’s sun. With little food. With little water. If the Sevilan Marshes had been a trial, then this…
“Hello, Navon,” Jikun breathed.
Navon was slouched against the wall directly before the Darivalian, one leg stretched out and the other tucked against his chest. His left arm sat on his knee with his forehead pressed against his hand. His clothes were soiled and torn, still stained with blood from the temple. All across the cell, an auburn slime lay smeared, dried and thick, reeking of sewage and rot. Jikun had smelled such a stench before, but here, it was condensed into a windless, windowless prison.
His stomach lurched and he bit his tongue to control his gut.
Navon remained still, yet the rigidness of his posture betrayed his knowledge of Jikun’s presence.
Jikun stepped forward with a forcefully strong stride. He waved the torch about the cell, eyes glancing from the worn mat along the right wall to a waste pail and hay along the left. He smiled weakly. “You look well,” he jested.
Navon’s head snapped up abruptly, eyes flashing from within hollowed sockets. “Get out,” he breathed venomously, in a tone Jikun had only heard matched in the necromantic tongue.
Jikun’s brows raised faintly, his jaw tensing in preparation. “Navon—” he began hesitantly, his tone becoming softer and solemn. He felt a slight twist in his stomach as the eyes glowered back at him in pure, unshifting pools of hatred.
“Don’t ‘NAVON’ me,” the captain growled. “I have been in this prison for nearly two months. You have not come to see me once, let alone attend my trial. I have had NO ONE, Jikun. No one! I thought I was going to be lucky enough if you bothered to visit my unmarked grave. Beneath the dirt, Jikun! Not the catacombs, but beneath the dirt like the basest of human scum!” Navon lowered his forehead onto his hand, his voice falling. “Gods…” he choked. “No family. Dead friends. And you abandoned me.”
‘You’re all I have, too,’ Jikun wanted to sympathize. But that would be a lie. And he realized for the first time that while all of the dead soldiers in the swamp had been his beloved soldiers and numbers in his army, to Navon, many of them had been genuine companions—friends. While he had lain sick, they had died. Jikun had thought nothing of that; Navon had always kept to his heels, duty bound. But, perha
ps better than him, Navon had masked his pain and carried on.
Jikun lowered the torch slightly, letting the silence stand between them for several minutes as his eyes faltered across the frail form before him. His stomach felt tight and the weight on his chest was no less than the force by which the beast struck. He could see Navon’s shoulders trembling, his rigid posture wavering in his anguish.
“What a shithole you’re in,” Jikun finally spoke sympathetically, his voice soft. It was difficult to keep his eyes on his captain, but he forced his gaze to remain. He had seen Navon in trials before: he could still vividly recall the sight of the Helven lying inside his tent, pale and clammy, lapping up the remnants of dead soldiers… but this… was different.
This time, Navon had truly been alone.
He pushed the gnawing in his chest down. “…How are your injuries…?”
Navon let his forehead fall to his knee as he raised his left arm from beneath it. “Healed,” came his monotonous reply.
Jikun took several more steps into the cell, fighting the gag that threatened to double him over. Just in mere feet, the air had grown thicker, as trapped and helpless within the small cell as the prisoner. A sour mist grazed Jikun’s tongue as he opened his mouth. “I am sorry that you were imprisoned. I told you that dabbling in necromancy—”
“Really? ‘I told you so’ is what you came here to say?” Navon snarled, finding strength once more to lash out. He shifted forward, his voice rising to a near-mad cackle, “‘I told you so, Navon. I told you not to dabble in necromancy. Look where it’s gotten you now. Executioner’s Row.’” And just as swiftly as it had risen, his voice dropped, growing solemn and venomous. “Well congratulations, Jikun. You were right. As if I don’t damn well know that already.”
Jikun cleared his throat, crouching down before the Helven. “Navon, I didn’t come here to—”
The movement of his weakened captain surprised him. Without warning, Navon had swung his body forward away from the wall, as though propelled forward by all the rage he had masked, and slammed his fist solidly across Jikun’s jaw, snapping his head to the left.
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