The Return of Absent Souls (After The Rift Book 6)

by C. J. Archer

  “It was the only way,” Balthazar said, his voice clear.

  We all turned to him. “You knew,” Theodore said, accusing. “Why didn’t you say?”

  “He asked me not to.”

  Yelena stiffened. “You should have informed me.”

  “No, I should not. It was Dane’s request that no one be told until his absence was discovered. He didn’t want anyone trying to stop him before he had time to speak to the ministers.”

  Yelena snapped her skirts out of the way then put a hand to the ladder. “You just signed his death warrant.”

  “Max, stop her,” Balthazar said. “I’m going back to the room and taking the light with me. I suggest you bring anyone with you who is likely to go after Dane. Until we have word that he is successful or not, we must remain here. There’s a chance he’ll need to escape to somewhere safe, and this is the safest place in the city.”

  “You fool!” Yelena cried.

  Balthazar walked away, passing Martha as she silently cried at the back of the gathering. I put my arm around her shoulders, but it was difficult to comfort her when I needed comforting too. I was so very tempted to go after Dane, just as his mother tried to, but I knew it would achieve nothing.

  Max marched Yelena back along the corridor, his hand on her arm. “Sorry, ma’am, but Bal’s right. Dane knows what he’s doing.”

  I wish I could be as confident. Dane might know what he was doing most of the time, but he was not in the Glancian palace and the ministers were not selfish and malleable like Leon. And he was not simply the captain of the guards here.

  We returned to the main chamber and waited. If time had dragged before, it crawled now. Max stood guard at the door, not allowing anyone out. Yelena brooded in the corner while Martha’s misery infected everyone. I lost all hope that Dane would succeed in his mad plan as time stretched on and on.

  Sounds might easily travel in the tunnels, but footfalls were deadened by the earthen floor. So Dane’s sudden appearance behind Max took us all by surprise. Max was the first to embrace him and tell him he was a fool for leaving, but we all got our turn.

  “Thank the god and goddess,” I murmured in his ear as I hugged him with all the ferocity of someone who thought she’d never see him again. “You scared me.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” He apologized to his mother and Martha next, then to everyone. “But I had to keep it a secret. I knew you’d all try to stop me. Everyone except Bal. He understood what I had to do.”

  “I understood it,” Balthazar said. “But I didn’t like it. I’m relieved you’re back. Does this mean it was a success?”

  Dane grinned. “We can leave Freedland without fear of anyone trying to stop us.”

  “Is this true?” Erik asked.

  “How?” said Theodore.

  “You lied, didn’t you?”

  “They believed you when you said you’re not Dane March?” Quentin asked, wide-eyed.

  Dane put up his hands for calm. “I didn’t lie. I told them I am indeed Dane March, heir of Averlea.”

  Quentin’s eyes grew even bigger. “And they’re just letting you go?”

  Yelena’s sudden intake of breath had us all turning to her. “What did you do?” she whispered, lips trembling. “Dane, what did you do?”

  Dane pulled out a folded document from inside his doublet. “I signed this. They have copies. One will be kept in the high minister’s archives, another sent to the high temple, here in Noxford, for their archives, and another to the supreme temple in Fahl.”

  “No.” Yelena’s voice sounded strangled. She clutched her throat. “No!”

  Dane unfolded the document and signaled for Theodore to bring the candle close. “I have given up all rights to the Averlea throne in exchange for a pardon for myself and all my friends.”

  “We’re free?” Max asked. “We can show our faces in Freedland now?”

  “Freedland, Vytill, Glancia, Dreen.” Dane nodded at Theodore, who looked as though he was about to cry. “Everyone’s sentences have been considered completed.”

  Balthazar put on his spectacles and peered at the document. “You do mean everyone,” he muttered in wonder. “This says they admitted they didn’t capture every escaped prisoner, and that those who did manage to get away have had their sentences commuted to the time already served. Every prisoner is now free.”

  “Except for those in the palace cells,” Dane pointed out. “Those men are evil. We don’t want them released.”

  Quentin threw himself at Dane. Dane hugged him, laughing. Max turned to Meg, his eyes bright with tears. She put her arms around him and smiled at me over his shoulder.

  Erik let out a whoop of delight and picked Kitty up to spin her around until I snapped at him to put her down again. “Do you want to pull out your stitches?”

  “We are free!” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “Free to go home.”

  I smiled even though tears began to fall. “Yes. Free to go home with no one chasing Dane.” He would not have to flee in the night. He wouldn’t have to hide for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t have to marry someone he didn’t want to. I hadn’t realized how heavy the weight on my shoulders had been until it had lifted upon his announcement.

  “It says here you gave up the right on behalf of any future children you may have,” Yelena said, studying the document by the candlelight.

  “On behalf of my heirs until the end of time, I believe it says.” Dane took the document from her and folded it up. “The high minister wanted to be very thorough. This document also states that I must leave Noxford tonight, and never let it be known that I am the grandson of King Diamedes. He doesn’t want people rallying in my name. Since only a few people knew he had a grandson, that won’t be difficult.”

  “He thought of everything,” Balthazar said with a nod of approval.

  “I found him to be clever,” Dane said. “One of his advisors, however, was even more astute. I think the government will do well if it learns from some of their mistakes.”

  Yelena let out a high-pitched wail and flung herself at him. She pounded her fists into his chest and shoulders. “How could you? After everything I’ve done for you!”

  Dane caught her wrists and held her at arm’s length. She struggled and bared her teeth but quietened when she realized her anger was futile. Dane loosened his grip but didn’t let go.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “But this is my life, and I am the only one who decides what I do with it.”

  Her face twisted with rage, and I thought she might spit at him or try to strike him, but she simply turned her face away, as if she could no longer bear to look at him.

  “Yelena, I know this isn’t what you wanted, and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me, one day. But from the moment I learned I was heir to the throne, I’ve been trying to think of a way to be free of the obligation you forced on me.”

  She turned back to face him. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes brimmed with tears. It was the first time I’d seen her cry. “I didn’t force it on you. You wanted it. You will again when you get your memory back.”

  He shook his head. “I will never regret signing that document. You can be assured of that.”

  Her face momentarily crumpled before she regained her composure. She tossed her head and peered up at him. “You used to take advice from me. Right up until the day you were arrested, you shared my hopes and dreams. You wanted what I wanted, Dane.”

  "Did I? Or did I not want to disappoint you?"

  She didn’t appear to hear him. She gazed into his eyes, as if looking into the past and seeing the man he used to be, not the one he had become. "Everything I did, I did for you."

  “No. You did it for you.”

  My arm was still around Martha, and I felt her body shake. She was no longer crying but staring at her mistress and the man she’d raised with wonder. I wasn’t sure if she was terrified by Dane’s declaration or pleased.

  Yelena pulled free of D
ane’s grip. The fire had returned to her eyes, the tears all gone. “You should not have signed that document without knowing your past. You would think differently if you had your memories.”

  Dane shook his head. “You said yourself that I understand myself without them. You told me I don’t need a memory to know my true nature and to search my heart to find it. So I did. And this is what my heart wants. To live a peaceful life with Josie, with no crown weighing me down. The Freedland people don’t want a king, and the country is better off the way it is.”

  “Shedding our people’s blood to regain the throne didn’t sit well with me either. I will concede that point.” She sounded oddly pleased that they had found something to agree on. “But taking back the throne was the right thing to do. The people would want you, once they got to know how just and good you are, how honorable and strong. You are what they need—”

  “Enough! It’s over.”

  Yelena’s nostrils flared, and her lips twisted. Was she smiling? It looked so odd, so out of place considering the situation. She was up to something, I was sure of it.

  Martha rushed towards her. “Mistress, are we still going with the master to Glancia?”

  “Of course. He’s my son. Where he goes, I go.”

  “Then please come and show me how you would like me to pack. Please, mistress.” Martha bobbed a curtsy and indicated the door. Their things had been stored in the other chamber. “Please, mistress, come with me.”

  “In a moment. There’s something I have to tell him.”

  “Don’t do this, mistress. Not now. He’s not ready. Please, I’m begging you to wait.”

  We all turned frowns towards the maid.

  “Martha?” Dane asked carefully. “What’s wrong?”

  Distress was etched into every line on her face. She was torn between obeying her mistress and answering her master.

  “She’s referring to me telling you about your father,” Yelena said.

  Dane tilted his head to the side. “You told me he was a Glancian merchant.”

  “I never said merchant. I said he had trading interests all over The Fist. But he wasn’t a merchant. Nor was his name March.”

  “My name is not Dane March?”

  “That was the name he used when he came to Averlea, in secret, to visit me. I wrote to him and requested he come, as it was too difficult for me to go to him in Glancia.”

  “You were friends?”

  “We’d never met before I wrote to him.”

  “I don’t understand. You invited a man you’d never met to your home? Why?”

  “To marry me and beget an heir.”

  “He simply agreed, without question?”

  “I had to prove I was the princess, of course. That was easy enough to do with the Rotherhydes and other families vouching for me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dane said again, his voice thin. “What are you saying?”

  Balthazar’s hand found mine, and I suddenly understood. We all understood. All except Dane. He simply stood there, his face blank except for the dark swirl in his eyes as he stared at his mother.

  Yelena clutched his elbows and gazed up at him, her eyes clear and bright. “My son, you are not only the heir to Averlea. You are the rightful king of Glancia. Your father was Prince Hugo, King Alain’s son. Your name is not Dane March, it’s Dane Lockhart.”

  Chapter 5

  “Say something,” Yelena prompted when Dane continued to stare at her, his mouth agape.

  He shook his head, over and over. “I can’t comprehend it.”

  She touched his cheek. “It’s overwhelming, I understand. Ask me anything. I will answer your questions freely.”

  Balthazar shuffled forward. “You should have answered them from the beginning.”

  “I never lied to him,” Yelena said.

  “You withheld the truth.”

  She turned back to Dane, presenting her shoulder to Balthazar. “I continued to use the name March to keep your true identity a secret. It was too much of a risk to use Lockhart, even here. It’s known all over The Fist to be the family name of the kings of Glancia.”

  Dane glanced at me, but I could give him no advice. My mind was still reeling. “You chose to marry Prince Hugo because you wanted your child to be the heir of both kingdoms,” he said to his mother. “Why? Insurance, for situations like this, when one didn’t work out?” His biting tone did not deter her. She continued to smile in that hopeful way.

  “It was the sensible thing to do,” she said.

  “Sensible,” Dane scoffed.

  “It’s what royal families do. They form alliances with other kingdoms through marriage and trade. I didn’t invent the practice, Dane.”

  “You should have told me the night we met.”

  Martha made a small sobbing sound and clutched at her throat.

  “Go and pack,” Yelena ordered her maid.

  Martha hurried out, and Meg followed, indicating the others should leave us alone. I remained behind, as did Balthazar. The lines scoring his brow had only grown deeper.

  Yelena clutched Dane’s hands. “I know this is a shock, but you will grow used to it. You have the journey home to the palace to think.”

  Dane removed his hands from hers and dragged them through his hair and down his face. When he removed them, his gaze flicked to me. I didn’t see a man who was thrilled with the idea of becoming king. I saw a man who looked trapped.

  Being king of a monarchy like Glancia wasn’t the same as taking back the throne in a bloody coup in Freedland. The Glancian people would welcome him if it meant the dukes would stop fighting and King Phillip of Vytill was kept at bay. Indeed, Dane’s inheritance meant a bloodless succession.

  I should be pleased for my country and its people. I should feel glad that a war could be averted. I shouldn’t feel as though this was the worst possible outcome.

  “You inherited the title upon King Alain’s death,” Yelena went on. “Since I thought you dead too, I did not care that the pretender Leon assumed the throne. But now that he is dead, and you are alive, your path is clear and unencumbered.”

  “It’s not as simple as arriving at the palace and announcing he is the rightful king,” Balthazar said. “Evidence will be required.”

  “Dane,” she said gently, “I chose Hugo because he would have made a good king, if he’d lived. He was keen to have a son to rule both kingdoms too—”

  “So he was ruthless,” Dane said.

  “Ambitious.”

  “You never told King Alain about the union?” Balthazar asked. “It’s my understanding that upon his death, the only paperwork regarding an heir was that conjured up by the magician for Leon. We know that document to be false. Why was King Alain not informed by Prince Hugo himself before his death?”

  Yelena’s lips tightened. “The king would not have liked tying his son and heir to the defunct Freedland royal family. He wouldn’t have understood the need for his grandchild to fight for a foreign throne.”

  “Because he knew it meant plunging the republic back into turmoil and he didn’t want the expense or loss of Glancian life fighting for a lost foreign cause. Yes?”

  Yelena’s jaw hardened. “He would have taken Dane from me and insisted he reside in Glancia and forget the Averlea throne.”

  “And the Averlea throne was always your primary objective,” Balthazar went on. “So you decided to wait for his death and present Dane to the people of Glancia.”

  “If I had known the sorcerer would change everything, I would have played it differently.”

  “Played,” Dane growled. “This is not a game.” He went to walk away.

  “You cannot dismiss this as you did your claim to the Averlea crown,” his mother called after him.

  He stopped and rounded on her. “I can if there’s no evidence. The dukes and lords won’t simply accept your word. Didn’t you say you sent the marriage and my birth documents to the master of Merdu’s Guards in Tilting?”

  �
�I did.”

  “Then there is a problem, because if those documents still existed, Balthazar would have found them. He searched high and low for a reason to explain why he left the city in secret to come here, and he found nothing. I think a child born to a princess who is supposed to be dead would have been something he noticed.”

  My breath caught in my throat, just as Dane seemed to realize the implications of what he’d said too. Neither Balthazar nor Yelena looked surprised. She had already known and he had come to the conclusion before us.

  “He brought the documents to Freedland,” I said, thinking out loud. “Over a year ago, he had with him the evidence of Dane’s birthright, which he showed to Dane when they met. The papers were probably confiscated when Balthazar was arrested soon afterwards.”

  “Arrested because he possessed knowledge that could endanger the republic,” Dane added.

  Yelena closed her eyes. Her nod was slight, as if it gave her pain. “Dane informed me after the priest’s visit that he had the documents on him as proof.” She opened her eyes and glared at Balthazar. Her jaw clenched so hard it didn’t move as she spoke. “His visit not only triggered your arrest, Dane, but it also lost us those priceless documents. Stupid, stupid man. I should scratch his eyes out for what he has done.”

  Dane shifted towards her, as if worried she might actually attack.

  Balthazar, however, merely lifted his chin. “I still fail to see how my visit triggered his arrest. Nobody knew I was here, let alone why. I told no one.”

  “You priests are all the same,” Yelena spat. “You think you are above the law, above the king. You think you are owed explanations in matters of state that don’t concern you, and you think you are the arbiters of justice. You are not.”

  I hooked my arm through Balthazar’s, but he didn’t need my support. He was frail in body, not in mind or spirit. He wasn’t the sort to let the venom of a former princess trouble him.

  He merely shook his head and walked out of the room.

  Dane went to follow him, but Yelena caught his hand. “I was going to tell you the night you returned, but you were arrested before I could. And these last few days have been unsettling, to say the least. The timing wasn’t right. I thought you should stay here and fight for this throne before leaving for Glancia and claiming your birthright there. But since you gave up on Averlea and decided to return anyway…”