The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2)

by Sethlen, Aron

  Pard squints in confusion as he tries to follow Miles’s logic. He gives up and steps through the doorway.

  “Hey, so how about the Greysin Library?” Miles says, poking his head and half of his body into Pard’s room.

  Pard twists his lips, and no is about to explode out of his mouth. Then he remembers who he saw the last time he was at the library in Greysin, sweet Selby Barrow. His jaw relaxes and shoulders slump as he gazes across his room and out his small window.

  “So what do you say?” Miles says.

  Pard turns around and faces Miles, his hand still gripping the door tight. “When and where?”

  Miles’s mouth curls into a satisfied grin, the kind only an unexpected victory can produce. “Tonight, after my harpastum match, at eight, meet me by the old man in the courtyard, wear black, be quiet, and make sure no one sees you. Hey, I never see you playing harpastum, tonight’s game is an open match, you want to come?”

  Pard, not much for athletic pursuits, especially ones that require a high level of hand eye coordination catching a small ball while also avoiding getting pummeled to the ground repeatedly, cringes. “I think just tutoring tonight. The rest of the boys seem frightened that I will zap them.”

  Miles jabs his finger into Pard’s chest. “Ha, that’s why you would make a brilliant teammate, we’ll just give you the ball and you can run straight toward the goalie and the opponent will move out of your way because they’ll be afraid you’ll zap them, we might even break a record for most points scored with you as our striker.”

  Pard sneers, not liking the idea and looking down at Miles’s finger touching his chest.

  Miles shrugs, reading Pard’s face, and he retracts his poking. “Yeah, you’re probably right, baby steps.” He grins. “Anyway, so tonight at eight.”

  Pard raises his eyebrows in acknowledgment, not enthused, and he presses his palm on Miles’s forehead then shoves Miles back into the hallway as Pard shuts the door.

  Miles gently taps the center of the door twice. “See you later, professor.”

  EXTRACURRICULAR EXCURSION

  Pard spends the rest of the day in his room waiting for his extracurricular excursion with Miles to arrive. He studies his mother’s book, The Third Order Of The Rue, Magical Creatures, searching for any sign of a seeros.

  How the heck does Miles Marlow, lowest lord of the North, know something he doesn’t? “I’m not sure he’s even read an entire book.” Pard shakes his head in frustration as he continues to leaf through the leather pages: Amarants, Klipinspears, Leshy, Libberlecks, Routs, Tikbas, something I can’t pronounce, Quibs, something else I can’t pronounce, Teetyworms. He shuts the book and leans back in his chair. He rubs his sore eyes. “No seeros anywhere.” Pard glances at the clock, seven-fifty.

  Pard groans and presses out of his chair. “Time to tutor the lord.” He strolls across the room, slips on a thick black sweater, sweeps his cloak over his shoulders, tugs down the hood, and he snatches up his advanced mathematics book and the Third Order Of The Rue. Pard turns off his gas lantern and darts into the hallway. Remembering Miles’s words, Pard goes into stealth mode like any normal person would do inside a well-lit castle. Pard hunches over and hugs the wall, tilting his head down, and making himself look as suspicious as possible.

  “Is that you, young sir?” Jasper the butler says, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits.

  Startled, Pard veers into the wall and awkwardly bounces off it as the lip of his cloak hood covers his eyes, obscuring his vision. Pard coughs twice as he gathers his words, and in a shady manner, still hunched over, he slightly tilts his head up toward Jasper, only one eye peering out from under his hood while the other one is still masked by the wool.

  Jasper’s eyes narrow. “Young sir, is everything all right?”

  Pard, his cover broken, brushes aside his hood and stands up straight. “Good evening, Jasper. How is your night going?”

  Jasper nods. “Well enough I dare say. And where are you going this chilly evening?”

  “Umm—”

  Jasper’s eyebrows rise looking at Pard’s books.

  Pard glances down the hallway and sees a servant enter the male restroom. “Bathroom,” and he raises the books in his hands, “lots of reading to catch up on before terms.”

  Confused, Jasper twists his lips as he scans Pard’s cloak, which appear as if Pard is dressed to take a walk in the cold.

  Pard can feel Jasper’s thoughts, and he cuts the old servant off before anymore suspicion can arise in his head. Pard jerks his head away and coughs viciously, then lets out a sneeze that entirely doesn’t sound like a sneeze, but it’s the best he can pull off in a healthy state. Pard coughs again and wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Sorry, Jasper, best stay well clear of me, I’m coming down with something nasty that sends a wicked chill through your body.”

  “Oh no, I’m sorry—”

  Pard gives a violent body convulsion. “Bathroom, excuse me, gotta go, can’t keep off the pot, already had an accident earlier.”

  “Oh my, go, dear boy, go, and I hope you feel better.”

  Pard waddle-skips away from the old butler. “Me too, Jasper, good night to you.”

  “You too, young sir, I hope you feel better.” And Jasper slowly shakes his head in pity as he walks away.

  Pard crashes into the bathroom door and peeks back down the hall. Jasper, well away now, and besides the old man is as blind as a bat anyway, Pard bounces off the bathroom door and sprints to the main marble staircase leading to the lower levels. And now that he has successfully formulated his cover story on why he’s out and about in the castle so late, Pard feels less fear, and will just say he needs tea from the kitchen for his sore throat or the bathroom was occupied on his floor and had to go to a different floor to use the toilet.

  Pard sprints through the west wing and exits the double oak doors into the courtyard. A harsh wind and swirl of snow hits him, and he tilts his body sideways, making himself small. He leans forward and barrels through the winter wind.

  “I was thinking you wussed out on me,” Miles says, slipping out from a shadow casting off the castle wall.

  Pard looks up and eyes a tall statue of the stoic old man lecturing the courtyard which the stone is so weathered that many of his features no longer appear how the sculptor intended. Greenish and blacks splotches pepper the grey rock, and his clothes appear to be half-cloth and half-skin.

  Miles slaps the old man on his butt. “You ready to go, professor?”

  “Did you just slap Lord Fergus Fairstone on his butt, the founder of the finest school in all of Vetlinue?”

  “I sure did.” Miles slaps Fergus Fairstone on his butt again though this time so loud that it sends an echo off the castle walls. “You should try it sometime, it’s a great way to relieve the built up tension of this finest school in Vetlinue. You’d be surprised how firm his buttocks are for a thousand-year-old man, truly inspirational for today’s youth.”

  Pard shakes his head in disgust and walks past Miles and the statue. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  Miles opens his arms. “What’s wrong? You don’t need a little inspiration from old Fergie here?”

  Pard rolls his eyes and keeps on walking, focusing on the seldom used side iron gate leading through the fence that surrounds Fairstone’s property. He clinches his teeth as the bitter wind cuts through his cloak and sweater and sting his skin and bones. The inside of his nose freezes and his nasal passage constricts. He unlatches the iron gate and swings it open.

  Miles catches up and bumps past Pard and takes the lead. He playfully jumps in front of Pard and is seemingly unaffected by the cold. He continues to walk backward as Pard shields his face from the elements.

  Pard shakes his head at Miles prancing about. He seems to think my room is too chilly to study but out here in the real cold he acts as if it’s a warm spring—unbelievable this lord of the North.

  “So, what was it?” Miles says with a nod.

 
Pard, already annoyed, snaps back at him. “What was what?”

  “Why’d you finally relent and say you’d tutor me? I actually thought you were really going to deny me, which is a new feeling for me, I wasn’t sure how to react.”

  Pard snorts. “I imagine.”

  “So what was it? My charming personality? You get to hang out with the coolest kid in the school? Ha, or all of Bastin for that matter. Or was it my sexy smile?”

  Pard’s face contorts as if to throw up.

  Miles smiles. “It’s my smile, right? That usually does the trick.”

  “Please—come on.” Pard gestures toward the glowing town of Greysin in the valley ahead. He turns left onto a cobblestone road leading down a hill and away from Fairstone.

  Miles tilts his head to the side. “So my personality, then? Huh, well that’s a first.”

  Pard jerks to a stop, and for a split second the thought of turning back enters his mind. “Don’t you ever shut up?”

  Miles rolls his eyes. “Dang, professor, aren’t you a stiff one. And I thought you were all right, different than all these other nobs here at Unfairstone School for Boys, producing the greatest pompous’ of our age.”

  “Why the heck do you keep calling me professor? It’s annoying you know.”

  “Because your parents were professors, and you’re like the smartest kid in our whole grade, and maybe even the entire school, and you’re going to be a professor someday, right?”

  “How do you know I want to be a professor?”

  Miles scoffs and lets out a high-pitched chuckle. He looks at Pard as if it should be obvious. “Because what else would you be? Duh.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So you don’t want to be a professor?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  Miles’s eyes narrow in confusion. “It’s not?”

  Pard changes the subject. “You called me a seeros.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “What is it? I couldn’t find any information on any seeros in any of my books.”

  “I only know a little. A seeros works for my father. Strange guy him—doesn’t talk much—keeps to himself, kinda cool in a weirdo way.” Miles shivers. “Though scary as hell sometimes. He’s one of the few guys my father really trusts. But whenever I tried to talk to him he ignored me.” Miles laughs. “Sort of like you. Maybe that’s a seeros thing.”

  Pard shakes his head.

  “Anyway, I saw him fighting hand to hand combat one day, him against eight other guys, and he kicked their asses. He had his shirt off and that same mark you have on your back is also on his back. And another time I saw him connect to a dog with a grey electrical light, and he zapped an assassin trying to kill my father. It was cool in a freaky way. I imagine it was the same thing you did to Yitch’s cat.”

  In an awkward silence, Pard and Miles continue to slide down the icy hill as the lights of Greysin grow brighter as they approach town.

  “Okay, so that’s all you know of the seeros?” Pard says. “He connected to a dog, zapped an assassin, and kicked some guys’ asses.”

  Miles shrugs. “Sort of. After I saw Samon zap the guy, I asked my father what kind of person he was—being able to do that and all. And he said he was marked by the light and that he’s a seeros and not to ask any more question or speak of it to anyone. And so that’s it, that’s all I know.”

  “That doesn’t tell me much. But I guess that’s more than I knew yesterday.”

  Miles laughs. “So what does it feel like when you shoot your light and zap the crap out of something?”

  Pard squints, still unsure if the light was really him or not. He still blocks out what he did in the west wing as an anomaly and not part of him. “I don’t know what it feels like.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? How can’t you know? You zapped the cat in Nox’s arms, right?”

  “Yes,” Pard says without thinking, and then he flinches and clams up, realizing he just admitted to killing Nero and shooting electricity out of his fingers and chest.

  “Dang, professor, that’s so cool. That you can do that thing with the light, but not killing Nero the cat of course.” Miles shrugs. “Honestly, I liked that cat, surprising really, considering it was Yitch’s—guess pets can’t choose their owners, eh?”

  Pard stands up straight and defensive. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt the cat. I don’t even know how or why it happened. It was only the second time I saw the light, and I was so out of it I don’t even remember how it felt. All I know is I was mad, and it happened, and once I realized what was going on, I was scared and that was it, no more light, and Nero dead.”

  “Hey, professor, it’s all good, no need to get all riled up. I’m sure you didn’t mean to fry kitty. But it’s nothing to be scared or ashamed of—embrace the badass within you and let it all out.”

  Pard cringes. “Embrace the badass, seriously? What does that even mean?”

  “It means you got some seriously scary, powerful shit going on inside of you right now and you should accept it as a gift and use it.” Miles’s right eyebrow slowly rises. “For good that is, and once you can control it, and definitely don’t use the light on me, like ever.”

  “All right, so let’s say I have this gift. It sure didn’t seem like I could control it the other night. How are you so sure I won’t accidentally zap you if you piss me off?”

  In deep thought, Miles tilts his head to the side for a second then inches away from Pard. “Right, so we can figure that out later after advanced mathematics.”

  HINER’S FORMULAIC PHYLUM

  After ten more minutes of battling the wind, Pard opens the gilded doors leading into the warm, well-lit sanctuary of the Greysin Library.

  Like everything else in Greysin, the library is opulent, fit for only the most wealthy and privileged that may want a book or quiet place to read or gather. Greysin, a sleepy town within a days travel of the capital city of Wellingtin in the province by the same name, is also home to the second residences of many of Bastin’s elite who spend their summers lounging and partying and scheming by the lake. Pard, clearly not of the upper echelon of Bastin society, at least in wealth or pedigree, is usually taken for a worker, and he goes unnoticed as he mingles among his betters, taking pleasure in overhearing their dirty little secrets and political maneuvering and schemes. Of course, that is, until they want something from him, like a glass of wine, or water, or a towel, or directions to their rooms, then it quickly gets awkward. But most of the time it’s as if he doesn’t exist, which is fine by him. Now during the off season, winter, the town is empty except for the locals. And the library is a place Pard uses as a sanctuary away from Fairstone and Yitch and his other nemesis’ whenever he can escape the school grounds. Though with all the detentions he’s been getting lately, it’s been two weeks since he’s been in town.

  “So where do you want to sit?” Miles says.

  Pard nods toward the far end of the library near the history section, his favorite section, and where he last saw Selby Barrow. The library is mostly empty at this hour as Pard slowly makes his way through the corridors of books and cushy chairs and mahogany desks and tables. He glances up through a circular stained glass skylight as he passes underneath. The bright moon hovers above as clouds roll through the illumination. Pard lowers his gaze, back on track with his purpose, he scans the library like a sly sleuth, searching for his mark while undercover. A glance here, a glance there, taking it all in, not letting on he’s giving any person a passing thought. Pard eyes his normal study table ahead, and his heart sinks, no Selby, shoot.

  Miles slaps Pard hard on the back. “So glad you agreed to help me, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get this stupid Jibles’s law, not to mention Hiner’s Formulaic Phylum of madness.”

  “Right,” Pard says, deflated, uninspired now that Selby Barrow is nowhere in sight. He plops down in his chair and slumps onto the table.

  Miles sits across from Pard and unslings h
is backpack. “So which madness do you want to start with?”

  Pard ignores Miles and stares across the room at the chair he last saw Selby sitting in.

  Miles drops his thick advanced mathematics book on the center of the table.

  Bang—

  Pard flinches.

  “So which madness is your poison, professor?”

  “Hiner’s Phylum,” Pard says with a crack in his voice.

  “Should I start with number one?”

  “Yes.” Pard leans forward and rests his folded arms on the table and sets his chin on his wrists. “Scribe number one and do the first problem you don’t know how to complete and then I’ll check it to see where you’re going astray.”

  Miles winks at Pard and points his pencil at him. “Smart thinking, professor, I knew you were the right light-wielding badass for the job.”

  “Right.” Pard buries his forehead in the crook of his arm and closes his eyes.

  “Can I get you anything, dear?” an old woman’s crackling voice says.

  “Oh, no, thanks, Ms. Cookle,” a kind girl’s voice says.

  Pard’s eyes open wide and his head rises. The hunched over ancient librarian Ms. Cookle, wearing a morbid black dress, is hobbling away from a small round table while pushing a book cart. And there she is, sweet Selby Barrow.

  “Done,” Miles says, and he slides his answer over to Pard.

  Pard, drunken grin on his face, ignores Miles as he ogles Selby and her wavy brunette hair tucked behind her ear.

  “Hello,” Miles says, waving his hand at Pard. “Hey, professor, I’m done, you can check my answers now.”

  “What?” Pard says, snapping out of his trance and looking at Miles.

  “Are you smiling at me?” Miles says.

  “What? Heck no, I don’t smile.”

  “You are, you’re totally smiling at me.”

  Pard’s face straitens. “No I’m not.”