by Daul, Amanda
“After everything I told you last night, all the horrible things I had done, you honestly don't think any different of me?” It had bothered her all night and even now she didn't quite believe it.
Cayl paused, holding her gaze for a moment longer before leaning toward her again and saying, firmly, “Of course I think different of you, Arissa. You opened up to me last night and shared your deepest and darkest horrors. In the ten years we've been together, I have never once seen you cry and last night you couldn't stop crying. That tells me that not only have you given up and moved past the person you used to be, but you've grown into someone who isn't afraid to share your most sensitive feelings anymore. Knowing what you've been through and who you've had to be to better your life for yourself and those around you shows as much courage and bravery that any person has the right to. I told you before, Arissa, I didn't think I could love you any more than I already did, but now...I know that I do.”
His strong words were both encouraging and heartbreaking to hear. Knowing he was there for her through everything was the most comforting thing she could have heard, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel disappointed and ashamed of herself all over again. Cayl thought she had changed from the person she had been before they met, the heartless, vindictive criminal. At times over the years she had led herself to believe that too, just to sooth her own subconscious, but now she knew she couldn't lie to herself anymore. She was no different now than before. She was still the same person who had once been the most wanted criminal in the territory, still someone who killed for a living and sought out the redemption and revenge of those who had wronged her. The fact that she wanted the General's death to be as painful as possible and she wanted to be the one who would end his life, proved that. How could she have moved on and left that life behind when all she wanted was to kill again?
Arissa couldn't tell if Cayl was reading her morbid thoughts, but after spilling everything to him that she had to tell, she wasn't comfortable with sharing this as well. He would probably try to talk her out of it, saying it would only ignite the person she was trying to outgrow, but she didn't want that. She didn't want to be a better person if it meant letting the General and everybody else who had ruined her life live. She wanted them to suffer the way she had suffered. She would be the one to end their lives and it was going to be soon.
Instead, Arissa fixed a grin in place and glanced into Cayl's expression for a moment. She loved him and he now knew everything there was to know about her and her sketchy past and horrifying job, but this was one thing that he didn't have to know. This one she could keep secret.
“Thanks for understanding.”
Chapter Nineteen
With no way of measuring time, the hours dragged on longer than Arissa had imagined. They talked briefly about different things, discussing their ideas of what exactly had happened to the Captain. Neither could come up with a reasonable explanation because they had absolutely no evidence or suspects at all. That would have to be something they put together later. Arissa participated in the conversation, but she felt distracted.
Luckily, Cayl didn't mention anything thing about it and, before he had the chance to, a sudden flood of light filled their room. Landon had removed the hidden cover to the trapdoor and was now descending the stairs. Given that he didn't bother to reseal the opening, Arissa took that as a good sign.
His face was strained and lines of worry were etched into his forehead as well, but at least his eyes appeared hopeful.
“You're safe for now. If you plan on moving on to Daer, now may be your only chance,” he informed them. “The soldiers were here, they did a sweep through the entire town. They focused mainly on the house and my shop, since everybody knows your connection to me, Arissa. I don't think any of them believed me when I said I had no idea where you were, but they couldn't question it when you were nowhere to be found. They moved on, farther south, but still...be careful.”
Not bothering to wait for a reply, he turned to leave again, adding a final comment, “Take whatever you want from the storage of clothing down here. I put together some things for you, as well.”
With that he was gone and with the trap door left open, it took Arissa a moment to adjust her eyes to the lighting. She glanced up warily to meet Cayl's expression, which was poised, but serious.
“I guess it's time,” she muttered softly.
Cayl nodded in agreement. He moved back to the chest that had held the piles of clothes, picking a shirt that fit him comfortably and another thicker shirt to wear over it. They both had their heavy cloaks, so they didn't bother borrowing a jacket. Arissa simply picked up her brown shirt she had discarded the night before. It was warm and comfortable.
It only took them a moment to gather what they needed and ascend the stairs. Arissa instantly went back into her mood or paranoia, cautiously glancing in every direction, as if a rifle-wielding soldier may jump out and attack at any moment.
She reached back to grip Cayl's forearm, carefully helping him make the final steps. Bending was still difficult for him, but he made it up without much struggle.
Landon and Yasmine stood next to the table on which she had mended Cayl's wound. He held a small, black bag in one hand by the single strap that was attached to it. Both of their faces were stern, visibly worried.
It took her a moment to notice, when Arissa finally turned to fully face them, but when she saw the bundle that Yasmine was holding, her heart leaped for a second. As her eyes watched the tiny, stirring bundle, her heart wrenched and her expression immediately fell.
She knew that Landon and Yasmine had recently become parents, but with everything that had happened since then, there had been no chance for Arissa to meet her yet.
Feeling emotion threatening to well into her eyes and throat again, Arissa swallowed a few times and blinked hard. She couldn’t take her eyes from the tiny baby in her mother’s arms.
Ignoring Cayl’s announcing their departure, Arissa quickly set down her cloak that she had been in the process of strapping around her shoulders. She took a step toward Yasmine, meeting her round, brown eyes finally. Arissa felt almost sheepish as she asked, “Could I hold her a moment?”
“Of course,” Yasmine’s soothing, delicate voice replied. Her eyes were exactly the same as the baby’s, Arissa realized as she watched the young woman’s soft features slowly warm into a happy glow as she looked down at her child.
When Yasmine reached her tiny daughter out to Arissa, she could nearly feel her heart skip. The warmth of the delicate body was so unique and there was something about the way her huge brown eyes looked up at Arissa that made her want to sit down and cry. If she was alone, she probably would have. The beautiful baby girl's honest expression made her heart mourn with sadness for what had become of their once beautiful land. Somehow, it made Arissa long for her Daer home even more.
Doing her best to stifle the emotion in her voice, Arissa asked, without looking up from the baby's gorgeous doe eyes, “What's her name?”
“Ariella,” Yasmine announced proudly.
From the corner of her vision, Arissa saw her step closer to Landon, lovingly gripping her husband's hand with pride.
“She's beautiful,” Arissa whispered. Her eyes alight with joy, she glanced up to meet Cayl's equally emotional expression over her shoulder as he, too, gazed down and at the new miracle she held.
Quickly pressing her lips to the baby's soft forehead, Arissa felt a single tear slip from her eye when Ariella squealed a delightful laugh. Arissa couldn't help but smile before carefully handing the baby back to her mother.
“Thank you,” she mouthed, but was unsure if anyone heard her.
The way she had instantly bonded with the beautiful baby had somehow empowered her ambitions, reminding her of what they were really fighting for outside these walls. Arissa had only ever known the world in the terrible phase that it was in now, but now she wanted to make damn sure she could make it better. All the innocent children th
at were growing up in this land were being corrupted by the day and it angered Arissa to no end. She had to make the world, at least her part of the world, a better place.
Without another word about Ariella, Landon handed the black bag to Cayl, explaining that he and Yasmine had packed a small supply of non-perishable food items, as well as several throwing knives, a gun and more of the painkilling medicine for Cayl. Yasmine asked if they needed anything else, but Arissa quickly turned her down, thanking her yet again.
Even though she had only met her baby for less than a minute, it suddenly felt as it was going to be terribly hard to leave her behind. The face of a newborn baby was suddenly making Arissa feel terribly homesick.
Cayl ushered her towards the door after she had securely fastened her cloak, pulling her dark hair securely behind her shoulders. They slipped smoothly out the door and even Arissa couldn't make herself look back as they bolted immediately for the forest.
Chapter Twenty
In all the time they had discussed what to do, neither of them had been able to come up with an actual plan. It was hard to know what to do without knowing what was actually happening in the first place. All they knew was that they had to get to Daer as quickly as they could. It was where the Governor had been murdered, where the General was stationed, and they both agreed that being back in the place that meant the most to them would encourage them to do everything in their power to win.
They were riding through the middle of the forest, everything around them looking the same as it had for the last hour. Choosing to take the long way through the forest to reach Daer, they hoped they would be less likely to meet any patrols. Taking on soldiers wouldn't be a problem for either of them, but it would slow them down considerably. It left Arissa with too much empty time on her mind.
The horses they rode had been stashed in the forests just outside of the city Landon lived in. Arissa didn't ask how he had acquired them and she honestly didn't care. He had informed them before of where they could be found, and his directions had proved accurate.
“Where should we go when we get to Daer? Search the Governor's mansion or get into the military grounds to hunt down the General?” Arissa mused to herself, but Cayl quickly replied anyway.
“Arissa, I know it's hard but we have to take our time and make sure we know what we're doing. We can't go charging in for battle, it would just be like handing ourselves over. We need to actually prove that you're innocent. If we don't, it doesn't matter if we kill the General or find out who murdered the Captain, you'll still be on the run from the rest of the militia.”
“And how exactly are we going to prove that? There were obviously no witnesses and we don't even have a clue as to who would have wanted to kill the Governor.”
“You said that you and the Governor were friends, and that you worked with him. What exactly did you do together?”
It was truly the one honest relationship she had had during her whole career with the General. In order to locate and contact the people in the distant lands to convince them to travel to their territory, she had attended scheduled meetings with the Governor several times a week. Together, they would go find out as much as they could about what had used to be fully-functioning countries, learning about their cultures and ways of living, studying their strengths and weaknesses prior to the wars that had collapsed civilization.
They would choose the ones that they thought the General would most approve of and find ways of contacting them. It hadn't taken long for Arissa to catch on to exactly what happened in the Identification Transfer and, along with the Governor's help, she had occasionally found ways to secretly warn some of the people. Sometimes, when she met with the people being sorted, she would recognize strangers trying hard to cover their foreign accents or ones who had obviously tried to dye their hair dark. She always did her best to get those people through, because once a man was in the army, they were rarely seen again, since they would always be out on one of the General's tasks.
The Governor was an older man with greying hair and stress lines that seemed to have been permanently etched into his solemn face. Despite his gravelly appearance, he had been one of the most kind-hearted men that Arissa had ever known. His name was unknown, like the General's, but he had been a part of the original organization of the government when it was first being rebuilt from nothing. Regardless of his status, he was still under the General's sick jurisdiction, meaning that he had to go along with the twisted system just as forcefully as Arissa had.
All this time Arissa was pondering, she realized she hadn't spoken to Cayl in several minutes. He was patiently waiting, but it took her another moment to actually remember what his question had been.
“We met together a lot to contact people outside of our territory, the same ones that had to go through the IT. He wasn't like the General, though, he wasn't a sick, devastating dictator. He cared about the people that lived in our cities and even the ones who didn't. It was his wish to find peace among the world's society, and he wanted the General to be abolished. Of course, he knew as well as everybody else that the General had people lined up for years to take over his position, all as power hungry and relentless as he is. We both knew it would be a losing battle until someone could step up and risk their life for what needed to be done.”
It seemed every time Arissa brought up her past now, her mouth was flooded with rants and memories of the things she had been keeping hidden for so long. As if some mental gate had opened and now she couldn't stop spilling the secrets that she could be killed for telling. She hadn't realized it, but keeping that in her for so many years had done serious damage to her.
“Do you have any idea who would want to kill him? He was still a governmental figure, he had to have enemies. Next to the General, he had pretty much the most power.”
Arissa jumped in quickly, “Having power doesn't mean anything if you're not allowed to use it. He was still under the General's rule, meaning the things that he wanted to do, he still couldn't. The world wouldn't be the way it is now if he could have done his job the way he had wanted.”
Cayl sighed, frustrated that he didn't understand all of what she was telling him. Arissa never expected him to even try to fathom the horror that had occurred in her everyday life. No normal human should have to imagine anything to that extreme.
Arissa didn't look at him while they rode side by side, feeling too ashamed to meet his eye again. “I'm sorry, Cayl. I wish I didn't have to bring you into all of this. The General would kill us both if he found out you knew all this.”
Cayl's usually smooth and calming voice suddenly turned deeper and serious. He actually surprised Arissa when he said, definitively, “That's why we have to kill him first. A person like that doesn't deserve to live.”
It nearly startled her. She was now used to Cayl being the calm one who would hold her back when she got too angry or intense, but now it seemed that he shared her hatred for the General nearly as strongly as she did. It made her grin, feeling victorious.
She didn't respond to his comment, but continued, “To answer your question, no, I don't know of anyone specifically who would want to kill him. But if I had to guess, I would say the Lieutenant would be a safe bet.”
They both glanced up at each other at the same time. Cayl's interested expression readily asking for more information, while Arissa thought back to what she had just heard herself say. It surprised her to hear her own words, because never before had she even thought of the Lieutenant to be the murderer. She had only met the man several times but from what she could tell he was hardly better than the General himself.
“What makes you say that?” Cayl inquired, immediately.
Guiding her horse around a fallen tree, Arissa was trying to slow her whirling mind and trying to figure out if anything made more sense if she used the Lieutenant as the killer. “I never thought of it before, it just occurred to me. But, you know what...the more I think about it, the more I think that I may be right!” Arissa le
aned ahead quickly in the saddle, feeling impatient, as if she needed to physically move.
“The Lieutenant worked closely below the General and often with the Governor. I don't know what they were about, I was never there because...”
Her voice jerked to a halt in her throat at her words. In her mind, she was trying to piece together anything else she could remember. It was too much to focus on and her mind felt shocked by what she just realized. She jerked her horse to an abrupt stop, Cayl immediately following suit. He looked at her with an expecting expression, waiting for an answer.
“Cayl, he had separate meetings with the Governor. They were alone all the time, it would be the perfect time for him to kill him! Cayl...with the Governor gone, that meant the Lieutenant Governor would step up to take his place. Of course, the General would prefer him, someone just as bloodthirsty as he was, rather than the soft hearted man I knew.”
Arissa felt sick to her stomach, but joyous at the same time. She needed proof of her assumptions first, but in her gut, she immediately knew that she was right and she never went against an instinctual feeling.
She stared at Cayl incredulously, her jaw agape. “This was never about me! They simply used me as the one to take the fall. The General was probably looking for an excuse to have me killed anyway. This was political!”
They both stood still in the forest, the desperate sounds of warbling birds and the slight, eerie rustle of the wind in the tree branches were the only things disrupting the tense moment of realization.
Cayl ground his jaw together hard, the muscles standing out prominently against his cheek. His electrifying green eyes were locked on Arissa’s.
“I think we just found our killer.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I don't know how I can expect to just walk into the Governor's mansion without somebody calling guards on me within five minutes,” Arissa hissed quietly, careful to remain hidden behind the clump of bushy trees that grew in the picturesque grove around the Governor's former residence.