The room itself was rather large, too—at least four times the size of the tent that acted as her jail cell. It had a wooden panel floor that shined with the light radiating from the ceiling chandelier. Bright crystals hung low from the chandelier, reflecting the warm light within the glass bulbs. The lights were not candles but were like glowing gems of fire. There were similar lights in Jordysc—ones that apparently harnessed the power of lightning. They had called it electricity.
There were tall and wide windows at the far end of the bedroom that overlooked the busy town with the sounds of hoofbeats against the stone streets and folk trading and gossiping. There were houses and shops scattered all over—some made from old metal carriages left over from the Old Days and others from clay or fresh pinewood. Best of all, Arynn smelled fresh bread being baked from the shop just next to her. She would have been ecstatic if not for the feeling that she was still a prisoner. Of Fenwin’s, no less. Maybe this is his reward for selling out Jordysc. Ascendants, if I could take that back.
“Go ahead and wash up in here,” Lady Estel said. “I’ve had a bath drawn for you and our servants have kept it warm until your arrival. You’ll find a fresh set of clothes in the wardrobe. Come on down for supper when you’re finished.”
Arynn stopped the noblewoman just as she began to leave. “Why are you being so nice to me? Why am I even here?”
Lady Estel offered her a bright smile. “We’re going to be living together, so we must be on good terms. You must’ve had a hard journey. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it tonight. Now hurry on up before the water cools. I’ll see you soon!” She winked and closed the door as she left Arynn alone in the strange room.
She found the bathing room just around the corner. The water was warmer than any bath she’d ever had. The steam swirled about and invited her in. She made sure to lock the door behind her before removing her clothes. On her way in, she caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her reflection. Her face was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Her cheekbones looked more pointed than ever, and her face appeared sunken in. Her body was like a skeleton wearing a fragile sheet of skin. Her ribs were all too visible from the days with hardly a meal to sustain herself. She removed her shirt and expected to see a skeleton wearing her face. When she flexed, she could see her muscles were well defined for someone so malnourished, which meant her exercises in prison hadn’t been for nothing. It meant her fighting hadn’t been in vain, and if nothing else, Arynn was a fighter. She had endured the grief after her mother’s death. She did not break when the Elders scolded her. She did not give in to sorrow when she lost Sera. And even after Ben was killed, Arynn continued to stay strong as she knew he would. She would continue fighting until her body could no longer take it, and even then, she would still try.
That night she was given a full meal. It was a roasted chicken breast with tomato sauce and grilled goat’s cheese with a side of mixed nuts and berries. It was all quite good, but not nearly as delicious as the bread, which she knew had to have been from the bakery she had smelled. She ate every bite and even licked the sauce from the plate.
Lady Estel was mortified at first by Arynn’s table etiquette. The woman looked like she’d never missed a meal in her life. She was perfectly thin but without the sunken look that Arynn had seen in the looking glass earlier. The noblewomen took small portions of the meal and ate even smaller bites. She spent most of her time observing Arynn, studying her like some foreign creature.
Early in the meal, a legate arrived to interrupt them. Though it hadn’t been the one she’d anticipated.
The man wore a cleanly pressed black coat with matching shoes that looked like they’d just been shined. He also had a faded black hat that looked sorely out of place with his outfit yet matched perfectly with the neatly groomed mustache.
“Good evening,” Randy said with a wide and obnoxious smile. “Arynn, is it?”
She responded with a silent scowl.
“That’s fine, you don’t need to say anything. I know I’ve got the right girl. The red hair was a dead giveaway back at Jordysc. You know who I am, yes?”
Arynn maintained her scowl but nodded slowly.
“Good, then we can get past this whole awkward introduction ordeal.” He paused for a moment and shifted his gaze between Arynn’s empty plate and Lady Estel’s less than half-eaten dish. “Mind if I join?”
Arynn didn’t understand why he was asking for her permission. She shook her head slowly. Lady Estel could barely help herself from blushing. Is she really fawning over him?
“Wonderful, thank you! These old joints of mine tend to flare up if I stand for too long. I’m not quite in the same physical condition as I used to be.” He took his seat and helped himself to a piece of bread from the center of the table.
“Why am I still alive?” Arynn asked. It was a question that had been gnawing at her ever since she was captured. Lady Estel coughed and covered her mouth.
Randy smiled with an amused expression on his face. “Because I told my Rhion not to kill you.”
“What do you mean your Rhion? What is it you want from me? I slept on hard dirt for so long that I lost track of time, barely ate, and rarely spent any time outside of a small tent without a word about what was happening to me!” She felt her blood boiling. All the anger that had been building up since watching Ben die and being imprisoned was finally being released. She didn’t even stop to think about who it was that she was unleashing it upon.
“Arynn, please! That is simply no way to address your—”
Randy held up a hand. “It’s fine, my dear.” The noblewoman’s eyes flickered, and she took another sip of wine to cover the smile creeping across her face. “Arynn, I’m sure you’ve already made your first impression of me based on Benny boy’s descriptions. Alas, we only met the one time, and I’d say it went quite well. It’s a shame that his mind was poisoned by the Miners Guild. I’m sure they’ve made an impact on your perception of me since then, too. They probably see me as some big bad guy trying to take away their freedom.”
Arynn scoffed. “You’re wrong there. From what I’ve heard, you’re just one of the king’s lackeys. You’re not high ranked like Fenwin or Rivers, especially after you killed Ben. I heard the Rhion a few days after I was captured. Julius is pissed.”
Randolph’s smile broke for but half a second, then he quickly followed it up with a chuckle. “You’re quite the perceptive one. You’re correct that Xander was displeased with me, but that doesn’t matter anymore now that he’s no longer king.”
Arynn’s forehead creased and her lips parted. “Did the Miners Guild kill him for what you bastards did to Ben?”
Randolph snorted. “You heard the Rhion talk about me getting in trouble, but you haven’t heard about either king’s death? Not even Fenwin’s? It seems I made the right choice in bringing you to Vestinia. The people here are exceptionally loyal.”
Arynn noticed Lady Estel shift in her seat just as Randy mentioned Fenwin. When did he and Julius die? How did all this happen?
“Either king? What are you talking about?”
“I see that your time here has not taken away your inner fire. I like that. Each day on my journey here I wondered what was going through your mind, and I hoped you had not given in to despair.”
Arynn didn’t like the way Randolph was looking at her when he spoke. It was uncomfortable and made it feel as though a stone had formed in her stomach and was trying to break free. It’s not those same gawking eyes as other men have had, but there is another kind of lust behind them. She waited a moment to respond, trying to collect herself and make sure her voice didn’t betray the fear behind it. “You still haven’t answered my questions,” she was finally able to say. “What do you want from me?”
“Straight to the point. I think you and I will get along quite nicely, girl.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” she asked, her fist now clenched so tightly
that her nails dug into her skin.
“Why, because I have something you want, and you have something I want. I kept you alive in Jordysc because I needed information from you. Unfortunately, after Xander’s death, the men I’d trusted to keep watch over you showed greater loyalty to their coffers than their kingdom. Apparently, they had plans to sell you and many other prisoners to some barbarians in the wasteland.”
“Eternal Mother!” Lady Estel cried. “How dreadful. It truly is fortunate that you saved her.”
The legate acted as though he hadn’t heard the noblewoman and looked at Arynn expectantly.
Arynn had convinced herself during her imprisonment that she was going to be sold to slavers. She never once thought the Rhion who’d taken her had actually gone rogue and were going to sell her outside of Ænæria. Who else was out there buying slaves? As far as she knew, wastelanders captured slaves for Ænæria, to be placed in labor camps surrounding Ignistad. The opposite had never occurred to her. Could it be that Sera hadn’t ever been sold to Ænærians after all? If so, she could be anywhere in the world. That is if she were even alive.
“What could you possibly have that I want?” Arynn asked through her teeth. “Your people have done nothing but take from me. Your slavers wreaked havoc on my people, kidnapped my father, and probably took my best friend and sold her—or worse. Now you’ve killed the only other person I’ve grown close to since Sera was taken, and I bet the rest of my friends are dead now, too, or else being held prisoner like me. My father lied to me my entire life about the Miners Guild and who knows what else—and my mother is dead. I have nothing left. You couldn’t possibly have anything for me, and there’s nothing I want.”
She meant what she had said—she had nothing left. Ben had been a beacon of hope to Arynn, and now he was gone. Her father’s secrets felt like a deep betrayal; he had been the only person, aside from Sera, to whom she could express her own vulnerability. She didn’t keep any secrets from him, not after her mother died. Trust was hard to come by for someone like Arynn in Vänalleato. Having it broken, especially by someone so close, was devastating. The only people left for her were Darius and Trinity. But she had only just met Trinity, and Darius was not a visionary like Ben—he needed hope just as much as her and would be just as lost without Ben. She couldn’t even guarantee they were alive.
“Perhaps,” Randy said slowly, “I like to think of myself as a dealer in information. And people always like to trade things for information. It’s quite valuable, you know.”
“You don’t have anything I could want.”
“Hmm. Then perhaps you won’t want any updates on loved ones. Perhaps current events may pique your interest?”
Arynn gulped. What does he mean by my loved ones? Ben is dead. Darius probably is, too, and I wouldn’t exactly call him a loved one. If he knows more secrets about my father…well, I wouldn’t want to know it right now. It would hurt too much. Who else could he mean? She decided to let it go. Randy had brought other questions to her attention. “I want to know what has happened since I was captured, and why in the Great Dream you captured me in Jordysc.”
A devious grin grew beneath Randy’s salt and pepper mustache. “Only if you agree to provide some thought to my questions.”
Arynn studied Randy for a moment before answering. She considered all of his words as carefully as she could to ensure there was no trickery involved. What harm could there be in answering his questions? If it’s something I don’t like, I could just stay silent or lie. He won’t force anything out of me. If he would, then he wouldn’t be asking, he’d be demanding. “Fine. I’ll play your game.”
The legate clapped his hands together. “Splendid! Lady Crane, would you mind giving us some privacy?”
The table shook slightly as the noblewoman nearly slammed her glass down. Her golden eyes went from a lustful longing to two flaming balls of rage. She slid her chair back and stomped her feet against the tiled floor. Before exiting she gave Arynn a spiteful look—one far more threatening than the one she’d given to Randy.
After the door slammed shut, Randy let loose something between a chuckle and a sigh. He shook his head. “I see you’ve gotten yourself acquainted with Lady Crane. She can be quite lovely, but the mention of her late husband sends her into a deep pit of mourning. Discussing those matters in such detail would really only upset her further.”
Arynn’s eyebrows narrowed, confused. Was she Julius’s wife? No, there was never any mention of a queen. She would have addressed herself like that, even if he had died. “She was married to Fenwin?”
A smile cracked across the man’s face. Ascendants, I hate those smiles.
“Indeed. She’s the daughter of Vestinia’s last king before Xander united the kingdoms. Allowing the old royal families to remain in Ænæria as nobility allowed him to soothe the political climate of the united realm. The best way to keep the nobility happy was to allow them to retain some of their former power. Thus, many were placed in influential positions. Seats in government, political marriages to the new rulers of the land—you get the idea. Lady Crane has been through so much in her life, losing her status as princess, then married off to a stranger only to have him die at the hands of some petty uprising. Poor woman is probably terrified about what the future holds for her. Still, she will be treated kinder than the royal Marzora family was, each of them slaughtered so as not to challenge Xander’s seat in Ignistad.”
Arynn found the one thing with Lady Estel with which she could relate: an uncertain future.
Prior to this, Arynn had known next to nothing of Ænærian nobility. She had often wondered what happened to the previous rulers. After all, it was once called the Northern Kingdoms. Kings didn’t just disappear. She didn’t think long on the matter, still curious how Fenwin and Julius had died.
“What happened to the king?” she asked.
“King Xander was killed by young Benny boy’s pet wolf. There were enough witnesses to confirm the cause of death, though his body was never found. It is believed to have been eaten by the wolf.”
It felt like the stone had grown larger. Sierra ate Julius? That can’t be true, there was no bloodlust in her. Yet at the same time, Arynn knew that it was entirely possible—Sierra was, after all, a large and wild predator. Perhaps her bond with Ben was strong enough for revenge, and after she had it, perhaps she reverted back to her natural state.
“Before his death, he named Legate Rivers as his successor. Sadly, Rivers died shortly after of a weak lung. These were the two kings of whom I spoke.”
It was hard to imagine that so much had happened since the battle at Jordysc. More time must have passed than she’d realized for all these events to transpire. Ænæria’s ruler, her enemy for so long, had finally fallen. She had to suppress a grin at the thought of it. She’d never even seen the king yet still wished she could have been there to watch him die.
“As for Fenwin, well, I believe he will be missed the least. Even by Lady Crane. His death was, after all, due to his own hubris. He’d been tracking your little gang since the incident with Legate Gatron. The death of a legate is taken very seriously. Believe it or not, after almost sixteen years, it has never happened! Until now, of course.
“Fenwin took his defeat at the prison quite personally, and, using the information you fed him, decided to take matters into his own hands and travel all the way to Neptuan to take out the Jordysc base.”
Arynn felt her heart skip a beat at the mention of her exchange with Fenwin. It was her fault Jordysc had fallen. Back when she’d been captured by Fenwin and brought to the Ænærian prison, Fenwin had interrogated her. She’d been in the early pits of depression back then too, thinking Ben dead from the sung blast that launched him out the inn window in Parvidom. Fenwin hadn’t beaten her too hard before she’d given away vital information about where they were heading. After that, she’d been shot and by the time she recovered Ben was recovering from his injuries in the Ignistad arena. There hadn’t been enou
gh time to come clean about accidently telling Fenwin about their plan to go to Jordysc.
Randy continued as if he hadn’t noticed Arynn shifting uncomfortably in her chair. “Then, instead of carrying out the mission as we’d planned, he tracked down Benny boy and the deserter. Now, I can’t say exactly what happened next, but his corpse was found locked inside a room filled with smoke and ash. The apothecaries examined him postmortem and believe he likely asphyxiated due to the combination of being sealed in a burning room and having all of his ribs broken.”
Arynn swallowed hard and felt a chill run down her spine. Ben was against killing. That was critical to him. Fenwin was a monster, but that wouldn’t matter to the boy who’d risked his life to save a bleeding slaver in a cave outside of Vänalleato. There’s no way he was responsible for that. It had to have been Darius. Then she asked something she’d been holding in the entire time. There were some things she wanted closure for, but perhaps she could realistically attain this one.
“Is that why you killed him?” she choked up midway through. It was hard to say out loud. “Because you thought he killed Fenwin?”
Randy looked dumbstruck. He tilted his head and asked, “Killed whom? Benny boy?”
“Stop calling him that! I’m not going to continue letting him mock him like that! By the Ascendants, have some respect for the dead!”
Randy’s expression shifted from his arrogant smile to a look of confusion. “Dead? Benny boy isn’t dead! My nephew is a better shot than that—even with his left hand. No, he’s just missing an eye, that’s all! We haven’t seen much of him lately because he spends most of his time in the Vault, but we know for sure that he’s alive.”
Ben was alive. He’d made it all the way to the Vault, just like he’d wanted all along. “Then why hasn’t he come for me?” Arynn shouted. Tears burst from her eyes and poured down her face and onto her lap. “What is he doing that’s so important that he wouldn’t come to rescue me?”
The Heir of Ænæria Page 14