Darius stood up and faced Mandi. Her presence no longer dominated. Darius was not very tall, but he was still a half head over Mandi—and probably a hundred or more pounds of muscle. “They’re not the enemy! The Ænærians are!”
Mandi slammed her fist on the table next to Ben’s bed. “We’re Ænærians, you idiot!”
“Guys!” Ben yelled. Darius and Mandi glared at him. “What is wrong with you two? You’ve been snapping at each other this whole time. And, not to take sides, but Mandi you’re being really harsh to both me and Darius. You two need to tell me what’s going on.”
Darius held his hands up with a clueless expression. “She’s been mad at me this whole time, and now she’s being ridiculous and taking it out on you too. I have—”
“Oh, shove it, Darius. You know that’s not it. I’m sick of you guys trusting people so easily! People end up getting killed because of it.”
There was something unspoken between them that he was missing. Something that had been between Mandi and Darius since the beginning of the journey, causing all the tension along the way. It was something they were purposefully keeping from him.
“You don’t mean trusting the Orks, do you?” Ben asked Mandi. “You wouldn’t have come here if that were the case. And Darius, you know why she’s upset, but you’re not saying it. So as far as I’m concerned, you’re both being ridiculous. Now, one of you talk.”
Amid all the shouting and boiling anger, Ben hadn’t realized until now that the thick molded splints around his legs had grown lighter. He looked down to find fissures spanning from his inner ankle to his knees. The molding was supposed to have been made of a malleable stone substance that, when wetted, formed to fit whatever it surrounded. It was an art revived from the Old Days, similar to the material used to make the ancient broken roads. They could survive centuries of wear and tear but evidently not a fight with Ben’s frustration.
Both Mandi and Darius had noticed. They shied away from him an inch or two. Afraid. Of course, they are. I’m just a monster anyway. Ben didn’t say anything. His head hung low. He couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them.
Eventually, Darius answered. “Mandi blames us for her father’s death.”
Ben grimaced, and his heart skipped a beat. So that’s the secret. That’s why she never wanted to talk to me about it. Heath had died at Jordysc when Fenwin and Randolph followed them from Ignistad.
Still not able to look either of them in the eye, Ben spoke into his lap. “If you blame us for that, why’d you come along? Why did you pretend to be our friend?”
There was a faint sound from Mandi’s direction. Ben turned his head up just enough to see that her eyes were lightly welled with tears, and she rubbed her nose after another sniffle. “I am your friend. We’ve all had so much time together. That’s why it kills me to see you trust people you know nothing about so easily.”
“What does that have to do with your father’s death?” There was still something Ben was missing. “Why does Darius know this and not me?”
Mandi and Darius exchanged brief looks of guilt. Neither opened their lips as if they were sealed by some invincible lock.
“What are you two hiding from me?” Ben demanded.
“It’s about Arynn.” Darius said it quietly, with a slight crack in his voice when he said her name.
Ben’s eye widened. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t know what to say. He tried so hard to not think about her. Mimir told him his emotions were a distraction and made his powers harder to control. Everything needed to be about the mission. About saving his people. The world. Whenever he thought about her, his feelings only grew stronger. All this time he’d been denying it, trying to convince himself it was a silly crush on the first girl his age that he’d gotten even remotely close to. Was it so silly though? After all, they faced incredible odds together. It was them against the world—all for Ben’s mission. She’d stuck by him through it all. How could that experience compare to anything else; how couldn’t he have feelings for her?
He looked at them both, all but begging for them to tell him what they knew with the look in his eye.
Mandi averted her gaze the second their eyes met, leaving Darius to answer. The ex-Rhion frowned. It wasn’t his typical angsty scowl; rather, disappointment. No. It’s shame.
“Arynn betrayed us,” he said flatly.
“What are you talking about?”
“She told Fenwin we were going to Jordysc.” His voice was a hollow whisper. “That’s how they found us there, and why we haven’t seen her since.”
“No, that isn’t possible. How could she have? She was with us the whole time. She couldn’t have ever talked to Fenwin?”
“The prison.”
“What are—oh.” That was back when they’d been arrested outside of Parvidom, and Ben was shot out the window. The same time she’d been shot.
“Fenwin interrogated her before me. Before you broke us out. She told him then.”
“No way,” Ben said, shaking his head vehemently. “How can you know that for sure?”
“We have spies everywhere,” Mandi said, breaking her silent protest of the conversation. “Our sources are never wrong.”
“She could have been acting under duress! She was being interrogated!”
“Then why didn’t she tell us?” Darius asked.
“Because she was shot right after! When would she have had a chance?”
“After you fought Longinus in the arena,” he pointed out. “She was awake after Trinity patched her up.”
“There has to be some explanation,” Ben muttered.
“The explanation is simple,” Mandi said. “You two trusted someone you knew nothing about. You didn’t know her motives or what she was capable of.”
“You think her motive was to get all of us killed? Mandi, I’m sorry about your dad. I’ve told you that so many times. I can’t believe that she would have wanted what happened.”
Mandi sneered and pulled down her hood. She pointed sharply at her burn. “This is what happens when you trust people you shouldn’t! You get burned, and people die! She knew exactly what she was doing and was well rewarded for it because now she’s Fenwin’s replacement!”
The revelation stung. His heart sank below his legs where there was another crack as the splints broke even further. He’d never felt so betrayed. None of this seemed true. How could Arynn be a legate? It went against everything she stood for. Or everything she told me she stood for. How much of that was real? How much was any of it?
“Look, man, we should’ve told you,” Darius said. Ben hardly listened. The saddest part for him was that he believed them without doubt. If it had been mere speculation, Mandi and Darius would have told him. They’d have given him hope that there was more to the story, an extra puzzle piece left to find. But they hadn’t. They’d kept it a secret this whole time. And to Ben, that meant they’d betrayed him, too.
“Can you understand now why I’m so hesitant to trust the wastelanders? You have a good heart, Ben, but both of you trust far too easily. I can’t let anyone else I care about get hurt—”
“Get out.”
“What?” Mandi and Darius asked.
“Get out!” His vision clouded red, and the casts snapped off his legs as he stomped them against the ground. Horrible pain lanced up both extremities up his hips and the small of his back and still didn’t hurt as much as this betrayal.
“Ben, we—”
“Stop! You’ve known this whole time and kept it from me. As far as I care, that means I can’t trust you either.”
The door swung open and slammed against the wall. Gus walked into the room and spoke with a firm voice. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I really don’t care. You’re being loud and disruptive.” He pointed at Mandi and Darius. “You two aren’t sick anymore, so I don’t care where you go as long as it isn’t here. Ben, I’m taking you for therapy.”
“Actually, we were having a conversation here,” Man
di started.
“You heard him,” Ben said. “Leave.” Before they could even start walking out the door, Gus grabbed the back of the wheelchair and pushed him out toward the gymnasium.
They arrived down the hallway in an open floor brightened by skylights and decorated with smooth floorboards and peculiar furniture scattered across the room. The wheels of Ben’s chair came to a squeaking halt by a set of parallel bars.
After clearing his throat, Gus said, “Look, the squabble with your friends is none of my business…”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“But I can’t have you doing things that affect your healing. Those casts aren’t supposed to come off for at least six weeks.” Gus’s eyes glued themselves to Ben’s legs. The casts were hardly attached, hanging together by some loose pieces still miraculously connected.
“Sorry about that,” Ben murmured, still distracted by everything Mandi and Darius had revealed. He still couldn’t believe it. Mimir was right: his emotions were little more than a restrictive tether, impeding him from his duty.
"Guess it means your legs still work. Try wiggling your toes for me."
They were sore and stiff, like a set of gears that hadn't been oiled in moons, but they moved without pain or issue.
Gus gently pressed his palms over the top of Ben's right thigh. Ben pushed up against the resistance. Gus moved his hand to Ben’s other leg. Ben lifted again. Gus continued through some different ranges of motion. He tapped a soft mallet against his knees and stroked a blunt metal edge across the bottoms of his bare feet. Callused fingers squeezed against the pulses behind his knees, around his ankles, and atop his feet.
"Everything appears intact," Gus confirmed. He removed the remaining pieces of the casts. “Even without these, I don’t want you walking around on your own just yet. Stick with the wheelchair when you're not with me."
"What'll I be doing with you?"
"I want to get you back on your feet, but safely. Not sure how it’ll go since you’re not exactly my typical patient. I have no idea how a half-human heals."
The jab hurt. Being called that by others was exactly why he hadn’t made it public back at home. He would’ve preferred Gus not to know, but he’d been present when Ben told the Sachems everything he knew, in hopes of gaining their assistance. It had all fallen on deaf ears, it seemed, because he’d still heard nothing from them about the Vault. As soon as he was healed enough, he’d start searching Ney himself.
Shockingly, Gus’s comment meant he actually believed Ben’s story. Though there weren’t many who directly challenged him, Ben knew there had to be people in the Penteric Alliance who didn’t believe him. A tale of alien invaders plotting to overthrow the world? It sounded crazy—especially coming from Ben, the strange boy from Freztad.
Gus helped Ben from the wheelchair, and his legs immediately felt filled with sludge instead of muscle and bone. He grabbed onto the parallel bars in front of him to keep from falling. Gus explained that they would spend much of their time here, working on strength and balance. Every morning he would need to come here to stretch his legs, work on his gait, and build back his strength. The other healers would take over Gus’s patients in the mornings while he worked exclusively with Ben. No one else had spent as much time treating Ben who was a rather unique case. It helped that they were both outsiders from Ney, giving them something to share.
“How long will my sessions be?” Ben asked.
“I really can’t say. Normally I’d like to work up to two hours. It would take most people moons to reach the level of healing that you’ve shown in only a week and a half. Your body might be able to handle well over two hours of treatment a day, maybe even heal faster because of it. Today I want to get a good baseline, which’ll take at least an hour. After I assess how you’re doing, then we can go from there.”
“Good. I want to heal fast. I also want to meet with the Sachems soon. Can you help me arrange that?”
“They’ll have to summon you themselves.”
“Is that how I was brought there the first time?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s your relationship with them? Didn’t the woman call you their ward?”
Gus frowned and looked away. He didn’t seem to like where Ben was poking around. “You’ll just have to wait.”
It was rather annoying that Gus knew nearly everything about Ben’s story while he knew next to nothing about the healer. He was an Ænærian—no, a Marzorian—exiled from his home at a young age. He had been in Ney at least long enough to learn the language and earn the trust of the Sachems, but not quite long enough to become one of the Orks. His face was unmarked with tattoos, yet he had been allowed to practice his trade with autonomy. He looked barely older than twenty, and Marzora was taken over by Julius within the past fifteen years. That meant Gus must’ve spent the majority of his life in exile.
How did a young boy get all the way from Marzora to Ney while also learning to become a healer? The youngest healer Ben had ever met was Trinity, and as a slave, she was trained from an exceptionally young age. Was Gus a slave, too? No, Julius had said that slavery was Fenwin’s idea. But Julius had an appetite for twisting truths. With the way Gus seemed to act when asked about his past, Ben figured he wouldn’t be able to get anything from him easily. He felt determined to uncover the link between the ward from the north and the Orks of the east. Such a connection could not be mere coincidence, and Ben was determined to learn the whole story.
For now, Ben decided to take it slowly. Gus wasn’t the kind of man to spill personal information. The only way to do that would be to develop trust, and Ben’s reserve for that was running low. It doesn’t have to be mutual. I don’t have to trust him. Just make him think I do.
The rest of Gus’s examination continued once Ben’s splints were torn off and his joints were finally exposed to the cool air—though it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Ben had hoped as they reeked from being held close and tight for so long. He found himself almost instinctively diminishing his senses to avoid the stench. He’d rested long enough that he didn’t fear having another migraine as a side effect of his powers—if only he had the skill to decrease the pain of lies and betrayal with the same mastery he had over his other senses. That could come in handy.
The exam was faster than Gus had predicted. In less than an hour, Ben had been able to move all the joints of his lower limbs on his own passively, actively, and against resistance. All of it hurt, of course, but the pain seemed to be the only impediment to Ben’s progress.
Gripping the parallel bars tightly, Ben lifted himself from the old and creaking wheelchair to the floor. His shoulders and triceps were strong enough to hold him up, but Gus insisted that Ben allow his legs to take on some of the weight. The smooth feel of the coated floor against his calloused feet had a wondrous feeling after being crammed in the casts for so long. It was almost like stretching his toes in sunbaked sand on an early morning.
And then it was gone. He fell almost immediately, only to have Gus quickly catch him by the support belt around his waist.
“I know you want to be back on your feet, but you need to take things slowly. If you really want to do more, then come back tomorrow morning before our session and one of the healers will show you some strengthening exercises.”
“Did I do alright?” Ben asked while Gus helped him back into his chair.
“It’s fine, Ben. You’ll be fine. It’s a work in progress. Go wash up, and I’ll reach out to Pyat for you. Maybe he can talk to the Sachems and give you some kind of update.”
They were back in the infirmary hallway, and Ben’s room was at the end. The door was closed, and if Ben recalled correctly, Gus had left it open when they left. Hopefully, that meant Mandi and Darius closed it behind them after they left. If they’ve left at all. Ben didn’t know what he would do if they were still in there. A rage burned within him just thinking about them and their lies. His fist clenched so hard each time their fac
es etched themselves in his mind’s eye.
“I could come with you,” Ben said.
“It’s best not to go to the palace uninvited.”
“Then how are you able to get in?”
For a brief moment, Gus looked taken aback, like a deer noticing too late the arrow heading its way. “The Sachems want me to update him on your progress. They’ve taken quite an interest in you.”
“Is that so? And how would you know that if they’ve been so busy meditating.”
Gus shifted his expression from a guarded grimace to a sly smile. “Caught me on that one, did you?”
“I’m experienced with liars.”
“I’m a liar now, am I?”
“You tell me.”
“If I’m a liar, why believe what I say?”
Ben smirked. “No, Gus. I don’t think you’re a liar. I think you’re secretive. There’s a slight but ever so important difference.”
Gus snorted. “Is there now? Well, if you must know, I’m supposed to check-in at the palace every day. Unlike you, I’m not some honorary member to Ney.”
“You’re their ward.”
Gus shrugged. “Ward, guest, hostage, prisoner—it’s semantics really.”
“You aren’t free to leave?” Ben asked.
“I can leave whenever I want. But without those tattoos on my face, I can’t ever come back. Leaving would mean my death out there, alone in the wastes. Decide for yourself if you think that’s freedom. But then, we’re just getting into semantics again.” He opened the door to Ben’s room. It was quiet and empty. No Mandi and Darius. Good. Solitude. “Now, go wash up. I’ll let you know if they have any updates for you.”
There wasn’t a chance to respond. By the time Ben turned his wheelchair around to the exit, Gus was gone. Ben sighed and transferred himself to his bed. He rested against the wall at the head of the bed and continued tinkering with the deactivated Hüginn. As his fingers worked to reattach wires and insert screws, his mind drifted off, reflecting on the hollowness within him after learning about Arynn. Just a few moons ago he would’ve just wallowed in sorrow. While he could have listened to Gus’s advice and washed himself, Ben had other plans. His racing mind would have only carried him to a dark place if left alone right now.
The Heir of Ænæria Page 33