No Man's Land Page 4

  “No one is to enter this room.”

  “On the queen’s orders or the prisoner’s?” The guard’s brow furrows, and Ethiah tilts her head. “Exactly.”

  The guard reluctantly unlocks the door and steps aside, letting her in, and the door closes behind her. The cell is dark and small. A rickety wooden bed stands in one corner, and in the other…

  “If you’ve come for some sort of absolution or understanding, I’m sorry to disappoint.” His hand rests on his knee, voice dark. He’s shadowed in the black spots where the torchlight out in the hallway hits the metal bars on the small door window.

  “Why would I need that?”

  “I ruined everyone I’ve come into contact with in my life…” He huffs, almost laughs. “Well, if you’re not here to gain some understanding, what are you here for then?”

  Silence passes as Ethiah realizes she doesn’t even know. She’d nearly visited him once before but left as soon as she saw the cell door. She doesn’t want to admit it—she won’t admit it to anyone—but she sees something in him. Something beyond what everyone says—or hasn’t said—about him.

  “Why have you come?” Aradon snaps, sending a gasp from Ethiah.

  Ethiah brushes her hands over her dress, regaining her composure. “Should I not have?”

  His head tilts, barely visible in the darkness. “What ever could you mean?” His sarcastic tone is drained, dull. Lifeless.

  “You’ve been scaring away visitors as much as they don’t want to come. No one breaks the wall you’ve built because they don’t want it to break! You’ve succeeded, Aradon. Succeeded in isolating yourself.” She looks away from him, remembering the silence, the darkness of those years. “How could anyone want to be so alone?”

  “Because when I’m alone I don’t hurt people.”

  “You stopped hurting people. You stopped being Slayer. But then Revera awakened that part of you and you tore yourself apart.”

  He scoffs. “Well, then it’s a good thing no one’s around to rebuild.”

  The torchlight flickers in his irises as he looks up at her.

  “There’s no more mortar. No more stones. Aradon is gone, I’m just breath in a body.” He stands, a slow, lethal gait. Stepping into the light, his face is a dead sheet of pale, his hair chopped short and messy, a beard on his face. His blue eyes are tired, and purple bruises stand out under them. Ethiah can see the red of what they used to be in Thasoe flash before her.

  His voice seems to ache. “Revera didn’t awaken anything. She just pushed what was waiting to surface.” The red flashes again. “Raea didn’t pull out all of Revera’s manipulations because they weren’t her manipulations. They were me. They are me.” His eyes avert to the floor. “Revera’s magic may have brought on and amplified the Dia, but the darkness it let loose is all me. The sooner you accept that—the sooner everyone accepts that—the better.”

  Ethiah looks up at him now. She studies him, watches him breathe, blink. He’s changed. Everything about him has forfeit. Life. Death. Fighting. Completely and utterly given up.

  “You sadden me, Aradon. You were on your way to becoming a king, being the Besged—”

  “And how exactly do you even know what I am? How do you know I’m a Besged? How did your mentor teach you to sense my kind when I’m the only one left, apart from my father?”

  This catches Ethiah off guard. It makes her completely speechless. The only sound now is her breathing, and his. And now she’s in the silence again. The darkness. She stares into the empty void of Aradon’s eyes, and she can’t crawl her way out of it.

  “W—” she swallows, voice suddenly dry, dropping to a whisper. “What?”

  “How do you know so much about Besgeds?” Aradon approaches her, a slow pace. “You seem young for an elf, probably no more than a century old, and my kind died long before that.” He stops when her back hits the door. “So, tell me, elf. How do you know so much about Besgeds…when my father and I are the only ones left?”

  Her lips quiver as she forms the words. “And who told you there are only two of you? Did you read it in a book? Did your father tell you?”

  “What does it matter? It’s true.”

  Ethiah’s silence must be telling, because his eyes darken even more. “Are we alone in this world?”

  She swallows. “I am not the last elf. You are not the last Besged. No race truly dies. People die, kingdoms fall. But species live on. There’s always one left. Always.” She tilts her head. “In your case…there’s three. You. Your father.” She lets loose a shaky breath but doesn’t speak of the third.

  “How do you know this?” His voice is filled with caution and surprise, but his face is blank.

  Ethiah’s brow creases. “That’s what you ask? After I just told you that you aren’t the last of your kind?”

  “Yes.” He looks at her dead in the eyes. “Tell me how you know this.”

  Perhaps he isn’t aware, or just doesn’t care, but Ethiah is acutely aware of how close Aradon is to her. Too close for comfort. She puts a hand on his chest, pushing him back. Straightening, she steps away from the door.

  “I’ve learned many things over the past eighteen years. One, it doesn’t matter if you both have pointed ears, one of you can still stab the other in the back. Two, there are things much worse than death.”

  “And the third?”

  “The third is a multitude of learnings, all in order to control my light energy. How to heal my wounds. My mentor taught me how to sense Besgeds from the one I mentioned. As well as understanding my dreams, and how to tap into other elves’ visions. Adriel is very gifted, but I can hide my presence from her mind when I snoop around her premonitions. I’ve seen many things, Aradon. So when you ask me how I know something, prepare for a long story.”

  His eyes narrow. “That didn’t seem so long.”

  “You didn’t ask about the right thing.”

  Aradon’s jaw sets tight. He’s silent. Again. But it doesn’t last long. “Why are you here?”

  “I don’t know.” The words are blunt, but true. She doesn’t know why she’s here, she just felt she needed to. Unable to sleep, she was tossing and turning, thinking about nothing and yet everything.

  His head tilts, a quizzical look on his face. “Then why do you linger?”

  Ethiah’s gaze shoots up to his. “Maybe I’m waiting for a reason.”

  “Waiting or trying to find one?”

  She shakes her head. “Are you always so cryptic?”

  “Elves are cryptic, I merely withhold.”

  “Ah, you’re one of those.”

  He lifts a dark eyebrow. “One of who?”

  “One of those who seem mysterious but it’s merely a trick to them.”

  “I hate tricks. It’s strategy.”

  Now she’s the one who lifts her brow. “Strategy? For what?”

  “To be the one with the sword instead of under it.”

  “There you go again.”

  “Sorry. I merely mean, it’s practical. I make outsiders think I know more than I do.”

  “So you’re dumber than you look?”

  He sighs, turning away from her. “I’m tired, elf. I need rest.”

  She lifts her chin. “Why do you need to sleep when you’ve given up on everything?”

  Aradon stops, standing still—yet again a silhouette in the darkness. He’s no one now.

  He can’t give up. He needs to fight. Ethiah’s brow creases. He was right. The Bowman would never have given up, and Slayer wouldn’t have set foot in this war. She shakes her head. This isn’t Aradon anymore.

  Turning toward the door, she rests her hand on the handle. “I hope you find comfort in your dreams, Aradon.” She looks at him. “No matter how dead they are.”

  And she leaves.

  The elf is wrong.

  Sweat clings to his brow. His feet ache. Fear clutches his insides as he dashes through the woods, the rain pouring, but not washing the scent of blood and sweat from his sk
in and clothes. He’s filthy with murder, with sin. He wants to cut it clean off, not to wipe the slate clean but break it and build another. He shouldn’t have to feel this way, and his victims shouldn’t have died.

  Aradon isn’t sure if he’s chasing something, being chased, or just running, but there is something inside that tells him if he stops, he’ll die. So he doesn’t stop. His breath feels heavy, quick and sparse, every one he takes, a jolt of pain. But he deserves this pain. This torment. He shouldn’t have to, but Revera shouldn’t have to destroy the world—that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. But unlike the world, Aradon deserves this torture.

  He turns sharply when two figures emerge from the forest. Eldowyn and Hagard. They charge at him, and before he even comprehends what’s happening, Aradon throws them to the ground, their necks sharply snapping. He doesn’t have time to realize what he just did when another two figures start attacking him. Familiar brown eyes—Saine. A tall, short-haired elf—Kepp. They come at him with daggers and swords, but he feels his eyes shine with the Besged state’s white light as he smashes them against each other, a brutal kill.

  They don’t stop coming. Countless Eldowyns, tens of Hagards. Awyns, Adriels. Raeas. They all come a numberless amount of times, and every time Aradon can feel his heart beat heavier, his blood pump faster, and whatever darkness in him release. With every kill, he sinks deeper into the hole Revera threw him into—but he dug it years ago.

  The nightmare doesn’t stop until he sees his breaking point flash in front of him—Lilyara. Her eyes. Her hair. The tears. Her utter helplessness. She’s a little girl in his dream, not the queen of Hadore. And here, right now, he can smell the rotting corpses of her parents, whom he murdered. He imagines the fear she must have felt when Nethess was overrun by Revera and she had to flee. Or maybe she was already gone, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything about her, but she was his point of realization.

  He was a monster. And still is.

  Aradon takes a breath as the bodies, the smells, and Lily disappear. It’s a silent forest. Quiet, peaceful, maybe. He exhales.

  Death. So much death.

  Maybe Ethiah wasn’t wrong after all.

  Chapter Four

  At night, life is simple. There are no rights or wrongs the day uncovers. Darkness is calm and quiet. Liars and secrets hide in the night, they prance about ruining lives. But in the day, their own life is ruined. It’s easier to be a liar at night than during the day. Perhaps that’s why Saine prefers the cover of stars to the brightness of the sun.

  Below him, the blaze of torches flicker around the construction site of the gate. The sheets of black metal make the builders below grunt. Every once in a while, a guard on duty will help them lift the heavy material. The queen’s orders aren’t unreasonable, but the time in which she wants the gate done is absurd. Worst of all, she doesn’t even yell her orders herself, she sends Eldowyn to do it.

  Kepp had dubbed them the Resistance. Saine isn’t sure if that’s what they are. He feels perhaps they’re more fighters, than resisters, but they aren’t either anymore. The “Resistance” is no longer at the center of this war. They gave that up. What he should say, is they split up. Awyn, Aradon, Kepp, Eldowyn, Hagard—all of them. As far as he knows, Ethiah is the only one who even looks at Aradon.

  They used to be fighters. Now they’re just…survivors. At least they are honest ones, though. If they knew who Saine was, he wouldn’t need to survive anymore because they’d likely kill him.

  It’s not my fault I’m a great actor, they’re too easily tricked. He sighs. “Actor” is just a fancy term for liar.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to the lord’s visit.”

  Saine looks back as Kepp walks up to him, crossing his arms.

  Kepp’s blue eyes look uncomfortable. “It’s like he’s his old self again.”

  “Aradon was his friend, Kepp.”

  “And that’s an excuse to be a pompous, egotistical clot pole?” He looks at the oncoming convoy, Eldowyn among them. “Hear that, brother? I can use that name too!” he yells, but not too loudly. It was more of an under-the-breath yell, a snide remark.

  “I thought you two were all right?”

  “Things change in six months, Saine.” He sighs. “Things change.”

  Saine’s brow twitches. You got that right.

  The structure on a small cliff of the northern mountain overlooking Vergo’s Pass is a tiny, ratty one. It’s been rebuilt several times, like the stairs that travel from the ground to the height of the cliff. The structure is roofed with three walls—it does a fairly good job at keeping the cold out. Two cots for the four soldiers stationed up here to take turns sleeping. Saine and Kepp are on duty tonight, but they wake up the other two anyway, as they are to head down the mountain to greet the elf’s twin.

  As they make their way down the long flight of stairs, snow begins to fall. Not the peaceful, holiday flurries of Lauralee that make one feel warm and fuzzy inside. But the snow whose purpose is to freeze the life from inside you. Icy and dangerous. Ruthless. It’ll turn into a blizzard, Saine imagines.

  “You two forgave each other, it shouldn’t be that hard to get along.”

  “It shouldn’t be, but it is.”

  Saine huffs. “Thanks for that.”

  “That’s what I’m here for…” He’s quiet for a moment, then a sigh escapes. “It took me a little bit to realize how much he’d changed. Maybe it took him time to change too. He was his normal self in Rohea…well, normal for this Age, at least.”

  Saine’s brow quirks. “This Age? I mean, I knew you were an old man, but you are really old.”

  “We’re elves, Saine. He was different, back then. Something changed—and I’m not saying he’s back to the elf I grew up with, he isn’t… But he’s once again different.”

  “I think we all have, Kepp.” Some more than others.

  “What?” Kepp yells behind him. The wind is picking up, it’s getting harder to hear. “Saine, what did you say?”

  “Never mind!” Saine yells, but Kepp might not have heard that either.

  When they get to the ground, Saine’s eyes lie on Lord Eldowyn. He’s dressed in a long blue cloak, his pure-blond long hair hangs down his back, the front strands braided back. He’s casually dressed, but with a regal look that only elves can achieve. Mortal kings, when dressed in peasant clothes, look like peasants. Elven princes, dressed in casual garments, still have the look of royalty.

  Eldowyn talks with the Master Builder under a larger structure built against the face of the mountain. It looks like the one above, but the fire under it flickers brighter and bigger. They sit at a table, looking over plans, Saine imagines. Beside him, he can narrowly see Kepp’s face grow white—though, that could be the cold.

  When they approach the building, Eldowyn doesn’t even look up. When the twins were growing up together, Eldowyn was egotistical and condescending. Then, something changed, and he became the Eldowyn they knew six months ago—brave, still a bit better-than-thou, and a little indifferent. But now, he’s just plain dismissive.

  “Brother, I haven’t seen you in a month.” Eldowyn’s voice is speaking to them, but his eyes remain on the papers. He seems to be reading a list of names, possibly the builders. “How are you?”

  “I’m cold.”

  Now, Eldowyn looks up. “Wear a scarf.”

  Dismissive, and frigid.

  Before Kepp lunges, Saine intervenes. “How’s Adriel?”

  “She’s well.”

  “That’s good.” Saine can feel the relief on hearing that but also a twinge of panic. The better she’s doing, the harder she’ll beat him when she finds out he’s lying to everyone.

  A means to an end, Saine firmly believes that. If the means is destroying what he cares about… Well, the end justifies the means.

  He squeezes his eyes shut. He sounds like him when he tries to justify his actions.

  “How’s Awyn? Ethiah? Ha
gard?” Kepp streams the names out. Maybe he thinks if he doesn’t speak, it leaves more room for silence. Silence seems to be hostile between the twins lately.

  “Ethiah’s fine. I haven’t seen Hagard in a while, but last I saw he was doing all right.” Eldowyn pauses, as if unsure to keep speaking. “Awyn is…Awyn.”

  What’s that supposed to mean? Saine’s been back once, she made a quick appearance in the court and left as soon as she came. What he saw of her, she’s not the same, she’s different…but how bad is she?

  “Right, right…” Kepp’s tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Kepp is Saine’s brother in every way but blood, he wishes he didn’t have to feel like this around Eldowyn. But it seems there’s something more than just a rift between them. And they know it, but Saine wonders if they know what it is.

  Eldowyn stands, dismissing the Master Builder. He’s tall, but Kepp is still taller. “I will be leaving tomorrow.”

  “The queen sure made you travel far for such a short trip.”

  “It’s quiet, Saine. Since everyone left for Kevah or other lands, the countryside is a peaceful place, even in a blizzard.”

  “Can we stop pandering?” Kepp snaps. “We need to talk about Awyn. She isn’t well. We need to do something about it.”

  “What can we possibly do? She doesn’t let anyone near her,” Saine questions.

  “Maybe that is the reality, but we can’t let her continue on like this. She’s paranoid, Saine. We need to help her.” Kepp’s eyes look to Eldowyn’s. “She’s our sister.”

  Maybe there’s something wrong with Kepp himself. Something wrong with Eldowyn too. Perhaps nothing is wrong with them as a duo, but as individuals. Something’s upset them, but each is so different.

  Eldowyn’s eyes darken. “So is Adriel. And Revera’s our aunt. Raea is our mother. What is your point exactly? Because from what I’ve seen, our family doesn’t help each other.”

  “And when do you give up so easily?”

  “Since my brother was cursed by my own aunt!” Eldowyn yells, a few builders looking their way.