Aerenden: The Child Returns (Ærenden) (38 page)

She
approached the bars, surprised to find him waiting close behind them. His eyes
studied her. They were crystal blue, clear, with no hint of the evil she had
expected. He had the olive complexion of a Zeiihbu native. His dark hair was
not dirty and unkempt, as she had imagined for a roaming man. Instead, he kept
it clean and tidy. It ran long to his shoulders, but it seemed freshly trimmed.
Even his clothes appeared neat. The only scruff on him came in the form of
stubble along his jaw. It looked nice, she thought, and frowned to cover the
sudden attraction. It had no place here. A murderer, no matter how charming, could
not be considered handsome.

He
smiled at her, a gesture both natural and genuine, and bowed. Her frown
deepened to a scowl and she did not bother to nod in return. “My Queen,” he
said, rising slowly as he continued to study her. “Have you no courtesy for one
of your own people?”

“I
do not consider Raiders to be my people any more than I consider animals in the
forest to be mine.”

“You
consider us animals?” he asked and approached the bars. “That’s a shame. I had
hoped you might help us achieve peace in the same way you helped the Zeiihbu.
Word of your bravery and wisdom has even reached us in our travels.”

“Travels?”
she snorted. “Crimes is more like it.”

“Crimes,”
he echoed, and his shoulders slumped forward. “Then you’ve already sentenced
me. Why not execute me now? What do you wait for?” He turned from her and
walked to the far wall. Bending over, he picked up the instrument he had been
playing. A dulcet guitar, she realized. Only this one looked homemade. A soft
red gleam shone from the polished wood half-tube serving as its shell. The
pearl tabs holding all seven strings in place appeared worn from constant
adjustment and play. He turned in time to catch her looking at them and a smile
returned to his lips. “Do you like it? I made it.”

“You
were playing it a minute ago.”

“Yes,”
he confirmed. “Music is a gift.”

“Your
power?” she asked, bringing her eyes back to his.

“No.
Just a gift.”

She
nodded in agreement before she realized she had done so and covered the mistake
with indignation. “How did you get that instrument?”

“I
told you,” he responded, his smile unfaltering. “I made it.”

“You
know what I meant. The guards should have taken it from you when they brought
you here.”

“Threw
me in here is more like it,” he said. “But don’t worry. Your guards haven’t
forgotten their protocols. They took it, and I took it back.”

“How?”

“That’s
my secret to keep. I turned myself in. I would think letting me keep my
instrument would be a fitting gesture in return.”

“Even
if that were true,” she told him, “prisoners are not allowed personal effects.
I’ll ask you to hand it over or I’ll send the guards in to get it.”

“It
is true,” he said, but extended the instrument through the bars anyway. She
reached out to take it, but her Guardian snatched it from his hands before she
could touch it.

“Careful,”
he protested. “It took me weeks to make.”

“And
likely it took so long because it hides a weapon,” the Guardian said. “I won’t
leave her exposed to your murderous plots.”

“I’m
no murderer. I came to talk to her.”

“We
know what Raiders do.”

He
gripped the bars. The heat in his eyes turned dangerous. “And what is it we
do?”

“Rob, steal—”

“Only
what we need to survive,” he countered.

The
Guardian narrowed her eyes and continued. “Murder, rape, burn villages to the
ground.”

“Lies,”
he snapped. “We take food to eat. We take clothes to survive the winter. We
aren’t savages.”

“I
don’t lie,” she shot back. “I saw the bodies in the villages below Clear
Mountain. I helped heal the men your people stabbed, the women you—”

“May,”
Adelina interrupted, conveying her authority without raising her voice. May
stopped talking and Adelina tilted her head, curious as she studied the man in
front of her. She saw pain on his face. Unmistakable pain that did not fit with
the ruthless men May described. Anger also lived in the hard set of his lips
and the tightening of his knuckles on the bars. He knew of Clear Mountain, but
he also knew something she did not.

Knowledge
was the most important tool a Queen could have, she remembered her mother
telling her, and opened her mind to learning from this man. She took a step
forward and then another, holding his gaze with one of equal intensity. When
she stood in front of him, she placed her hands below his on the bars. May
gasped in protest, but Adelina ignored the noise. “You say you turned yourself in.
You came to speak to me.”

“I
did.”

“Then
I require honesty. You claim the men who terrorized Clear Mountain were not
Raiders, but we know they were. How can they be both?”

“Have
you no criminals among your people?” he asked in response. Her eyes left his to
stare into the bleak shadows of his cell for only a brief second, but when she
met his gaze again, she knew he had not missed the reaction. He nodded. “You
have this place, of course, so you must. You don’t like it though.”

“It
serves a purpose.”

“Not
as swift a purpose as execution,” he replied. “The men who fulfilled their
whims on the villages of Clear Mountain were part of my father’s tribe once. I
won’t deny that. But they were no more human than you think I am. They broke
away and formed a band of their own, performing the acts May mentioned, but
they do not represent my people.”

“What
happened to them?”

His
hand slipped down the bar, coming to rest against hers. He took comfort from
the touch, she realized, and knew what he was about to say. “I tracked them down
and took care of them.”

“And
you said you weren’t a murderer,” May growled from the shadows.

His
eyes snapped away from Adelina. Anger returned to them. “It was no less than
they deserved. You saw what they did, and so did I. The people from those villages
deserved justice.”

“Without
a trial?” May countered. “That makes you no better than your so-called
criminals.”

“Perhaps
that’s true.” He removed his hands from the bars. “But you’re no better than I
am. Your trials are a farce if you conduct them with preconceived notions. I’d
even wager you’d hang me now if you could.”

“You’re
right. I would,” May said with a chilling smile. “Because I don’t believe a
word you’ve said, except for the last part. Those people do deserve justice,
and the Raiders will pay for what they’ve done.”

“So
be it,” he responded and turned from them. “Leave me. There’s no point in
talking any longer.”

He
was right, Adelina decided. There was no point. She watched the man withdraw to
the far side of his cell and vowed to give her new Guardian a firm lecture when
they returned to the privacy of the royal quarters. She could have gained more
information from this conversation, maybe even found a solution to keep the
peace, but May had effectively killed the chance. For today, at least. Adelina
would try again tomorrow.

She
turned to go, stopping when she saw the dulcet guitar clutched between May’s
hands. She reached out to take it, meeting resistance from her Guardian.
Already angry, she raised her eyes to May’s, ensuring the woman received the
message. She would give in on this one thing, or she would suffer for it.
Although Adelina could not control who stood as her guard, she could control
how she reacted to that person, and how miserable she made the Elders’ lives.
As far as she was concerned, May was a breath away from understanding the full
impact of Adelina’s will.

May’s
throat constricted and her hands released the instrument. Turning back to the
Raider, Adelina approached the bars one last time. He remained at the back
wall, unwilling to meet her. She did not blame him. She slipped the instrument
through the bars and laid it on the cleanest pile of hay she could find. “I’m
sorry,” she said.

“I
am too,” he told her.

Unsure
of what else to say, she nodded and stepped back. Then it happened. Her heart
heated, and then her body. The closest she had ever felt to this level of
warmth had been when she had caught fever as a child. She had been ill for two
weeks, with spots covering her skin. It had been uncomfortable, but this felt
almost pleasant. Before she had time to figure out what it was, the color shot
from her. Yellow rose into the air to slam into the stream of green coming from
him. Then, the colors turned to rich crimson, split, and poured back into both
of them. When it was over, she felt confused, weak, and betrayed.

“What
have you done?” she hissed at him.

“I
didn’t do anything,” he said. His eyes grew wide with his own confusion, but
she ignored it. This had to be a trick, a spell or power to convince her the
colors had been real. She refused to believe the alternative.

“I
swear I didn’t do this,” he insisted when she turned from him.

“Swear
to it in court,” she said. “We’ll add it to your list of crimes.”

He
cursed. She disappeared into the shadows, but not before his final taunt
reached her ears.

“You
mean to tell me you’d execute your own husband?”

H
E HATED
the words as soon as they left his lips. They echoed off the walls, mocking him
with the absurdity of his desperation well after Adelina’s footsteps had faded.
Within the hour, the guards came to extinguish the torches. He understood that
to mean bedtime had come, though sleep seemed laughable in this place. The
dungeon brought only discomfort to mind. The little bit of hay lining his cell
smelled of sweat, urine, and death. The stone beneath it bled moisture through
his clothes, soaking his skin and causing him to shiver with cold. He ground
his teeth, controlling the need to chatter, but his muscles would not obey the
same command. They shook in the effort to stay warm and convulsed from the pain
the unyielding stone brought to them.

More
than once his misery drove him to wonder why he remained subjected to this, and
why he did not leave. And more than once, he reminded himself he had come to
seek help for his people and he still had not received it.

Of
course, he had never expected to stay overnight in this sty. He had known
convincing the Queen to align with him would be difficult, but he had naively
believed he could achieve it in one afternoon.

A
scream tore down the hall. He brought his hands to his ears, blocking the sound
out, and with it, the urge to run. His people also screamed in their makeshift
camp, lost to a plague that had taken many since his father’s death. He needed a
talented Healer like the one guarding the Queen to save them. Yet the woman would
sooner kill him than help him, he realized, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Things
may not have gone according to plan so far, but he could not give up. No matter
the cost, he had to convince Adelina’s Guardian to visit the camp. Once she
arrived, she would change her mind. How could she not? It would take someone
callous to look at the skeletal bodies of the children or see the bloody eyes
of those who could not eat, could not sleep, and let them suffer.

It
would take someone callous or someone who had seen the destruction the rogue
men had wrought. The Healer had witnessed the worst of their crimes and it had
poisoned her. He had felt no less angry the first time he had seen what they
had done. And since his people had spent the majority of their existence hiding
in the woods and mountains, at least until the war had depleted their
resources, the woman could not know these men were deviants. She could only see
them as an example of the norm.

His
father’s decision to steal from the villagers instead of seeking their
assistance did not help matters.  He had wanted to remain separate. He had
wanted to maintain his pride. In the end, that decision and that same pride had
brought his death. And it might also cause the deaths of everyone who had
trusted him.

“Are
you hungry?” The voice drifted to him as no more than a whisper, but it seemed
like a yell in the darkness.

He
scrambled to his feet. “Who’s there?”

“It’s
only me,” the voice said and this time he recognized her. The Queen. He heard
the sound of steel striking flint, saw a spark, and then the torch lit and he
could see her. Although earlier she had worn what looked to be riding gear, she
had changed into a dress, a simple cotton and lace garment that highlighted her
lean body.

“Is
it morning?” he asked.

“Not
quite, but close,” she responded and turned to face him. Though he had heard
stories of her bravery in the war, and heard tales of the cunning plan she had
executed to win peace in Zeiihbu, he had never heard anyone mention her beauty.
He wished he had. At least then he would have been prepared for the way it had
stopped his heart yesterday.