Amidst The Rising Shadows (Book 3) (18 page)

Sarah glanced at the backs of the receding crowd, “I have to trust my heart.”

Roselyn nodded, “There is just one more thing. If what you suspect is true, then where is the real Aaron?”

Sarah shook her head and scanned the people around them as if Aaron would suddenly emerge.
 

“Let’s go,” Sarah said.

They headed in the same direction that Verona and Braden had taken Aaron. Off to the side of the road, a group of men were stacking sacks of grain into a wagon when a crippled-looking man muttering to himself lurched by, knocking into one of them. The men on the ground shouted and kicked the crippled man who flailed his arms clumsily and his shouts grew louder, sounding like gibberish. The workers screamed at him, and each began laughing and taking a shot. The crippled swung his gnarled hands and tried to wheel around, but stumbled and fell. The workers closed in on him hungrily.

“You men, stop that at once!” Sarah shouted at them.

The men turned around and took note of her golden hair, giving her a slight bow before going back to work. Sarah kneeled down. The crippled man kept his deformed hands covering his face. His clothes were caked with mud, and it was matted through his greasy hair. He drew ragged breaths. Sarah reached out and gently pulled his arms down. Dull-brown eyes darted around before coming to focus on her. He pulled back and squeezed his eyes shut. His mouth opened and closed rapidly. He was hideously deformed as if every bone in his body had been broken. He lurched to his feet and took a few steps away.

“Len,” a short man called, coming down the road. He had a homely face and was dressed in simple clothes, but he had a gentle manner to him. He called out again, and the crippled man swung around repeating the name.

“Thank you for looking after him, my Lady. He wandered off the moment my back was turned,” the man said.

“It was no problem. Those other men were beating him,” Sarah said glaring at the group of men who had finished loading the wagon and were moving away from them. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your name.”

“Apologies, my Lady, my mum exhausted herself with instilling manners into me, but I'm afraid it was all for not today. My name is Wes, and this is Len,” Wes said with a smile and nod to both Sarah and Roselyn.

“Len,” Sarah said, but the crippled man was looking away from them. “That’s a strange name.”

“Hardly a name at all, my Lady. They found him in the woods yesterday and that was the only word he has said since,” Wes said.

“It’s very kind of you to look after him,” Sarah said.

“Well he’s quite strong, and I’m short, so I look after him, and he helps me lift stuff when I need it.”

“Len,” Len said his eyes growing distant for a moment, but then darted around following things that only he could see.

They bid the men farewell and headed back into the camp. Sarah caressed Aaron’s medallion under her shirt, lost in thought and before long they came to a heavily guarded tent.
 

Roselyn started to head inside, but Sarah reached out to her, “I can’t go in there.”

Roselyn considered her words for a moment and nodded, “We’ll meet up later then.”

Sarah stood alone outside the tent, and her insides squirmed. She found herself wanting to plunge headlong into the tent and give into the fantasy that Aaron was inside waiting for her, but she couldn’t. She heard many voices coming from inside, from Verona’s boisterous laughter to Braden's grumbling.
 

Backing away from the tent, she engaged the travel crystal and left. She emerged under a star-filled sky. The trickling water of a fountain of the Goddess Ferasdiam stood amid a remnant castle long since gone to ruin. At first she didn’t recognize where she was until a vision of Aaron burned through her mind. This was a place he had taken her when he had tried to rid her of the Nanites. Verona later told her that the fountain was where a Dragon had spoken to them. She gazed at the stone carving of a woman standing resolute above the pool of water that served as the fountain’s basin. Sarah collapsed to her knees, her eyes brimming with tears, and wept. All the while cursing herself for doing so. She twisted around and sat with her back against the fountain walls. She withdrew the medallion from her shirt, tracing the carving of a Dragon cradling a single rose with a crystal in the center. She moaned Aaron’s name and sank to the ground, passing out of thought and mind, but for the soft trickle of the water and the resolute stare of the stone carving of the Goddess above her.

C
HAPTER
12

SHADOWS DESCENT

“I’m here, my Lady,” Verona said.
 

Roselyn looked up from what she had been working on and smiled at him.

“My Lady?” Roselyn asked.

“In this case I mean it quite literally,” Verona quipped.

Roselyn laughed and kissed him, “Fool.”

“Always for you, my Lady,” Verona said, feeling her silky raven hair glide across his hands as she stepped back.

“You should have seen the looks I would get when I asked why you were so quiet.”

“I see my reputation precedes me,” Verona grinned.

The smiled melted away from her face, and the muscles above her cheekbones rolled as she chewed her bottom lip. He was still learning all her quirks, but this was one he knew well. There was something she wanted to talk to him about.

“How is Aaron?”

Verona noted the slight frown on her face when she asked, “He rests. Braden is with him.”

“Did he say anything about how he escaped?”

Verona shook his head, “Not since you examined him yesterday. He more or less passed out.”

Roselyn nodded and addressed the flashing light on the screen she was working from. She had setup a small lab with some of her Hythariam equipment that he couldn’t even begin to guess how they worked. “What are you working on?”

“I’m running some tests on Aaron’s blood.”

“What are you looking for?” Verona asked.

“Anomalies. I’m comparing this sample from what we had at Hathenwood,” Roselyn said.

Verona frowned, “You kept his blood?”

“It’s not as ghastly as you make it sound,” Roselyn grinned. “But yes, we did. If you recall, he was infected with the Ryakul poison, and we were trying to help him. Our blood, yours, mine hold detailed information about us.”

Verona nodded, “And why are you comparing his blood samples?”

“He’s been gone for months on Hytharia. Captured by my people there. These tests might gives us some insight into what has been done to him if anything. I know on the surface he appears normal, but in the time you were with him has he acted any different?” Roselyn asked.

“He was captured. I don’t mean to bring this up, but we both know what that was like,” Verona said. The images of the Elitesman Sevan torturing people while he and Sarik kept up a shield still came to him in his dreams.

“I realize that, but Sarah believes that the man that came yesterday isn’t Aaron,” Roselyn said.

Verona blew out a breath, “Do you realize how crazy that sounds? If I hadn’t known about the Nanites and that they were capable of changing the very foundations of our minds, I would think she lost her senses.”

“And now?”

“I see Aaron before me. What do you see?”

“I’m not sure what to think. So far the blood tests match, but I have more tests to run,” said Roselyn.

Verona came to her side and reached out to her, “What do you see, my Lady?”

“I see Aaron, but Sarah is my friend. She and Aaron are connected in ways we’re only beginning to comprehend. If she has doubts, then we should listen to her.”

Verona was silent for a moment, considering his words carefully. “Could she still be suffering from some remnant of the Nanites? The way I understand it is that they retrain the mind.”

“I’ve considered that, but don’t you find it suspicious that Aaron just showed up here out of nowhere?”

“I thought of it more as a blessing, but I see your point. If he has returned does it also mean the rest of the Hythariam have arrived?”

The comms device chimed from both of their wrists, and Roselyn brought hers up.

“It’s a message from Gavril. They want to see us at the command tent,” Roselyn said and started packing up her things.

“Roselyn, I think we need to give Aaron some time,” Verona said.

“Something we’re lacking at the moment. There are too many people who seek to use Sarah as some type of pawn with the High King or believe that she is here spying for him,” Roselyn said.

They headed toward the command tent.

“Rumors,” Verona said. “She’s the daughter of the High King; of course there are rumors. I have no doubts where Sarah’s loyalties lie.”

“Even if she refuses to believe that Aaron has returned?”

Verona felt his teeth clamp down, “You paint a dark picture, my Lady.” His thoughts drifted to Aaron’s return and the look on Sarah’s face as she pulled away from him. How could she have known anything so quickly? And now Roselyn was running blood tests looking for Goddess knew what. They had enough enemies to face without being suspicious of one another.
 

Outside of Rexel was a city of tents and makeshift shelters. More permanent structures were being built, but not fast enough to accommodate the Free Nations Army. They came to a behemoth-sized tent, and he nodded to the guards posted outside and entered. There were various groups gathered inside the tent. Some groups were being led by Hythariam there to teach others the basics of how their technology worked. Others were gathered with leaders of the various factions that made up the FNA, poring over maps and discussing tactics. Verona had sat in enough of those to know how useful they were. The maps of Safanar since the dawn of the airships were more accurate than anything they had before, and the Hythariam satellites up in the heavens augmented those as well. He had yet to see so many of the things that Roselyn spoke of, but he had come to trust and rely on the Hythariam technological wonders.

A small crowd gathered at the meeting area, and standing along the outskirts was a familiar face although not as young as he was a few months ago. Jopher had turned into a fine officer.

“Got your feet back on solid ground?” Verona asked.

“For the moment. The admiral put me in command of a ship of my own,” Jopher said.

“I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve wormed your way into Nathaniel Morgan’s good graces,” Verona said.

“I’ll tell you how he did it,” came Admiral Morgan’s voice from behind him. “With honest to goodness hard work. You princely types are all the same. You come to me all high and mighty, thinking that what comes out of your ass doesn’t stink like the rest of us. A few weeks or months getting your hands dirty tends to change all that.”

“I’m sure you expected it to take months in my case,” Verona grinned.

“You both did well. I couldn’t be prouder if you were my own sons. The truth of the matter is we need ship captains, and that means some of you will need to grow a bit faster,” Admiral Morgan said.

“Did you happen to see my request?” asked Jopher.

“Aye, I did, lad,” Morgan said, “You want Hatly, the Raven’s engineer. I bet you’d take the Raven too if I was of mind to let you, but I’m not. You’re going to one of the newer ships.”

“Come now, Nathaniel,” Verona said, “You get what you want, which is for Jopher to captain a ship for you, and he gets what he needs, which is an exemplary engineer to keep her flying. You taught him well.”

“Too well apparently. Yes, I will approve the transfer,” Morgan said after a moment.

“Thank you, sir.”

Verona grinned at them both, and the admiral took his leave of them.

“Is it true about Aaron being back?” Jopher asked.

Verona nodded, “Causing quite a stir. He more or less passed out shortly after arriving. Braden is with him. I have a question for you, but not as an officer in the Free Nations Army, but for the heir apparent of Zsensibar’s throne.”

“That’s making waves among my many brothers and sisters still in Zsensibar,” Jopher said.

“I can imagine, but they will learn. With Khamearra’s armies attacking we need a commitment from your father. Do you know if he’s willing to grant that now?” asked Verona.

“You would think that the sheer fact that I am here would be a measure of his commitment, but I understand what has leaders of the War Council concerned. He will be coming here soon enough,” Jopher said.

“Hopefully he doesn’t intend to bring his whole army. Resources are spread thin enough as it is, or so my uncle keeps saying.”

“Troop movement is going to be one of the topics of discussion. He has used the comms device, but he doesn’t like them,” Jopher said.

“I actually agree with him in that regard. The comms device has some limitation, and some things are best discussed in person,” Verona said.

“Are you getting set in your ways, Verona?” Roselyn said.

Verona gave her a sly grin, “Not at all, my Lady. There are some I’d rather see in person as opposed to a voice through one of your machines. Your voice, while music to my ears, doesn’t hold a candle to actually standing at your side, which is music to my soul.”