Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (23 page)

‘I cannot.’

‘Then you are indeed no better than—’

‘Nash?’ Robert raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s no more than I have told you all along.’

‘Then you would force the boy to a fate he has no say in, just as the Key did to you! Don’t you see that you
must
have his consent? Otherwise, it will all have been for nothing.’

‘I can’t afford to give him the chance to say no.’

‘But you can afford to put him on the throne, to ask us, and indeed, the entire country, to respect him as our King – and yet you would not grant him that same respect.’ Aiden’s gaze narrowed. ‘Yes, I do understand all too well. I know what the others will never see.’

‘What? That I would … still, despite all my reasons, my arguments, do all this only because I am determined to defy my fate? Am I really so pathetic in your eyes, Bishop?’

Aiden stared at him a moment, hard and unchanging. Then slowly, he shook his head, his gaze softening a little. ‘No, Robert. But for good or ill, you have put me here to say these things to you, even if you are determined to ignore them.’

Robert swallowed hard against words that were too close to the truth, then took a step back. He swung his cloak around his shoulders, fighting to find words that might mean something this friend could hold onto. His voice came out softer than he intended, and suspiciously husky. ‘I have to go. I …’

‘Still, I beseech you, ask the boy. Give him the choice you were denied.’

Robert gazed at him a moment longer. ‘Farewell, Aiden. Take care.’

With his heart heavy, he turned and left.

Night after night Robert travelled through a tumbling wasteland devoid of feature but for the blackened trunks of trees wet from frost. He tried not looking and not seeing the wilderness his beautiful country had become. While towns managed to hold onto a semblance of prosperity, villages struggled, maintaining little more than an air of survival. Daylight hours saw him passing league after league of empty fields unploughed for winter, of vacant farms and burnt-out houses.

He stayed clear of them all, both for safety’s sake and to deny the demon.

But he did not head north immediately. Instead, he turned due west, making for a place that haunted his memory. Just before dawn on the eighth day, with a
frisson
of anticipation, he turned off the road and headed across a hilly pasture grey with new frost. No bitter thoughts intruded on him now; they never did when he approached this same place. He was, for a moment, emptied of doubt and recriminations, of hesitation and self-loathing, leaving him with the closest thing to peace he’d known in eight years.

Home could do that to a man.

He took his time now, giving the horse a rest as he walked alongside it, allowing the sun to peek beyond the horizon before he crested the last snow-strewn hill. And there it was: Dunlorn.

Lost amidst a field of overgrown brush and abandoned weeds, blackened ice and fresh-fallen snow were the familiar walls, the towers he’d grown up with, the doors and windows now empty and forlorn. This had once been the centre of his world, the people within, ready to die for him, as he’d been for them. He’d married Berenice here, and here she had died by his hand. His father was buried within the chapel, along with ancestors going too far back to count. This place was the
heart of his journey and the remnants of all his House stood for.

And now it was empty.

The tightening in his chest loosened as he drew in a breath of something like relief. With the sun at his back, he walked forward, his gaze sweeping over battlements and fine stone while his Senses stretched to the maximum, just in case Dunlorn castle was not as empty as he hoped.

Once sure there was nobody else around, he approached the gates. Tall and bleak, these had kept out many a foe, but were no barrier to him now. With one hard push, they opened and he ventured through the barbican and into the inner ward. There he came to a stop, simply listening.

It was always the silence of this place which both welcomed and overwhelmed him, as though it was nothing in reality and only something of his dreams; that the moment he woke, he would find the place teeming with activity the way it had done years before, when he’d returned from his exile, before he’d weakened and allowed himself to become involved in his country’s fate once more.

For all that it had been deserted for fourteen years, there was nothing of decay about the place. It seemed, for some strange reason, that though the rest of the country was crumbling to ashes, Dunlorn was to stand fast and act the silent witness.

He led his horse into the old stable. He removed saddle and bags, then emptied out the sack of oats he’d brought with him, letting the animal eat while he brushed it down. Finished, he took his things and ventured upstairs to the guardrooms. He had been here enough times over the last years to know he could not bring himself to wander into the main keep, to walk in spaces that held such weight of expectation and failure. Coming to Dunlorn was a necessity, but there was no need to make things worse.

In the main guardroom, he knelt down to pull up floor boards and removed things he left here each time; blankets, enough firewood to start with, a few candles, some dried figs and nuts. In their place he left a heavy bag of gold pieces, ready
for when he needed them. He made himself comfortable, kicked off his boots and settled down to sleep.

The silence hid his multitude of sins.

*

He dreamed again. Drifting in the icy winter night. Cold and hard. Yes, he knew this place. Knew it too well.

He ran, stumbling, blind and wounded. Nash ran before him, laughing, immune to Robert’s power. Shan Moss shook and trembled around him, echoing horror. Too exhausted now, Robert chased Nash out onto the battlefield.

They were alone. Their armies had vanished, and one look in Nash’s eye told him this had been his doing.

But how could he win the battle without his army? How would he stop Selar without loyal men at his back?

Loyal men forced to fight their own countrymen. Forced to bleed and die. To starve. To vanish as though they’d never existed.

He gathered together all the demon had bred in him, all the anger and fury, frustration, hatred, fear and self-loathing. He pulled it all together inside him, knowing what it would do – but now it was tenfold, glowing bright like a whole evil sun inside him. His own Angel of Darkness, to battle the one standing before him.

This
was what he’d been born for. This was his true destiny. To destroy. He thirsted for it, lusted after it. He hungered for it, needing it to fill his empty soul.

His hands caught the fire within him, trembled and tingled with the all-consuming power of the Word of Destruction. They rose before him, ready to unleash hell.

‘Go ahead and use it,’ Nash called out to him. ‘Say the Word! Say the Word and crush me, Enemy!’

The Word rose in him, perched upon his lips, a heartbeat from being spoken—

She
was there, standing in front of him, her eyes full of sorrow, and by the gods, how he loved her, how he needed her, how she filled his soul and starved the demon of breath.

But she did not come towards him. Instead, she moved back and he could hear Nash’s laughter, echoing on the wind.

And the demon inside flooded forth, making him gasp for air, driving balance from him. He fell to his knees, unable to look away as she walked to Nash, unable to shut out David Maclean’s words.

But David Maclean was dead. And Nash was no longer whole.

And Jenn?

He woke, his eyes staring at the ceiling, listening to the empty wind, the cold night and the parts of him that would soon wither and die.

Robert threw off his blankets and paced a path up and down the guardroom as though he could drive the past beneath his heel and leave it there forever. Outside, the wind rose once more, but beneath it were new noises that drew him to a halt, heart thudding in his chest.

Voices.

Leaving his boots, he padded silently to the window and looked down into the courtyard. Low, black clouds hung like a warning in the sky, promising more snow for tomorrow. The wind pushed them around, drove them together and buffeted the three people struggling into the courtyard.

Like a thief, he sank back into the shadows, careful that no glint of fading daylight catch his face. Instead, he held his breath and strained to hear what they were saying.

Two men and a woman. One of the men was older, his hair salted with white and he walked with a limp. The other man was younger and bore a scar on one side of his face. The woman might have been his mother. Her shoulders looked strong, but rounded with years of heavy labour. She carried a basket in one hand, the other raised to keep her cloak in place.

They seemed to be arguing. Robert followed them from window to window, but could hear only the voices, not the words. He watched as they climbed the stairs to the main keep, opened the door and disappeared inside.

In a flash, he had his boots on. With quick strides, he ducked through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. Following a long corridor, he crept up another flight of stairs at the end and gently pushed open the door at the top.

He emerged into hushed light and echoed noises. This was the lord’s peep, a room which looked down into the great hall with long narrow slits where guards could aim arrows from. Extending enough power to hide his footsteps, he reached one arrow slit and found the people below.

For a moment, he assumed he had to be still asleep and dreaming this, but seconds later, too many things fell into place. The two men, under the direction of the old woman, set about with brooms that had come from somewhere. Keeping up a steady flow of conversation about nothing in particular, they all worked to clear the hall of dust and dirt that had blown in over summer. They swept down cobwebs and knocked free birds’ nests. The boy went outside and drew water from the well. He returned and scrubbed the empty hearth clean.

Only then did Robert see that this was not a new thing. He looked around the room he was in, remembered back to the guardhouse and the stable – even to the weedless state of the courtyard.

Damn fools! What were they doing? If they got themselves caught by soldiers he knew patrolled this area then they’d be tried for treason, all so they could tend to something nobody cared about any more. Idiots! What right had they to do this? To trespass upon his lands! Couldn’t they see this place was dead? That it should be left to rot?

He should scare them away. Make out like he was a ghost or something, ensure they never came back. But he couldn’t move. Their bent backs, their steady flow of conversation, their earnestness whispered to him, and he had no choice but to listen.

When finally they finished, he watched them exit the hall and close the door carefully behind them. In the silence, he wandered back to the guardhouse, then down to feed and water his horse again. The people had gone, closing the gate behind them, and as night fell he returned to his room and lit a fire.

He ate simply. Done, he sat down opposite the fireplace and listened to the wind rattle through the battlements, snapping at the window casings and creeping under doors.

There was something about Dunlorn that drew him back here, year after year. He could still hear Finnlay’s voice as a boy, chasing after Robert, complaining that he’d been cheated in a contest of archery. He could hear his mother issuing a stern warning for them both to behave. And he could hear – and almost see – his father striding into the courtyard, looking so much like Finnlay did now, but more stern, more threatening. He had been a formidable man, but Robert’s other memories of him were the quiet moments, the lessons learned, the stories told. He’d tried too hard to live up to that image, but for a long time now, he knew he’d failed.

But this time, he would not fail. If he had learned anything from his father, it was that success never came from giving up …

Are you there?

With a start, Robert sat up, his eyes snapping open, his heart pounding, foggy sleep clouding the dream until he couldn’t tell if it was a nightmare or …

No, she wouldn’t …

Please, Robert. Can you hear me?

Yes.
The word was out and sent to her before he even thought about it, chased by a thrill of joy to hear her voice …

In the darkness, he scrambled to his feet and deliberately slammed his hand against the stone wall. He needed the pain to remind him of who this was and that joy had no place in his dealings with her.

He could not afford to be fooled again.

Yes, Jenn, I can hear you.

It had always amazed Nash to find the world so over-populated with beings who thought themselves superior to the average fool. And, of course, the old adage required that they not become aware of it until it was too late. More than once, at such a moment as this, Nash had been tempted to issue a warning to that effect, but what would be the good of
it, when this particular truth was buried in a host of his other lies?

Still, Nash mused, sitting back in his chair to study the man before him, it might be interesting one day to actually say something, to add a little variety. Sources of genuine entertainment these days were few and far between, and his body’s infirmities dictated too many of his activities.

On the other hand, here was this man, this young and bristling Malachi, fresh and ready, passionate about his ambitions, determined in his means to achieve them. How was Nash to prick that bubble of arrogant enthusiasm with the sharp edge of reality? Especially since, in the long run – and for that matter, short term – Nash would be much better served to use this man as originally intended and let the truth die the lonely and bitter death it deserved.

He smiled into light brown eyes and lifted his hand generously. ‘Come closer.’

Hiding his wariness, the man took another step towards the desk, his shoulders squared, his chin raised in defiance of a fear he was trying to ignore.

Here against his better judgement, unless Nash missed his guess. ‘Your name?’