Chapter 37

Aris growled as he ruffled through the large pile of reports that littered his desk. His dark red cherry-wood desk was usually the very picture of organization, everything had its place and was always strictly ordered, today though, Aris’ working space mirrored his mental state. Papers were scattered everywhere, just like his thoughts, and they full of encircled words and underlined sections.

Aris was infuriated at the corruption in his organization that Kestrel had uncovered. Just how deep did its root go? He had known that there were bound to be crooked guards —it was a statistical fact— but he hadn’t expected it to hit so close to home. If Sephira wasn’t safe, just how clean was his organization really?

Who could he trust? And how were the Inquisitors involved? Were his guards involved with the kidnappings too?

Why had an Inquisitor been sent to slaughter anyone who had heard Rel’s confession?

Aris slammed his hand on his desk in frustration, the pain from the sharp blow temporarily distracted him from the questions that swarmed his mind like an army of ants. The snail’s pace of the investigation and the constant glancing over his shoulder were wearing on him.

Aris had never been a foolhardy man, but neither had he made it to his position by sitting around and twiddling his thumbs. He was a man of action. To be doing nothing felt like a betrayal of his character.

He had to be doing SOMETHING.

I’m not getting anything done. I need fresh air. Aris thought, finally cracking under mountains of dead ends that had piled up on his desk.

He couldn’t think clearly here.

He needed to order his thoughts. He needed to breath the mountain air. He needed to be outside. He…just needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere not so stifling.

So Aris stacked the pile of papers and organized his desk. He then placed a very fine thread between two tiny nails that barely stuck out of the wood, one on the door and the other on the frame, near the top of the door. If anyone broke in, he would know it.

Aris stalked through the halls and exited the keep. He walked away from the stark but beautiful granite structure and made his way down to the river-side. The bubbling rush of the mountain fed river cleared his mind. There was something about the consistency of the babbling water that brought peace to his soul. Despite the madness surrounding him, some things were consistent. Some things never changed. The mountains would ever stand and their springs would always bubble down from their icy tops. Not everything in his world was shifting.

When Aris succeeded in silencing the storm in his mind he pulled the metalvine he always carried at his side from it’s hard leather sheath and began to run through the first katas of Falis.

He moved slowly and intentionally. Each step was measured and precise, allowing his body to get used to the mechanics of the movement, and with each successive kata he picked up speed until all that could be seen of the metalvine was a dark blur cutting through the air with a ripping sound. By the time he finished, Aris had worked up a sheen of sweat and had regained his equilibrium.

The anxieties were still there, but now instead of giants towering over him ready to beat him down any second, they seemed more like the mountains he grew up in. They were humongous, but there were a million paths leading to the peak. One just had to open their eyes to see them.

Aris felt his tensions falling away like the sweat that rolled down his back. It felt good working off his frustrations. He’d been so overwhelmed with the corruption investigation, his newfound world of magic, his tutoring of Kestrel, and now the attack on his niece and new young ward that he felt like he hadn’t had the time to break the surface of the water for a breath. Now that he was calmed, he felt renewed.

When had he forgotten that feeling?

He started to twirl the metalvine again and before he knew it, he’d launched into another series of kata. His feet slid across the gravel path, each step exactly where it should be. The metalvine swung in a series of arcs and spins, the apex of each move simulating a vital pressure point meant to incapacitate or kill. With each swing, Aris gained more clarity. His problems seemed to fade away with every rotation of the deadly weapon.

Aris wasn’t a schemer. He had had to learn to do so in order to survive the political game in Fiell, but it wearied him.

No, he was a man of action. If he wasn’t pressing forwards, he would sink and die. The katas propelled him forward in a deadly dance where each hit could maim. It was a mirror of the political world. By moving here, by putting his body to action, he was able to open his mind to see the deadly political jabs that he had to constantly dodge and slip, lest he lose his life.

Politics were little different than Falis when he stopped to think about it. You had to step carefully with both. Where you put your feet could determine life or death. Each blow was meant to catch an opening left by the opponent.

Aris just needed to remember that.

By the time Aris had finished, his grey uniform was darkened by the copious amount of sweat his workout had produced. He mirrored the rushing river whom he stood besides and from whom he took a long cool draft.

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He was strong, he would surge forward, he would cut through his obstacles and protect innocents wherever he went.

*****

Aris, upon returning to his sparsely decorated office, stripped off his sweat covered uniform, exposing his pale, but powerful body. The muscles on Aris’ chest rippled and his light skin was covered in a patchwork of scars. Each one told a story, the most important perhaps, were the four long gashes on his right shoulder. He’d gotten it from a Wendig creature whom he thought he had vanquished.

It reminded him that an injured and humiliated enemy was often the most dangerous. He would never again underestimate an enemy. Not when doing so could so easily mean death.

Aris thoughtfully rubbed the scar after he hiked up the trousers of his spare uniform. He was now facing enemies just as, if not far more dangerous than the ones he’d encountered during the Mountain Campaigns. The Wendig people could tear you from limb to limb, but a politician could decimate entire peoples for generations.

By the time Aris finished changing he felt nearly renewed. He had shed off the old concerns like his sweaty clothes and would look at his problems with a fresh pair of eyes.

OK, Aris thought. Time to dive back in. He began to shuffle through the piles of paperwork on his desk again, checking to see if he’d missed anything during his first reading.

The next two hours passed slowly as Aris read and reread each report.

He could find nothing that substantiated what he knew in his heart be true. That the Emperor was somehow involved in the kidnappings that plagued the city in waves every couple of years, and that those in turn were somehow connected to the now dead guard Rel.

There’s got to be SOMETHING here. Aris chided himself. I know there’s something tying all these threads together. There has to be. I just haven’t found it yet.

Aris continued sifting through the papers.

It was nearly six o’ clock in the evening before he found it.

A young redheaded child… Can’t be more than eight years old… Blunt force trauma, at first thought dead, but upon closer inspection, showed signs of life… Is not known whether or not she will survive… Very touch and go… The writing stood out to Aris.

Could it be whom he thought it was?

Aris went to fetch Frenz, who acted as his office liaison. “Sir?” he asked, a questioning eyebrow raised.

“I need you to send a message,” Aris inst ructed the young man. “First, tell my wife that I won't make it home for dinner and that they’ll have to sup without me.”

The dark brown haired assistant nodded. “And?”

“There’s a young man who’s residing in the barracks. I have a special question for him.” Aris informed him.

Frenz nodded, listening intently. His memory was the sharpest of anyone Aris knew.

“I need you to find the new recruit Kestrel and tell him I need to know what the young girl’s hair color was. He will know what I mean. Do you understand my instructions?”

Frenz nodded dutifully. He’d taken stranger messages before.

“Good,” said Aris. “Now make haste. And return the moment that Kestrel gives you his answer.”

Frenz saluted and hurried out of the office, leaving Aris to the quiet where he poured over the report again, making sure he hadn’t overlooked anything.

*****

Frenz returned to the office forty minutes later, covered in a sheen of sweat. He had ridden hard. He had heard the urgent tone in his boss’ voice and knew that he would want the information as soon as he could possibly get it. He knocked on the door and announced his presence to Aris, who beckoned him in.

“The recruit said that it was red,” he relayed.

Aris looked at Frenz, “You’re sure? You didn’t mishear him?”

Frenz nodded. His boss was acting strange, but he’d worked for him long enough to know that when he got on the trail of a difficult case, he would pour over every word said and look at it from angles others would think impossible to see.

“Thank you. You’re dismissed. Go home and see your wife and son. He’s what, four years old now? Tell him that uncle Aris says hello, and that I’ve got a stash of cakes for him whenever his mean father decides to let him have it,” Aris bid Frenz, one of the few in the keep he counted a true friend, his leave.

Aris had known the younger man as a recruit, and though he’d shown great aptitude in his training, it was clear that Frenz would never physically have what it took to be a city guard. Aris, though, had seen an almost freakish dedication to detail and head for numbers and facts in the man and knew it would be a waste to lose him.

He had made him his attache and had given thanks ever-on afterwards. His memory was inhuman and his loyalty —gained before his entrance into the service when Aris had saved his sister during a rape attempt— was unshakable. Frenz would follow him to death and beyond. He would assault the gates of hell if Aris wished him to.

That report must have been about Kestrel’s young Cillia. He was sure she had died, but she might have survived somehow. Who was it that found her? Was it Kestrel’s attackers or someone else?

Aris paced around his minimalistic office. His feet felt like they would run away without him and betray his investigation if he weren’t careful.

He could barely contain his excitement, after so many dead ends with every question plaguing his mind, to find the proof that had been lost but he’d known was there made him want to rush forwards into battle.

Calm yourself. He chided himself. You still don’t know who you can trust. This isn’t something you can just run into. You’re already being watched more closely than you’ve ever been…And what about young Kestrel? Is this something I should share with him? What would this information do to him? Would it destroy him or give him purpose?

Aris cursed silently and then chuckled at himself.

It grated that he had come to care about the scrappy young man so much.

He saw so much of his brother Van in Kestrel though. He had the same earnestness and rough charisma his late brother had possessed, and a fearlessness too that spoke well of him.

Kestrel was harsh and unrefined, but he hadn’t let the streets warp him into monster like so many he’d grown up around had done. He was still a good man despite the hell he’d been through.

He really did care for the young sandy haired man.

Watching over him, Aris felt like was finally getting a second chance to repay his brother.

Even before he’d known of the world of magic that Van had kept from him, and before his suspicions of the Emperor had ever been fostered, he could never find it in himself to hate his brother.

They’d stood at opposite ends of the spectrum, and Van had died trying to tear down what Aris had dedicated his life to protecting, but Aris had loved him still.

He wished to protect Kestrel in the way he should have protected his older brother.

What should I do about him? What will he do if I tell him that his precious young companion may have survived the attack that he thought claimed her life? Would he act rashly or would he take a calculated approach? Aris scratched his head, trying to find an answer to the question that would allow him to sleep soundly.

Eventually he gave up.

Aris knew that the answer was beyond him.

He would just have to throw the bones and see where they landed.