47.

Uninvited Guests

"By now you must be making a habit of this."

"Shut up." groaned Faunia.

They were shackled against the back wall of a rank dungeon cell, slithering with shadows from the torchlight through the bars beyond. The shackles strung to their wrists and ankles both were high enough that their arms were constantly stretched, they were constantly on their bare toes. Their nostrils were never spared the aggressive stench of blood and bile either, nor were their ears spared the distant screams, the distant scraping of metal...

They'd been stripped of all but their measly undergarments, though they were unmolested as of yet. They loathed to think what their captors might have in store for them when they arrived, and every slight noise, most of them the gentle scurrying of rats, sent Faunia's breath into a gentle pant, her body into the shakes.

Cedric had his eyes shut. He was concentrating, thinking, deliberating with the aid of Serkukan and Ithlo.

But they'd be hard pressed to steal our Etherians. I'm guessing Aeon has forgotten all about these otherworldly daemons, leaving us a vast advantage in any case. And leaving a nice knife to twist for one of the Twelve.

"Heji was waiting for us." Faunia finally muttered when she'd amounted some strength.

He nodded. "And now he's got us. Maybe his intent was to start a war after all, starting by severing Calamon's throat. Not that either of us fit the bill."

"It'd be a good start toward disordering them. There's no better place to start in an ungoverned country than those who seek control, is there?"

I'm not sure I do seek control, Cedric wondered. I just want to protect people. I'm sick of all the bloodshed. Somebody has to do something about it.

"Nothing is stopping us from escaping." he said.

"Only that we'd be on the run, we'd have no chance of getting to Heji without severing these diplomatic lines. And if Kogar smells our ley, wherever he is…"

"We'd be killing more than just a few Aeonics."

Faunia's stomach sank. She didn't want to be killing anyone if she could help it. She was sure Cedric agreed to that much. She did her best to steel herself, to keep her face stoic rather than contorted in worry and fear.

"Though, showing our ability to escape does open ground for some more pressing negotiations. It just depends how heavy-handed we want to be."

"Negotiations?"

He nodded. "I want to sell him something."

She groaned.

"Not for a quick profit — I want to sell him a way to protect his country from people like Kogar."

"Or people like us, you mean. You're not planning to sell them sel as slaves, are you?"

He shook his head. Before he could speak again, there was the hiss of a steel door down the hall beyond their barred cell. Cedric lifted his head slightly, raised his chin to appear more confident than he usually felt while in his underwear.

Then went the gentle clicking of a heel beyond. Faunia swallowed hard. The sound was all too familiar, all too foreboding.

"I should ask anyway," Cedric began, "how well do you take to torture?"

Then appeared the silhouette. His dark rimmed glasses shone in the dim light of their cell. He placed his hands against the bars for a long moment — long enough that Cedric and Faunia both could see the burned skin of his fingertips in the dim light. His fingernails had plainly been removed long ago. For his face, they each hoped they wouldn't see the cruel details of that amalgamated mess of scratchy wounds and flaking, dead skin.

"Not well." she finally replied when she could breathe again.

Then squealed the bars of their cell.

Before the man could begin, Cedric spoke: "We're here for an audience with your king. He called for us."

The man tilted his head back in surprise. "How forward of you. Making demands from your position."

Cedric corrected, "I'm not making demands. I'm informing you. Your king called for me."

"It would appear that things have changed, Cedric, and we've all been made well aware. You should have listened to our majesty's words of warning." He picked a scalpel up from the table, approached close enough that Cedric could smell the faint, metallic odor of blood on the man's warm breath. "There's big money in obeying orders."

"Who's paying you for this?"

"I'm the one who asks the questions, boy. Now…" Up went his scalpel.

Faunia looked away sharply, Tirolith!

"Which teeth would you prefer I start with? The front? Or—"

There was a singular instant where both Cedric and his adversary moved, the torchlights flickered… and the torturer was dead. When Faunia turned back, there was a wide splatter of blood across the floor and through the bars like he'd been hit by a cannonball. His body was an unrecognizable pile.

Faunia fell slack. Her mouth gaped in horror. Soundless, instant death.

Cedric's eyebrows raised. "How did you…?"

"Me?" She locked up. Then she panicked, "Me!?"

His mouth opened and shut. He wasn't sure how to react.

"Cedric, that's not possible!"

"Neither was what Tirolith did to the First Line. Something is going on with that girl…"

Now isn't the time for that, Cedric — the guards are coming.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

His eyes narrowed. His hands slipped through his own fetters like they weren't even there, and he padded down to the floor before moving nimbly over to the bars. He had full intention of making a huge bloody mess until he arrived there, and then the thoughts of the soldiers' families crossed his mind. No longer could Serkukan control his whims and call upon a slaughter. It was his choice now, and his own destiny to control.

And he chose mercy.

Faunia still hadn't reacted. And then her own manacles fell apart into shards, frozen and unfrozen by Tirolith enough to damage them beyond repair. She fell to the ground, hurried over to Cedric's side.

Then the first of the guards arrived to the cage. He angled his pike and stuck it at the bars. "Get back!"

Cedric reacted faster than any man could, ripped the pike out of the guard's hand and spun it around defensively.

"I'm only asking once," he declared through a hiss, "let us go. We've got an audience."

The other guards arrived in the hall. They cast uneasy glances to each other, unsure of how to proceed.

"Please," came a commanding voice from some distance away. Then another set of clicking footsteps. Faunia trembled. "Allow me to handle this."

And then his grinned face showed through the bars, in the horrible, horrible dim orange light of that hall.

White and black armor. Always white and black…

Kogar stood between the bars. The ley swirled almost instantly into a silent strike of instant death. Cedric dispelled it without so much as moving a muscle. It was second nature, now. The ley had grown comfortable to him. And Cedric knew; he wont use Everlasting here. It's too disgraceful. Too messy.

Kogar did not flinch for a moment. And then his face twisted into an unbecoming smile, like welcoming an old friend, though he seemed to have no idea how to convey actual warmth through that expression, and the end result was an ugly smirk like someone disgruntled, driven to the brink of frenzy.

"Castelbre," he grumbled in his familiarly sultry tone, "it's been a while."

"Not going to kill me?"

His eye twitched. He let out a small, unconvincing laugh. "Please. Why don't we talk this over like adults? Is that something you're capable of?"

Cedric didn't respond. Faunia placed an uneasy hand on his shoulder. There were demons in each of them itching for the kill. Both of them wondered if they could really afford it.

"Alright, then." Cedric said. He placed a hand against one of the bars. The ley shifted and the steel cage between them crumbled away into sand.

Kogar twitched again. He turned away, let his false grin fade as he began back down the hall.

"One condition, Kogar." Cedric demanded, bringing the two-tone man to a halt. He nodded his head toward the golden guards. "We're not going anywhere without an Aeonic escort."

"They don't follow your command." Kogar turned back without the same façade.

Faunia glanced between the soldiers with a blue flicker to her eyes. They each saluted her.

Kogar twitched for a third time, finally reached up to adjust his collar, to run his hand through his short hair as though expecting it to be at least double the length. "Fine, then. You may keep your entourage. It doesn't really matter, does it? Do you think you're somehow subverting death by keeping a troupe of imbeciles around at all times? Think I have some fanciful ambition of poise and grace and elegance? A god does not lend thought to such pitiful notions."

Cedric raised an eyebrow. Then what does make a god lend mercy? He looked to Faunia, who had a stone-faced glare pointed in Kogar's direction.

The two-tone man lifted his own eyebrow at her. "And you're the one who struck me in Alisa. I should congratulate you, landing so much as a single blow on a god is an otherworldy feat."

Faunia, in a surprise move, simply spat a wet glob into Kogar's face. His eyes widened with frenzied rage, then narrowed sharply. In a singular instant, the spit was gone. The ley shifted.

Cedric's own eyes narrowed. How is he doing that? What's the secret of this faster-than-time ability Everlasting?

"Come, now. There's no need for such things. Let us see our friend Heji, see what stance he takes on all of this."

An impressive show of character on his part. He's gotten better at controlling his rage, perhaps. Or perhaps he's hiding some secret, some trump card he isn't wont to reveal.

"Fine." answered Cedric. "We'll go with you to Heji. It seems to conform with our own objective here, anyway."

Then Kogar showed his disconcerting grin again. His trap was set. Cedric only hoped that their powers would at last be enough to quell him.

There were three repetitious sets of clicking footsteps through the glowing pale halls of the Vehkeidon, and countless clatterings of golden guards around them.

A suit of black and white led the way, a confident march that was swift without being rushed. Calm and confident.

Cedric walked to his rear left. He gave a look to Faunia, who glanced from him to the giant golden door ahead. There was a moment in which their thoughts were one; they each knew what came next.

The boy's tattered underclothes glistened with a crimson sheen, then crackled to white fabric in some etheric fusion. The crimson ran down into a white and red gradient along his appearing jacket, his white coattails still dripping with water and blood alike, all the way down his spiked boots. He matched Kogar's confidence with his stride, even as a white, wide-brimmed hat expanded from the air atop his head.

Faunia took a deep, hissed breath. Her breath became a frigid chill as icicles scattered all along her skin, expanded until she was encased entirely in a jagged suit of teal armor, frozen, frigid ice. Her heartrate raced — she was sure they were approaching their end.

Cedric looked back at her as though he could read her thoughts. His eyes flared red, then white… He smiled slightly, nodded.

She nodded back. She steeled herself.

And then Kogar threw open the giant doors to the palace’s throne room. The chamber was massive, Cedric and Faunia both were suddenly forced to drop their jaws open, to glance around in some kind of childlike wonderment as their sudden surroundings.

Kogar began to slow down, came to a standstill in the center of the rounded, many-chandeliered pale chamber. He placed his hands behind his back.

Cedric stepped up to his right. Faunia stepped to his left. They both took to deep kneels on either side of Kogar.

“Your Majesty, Heji Aeon.” said Cedric. He glanced up. And then his eyes went wide.

X

A woman sat with her legs strewn over the side of her bedchamber's oversized lounge chair done up in some gaudy green and gold fabric that matches the fabrics of her bed, of the curtains around her large open windows, but not her bright blue dress that pops like a dagger through an unsuspecting stomach.

She kicked her white-socked feet boredly, ran a gentle, long finger along the rim of her empty, stained wine glass with disinterest. She sputtered out a lonely breath. It was not answered by the massive chamber, by the massive door, nor the chattering voices outside the window. A gentle breeze touched her feet, made them cold. She rubbed them against each other, then leaned her head over to peer out that window, into the boundless, verdant horizon.

Heji Aeon's words — her father's words — echoed in her mind: such a hero would surely save you even if you were to, say, cast yourself out a window. Even if you were to plunge yourself to your own death, he would be there. And he would dispell such a delusion from your mind. He would not leave until he had done so. Each life is just as valuable, to a hero like him.

And she wondered. And she stopped kicking her feet.

The young princess Arobella stood from her seat. She took a few careful, drunken steps toward that window.

I wonder…

Out went one leg, followed by the other. She stood on that precipice over the garden, looked down over the unsuspecting gardeners and workers and noblemen flirting with noblewomen.

She smiled, scoffed, and turned slightly back toward the room.

As if he'd save one such as myself.

She kicked her leg up to climb back in, grabbed the windowsill beside her...

But her leg came up short.

And she let out a sickening, blood-curdling scream as she accidentally pushed herself from the window, and plunged toward the thorny rose bushes below without a single thing to grip onto...