by Ben Wolf
Calum turned his head and saw a gray-brown Wolf limp-walking toward him. White bandages covered the spot on his side where Condor had stabbed him, and Kanton walked alongside him.
Calum’s mouth spread into a big smile. “Riley? I didn’t think you were well enough to leave your room yet.”
“He probably isn’t.” Kanton wore finery like Calum’s, only he still wore the black-and-red Raven’s Brood cape Calum had given him, just with the embroidered emblem plucked out. “But he insisted. And you’re not crippled, just limping.”
“Can’t hide in my room. No shadows.” Riley motioned over his right shoulder with his head. “It’s nothing but clear blue crystal and sunlight streaming in from every angle. At night, they light a hundred lanterns to make sure I don’t go anywhere. It’s much darker in here, though. Feels better. Safer.”
“He exaggerates.” Kanton crouched down next to Riley and stroked the fur behind his ears. Riley snapped his jaws at Kanton’s hand and he pulled back. “Was he this foul before the attack?”
“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I haven’t known him for that long,” Calum said. “But I know he’s not a fan of people touching him or trying to pet him,”
“I’m not some common dog that you can stroke my fur like a pet.” Riley growled, then he carefully sat down on his hind legs with a wince. “I was serious about sharing your meat, you know. The stuff they gave me over there barely counts as real food.”
“Now that’s a statement I’m inclined to agree with.” Kanton stood up and pushed his black-and-red cape behind him again. “Trust me—he’s right about that. I get all of his leftovers.”
Riley tilted his head and whimpered at Calum, his blue canine eyes fixed on the skewer.
Calum sighed, but crouched down in front of him and held it out. “Here. I can always get another one.”
“Keep the plants for yourself.” Riley’s pink tongue curled up and licked his nose. “I only want the meat.”
As Calum plucked the first chunk of seared mutton from the skewer, Avian’s voice filled the throne room.
“Friends and family, your attention please.” Avian drifted high above the crowd with his hands raised, flanked by two armed Wisps on each side, as usual.
The crowd sank to the ground, followed by Avian and his men. Zephyrra stood at Avian’s side, wearing an elegant silver dress that shimmered under the colored lights.
“Thank you for joining us on this most excellent occasion. Partake in the wine, drinks, food, and desserts at your leisure, but first allow me to introduce our guests of honor—my daughter, Princess Lilliana, and her new fiancé Falcroné, Captain of the Royal Guard.” Avian motioned toward the rear doors with his right arm.
As if on cue, the crowd parted, and Calum went along with them. The grand doors at the rear of the throne room opened, and a procession of armed Wisps in orange and purple armor filed inside with General Balena at the head.
Calum leaned nearer to Magnus. “That’s an awful lot of soldiers for an engagement party, don’t you think?”
He nodded, and his golden eyes flickered with colored light. “I am not well-versed in Windgale customs, but it is unusual, to say the least.”
About a dozen Windgale soldiers led the way inside, and Falcroné and Lilly followed them. Six more soldiers, three on each side, marched between them and the crowd as if forming a sort of barrier. Another eight Wisps marched behind them, four in the same deep vibrant orange color worn by the Royal Guard, and four more in dark-purple armor.
The procession ended at the throne and spread into a formation in front of the platform with Lilly, Falcroné, and General Balena standing near Avian and Zephyrra.
Despite their tense conversation the night her engagement was announced, and despite his breaking heart, Calum could scarcely take his eyes off her. Just when he’d thought she could never be more beautiful, she showed up looking even better than ever.
But the longer Calum stared, the more the longing he felt for her stabbed at his aching heart.
As the happy couple waved, General Balena leaned over to Avian and whispered something into his ear, and Avian nodded.
“Behold the future of the Sky Realm.” Avian raised his hands, and the crowd performed the Windgale salute to Lilly and Falcroné.
Calum did it too, but without the fervor of the Windgales around him. He wasn’t going to lie to himself about what he felt.
Something nudged his leg, and Calum looked down. Riley whimpered at him again until Calum tore another chunk of meat off his skewer and fed it to him.
“For not being a ‘common dog,’ you’re sure acting like one,” Calum muttered.
“I got stabbed,” Riley reminded him. “I’m entitled to behave in a questionable manner for one night.”
“More like a ‘desperate manner,’” Calum countered.
“Yet however wondrous an occasion their engagement may be…” Avian continued. “…one among us has cast a dark shadow over this night. His jealousy of our ways, our rituals, our culture, and most importantly of Lilly and Falcroné’s engagement is the reason you see such a demonstration of the might of the Sky Realm arrayed before you.”
Calum eyed Magnus, who shook his head slightly.
“He visited my daughter before this party and accosted her in her room, but she fended him off with great skill, no doubt thanks to her training from General Balena.” Avian nodded to him, and he bowed. “Now the assailant is in custody. Bring him forth, and we will make an example of him as a warning to anyone who dares to stand against this union or the Realm.”
The doors opened again and two Wisps dragged a man with dark, curly hair and clad in black clothes toward the throne. They thrust him to the floor, where he landed on his hands and knees. Then he slowly lifted his head.
It was Axel.
Chapter Twenty-One
Would the surprises ever cease? Calum groaned and shook his head.
“The fool.” Magnus exhaled a long hiss and clacked his talons on his breastplate. “His reckless behavior is going to get us all killed.”
Blood trickled from the corner of Axel’s mouth, but other than a few scuffs on his borrowed robes, he looked unharmed.
“This man, whom we honored a mere two days ago for his role in saving my daughter’s life, saw fit to attack her this evening after she told him she did not love him. She escaped through her own cunning and told Falcroné, who apprehended him and notified General Balena of the situation.”
The two Wisps grabbed Axel, spun him around, and then forced him back down to his hands and knees before Avian, Lilly, and Falcroné.
“Should we go up there?” Calum asked.
Magnus shook his head. “Be still for now.”
Be still? If Axel had attacked Lilly, Calum wanted a shot at him first.
But even with Axel’s legendary temper and bad attitude, Calum still couldn’t believe that Axel would do such a thing—especially after all he’d sacrificed and risked for her right alongside Calum.
“You are fortunate to have been made a citizen of our realm, Axel,” Avian said. “Were you an outsider, your punishment would have been death. But as an honorary citizen, your action will be treated as treason instead.”
Condor was charged with treason as well, Calum considered.
“You will be locked away until our Council of Wisps convenes to determine your fate.”
“No.” Calum dropped his skewer, pushed his way through the crowd, and stormed toward the throne with Magnus close behind.
Perhaps it was rash, but either way, Axel was his friend. His oldest friend. Even though they’d dueled and fought each other along the way, especially in the last two days, Calum couldn’t just let these people lock him up.
“You can’t do that to him,” Calum said.
The Wisps who guarded the throne platform leveled their spears at him and he stopped short of becoming the next piece of meat to be skewered. Behind them, Axel craned his head and looked back at Calum with c
onfusion in his eyes.
Now up close, Calum could see a large bruise on Axel’s jaw, plus he hunched over, something he never did. Lilly must have given him quite the beating—or perhaps Falcroné had done the honors.
Magnus’s hand clamped onto Calum’s shoulder. “Calum, do not—”
Calum shrugged free. “Premier, suppose Axel made this mistake. If he did, it was one mistake. He made a bad decision and he paid for it.”
Avian stared down at him for a long moment. “What is your point, Calum?”
“Look, I’m unfamiliar with your laws, so I don’t really know what I’m saying…” Great start, Calum. “But don’t throw him in your dungeon, or wherever. We were all shocked to learn of Lilly’s relationship to you at first, and—”
“This has nothing to do with Lilly’s relationship to the Premier.” Falcroné pointed a long finger at Axel. “It has to do with his profession of love for her and the subsequent attack.”
“In Axel’s defense—” Calum started.
Should he finish the sentence? Doing so could risk invoking the wrath of Falcroné and Avian as Axel already had. And what if Axel was guilty? Calum would find himself defending his friend’s stupidity.
He decided he couldn’t remain silent. “—Lilly is not hard to love. She’s sweet and charming and beautiful and intelligent—all of which are testaments to her upbringing under two wonderful parents—”
“Spare me your flattery, Calum.” Avian held up his hand. “Make your point.”
“My point is that—” Calum’s eyes locked on Lilly’s for a moment, but she pursed her lips tight and looked away. It was probably a mistake, but Calum continued anyway. “My point is that I love Lilly, too. And if you’re gonna lock Axel up for that, then you’d better lock me up too.”
Falcroné’s jaw tensed, and he glared at Calum. “But you didn’t attack her. Your friend did. That warrants time rotting in a cell, if anything ever did.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” Calum said. “But I’m asking you to show him mercy nonetheless. We’ve already been through so much. Think about how we helped bring her back here and how we—”
“I’ve heard enough.” Avian held up his hand again. “This is supposed to be a festive occasion, not a hearing. Axel will be locked up, and Calum and the rest of his friends will remain free. But if any of you breaks even the smallest of our laws, you will soon join your friend. Crystal?”
Calum clenched his teeth. It wasn’t the result he’d hoped for, but he’d tried.
He nodded. “Clear.”
“Then go, enjoy the food and drink, and you may plead your friend’s case tomorrow when the Council of Wisps convenes to decide his fate.” Avian waved toward Axel, who gave Calum a slight nod. “Take him away.”
The Wisps took flight with Axel in tow. They exited through the doors from which they’d entered, and the Wisps guarding the platform raised their spears again. Calum caught Lilly staring at him, then she turned her attention back to Falcroné, who stroked her face with his fingers and touched his forehead to hers.
Calum turned away. He’d seen enough.
He looked up at Magnus. “What’ll happen at the council meeting tomorrow?”
Magnus shook his head. “I do not know. We will fight to save Axel using words instead of weapons, I suppose.”
“I’m better with my sword.”
“I disagree, Calum,” Magnus challenged. “You are gifted in many areas, and that is one of them. Do not underestimate yourself.”
“If you say so.” Calum was pretty sure he’d just butchered his attempt to get Axel released, but he appreciated Magnus’s encouragement all the same. “Come on. We’d better get back to Riley and Kanton.”
Axel sank deeper and deeper into the abyss, along with the two Wisps that gripped his arms. Far below, a single torch burned in the darkness. As they neared the light, Axel made out the crisscrossed bars of a cage mounted to the sides of the vertical tube in which they descended.
The Wisps slowed their descent, landed on the cage, and set Axel on the bars.
One of them, the one clad in orange armor, leaned over to him, his face barely visible in the light of the solitary torch. “If you try to run, you’ll fall to your death. If you try to fight or resist, we’ll make you fall to your death. Crystal?”
Axel bit his tongue and nodded instead of saying anything.
The other Wisp, in dark-purple armor, unlocked the cage’s hatch. “Hop in.”
Axel peered through the bars. “That’s a twenty-foot drop, at least. I’ll break my legs if I just jump in.”
“Then we’ll lower you to ten feet and you’ll have to manage from there.”
“I don’t—”
The orange Wisp shoved him toward the hatch. “Do it now, or you’ll fall a lot farther than twenty feet.”
Axel sighed but stepped toward the hatch.
A sharp blow to his back pitched him forward. He plunged into the cage headfirst, but he managed to curl his body so he landed on his left shoulder instead of on his face. The impact jarred his shoulder with a loud pop, and a familiar shock of pain shot down to his fingertips like lightning.
He groaned as the Wisps locked the cage door. A flurry of curses poured from Axel’s mouth, but when he looked up, the Wisps were already gone. He tried to push himself up, but his left arm hurt so bad that he couldn’t move it.
“Here, let me help you,” said a voice from the darkness around him.
Axel’s heart flipped in his chest, and he gasped. Who else was in here?
A set of arms curled around his waist and started to pull.
“Get off me!” Axel flailed his right arm, also sore from when Lilly had hit him with her chair, but he only managed to flop back down onto his chest. His mind ratcheted through an infinite number of possibilities of who could be in this cell with him—including someone like Yurgev. “Get away!”
“Easy.”
The arms jerked Axel up in one quick motion, and he found his footing. He staggered across the cage and stood against the wall nearest the torch, which illuminated only about half of the entire cage.
His left shoulder burned with immense pain, and he couldn’t move it. It was dislocated again, just like it had been after fighting the Gronyxes in the tunnel to Trader’s Pass. How could he defend himself with only one functioning arm—“functioning,” but also bruised and weakened?
“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Axel squinted at the darkness. He’d stared at the torch for a moment too long on his way over to the cage wall, and the light had seared his vision, so he couldn’t see properly. On top of that, the other man in his cell stood in the deep shadows on the far side of the cage.
“Who are you?” Axel demanded. “Step into the light so I can see you.”
The man answered with laughter. There was something familiar about it, but Axel couldn’t decipher what it was.
“After all the time we spent together on our way here, you have to ask who I am?” the man asked. “You know me so well already—Farm Boy.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Axel’s heartbeat multiplied, and he cursed again.
“I seem to remember you were looking forward to a day very much like this.” Condor stepped out of the shadows with a cunning smile and sauntered toward him. The cuts on his face from Falcroné’s beating had mostly healed, but that same old smirk remained.
“I remember agreeing with you at the time.” Axel bit his lip and exhaled a sharp breath. Of all the people he could’ve gotten locked in a jail cell with, Condor might’ve been the worst. “You said you were gonna kill me. Looks like you finally get to try your luck.”
Condor huffed and waved his hand, still bandaged with a blood-tinged cloth from when Riley had bitten him, in dismissal. “Please. You’re in no condition to fight me. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
Axel bristled at the comment, and he let his ego take over. “I could still take you down.�
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“Not with your shoulder dislocated, I imagine.”
“Even with it dislocated, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Condor shook his head and smirked. “You don’t need to keep up your tough-guy act down here, Farm Boy. The princess isn’t here to admire your swelling ego, and you’re not my type either.”
Axel gritted his teeth and tried to rub his left shoulder, but it only felt worse. “You don’t know what you’re—”
“What did you do to earn yourself a holiday down here?” Condor leaned against the cage bars.
“That’s none of your business.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I bet you made a move on the princess after you found out about Falcroné, didn’t you? You probably couldn’t help yourself.” Condor chuckled. “And then he beat you like he beat me and had you tossed in here before your hearing.”
“Falcroné barely laid a finger on me.”
“Really? That’s the only part of my guess you’re denying?” Condor chuckled. “So you did make a pass at the princess. Was she the one who gave you that bruise?”
Axel touched his jaw with his right hand and winced at the pain in his arm.
“She did, didn’t she? Oh, she always was a wily one. Unpredictable, even.” Condor smiled, and his gaze wandered up into the tube’s darkness. “Too bad you thought you had any chance with her in the first place.”
“Whatever. Call me naïve, or stupid, or anything else you want. I don’t care.” Axel spat on the cage floor near Condor’s boots. “And if you’re gonna kill me, then get on with it already.”
Condor stared at Axel’s reddened spittle for a moment, then at him. “I’m not going to kill you when you have a dislocated shoulder and just got beat up by a girl half your size. Where’s the fun in that? No, I’ll wait until you’re healed and feeling haughty before we settle our differences once and for all.”
Axel rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Speaking of which, you should let me pop your shoulder back into place.” Condor started toward him, but Axel shuffled away.
