A Crumble of Walls (The Kin of Kings Book 4)

by B. T. Narro

  Basen headed toward Jack’s office. If he wasn’t there, someone might know where he was. All the instructors had a private home, while many also had an office elsewhere. Nick had told Basen this.

  Basen swallowed and paused. He missed his roommate. Alex, too. The pain felt slightly different each time he thought of his fallen friends, though it was usually like a small stone caught between his chest and his throat. This was an ache of regret, he’d come to realize, of wishing he had done more, been smarter, caught Sanya before she’d murdered them. But it was also guilt, for he didn’t feel the need to kill Sanya now, unlike Effie. He didn’t see how Sanya’s death would help unless it was necessary to stop her from killing others.

  He felt the same anger toward her that Effie did. Sanya’s betrayal made Basen want to wring her neck, but not to the point of death. He would get immense pleasure, however, from hurling her into a prison cell hard enough to slam her into a stone wall before locking the cell door behind her.

  More people than usual were bustling around the campus, and the busyness didn’t stop when Basen reached the building that housed the instructors’ offices. As he walked down the hall and looked for Jack’s name next to each open door, Basen had to stay alert to keep from running into people hurrying past him.

  It seemed that only chemist instructors had their offices here, because all the citizens rushing around Basen carried something related to their practice. A plant, a beaker, scrolls with edges burned, or books with titles containing phrases that meant nothing to Basen, like “Activated Stages of Energy” and “Beekem’s Uncertainty and Risk.”

  It was easy to forget there was so much more to being a chemist than making potions. Most of the worlds’ advances had originated from chemists. Basen was fascinated at how humans could use the energies and elements of nature in new ways. He might’ve requested lessons if he hadn’t been so infatuated with manipulating energy to cast magic. Perhaps it was the word itself. Magic. What little boy didn’t want to cast magic?

  Jack’s office didn’t look much different than his kitchen, at least during the time Basen had visited him. It appeared as if a strong wind had scattered anything light enough to be plucked from the table. Basen stood unnoticed in the doorway as Jack practically dove for a scroll underneath the foot of a young man standing in front of his desk.

  “Careful where you step! Up. Up.”

  “Sorry.” The young man jumped off. Jack feverishly read through the scroll with his mouth open in concentration.

  “Oh, this message is a day old. It’s in the wrong place.” He rolled it up and tossed it on the floor to one side of his desk, where many other scrolls apparently had been discarded. The young man handed Jack another scroll like the others.

  “From Terren,” the messenger said, then glanced over his shoulder, spotting Basen.

  He gave a faint smile, his eyes telling this young man what a mess he thought this room to be. The young man smiled back in the same way, then turned to face Jack again.

  Jack finished reading the scroll and handed it back. “Tell him I haven’t seen Abith today and all of the chemist instructors are to alert me if he comes to them with any requests. In regard to the wall, we have a substance that might adhere the new stone to the old quickly, but it still needs to be tested. Lastly—”

  “Excuse me, Mister Rose,” the young man interrupted, “but will you write the message? I can’t remember—”

  “You will remember, and call me Jack. Now repeat everything back to me.”

  “But…but you haven’t finished telling me your message.”

  “Oh, of course. What was I about to say? Ah. Lastly, tell Terren the psyche-resist serum may be used in dire situations, but it needs testing before it’s given to our soldiers.”

  As the young man recited back the message, Basen wondered more about this potion that might allow him to resist psyche. Soon enough, the messenger hurried off and the room was quiet.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in battle training?” Jack barely glanced at Basen as he searched through his desk drawers.

  “I needed the morning to do something more important.”

  That stopped Jack as he put his palms flat on his desk. “And whatever is so important sent you here. What is it?” Jack looked intrigued.

  Basen hadn’t meant to set himself up in such dramatic fashion. His only option now was to give Jack something worthy of that introduction. “It’s about the leader of the Elves…Yeso. I might have a way to stop him, but I need something from you.”

  “Are you going to make a portal?” Jack nearly whispered it, seemingly holding back excitement. “Yes, whatever you need, of course. Yeso and his psychic Elves must be stopped. How can I help?”

  “For now, I just need the book you borrowed from the library. The one about Yeso and Ulric Takary.”

  Jack grumbled like a disappointed child. “There is no book about Yeso and Ulric.” He went back to searching his drawers.

  Eventually, he seemed to find what he was looking for, bringing out a large book and placing it on Basen’s side of the desk. “There are only books about the Elves and Takarys, like this one. It’s doubtful you’ll find Yeso’s name in here. Even if he is mentioned, you’ll have to be lucky to come across it.”

  “I read fast,” Basen said as he reached for the book.

  But Jack put one hand on top of it. The other went to his chin. “Penny wouldn’t send you here for this. And if it was Terren, he would’ve told me.” His voice lowered. “Was it Abith? I know he used to be your instructor. He might confide in you. You can tell us, Basen. You must.”

  “I haven’t spoken to Abith.” Seeing that his words did nothing to alleviate the worry on Jack’s usually friendly face, Basen continued. “Truthfully, Jack. And if he speaks to me, I’ll let you know.”

  “Then who sent you?”

  It seemed like Jack still suspected Abith. It would make sense for Abith to use someone like Basen for a simple request, like retrieving a book that might give Abith insight on their new enemies. Information was power in this political battle between him and Terren.

  Basen couldn’t blame the chemist or the headmaster for wanting to keep eyes on Abith. In fact, Basen was thankful they were taking his former instructor’s presence seriously. What Basen had failed to realize until then, however, was that having a past with Abith meant Basen would have to regain the trust he’d built with his instructors when he’d first come to the Academy bearing his Hiller surname.

  Honesty seemed a good way to start.

  “I came by my own volition.”

  Jack frowned. “This is no time for students to be seeking knowledge about Yeso and Ulric. Leave that to us and go back to battle training.”

  Jack sat and busied himself with one of the many papers on his desk.

  “I’m…” The words wouldn’t come out. Basen swallowed a lump in his throat as Jack looked up with a furrowed brow. “I’m leaving soon, but I need to know something before I go.”

  “You’re what? Basen, we can’t protect you outside these walls. Where are you…” His voice trailed off. “Fatholl, in Merejic.”

  Basen nodded. He was glad news of his earlier trip there with Cleve and the others had reached Jack. It would make this conversation easier.

  “I’ll return the book to you as soon as I’m done,” Basen said, “and I’ll let you know what I’ve found out. Then you can focus on everything else you’re doing.”

  “You don’t have to go to Fatholl. You’re safe within these walls. It’s only once you leave that you’ll be in danger.”

  Basen resisted the urge to disagree. He’d heard Sanya had snuck in while he was away to leave a note on Reela’s bed about the impending attack. If Sanya could find her way in and out of the school, Fatholl certainly could do the same.

  “I have to do this,” Basen said, “and I believe I can turn this terrible situation with Fatholl into one that benefits us all.” He reached for the book. “Give me the chance to prove
myself.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Basen ran out of Jack’s office. He drew the gazes of everyone he passed, but he refused to let it bother him. Jack had given him only an hour to return the book. I have to find somewhere quiet. He ran up the stairs to the second level, but there was no third stairway to the roof. So much for that plan.

  He left the building and looked around for ideas. He wasn’t about to sit on the ground and have to deal with anyone who might walk by and wonder aloud what he was doing. He looked up at the Redfield tower, the clock at its top telling him that somehow there were only two hours until midday dining hours. He wanted to be sure of his plan before lunch so he’d have time to speak to the necessary people in the dining hall.

  Where could he read in peace? The Redfield tower, he realized. Nick had told him there was a way inside. Someone had to ring the bell, after all. Basen headed for it at a sprint. They probably don’t lock the door during wartime to allow the bell ringer to get inside faster.

  He’d guessed right, but there was nowhere he could sit and read, and it was too dark. The only light came from very high above, where the bell hung.

  Basen raced up the circular stairway. The tower was the tallest structure at the Academy, and as Basen climbed stair after stair, he began to believe it was taller than even Tenred’s enormous castle. He’d made the trek from the lower level of the castle to the top when he was younger, sometimes in a hurry. He didn’t recall it fatiguing him like this.

  Soon he reached the top and would’ve lost his breath at the glorious sight if he wasn’t already gasping for air. The view—god’s mercy. It was easy to forget how marvelous the world truly was when he spent most of his life tethered to the ground. The ocean stretched all the way to the horizon. Somewhere farther than Basen could see was Greenedge, the very continent he hoped to learn about from this simple book in his hands.

  Kyrro seemed small from here, as he could see almost all of the territory in front of him to the south. Raywhite Forest was looked larger than Basen would’ve guessed. It stretched diagonally along the center of the territory in the shape of a crooked Y. Its upper corners fit nicely between Gendock to the west and Oakshen to the east, with the capital between both at the top of the Y. Trentyre was the only city that seemed to have no correlation to the shape of the forest, sitting just as close to the even larger southern forest of Kyrro as it did to Raywhite Forest above it. The unsightly land between it and the trees was marred by long trenches that reached all the way to the sea.

  He thought of Sanya as he looked to the capital. The castle rose up from the center of the city and made the buildings around it appear insignificant, as if the city had been built for it and nothing else. It had been built by order of a Takary, after all. Looking to the north, Basen barely made out a Tenred flag peeking up over the Fjallejon Mountains, but he couldn’t see the rest of the castle.

  Basen felt free and relaxed and took a few seconds to cherish this moment, as he knew it might be a while before he had the chance again.

  He noticed a teenage boy below him wheeling a cart full of training swords straight to the center of Redfield Stadium. The boy stopped and took his time choosing a sword. Then he turned and swung it as if to catch someone surprising him from behind, his attack slow and weak.

  It looked as if the boy overestimated his own strength as he tried to get the weapon up again for another strike and ended up stepping on the end of the blade before he could get it off the ground. Still going through the motion of swinging, he tripped himself, stumbled forward for an absurdly long while—he did have good balance—but then finally came down.

  As the boy turned to look for a lighter weapon in the cart, Basen recognized him from last evening. He was the one speaking with Cleve. He gave his new sword a few test swings, then puffed out his chest as if to show off his prowess to an admiring stadium crowd.

  Basen chuckled. He couldn’t blame the boy for acting on his fantasy of being a Redfield Champion. Basen might’ve done the same if he were the boy’s age. If it wasn’t for the war, he would’ve looked forward to his classes with Penny and events like the Redfield competition between warriors.

  Now that he’d regained his breath enough to focus, Basen sat with the heavy book in his lap and started with the table of contents. “Dammit.” The chapters were numbered but not titled. He would have to search each page for anything related to the Takarys and the Elves.

  It soon became evident why there were so many pages in this book. It was about the history of Greenedge. The entire history. Basen knew very little about the continent yet soon came to learn that most everyone now lived along the eastern or western border, toward the middle. Dangerous creatures called desmarls had driven everyone to these parts. Most of what he read seemed unimportant to his situation, so he skipped forward to the start of the chapters on the Elves.

  He was disappointed to realize this author knew little to nothing about specific Elves. No names or dates.

  All Basen gleaned after searching through the earlier chapters was the Elves had always kept to themselves, even though their land bumped up against two territories populated by humans.

  There had been multiple wars between kings fighting for territory, and often these kings made generous offers to the Elves in return for their assistance in battle, only to be told forcefully that no human, no matter the circumstance, was to enter Meritar, and no Elves would get involved in human matters.

  The middle of the book returned to more human history, ignoring the Elves again. Basen skipped many chapters to get closer to the present. He knew something recent had happened between the Elves and the humans, bringing Cleve and Reela to Greenedge. But what was it?

  The book became interesting as he came to the formation of the bastial steel crater. He’d heard it was the only place where bastial steel could be mined, but what he hadn’t known was the bastial steel crater had formed naturally after the largest quake known to man caused an explosion powerful enough to destroy a city had it occurred within one. Even more interesting was where it formed: evenly split between the Elves in Meritar and the humans in Goldram, with about half the crater in each territory. This forced the first real interaction between the two races.

  A surge of excitement came through Basen as he saw Ulric’s name for the first time. “Ulric Takary took control of Goldram’s side of the crater immediately after it formed.” Basen had read earlier that the Takarys already controlled Goldram, so it would make sense for them to claim the crater in their territory. And they had the army to back up their claim in case anyone challenged them.

  That was exactly what happened. A new war began as the nearby territories fought with Goldram for access to the crater. The Takarys came to the Elves for support, wisely telling them that if Goldram fell, the Elves would also lose access to the bastial steel. But the Elves still refused to get involved.

  Basen would’ve liked to read more about the war, but there wasn’t time. He hurried through the account, searching for more about Ulric and the Elves. Finally, the war ended with Goldram winning, yet Ulric’s name wasn’t mentioned again. There were only a few chapters left, and Basen was beginning to fear he’d have to try a different book or face Fatholl without anything certain to use as leverage.

  Then he came across it: Ulric’s name and Fatholl’s as well. He murmured the words as he read. “Eventually Ulric Takary had learned enough Elvish to speak with the Elves. He was interested in learning more about them because they’ve survived without leaving Meritar for as long as history has to tell. He imagined that finding out more about their culture could teach him how to improve the life of the citizens in his family’s territory. But though he had learned their language and showed a genuine interest, none of the Elves would speak with him.

  “Eventually he found out it was fear that kept them from interacting with humans. They didn’t fear the humans themselves but the prospect of their own leaders finding out they had revealed Elven secrets. Ulric’s determination d
idn’t change, giving many the idea he had more than just an interest in their culture in mind. Ulric had always been secretive, wearing a mask to hide his face and refusing to give a reason why. The men working in his bastial steel crater had little to say about him except that he was always involved in planning something that didn’t seem to involve bastial steel.

  “Ulric held meetings with Elves openly, one of them being Fatholl, who later became known to everyone in Greenedge. Fatholl’s story has been told many times in many different ways, but the facts bear out only a few absolute truths. He was born in Ovira and was forced to come to Greenedge to escape death. He had learned some psyche before arriving and was therefore barred from Meritar, even though he was just a boy. He then spent years training with other Elves who’d been exiled and continued his attempt to return to Meritar. They were never allowed back in the territory, but they did manage to recruit many other Elves with a clear message: It was up to them to save Greenedge because the continent was slowly being taken over by desmarls, and humans were doing nothing about it.”

  Basen had read a little about these creatures as he’d skimmed through earlier chapters. They were monstrous beasts thought nearly impossible to kill, and they were the reason all living creatures migrated toward the center of the continent. Instead of banding together to fight them, humans had been fighting each other for space instead.

  “Miners in the bastial steel crater reported hearing arguing during the meeting between Ulric and Fatholl. They sounded in disagreement about how to use their power and were never seen meeting again. But one of the Elves who’d been part of Fatholl’s group did return later, alone. This Elf, known as Yeso and similar enough in appearance to Fatholl to possibly be related, began to meet frequently with Ulric near enough to the crater for many to see.”