“You can cause earthquakes?”
Fen hesitated. He was staring into her eyes, afraid to see something he didn’t want to see there, fear, disgust, maybe both. But he saw neither. “Sort of. I think so.”
“What else can you do?”
“Sometimes, when I’m upset, weapons bounce off of me like I’m made out of stone. That’s what happened the night those men attacked us and dragged you into that alley. One stabbed me, but it didn’t even scratch me.”
“That’s incredible,” she breathed. She touched his arm where he had peeled the stone away. “Your skin feels hot.”
“It happens when the…when my affliction surfaces.”
“Why do you call it an affliction?”
“Because it is.” Fen looked away. “That’s part of the reason I never told you about it, Ravin. I’m sick.”
“You don’t look sick. What makes you think you’re sick?”
“Because I think my father had the same thing and it killed him. It will probably kill me too. I don’t know how long I have. I didn’t want you stuck with me if I’m only going to die.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said firmly. “You’re not going to die.” She took his hands and squeezed them tightly. “I won’t let you. Do you hear me, Fen? I won’t let you. We’re going to be together for a long time.”
Hesitantly, he turned back to face her. He had a lump in his throat. He’d wanted to hear those words from her for so long, dreamed of them. But he’d convinced himself it could never happen. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I talked to a healer who saw my father. He said he couldn’t help me with my affliction.”
“You’re using that word again, affliction. Like you have a disease. What if it’s not a disease?”
“What else could it be?” he asked, frowning.
“Maybe it’s a gift.”
“A gift?”
“One of the things I love about you, Fen, is that all you really want is to protect the people of this city. It’s your driving purpose. You want to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously, wondering what she was getting at.
“Don’t you see? Because of your affliction you were able to save my life and put an end to whatever it is they were doing down there. Who knows how many others you saved?”
“You’re right,” he said slowly. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Maybe what you have is a gift from the gods,” she said.
Fen thought about what the old healer had said about there being no gods, only beings called Shapers who lived within the Spheres of Stone, Sea, and Sky. But he said nothing about it.
“It could be you’ve been given this power to stop the Ankharans and whatever evil god they worship.”
“The Ankharans don’t worship a god. They believe all the gods are dead.”
“What? Really?”
“They believe it is time for man to become his own god.”
“That’s strange. But it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that you have a gift, not an affliction.”
“But what happened to my father…”
“You don’t know for sure what happened to your father, do you? You told me your mother would never talk about him.”
“I don’t know,” Fen admitted.
“You’re not your father,” she said fiercely, as if willing him to believe her. “You’ll write your own history.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” she said firmly. “You don’t know why he died. Maybe he resisted his gift instead of accepting it. All we know is that you are a different person.”
“You’re right,” Fen said. Her words made him feel surprisingly better. “Maybe I’ve just been looking at this the wrong way.”
“The important thing is, whatever happens, I’ll be there for you, okay?”
“What about the other guy?” Fen asked, thinking of the merchant’s son with the long, blond hair. “Don’t you…?”
“Oh, Fen, I never loved him. He’s nice and he makes me laugh, but he’s not you. We never went out together. He asked me to—plenty of times—but I always told him I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair to him. I was still too in love with you.”
Fen didn’t miss that twice she’d said love. He realized he had a big smile on his face that probably made him look stupid, but right then he couldn’t seem to care.
“What are you smiling so big about?” she asked him.
“You said you loved me,” Fen said. “I think that’s what you said anyway. You do, don’t you?”
“Are you slow, or what?” she teased him. “Did you not hear me the first time, right after we got out from under the tower?”
“I did. But I thought maybe you were just upset.”
“Maybe I still am,” she said coyly. “Maybe I’m in shock and I’m so overwhelmed by being rescued by my hero that I can’t think straight.”
She was about to say something else when Fen leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t much of a kiss. He only brushed his lips against hers. He wasn’t sure what made him do it, and he quickly pulled back.
“I do too,” he said. The next words were surprisingly hard to say. “I love you too.”
Ravin flung her arms around him. The kiss she gave him was considerably longer. When she pulled back a minute later, Fen felt lightheaded. Ravin’s eyes were shining.
Fen told her everything then, how after his mother was killed the soldier tried to kill him, but the sword bounced off. How he caused the earthquake the day all the nobility were executed. The young woman and her daughter that he’d saved. Everything he’d learned about his father. The only thing he didn’t tell her was what the old healer had said about Shapers. He wanted to look into that some more first. When he was finished, he felt like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“It’s been crushing me,” he told Ravin. “I’ve spent so much time worrying about people finding out my secret.”
“I wish you would have told me, Fen. But I understand why you didn’t. You didn’t know me all that well. I only wish there’d been some way to let you know you could trust me with your secret.”
“It wasn’t about trusting you,” he said. “I didn’t want to involve you. I can’t always control this power. I was afraid I’d hurt you with it. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”
“At least you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“You just used your power to kill that crab-thing and those men, but at the same time you protected me.”
“That might have been nothing but luck,” he said dubiously.
“It’s good enough for me, whatever it is.”
“I was also worried about what would happen to you if my secret came out. They might punish you too.”
“That’s the part that angers me,” she said with some heat in her voice. “I don’t like you taking my choices away.”
“I wasn’t doing that,” he protested.
“Then what do you call it?”
“Protecting you?”
“I call it making my decisions for me. Next time, tell me and let me decide if I want to take the risk or not. I’m not some helpless little girl. I can make my own choices.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really not very good at this sort of thing.”
“You’ll get better.”
“So I guess that my other reason for not telling you—so you didn’t have to watch me die, like my mother did with my father—that’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it? Not letting you choose for yourself?”
“See? You’re already getting better.” She patted him on the hand. “Being together doesn’t mean shielding each other from the hard parts, you know. It’s about sharing those hardships, facing them together, helping each other.”
“I like the sound of that better than keeping everything to myself. It was pretty lonely.”
&nb
sp; They sat there for hours, talking, while the night slipped away. They shared their hopes and dreams for the future. They talked about everything under the sun. Without Fen’s secret hanging over them, there was an easiness and an openness between them that had never been there before and the time passed swiftly. At one point Fen realized he could see Ravin’s face a lot more clearly. He blinked and looked around. Morning was coming.
“It’s almost morning,” he said.
“It is, isn’t it?” Ravin got up. “I have to get going. I’m supposed to help make bread this morning. I’m already late.” She gave him another long hug. “What’s next?” she asked him. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to tell the Fist. What else can I do?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“He has to know. Whatever the Ankharans were doing it can’t be good. Someone has to warn him.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t already know? He spends a lot of time with them. Some have even seen him going into the tower with them.”
Her words shocked Fen. “You can’t be saying that he’s working with them, kidnapping his own people and using them for…” He shook his head. “I can’t believe that. He cares about his people too much.”
“I hope you’re right. I really do. But he’s different now, since they showed up.”
“How?” Fen asked, though he already knew.
“He’s harder, crueler. He had little Ernel whipped, all for dropping a glass. It was an accident. The Fist I used to know would never have done that.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Fen said, though he knew he was trying to argue with himself as much as with her. He couldn’t deny that he’d seen the changes too. “He’s under a lot of stress, preparing for the war and all. It’s making him do things he wouldn’t normally do.”
“Or maybe it’s the Ankharans who are doing that,” she replied. “No one knows what it is that they are doing with him, locked in the throne room for hours on end. The servants are all frightened. A few have left during the night. There’s something going on in the palace and whatever it is, it’s not right.” She put her hand on the side of Fen’s face. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, okay? He might not be the man you think you know, and I don’t want to have to come visit you in prison, not now that I finally got you back.”
“So I’m supposed to stand aside and watch it happen and do nothing?” he asked her, feeling hopeless.
“I don’t think so. I think there is something you’re supposed to do. But you might have to wait and watch for it, okay?”
“Okay,” he told her reluctantly.
They hugged again and she hurried off to the palace.
Chapter Twenty-three
Fen went to the barracks. He decided that before he ate it would be a good idea to clean up. He took off his sword belt, laid it on his bed, and went to the water trough behind the barracks. After cleaning up, he returned to the barracks.
The door opened a moment later. Fen turned to see two palace guards standing there. They were dressed in light armor, half-helms, and carrying short swords. The red fist that was the royal emblem was stitched onto their surcoats.
“The Fist commands your presence,” one of them said.
“Okay,” Fen said. He reached for his sword belt, but one of the guards stopped him.
“Leave your weapon here,” he said.
That was odd. Fen had never been told he couldn’t wear his sword around the Fist before. “Why?” he asked.
“Orders.”
Fen noticed that both men had their hands on the hilts of their swords. Their expressions were stern. He headed for the door, the guards following close on his heels. He wondered if he was going to be arrested. Had the Fist learned that he was in the tower? Whatever was going on, it probably wasn’t good. But he had no thought of resisting or fleeing. His liege summoned and he would go.
The guards marched him through the palace. It was early and the place was only beginning to stir. There were no supplicants lined up yet, hoping for the Fist’s ear. They passed only servants and they took one look at the guards’ scowls and quickly moved out of the way.
The throne room was dim, only a few rays of sunlight making it past the heavy drapes that covered the windows. The Fist was standing by his throne, talking to one of the Ankharans. At the foot of the dais stood a burly soldier that Fen recognized right away. It was Ely. Ely did not look at Fen as he approached.
When Fen neared the dais the man the Fist was talking to looked down at Fen and Fen saw that it was Maphothet, the leader of the Ankharans. The blue tattoos covering his face stood out starkly against his bone-white skin. His eyes were cold and dark and expressionless. Distantly Fen felt the pressure start inside his skull, the heat building inside his chest.
The Fist walked down the steps and approached Fen, who knelt and bowed his head.
“Rise.” Fen stood. “This soldier says he saw you entering the tower before it fell,” he said, gesturing at Ely.
Fen hesitated. His first instinct was to admit to the charge. Honesty was one of the things he prided himself on the most. Besides, he still could not believe that the Fist knew what had been going on in the cavern beneath the tower, whatever Ravin said. The Fist he knew could never be part of such a thing.
But he knew that proof of what he’d seen would be nearly impossible to obtain. It would take weeks to dig through the rubble and find what was down there, weeks they did not have, with the invasion coming up. And the Fist had been very clear about what would happen if Fen again accused the Ankharans without proof.
He remembered what Ravin said, about being patient and choosing his moment and so, instead of admitting it, he said, “It’s not true.”
Ely threw up his head and gave him a baleful look, but Fen ignored him.
“Are you calling this man a liar?” the Fist asked.
Fen shook his head. “The light was bad. He is mistaken, that’s all.”
The Fist swung back to Ely. “What do you have to say to this?”
“It was him, all right,” the burly man said. His eyes were very deep set and bloodshot, the skin around them puffy from drinking. Fen could smell the ale on him from where he stood. “I saw him as sure as I see him now.”
“I don’t know who you saw,” Fen replied, “but it was not me. Maybe you were confused by the drink.”
The Fist scowled at Ely, who wilted somewhat, then rallied. “I had a few pints, it’s true. But there’s not enough drink in Samkara to make me see what isn’t there. It was you all right,” he growled, pointing a pudgy finger at Fen.
“Do you have any witnesses who will speak as to where you were last night?” the Fist asked Fen.
“I do,” he replied. “I was with my girl all night. You can ask her.” As he said the words he winced inwardly. He didn’t want to involve Ravin in this if he could help it, but he also didn’t want to be arrested. He couldn’t do anything to thwart the Ankharans if he was in prison.
“That’s enough for me,” the Fist said, as Ely spluttered and protested. “Get this man out of here,” he said to the two guards who had escorted Fen in. “Give him thirty lashes.”
As the guards hauled the man away, still protesting, Fen said, “Fist, if I may speak?” The Fist nodded. “Maybe thirty lashes is too harsh. The man spoke up out of a desire to protect you, I’m sure. He made a mistake, it’s true, but an honest one. Maybe a day of hard labor would be more fitting?”
The Fist thought about this, pulling on one of the ends of his mustache as he did so, then nodded. He called out to the guards. “Put him on clearing away the debris from the tower. Make sure he is watched closely and does not loaf.”
He turned back to Fen. “I did not believe it, but I had to know for sure. It’s difficult to know who to trust these days. There are spies and assassins everywhere, agents of Marad and the old gods. They are frightened by what it is we are doing here,” he said, gesturing to indicate the four robed f
igures, who were standing at the top of the dais still, as motionless as statues. “And they are right to be frightened, for we are ushering in a new age.” He put his hand on Fen’s shoulder. “Come, have breakfast with me. It’s been too long since we talked.”
He led Fen toward a doorway. The Ankharans stood where they were, watching. Beyond the doorway a short hall led to a small dining room. A servant bowed when they entered and hurried off for food at the Fist’s command.
The food came, but the Fist ignored it. He encouraged Fen to eat, but stayed on his feet, pacing. Fen observed him surreptitiously while he ate his food. For the most part the Fist looked as he always did. He was dressed in a plain white, sleeveless tunic, with copper bands around his biceps. His trousers were leather and tucked into knee-high boots. He was clean-shaven except for his long mustache, which was oiled, the ends hanging down past his chin. His bald head gleamed in the lamplight.
But there was something different about him. He looked paler than normal, his veins standing out starkly against his skin. And there was a strange energy about him, a manic quality to his movements.
“We’re getting so close, Fen,” he said. “The new day is almost upon us.”
“New day?” Fen asked.
“The day when man throws off his shackles and becomes his own god, of course,” he said, still pacing. “The day when man realizes his true power.” He clenched his fists and stared at them.
“The power,” he breathed. “It’s unbelievable. There are no words. You can’t imagine.”
Fen wondered if he could imagine. He noticed that the pressure inside his head had not receded now that he was away from the Ankharans. Did that mean that the Fist was now causing his power to awaken also? The thought was alarming. He’d told Ravin that his power seemed to awaken when he was around the Ankharans, as if there was something innately wrong about them that caused it to stir.
“It’s all I can do not to charge Marad by myself,” the Fist continued. “They will rue the day they attacked Samkara. The day of retribution is at hand.” He looked at Fen as he spoke and Fen saw a fey light in his eyes that alarmed him.
“Are you okay?” Fen asked without thinking.
Sea Born (Chaos and Retribution Book 3) Page 27
