Immortal

by Nicole Conway

  The groundskeeper was waiting, wringing his cap and looking uneasy as I entered. He bowed low and eyed the papers in my hands like he was afraid to know what I was up to.

  “Have a seat.” I gestured to the chair across from the broad, mahogany desk that stood in the middle of the room. “We have a lot to discuss.”

  “Sir?” he asked with a tremor of anxiety. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  I sat the stack of papers down in front of him. “Absolutely. There’s going to be a funeral held here in a month. I’m commissioning a headstone be made and I want everything to be perfect, down to the last detail.”

  He looked confused. “A funeral, sir?”

  “Yes,” I clarified. “For a friend of mine. A dragonrider named Jaevid Broadfeather.”

  Big surprise, mom was furious. Well, furious was putting it mildly. She wasn’t exactly enamored with the idea of having someone who wasn’t family buried on our estate grounds in the first place. And when she found out he was a halfbreed? I’d never seen her face turn that shade of red before. She started gripping her dinner fork like she might use it as a weapon.

  “Is it your intention to scandalize what’s left of our good reputation?” she hissed. “To bring this family and all its proud history to the very brink of social disaster?”

  I swirled my fifth glass of wine and admired how the liquid shone like liquid rubies in the light. “It’s my intention to make sure a close friend of mine receives the honorable burial he deserves. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?”

  “They tell me he was out of Mithangol, the product of a scandalous affair,” she continued in a hushed voice, like she was afraid someone might overhear.

  “His parentage doesn’t matter to me.”

  She balked and made a frantic choking sound. “You don’t even have his body! What are you planning on putting in the coffin?”

  “Does it really matter?” I polished off my glass with one long swig and sat it back on the dinner table. “This is happening whether you approve or not. So put on a few more gaudy necklaces and get over it.”

  My mom sat up stiffly, pressing her lips together like she’d bitten into something sour. Her eyes flashed with wrath and I could tell she was choosing her next words carefully. This was going to be a well-aimed threat.

  “Your father would be ashamed,” she said at last.

  I rolled my eyes. Like I hadn’t heard that line before.

  Getting up from my seat, I pressed my palms down against the table and looked her squarely in the eye. “Yep. I’m sure he would. But he’s dead and I’m in charge, so things are going to be done my way. Am I clear? You are no longer in a position to be giving me orders.”

  Her mouth fell open. I could read the silent horror on her face as she gaped up at me.

  I should have stopped there. I’d won. She had no more leverage over me; that should have been the end of it. But I couldn’t stop myself. Words just started boiling out of me—words I’d never dared to say before. “Who are you to tell me what’s best for this family? Who are you to tell me anything at all? You don’t know me. I might as well be a stranger for all the time we’ve spent together. The only times you ever seemed aware I was alive was when I did something to piss you off. But you see me now, don’t you? I am Felix Farrow, Duke and lord of this estate, just like you always wanted.”

  I didn’t know what was happening to me. I’d coexisted with my mother for years, and I’d never spoken to her like that before. I’d been a lot of things—rebellious, defiant, sarcastic, and even rude at times. But I’d never been … cruel.

  My hands shook and I felt flushed as I stormed out of the dining room. What I felt was as confusing as it was overwhelming. Rage, guilt, shame, fear—all of it rushed over me like a boiling tidal wave. All I wanted was to get away from everyone and everything.

  What was I thinking? Was I totally losing my mind? Prax had been right all along. Of course coming back here was an awful idea. The only time I ever felt free or at all like myself was when I was in a dragon saddle. Being here was like being in a prison- trapped with all my memories of a miserable childhood spent alone- and shoved onto a pedestal I’d never wanted in the first place.

  But where else could I go? Staying at Northwatch hadn’t felt much different. There, I was haunted by a different set of memories. There was nowhere for me to go and no one I could turn to. I was alone, spiraling into a hell I didn’t know how to escape from.

  I was out of breath when I made it back to my chambers. A few servants were there, cleaning and preparing the bath and my bed for tonight. I yelled at them to get out, and they quickly obeyed.

  Save for one.

  Miss Harriet hesitated when she passed me.

  I buried my face in my hands so I didn’t have to see the look on her face. I knew she was worried. I’d never raised my voice to the staff before.

  “This came for you this afternoon, Master Felix,” she said softly, taking a letter out of her apron and handing it to me discreetly. “I took care to make sure no one else saw it.”

  I glanced down at an envelope made of crisp, gold parchment. There was no address. No name. But I recognized the seal stamped onto the back right away. Just the sight of it made my raging thoughts go quiet for a moment. It was like a break in the storm.

  “It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it? Since she last wrote to you?” Miss Harriet kept her voice hushed.

  It had. We didn’t speak like this anymore. That was a rule of my own making, and one I swore never to break.

  I wondered what had possessed her to write to me after all this time.

  I tossed the letter onto the writing desk in my private parlor and immediately forgot about it. It’s not like I was going to answer it. Nothing written in there was anything I wanted joining the rat’s nest of thoughts tangled up in my brain. I poured another glass of strong liquor and went out onto the balcony. My room overlooked the sea, so the wind that blew in always smelled richly of salt. Once, I’d found that comforting. Now it just made my chest ache to be somewhere—anywhere—else.

  “Master Felix?” Harriet’s voice startled me. I’d forgotten she was even there. When I turned around, I was even more surprised to find her standing right behind me, anxiously wringing her hands in her apron.

  “Yes?”

  She cleared her throat. “I know you’re having a difficult time right now. I just wanted to tell you something, something my grandmother used to tell me when I was a girl.”

  I kept quiet while she seemed to gather her courage.

  “She used to tell me that souls were funny things. We think we own them, but they aren’t altogether ours. Everyone we love gets a tiny piece of our soul and we get a bit of theirs, too. Those bits stay with us even after we part ways or pass on. So in that way, we get the smallest taste of eternity,” she explained. “Through those tiny pieces of our soul, we are all immortal. If that’s true, and I believe it is, then no one who dies is ever really gone. We carry them with us always.”

  I broke through the doors of my private chambers with servants hovering all around me like gulls following a fishing boat. Some were arranging my clothes and doing last minute tweaks to my hair. Another was waving a few sheets of paper in my face, which I gathered were the notes for my speech. About five seconds before I completely lost my cool, Miss Harriet appeared and chased them all away.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, as she folded the notes up and tucked them into my breast pocket.

  I didn’t have an answer for that. Not a good one, anyway. So I just took a breath and nodded.

  “Everyone’s come. Even the king himself just arrived. His masked guards are making the staff terribly nervous. They insisted on checking the perimeter of the house themselves.” She sounded concerned. “The last time I saw such attendance to a funeral was when the king’s dear family passed. It’s unbelievable.”

  “And my mom?” I already knew the answer to that qu
estion. I just wanted to hear it validated out loud.

  Miss Harriet cast me a sympathetic glance. “She refuses to leave her bedroom.”

  “Good,” I snapped. “I don’t want her ruining this for me.”

  She didn’t respond to that. Instead, she followed behind me quietly as I descended to the grand foyer that led out to the back portion of the manor. That was where I’d arranged for the reception to be held, so everything was decorated with white lilies—a flower associated with grief in Maldobar. A month of preparing for an event of this magnitude had stretched everyone thin. I’d been colder to and harder on the staff than any noble at Farrow Estate ever was. But I was determined that no one was going to screw this up.

  The headstone I’d commissioned had cost a small fortune all on its own. It was made of solid jade, stood over eight feet, and was carved into the shape of a knight standing at the feet of his dragon, with his hand across his breastplate in formal salute. My mom had been horrified to see it being placed in such close proximity to her favorite tea garden, but I wasn’t about to move it.

  Today, it would be adorned in wreaths of lilies and olive branches. So would the coffin, which I commissioned to be every bit as fine and ornate as the one I would be buried in someday. Of course, I didn’t have a body to put in it. I’d settled with burying what I had of his belongings and letters, along with a rolled-up scroll of parchment sealed with my family’s crest. That was what had really set my mom off. She’d lost it when she got wind of what was written on that scroll. She immediately locked herself in her room and refused to come out again.

  Not that I cared. If she wanted to act a fool in front of everyone, so be it. I wasn’t going to coddle her.

  At last, I stood before the closed double doors that led out into the garden. Beyond them, I could hear the murmur of the crowd that had gathered. They were here to pay their respects, to watch me make my speech, and then join me in lowering the coffin into the ground. My heart was pounding frantically. I felt flushed and panicked. I locked up, paralyzed with fear.

  A hand touched my shoulder. Beside me, Miss Harriet smiled gently. “It’s going to be all right.”

  I desperately wanted to believe that. Regardless, I had to pull myself together. I had to get this done. I owed Jaevid that much. Brushing off her hand, I opened the doors and entered the garden.

  It was a bleak day. The dark sky seemed threaten rain at any moment. The wind blowing in off the sea was colder than usual, so most everyone was wearing a cloak and the ladies hadn’t removed their gloves or scarves.

  The crowd was gathered around the headstone. As I approached, I noticed that a few new items had appeared in the coffin. It looked like mostly letters, flowers, and a few ladies’ handkerchiefs. I recognized a few faces—fellow dragonriders from Northwatch, peers and instructors from our days training at Blybrig Academy, Jaevid’s older brother Roland, and some of my extended relatives who had probably just turned up to see what kind of spectacle this was going to end up being.

  I spotted Sile and his wife standing close together, but Beckah wasn’t with them. Sile’s face looked ashen and haunted. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in weeks. When he met my gaze it put a hard knot in my gut, like someone had punched me square in the stomach.

  Everyone else was staring at me, too. I could feel their eyes on me, intensifying my anxiety. But I couldn’t bring myself to look back at any of them as I stood in front of the headstone and fumbled my speech notes out of my pocket. I almost dropped them because my hands were shaking. When I tried reading them, my eyes crossed. I couldn’t focus.

  A gust of wind caught them suddenly, sending all the pieces of paper scattering across the courtyard. I didn’t even try to catch them. They hadn’t been doing me much good, anyway.

  Instead, I just started to talk.

  “When someone you care about dies, the first thing you think about is all the stuff you should’ve done or said when you had the chance. You wonder if it would have made any difference. There was a lot I should have told Jaevid. And even though people keep telling me his death wasn’t my fault, I’ll always feel like there was something I could have done. That I let him down.” My voice caught and I let my gaze fall to the empty, open coffin in front of me.

  I took a deep breath. “I have parents. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins. But Jaevid was the closest thing to family I’ve ever had. And it’s strange, because I always kinda thought I was the one letting him use me as a surrogate big brother, to keep him from getting beaten to a pulp. As it turns out … I guess I was the one who was using him. He accepted me regardless of what I had, who I was, or what my social rank or wealth could have done for him. I don’t have to tell most of you what that kind of friendship means to someone who always has to take every relationship with the expectation that anyone trying to be close just wants something from me. But Jaevid never asked me for anything. And the only thing he ever expected was that I’d show him the same loyalty he showed me.”

  It was getting harder and harder to talk. My throat was growing thick. My vision was becoming blurry and I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering. I took a second or two to clench my teeth, swallow, and collect myself. Then I stepped forward and took the scroll out of the coffin. I raised it for the rest of the crowd to see.

  “That’s why by my order as Duke of Farrow Estate, High Noble under the Crown of Maldobar and successor to the royal line, I hereby decree that Jaevid Broadfeather is my adopted brother. He shall henceforth be known as a member of my family, protected and marked by all the power that such a rank entitles him. May you all bear witness.”

  There was a collective gasp—mostly from my relatives.

  I placed the scroll back in the coffin and closed it. I stood back with the others and watched as the king’s own guards stepped in to lower it into the ground. Then I turned to Miss Harriet. “See that the burial is completed according to my instructions.”

  She nodded worriedly. “Aren’t you staying for the reception?”

  “No.”

  I couldn’t bear being there for one more second. As I turned and made a break for the doors, I heard the sky open up. Thunder bellowed deeply and the pouring rain made a hissing sound over the cobblestone pathways. It chased everyone else out of the courtyard right behind me.

  Well—all except for one.

  I caught a glimpse of a man still standing over the deep burial plot while the elite royal guards stacked white alabaster stones over it. Through the rain and people clamoring to get inside, I couldn’t identify who it was at first. Then he looked at me.

  Sile looked at me square in the eye with a look of terror, like the world was going to come to an end.

  I sat behind my desk, my drenched clothes dripping rainwater onto my office floor. I’d bypassed the reception. I didn’t care to talk to anyone down there right now. Rage and shame boiled up in me until I couldn’t take it any more. I picked up a glass paperweight off my desk and hurled it at the wall. It shattered into a million pieces onto the floor.

  Miss Harriet immediately rushed inside. “Master Felix? What happened?”

  I was doubled over my desk with my face buried in my hands. “Nothing! Get out!”

  “But Master—” she tried to continue.

  “I said GET OUT!” I roared and swung my arm across my whole desk, clearing everything off it onto the floor with one sweep.

  She shied back against the door as though she were afraid of me. “S-sir. The King of Maldobar is right outside. He’s asked for a private audience. You cannot refuse him.”

  It took a few moments for me to understand what she’d said. I had to close my eyes and breathe. When I felt like I could think clearly again, I answered, “Fine. Let him in. But I don’t want to speak to anyone else. Am I clear?”

  Miss Harriet curtsied. “Yes, Master Felix.”

  She hurried out the door and I could hear some commotion in the hallway outside. Voices mur
mured quietly until at last the door to my office opened again. This time four of the king’s elite guards entered, all dressed in sleek, black leather armor, save for the white, expressionless masks over their faces. Two remained by the doorway while the other two stood behind me. I didn’t like having them out of eyesight. Something about them looming right at my back felt like a subtle threat.

  The King of Maldobar stepped into my office. I’d seen him before, and he didn’t look any different now than he had then—a small-framed, downright pitiful looking old man. His dark crimson robes hung off his bones like wet laundry on a drying rack. He was bent at the back and walked with a gimp to his step. As always, a fur-lined hood was pulled over his head and his face was covered with a gilded mask. I could just barely see his eyes peering out at me as he shuffled over to sit down in the chair across from my desk.

  I should have stood, saluted him, or showed him some gesture of respect. But if he’d already spoken with Miss Harriet, then he must have known I was in no mood for this. I was only entertaining him because I couldn’t send him away. He outranked me.

  That was the only thing that kept my butt in my chair, watching him take his sweet time examining every inch of the room. He glanced down at all the stuff I’d raked onto the floor in my fit of rage, at the decent-sized dent I’d put in the wall, and at all the shattered glass on the floor. Then he let out a deep sigh.

  “I know what you must be feeling.” His thin voice rasped. “Rage. Regret. Pain. I could feel it all in your words. It reminded me of that day.”

  I sat back in my chair and waited for him to explain.

  “The day my family was murdered before my eyes,” he added. Then he stared straight at me with those eerie bloodshot eyes peeking through the holes in his mask. “I know there are those who have begun to question my motives. They wonder if I have lost myself to my need for vengeance. I’m curious to hear what you think. So tell me, Duke Farrow. What do you think of your king?”