by D. D. Chant
Shin nodded slowly in understanding.
“It was because Kai has such strength to make these resolutions that you chose him to be Aya’s Bonded mate, wasn’t it?”
Elder Headman Amajit returned to his seat and settled himself comfortably.
“It is the reason Kai will one day make a great Headman, and yes it was also one of the reasons why I chose him to take on the responsibility that Aya would bring.” He paused for a moment. “However, it is just one of many reasons.”
Elder Headman Amajit sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. There were many secrets that he still held close to his chest. He wondered how long he would be able to keep the house of cards that he had constructed from crashing down around them.
How long would it be before the end came?
Would the balance he had striven to defend last long enough to save the Head Families from war?
He had tried to bring peace to the Una Territories; it had been his lifes work. Now he couldn’t help wondering if maybe he had only succeeded in destroying the nation he had tried so hard to protect.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Leda sat by the pond in the rose garden, staring into the water. It was a large pond, circular and quite deep toward the middle. Perfectly formed fronds of Elodea glistened brightly just below the surface, and large lily pads floated on the crystal clear waters.
“Leda?”
She looked up quickly, and Ben could see he had startled her.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, averting her gaze as he flopped down beside her.
“Why should something be wrong?”
She shifted away from him, moving to sit closer to the water’s edge. Her trailing fingertips touched its still surface. The brightly coloured Koi that basked in the sunshine skittered away from her movements. As they glided through the trailing plants, the sunlight lit their jewel toned scales making them glow brightly.
She looked so beautiful, thought Ben, so completely unconscious of the sunlight turning her curls almost molten. His eyes rested on the longest curl where it nestled against her neck, caressed gently by the breeze. The long skirts of her Una dress fanned out over the flagstones. She looked wistful, sad even, and Ben felt a strong wish to chase that sadness away.
“That’s my question,” he answered with a smile.
Leda hunched a shoulder, and flicked a glittering shower of water droplets toward the centre of the pond.
“I just didn’t think that it would turn out like this.”
“This?” asked Ben. “Is ‘this’ good or bad?”
“That depends on who you are,” returned Leda listlessly.
Ben reached out and tentatively covered her hand with his. She jerked away from him, startled, and they stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments.
“Sorry: you surprised me.”
Ben shook his head.
“It’s okay. Invading another person’s personal space isn’t cool: I should be apologising to you.”
Leda smiled a little and looked back to the pond. Every now and then a fish would break the surface, its mouth opening and closing in a lazy search for food.
“You have to stop worrying about her, Leda.”
Leda took a shaky breath.
“Benji, I know you mean well, but you have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Who of you, by being anxious, can add one cubit to his lifespan?”
Leda looked blank.
“Excuse me?”
“If you want me to: did you do something very bad?”
“What?”
“That you want me to excuse you,” laughed Ben.
Leda's eyes narrowed, and Ben saw her glance speculatively at the pond.
“Oh, no you don't!” Ben held up a hand. “I'm only just recovering from my injuries and that vile brew you pumped into my arm. Chuck me in the pond and I promise you’ll be coming with me.”
“Answer my question and I may reconsider.”
Ben smiled and lay back, cushioning his head.
“It's a passage from the bible. It means that you can worry all you like, but some things are just out of your hands.”
Leda was silent for a long time after Ben spoke. Her face was creased into a frown, her hand still trailing in the water. Ben watched as the koi, emboldened by her stillness, made ever closer forays toward her fingers. After some time they became very curious and nuzzled her lightly.
“Nothing has changed!” she blurted out at last.
She hadn’t moved, and her expression was still thoughtful. She looked as though her mind was fixed upon solving a knotty problem.
“What did you expect to change?”
“I don’t know. I thought that if we brought Astra back here, among her own people, that she could finally be at peace.” Leda shook her head. “But rather than being better it’s much worse here.”
Ben reached out again and took Leda’s hand in his. She didn’t pull away this time, but looked at him questioningly.
“Tell me, Leda.”
“Tell you what?”
Ben shrugged.
“Anything. Everything. Whatever it is that’s making you so unhappy: tell me all about it.”
Leda looked away, biting her bottom lip, and waved away a bumblebee that hovered around her.
“I hated how we lived in the Tula Strongholds. I hated how Astra was treated, how she never felt safe, and how Councillor Ladron used us against her, and her against us. I hated how everyone looked at us with loathing because we accepted a Una child into our house. They looked down on us because we treated her like a human being, Benji! Outside of our home Astra wasn’t allowed to eat or drink with us, but had to sit there like some sort of slave.
“I’m not saying everyone treated her badly, but most were scared of the repercussions if they were too friendly with her. We weren’t completely ostracised. I still had friends, but they were too afraid to enter our home. They were too afraid to speak up and stand out from everyone else. Pathetic isn’t it?” Leda paused, and Ben could see that tears filled her eyes. “But as bad as it was, I wish we were still there!”
“Why?”
“Because Astra was ours in the Tula Strongholds. These people view her as theirs, and I'm so horribly afraid that they’re going to take her away from us.”
“Even if they wanted to, Leda, do you really believe that Astra would let them?”
“I believe that Astra would do anything to keep us safe,” returned Leda flatly. “Can’t you see? It’s just as bad as it was before. Astra is being forced to do things that she doesn’t want to do to protect us. It isn’t fair, not after all we’ve been through to get her here, to find somewhere she could live without fear.”
“What did you think would happen? Did you really believe that Astra could return without any repercussions?”
“Rem is her family, Ben! He should be protecting her but instead… why is he doing this?”
Ben shook his head.
“And to think I once thought you cynical,” he muttered. “Rem barely knows her, and from what I can tell, her life with you in the Tula Strongholds has been a source of great embarrassment to him.”
Leda snorted in disgust.
“He’s using Astra. I hated Corbani Va Dic Ladron for using her and I despise Rem Uel Ne Singh for it too.”
“You should try to believe in Astra. She knows what she’s doing.”
“For goodness sake, Benji! Will you stop behaving like you have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Leda snatched her hand from his, and turned on him angrily.
“You have no idea what it has been like; the things Astra has done, the things she was forced to do. Stop pretending that you understand, because you don't!”
“What don’t I understand, Leda? Explain it to me.”
“Don’t get bolshie with me, pal: I’ll blacken your other eye.”
“You can’t expect me to understand if you don’t explain it
to me.”
Leda took a deep breath and averted her gaze from his face.
“When Astra was sixteen years old, she was informed that she was to go in to training to become Councillor Ladron’s subsidiary. We all knew what kind of a life that would mean for her, and so my father used his political connections to get her off the hook. Two days later our mother died in a car ‘accident’.”
Leda paused, trying to blink back the tears that flooded from her eyes.
“Astra went to Government Building the afternoon of the accident, without us knowing, and signed up for the course. She began the next day.”
Leda’s voice dropped to a horrified whisper.
“Petta was in the car with our mother when she crashed.”
Ben felt a shiver run the length of his spine.
“Was she okay?”
Leda shook her head, brushing away the tears on her cheeks, and gulping in her effort to stop crying.
“She… she…” Leda tried to contain her sobs. “She was crushed, Benji.”
Her voice shook as she whispered this last, and her eyes were filled with so much pain that Ben flinched.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. It was horrific, she was so broken.” Leda shook her head, trying to rid herself of the unwanted image that her words had conjured up. “Dad went to the hospital as soon as we got the call so that he could be the one to operate on her. None of us said anything, but we all thought that if we let anyone else see to her, she’d be dead before morning. I went with him, and a few colleagues that Dad trusted offered their help as well.”
Leda was quiet again, her eyes fixed on the floor, and her hands clenching the fabric of her dress so tightly that Ben heard a few cotton threads snap.
“It’s a miracle she lived.”
Ben was unable to watch her pain any longer. With a swift movement he pulled her in to his arms, and cradled her head on his shoulder. He held her tightly, absorbing the shivers that wracked her frame, and after a while her sobs lessened. Ben didn’t relax his hold on her, and Leda made no move to free herself.
They sat in silence for a long time. Ben was aware of the cold hard stone of the terrace in stark contrast to the warm body in his arms.
The sound of the fish sucking at the surface of the water, and the warmth of the sun seemed to encompass him. It was as though the world had condensed down to the garden around him, and he could feel the earth’s heartbeat in everything. All that Leda had told him crystallised in his mind as the end result of the political machinations he had watched from afar.
His father had always told him that politics was a dirty business, and Ben had seen enough to know that was true. Yet somehow this was different from anything he'd ever experienced before. He was on the front line. He had become one of the pawns that had to live with the decisions made for the greater good of the whole.
Ben had never lost anything he loved in such a way as the Va Dic Toban’s had. His mother had died young due to ill heath, and even now Ben could remember the impotent despair he had felt at his own powerlessness.
However, what would he have felt if his opponents had viewed the lives of his family in a tactical way, to be taken or threatened at will?
How would he have felt if his enemy had treated the death of a loved one as a manoeuvre in some elaborate game in the pursuit of power?
Ben felt rage simmer up within him, bringing bile to his throat. He didn’t think he’d ever heard of anything so evil. He had known what Corbani Va Dic Ladron was capable of, he’d even had a shrewd idea of the atrocities he had committed. However, it hadn’t been until that moment, after witnessing Leda’s pain and anguish, made more ghastly by the backdrop of the beautiful and serene garden, that he’d felt anger. Rage and determination bubbled up within him, a desire to wipe Corbani Va Dic Ladron from the face of the earth, to cleanse it completely of his foul influence.
Before he had felt cold disgust toward Councillor Ladron, the impersonal revulsion felt when cleaning a squashed bug from a window pane. However now it was different, it was personal. He wanted Corbani Va Dic Ladron to face justice, the consequences of his actions… pain.
Leda stirred in his arms, and Ben became aware of the fact that his hold on her had tightened and she was probably very uncomfortable.
“Sorry.”
Leda drew away from him, and pushed the hair from her eyes. She wouldn’t look at him, her gaze was evasive.
“I should be the one apologising,” she returned gruffly.
She fiddled awkwardly with a fold on her dress, twisting it into tight bunches, and Ben cleared his throat.
“Leda, I know that it’s hard for you, but you have to trust that Astra will do what’s best.” His voice was gentle and Leda shook her head.
“You still don’t get it, Ben. I know that Astra will do what is best for us. I know that we’ll be fine. What worries me is that she will do what’s best for us regardless of the fact that it is the worst thing possible for her. She always has, first with Councillor Ladron and now with Apprentice Headman Sen.”
Ben felt an unfamiliar pressure in his chest, stretching every muscle tight. It was an alien sensation, but Ben recognised it nevertheless.
He felt defenceless.
His heart hammered a little faster at the thought. He’d never been powerless before; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Benjamin Charles Burton was the pampered only child of a senator of the Free Nation. He had been born with power and authority. When he had entered the political sphere everyone had taken note of him. That he would one day become a senator like his father was not a question of if, but when. The only speculation was if he would be the first Senator to be elected to the post before he was thirty-five years old. General opinion was that if anyone could do it, Ben Burton could.
Yet here Ben was; completely at the mercy of the Una. His every move was watched and restricted as they saw fit. Ben chafed at such impositions on his freedom. There was no end in sight to his incarceration, and he had no way of contacting his father.
He swallowed jerkily, trying to ease the tight feeling in his throat. The thought of his father pained him, bringing tears to his eyes. He wondered what his father was doing.
Was he looking for him?
Was he safe?
He wasn't even sure his father knew the truth. Ben snorted, how could Councillor Ladron have told him the truth? The truth was that Ladron had tried to eliminate the evidence of his dictatorship even when that evidence had grown to encompass Ben himself.
Ben hated not knowing what was going on in the Tula Strongholds.
His father’s position in the peacemaking envoy would have been revoked as soon as he had disappeared. Who would the Free Nation send as Senator Burton’s replacement?
Had they already arrived in the Tula Strongholds?
What was his father doing to recover him?
So many questions, and no way to find out the answers. Yet Ben was sure of one thing: Senator Burton would not rest until he had found him. An awful thought rose up in his mind: what if his father thought he was dead?
Ben couldn’t discount the idea now that it had occurred to him. Councillor Ladron had wanted them all to disappear, and that was exactly what had happened. He tried to calm the welling feeling of hopeless panic.
He had no control over what was happening, and no idea what to do next. As much as Ben tried to deny it, he couldn’t help but feel that Leda was right: they were all trapped and helpless.
It was a comfortable enough prison as prisons went, but the lack of freedom made it just as restrictive as one of the barbaric cages his ancestors had used to detain prisoners in the past.
When he had first arrived in the Una Territories, his immediate feeling had been of relief. It was strange how short-lived that sensation of safely had been. Now he realised that safety was a relative term, and they were still in danger.
Maybe they were in even more danger now than they had been before.
He loo
ked down at Leda, searching for a way to give her some comfort. He could think of nothing. He could do nothing. His powerlessness made him feel as though he were suffocating, being pulled down into the mire and feeling it close over him leaving no trace of his existence behind.
If he could just get a message to his father, or to the Free Nation. They needed to know the truth about where he was. More importantly, they needed to know the truth about Councillor Ladron's despotic activities.
Ben cringed, thinking of the perilous situation the Free Nation faced. If they made peace with the Tula it would lead to the extinction of the Una. Corbani Va Dic Ladron hated the Una with an obsessive venom that would push him to wipe every trace of them from the face of the earth. His extravagant anger toward an entire nation of people was terrifying, and Ben had unconsciously begun to label Councillor Ladron as unhinged.
He shivered at the thought of what Ladron would do to the Una if he had the Free Nation’s backing. Ladron would quietly and efficiently destroy them, and the Free Nation would have no power to stop him. Ladron would first wipe out the Una and then he would turn on the Free Nation.
A man like Ladron was dangerous because he had such grand illusions. He saw himself as a ruler of an empire, and the Una and the Free Nation as ripe for conquest.
Ben shifted restlessly. He was supposed to be helping, yet here he was, stuck in the Una territories. He had no way of getting any warning to his father or the Free Nation.
Leda wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and sniffed irritably.
“The worst thing is that there’s nothing we can do about anything.”
Ben was a little surprised by her unconscious echoing of his thoughts. He watched her for a few moments, feeling suddenly that he was not so alone after all.
“You know, my dad says that everyone has the power to make a difference in the world.” Ben’s words were thoughtful. “He says that anything is possible if you have the determination to carry things through to the end. That if something is right then you should fight for it.”
“In that case, I wish your father were here.”
Ben reached out, taking her hand in his once more, and waiting until she met his gaze.
