by Kim Fedyk
The thing was, Graydon was right. They all were thinking just how much influence Absalom had exerted on her already. She seemed to believe what Aedan had told her, but she had spent a number of days with Absalom, and who knows what he had told her or what he had Rogan do to her. He would need to find out soon, but it would have to be much more subtle than Graydon’s approach and it certainly wasn’t a conversation to have tonight.
So he changed the topic.
“So Arleth, I’m sure you are exhausted and would love to go to sleep, but would you like to have a bath first?”
“Oh my goodness yes,” Arleth said enthusiastically. Relaxing in a bath right now sounded like a perfect idea.
Aedan laughed, “Well good because we are right outside the women’s bathing tent.”
“Bathing tent!?” Arleth exclaimed.
Aedan nodded, and pointed towards a huge tent directly in front of them. “Men and women each have their own area to bathe. The men’s bath tent is over there,” he pointed to a second huge tent right beside this one.
“How do you have a bathing tent in a cave?” Arleth asked incredulously.
“Ha!” Aedan said, “With magic.” He winked at her. ‘If you look up there,” he said, pointing to a black coloured pipe that was coming out from the back of the tent. “The mountains we are in right now are called the Iridian mountains. They are the tallest mountains on Oherra and many of their peaks are snow covered all year round. Using magic, Selene burrowed a hole from here all the way through the mountain to the top and we put that pipe up through it. The pipe is enchanted so that at the top, it melts the snow. The water is then carried in the pipe all the way down through the mountain. At the bottom, right before it enters the pool there is a second enchantment that multiplies the water droplets by 10,000 and heats them up. The result is a huge pool of steaming water.”
Arleth was amazed, “That is incredible.”
“It certainly is. Selene has done quite a bit of work around here to make this much more than just a cave. Thanks to her, it is more like a small city than a hideout.”
Arleth nodded in appreciation.
“Well Arleth, I am in desperate need of a bath. So I am going to go in, I’ll meet you out here after and show you which tent is yours to sleep in.” Without another word, he turned and disappeared into the tent he had indicated was the men’s bathing tent.
Arleth followed suit, entering the women’s bath tent. Inside, covering almost the entire surface area was an enormous pool that was dug right into the cave floor. At the far end, Arleth could see the water flowing into the pool from the black pipe that Aedan had described. Steam was rising from the water and where it mixed with the cooler air, a mist formed.
Arleth was completely alone, she imagined that during the day it would be busy, but right now she was glad for the lack of prying eyes. She untied her sash, slipped off her dress and stepped into the pool. She followed the stone steps into the centre of the pool and swam over to the edge. There was a ledge against the side and when Arleth sat down on it, the water came up to her shoulders. Arleth closed her eyes, letting the warm water soothe her tired muscles. She leaned her back against the stone edge of the pool and stretched out her feet in front of her. This was perfect.
* * *
In the tent beside her, Aedan was similarly exulting in the soothing waters. He too closed his eyes, letting the stress of the day wash away.
He heard soft footsteps behind him and turned to see the beautiful form of Selene coming towards him.
"Care for some company," She asked him, dropping her robe on the ground.
"Always," Aedan smiled at her, admiring her naked body.
She slipped into the warm water with barely a splash and swam towards him. Aedan put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. They got so few of these moments, he wanted to exult in it forever, but he had to ask, "Why did you lie to Arleth about why Aban killed his wife and daughter?"
"We are trying to get her to trust us, I didn't really want to tell her the truth. At least not yet. It's not really our-side friendly."
Aedan nodded he hadn't even thought about that. "That's a good point."
"I'm suprised you told her about her birthright already. The poor girl just had her whole world turned upside down in a few hours."
"Yes I know." Aedan said with a sigh. "She asked why Absalom would want her, I didn't really want to lie to her about that. Plus it's common knowledge, I thought it was common knowledge anyways, that the female Amaran's have magic. I thought she would have already known that."
Selene nodded, "That's fair." She twirled the water in lazy circles with her finger. "At least you didn't tell her that it would kill her."
"No. That we will leave for another day."
Selene and Aedan lay in the water in silence for a few moments thinking about the successes of the day. And everything that lay ahead of them.
Suddenly Selene broke away from Aedan's arm and turned to face him in the water. She looked at him coyly and smiled. "So I put up some charms at the bath entrance when I came in."
"What kind of charms," Aedan said returning the smile. He pulled her towards him again.
"You know the kind where we won't be disturbed for a while." She put her hand on his chest and slowly slid it down until it disappeared under the water.
* * *
As Selene and Aedan enjoyed their privacy, the Ranin bud detached itself from Aedan’s leg and floated upwards unseen to the surface of the water. From there it floated unhurriedly to the nearest edge and rolled itself up and out of the pool. Once out of the pool, it rolled across the floor and exited the tent. Almost immediately, it started to divide, becoming two then four, then six... for the next 5 minutes the bud split, until thousands of tiny buds were lying on the ground outside the tent. As if on cue, as soon as the last division had occurred, a set of six legs sprouted out of each newly created bud. One of the buds emitted an inaudible hum and the entire army scampered away in all different directions, spreading out across the entire length of the cave. They attached themselves to whatever surface they were against – cave wall, ground, tree etc. – there they would wait and grow to their full size, completely invisible until their growth was done and they were ready to launch their attack.
Back in the pool, Aedan sighed in contentment, blissfully unaware of the destruction that had just been set in motion.
Chapter 22
Arleth couldn’t sleep.
After her bath, Aedan had shown her to the tent where she would sleep. She had been surprised to learn that each family had their own tent and that this one was now hers alone. But her surprise was fleeting - as soon as Aedan had wished her goodnight and left, Arleth had fallen asleep.
She had woken up minutes later and hadn’t been able to fall back asleep.
There was too much on her mind.
Arleth gave a sigh of resignation, pushed back her blankets, and sat up. She wasn’t about to fall back asleep any time soon and she was growing restless just staring at the ceiling of the tent. Getting to her feet, she walked the few paces to the door of her tent and lifted the flap. The light coming from the cave walls had dimmed, so it was now only possible to make out shadows in the dark. In the distance, Arleth could hear the faint shuffling of feet as the guards did their rounds. Other than that, there was complete silence. It had to have been well past midnight and everyone was sound asleep in their tents.
Arleth left her tent, closing the flap silently behind her. She walked aimlessly down the rows of tents, letting her feet lead the way as her mind tried to comprehend how thoroughly her life had changed in the last week. A mere seven days ago, she had been a slave on Tocarra, a life she had known since she was 10 years old. Although she had wished for a better life, a future, even dreamed of adventure, deep down she had known that she would always be a slave. Her daydreams were just that, dreams - a way to escape the terrible life she had. But that had all changed in a heartbeat. First, she had met King Absalom,
which had in itself seemed like a dream come true. But then in less time than she had to even pause to think, she had been chased by who she thought was an assassin, and had been all but rushed off to Oherra. Spending the rest of her life on Oherra as a servant to the king was surprising enough. She had never expected to travel to another world, let alone to Oherra, to meet the king, or to actually spend the rest of her life in Iridian castle. She had been overwhelmed and overjoyed then by this sudden turn in her life.
But now?
Now she was much, much more than a servant. She had learned who her true family was, and it was none other than the most important family in the universe. She had gone to bed last night as a servant to the king. She had gone to bed tonight as Arleth Amara, sister to Aedan Amara, princess of Oherra. Not to mention all that she had learned about Absalom and Rogan, Rogan’s experiments, the rebellion..... And she was supposed to have magic! One woman had even kissed her hand, calling her the “saviour” of the Oherran people.
Saviour
She was 17 years old and had known she was an Amara for all of half a day.
All of a sudden, Arleth felt extremely light-headed. She sat down heavily on a nearby bench and put her head in her hands. She stayed that way for a few minutes, letting the dizziness wash over her. Calm down Arleth she told herself, as she struggled to control her breathing. Just calm down.
Her mind thus occupied, she didn’t hear the footsteps until their owner was practically on top of her.
“Can’t sleep either?” Val asked gently, walking up to her.
Arleth flinched slightly in surprise, but quickly recovered and gave Val a small smile. She shook her head “Nope. I guess you couldn’t either.”
Val shook his head in response. “Mind if I sit here?” He waved his arm to indicate the spot beside her on the bench.
“Go ahead.”
Val sat down, rested his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hands. He stared ahead of him in silence, pointedly not looking at Arleth. Although Arleth hadn’t seen him until the last moment, he had seen her collapse onto the bench, the nauseous look on her face, and her efforts to control her breathing. He was far from a mind reader, but that combined with her insomnia, told him that she had a lot on her mind and it likely was reeling from all that she had been told today. He would give her the time she needed in silence.
Arleth for her part didn’t know that Val’s silence and averted attention was on purpose, but she was grateful for it. After a few more minutes, her breathing had returned to normal and her head no longer felt like it weighed 1,000 pounds.
Val cleared his throat, “I’m not very good at this sort of thing,” he began, turning on the bench to face her. “But I wanted to apologize for scaring you on Tocarra.”
Arleth stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. Maybe it was a measure of how stressed she was, of how much was on her mind, but she found Val’s comment ridiculously funny. He had said it so seriously, and based on everything she had gone through just today, being upset that she had been chased wasn’t even on her radar. She laughed even harder, unable to control herself. Tears started to roll down her face.
Arleth’s laughter proved infectious and Val smiled despite himself.
“It’s totally fine,” Arleth said when her laughter had finally died down. “You didn’t have much of a choice and I started running away first. You couldn’t really have just yelled at me ‘Hey Arleth you are an Amara, I’m taking you back to Oherra with me to be reunited with your brother.’”
“True, I just wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings.”
Arleth laughed again, but much less this time, “Definitely not! Sadly being chased by a so-called assassin, doesn’t rate so high on my list of surprising things to have happened in the last week of my life.”
Val nodded in sympathy, “Yes I suppose you are right.”
“So Val, how did you get your scar?” the-ever-curious-and-after her-laughing-fit-much-calmer, Arleth asked.
Val paused a moment before he answered. “It was 10 years ago now. Just after Absalom’s Northern annihilation,” he paused to look at Arleth. She nodded in understanding; she remembered what Aedan and Selene had told her earlier today in the dungeons.
Val continued, “After that is when we believe Rogan started doing his enchantments – turning his enemies (our friends) into his mindless slaves. He might have started before this, but it was just after that time that we started coming across them in the field of battle.”
Arleth nodded, “Yes Selene told me a bit about that, she said it was horrific. Fighting against people you once knew.”
“Horrific doesn’t even begin to cover it. Each of us still come across familiar faces in Absalom’s army almost every week, and it still hurts us to have to fight them. But after so many years we have become hardened to it. But then.... we were about your age, and we had no experience with this. None of us wanted to fight against people we knew. We didn’t want to believe that there was no longer anything left in them of who they once were. We couldn’t accept that there was nothing we could do to turn them back into our allies.” Val drifted off, lost in his own painful memories.
Arleth remained silent trying to imagine how terrible it would have been for them. She wouldn’t have minded if she had to fight Bella or Kiran, in fact she might have even enjoyed it. But if she had to fight anyone she had known in the orphanage... any of her friends, Flora.. Neve? Arleth couldn’t imagine what sort of courage was needed, what sort of hardened resolve to know you had to kill someone that had once been your friend. She didn’t think she could have killed Flora, even if Flora had been enchanted and was trying to kill her.
“And that is how I got my scar,” Val continued, returning to the present and interrupting Arleth’s thoughts. “One day soon after the annihilation, we came across one of Absalom’s soldiers by himself in the Frasht Forest. He was not very much older than us, still basically a child like we were. And I recognized him. His name was Stanley and he was from Kresh – one of the northern cities that Absalom had destroyed. His father had been a high ranking officer in their army and before Absalom’s usurpation; he had been part of an official envoy sent to Iridian Castle. Stanley had come with his father and it had been Aedan and my job to entertain him while the adults talked. We had all been carefree children then, and we played and laughed together for hours. And then here I was years later, seeing that same boy again. Our whole world had changed, but I didn’t want to believe it. In my mind I still saw Stanley as the smiling boy we had played with all those years before. I dropped my weapons and walked over to him. Foolishly, I thought that I could make him remember me and that he wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t want to believe that he was ‘gone.’ As soon as I stepped within swinging distance of him, he unsheathed his knife and with one fluid motion,” Val swiped downward across his face along his scar, “Did this to me. If Aedan hadn’t been there to aim an arrow at Stanley’s heart, he likely would have killed me on the spot. As it was, I almost died from blood loss before Aedan was able to take me to Selene to be healed. It is a constant reminder to all three of us that we can’t let our emotions get in the way of killing our enemies.”
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” Arleth said gently. “I don’t know if I could have killed people I once knew.” In her mind’s eye, she visualized the story Val had told her. Except instead of Stanley holding the knife, it was Flora, and it was Arleth’s face the blade was rapidly approaching. Arleth shuddered.
“Unfortunately you get used to it,” Val replied.
Arleth was more than doubtful.
“It’s not something I’m proud of, don’t get me wrong. But it’s amazing what you can learn to tolerate and even accept when you have no other option. Look at you for example. You were a slave back on Tocarra were you not?”
Arleth nodded hesitantly, not sure where he was going with this.
“Well I’m sure you didn’t like being a slave, but you had n
o other option so you learned to tolerate the conditions and accept your life. Am I wrong?”
“No, you are right.”
“Exactly, so this is the same kind of thing. We don’t like what we have been forced to do, but we have no other choice so we have learned to accept it.”
Arleth nodded, his explanation actually made a lot of sense to her.
But Val wasn’t done, it was now his turn to be curious, “So Arleth, how exactly did you become a slave on Toccara. When we learned that you were alive, we figured that someone we had thought had died in the attack had escaped and taken you with them. But I can’t imagine they would have just given you over to slave traders.”
“Oh no, no”, Arleth replied. “Neve rescued me from the castle the night of the attack and she brought me to an orphanage.” Arleth continued on, telling Val the same story she had told to Selene, Aedan and Zeeshan earlier that day. He interrupted her a few times to ask questions, and just like Aedan and Selene, Val too, was surprised to learn that Absalom had tried to kill her when she was 10.
“And then I was chased by a scary man with a dagger halfway across the desert.” She looked over at Val expectantly.
“Wait! What?” Val said “I thought that....” he trailed off as he saw Arleth trying to hold back a laugh.
“Hmph, you really are an Amara,” he said with as much annoyance as he could muster. “Your brother would be so proud.”
Arleth smiled. But with the mention that she was an Amara, the events of the past 24 hours came flooding back to her. All of her fears and doubts resurfaced.
“I can’t believe I let Absalom fool me so easily,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Val.
“What do you mean?” Just how much influence Absalom had on her was something that all of them were trying to figure out. Val wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass.
“Well, I believed his explanation of you as being an assassin from the Black Thorn trying to kill him. I accepted that even though I was pretty sure you had called me by name in the alley in Sonohan. But not only that. Not for one minute, even with all the strange things I saw at the castle, did I think that he was anything other than the rightful heir. I never once suspected that he had evil intentions towards me or that his kindness to me was all an act. If it wasn’t for Neve’s brother who gave me that key to the dungeon and made me see for myself, made me see the experiments, Zeeshan, his dread mage, I don’t know...” She trailed off. “How could I have been so blind, so stupid?”
