The Heir of Ænæria

by Thom L Matthews

  “What were the punishments?” Arynn asked. She wondered what ‘fair’ meant to an Ænærian legate.

  “Thieves were forced to do labor equivalent to double the value of whatever the stole. If someone stole a loaf of bread that took three hours to prepare from start to finish, then they would need to do work of similar intensity for six hours. If the crime was assault, then they were given a night in a cell and several lashes on their bare back based on the severity of the bodily harm caused. Murder was originally punished with public execution, but the Vestinian king’s successor decided this was a rather unfair punishment.”

  The pair and their guards approached the garden before the mansion, the fresh red roses and pink daffodils sweeter than any flowers she’d seen or smelled back at home. Arynn couldn’t believe how beautiful her new home was.

  “Their king’s successor?” Arynn asked. “What happened to their king? How did Vestinia become a province of Ænæria?”

  “The king died of foul humors. His daughter is Lady Estel Crane, who married the successor.”

  Arynn brought her hand to her forehead. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it sooner. The newcomers that taught Vestinia how to fight were Julius and his original followers. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to her that Julius was cunning enough to arm and train a weak people under the guise of friendship when, in reality, he was just building a bigger army for himself.

  “Fenwin was the first outsider to lead these people. Yet clearly they loved him.”

  “As I said, Vestinia is quite accepting of outsiders. However, I believe it was more out of fear than love that they accepted him. They soon learned that the husband to their beloved princess was cruel and had little taste for their traditions.

  “You see, Fenwin decided that execution did nothing for the people of Vestinia. He claimed it was not fair restitution for the friends and families of those who had been murdered. The only way to pay for a life lost was to repay that life in full. Thus, Fenwin declared that all murderers were to be enslaved for the rest of their life. They were to live in a new walled-off village set aside for slaves only, where they were allowed to roam freely under the watch of Fenwin’s wardens. When children started being born within the villages, Fenwin believed they were to be slaves as well, to make up for potential children lost through killing someone. Soon the other provinces and kingdoms followed suit, and even Xander realized it was a fast and easy way to build his new kingdom.”

  “That’s disgusting!” Arynn shrieked. She nearly spat to her side but swallowed when she realized she would hit the Rhion next to her. “How could a people so grounded in hospitality accept something so fundamentally counter to it?”

  Randolph gestured for the Rhion to open the rich red double doors for the pair as they entered the mansion’s lobby. The two made their way of the stairs, along with the entourage of guards. It’s hard to believe this place is my prison, Arynn had to remind herself.

  “King Xander eventually amended that law, though it made little difference. All prisoners of war and their families were sent to Ignistad to serve a sentence of not more than fifteen years. However, any unfortunate souls already enslaved by a legate remained in his service and their fifteen-year sentence only started when Xander’s law was written.

  “I can tell the people of Vestinia are sick of having slavery as their legacy instead of their ancient tradition. That’s why I plan to honor Ænæria’s very first province by abolishing slavery altogether.”

  “I don’t understand,” Arynn said, looking at him next to her as they ascended the stairs. “I thought you were Minervia’s legate. What influence do you have over Vestinia, over Ænæria as a whole?”

  Randolph’s eyes narrowed together, looking intently at Arynn. “My dear, I’m not Minervia’s legate anymore.”

  Arynn stopped cold, and the Rhion following behind bumped into her backside and tripped her up the steps. Her stomach twisted and she felt nauseous—her head was spinning faster than a potter’s wheel. She understood now why he had so many guards. Why nearly every Vestinian bowed before him in the town, and why Lady Estel had been so infatuated with him. “You’re the new king!”

  Randolph offered his hand to help Arynn to her feet. She hesitated a moment before finally placing her hand around his. It was cold and calloused like sand on a morning beach.

  “Who else did you think was king? I was next in line after all.”

  Arynn felt herself stammering for words. “But…but why would a king spend all his time here with me?”

  Randolph chuckled. It was dry and hollow but loud too. “I’m in First Hearth to establish Fenwin’s replacement. There are many factors to consider and people to consult. Now, I believe it’s time for me to depart once more. Not all of my time is with you, after all. Tomorrow at the same time?”

  Arynn nodded, but she was silent. She was escorted to her room, and the door was closed and locked behind her. She climbed her bed and lay on it flat, staring at the cream-colored ceiling. She was stunned by the revelation about Randolph. There was still so much she didn’t know about him, but he had been right when they first met: her first impression of him had been tainted by Ben’s descriptions. They had probably been lies, too. Arynn felt that there was no way she could have trusted Ben anymore. He had used her, leaving her to rot as a prisoner of Ænæria only to be looked upon kindly by fate and saved by its new king. Ben got what he wanted: his cousin, the Vault, recognition. The thought that she had been abandoned and tricked hurt her. She felt her heart sink into her stomach and break apart in its acidic juices. She cried herself to sleep that night, both missing and hating Ben at the same time.

  Days later and Arynn was still in tears, though they were not just for Ben. They were for everyone she had lost. She was trapped in Ænæria. She couldn’t understand why Randolph was so interested in her, especially now that she knew he was Ænæria’s new king.

  She had no idea where Darius and Trinity were, or if they were even alive—Randolph hadn’t been able to find that out for himself since they weren’t as high-profile people like Ben and his stupid cousin. There was no one left for her aside from her father. But she knew she couldn’t go back to Vänalleato where she would inevitably be married off to some man.

  Randolph sat across from Arynn and slowly stroked his mustache. He no longer smiled nor exuded the confidence he usually expressed. It was rather strange to Arynn, as she hadn’t been accustomed to the Ænærians showing such vulnerability. Perhaps I’m misreading him, she thought. It may not be vulnerability but deep thought and concentration.

  Tears continued to flow down Arynn’s cheeks. She closed her eyes in an attempt to fight them. Randolph got up from his chair and knelt beside her, wiping them away. She jolted from the surprise and scooted back, away from the king.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, choking back her tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Randolph muttered. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Well, I see myself in you, Arynn. Your story is quite similar to my own. You see, I also lost everyone I loved. Many years ago, when Ænæria was in her infancy, I had a family—a daughter and a wife. My daughter was not of my own blood, but I loved her just the same. Her natural father left her before she was born, and I raised her ever since I met her mother. That was all taken from me. Perhaps you’ve heard the nasty rumor that I destroyed an entire village. That’s not entirely true. In fact, it was my own home village of Sun Reach. We struggled for many years to keep ourselves healthy and fed, but we were strong and hardy people. We were not, however, fighters. And the Miners Guild took advantage of that and attacked us. There were only a few Rhion in Sun Reach—most others had been sent to more dangerous places. I told my people to flee while my Rhion and I fended off the attackers. The aftermath was the utter destruction of my people. Only my nephew and I survived. And I, too, was betrayed by someone close. My wife’s brother, Longinus’s father, was a member of the Miners Guild. He shared our vulnerabilities with his band of terror
ists that led to the death of his own sister. If it weren’t for the love of my wife and son, I would have left my nephew to burn with his father. But the boy was kin to my wife and daughter, and I felt it my duty to raise and protect him as my own.”

  There was another silence. It was strange, but Randolph was right: Arynn did feel similar to the legate. Both betrayed by someone close to them, loved ones taken from them; behind it all was the Miners Guild. They seemed to preach an end to Xander’s regime, yet their secrets seemed to do just as much damage and harm. If they weren’t there to resist the Ænærians, then perhaps there would be no violence.

  “Have you ever wondered why the Miners Guild calls themselves such?” Randolph asked, wiping away a small tear of his own.

  “No,” Arynn said shortly. “Why?”

  “You would think that it’s because their base of operations is within a mountain, and that like mines, the Guild works underground, constantly digging for information. It is actually much simpler than that, as I learned very recently. They are named after my province, Minervia. They think they can taint my province’s name. But like a mine, their treachery runs deep. You cannot trust them. They are the reason King Xander needed to keep such a tight grip on his people, and why I must continue to do so—if it weren’t for the guild, the laws could be laxer and people happier. But before they can be happy, they need to be safe. Members of the Miners Guild blindly follow their missing leader like some sort of prophet, so they continue to sow dissent among Ænæria. The Miners Guild are agents of chaos. You grew up in a land without order and rich with violence. How long did it take for your villages to establish peace? Sydgilbyn and Talamdor warred for decades. Mashariq would constantly invade Vänalleato. Even after the villages established an armistice, it took another half-century for Freztad’s chief to establish the Penteric Alliance. King Xander united fourteen provinces in fifteen short years. The only violence seen within the provinces has been from insurrections that were previously thought to be separate and isolated incidents. We now know for sure, after the Battle of Jordysc, that every act of aggression can be traced back to the Miners Guild.”

  Arynn shook her head and twirled her hair, which had recently been cut and cleaned for the first time since being captured.

  “I suppose the reason I’m telling you all of this,” Randolph continued, “is because I want you to join us.”

  “Excuse me?” Arynn nearly shouted.

  “As I said, you and I are quite alike. I had that impression before we met when I was monitoring your company’s movements throughout Ænæria.”

  “You were following us the whole time? Why did you wait until Jordysc to stop us?”

  “Oh no, I wasn’t following you,” Randolph replied. “I was in Ignistad ever since I reunited King Xander with his daughter. I simply have eyes and ears all over Ænæria. Until the Battle of Jordysc, my fellow legates didn’t quite believe me about the guild’s existence. It was mostly up to me to track them down. I planted moles in their organization years ago, and they gave me most of my information.”

  “You destroyed Jordysc. Isn’t the Miners Guild done as well and Ænæria at peace? Why would you need me?”

  “Because, like me, you want change. The Miners Guild was weakened but not defeated. Now that Ben has entered the Vault, they will be much more powerful. Ben will likely want revenge for the kidnapping of Rose and their other people. That thirst for revenge and chaos together can mix into a deadly combination. It will lead to more violence, and like me, I’m sure you’re sick of it. But we must be willing to endure a short course of this brutality to nip it in the bud. I need more people by my side like that. People ready to fight for what they believe in. For freedom.”

  Arynn closed her eyes and shook her head. “Rand—I mean, Your Majesty—I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. What is that you want from me?"

  “Vestinia requires a new legate. It is, as you know, very close to Vänalleato.”

  That’s when it finally hit Arynn. It should have been obvious with the way Randolph was speaking, but the idea was so farfetched. It was ridiculous, and yet it made perfect sense coming from a man like him. “You want me”—she cleared her throat—“to become a legate?”

  Randolph clapped his hands together. “No, I think you want to be a legate. You could broker a peace between Vänalleato and Ænæria, acting as a bridge between our two peoples. There will surely be a war between the north and south, so why not keep your people on the winning side—the one that will surely have fewer casualties?”

  She may have been mad at her people and father, but she still wanted to protect them. As a legate, she could make changes that mattered. She would have a purpose again. Yet at the same time, it still felt wrong. She didn’t know what to do.

  Looking down at Randolph as he remained seated, Arynn stared blankly, and the indecision on her face was probably very clear.”

  “Perhaps there’s another thing that will make this deal more palatable for you,” Randolph said. “As I said when we first spoke, I have something in exchange for your service.”

  “I thought all you had from me was information,” Arynn said.

  Randolph stood up from his seat and placed his hands on Arynn’s shoulders. He smirked, and his eyes shone intently. “Yes, and information is rather powerful. As I said I have many informants. You can thank them for this.” Randolph walked to the door and knocked twice.

  “What’s going on?” Arynn asked.

  “Patience, my girl. It’ll only be a moment.”

  Arynn felt her nails dig into her skin as her hands clenched into fists. She was tired of being patient. She had been patient for almost a moon now.

  There was another knock at the door, this time from the other side. Randolph gripped the handle and swung the door open.

  Arynn felt her hands immediately unclench and rush to her mouth to cover her scream. She ran for the person between the two Rhion. It was a young woman with frizzy black hair, light brown skin, and almond-colored eyes. Arynn wasn’t sure who had run to the other first, but it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered at that moment as Arynn’s fingers dug into Sera’s messy black hair while their lips finally pressed against each other for the first time in over two years. She didn’t want to focus on anything else, but Arynn opened her eyes for a brief second to give Randolph a look she knew he would understand. She would accept his offer.

  18

  Ben

  The Eastern Wastes

  The indigo and orange-crested horizon peered over the crumbling skyline of an old city. The Orks escorted Ben and his friends from the empty desert toward a field of ruins. Ben was awestruck, seeing an entire city from the Old Days still standing. He had never seen anything like it, except for once in his father’s memories. Unlike the small towns and villages in the Penteric Alliance, the city young Alphonse had come across was as massive as it was desolate. Ivy and lichen latched to leaning towers and small shrubs grew through the thick stone lining the roads. Rabid coyotes scavenged through the wastes starving on the scarcity of rodents and roaches. Ben also recalled a similar smell in his father’s memory—one that lingered and tasted like death and decay. There was a certain toxicity to the air that Ben couldn’t quite place. It was an anomaly when he experienced it in his father’s memories, never having much to compare it to until now.

  Unless Ben had accidentally traveled hundreds of miles off course, there was no way he was in the same city as his father. That city had once belonged to the capital of the land that had once stood here in the Old Days. It was where his father had first discovered a Vault and where he had received a distress call informing him about the Grand Vault in Svaldway. Strangely, Mimir had no recollection of the distress call and often assumed that Ben’s mother had sent it. Unfortunately, that mystery had not yet been answered in the memories that Mimir had stored for Ben, nor in the dreams that he often had at night, reliving his father’s experiences.

  Ben had often wondered why the city contai
ning the Broken Vault had not received the same treatment by the Enochians as the rest of the known world. As far as Ben’s father and Mimir had known, nearly all remnants from the Old Days were broken down and recycled by the Enochians as they slowly but systematically repaired the Earth for their eventual inhabitation. The world had once been full of cities, vehicles, weapons, and other forms of technology. Ben’s father had told Mimir that the Enochians were not only in the process of healing the planet but also getting rid of anything that humans could use to offer any resistance. It had been explained to him that the Enochians monitored humans with a watchful eye and would not hesitate to crush any civilization that rose up to a proportion that exhibited even the slightest semblance of a threat.

  The more Ben thought about it, the more holes in the theory he found. The civilizations making up the Penteric Alliance and Ænæria dated back generations. It seemed unlikely that these were the only civilizations to have risen up since the cataclysm hundreds of years ago. The Enochians must have visited Earth with relative frequency, especially if Ben’s mother had been here less than twenty years ago. Mimir also seemed to believe it would take the Enochians roughly two years to reach Earth from their homeworld. If it took so long to travel to Earth, and at least one of them had been here recently enough to know about the settlements that would soon make up Ænæria and the Penteric Alliance, then why would they wait so long to wipe them out? Why leave cities like this standing? Mimir’s only answer was that they did not want to damage the Earth by inciting all-out war, that they had ‘cleaner’ methods of eradication. No one knew what that meant. Regardless, Ben concluded that the Enochians must have been either incredibly arrogant or naïve to allow so many civilizations to rise up. Unless even that was nothing compared to their might. He shuddered knowing the latter was much more likely.