“Are you all right?” the king asked, concern painted on his face as he knelt down beside me. “What’s wrong?”
“Fine,” I said as I winced. “I’m fine. Just a little disoriented.”
“After effects,” Lucian mumbled.
“—of the drug you gave me,” I said, glaring at Lucian.
“I did nothing of the—”
“I heard you,” I said flatly.
He pursed his lips, then shrugged. “No use denying it then. I did what I thought I had to. You were, and still are, a potential threat.” Lucian turned toward the king. “Father, you really shouldn’t be here.” He clutched the king’s arm to pull him away.
“Unhand me this instant!”
Lucian released him and backed away with his hands in the air. “Your funeral.”
“I thought you said Michael checked him out?” Xavier asked.
“He did but… well, call me cautious,” Lucian said, narrowing his eyes.
“Bloodthirsty is what you are,” the king said, “and you’ll stop at nothing to find a reason to delay, if not outright cancel, these talks. I—” The king turned and his face softened as his eyes fell on me. He turned back to Lucian. “We’ll continue this conversation later. Right now, I want to hear what my son has to say.”
“I am your son,” Lucian said forcefully.
Before the king could offer his retort, I spoke, “What happened to ‘always having my back’?”
“I do have your back, Aren. But I can’t be certain what Balgyra did to you, and until I know more—until I know you’re still Aren… I just don’t know what I think.”
How could I believe him or—even trust him after he’d betrayed me?
I must have had a scowl on my face because the king, with a troubled look upon his own countenance, said to Lucian, “Leave us.”
“As the captain of your royal guard, I really must protest,” Lucian said irritably.
“And as your king, I am ordering you to leave,” he said with a calm ferocity.
“Fine,” Lucian spat through clenched teeth and stormed from the room, slamming the door as he left.
Xavier Halland, my father, the king of Allyria, sighed, then smiled, “Let me have a look at you.” He placed one hand on my shoulder and the other on the side of my head. “You’ve changed a lot in four years, but you’re still the spitting image of your mother.”
My mother? I hadn’t even thought about her. Not really. I mean besides her being my father’s mistress. But where was she? Here at the palace? In one of the houses in Obsidia? Hidden away in some unknown corner of the kingdom? Or maybe—
Then the king grimaced, and his hand started to slip from my face. The pain and deep sadness that I saw in his eyes answered my questions.
My mother was dead.
This grieved me. But it felt… hollow? Like I should be mournful of her passing and remembering the fond moments together. Unfortunately, I had none of those. It was like my entire past had been wiped clean.
Then my father did something I wasn’t expecting—he pulled me into a warm and sincere hug. I felt him shudder beneath my arms as he wept. Tears of joy from seeing me again? Or tears of sadness for my mother?
The latter I could only guess.
Though he did seem genuinely glad to see me, I couldn’t say I felt the same for him. Of the myriad of thoughts that were swimming around in my head, one kept pushing itself to the forefront of my mind: Where was Claire?
But considering all that had transpired, I didn’t want to tip my hand too early. What if this argument between Lucian and Xavier was only some grand ploy to gain my trust? I didn’t know these people. Or at least I didn’t remember knowing them.
Before I searched for the answer I really sought, perhaps I could ask a test question to see if he spoke truthfully.
“Your Majesty, sire, I um… I mean, Father,” I said, trying to figure out how to ask him in the most tactful way possible. “Do you know anything about the boy who was with me when your royal guard found me?”
Xavier—I just had a hard time thinking of him as ‘father’—released me and furrowed his brow. “Lucian said you were the only one they found alive at the facility.”
Now it was my turn to be confused. Leon had been there with me on the cruiser. What had Lucian done to him? Whatever it was, he certainly hadn’t told his father about it.
That couldn’t be good.
“Was there someone else with you?” the king asked.
What did I tell him? Lucian was his son, his heir, and the captain of his guard. Who was I? The estranged son of his late mistress? If I accused Lucian of lying, it would put us at odds, intentionally or not.
On the other hand, perhaps Xavier could get to the bottom of it without wasting time. If he ordered Lucian to tell him the truth, there wouldn’t be much choice for him.
In the end, I decided I didn’t know enough about Lucian or Xavier, and I just wasn’t willing to open myself up to them yet.
“Yes, he was in the facility with me, but I haven’t seen him since,” I said. “He must have died.” I feigned sadness, though it wasn’t hard. If Lucian was holding him captive somewhere, then my friend was in danger, and that did grieve me.
I had another new objective to add to my growing list: Find Leon.
Again.
Somewhere along the way perhaps, I’d find out more about Claire, as well as Rayf and Elsie. They’d been captured the same as Leon and I, but I hadn’t seen or heard about them since I'd been knocked out trying to free Rayf from the cruiser.
First things first, I needed to get rid of the king.
Not get rid of rid of, I didn’t want him dead, but—well, I just needed to be left alone.
I groaned and let out a pain-filled yawn. A bit of an exaggeration maybe, but I needed to sell it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Xavier asked.
“I’m great, really, I just need a little time to recover, that’s all,” I replied.
Concern flashed across his face, then his features hardened. “Aren, I’m going to cut to the chase, and then I'll leave you to rest. I need you tonight. I—” He looked away and bit his lip, then turned back to me. “I hate to put this on you just now; you can’t imagine the joy I felt when we found you after all these years, but it also couldn’t have happened at a better time. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say, but—”
“Lucian already told me,” I said, trying to spare myself the pain of watching him fumble as he tried not to offend me.
“You’ll do it then?” he asked, his features lighting up.
No. I wanted to say. No, I would not be his puppet. But if Xavier viewed me as a threat, like Lucian, I couldn’t imagine I’d be allowed to even get off the bed without an escort, let alone roaming the palace on my own.
“Yes, I will,” I said. “But can you do me one small favor?”
The king hesitated, likely debating what type of a favor I could be asking for and whether he could afford to grant whatever outlandish request I was about to make. “It depends. What do you need?”
“The last few days have been…traumatizing, to say the least,” I explained. “And the guards at the door make me nervous. You can hardly fault me? I mean, I was kidnapped, experimented on, and then drugged—by Lucian no less—do you think, perhaps, you could send them away?”
“I don’t know,” the king said, glancing over his shoulder toward the door.
“If they’re there, I know I won’t be able to get any sleep, I’d be so worried they were going to come in here and take me away again,” I said. Then for good measure I added, “And I need my rest if you want me to stand strong beside you this evening.”
That did it. I could see it in his eyes.
“Hayden, Izaiah!” the king shouted without turning away from me.
“Yes, sire!” the two men said in unison as they appeared through the door.
“You’re dismissed,” Xavier said casually.
“
But, sire—”
“Are all of you going to second guess me today!” the king roared, spinning on them. “Lucian may be your captain, but he answers to me. Dismissed!”
Their eyes went wide, and they stepped back as they said, “Y—yes, sire. Right away, Your Majesty.”
The pair turned and left the room, disappearing from sight as they scrambled away, no doubt to tell Lucian what had just happened.
“There,” the king said. “Anything else?”
“Thank you, Father.” It pained me to call a stranger ‘father,’ but I needed to stay in his good graces.
“Rest easy, my son, tonight we end this war once and for all,” he said with a smile.
Not likely. If Alton’s words were to be believed, Balgyra has no intention of backing away from this war, and if Lucian couldn’t get through to him, I certainly wouldn’t be able to.
Xavier helped me back to the bed, kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to leave. He was almost to the door when something caught his eye, and he went rigid. In a hurry, he darted to the other side of the room where, for the first time, I noticed my gear had been piled.
Reaching down, he picked up my dagger and held it out to me. “Where did you get this?”
I sat back, reeling. Why did he care about the dagger Claire had given to me? She was my sister. But now I had a question of my own: Was Claire my sister or Lucian’s? Something in my heart of hearts told me we had the same mother. I couldn’t explain it, but the more I thought on it, the more it established itself as fact in my mind.
I saw no sense in lying to him. “Claire gave it to me.”
“The magika stone—where is it?” the king asked.
That was the first question he wanted to ask? I have Claire’s weapon, and he’s more concerned about the stone, not Claire?
Granted, who was I to cast judgment. Perhaps, Claire was in her room right now. If he had no reason to believe Claire was in any danger, then maybe he would focus in on something like the broken dagger.
“Where is she?” I blurted out before considering my words.
The king cast a glare at me, then looked from side to side as if expecting something or someone to be watching. “I’m taking this,” the king said. Gone was any sense of compassion, only cold, steely eyes stared back at me. “I’ll expect you in the council chambers at six. What you do between now and then is your business. But don’t think for a minute that I bought that act.”
Then, without giving me any chance to process his words or offer a rebuttal, he was gone. Something had obviously spooked him. Something to do with Claire.
I decided to wait a few minutes for him to clear out.
While I did, it gave me time to reflect on the past couple of days.
I expected a sense of calm since I could finally relax, but instead, I found myself inundated with terror. Claire, exploding suns, killer cats, kidnappings, experiments, betrayals. It was all too much.
But chief among my worries was one single prevailing thought.
I was a murderer.
I killed someone. Three someones in fact.
It horrified me, yet I still felt strangely detached.
Like I was watching my life unfold, but I had no control over it. Or like my decisions and actions somehow didn’t matter. I’d felt the life of the civie drain away as I held him. I had watched the blood pool around the corporal after I shot him. These images remained ingrained in my mind. They followed me, haunted me, wouldn’t let me be.
And this thing in my head, what if it was activated again? What if I became a puppet to the enemy once more? Fear grabbed hold of me and held me hostage. I lay there for what felt like hours until I saw a bit of light in the darkness of my plagued mind. I saw hope; I saw people who needed me—they needed me to be strong. I grabbed onto that light and refused to let it go.
For where there is light, no darkness can exist. In the presence of light, the darkness fled away and could find no foothold. As I clung to the light, it began to grow—this hope inside my heart.
That’s when I felt my terror disappear. Not a little bit, but fully and completely.
I took a deep breath, letting all my panic drain away.
Then I stood and went to rescue Leon. I was determined to find my friends and my sister and save us from the impending doom that threatened us all.
Thirteen
I thought I’d somehow be able to recognize the palace and find my way around. I was wrong.
All the familiarity I expected to feel didn’t come. It was like whatever vestiges of my former self had been inside my head had been washed away by Alton’s tampering.
She’d reset my Fame, reset my AP, and now, had she reset my memories, too?
No, that wasn’t true. I remembered all the events that had taken place from the time I woke up on the Windcutter to now just fine. I even remembered Claire and the end of the world.
But any flashbacks I had been having—any remnants of my memory that had been in the process of breaking through—were gone.
This was my new reality, and I needed to move forward in that knowledge.
The palace was huge.
Huge was probably an understatement. I had yet to enter a corridor where the ceiling wasn’t at least thirty feet high. Tall, towering columns lined the halls, supporting the enormous arches that graced the tops. Brilliant red and gold banners with the Allyrian royal crest—a hammer and a sword forming an “X”—emblazoned on them hung down every so many feet.
As I walked through the palace, I did my best to act like I knew where I was going.
Guards sauntered by with their rifles held at the ready, servants bustled around as if they were late for something, and dignitaries and nobles of all shapes and sizes traversed the halls going this way and that.
Anytime I passed someone, I angled myself away from them, trying to hide my face without looking like I was doing it.
Nevertheless, nobody recognized me.
And why should they? If I’d been gone for four years that would have put me at what, fourteen years old when I disappeared? Back then I would have been an awkward, pimply boy—not that I remembered—and now I was an adult.
So long as I steered clear of Lucian and his goons, I shouldn’t have any trouble.
I wasn’t even halfway through that thought when Lucian stepped out of the hallway up ahead. Hayden and the girl, Bella, were following in his wake. But where was Izaiah?
Before they saw me, I ducked behind the nearest column and carefully peered out from behind it. Lucian turned down the corridor toward me.
“—ridiculous, how could he be so stupid!” Lucian shouted.
Hayden grabbed his shoulder, and they stopped right where I had been standing. “You might want to keep it down,” Hayden whispered. “He’s still the king.”
“For now,” Lucian said, pursing his lips.
What was Lucian planning? Did he have his eyes set on his father’s throne? Is that why he drugged me? Is he worried that I somehow pose a threat because I share his royal blood?
“It doesn’t matter, I will not let this spoil everything,” Lucian said. “I don’t care what my father said, I want you two to head back to Aren’s room and make sure he doesn’t leave. I won’t have him meddling in my affairs. We’ve come too far and too close to let it all fall apart now.”
“But, sir, if your father—”
“Leave my father to me and do as I say,” Lucian said.
“Yes, sir,” Hayden said, bowing.
“What of the prisoner?” Bella asked.
“What of him? No one even knows we have him, and I’d like to keep it that way. Izaiah’s got him well under control,” Lucian said.
“I only meant that shouldn’t we be pressing him for details; he might know something about what Balgyra is planning,” Bella explained. As she spoke, Bella turned, and the light from the two-story windows shone on her, allowing me to get a good look at her.
She couldn’t have been older than Luc
ian or me. Her vibrant red hair was pulled back into a short-braided ponytail, and her features were soft, complimented by a smattering of faint freckles across her cheek. But what struck me the most were her radiantly sharp blue eyes.
She stood in stark contrast to Hayden, who was tall and rigid. His dark skin, short black hair, and brown eyes absorbed the light while Bella seemed to glow in its warmth.
Something about her captivated me.
I shook my head and tried to focus.
“I don’t see what a young kid like him could tell us that Commander Parsons hasn’t already revealed,” Lucian said with a wave.
Bella bristled but held her tongue. Even I could see that Lucian couldn’t be reasoned with. Years of getting his way seemed to have given him a sort of god complex.
“Now, unless there’s anything else you’d like to add—” Lucian said with a forced smile. When neither Bella nor Hayden argued, he finished by saying, “Off with you then. I have to meet with the sommelier about this evening’s… events.”
Bella and Hayden nodded, then walked off down the corridor back toward my room.
Chet.
When they arrived and found me missing, they’d alert the whole palace. I needed to find Leon and fast.
After the others had gone, Lucian turned and marched off in the opposite direction.
Once they were out of sight, I emerged from my hiding place and took off down the hallway where I first saw them appear. It was a gamble, of course, they could have been walking from anywhere, but I guessed that as soon as Lucian had left me, he likely went straight to wherever they were holding Leon, and that’s where Hayden and Izaiah had met up with him.
If I was right—and I thought I was because Lucian had said Izaiah was watching Leon—then Bella had been guarding Leon initially, and she and Izaiah swapped places. It hadn’t been too long since the king had dismissed the pair of guards at my door—Hayden and Izaiah— so I figured it was as good a guess as any.
The problem was, after I turned down the hall, another branched off to the left and to the right. Where did I go next? It wasn’t like there were signs all over the place pointing this way or that: ‘For secret prisoners, turn right.’
Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1) Page 10
