“You could have done those things to gain my trust,” I explained. “You had counted on our previous relationship to give you an in, but when I couldn’t remember anything, you had to improvise. Since things weren’t going according to plan, you locked me in the library until you could figure things out. You’re working with Lucian, which is why he didn’t strip you of your Fame, and I already know Lucian is working with Balgyra. Not to mention, Izaiah disabled the locator on the Arrow, but Lucian found us anyway. Who do you think tipped him off?”
“That’s some imagination,” she said. “You know what? I’m honestly ashamed of you, Aren. I can’t believe I ever fell for you. Do you seriously think I’m capable of betraying my kingdom? Of betraying you?”
“I don’t know what to think!” I shouted. “I hardly know you. I can’t help what happened to me, but it did. I thought maybe my memories would come back, but they haven’t, and by now, I’m not expecting them to. This is who I am, and you need to accept that.”
Bella’s mouth hung agape.
“You still haven’t proved you’re not the spy,” I said.
“There’s nothing to prove! I’ll spell it out for you: I. Am not. A spy!”
“Anyone can say they’re not a spy. Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.”
“What can I possibly say to you to make you drop this ridiculous nonsense?”
“You can—”
A rock tumbled down the side of the mountain and ran into my foot. I looked down at the stone and then up at the mountain. On a ledge about twenty feet up, something shiny and black reflected the moonlight.
“Hey, is that—?”
No less than two-dozen soldiers with their rifles drawn emerged from hiding places all over the mountain. They leveled their weapons at us as one of them shouted, “Don’t move!”
Twenty-Eight
“Hey! Hold on a minute,” I said, raising my hands to placate them. Their helmets were emblazoned with the royal seal of Allyria, and I breathed a little easier knowing they were ours.
“Don’t move,” the commander reiterated.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to,” I replied.
“I know perfectly well who you are, and I’m telling you, I will shoot you.”
“All right, all right, we don’t want any trouble,” I said.
“Throw down your weapons,” the commander said.
I nodded subtly and heard the clang of swords hitting stone.
“You, too.”
I slid the bow off of my shoulder and let it drop to the ground. As soon as we were properly unarmed, the squadron rushed down the mountainside and surrounded us.
The commander strode up to me with a calm, cocky swagger.
Through the visor I could make out the features of a woman.
She removed her helmet, and golden locks fell down around her shoulders, her green eyes glistening in the moonlight. My jaw dropped open involuntarily. Bella cast me a piercing glance, and I promptly closed it.
“We need your help passing through the mountains,” I said.
She snorted. “You’re not in a position to be making any such demands.”
“I make no demands. It was a request for assistance,” I countered.
“We won’t be taking you anywhere but to the prison camps,” she said.
“You don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, raising her voice. “I’m in charge in these parts of the mountains, and I’ll not be taking orders from traitors.”
Bella stepped up next to me. “What he means to say is—”
“Shut it, Balgyran!” the commander shouted.
I shook at the sudden ferocity of her words.
Bella recoiled in shock.
The commander narrowed her eyes, “Yeah, I heard all that. The whole mountain heard your bickering.”
“But I’m not—”
“I heard that, too,” the commander said, narrowing her eyes. “And that’s why I’m taking you back to camp while we sort all this out. I’ll let the general decide what to do with you.”
At that, she raised her hand and waved it in a circle. The other soldiers drew in tighter to us.
“Start walking,” the commander said.
“Can we at least get a name?” I asked.
“McKenna,” she replied curtly.
“All right, McKenna, can we—”
“Commander McKenna.”
“Okay, Commander McKenna, you do understand that we are not your enemy?” I asked.
“That remains to be seen,” she said with venom in her voice. “Now stop chattering and move it before I have to shoot you.”
I opened my mouth to offer a retort, but Bella glared daggers at me and shook her head. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Claire and Izaiah nod their consent to go along with the commander.
Leon was gone. Sneaky little weasel.
If the commander had been paying attention for as long as she said she was, she would have known there were five of us. Maybe she did know and just didn’t care. Either way, it could work to our advantage if he played it right.
One of McKenna’s men collected our discarded weapons, and then we were off. The trip up the side of the mountain was long and boring.
The path zigzagged as it rose. Sometimes it was a smooth, sloping trail, and other times, it shot up with a steep set of stairs. Every so often, shrines and benches had been set up as a place for travelers to take a break. The statues were worn and crumbling from lack of care over the past twenty years while the war raged on.
A rest would have been nice, but McKenna was having none of it, determined to reach the top in record time.
The higher we rose, the stronger the wind became, and the colder it got. Finally, the path leveled out and cut in toward the north, taking us out of the brunt of the weather.
I glanced to the east just before we walked around the mountain’s tip and watched in awe as the sky shifted from dark blue to pink as the sun poked above the horizon. Then it was gone, blocked by the towering peak above us.
Now that we were out of the howling wind, the sounds of battle drifted in all the louder. It was still intermittent—a blast here or there, or an explosion every couple of minutes—nothing that would indicate it was a heated or hotly contested zone. It seemed to me more like the efforts of two kingdoms trying to prove to each other that they weren’t backing down, but that neither were very interested in actually advancing.
Once we crested the top of the hill, I was shocked to see miles and miles of thick forest stretching as far as the eye could see. There were open patches across the expanse and areas where the trees were blackened husks, but for the most part, the mountain top forest was relatively intact—except for a strip than ran right down the center as if a giant had walked along and ripped out all the trees for fun.
I must have stopped walking because Bella ran into me, and McKenna barked, “Stop your gawking and keep moving.”
We descended down another path and entered the forest.
McKenna’s soldiers stood relatively at ease, and the commander herself had her rifle slung over her shoulder.
“Aren’t you worried about getting attacked?” I asked.
McKenna glared at me, and I thought she was going to yell, but was surprised when she actually answered placidly. “The Balgyrans never come this far south. I assume you saw the demarcation line?”
I nodded.
“We stay on our side, they stay on theirs,” she answered.
“Then why were you posted deep into your own territory?” I asked.
She bristled at my comment and replied grudgingly, “I go where they tell me to go. Somebody has to watch our six.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, and I am not your friend, so shut up and keep walking,” she said.
One of McKenna’s men stuck the muzzle of his gun into my back.
�
�Easy,” I said, raising my hands. “I’m going.”
By the time we arrived at their main base of operations, the sun was high in the sky. All of the trees had been cleared out of the immediate area, and a multitude of structures had been erected in their place. It was an entire small city in here.
It was a wonder we hadn’t seen it from above, but it was so well hidden and nestled in among the trees that it went unnoticed.
We stopped outside the largest building in the center of the town, and McKenna turned to her soldiers. “Ryan, Jacobs, take these two to the camps and lock them up in a cell,” she said, motioning toward Bella and me.
“Hang on a minute, what about my friends?”
McKenna answered, “The princess and her bodyguard will come with me to talk to the general. You and your Balgyran girlfriend are not invited.”
Bella said, “I am not—
“Not Balgyran, yeah, you’ve said that,” McKenna said.
“I get why you’re locking her up,” I said, thumbing toward Bella. “But what did I do?”
I figured she was going to say something about me poisoning the king or whatever Lucian had put out on the broadcast, but I should have guessed that they didn’t have access to that information yet. So, it came as a complete shock when she narrowed her eyes and replied, “We don’t take kindly to Oathbreakers in these parts.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had thought the whole Oathbreaker thing was behind me. Apparently, I was wrong.
“You can rot in a cell for all I care,” the commander said. “Every day good men and women die up here, and none of us breaks our Oath. Anyone who does so is a coward and should be executed.”
The way her fingers tightened into fists, I thought she was going to lash out and punch me, but she restrained herself.
Black shadows lanced across the ground, and my eyes immediately bolted to the sky, fearing another nightwing had found us. Instead, nearly a dozen AGIS Arrows lanced through the sky toward Balgyra, a roar washing over us in their wake.
“What’s going on?” one of McKenna’s men asked.
“I don’t know, let’s get inside,” the commander said, then she turned to Ryan and Jacobs. “Take them to the camps and get back here quickly.”
They nodded their assent, and the commander walked off, Claire and Izaiah in tow.
Ryan dug his muzzle into my back again and pushed me forward while Jacobs grabbed Bella by the elbow.
“Get us out of this,” I said to Claire over my shoulder.
She nodded.
McKenna’s men led us down the street and out of sight of the others. They made a couple of turns, and then we were leaving the makeshift city.
“Hey, where are we going?” I asked.
The only response I got was a jab to the spine that shot pain throughout my body.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” I said.
“Aren, shut up,” Bella said.
“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” I asked.
“Don’t do this. Not right now.”
“When am I supposed to do it? We never finished our conversation,” I stated.
“Zip it,” Jacobs grunted.
A few minutes later, a large compound came into view in the distance. Twenty-foot walls towered up to just below the tops of the trees, and a lone iron gate sat in the middle.
The portcullis opened and admitted us, then lowered behind us. Another portcullis lay ahead, and beyond that was a wide-open field with rows and rows of long tents.
I thought we’d be going there, but instead we were taken through a door in the side and led down a narrow hallway dotted with door after door. We stopped in front of one of them, and one of the camp’s officers pulled out a set of keys and opened a door.
Inside was a crude version of the cells in Alton’s testing facility. There were no sleek metal walls, only rough-hewn stone, but one thing they did have in common: electrocuffs—or at least something similar.
The ones attached to these walls were less sophisticated, but their purpose was obvious as the white stone protruded prominently from the center of the shackles. I was actually a little surprised they hadn’t disabled our magic sooner, but there were over twenty of them and four of us, so they likely had little to fear.
They shoved us forward and sat us against the walls facing opposite each other. Lifting up our hands, they locked our arms in the cuffs above our heads.
Once we were properly secured, they left, slamming the door behind them. The sound of the iron bars clanged in their wake.
“Well, this is nice,” I said. “A real princely welcome.”
“Just shut up, this is all your fault,” Bella said.
“All my fault?” I asked incredulously. “You’re the spy.”
“Gods, Aren!” Bella shouted. “This is what I’m talking about. If you hadn't gone off spouting lies then we wouldn’t be here.”
“What makes you think I’m lying?” I retorted.
“Umm, try the fact that I’m not a spy?” Bella said, growling. “Who filled your head with those lies anyway, was it Lucian? Maybe Hayden? It wasn’t that Alton lady was it?”
I shook my head. “It was someone I trust.”
“You’re going to have to give me a name if you expect me to be able to prove myself to you,” she said.
I didn’t immediately respond, wondering if I should reveal my source or not.
Bella huffed out a frustrated sigh and shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering, you aren’t going to believe me.”
“Von,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“His name was Von, he was my clan leader,” I said. “I ran into him back at the facility.”
Bella’s eyes went wide. “There was someone in there, and you didn’t tell me? Gods, Aren, you’re so stupid. Izaiah fell asleep on his watch; that guy could have killed us all. Wait, did you say Von? As in Maximillian Vondergrift?”
“I guess so,” he said.
“You do know he’s the foremost enemy of the crown and the most renowned Oathbreaker within the kingdom, right? You can’t believe a word he says.”
“He’s the only one who has ever shot straight with me,” I told her. “Lucian stabbed me in the back, you locked me in a library—”
Bella shuddered and began to sob. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. The only thing I’m guilty of is loving you and wanting to protect you from Lucian. And I guess that makes me a traitor to the crown because Lucian is now in charge. But I am no Balgyran spy, and I’m not with Lucian. Not anymore. You and Claire and Izaiah are all I have now. I can’t go back home; I won’t ever get to see my parents again. I’ve lost everything, Aren. Everything.”
Her words registered on my ears, and I looked away in shame. I wasn’t the greatest at telling whether people were lying, but her tone had been so heartfelt, I had a hard time believing them to be a lie. What if she was telling the truth?
What if Von had lied to me?
Or what if he thought what he told me to be true, but he’d simply been misinformed?
I could see where Bella was coming from. I understood her perspective of the events since they rescued me from Alton’s facility.
Maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Say something. Anything,” Bella begged.
“You haven’t...” I said.
She blinked away her tears and looked at me in confusion.
“You haven’t lost everything,” I said. “You have me, Bella. You will always have me.” I paused, then added, “I’m so—”
Without warning, the wall outside our cell exploded.
Twenty-Nine
I blinked open my eyes. My head swooned, and my ears were ringing.
I could hear muffled shouts and cries, but no words formed through any of it.
Bella’s blurry face appeared above me, the clear blue-sky visible behind her.
She was saying something, but I couldn’t tell what. Her
lips moved in the same pattern over and over, shouting a single inaudible word.
After a few moments, sound began to take form once again.
“Aren!” Bella said. “Aren? Are you okay? Aren!”
I tried to lift my head and winced in pain. “I’m—I’m fine.”
I was anything but fine, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. I didn’t need her hysterical again.
“What happened?” I asked.
“We’re under attack,” she said.
In an instant, all my senses returned to me as a spike of adrenaline flooded through my veins. “I think I misheard you, did you say we’re under—”
“Attack, yes,” Bella said. “The guards are holding the Balgyrans off, but they won’t last much longer. We need to help them.”
A thousand thoughts flew through my mind at once. Why were they attacking now? McKenna said no one had advanced their position in years and by the looks of the town, it seemed pretty permanent. Why attack the camps instead of the city itself? Maybe they had launched an assault on both. I didn’t know.
It made more sense once I ultimately put two and two together and realized what was housed at the camps—prisoners. Though I was a prisoner, the large majority of people being held here were prisoners of war—Balgyrans. They had come to free their fellow soldiers.
If this was their first target, then surely the military city was next if it wasn’t already under siege.
I shook my head. “We need to find Claire and Izaiah.”
“Whatever we do, getting out of this cell is our first priority,” Bella said.
Looking around, I saw that the wall beyond our cell had been completely blown away, giving a clear view of the fighting beyond. The roof that had been over our heads was also gone, and it was then that I became aware of the fact that we were no longer bound to the wall.
The electrocuffs were still around my wrists, but the point where they had been anchored to the stones above us no longer existed. The chain must have snapped when it happened.
However, the walls of our cell were too high to climb, and the door’s iron bars still stood firm. Behind us, we watched as magic flew across the field in both directions.
Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1) Page 21
