Dark Legion (38 page)

“A small world,” I said.

“That it is. Small continent, at least. My name is Ailin, by the way,” Ailin said, holding out a hand.

I shook it. “Saul.”

“Well met, Saul,” Ailin said. He stood up, hands on his hips. “Well, I better get back to work. I will get that letter written and sent off in the morning.”

I had no idea what Adair would make of the request. I suspected that, if he accepted the offer, he would place more demands on Ailin than the man likely expected. I ordered some food and another tankard. The food was bland but otherwise well prepared, consisting of ribs and potatoes. I left the last three ribs uneaten and placed them into a bag which I stashed in my satchel.

 

With my tankard drained and my plate empty, I walked out into the night. Nighttime in Morwynne was not as peaceful as in Sagemont, and I found I missed the place. As few people as were about that night, the streets remained too well lit for me to find my peace. In the capital, the lamps were only extinguished at curfew. I loved the quiet darkness of midnight. It paid not to be seen sneaking around after curfew, of course, but the small risk afforded me the solitude I needed. My relationship with Neysa, too, robbed me of my peace, but in that case it was probably a worthy sacrifice. Probably. Blessedly, very few were about that evening and the time I spent by myself wandering the streets felt like a burden lifted.

 

I was thankful to find that Neysa had left the suite in my absence. I changed into something more suitable and sat on the balcony to let my mind wander as it pleased. The bell struck for curfew, and I watched the slaves make their way down the street as they extinguished the lamps. I gave it another half-hour or so, then retrieved the cart with the panes of glass and made my way back to the lake.

 

The empty square and the lake at its center were lit only by the thinnest crescent of a moon. I scanned the avenue, but I was thankful to find it free of any bobbing lanterns, the tell-tale sign of a legion patrol. I wheeled the panes of glass to the water's edge, took out the bag of ribs, and tossed them into the water. The water rippled in the faint moonlight, but there was no splash, no flurry of activity. I breathed a sigh of relief. A lake was no place for a lion, and I was uncomfortable enough in the water without the constant fear of being torn to pieces. If I was to be devoured, I would much rather it be by something with more dignity than Gods-damned fish. Or devoured by Neysa, in her own special way. Gods, why in the hells was I out there when I could be in bed with her? I sighed. For Ubrain, of course; for my people. For the crown and ring. Because no one else was going to do what was needed.

I hung my satchel over the cart, took the first pane of glass, and waded into the water. I tried to be quiet, but to my ears, my splashing sounded like a cat had been thrown into the water. The glass was heavy, too, and though I wore gloves to prevent myself getting cut, it came close to slipping from my hands on several occasions. The glass was easily a finger thick, and heavy as all buggery.

Sloshing, I waded through the water, dead fish floating all around me. The lake was starting to stink, and I wondered how long it would take them to clean it up. A day in the sun, and the lake would be putrid. Something bumped into my leg, and I bit my lip to stop from screaming. Then, a fish came right at me, right for my face. I backed away, but it followed me. Then it flopped sideways and sunk again. Slowly, I released the breath I was holding. My movement had just stirred up a dead fish. Still, I was on edge as I felt around the bottom of the lake for the grate that covered the outlet.

When I found it, I gently lowered one side of the glass and placed it along an edge, then submerged myself to lower the other side. It would be my luck that I would break the thing after all my careful planning. I dropped it the last few centimeters, and heard a muted thump above the sound of water pouring through the grate.

I leaned my arm on the grate to push up to the surface, but found myself sucked into it. No, this would be more my luck, blocking the drain with my corpse. Panic seized me as I wrestled to free myself. I struggled, but it did me no good, and my pulse raced. I grabbed onto a weed growing near the grate and pulled, moving a short distance, but the weed tore free at its base.

With a larger clump in my fist, I pulled again. I moved further, with only my legs still sucked onto the grate. The panic was getting worse as I ran low on air, and my frantic movements were not helping me in the slightest. I had heard that drowning was a peaceful way to die, but if this experience was anything to go by, it did not hold true for those raised in the dry plains. I wrapped my hands around another clump of weeds, pulled hard, and felt my legs floating free.

I stood up but breathed in too quickly, and my chest shook as I coughed up water. My lungs were on fire, but I sucked cool air into them. The racket I made echoed through the square, and I was sure someone would be out there soon, looking for the source of the commotion. I lowered myself until just my nose and eyes were above the water.

Drowning in water shallow enough to walk through—that would be my luck. My father had warned me that one could drown in a glass of water. I doubted it, though I had seen a different sort of drowning by the glass.

I waited like that, watching the stars and, in particular, the Eye of Svyn. You might think the god of death an odd god to worship. But like many things, there was more to it than that. Svyn was the god of death, true. But he was also the god that could keep death from you, even though your time had come. Some may notice that there was no god of life and ask why, but the answer was simple. Svyn was the god of death and
life
—at least according to ancient texts. The latter part of his function lay all but forgotten, and to tell the truth, I had ignored that side of my god for a good long time. I lifted my head and was surprised to find the square as dark as when I had arrived.

I made my way to the edge and took another pane of glass. This time, as I lowered the pane, I kept well clear of the grate when I once again went below the surface. I could see the flow of water and bubbles spiraling down from the surface. As I raised my head above the water, I saw that a small whirlpool had formed.

When I lowered the last pane, I came close to disaster. When the edge I was holding was an arm's length from the bottom, the force of the water sucked it down suddenly. I pulled my hands free by the narrowest of margins but heard the glass break. The sound caused my chest to tighten, but better broken glass than being stuck at the bottom of the lake again.

As the turbulence subsided, I saw that the pane had broken into three pieces. Thankfully, the glass was thick, and though it was broken, it was still blocking the water. Two narrow slits remained between the three panes, but I was sure it would now allow passage along the tunnel below. If it was not blocked off beyond the other side of the grate, at least. Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing for sure without walking down it, and that simply would not be possible for me until we had to use it for our escape. Not ideal, no, but it was something.

I made my way out of the pond, took the empty cart, and wheeled it back up the road. Dripping wet, I shivered with the cold, shock, and exhaustion. I kept to the shadows and made my way slowly and quietly back to the Eagle's Perch. I left the cart behind the desk, made my way up the flights of stairs, and came close to slipping twice. My legs were aching with fatigue, my shoes slippery on the marble. I stripped my sodden clothes and collapsed onto the bed naked, still wet but too tired to care. I made a half-hearted attempt to pull the covers up around me, but I fell asleep almost instantly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Harvest Festival

 

Harvest Festival arrived just as any day would, with the rising of the sun. It was far from just any day, though; it felt as though half my life, the pain, the torture, the acts of cruelty dealt and received, the hope and desperation, had all led up to this day. In many ways, they had. And yet the day itself came as an impostor, pretending to be like any other and failing to acknowledge that the world revolved around my actions that day. I moved egg about my plate with my fork, my stomach too knotted with anxiety to fit any food.

Conversation around the table was nonexistent, and with tension thick in the air, not even Marcus looked his usual cheery self. I dropped my fork onto my plate, scattering egg and startling the other two. I reached for Neysa's book in my satchel, opened it to the bookmark, and handed it to Marcus. “Read this.”

His eyes widened as he read. “This sounds an awful lot like someone we know, doesn't it? Interesting….”

“I looked for more, too, but that's all I found,” Neysa said. “The librarian was a real bastard. He pulled me out of the section with the really interesting manuscripts. Told me it was off-limits. Then he kicked me out when I suggested that his mother was a whore.”

“So did you borrow this book?” Marcus asked. “Or, you know… steal it?”

“I am borrowing it indefinitely. What do you make of that passage?”

“Not sure,” I said. “It sounds ridiculous… or it would, if we didn't know that old bastard.”

“I know, right?” Neysa said.

“Now that I really think about it,” I said, “our plans have gone awfully smoothly since we met that man.”

“More smoothly than they had any right to,” Marcus said.

“Still, I will assume he is just a crazy wizard until I see real evidence to the contrary.”

Silence rushed back into the room, filling the space our words had left, and only the sound of chewing and sighing remained.

“Still,” Neysa said. “When the glove fits…”

“Look,” I said. “It appears, and certainly feels, as though his guiding hand has been on us for some time. Prodding here, pulling there, like we are nothing but puppets at his disposal. While you might see at as benign, I hate him for it. I did not escape slavery to submit so completely to another.”

Marcus burst into laughter, but it had no joy in it. It was a harsh and grating sound. “Oh,
that's
rich! You loathe it, eh? Ha! Pretty free with giving it out, though, aren't you… you fucking hypocrite!”

I bit down on my lip to stop from speaking. Too hard, though—I could taste the blood.

Marcus stood and hobbled around the room like a puppet. “I'm Saul, don't dare interfere with my life, it's my job to do so with others, I'm the prince of the slaves.” Then he pretended to cry.

I looked at Neysa. “Give us a moment of privacy, please,” I said through clenched teeth. She nodded and rushed from the room. She looked relieved to get away. Marcus meanwhile continued to act like a child. Frankly, I had had enough of his bullshit.

“Marcus, stop.”

He did, but only to sneer at me. “Or what? What are you going to do?”

“What do you want from me?” I asked. “What would it take for you to stop with this bullshit?”

“Undo the past? Short of that, I don't see a way of fixing what you've done.”

“Leave, then,” I said, snarling.

“Oh no, Saul. I told you, I will stick with you, but only to make sure you never sit on the throne in Ubrain—to see that you never hold a seat of power. You are a reasonable human being most of the time, but you can be a cruel and evil man, usually when things get tough. But you have the drive, the tenacity to actually wrestle Ubrain from the empire. I will not let you subject your people to your cruel streak. You're a fucking lunatic at times.”

I rubbed my face, trying my very best to contain my anger. “And what, you'll continue to remind me of my folly at every opportunity?”

A vicious smile split his lips. “Someone has to.”

The man he had turned into was not the one I'd befriended in the dungeon. That had been a kind man, a caring man. I barely recognized the one standing in front of me, and I did not know of how much use he would be to me like that. None, I decided.

I drew my dagger and rolled it around my hand, back and forth. Back and forth. The smile, if that's what it was, slipped from his face and climbed onto mine. “Saul… what are you doing? You know you don't have a chance of taking me with a dagger.”

I shook my head but said nothing. I looked into his eyes and watched them widen as I closed my left hand around the blade and slowly drew it up. Blood ran through my fingers and down my arm, dripping from my elbow to patter on the tiles. Marcus took a step back, frowning at the growing pool of blood. His mouth was open for a question that never left it.

I drank in the pain and formed my knowledge of the man into a true name. I had barely known him in the dungeon when I'd last done this, but after most of a year in his constant company, I knew the man like a brother. I knew of his childhood in Prylea, living in the palace, the royal family like a family to him, too. His father, a hero in his eyes, as well as a teacher. His mother, who had died in his care a year after his father had deserted them. I took his years as a rebel leader, the frustrations they caused, the betrayal by his own people, and how they turned their back to his ideals to become bandits and thieves. I took what I knew of him personally, too—his pleasant nature and love for people, the way he found joy in providing it to others. I took the negatives, his fear of commitment and betrayal, the subtle lies, and the dark streak that occasionally peaked through. The look on his face in a fight to the death, and the pleasure I saw in it.