Chapter 42

“If you’re lying to me…” Kestrel tried and failed to choke back his tears. “If you’re lying to me…” his voice fell below a whisper.

Aris reached for Kestrel and put his hand in the young man’s. He focused on his memory of his recent conversation with Zebulon.

Kestrel silently took in his memories. He didn’t move nor make a sound for nearly five minutes. He had became stone.

“She’s really alive?” Kestrel’s voice was light as the wind when he found it again.

“Yes.”

“Cillia’s alive? My Cillia. She’s alive?”

“Yes she is,” Aris replied.

Kestrel started sobbing.

Aris watched in silence.

It was an odd sight. He had lost count of how many families he’d had to tell of a loved one’s passing. It was a soul crushing thing. Watching Kestrel was different though. This might be the first time he remembered informing someone that a loved one was alive. It was a welcome departure from the norm that crushed so many spirits.

Aris knelt down in the sand in front of Kestrel to put a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder but Kestrel leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the General. Aris could feel the weight of failure being lifted from Kestrel with each tearful sob. When the young man finally broke free from the embrace, Aris felt that Kestrel had dropped a huge burden. He was physically different. His shoulders, once always turned downwards in disgrace, had straightened.

“Thank you,” Kestrel whispered as he let go of Aris.

Aris nodded and looked into the young man’s eyes. There was a fire in them, not the dark consuming flames of guilt. Not anymore. No, they had changed to something else. They’d changed to smoldering embers of determination.

Aris stood and offered his hand to Kestrel who took it and raised himself, his very posture told of purpose.

“Let’s go find that coroner,” Kestrel said.

*****

Immediately after his confession to Kestrel four days previous, Aris returned with Kestrel to the hospital who’s bowels Zebulon called home.

He had been unable to find him.

The pale coroner had been replaced with a handsome young blonde man, who seemed entirely too pretty and well-mannered to have such a looked down upon position. The new coroner been clueless about his predecessor and what had happened to him.

He had spent the next three days tracking Zebulon. The General hadn’t expected to have such a hard time tracking Zebulon down, but he had finally found the man. Aris promised Kestrel to inform him the moment he’d found the man, so when he had confirmed the hideout, he sent word for Kestrel.

“He’s in there?” Kestrel’s voice startled Aris. He had his metalvine raised before he realized who had spoken to him. The boy was as sneaky as a mountain panther. Aris chided himself for not catching Kestrel’s silent approach.

“Yes,” Aris replied, he glared at Kestrel who was smiling at the fright he had caused him. “We’ll need to be careful. There are bound to be traps laid. I’ve already spotted two from here,” he said.

Kestrel nodded, his face resolute.

It was amazing how much had changed in the last three days. He felt as if a part of his soul had been restored. He couldn’t number how many times he had blamed himself for Cillia’s death. He would go over what he could’ve done differently all the time.

He was sure he had ran that last argument through his mind at least a million times. It was his fault she had gotten killed.

But now he knew she wasn’t dead.

Aris’ words had lifted a weight in his soul that Kestrel hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He had blamed himself for her death and had carried that, but he hadn’t known just how much that failure had informed everything else about his character.

Kestrel had trained like a madman so that he would never fail again. He had been afraid of ever loving again, lest he fail them like he’d failed Cillia.

He was free of that now.

He was going to find Cillia and save her.

His guilt had caused Kestrel’s stomach to knot at the site of Sephira’s younger cousins. They were nearly the same age as Cillia was and looking into their joyous, innocent faces had been too much for him to bear. Cillia would have loved the two precocious young girls. But she had been denied that family she desperately needed by her death.

All that had changed with Aris’ three little words.

“She’s still alive.”

Those words had freed Kestrel.

He could never repay Aris for what he’d done for him, but in the last three days, Kestrel had decided that even if it took the rest of his life, he would try. He owed everything to Aris.

But first, before anything else, he needed to find Cillia and that search had led them here, to a half collapsed inn on the edge of town abutting the Southernmost of the Kearn Foothills.

The ramshackle building had had its roof caved in during a landslide and the previous owners, who’d had a windfall of funds and wanted an excuse to build a new tavern, had abandoned the meager domicile without a second thought. They couldn’t get away from the addicts and prostitutes that littered the area fast enough.

It was oddly fitting the dissected inn would be the hiding place of one who cut open dead bodies for a living.

“Be careful Kestrel, the last time I talked to him, he had been on the verge of a breakdown. Who knows what sort of threats his mind is seeing now? He’s suffered at the hands of The Inquisitors so it may be anything.”

“The Inquisitors?” Kestrel asked.

“Yes. I strongly believe that the one who attacked you and Sephira was one of them. They are Givers who are tortured from childhood and share their pain with others. I’ve never felt their touch, but if the visions that I received from Dren are any indication, I never want to,” Aris replied.

Kestrel’s eyebrows cocked. Who was Dren? He quietly asked the General that question.

“You’ve heard of my exploits during the assassination attempt upon the Emperor’s life right?” Aris asked.

“Of course. You’re quickly becoming a legend. In a few decades you may be revered as a national hero for your actions,” despite Kestrel’s distaste for the government that had ignored him and had nearly killed Cillia, he couldn’t help but look up to Aris Ravenscroft.

Aris nodded his head and scoffed. “The problem with those stories is that they’re all a lie. I was there but the only thing that’s true about what they attribute to me is that I was the one who found out about the attempt on the Emperor’s life and sprang the trap,” Aris had a bitter tone in his voice. “But that’s as far as my involvement went. I wanted to capture the small band, and yes it was small. Not the force of fifty the stories have morphed it into, but Edrian Wolls…” Aris spat on the ground as he said that name. He didn’t have to worry about appearances here. “The Emperor forced me to work with Edrian Wolls and he had different ideas than I. It was his force that stopped them and it was at his word that they mindlessly slaughtered the group. They killed everyone, down to a man. No doubt it was Edrian covering his pasty bum.”

Kestrel raised an eyebrow while he listened to the story. He wondered who else Aris had told. He might be the only one in the world besides Aris that knew the truth. He had hidden these memories deep. He wondered how many secrets Aris had hidden behind mazes of tortured memories as Wallace had instructed them to do.

“That fool killed them all. I wanted to capture and interrogate them, but he couldn’t lose face,” Aris growled.

“So who was Dren?” Kestrel asked, bringing the General back to the first question.

“He was the leader of the rebellion, and he also was a gifted Giver. As he died, I received his memories.”

Kestrel leaned forward, every muscle taut. His body clinched in attention.

Why?

“Tell me how it all happened,” Kestrel commanded the General.

Kestrel, who mere months ago was little more than a street rat, was bossing around one of the most powerful people in the Veaish Empire as if it were nothing.

Aris grinned. This child had no fear.

Aris let out a something that sounded like a sigh mixed with a chuckle and then proceeded to detail the assassination attempt.

“And you’re sure that’s what happened?” Kestrel asked as Aris finished his story.

Aris nodded sternly. He was offended that the young man questioned his honesty.

“If your memory is spotty when it comes to Dren, then I know why,” Kestrel said.

Aris’ gaze pierced Kestrel. How had the young man known? It was impossible that he knew of the spottiness of the memories and how it felt like there were millions of holes in them.

It was impossible…Unless…

“I received the rest of his memories,” Kestrel confirmed his suspicions.

*****

“What?!” Aris whipped around to face Kestrel in the dark alleyway. “What did you say?” he demanded.

“I received the rest of Dren’s memories,” Kestrel replied, his breath was low and heavy. He had been living with the man who had the other half of his alien memories for months and hadn’t known it.

He was a right fool for not catching that earlier.

How had he missed Aris’ connection to Dren and the memories that had started him down the path of becoming a Memory Mage? Could it have been that Aris Ravenscroft, the General in charge of Fiell’s city guards, had been propelled into this dark world by the unseen hand of Dren too?

It had to be.

“You have Dren’s memories?” Aris asked again, to which Kestrel nodded. “We’re going to have a long talk after we catch Zebulon. Understand?”

Kestrel nodded again.

The humongous implications of their newfound knowledge weren’t lost on him. This information could change everything.