Part III: Remembrance and Return

Chapter 46

The day dawned. Orange light bathed the late winter day, the light stood clearer, promising the oncoming spring. Aris felt exhausted after his climb of the foothill that bordered his estate. His sore body was a sobering reminder of how age caught up to everyone. Barely ten years ago, he would have felt refreshed despite only catching three hours of sleep, but now it felt as if his consciousness had been stretched thin. Regardless, he wouldn’t allow weariness to stop him. From the moment he had realized that Emperor Evrain was a Memory Mage, everything had changed.

He finally had direction. He finally had a goal. Aris now knew what he had to do.

Or at least had a hint of what he must do. Still a hint of direction was more than he had been working with over the last few months.

Aris couldn’t contain his anticipation.

Wallace saw it the moment he reached the clearing to find Aris looking over Fiell’s cityscape. His body was tense, his muscles tightened and he stood rigid. It was the same demeanor that Wallace had seen countless times during the mountain campaigns. Aris Ravenscroft was preparing himself for battle.

What had happened?

What had changed?

Wallace needed to know.

“We’ll wait until Kestrel arrives to speak. I told Sephira not to come today. This may very well end up involving her, but I want to keep her out of it until I know for sure,” Aris said, not turning around.

“How did you know I was here?” Wallace asked. He was sure his ascent had been silent. He was proud that, despite his age, he could still walk with the grace of a mountain panther.

“I smelled you,” Aris replied. “You smell…perfumed.”

Wallace laughed. “Emperor’s balls! Who’d have thought it was bathing that would get me caught! I guess I’ll have to go back to the good old days where I spurned heated waters.”

“Please don’t!” Aris found himself chuckling. “I swear your stench killed more than your sword during the Mountain Campaigns!”

Wallace laughed. Some of the tension eased out of Aris’ tight frame, but much still remained. The General was preparing for a war, but with whom? Could he truly be picking up what was left of the rebellion of his brother and Dren? Every part of him wished to know, but he would honor what Aris said and wait for Kestrel to arrive.

Where was that young man anyway?

“I told Kestrel to sleep a little longer today. Yesterday was a long day, and he saw things no-one should ever see. Things that put me in mind of what we saw in the mountains all those years ago, but it was worse. This was done by men,” Aris seemingly reading Wallace’s unsaid question replied, tone turning dark again. “Sometimes this job sickens me…” the last part he said under his breath.

What had they seen?

As if responding to that thought, Kestrel’s presence was announced by the loud snap of a twig as he broke through a copse of trees.

Wallace and Aris both twirled to look in his direction.

“Emperor’s balls! And I was trying to be quieter this time! How do you two do it? How are you so silent as you walk through these woods?” Kestrel asked as he ambled to their side and stood to survey the cityscape below them.

“Be hunted by monsters that would tear your head from your shoulders if they hear you, that’s how,” Wallace responded.

“That would do it. I’m still scared you might one day do that to me though,” Kestrel chuckled, poking fun at the old soldier.

“I just might one of these days,” Wallace replied with a playful swat to the back of Kestrel’s head that the younger man didn’t bother dodging.

Kestrel chuckled. “So…” he turned to Aris becoming every molecule the image of a City Guardsman standing at attention. His demeanor had changed in an instant, just as Aris’ had.

Aris nodded in response and they both turned to Wallace. “Emperor Evrain is a Memory Mage. Did you know that?” Aris asked.

Wallace nodded. There was no use denying his knowledge. He knew this day was bound to come from the moment he’d decided to take Aris under his tutelage, it was just a question of when.

Today apparently.

“And you didn’t think this was pertinent information to share with me?” Aris’ eyes were heavy on Wallace. He felt like withering beneath the General’s gaze. It was easy to see how he’d rose in rank so quickly.

“I decided to hold off until you realized yourself. I needed you to make the choice for yourself if you wanted to dive into this world and everything that means,” Wallace grunted. He wasn’t about to back down no matter how imposing his one time subordinate had grown. “The cost of this knowledge is monumental. You could lose your life. The lives of those whom you love. No. I wasn’t going to throw you into the riptide without you swimming out into the ocean first.”

Aris’ eyes bore deep into Wallace’s. There was deep conviction there. The old man wholeheartedly believed what he was saying. Aris was still angry at Wallace, but understood where the gruff older man was coming from. On many occasions, he too had done the same. He had withheld information in hopes to protect those under his command.

But he wasn’t under Wallace’s command. This wasn’t like the Mountain Campaigns when he had served under the older soldier. Then the enemy had been clear. They were inhuman monsters. They wouldd just as soon rip your head off your shoulders and eat it. Aris had seen that happen to one of his comrades. No, the enemy they now faced was much more dangerous. It was an invisible force that corrupted the mind. An unknown enemy that could conquer kingdoms in the guise of a savior.

Aris needed to know everything the older man knew.

“I appreciate your sentiment, but you were wrong,” Aris said. “Now you’re going to tell me everything. Do you understand?”

Wallace wilted slightly under the reprimand. Aris had seen through to the cowardice that he still hid behind. The General’s words tore down a wall that he hadn’t known he had built in his heart.

Kestrel turned his hazel eyes from Aris to Wallace. There was a command in them. He wanted to hear everything just as much as the General did. They demanded to be told the truth.

Wallace wondered if Kestrel knew just how much he’d changed over the course of these last few months. He had gone from a wastrel who’s eyes were always darting, always on the lookout, to someone who could control a room without saying a word, his eyes doing the speaking for him. The young man’s change had been incremental so he hadn’t noticed just how much he’d transformed until now. Kestrel had become someone else. Someone the old him would never recognize.

Had he too changed like that?

Wallace, who had quietly taken the reprimand, finally spoke. “Okay. But it’s a long story. We won’t have time this morning. Come meet me here tonight. And bring Sephira. She deserves to know everything too,” he said, making a snap decision. He didn’t know why, but he felt her gaining the knowledge was important.

Why?

It didn’t matter. He’d already said it, and he wasn’t going to take it back now. But he wouldn’t fight Aris if he tried to keep his niece from it.

The General surprised Wallace when he nodded and accepted his terms. “Okay,” he said.

*****

Aris felt the day slip away as he waited for the night to come. He tried his best to dig into his investigations, but his mind wasn’t there. It was preoccupied with a single thought. Emperor Evrain was a Memory Mage and he had gained his throne through manipulating the minds of subjects.

Try as he might to distract himself from that thought, Aris couldn’t. The questions it brought up demanded answers. He needed to know exactly who the man he had dedicated his life to serving was. He needed to see what Dren saw. He needed justification for how he had come to view the tall, salt and peppered emperor as a monster.

The day couldn’t pass quickly enough for Aris.

But it didn’t.

The hours dragged. It felt like the more he thought about his scheduled meeting with Wallace, the longer time took to pass. It was as if he were reliving his teenage years again. How could time pass so slowly? Why did it always seem the more one looked forward to something the slower it was to arrive?

Soon Aris tired of the waiting and decided to leave. If anyone asked why he was leaving early he’d tell them he was in the middle of an investigation.

It wasn’t a lie. His investigation was the most important he had taken on in his life. Just how deep did the emperor’s roots dig into his beloved country?

He was about to find out.

*****

The sunset found Aris and Sephira at the base of the foothill. They picked their way up the mountain as the light fell over the city of Fiell. The evening colors reflecting off of the river that ran through the heart of the city painted a beautiful picture as the light bounced off the colorful houses that dotted its shoreline. It was as if a master painter had splattered paint all over the city using it as a living canvas.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Aris said, noting Sephira’s frequent glances back every time the there was a clearing in the dense evergreen brush that dotted the mountainside.

“It really is,” she replied. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of views like these.”

Aris nodded and turned his back to the sight. The need for the information Wallace held overwhelmed any desire to bask in the beauty that surrounded them. Aris felt a strong notion that if he didn’t stop whatever Emperor Evrain was plotting, there’d be no beauty left for him to appreciate.

“Come on,” he urged Sephira onward. “We’ll meet Wallace and Kestrel at the top.”

She nodded and followed her uncle through a new deer trail she hadn’t yet traversed. Her uncle Aris’ skill in the mountains still astonished her. Had her father possessed the same skill? Did he too stalk through the forest like he’d been born into it before his untimely execution? What would he think, finding her caught up in the world that he’d died to protect her from?

Would Van be proud of her? Would he be disappointed with her?

Why was she thinking of him so much?

“We’re here,” her uncle’s voice broke Sephira from her reverie. She hadn’t realized just how long she’d been lost in her thoughts.

Sephira fought a blush when she saw Kestrel’s eyes light up as they fell on her. Did she have that same flush, that same dilation of the eyes every time she looked at him?

“Good. You’ve arrived,” Wallace said in his gravelly voice that sounded as if he were gargling rocks with each word he spoke. “Well, there’s no use in putting it off anymore. Shall we start?”