Chapter 31

Wallace’s lesson continued for a little over an hour and Aris wished it could have lasted all day but he had a routine and to break it would signal of change that he didn’t want to give. Aris didn’t want to give Edrian Wolls anymore ammunition for whatever he was plotting than he already had.

No. Things had to continue as if nothing had changed.

Aris bid Wallace and the young man farewell then hurried his way down the small mountain where he took a brief breakfast and bid his wife Corrine and their twin daughters goodbye.

Sephira greeted him at the door and hugged him goodbye as she enquired about Kestrel’s whereabouts. She had adopted him as a shopping companion and insisted that his carrying of the produce was part of the martial discipline her uncle Aris insisted he learn.

Kestrel never grumbled about accompanying her.

Aris kissed his niece on her forehead then departed and began his walk to the Imperial Keep. His mind overflowed with a whole new world of unseen possibilities and questions. The implication of the Memory Magic he’d been shown were Earth shattering. How much of what he thought he knew was shaped by the unseen hands of Memory Mages?

Did Edrian Wolls have a connection to the magic? Did Emperor Evrain?

What about the Inquisitors? The thought struck Aris. There was a burning in his gut that told him that they were connected to the the shadowy world of Memory Magic.

Dren had been dying, but that hadn’t dimmed his terror at the sight of the Inquisitors. In his visions he had felt the terror that had enveloped Dren as memories of brutal torture washed over his dying mind.

The Inquisitors had to be memory mages too.

“I need to find an Inquisitor. I need to know what’s going on even if it kills me.”

*****

“What have you found?” Edrian Wolls asked Rel, whom he had handsomely rewarded for his part in dealing with that tiny red-headed snoop.

“He’s taken in that son of a whore that did this to me!” Rel pointed at his disfigured eye socket. He let out a string of curses and detailed every monstrous thing he would do to the young man once he laid hands on him.

“And what does this have to do with me?” Edrian interrupted the flow of expletives with a sneer of disgust painting his features. The Minister of Defense considered the use of vulgar language beneath one of his station and anyone who used it an idiotic piece of trash that didn’t have the brain capacity to speak like an intelligent human being.

“He was the guardian of the young brat you had me and Wash take care of,” Rel said with bitterness in his voice.

Rel had been resentful towards his companion and hated how Wash had treated him like a fool, but when Edrian Wolls had commanded Rel to kill Wash, it had left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had done it of course, but he hadn’t enjoyed it.

Rel hadn’t wanted to kill his companion, but the money that Edrian had offered was too great a sum to pass up, so one night he had accompanied Wash to his favorite tavern he used to drown his guilt, and dosed his companion’s ale with a sedative. He then led him to a dangerous fork in the river where Rel had shoved his old companion into the rapids. Wash had disappeared under the frothy deathtrap in seconds.

Wash’s body had been found three days later nearly ten miles downriver caught on a vine filled embankment.

The investigation came to the conclusion that he had died from an accidental drowning while dangerously drunk. Something that sadly happened far too often. Nobody had suspected Rel and he doubted anyone ever would.

Rel, though not a particularly smart man, knew that he would share the same fate as his late friend should he cross Edrian Wolls, so he did his best to ingratiate himself to the hawk-faced Minister of Defense and became a lackey of the uptight man.

Rel had only recently learned of the young man that had blinded him in one being taken in by General Ravenscroft and he’d immediately camped out near Aris Ravenscroft’s property for three days to see if the reports were true.

They were.

It had taken every bit of self control that he could to keep from killing the young man when he’d seen him accompanying Aris’ niece Sephira on a day spent shopping. Self control and a great deal of alcohol.

He had paid some of his less than reputable compatriots to keep eyes on them at all times since then.

Rel WOULD see the young man’s life extinguished. He had sworn it to himself. That boy needed to pay for what he’d done to him. He would crush more than just his eye-sockets when he finally laid hands on him.

“He was the guardian of that child I had you…take care of?” Edrian danced around the words, always careful of what he said.

“I thought we’d taken care of him, but someone took him in and nursed him back to health. I can guarantee you he’s dangerous to us. If he’s alive, he could tear down your plans. He knows who I am, and he knows all about your plans too,” Rel prayed that the Minister of Defense would buy his lie about Kestrel’s knowledge of his plans.

Edrian could just as easily have payed for someone to kill Rel like he’d done for Wash, but if there was something, just a worm of doubt, that could shift his attention, he would pour every resource into that digging that doubt deeper into the Minister’s mind.

Rel wanted to live, and more importantly, wanted to see the boy dead.

“And who did you see him with?” Edrian heard the unsaid words in Rel’s mouth.

Even though Rel had no love lost for General Ravenscroft, his words caught on his tongue, he was surprised to find a small part of himself still dedicated to his General. Sure, Rel was warped and twisted, but Aris represented the best in the City Guards.

Aris Ravenscroft was a living embodiment of their ideas and even though Rel knew he couldn’t live up to that same standard —nor wanted to— he hesitated to see Edrian Wolls hatred focused at the General.

“General Ravenscroft has personally taken him into his home,” Rel had to pull the words from his gut.

At the sound of Aris’ name Edrian’s eyes narrowed. Bitterness burned in them. Everything the General did Edrian Wolls viewed as a personal slight.

Edrian’s hatred was the worst kind, one fueled by pettiness.

If the man was honest with himself, he would have seen that the General had only been performing his duties when he’d reported the assassination attempt, but that rational part of Edrian Wolls had long ago been lost to his brackishness.

The Minister of Defense viewed the world as an offensive place that was out to get him. The world and, everyone in it, wanted to crush him. His rise to power was him defying those odds.

Edrian Wolls was an inspiration, someone that everyone should look up to. He had achieved the highest levels of public office on his own. He’d climbed above the world on his own merit, making it to the peak by sheer will-power and dedication.

Aris threatened that.

Everything about General Ravenscroft was an offense to Edrian. He was like a mirror to the Minister of Defense, showing Edrian all his flaws and rather than change when faced with his shortcomings, Edrian Wolls would destroy that which reflected his acid soul.

“What has he said to Aris? What does Ravenscroft know?” Edrian hissed, his voice venomous. “Find out what the young man knows and what he’s said. I don’t care how. Just get that information from him.”

Rel nodded. He quickly turned and left the room, not wanting the Minister to see the wicked smile that creased his lips.

He was going to have fun tearing the boy apart, piece by piece.

*****

Rel remembered the day, mere months ago, that had changed his life. The streets had been abuzz just as they were now. He followed that young redheaded pest while she had strolled through Fiell’s back alleys as she stewed over a fight that she’d had with her protector, a young man that went by the absurd name of Kestrel.

The man that had changed everything for him.

Rel’s informants told him that Kestrel had lately been accompanying Aris’ daughter Sephira on her daily trips into Fiell’s southern market district and they’d go again today. They had mapped out every street the disgusting duo traveled. There would be no escape.

Not today. Not when he could practically feel the screams that were going to come from the young man.

He spotted them quickly. The young Ravenscroft girl stood out with her tall upright posture that she had inherited from her uncle and her distinct obsidian hair and cream-colored skin. She truly was a sight to behold.

Oh what he woud do to her given the chance…Aris Ravenscroft’s niece or not be damned, when there was a piece of flesh like that…

The young man had seen a world of change since their last encounter. Rel had only seen Kestrel as the street rat had attacked him, but gone was the slinky street demeanor, replaced with a relaxed, but familiar military discipline.

If he hadn’t known better, Rel would've mistaken the young man for a fresh recruit for Aris’ city guards.

The way he walked reminded Rel of himself ages ago before the world had taken his naive positivity from him.

Before it had taken everything from him.

Rel silently watched the young couple and bitterness festered in him. Anger and resentment oozed from his every pore. Kestrel had permanently scarred him and had taken his right eye from him. Now the only way he would ever be near a woman that looked as beautiful as the young Ravenscroft girl would be if he paid them for their warmth, which he did all too often.

There were so few pleasures left…

A giggle broke his reverie and anger spiked in him.

That Kestrel boy shouldn’t be laughing with a beautiful woman. No, he deserved to be punished. He deserved for more than just an eye to be torn from him.

Kestrel needed to die.

Calm yourself Rel, you’ll get your chance to grab that son of a whore and make him pay, but if you’re an idiot it’ll end even worse for you than it did last time. You’ll lose more than just your eye. Rel chastised himself. “Be patient for just a while longer.”

He had been an idiot the last time. He had let his emotions overrun him and as a result had lost an eye and a partner.

He had killed one of the few people left in the world who put up with him.

Rel would grab the young man and make him pay, but this time he would be wise about it. He wouldn’t allow himself to get caught and find himself in the same trouble as last time.

He WOULD be patient and Kestrel’s torment would be unbearably joyful.

So Rel followed the young couple.

He watched every move they made. He spied on them as them as Sephira Ravenscroft stopped to talk to a young merchant who’s hair was braided in a deep wooden colored set of pigtails. He watched as the duo went down to the river where Kestrel had insisted he could find them the cheapest and freshest fishes, and watched as the boy exchanged an hour of work for a large salmon.

Sephira had been full of questions while she sat by the young man’s side and watched him work, pausing every couple of minutes with a question on why or how he was doing what he doing.

Rel could barely stand watching them, every part of him itched to snatch the young man and start flaying him alive, but he needed to be patient.

He must be patient. No mistakes. Not if it meant the boy might live.

Rel followed the young couple throughout the rest of the day until they came close to Aris’ estate.

He was certain that the young man had told General Ravenscroft what he and Wash had done to the young girl and Rel knew intimately about the ongoing investigation that was creeping closer and closer to naming him despite the protection and coin from Edrain Wolls’ coffers.

So Rel watched. He would strike. He would do so soon.

But he could wait a little while.

He must wait.

He would find the perfect time then strike.

*****

Rel’s chance came three days later.

Kestrel hadn’t strayed far from the estate since his and Sephira’s last shopping day. He had spent the last two days absorbed in the physical training under Aris Ravenscroft that was quickly transforming him from a scrappy youth into a formidable young soldier, and it was only by chance that one of the addicts he payed to snitch had seen them.

The addict had gotten up before the sun to relieve himself in the bushes near the small mountain path that ran behind the General’s house and he had seen Aris accompanied by Kestrel and another, older man, trudging up the mountain.

There had been a palpable gravity around the trio.

Rel wasn’t sure what the group was doing, but something in his gut told him that it was important. Why would the General in charge of the safety of Fiell be meeting with two nobodies in secret? It made no sense.

The next time he met with the Minister of Defense, Rel would mention it. He knew that Edrian Wolls would see whatever connection it was he was missing. Edrian would see connection, and, more importantly, the Minister of Defense would pay for the information.

Rel had waited at the foot of the mountain, not daring to follow them up.

His chance came later that morning when Sephira once again departed to the markets with young Kestrel in tow after the trio had returned from the mountain.

The duo sauntered through the streets, soaking up the warm late summer sun. Sephira had done a swirling dance step that had caused Kestrel to laugh and make a remark about how it resembled the martial training he was receiving under her uncle, but it wasn’t as pretty.

She laughed and punched him in the arm, joking that he couldn’t even defend himself against a woman half his size.

The next time she jabbed at him he side-stepped and caught her wrist, giving it a twist and catching her off-guard. The yank caused her to lose her balance and stumble into Kestrel’s open arms. Her face reddening beneath his strong embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly said, letting go.

His face was deep red.

Sephira nodded, her face matched his.

Rel could’ve sworn that she mouthed “don’t be,” under her breath as she turned away from the young man.

The two were so flustered that they offhandedly turned off the main streets and started walking through the narrow alleyways without noticing.

Both silently contemplated their own thoughts, not bothering to notice the world around them.

Rel would never have a more perfect chance than now to abduct the young man.

He smiled and whispered, “I’m going to enjoy killing you Kestrel.”