The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) (30 page)

“
Ha
,
me
? Oh no, at least not directly. I don’t have the skills, or I should say the natural gifts or background required to be apart of the Acue. As you witnessed, Alexa, like you, kid, is a seeros. And Eeva, well, she is Eeva. I believe Alexa and her have been with the Acue for sometime. Maybe even since younger than you.”

“What about the star face lunatic?” Miles says.

“He works for the Acue more than I, though he is a special circumstance, and his focus is Bastin, and he’s more of a full time contact with the right skill set for employ in this region.”

“How long has the Acue known about me?” Pard says.

“From what I gathered so far, your headmaster found out over a year ago you were a seeros and tipped off a low-life antiquities dealer with contacts in the Ardinian underworld, probably ferrets.”

“What’s a ferret? Like the animal?”

“They’re an underground network or guild of thieves and smugglers and extortionists and purveyors of all manners of no good. I only know a little about them, but most of what I heard they sound like scum, and speaking of scum, that Yitch is a real piece of work—but he knows more than the average citizen on matters like you, kid. He was afraid of you and wanted to gauge interest in your value.” With a gleam in his eye, Penter looks at Miles. “By the way, if not for the kid’s light, what you did in the cathedral would’ve gone down in the history books as epic, unfortunately, there were other extenuating circumstances making what you did far less desirable for all involved, as you witnessed. But the Acue sent out a recon team to keep eyes on you after initial contact, and they approached the headmaster and proposed an exchange which for some reason he refused. They took this as a slight, but considering the location was Fairstone and your particular profile, being the son of murdered professors and attending such a prestigious school, they couldn’t just rip you out as if you were an unknown farm boy. If they can, they prefer to keep in the shadows and not make a scene.”

Miles snorts. “Well they sure made a scene this time.”

“Yup, they did. But anyway, fast forward a year, your headmaster and the mayor, being in cahoots and shady in their endeavors when gold and rare artifacts are involved, and being in tune with the comings and goings of less reputable or secret information regarding Greysin and Wellingtin, they were informed that a contingent of Iinians were in the area on a special mission—not really a secret—but not really out in the open either. Your headmaster, having grown an even more disdain for the kid over the last year—which I didn’t quite understand at first until Lord Marlow’s theatrics—he contacted us to reopen negotiations.” He eyes Pard. “Now Yitch was definitely eager to get you out of Fairstone as quickly as possible, and once you killed his cat, he was scared, and now I see why, since he’s the one that resulted in your parents’ death. So he contacted us and agreed to pay Alexa handsomely to take you away from here, and the mayor agreed to give us support and shelter and all the access Iinia needs to conduct our future missions in the area.”

“What kind of missions?” Pard says.

“Invasion preparation.”

“
Invasion
?” Miles says.

“Yes, I believe so, but that’s just a guess. But anyway, back to Yitch. The headmaster didn’t realize how valuable you were, at least not at first. But then his greedy nature took over, and he found out and then changed the terms. The price went from him paying Alexa, to Alexa paying him, then Alexa paying him a lot.”

“We know,” Pard and Miles say in unison.

Penter’s eyes narrow. “Anyway, she easily agreed to pay, knowing Pard’s value to Iinia and the Acue. But once Lord Marlow came to your rescue a few days ago and got you off with an alibi, then Yitch begged for Alexa to take you for no payment, and allow us full access to the castle to remove you. But Alexa’s a professional and wasn’t going to rip you out of one of the finest schools in all of Vetlinue and make a mess of things. Yitch had to deliver you outside of the safety and eyes of Fairstone. The Acue isn’t in the habit of making a scene or causing overt trouble, but if one is created that they can’t control, they have a way of eliminating all the witnesses that get or got in the way. That is how they operate, all or nothing. But they weren’t about to destroy a thousand-year-old school and dispose of the children from the most influential families in Bastin unless it was a last resort. But then Yitch failed to deliver you the second time, and even worse, he exposed Alexa and Eeva in the open for who they are—not good—not good at all.”

“And what about you?” Pard says. “Why are you here with them?”

“
Hmm
, how should I put this? I’m what you’d call a deserter.”

Miles’s face scrunches. “A deserter, like from the army?”

“In a way—but I think of it more like a deserter from forced bondage. I was recently acquired a year ago of not of my own free will by the Iinian Dreg Army. After much resistance on my part during my first few months of capture—” Penter rocks his head side to side, “attempting to escape, I realized my efforts were futile. So I put my talents to work and submitted myself to my captors will. Lucky for me my competition in the Dregs was a bunch of reject soldiers, criminals, and the uneducated. This made it easy for me to rise above them quickly and get a placement in the surveillance and survey corp. That was three months ago. Since they were desperate for Dregs with a brain and experience, here I am. They assigned me to a Bastin attachment to an Iinian and Dreg team to survey the coastal and near inland Bastin cities. Lucky for me, the Dregs are also attached to many side missions needing extra personnel.” Penter winks at Pard. “You, kid, are a side mission for the Iinian government. I volunteered to be on Alexa’s crew to help in your apprehension—so I could escape.”

“They were willing to destroy the school just for me to work for them,” Pard says to himself.

“From my experience, they recruit every known seeros, but if it goes wrong, they quickly switch from recruitment to containment to extermination. You, kid, were to be recruited by Iinia as an agent, or at least potentially trained as one if you freely submitted yourself and didn’t cause any trouble. But after the cathedral, and Alexa and Eeva and you being exposed in front of all those witnesses, then the destruction of one of the most prestigious schools in all of Vetlinue—” Penter chuckles. “Now you’re in the contain and exterminate and clean up the mess category. From my experience about that category, they have unlimited resources and will never stop hunting you until the threat is eliminated.”

“Then that makes it even more important that we get to my father’s realm,” Miles says. “They won’t be able to touch you there.”

Pard nods.

Penter chuckles again. “They can touch you anywhere. Though you’re right, Latvin will be the safest for both of you, but also where they expect you to hide.”

“
Both of us
?” Pard says. “Why would they be after Miles?”

“He’s now a witness and an accomplice, both to Iinia’s presence here and to what Alexa is. I imagine that’s what Alexa and Eeva are doing this very moment, cleaning up all of Greysin's ‘witnesses.’”

“What do you mean—
cleaning up
?” Miles says, narrowing his eyes and leaning forward.

“I mean wiping out all the witnesses that saw or are connected to your theatrics in Fairstone's cathedral today, and whoever sees them tonight. So, pretty much everyone at Fairstone and in Greysin will be sterilized. A total mess and the Acue won’t be pleased.”

“
Sterilized
? You mean killed?” Pard says.

Penter scowls and glances at the fire. “I imagine so—wouldn’t be the first time.”

A streak of horror washes over Pard’s face, and he leaps to his feet. “Selby!”

“Sit, kid, don’t be stupid,” Penter says, pointing at Pard.

“Miles, we have to see if she’s all right or warn her.”

“Sit, Wenerly, before you get yourself killed. You go out there right now with Alexa and Eeva and their other minions on the prowl and you’re done for.”

Miles stands and looks at Penter. “If we leave, are you going to stop us?”

Penter scowls, glances away, and doesn’t answer.
 

Realizing Penter isn’t stopping them, Pard stares at Miles. “You coming?”

Miles nods. “Let’s go.”

Pard slings his pack and moves toward the entrance of the cave. The light from the fire flickers off the walls as he reaches the entrance.

“You’re making a mistake, kid,” Penter says.

Pard clinches his teeth, clicks on his light stick, and continues forward into the dark of the night.

A HEAVY HEART

Pard and Miles race through the snow-covered path weaving through the thick evergreens.

“She’ll be all right,” Miles says, trying to keep up with Pard sprinting ahead of him.

Pard doesn’t say a word, his mind fixed on Selby’s face with Eeva standing in the background swinging her silver whip. Then he remembers the professor’s eyes right before Eeva’s ball of electricity enveloped him. He cringes and runs faster.

Pard shoots out of the forest and onto the cobblestone road leading toward Greysin. Ahead, the large hill which obscures the town from view, and even though no buildings are visible, the night sky glows with an eery, unnatural orange tinge in the black backdrop. He climbs the hill and at the top, skids on the ice, staring at the sleepy resort town for the privileged on the shores of the majestic lake, fully a blaze, engulfed in towering flames and smoke, small orange orbs from Eeva’s whip streak through the streets. “No…”

Miles skids next to him and sways to balance himself on the ice. He sighs, a loss for words.

Pard clinches his teeth and sprints down the hill and over the bridge crossing Greysin River.

They enter the town and duck into a side street skirting the lake side of the town and come to a large white mansion, the historic home everyone in Greysin knows as Mayor House, a house as old as the town itself, the home of every residing mayor of Greysin for the last thousand years.

Pard looks on as his face burns from the heat raging off the mansion’s stone and wood walls, the building cracks and hisses as flames and smoke billow into the black sky. His shoulders slump in defeat, a sharp pain clenches his stomach into a knot. “
Selby
…”

Miles places his arm around Pard’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Pard. But remember, she’s a smart and resilient girl, she may not even be in there.” He nods, convincing himself of his own words. “I bet she wasn’t. No way, she got out for sure, I know it.”

Boom
—

Crash
—

The right side of the mansion explodes and collapses to the ground.

Pard and Miles both turn away at the same time and shield themselves from the pulsating, blistering heat and debris.

Pard’s eyes water from his pain and smoke. He squints as he turns back and glares at the mansion burning to the ground.

Miles tugs Pard’s arm, one of Eeva’s orange balls of light zings through a line of buildings and strikes a screaming woman running away from her. “Pard, come on, it’s not safe here, we need to get the heck out of here—back to the cave.”
 

Pard doesn’t budge, still staring at the mansion ablaze, blaming himself for Selby’s death.
This is my fault. The school, Professor Videl, and now my love. Selby, I’m sorry.

“Come on, Pard, we have to go.” Miles Yanks him harder until Pard’s feet move.

Pard turns away from the mansion and his pain and Selby—dead inside—another piece of rubble to add to his Ruens of Fairstone.

Miles drags Pard through the street, out of town, and back on the main road leading straight to Fairstone.

Pard tilts his head to the side as they climb the hill, and yet another blow hits him, the library, perched in the center of town, once a beacon of refuge, now only a smoldering heap of glass and stone. His jaw drops not believing his eyes, and his will rushes out of his legs.

Miles tugs Pard again. “I know you’re upset, but move your butt faster—you can at least help—if they see us we’re both dead.”

“I’m already dead,” Pard says, lost and sad and angry and confused, his spirit and love broken.
 

“Shut up, she’s still alive.”

They reach a fork in the road, the one on the left extending along the lake and into the forest, the shorter path to the cave, and the other to the right, the road winding through the forest and leading to Fairstone.

Miles steps to the left, and Pard pulls away and steps to the right.

“The caves this way.” Miles says.

“I need to see the school one last time.”

“But why?”

“I just do.”

Miles sighs. “Fine, but we need to make it quick.”

They creep along the road staying in the shadows of the trees, their senses in tune to the surroundings and to any danger.
 

“Hey you,” a boy’s voice says from within the pines.

Pard jumps from the sound then he squints into the thick, black underbrush. “Who’s there?”

A young boy, no more than ten, with blackened skin and scrapes on his face, sticks his head out of a pine bough. “Is it safe to come out? Are they all gone?” The boy’s teeth rattle from the cold and his breath visible with every shallow exhale.

“No,” Pard says, pointing at the trees and then to Greysin on fire. “Stay hidden, and whatever you do, don’t go to town.”

“Did someone say it was safe to come out?” another boy says.

“No, don’t come out, stay hidden,” Pard replies.

“But where should we go?” the young boys says, now standing in the road, arms crossed and half-frozen.

“I don’t know,” Pard says. “I don’t know. But it’s not safe here, try to get to Wellingtin and seek shelter in the big city, then contact your parents. You need to get as far away from Fairstone and Greysin as you can.”

“
Leave Fairstone
?” a new boy says from the other side of the road.

“
Safe
?” still another boy says.

Pard lowers his head, unable to speak, and walks away from the boys and toward Fairstone castle. “What have we done, Miles?”