Amidst The Rising Shadows (Book 3) (19 page)

Roselyn giggled and leaned into him. He brought his arm around her shoulder, and for a brief moment their worries were far away from them. At that moment the thing sitting in the middle of the floor lit up around them. He couldn’t remember what it was called. Roselyn would know, but he wasn’t of a mind to ask her about that. He was more of a mind of stealing away with her so they could be alone, but there was little chance of that happening. A large display of light showed the people in Hathenwood.
 

Roselyn eyed him, “Do you remember its name?”

It was almost like she could read his thoughts. “A holographic display,” he said.

“What about the device on the floor?”

Roselyn was nothing if not determined to teach him about the Hythariam and their infernal devices that he couldn’t remember the names of. It was almost like when he was younger with Vaughn and his history lessons.

“I haven’t got a clue, my Lady.”

Roselyn stared at him with those golden eyes of hers that would have chased away any of the words that came to mind, except that he knew this was important to her. Jopher stood on the other side of Roselyn and mouthed some words. The answer lit up in his mind like a beacon in the sky. “A holo projector.”

“Very good,” Roselyn said. “Perhaps you should keep Jopher with you to keep giving you the answers.”

Dammit, she caught us,
he thought to himself. “My Lady, you scold me. I am deeply sorry. But I could bring up the finer points of archery.”
 

Roselyn leveled her gaze at him coolly, “You could.”

Verona often found it interesting that some rules between men and women, including Hythariam, didn’t necessarily apply both ways. Perhaps he was being too hard on her. Roselyn did try shooting an arrow from a bow, but it didn’t go well. She had been as bad as Aaron was when they first met.

“Thank you, everyone, for joining us on such short notice,” Iranus said. “We have a great many things to discuss.”

Sarah came to his side so quietly that he didn’t know she was there until she placed her hand upon his arm. Her cheeks were red as if she had been out in the wind, and her eyes held the remnant swollenness of someone who had been crying. Verona went to put his hand upon her back and felt the crisscross of sheathed blades there.
 

She still carries Aaron's blades.

Roselyn came to Sarah’s other side, and they turned their attention back to Iranus.

Iranus began speaking again, "We've have reports of the High King's armies attacking neighboring kingdoms near Khamearra. Not all of them have openly allied with the Free Nations Army, but we believe the High King is sending a clear message to anyone who may have been on the fence about joining us. We must find a way to respond to these attacks. We've put protocols in place so warning can be sent as soon as possible, and a ready force will be on standby all day and night from now on."

A quiet murmuring began at that. Verona had known about the ready forces being assigned as the strategy had been discussed previously and his uncle, the prince, who had informed him that they wanted him to lead one of those forces. Verona almost missed the quiet days when they were just trekking to Shandara and prior to that, finding trouble in whatever city they had been to in the Waylands. Verona had made his own proposal to the War Council for a more proactive fighting force with aims of striking back at the High King. He was still waiting for the final approval of it, but he had already been trolling through the various FNA camps, looking for a specific type of fighting man. Men who weren’t afraid to take risks and were able to improvise. Braden had aims of resurrecting the De'anjard and with his Warden's Hammer he made a formidable addition to any group of men that Verona would put together. Now that Aaron was back, Braden would probably be going back to guarding him. The only thing he could do was to convince Aaron to join him, which begged the question as to whether Aaron was fit to rejoin the fight now that he was back.
If he is back
, said a quiet voice in the back of his mind. He glanced at Sarah through the corner of his eye. Her intentions where Aaron were concerned had always been good, and he wasn’t sure why she would believe that the man who came back to the camp yesterday was anyone other than Aaron. Part of him believed it was still some remnant effect of the Nanites, but what if she was right and they were all being fooled? The implications could be disastrous for all of them. It made him uncomfortable to even consider the notion.

“Lady Sarah,” the holographic image of Iranus addressed her formally, “do you have any opinion about these attacks?”

“I think you are correct. My father is sending a message that he can strike whomever and wherever he wishes at any time. But as you said, with our allies increasing their readiness they will be better prepared to defend against an attack,” Sarah said.

“Thank you. I’d like for you to take a look at what I’m about to display and see if you can tell me what these things are." Iranus said.

The holo changed to a view of the Khamearrian army as if they were looking at it from above.
This must be from one of those machines the Hythariam had in the sky
, Verona mused. Roselyn glanced at him, and he mouthed the word, “satellite” with a half smile. The image zoomed in closer to a circle of black-clad warriors that Verona assumed were Elitesmen. They were circled around some type of large glowing object.

Sarah studied the image for a moment, “It looks like the large focusing crystal that was housed in one of the citadel towers of the Elite.”

“A focusing crystal?” Iranus asked.

“Yes, it’s used to recharge the other crystals like the ones used for travelling. In the tower they amplify the rays of the sun to power it, and it in turn charges the others. They must be using it to help move the army around,” Sarah said.

“Can you offer any insight into how they might accomplish this?” Iranus asked.

Sarah frowned in thought for a moment before answering, “I know how the travel crystals work. The user feeds a bit of the gathered energy into it along with a clear image of where they wish to go. But that large focusing crystal by itself can’t do it alone.”

“If I understand you correctly, the crystal works in pairs with whoever uses them?”

“That is correct, but a travel crystal by itself can only move small groups of people,” Sarah said.

“They must have found a way to use the focusing crystal to increase the ability of a normal travel crystal,” Roselyn said. “It’s quite smart. We studied the few travel crystals we have and we would need to crunch the numbers, but the power requirements are high. As we’ve learned with our own Keystone Accelerators to open portals, even in the same dimensional space the power requirements are high to keep the doorway open so enough people can move through. That’s why we’re limited to two uses per each Accelerator that we use. I would think it is safe to assume that while the High King’s army can move about the continent, there are limitations as to how often they can use the focusing crystals before they require recharging.”

“We know it’s important to them by how heavily it’s guarded, but what I’m not sure of is how many of these large focusing crystals they have.” Gavril said.

“Two that I know of,” Sarah said.

“Then they are priority targets,” Gavril said.

“They are also the most heavily guarded,” Verona added.

“Worth it if we can cripple their forces for a while,” Gavril replied.

“Thank you, all,” Iranus said. “All of your input has given us much to consider, but we must move on to our next order of business. We’ve been tracking an object heading to this planet from space. It was believed that the object’s origin is from Hytharia. Early yesterday morning the object made it past our defenses and was able to land somewhere on Safanar.”

A tidal wave of questions spewed forth from many of them about the invading horde from Hytharia.

“Give me a moment, and I will tell you what we know,” Gavril chimed in. “As Iranus has said, the object beat our defenses, which we can attest to the military-grade technology used to create it.” Gavril stopped and brought up a map of Safanar on the display. “Based upon the last known position of the ship, the direction it was heading, the craft came in through the atmosphere over the ocean northwest of Khamearra and then disappeared. We haven’t been able to find it, and we have no idea where it went after. We’ve had people up in the flyers, sweeping different areas of where we expected it to go, but so far it’s an extremely slow process.”

“Do you know what it could be doing?” Verona asked.

“We’re not sure exactly,” Gavril answered. “This was a last-ditch effort by the Zekara to gain access to Safanar.”

“They’re here,” Aaron’s voice said from behind the crowd, and a pathway opened up for him across from where Verona stood.

Verona’s eyes darted to his friend, and he felt Sarah stiffen next to him. Remnant bruises covered his skin in a patchwork of yellows and soft purples. Whispers of his name spread throughout the tent, and Verona realized that for many this was the first time they had ever seen him. The native patrons of Safanar bowed their heads in reverence to the only surviving member of the House Alenzar’seth. Aaron’s gaze swept the room as he moved in closer.

“Aaron, I think I can speak for everyone here that we’re extremely happy to see you returned to us, but I’m afraid it comes as a mixed blessing since your return would signify that the Zekara have made it to Safanar as well,” Iranus said.

“Who are the Zekara?” Verona asked.

“They are what the members of the Hythariam military call themselves,” Aaron said. “You must be wondering what has happened to me since going through the portal and how I got free.”

“You could say we’ve spoken about it once or twice, my friend,” Verona said, and some of the others chuckled around the room. Aaron, however, barely acknowledged the jibe.

“I was taken prisoner by the Zekara shortly after going through the portal,” Aaron said.

“Why didn’t you use the Keystone Accelerator to open a way back to Safanar?” Roselyn asked.

“After going through the portal, the Nanites in my system shut themselves down. The atmosphere upon Hytharia was so thin that I began choking. I tried to open a portal back to Safanar, but the Zekara soldiers captured me and brought me to their mountain base. Halcylon is alive, and he’s here on Safanar,” Aaron said.

Sarah took a step toward him, and Aaron turned his gaze upon her but continued addressing the rest. “They held me prisoner. Put me on trial. That was how all this happened,” Aaron said gesturing to the bruises upon his face and arms.

“A trial?” Verona asked.

“I could see that,” Iranus said, drawing their attention.

“They held me responsible for the barrier put in place blocking the portal from Hytharia to Safanar,” Aaron said. “When they found me guilty, the crowd was allowed to extract their toll.”

“How did you survive?” Verona asked.

“I’m sure they wanted to kill me, but Halcylon and his soldiers wouldn’t let them."

“How did you return?” Sarah asked, her voice sounding hoarse.
 

“They gave me enough to eat and drink to barely keep me alive. They had me staked out in the open. Then one day a portal opened, easily the size of a building, and the Zekara started filing through it, taking whatever they could. The planet had become unstable and was in its final death throes. The last thing I saw was a dark figure before something knocked me unconscious, and when I woke up I was out in the forest a few miles away from here,” Aaron said.

Verona listened to his friend speaking and almost couldn’t believe what had been said.
 

“So we have an anonymous benefactor for your release,” Gavril said with a frown. “How did they even hold you prisoner? A small number of us have seen what you can do to Elitesmen and Ryakuls alike.”

Aaron’s eyes grew distant for a moment, and he shuddered, “They used the Nanites on me.”

Roselyn plunged her hand inside her pocket and brought out a device and stepped in front of Aaron. She ran the device over his chest and along his arms, then around his face.

“I can detect the Nanites in his system, but they are strange like they are dormant,” Roselyn said. “I would like to do a more thorough examination.”

Aaron held up his hand, “I’ve had enough prodding by Hythariam technology for a while, so I will respectfully deny your request.”

The words were soft spoken, but it didn’t take anything away from the coldness in them. Roselyn backed away, coming to Verona’s side. He could tell her feelings were hurt, and he resisted the urge to reach out to her.

“You’ve been through a lot, my friend, but Roselyn was only trying to help,” Verona said.

“I appreciate your help, my Lady, but we have more pressing things to concern ourselves with,” Aaron said.

Verona didn’t say anything back, but clearly the issue was dismissed.

“When I came into the tent you were speaking about the High King attacking other kingdoms?” Aaron asked.

The discussion turned to what had been previously talked about, and Verona took the opportunity to watch his friend. At times he was just as he had remembered him, and at others he appeared to be a complete stranger. Sarah was silent through much of the conversation, but her eyes never left Aaron. She watched him closely, and more than once did Aaron make eye contact with her, but it held none of the fire it had before. Verona didn’t know what to make of it. His mind was at odds with what he wanted to believe, which was that his friend had beaten the odds and had returned to them.