The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) (29 page)

Star purses his lips and kicks Penter’s boots harder, rocking his legs and body.

Penter slightly lifts his head away from the wall, his eyes barely peeking out from underneath the lip of his black hood. “
Really
?”

“Yes—
really
—now get up, that’s an order!”

Penter sighs. “Fine.” He wiggles in place, leans forward, and stands. “What now, Star?”

Star flicks his head toward his pack. “In my bag, four wood stakes and some rope, get them.”

Penter rolls his shoulders as he halfheartedly turns away from the fire and does as Star asks.

Miles steps forward. “We’re leaving.”

Star’s body lunges, almost gliding on air, and he forcefully shoves Miles to the ground before he can react. “Sit, Lord Marlow, you aren’t going anywhere, the joke is just beginning. Don’t you remember? You wanted to see Star’s joking nature.”

Pard puts his arm around Miles’s shoulder and holds him in tight. He can feel Miles’s body shaking through his two sweaters and cloak.
What is he going to do? What can I do?
Pard’s mind races, and he can’t think straight knowing what Star said earlier.
Whatever he has in mind for Miles, it can’t be good. I have to think of something and quick.

Star continues to glare at Miles, and Miles finally shows the fear he truly has.

Penter stands next to the fire, holding out the stakes and rope. “What should I do with these?”

Star gestures with the tip of his dagger toward the ground next to the fire. “Two stakes for the lord’s arms and two for his feet. We’re gonna spread eagle him and have a good joke, my favorite joke.”

Penter shakes his head and follows the orders, pounding all four stakes into the ground. “Now what?”

Star lets out a faint giggle. “Now the lunatic jokes with the lord—grab him.”

“No!” Pard springs off the ground and lunges in front of Miles to protect him, but Penter flings him aside as if nothing more than a passing wind.

Miles scurries on his butt away from Penter.

Penter lunges forward and snatches Miles’s boot.

Star giggles and grabs Miles’s other boot.

“Unhand me, unhand me, I am Lord Miles Marlow!” On his back, Miles squirms and rocks back and forth, digging his fingers deep in the dirt as the two men drag him past the fire.

Pard pushes off the cave wall and again lunges forward, only to meet Star’s snort and a hand to his chest which swats him away, sending him back to the ground with a crash. He tumbles onto his side and finds Miles’s helpless aquamarine eyes illuminate like jewels from the fire and stare back at him.

Miles, pale and lost, his eyes show fear unlike anything Pard’s ever seen from anyone, maybe because Miles isn’t afraid of anything, and to see the terror now on his face is even more out of place. Miles’s bravado and cockiness long gone, replaced by a scared kid with no hope.

“Please don’t hurt him!” Pard says. “Please—I’ll do anything!”

Star ignores Pard as they continue to drag Miles between the four stakes. “Be a dear and grab Lord Marlow’s right arm, Penter.”

Penter grips Miles’s arm and pins him to the ground.
 

Star wraps rope around Miles’s limp wrist and tethers him to the stake, then Penter and Star tie the rest of Miles’s limbs to the other three stakes until he is splayed with arms and legs spread wide.

Miles, in shock, no longer squirms or says a word, resigning himself to his fate and to his captor’s mercy.

Pard pops back off the ground, and Star points his blade at him. “Sit! Or you’re next, Sir Wenerly.”
 

Pard almost stops and backs down but he can’t let them hurt Miles without putting up a fight. He lets out a barbaric growl and leaps forward and attacks.

Star rolls his eyes and conks Pard on his head with the butt of his dagger, sending Pard to the ground and knocking him unconscious.

 
Pard rolls in the dirt, seeing nothing but black with flashes of white. Images form, and he’s in a dream, though it makes no sense. Pard’s in a garden with lush, floppy, florescent green leaves, and bright red and yellow flowers droop from stems while more shower down from above. Gold fountains spurt water, and on the short grass, four purple-cushioned velvet chairs arranged symmetrically around a giant puddle with a single strand of wheat standing tall through the black water. The flowers stop raining and it’s now sunny and warm, but thick, wet snowflakes float and dance to the ground and stick to the florescent leaves. Selby looks at him with obsession in her wide eyes, which is so exaggerated that it makes Pard uncomfortable. She sits in a chair, crosses her legs, and stares at a black hollow opening in an Ida tree trunk. Pard’s grey Ruen book materializes out of thin air, appearing on Selby’s lap, and she taps the cover with her palm. A rustle in the trees, and Professor Videl pushes aside a florescent leaf the size of his body. As he makes his way to his own chair, the professor smiles in a congratulatory way through his fluffy white beard, all the while pointing at Pard. The professor sits then taps his finger against his own temple with a repetitive motion, like a metronome, and his tapping is in tune with Selby still tapping the Ruen book. Pard looks up to the sky, and Miles descends from the clouds as if he’s walking down an invisible staircase, aqua-blue light pulsating out of his shoes. Miles’s feet hover a foot off the ground, and with a dumb look on his face, he strolls on air toward his own velvet chair while tossing a green apple up and down and hiccuping to the beat of the professor’s and Selby’s tapping. Snowflakes cake the top of Miles’s jet-black hair as if he’s wearing a white crown. Pard glances back at the professor, and the professor’s eyes shift into solid black orbs. One of his eyes turns a solid silver. Miles hiccups louder and faster to the tap and rhythm of the others. The professor let’s out a faint giggle just like—

Star, No!
Lying on his side, cheek planted in the dank dirt,
Pard’s eyes snap open toward the fire. On the other side of the cave, Miles still lies flat on his back, his head close to the flames and his feet extending away.
 

“Hold him tight, Penter. Don’t want to make a mess of his pretty face even more than I plan too.” Star lets out another faint giggle as he raises a glowing red needle. He straddles Miles’s chest, one boot on either side of his ribcage. Star lowers his body until his face is within a few inches of Miles’s.

Penter, behind Star, pins Miles’s ankles to the dirt.

“This joke won’t hurt nearly as much as what I’m going to do to you later, Lord Marlow. But I thought this is the best way to say hello—
from me—to you
.” Star raises a bottle of ink, the shiny black liquid glistens off the glass from the flame of the fire. He dips the red hot pin into the black liquid and it sizzles.

Miles’s eyes widen as Star dangles the needle with a black drop perched on the tip. “You seem to like my star so much, Lord Marlow, let me give you a joke of your own.”

“No!” Miles squirms, finding his courage and rocking his body back and forth violently.

“The harder you resist, the more the lunatic can’t control his hand, and will just make your face even more beautiful, so please, squirm away, Lord Marlow. Squirm, squirm, squirm.” Star lowers the needle and pierces Miles’s skin under his right eye.

Miles screams again, and Star pokes Miles again and again and again.

“Yes, yes, yes, my lord. I hereby anoint you, you shall henceforth be known as Lord Star, marked by the notorious Lunatic Star with shaky hand from the Kingdom of Crazy, the finest killer of all the Badlands.” Star grins and his silver eye beams through his monocle.

Pard presses off the ground. “What are you doing to him? Stop it!”

Surprised by the interruption, Star sits up and removes his needle from Miles’s skin, holding it in front of him, dumbfounded.

Pard glances at Miles lying pinned to the ground, tears mix with blood and black ink as they intermingle and stream down his cheek and dot the dirt a single drop at a time. Pard eyes Star in horror.

Star’s mouth curls into a maniacal grin. He holds the needle toward Pard, and a streak of blood and ink rolls down his black-stained hand. The flames flicker and transform Star’s face into something otherworldly, melting, twisted. Star’s eyes, both of them, filled with blood lust. Star’s expression slowly turns serious. “Sir Wenerly, would you like a joke from Star, too?
What
—” Star lets out a faint groan and his face freezes as his body seizes, then he slightly smirks and his monocle attachment droops. “Penter, you asshole—” Star folds forward, dead, knife protruding out of his back. Star’s stomach collapses onto Miles’s face and his head crashes deep into the fire. The logs crumple and fireflies shoot out with a flurry from the flames and strike the ceiling of the cave.

Pard’s mouth drops in shock.

Penter steps forward and snatches Star’s arm and rolls his body and head out of the flames.
 

Star’s leather skullcap shrivels and splits. His monocle and silver attachment lie by his side, glass shattered and metal twisted. Face blistering and cracked, Star’s red-and-blackened skin smolders on his cheeks and forehead and chin and neck.
 

Penter sneers. “Dammit, even when you die you still find away to stink up the place.”

CLEANING UP

Penter eyes Pard and gestures toward Miles wallowing in the dirt. “Get over here and help your friend.”

Pard, skeptical and unsure of what to think as if it’s a trick, he inches forward.

“Hurry,” Penter says, untying Miles’s right leg. “Are you going to watch your friend in pain without helping him?”

Pard rushes over and lowers and unties Miles’s left arm, all the while not taking his gaze off of Penter.

“My cheek,” Miles says, rubbing the spot where Star was poking it with a needle. He smears the blood and ink deeper into his skin as he sits up.

“Why did you kill him?” Pard says, looking at Star dead on the ground next to him.

Penter moves away from Miles and leans against the cave wall. “I have my reasons.” He tosses Miles a piece of cloth to clean his face.

Miles catches the rag and stares at it for a few seconds, still in shock from the torture.

“And what reasons are those?” Pard says. “Are you going to take us to those two women now and have them torture and kill us?”

“No, kid, I’m not going to take you to Alexa or Eeva, so you can relax.”

Miles wipes his face somewhat clean and turns toward Pard. “Don’t lie, tell me, how bad is it?”

Pard scans Miles’s face, small and medium black amorphous dots pepper his skin under his right eye. “It’s not too bad—all considering.”

“
All considering
? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Marlow,” Penter says.

Miles turns to him.

Penter tosses a small flat leather case to Miles, and he catches it.

Miles opens the case and his reflection stares back at him from the small pocket mirror. He raises the mirror close to his eye and inspects his face while poking his cheek with his finger. “I look ghastly. Is this permanent? Girls aren’t going to like me anymore.”

“Oh,
it’s not that bad
,” Penter says. “And I’d say it’s permanent, so get used to it.”

Pard scowls. “If you were going to kill Star anyway, why didn’t you do it before the torture and letting him mark up Miles?”

Penter snorts. “Easy for you to say, kid, sitting over there cowering and huddled against the wall. When Star said he was the finest killer in all the Badlands, he wasn’t joking, he really was the finest killer in all the Badlands, and maybe anywhere else. I wouldn’t have stood a chance one on one against him. I needed him distracted and engaged with Lord Marlow for me to take him out. So, before you go pointing blame and complaining, understand it was your friend gets marked up, or instead, he dies and you get handed over to Alexa and Eeva, and I guarantee you, you don’t want to be handed over after the stunt you both pulled in the Fairstone cathedral earlier today.”

“
Stunt
?” Miles says. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We exposed the truth and a murderer.”

“
No
?” Penter rolls his eyes and then looks at his hands as he cleans his fingernail with the tip of his blade. “I guess you would see it that way, Lord Marlow. I understand you both didn’t know what was going on. But it could’ve gone so much smoother for everyone involved, to include your school, if Pard would’ve signed that damned contract or would’ve been found guilty and handed over quietly to Alexa. Instead, you see the result of your exposed truth.”

“I would’ve never gone with them,” Pard says. “Besides, we just found out who killed my parents, and it was the perfect opportunity to expose the guilty.”

Penter flicks his fingers at the fire, and a gummy piece of blood mixed with dirt flies off the tip. “I guess so.”

“Why do they want Pard so bad?” Miles says.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Miles shrugs. “Just because he’s a seeros?”

“Yes, Marlow, just because he’s a seeros.”

“Why do they want me though?” Pard says. “Is this because of the cat? Because that was an accident and I don’t even know how or why it happened.”

Penter chuckles. “No, it’s not because of the cat.”

“Be more specific, please.”

“You carry the seeros light which has lots of power, especially if focused and in the right hands. Alexa and Eeva work for a secret organization known as the Acue. The Acue is buried deep within the Iinian government, and all I know about them is they have free rein and resources to do whatever they want, and they get all the hard cases, from espionage to assassination to handling newly found seeros like yourself. As you saw, one of them, Alexa, is also a seeros. They were recruiting you to bring you into the Acue. Then they transform you into their own personal monster of chaos.”

“And what about Eeva?” Miles says. “Is she a seeros too?”

Penter scratches his ear. “She’s—well—she’s something else, some sort of seeros partner, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“How can’t you explain it?” Pard says. “You work for this organization, don’t you?”