Traitor (16 page)

Jace grunted in agreement. “Then we’ll have to bide our time and come up with a better plan. How long do you think we have?”

“I don’t know. Not long, probably.” I didn’t want to give him any false hope. The king obviously had a special sort of hatred for me. I doubted he would allow me any extra time to plead my case.

Now that my eyes were uncovered, I could see a bit more about our situation. We were tied up in what appeared to be some kind of stone chamber. If I stretched out with my thoughts, which was slightly painful after having recently used so much power, I could sense that we were underground. The voices of the jungle were distant and faint, and I could feel the presence of earth above and around us.

A swirl of color fluttering through my brain surprised me, but only until I realized who it was. I could feel Mavrik’s presence, his relief that I was alive, and his concern for me. He was looking for me.

I sent him my thoughts and told him what was happening … and what I suspected was to come. I wished I could have severed our mental bond so that he didn’t have to experience it right along with me. I asked him if Felix and Beckah were alive, and he confirmed that they were.

But the battle was over. Barrowton had been burned to the ground.

“Whatever happens,” I murmured aloud without thinking, “it was an honor to have flown with you.”

“And you as well,” Jace answered quietly.

I decided not to tell him I hadn’t been talking to him.

I wish I could tell you the gray elf king had a sudden change of heart. That Princess Araxie was able to reason with him, and Jace and I were set free. But when it came to luck, I’d never had much of any.

The king did change his mind about killing us right away, though. Instead, he decided to interrogate us. Day after day we were dragged away to another dark room and beaten, whipped, or flogged. Many times, I blacked out during it only to wake up and find myself tied to that metal pole again.

At first, they didn’t demand information. They just beat us. When they finally did start asking questions, though, it wasn’t at all what I expected. They demanded to know who I really was and for me to tell them anything I knew about this Hovrid person. Most of all, they wanted to know where the god stone was.

Needless to say, my answers were never satisfactory. I told them over and over that I was the son of Alowin, that I didn’t know anyone named Hovrid, and that I had no idea where the god stone was. Those replies never earned me anything but a more severe beating.

I honestly had no idea how much time passed, although it felt like an eternity. We never saw the sunlight or breathed the fresh air. They rarely brought us food, and when they did, it was mostly rotten scraps that left me feeling sicker than before. I was always weak from hunger and the beatings, and my throat was raw for want of even a few drops of water.

When they caught Jace and I talking, they gagged us, then there was nothing to ease the suffering. Sometimes, Mavrik would muscle his way into my thoughts and try to comfort me—but I quickly drove him out. I didn’t want him to go through this with me. I didn’t want him to have to feel me suffering.

The beatings began to get worse.

After they broke several of my ribs, I couldn’t even take a breath without white-hot agony stinging through my body. The first time they broke one of my arms, I begged for them to just kill me and be done with it.

Of course, they didn’t.

It was bad, yes. But listening to Jace take his beatings was much worse. I could hear his screams echoing off the walls from somewhere in the distance, hear him cursing them, crying, and pleading for death just as I had. Knowing there was nothing I could do made my mind go to dark places. It made me wish there was some way I could kill him, just to end his suffering so he didn’t have to go through this anymore.

It became such that the sound of footsteps or voices immediately made me go into shock. I panicked. My body trembled beyond my control, and I immediately started screaming through the gag they had tied over my mouth. I never knew which of us they were going to take.

This time, however, something was different.

Usually our torturers came in groups. I never saw exactly how many because I was usually blindfolded. But there was only one set of footsteps coming toward me, and no voices.

Still, I couldn’t keep myself from reacting with terror. I pitched against my bonds. I cried out for someone, anyone, to help me.

“Be quiet,
caenu
,” someone whispered to me harshly. Then he took the blindfold off my eyes and pulled the gag out of my mouth.

It was Kiran.

Crouching beside me in the dark, he was staring at me with a constrained look of horror from under the hood of a long dark cloak. I must have looked as awful as I felt. I couldn’t see clearly out of one eye because it had swollen shut, and I could feel the crusty sensation of dried blood around my nose and mouth.

He didn’t waste any time. From under the cloak, he took out a water skin and uncorked it. “The princess continues to plead for your life,” he said as he held it to my lips.

Fresh water filled my mouth, cool and delicious. I gulped it down as greedily as he would allow. I could taste that it was tinged with something herbal, but I didn’t bother asking what it was. Whether it would kill me or make me feel even the slightest bit better, I didn’t care.

“W-why do they keep asking me about Hovrid?” I managed to rasp. “Who is that?”

He must have believed me, because he flashed me a slightly sympathetic glance as he pulled a small bundle of rough cloth from his clothes. It was bread—coarse, dark bread. He began pinching bits of it off and feeding it to me slowly. It hurt to swallow.

“His name is spoken like a curse among our people,” Kiran whispered. “He was an infamous traitor, the eldest son of Alowin, the last Lapiloque. He started this war.”

That new information settled over me like a foul stench and left me reeling. Could this Alowin—Hovrid’s mother—possibly be the same woman who was also my mother? Surely not. My mother would have told me if I’d had any gray elf siblings.

Right?

After letting me take a few more gulps of water, Kiran shuffled over and began administering the same care to Jace. He was a lot less responsive, though. His face was swollen and battered such that I barely recognized him. He didn’t speak or make a noise. The only way I could tell he was even alive at all was because I could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed.

“I came because the end is coming soon,
caenu
,” Kiran said as he cradled Jace’s head and poured water down his throat. “King Erandur is out of patience. Princess Araxie still argues with him, but he has decreed that you both will be executed at dawn. There isn’t much time.”

I wasn’t as upset about that news as I probably should have been. It actually came as a relief. “T-thank you, Kiran,” I said.

He stood up and hastily gathered his belongings. “I have not forgotten what you did for me.”

Smiling hurt, thanks to my battered face, but I made myself do it anyway. After all, he might be the last person I got to smile at. And I was glad he had survived and made it back to his people.

Kiran came back over to put the blindfold on my eyes, but before he could put the gag in my mouth, I felt him hesitate. “If you truly are Lapiloque,” he whispered so quietly I could barely hear him, “then you must put an end to this war.”

“I d-don’t even know what that is,” I told him.

“Lapiloque. It is the name we use for the one who speaks for the will of nature. The shepherd of all wild things. The stonespeaker.”

In the distance, I could hear voices echoing off the walls. Our time was up. They were coming closer. Kiran swiftly put the gag back in my mouth. I heard his steps retreat into the distance and then vanish altogether.

I knew the gray elves were coming for us. They were going to carry out the king’s command. I should have been terrified, but I was too distracted to think much about how my life might be about to come to a violent end.

I was turning Kiran’s words over and over in my head, hoping for a revelation. I wondered why the princess was so adamant about sparing me. I wondered if I truly was this Lapiloque—this stonespeaker—everyone kept talking about. If I was, then what did that mean? Was my fate tied to the god stone?

Most of all, I wondered if my mother had been keeping a lot more secrets from me than I’d ever suspected. Actually, I couldn’t afford to think otherwise now. My time with her had been brief, but sweet. She’d loved me and yet she’d hidden everything about herself from me. I didn’t understand why. Maybe it was to protect me. But now I needed to know the truth.

Sile had told me to come here, that some ritual had to be performed, and that the power I would wield would make the tricks I could do now look like dumb parlor tricks. If that was true, if I was capable of much more, then I might actually be able to grant Kiran’s request. I might be able to tip the scales and end this war somehow.

The problem was, I didn’t have much time left.

I could tell by the number of voices filling the room that at least three gray elves had come to fetch us. They cut our bonds just long enough to yank Jace and me to our feet. Then they promptly tied our hands again, tighter than ever, before herding us out of the chamber. It was the first time we had left that room together.

We began climbing stairs. Even with the bit of food and water Kiran had given me, my body was still weak and battered. I didn’t last long before my legs buckled. When they did, the gray elves dragged me my by arms.

We went up stairs for what seemed like an eternity, then we began turning corners and weaving a path I knew was leading us out of the underground. I could sense it. And I could smell it. Until now, the air had always been cold and damp, as though we were in some sort of cave. Now I caught puffs of fresh, warm air flowing from the surface.

In the distance, I could hear the booming sound of drums. Then there was light. Even through the blindfold, I could see it and feel it on my skin. There was the smell of the jungle, of the plants and trees, and the rich soil.

When the drums abruptly went silent, I could hear the voices of other people—many of them. I wasn’t sure exactly how many until the blindfold was ripped from my eyes. The light blinded me at first. It stung my eyes and confused me. But as my vision cleared, I started to realize the situation we were in.

Jace and I stood on the front steps of an ancient temple. If not for the fact that we were both about to die, I would have been distracted by how incredibly beautiful it was. Giant, moss-covered trees towered all around us. They were so big that the gray elves had cut away some of the bark and carved spiraling staircases into their trunks.

The temple itself looked like it was in the process of being devoured by the jungle. Enormous roots had grown over it, cracking through stone as though it were as brittle as chalk. Moss grew all over walls and flowering vines were choking out ancient stone statues in the courtyard before us.

There must have been nearly a thousand people gathered to watch whatever horrible thing was about to happen to us. Gray elves of all shapes and sizes, men, women, and even children looked on with mixed expressions of hatred and disgust. They cursed at us—at me particularly—and spat in our direction. Thankfully, I think Jace was too delirious to appreciate anything anyone said. He was weaving on his feet, looking like he might collapse at any moment.

I heard Princess Araxie before I saw her. She was standing with her father, hissing furious words at him. “This is blasphemy! We will be cursed for it. It is forbidden to carry out such a sentence on this sacred ground,” she insisted.

If the king was listening to her, it didn’t show. He wouldn’t even look at her. His gaze was focused squarely upon me with a mixture of controlled rage and sorrow churning in his eyes.

He didn’t waste any time. The second he raised a hand to the mob gathered before us, they all went silent. You could actually hear the wind rattling the leaves and the alien, melodic calls of birds.

“This one has murdered three of my sons. He would have done the same to my daughter, if not for the mercy of the gods that brought her home to us,” the king began proclaiming. He spoke in their native language, so I knew Jace didn’t comprehend any of it—not that it mattered. He was so out of it, he probably wouldn’t have understood anyway.

“And this one claims to be the heir of Alowin.” The king turned his scathing glare back to me. For a moment, I caught another glimpse of that strange sorrow wrinkling across his brow, as though I’d hurt him somehow. “He carries the totem of the Lapiloque, and works miracles. But I say to you, that lineage died with my sister when she betrayed us and fled to the human kingdom! She bore no heir. The line of the Lapiloque is dead. This abomination has been sent to mock us. He has the face of the one who defiled this temple and stole the god stone. He is an instrument sent from Hovrid to destroy what remains of our people!”

As badly as it hurt, I couldn’t keep my eyes from growing wide as I stared at the king. Alowin—my mother—was his
sister
? If that were the case, then that would mean I was related to the king of the gray elves. I was … royalty.