Braxton taps his fingers against the doorframe. “I’m not hungry. Send the queen my regards.”
Before Delwynn can even attempt to persuade him, he shuts the door and turns the lock securely in place. He can hear the old man blubbering about disrespecting elders as he bangs on the door in protest, but he manages to tune it out. If Cerylia wants to speak with him so badly, she can come up here herself.
Not only had she sent Delwynn to release him from the dungeons, she hadn’t even attempted to approach him to make things right in the weeks that followed. What she’d done had been unjust and unfair, but it seems her pride had won out.
Reminds him a lot of his mother.
News of her passing had rippled through Aeridon faster than a bolt of lightning. Even though he hasn’t seen her in ten years, it’d struck a chord with him. He’d always had a soft spot for his mother, even though she could be worse than Darius at times. Came with the territory. But his mother had been caring, and she’d loved him deeply, wanting only the best for him as any mother would. When Darius had announced that illusié would be banished from the kingdom, she’d supported him—but Braxton could tell she’d sensed the shift in their relationship as mother and son. It was almost as if she’d known of her only son’s abilities—what he’s been capable of all this time.
It hadn’t dawned on him until recently that in almost all of his earliest memories, someone had been in the shadows, watching him. He’d felt this presence when he’d deviated a rock that had been thrown at him by a distant cousin. When a handmaiden had gone to scold him with a dishtowel and ended up swatting herself. When his father had lost his temper and thrown a full goblet of wine aimed straight for his head, only to wake up with a nasty bump just above his left temple with no clue as to how it’d happened . . .
Aldreda had known. And she’d prepared him as best she could. He’d only fled because she’d planted the seed at a very young age, telling him stories of the Lands of Aeridon, highlighting the very regions he’d considered fleeing to when he was ten. Bedtime stories had quickly transformed into an overview of each of the regions: Eroesa was barren, Chialka was charming, Lonia was breathtaking, Athia was safe.
Safe had sounded pretty good to a ten-year-old.
She’d known, and she’d done her best to protect him. But now, that unspoken bond between them—between mother and son—could never be rekindled. Whether he wanted it to be or not doesn’t matter. Her fate had been sealed, thanks to the one person he’d trusted from the moment they’d met.
Arden.
When Opal had told them—all of them . . .
A flash of fury races across his chest. Whether she’d been captured or not was beside the point. Arden had known his mother had reached out to him. After all this time, he’d been about to get some answers. She’d known something—something important—and now he’d never know what that was.
An urge to read her note again courses through him. He goes to his armoire, shuffling through multiple piles of boots until finally locating the right one. Sweeping a small knife from one of the open drawers, he carefully slips the blade where sole meets leather. It creaks open as the two separate to reveal a flattened piece of parchment. With a heavy heart, he unfolds it and begins to read:
My dear son,
The time has come to return to Trendalath. There is much to be said for the past, and even more to be gained for the future. I hope you both can forgive me one day.
Your loving mother,
Aldreda
He rereads it once, twice—as many times as his eyes can stand—but it’s just as cryptic as the first time he’d read it. I hope you both can forgive me one day.
Both . . . as in himself and his father? Or someone else? What had she done that needs forgiving?
He stares at the letter until his eyes begin to water. A tear escapes, followed by another, and another. They hit the parchment, swirling with the ink over his mother’s signature to make a giant black splotch. Cursing himself for ruining the one piece of his mother he has left, he gently carries the parchment to an empty drawer and places it inside. He leaves it cracked just enough so that the letter can dry.
Perhaps fresh eyes and a new day will help make some sense of the letter. More likely than not, though, whatever she’d been so desperate to reveal had died along with her.
ARDEN ELIRI
AS I FOLLOW closely behind Haskell, I’m starting to wonder where he’s taking me. The echo of dried up leaves and twigs crunching beneath our feet is the only sound for miles. We’ve been walking for at least an hour, deeper and deeper into the forest, without a semblance of a break. I can tell Juniper is growing restless, as am I, but just as I’m about to ask where we’re headed, he stops.
Panting, I peer around him to discover what I believe is an entrance—but not to a cave. Built into the black and gray rock is a camouflaged structure. If I weren’t standing directly in front of it, I never would have known it existed.
Haskell moves closer before pressing his ear against it. I want to ask him where we are, what’s going on, what this place even is—but his grave demeanor demands silence. I press my mouth shut to keep from disrupting whatever it is he’s doing.
After a few moments have passed, he takes a step back, then knocks his shoulder into the door—one, two, three times. I shudder at the sound of flesh hitting stone, but on his final attempt, the door finally budges. “Watch your step,” he says as he disappears into the enclosure.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I can’t help but jump when Haskell shuts the door behind me. Dim lighting, although barely bright enough to see, comes into view, and the pitch black that had originally surrounded me begins to fade.
“Follow me.”
I watch as Haskell descends an enormous set of stairs, his shoulders and head bobbing with each step. Not wanting to get left behind, I reach for Juniper and swipe her from the ground before carefully touching the toe of my boot on the first step. Even though I can hardly see it, it seems solid enough, so I take the step, using my other senses to journey down to the next landing.
When I finally make it to the bottom, Haskell is waiting for me with a bright flickering torch. “I really should have left these at the top,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “Here, hold this so I can find the rest.”
I set Juniper down before taking the torch, making sure not to stray too far from him as he lights each of the wall sconces. Each one illuminates another section of this massive temple we seem to be in. The walls, which are made of smooth brown stone, stretch as high as the sky, and I’m almost certain if I were to yell, a never-ending echo would follow. A whole slew of creatures could be living in the vastness above me and I’d never know it.
Stretching from the bottom of the staircase to the far-reaching corners are uneven columns made of white marble. They immediately remind me of the castle in Sardoria. I’m momentarily distracted by Juniper rubbing against my legs, but when I look down at my feet, I find that I’m standing in the middle of a massive circular indentation in the stone. The lines drawn within it extend outward every which way, but from my vantage point, they seem to be divided into four major quadrants. It bears a striking resemblance to something I’ve seen before, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.