"I only have about five minutes to commit a cri."
Ivory recoils, steps back. No way! Her heart pounds. Not him! "What do you an by that?"
"To kidnap a princess."
Ivory pulls out the oredite knife on her ankle, points at him. "What in the world are you talking about?" A chill surges through her body. She feels the world is now a dream.
"What?" He steps back. "I think killing might take much longer than five minutes."
Does that an he has reinforcents? She breathes heavily. "What are you doing, Kabel?"
"Ah." His eyes widen. "I think that's the first ti you actually called my na. Odd you're doing it whilst holding a knife, but who knows. Anyway, I really think we should be going now."
"Huh?" Ivory is stunned.
"What?" He cocks his head.
"You called this a kidnapping."
"Yes, because that's what they will call it when they discover you are no longer here."
"So I'm being kidnapped?" She is confused.
"You could call it that, but I think it's more of a mind-clearing stroll."
Ivory snaps. "What in damnation are you talking about?"
"Halo!" He says, "That's a bad word. But I really think we should be going." A white orb floats down before him.
Eiya?
He listened, said, "Nail of Valor is returning."
"What are you doing?" Ivory tries ntation, returns nothing.
He studies her, his mouth then makes an 0 shape. "Oh no. I am not kidnapping you, princess, just taking you out for a stroll. To see your people. You know, those ones that you are to lead soday. I think you should et them. Breathe in the misty air, feel the rain. At least before the full brute of your incarceration begins."
So he knows about that? She lowers the blade, says, "You know this is a cri. Treason."
"Exactly what I said."
"You will be killed."
"I hope you find it in your heart to spare ."
Why is he doing this? Ivory looks to him, those eyes of his. Sothing genuine looks back, and it scares her. She hides it. "It's your funeral."
"Yes." He nods. "Just a lowly aspirant trying to get a princess to smile so she does not grow up to beco a tyrant. Maybe once I die, a story about it might be written."
"Kabel the fool."
"Nice title." He says, "But seriously, I have only three minutes to commit that cri or I die for no reason."
Ivory returns the blade into the sheath on her ankle, walks before him, says, "Tell this path I think you have found."
"So I lead?"
"Not in a thousand years."
------------
Ron towers beside him. Behind are the witnesses, slaves, and then Davos. And they walk a tight tunnel, stone-walled, high-ceilinged. Shadows drag back, painting over the walls, swaying in their motions.
rrin thinks this similar to a pilgrimage. A lark in his imdiate awareness. But it matters not. Not now. Not to his people. His care rests solely on the remaining witnesses. Them and Moeash….
A thought echoes from that.
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Where are you? He softens, breathes, and observes the backs of the torch holders. Young n—slaves, clothed in rags, most half burnt, with edges blackened, holes in them. He is like them, but they think not. The torches dance beside them, and rrin is concerned.
What if they get caught in its blaze?
He prays not, heaves, and touches the froststone fitted on his clothes. This bothers him more. How long before it requires will? How long before all of them require will?
Problems. Too many. Ever-growing despite the created solutions. I need a distraction. He thinks, chooses to expand the auricle, picking up the distant and behind sounds. Listening to their words. That was the needed diversion.
Very few spoke; those who did, non-witnesses. It seed the latter sought to enjoy the somber air; the forr cared little.
“Who do you think he is?” One of the slaves stationed behind.
“How would I know?” Another answers. “They call him sunBringer. I don’t know that either.”
“Maybe it's like so prophecy?”
“Like the churches?”
“Yeah, that.” He says, “Maybe he’s part of so clan.”
“Co on. Look at him. Does he look like brightCrown? He has no white hair.”
“But so ash.”
“Ash ain’t white.”
rrin imagines them nodding.
“But my grandma says Velira prophecies different. They say the savior or new god will co like a beggar or ragman or sothing.”
“What’s Velira?”
“So fern mistsence. I don’t know.”
rrin perks…Now he is attentive.
“I never seen any type of Fern.”
“Neither.” One said, “Maybe they don’t even exist.”
“I think they live in the free cities.”
“You think or know.”
He is silenced.
rrin retrieves his awareness. Nothing important would be said anymore. Though their words spark curiosity. I wonder what a Fern is like? He looks to Ron, the giant of a man. Does he know? The wonder remains, but another takes precedence.
“Ron?”
The man looks down. “Ah. What?”
“What did they do to you?”
There is a twitch in his brows—a tremble in his shoulders. What did they do to you?
Then he smiles. “That is past now.” He says, “We leave the mines. And I forget. Everyone forget. That is good. Things change. Things must change. The past gone, future waits. Mom say I am big so I look further into future. That I do now.”
rrin nods. Do not pry into such things. He vows to remind himself, but there is hatred steaming within. Anger at the leader. Repulsion for the mines. And more so for himself. His sin was weakness.
Catelyn’s voice sounds. “We are here!”
And they spill into a moderate-sized chamber. Oval, but enough to hold the full entourage. Enough and more. He first studies the walls, finds them old, rusted. Dark Brown and red. Though the exact age remained elusive.
Catelyn stands before sothing, surrounded by the torchbearers, like guards. Near nacing. Tall too. So towering at two ters, obscuring. So he cuts through them. They notice this and parts. Caelyn turns to him and he sees what she backs.
A round door—tal, bulky. No inscriptions, just the faint dull redness of internal heat. Beside it, fitted on the wall, is a square stone slab. Lines crisscross within it, and round dots are scattered. Writings too. “What?”
“The map.”
rrin looks at it again and realizes nothing. He knows nothing of it and draws no relevance from its depictions. “Where are we going?”
She smiles. “That path where the ri—sweat water flows connects to several…streets.”
“Streets?”
“Yes.” She adds, “There is a chamber with a long spear. ters long.”
“Spear?”
“Sothing of a spire.” She says.
“So long enough to reach the pit.”
“Or at least, enough that screaming brings aid.” Catelyn ets his eyes downward and she waits for a response.
He has none—not at the mont, at least. So he observes the slab—the writings at the edges of it. They are old, most fissured away, but he sees sothing. “This is old tongue, isn’t it?”
Catelyn stays silent a mont, then, “Yes.”
“And that’s how you know where which is which?”
“Am I to bla for my intelligence?”
rrin waves at her, leans away from the slab. “I have no such intention. Just wondering. But…” He says, “Where are we going now?”
She does what he guessed. The ovate door—she points at it. “We need to open it.” Catelyn regards him. “Break it with casting.”
If only
“I think we should take the long way.” rrin says, “The end is the sa.”
She frowns. “What are you not saying?”
No awareness. rrin is piqued. “Hush your words.”
This follows with a scanning of the chamber. After she looks at him. “What is wrong?” Her words are milder now.
Yet, rrin deliberates speaking. Of course, there was a reason for the refusal. The sa one that prompted the original desire to take the familiar paths. He couldn’t. He watches his marred palm; dark lines, bloodied cuts through them. So healed, so fresh.
Countless weaknesses.
That limits him.
Better I show her. He opens his hand, she studies, and the wind spins into a sphere. It blows against his clothes, fluttering. Pain cos. Then it explodes, sending a wave across the chamber. Weak violence. All is perked, and they watch, startled.
Catelyn specifically is bewildered. “What is going on?”
rrin holds his jaw, clenched tightly. Manages. “It hurts. It hurts everywhere.”
“The strain?”
He nods. But knows his words half a lie. Never had casting pained him. There was the weakness of force emptiness, the mud head. But not this. This one is a consequence of his days, fears, and actions. From the fact, the windshield did not protect him from the fall into the undermines, or the many more falls. He was a bludgeoned thing.
But she had no use for that information. So he allows her the sweetness of half knowing. Catelyn waits a mont, stares at the door, clicks tongue, and calls out. “Ron!”
A mont and the giant moves through the cast. He towers over them—even the torchbearers. Maddening. rrin is like a child before him. It is frightening. Though his smile does well to calm the heart.
Catelyn says before him. “We need you to open that.”
“Wait, what?” The words escape rrin. “What are you talking about?”
The door was dark red. A great fla is in the tal. Skin burning.
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