Chapter 15
Fifteen
Avalon
The Baron of the Eighth Line wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I knew he was younger than most of the other Barons, having come into his Barony in the last few years. I remembered my father grumbling about him after his first Conclave.
I hadn’t realized he was quite this young, though.
He couldn’t have been more than his mid-thirties.
His skin was golden, but different to Lierick’s natural tawny complexion.
Baron Tarrin—I huffed an internal laugh—had the tan of a person who spent all their hours outside, getting slowly toasted by the sun.
He had soft lines beside his eyes, like he spent time squinting down the length of an arrow or laughing with loved ones.
His hair was dark brown, the soft streaks of gray at his temple the only thing really aging him. He had a short, dark beard clipped close across his square jaw, and his brows were full and straight.
He was also undeniably handsome. The guys should have warned me, so I didn’t blush like a virgin milkmaid.
He seemed calm, though, like Lines rose from the dead every single day.
He was taking it better than I had, anyway.
“The very act of speaking to you right now would be considered treasonous in some circles,” he said lightly.
“I’m aware of the plight of my neighbors.
The Eighth Line is assisting them to the best of our capabilities. ”
Lierick gave him a fiery expression. “But you could do more. We could do more. And it isn’t really treasonous.”
Yet.
“We just need a path through the Westwoods to deliver aid to the Eleventh and Twelfth Baronies without having to go through… more official channels.”
“You want to smuggle food to them,” Baron Tarrin corrected.
I cleared my throat. “It’s not smuggling if it isn’t forbidden, right? There’s no law against it. No forms that need to be filled out, or bureaucrats who need to be informed. We’re just, uh, sharing our lunch with friends, Baron.”
He turned his eyes to me. Under his gaze, I felt like I was a bumbling idiot.
An inexperienced child. It was humbling, to say the least. “Please, call me Zier,” he said softly.
“I understand what you’re trying to do, but excuse me if I don’t believe that the Second Line has resurrected itself to come to the aid of others.
” When Lierick opened his mouth to argue, Zier raised a hand.
“I’m not besmirching the honor of your Line, Heir Hanovan.
” He seemed to choke out the title. “Merely suggesting that this humanitarian crusade is a symptom, not the cause of your Line showing itself after two hundred-odd years. The Lower Lines of Ebrus have had greater disasters, for which you’ve stayed hidden away. So why now?”
Lierick licked his lip. “We want to return to our place in Ebrus. Have a place in the Conclave.” He paused. “We want to cut out the rot from the Upper Lines, starting with the Baron of the First Line.”
Zier gave a single nod. “I see. And who would you raise in his place? Or would the Second Line become the new First Line? Would I be helping to topple a dictator, only to put a new one in his place?” Zier’s tone was flat, but there was no malice in it.
“No offense, but I don’t know the Second Line.
I don’t know what your leadership is like, I don’t know your Baron, your people, your methods.
It would be foolish to help you topple the devil we know for a ghost of the past.”
Shaking his head, Lierick stepped forward. “We don’t want the First Line’s place. We just want what is rightfully ours returned.”
“So you take down Feodore Vylan, and then what? Raise Yaron in his place? The son is no better than the father. None of the Vylans are anything more than hedonistic sadists.”
I shook my head vehemently. “That’s not true. Vox Vylan is nothing like his father or brother. He’s nothing like any of them. He could step up in their place.” He’d hate it, but I knew he’d do it, if he had to.
“He’s too young,” Zier argued.
I could understand his reservations as a person looking at the situation from the outside. Vox was young in years, but living in Fortaare, under his father’s rule, had given him experience far beyond others his age.
Shaking his head, Zier slumped back into his office chair.
“I understand what you’re trying to do, and unofficially, you have my support.
But I won’t risk my people in a coup that can’t possibly work without an army far bigger than any of us could raise.
Feodore Vylan not only holds the Dawn Army in the palm of his hand, but most of the Upper Six Lines.
We would be battling against a national army filled with our kin, and the private armies of people with far more magic than most of us possess. It’s suicide.”
Lierick pressed. “Is it not better to die fighting than bending the knee to a dictator?”
Zier huffed, shaking his head. “Said like a boy who doesn’t know what it’s like to fight every day for survival. The Lower Lines are powerless, and most are starving. You’re asking them to walk into their own graves.”
The silence around the room was heavy, until Lierick replied solemnly, “We have a plan, Baron. More than that, our success is written in the stars. I promise you that. But I’m not looking to bolster an army today.
All we want is to be able to run supplies through your woods to the borders at the Dragon’s Tooth, and a few of your locals to move the goods.
” The Dragon’s Tooth was a small triangle where all three borders connected, right at the head of the Dragonspire Mountains.
“If you aren’t willing to risk even that, I’d ask you just look the other way,” Lierick added.
His square jaw flexing, Zier was silent for a moment longer. Finally, he nodded. “If you can get the goods to the shores of my Barony, we can get them to the Dragon’s Tooth.”
“Thank you,” Lierick said softly. He reached out a hand, and Zier took it. I could almost feel the bands of fate wrap around us as the agreement was sealed.
Then Zier reached toward me too, and I hesitantly placed a hand in his. It was rough and calloused, his fingers long and strong like an archer, encompassing mine completely. I looked up into those dark brown eyes. “Thank you,” I repeated.
He frowned and released my hand. The skin of my palm tingled, and I wanted to wipe it on the leg of my pants, or shake it out or something, but I also didn’t want to offend the man who’d just given us a way to help my friends.
Zier stared down at me. He was quite tall and broad, and reminded me of an oak tree—unmovable and protecting those who sheltered beneath its boughs.
Then he smiled. “Dangerous indeed,” he chuckled in a low voice, and I tried not to swoon. Clearing his throat, he indicated the chairs. “Please, have a seat and we’ll talk through logistics before the arrival banquet. After that, there’ll be too many eyes and ears for this kind of conversation.”
I cleared my throat and sat down in the hand-carved wooden chair on the other side of his desk. Lierick pulled his own seat closer to mine, and I felt grounded by his presence. What the hell was wrong with me?
As they spoke around me, I tried to push down the frisson of attraction that buzzed through my veins. I had Vox and Hayle, so why was I suddenly as horny as a stable boy who’d just discovered greasing his palm with lard?
Shaking my head, I concentrated on the conversation around me. Lierick was not for me, and Zier Tarrin was really, really off limits.
And that was that.
We slipped back out of the manor house an hour later with a promise from the Baron and a coordinated dropzone in a hidden cove at the south end of Eaglehoth. In the hour we were gone, dozens more people had arrived in the square, and several boats floated just off shore at the Port of Eaglehoth.
“Avalon!”
I turned, looking for the source of the voice. It couldn’t be, right? There wouldn’t have been time for…
“Avalon!” The crowds down by the docks parted, and a smiling face I knew as well as my own appeared.
“Bach?” Just over his shoulder was another face, a near-perfect reflection of mine. “Kian?” I whispered their names. It felt like forever since I’d seen them. My brothers. “Bach! Kian!” I began to run. I’d missed them so much.
I dodged around people, Braxus on my heels, hearing Lierick call out, but he could catch up. Bach ran to me, his arms out wide, and as I leaped into them, I had to choke back tears. Wrapping my arms tightly around Bach’s neck, I breathed in the scent of him. The scent of home.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
I was snatched from Bach’s arms as Kian gathered me into his own.
He held me less tightly than my middle brother; instead, he held me like I was precious.
He always had. Like he knew how close he’d come to losing me.
“We’ve missed you too, Avalon. Rewill isn’t the same without you.
” He pulled back, and I could see him taking stock of me.
Assessing me for injuries, both mental and physical.
I squeezed him close once more. “I’m okay, Ki. I promise. I have so much to tell you, though.”
Kian’s gaze moved over my shoulder, and I realized Lierick stood behind me. I stepped out of Kian’s grip and moved to the side. “Kian, Bach, this is Lierick. My… friend from Boellium. Lierick, these are my brothers, Bach and Kian Halhed, Heirs to the Ninth Line.”
Bach was giving me a shit-eating expression. “Friend, huh?” he muttered from the side of his mouth, and I kicked his shin.
“Stop,” I hissed. All at once, I was a kid again, wrestling with Bach while he hid me from Father. They’d always made hiding seem like something fun, rather than a life-or-death course of action. “I didn’t think you’d be here. I thought it would take too long to get from Rewill to Eaglehoth.”
Kian raised an eyebrow, one corner of his mouth turning up. “We were personally invited by the Third Line. We came aboard their ship, as their guests.”
Hayle Taeme, that sweet bastard. I was going to kiss him until he saw stars, the next time I saw him.
I shoved Bach in the direction of the tent where he had to register. “You have to get registered there. I don’t want you to miss out.” I hesitated, then hugged him once more. “It’s so good to see you.”
Bach gave me that lopsided smile that was never far from his face. “You too.”
Unlike Kian and myself, Bach had always been a sunshine kid. He’d found the bright side of most situations, no matter how dire, how tragic. Kian might have kept me safe, but Bach had kept me sane. He hustled to the tent, the queue now a lot shorter. I watched him go, my heart feeling full.
“He hasn’t stopped talking since we boarded that ship. I was worried the Baron of the Third Line was going to throw him overboard,” Kian muttered fondly.
I raised my brows. “The Baron is here?”
Kian nodded, hiking his rucksack up his shoulder. “Yes. Came to see his son compete, he said. He seems like a good man. A good father.”
Unlike ours. Kian didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. “How is Father?”
He shrugged. “The doctor says he has a disease of the liver. The whites of his eyes are now the color of pus.”
“He’s dying?”
The words hung between us. I didn’t feel anything for the man who’d made my life miserable, but I always felt as if it was somehow my fault that he was a failure as a Baron and a father.
When Mother had died, both of our parents as we knew them had perished.
The man Kian had loved, who he’d hero-worshiped, had basically been buried the same day as our mother.
He’d lost both parents, while I’d never really had either.
I wasn’t sure which of us had it worse.
“Perhaps.”
Squeezing his forearm, I let the subject of our father drop. He had no space here. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat. You must be starving.”
Kian’s lips curled in a crooked smile. “You look good, Avalon. Happier.”
I was happier, despite the fact I got my butt kicked every day in the training ring, and for the first month, I’d felt like my body was going to give out if I had to climb the stairs one more time.
“I’m free,” I told him, and he nodded. No one else ever understood me like Kian.
He’d taken over so much responsibility for me that he was sometimes more of a father than an older brother.
But what I never doubted, no matter how many times Father beat me black and blue—or beat Kian for standing between him and the source of his anger—was how much my brother loved me.
I swallowed hard. “We need to talk later, somewhere more private.”
Patting the top of my head like I was a toddler, he nodded. “Of course, kid,” he said softly. “Let’s eat.”