Chapter 17
Seventeen
Avalon
Iavoided the gaze of the citizens of Rewill as we followed along behind Edgar.
He was Father’s Captain of the Guard—as cruel as my father and twice as cunning.
He tended to use his position to kick around others weaker than him, and had earned his position not by strength or skill, but by good old-fashioned favoritism.
It meant that none of the other soldiers had a particular love for him, especially the younger generation, who were far more loyal to my brothers than to my father.
Like Ren, who was Bach’s best friend. He’d mouthed at me to leave, but I couldn’t just turn tail and run. Not when Edgar would happily chase me down like a wayward child. Not when it would send Hayle into a fury.
It was definitely better if we got this over and done with. Let them realize I wasn’t the Avalon they once knew. I was the chosen of the fucking Goddess. I was the Soul Tie of a powerful Heir, and the lover of two more. I wasn’t some abused child anymore.
I held my head high as we walked up the packed dirt road toward the manor. Back when I was a child, I’d thought this was the largest building in all of Ebrus. That I could get lost in its halls, and no one would be able to find me.
But now that I’d seen more of Ebrus, I saw this for what it really was: a ramshackle building that had probably once been grand, but had been left to rot by my father. There were no guards on the steps. The only guards the Ninth Line employed were currently surrounding me.
Bach met us in the hallway. “I’ll take her from here, Edgar. You’re dismissed.”
“Heir—” Edgar tried to protest, but my brother stood taller.
“I said. You. Are. Dismissed.”
I’d never seen Bach like this. My jovial brother was gone, and in his place was a man with authority. Edgar gritted his teeth as he left, the rest of the soldiers going with him. A look passed between Ren and Bach, but soon enough, the doors closed with a heavy crack.
Bach turned to me and hugged me tight. “It’s good to see you, Avie.”
I huffed. “Kian said Father was away?”
Bach’s nose scrunched. “He turned up about thirty minutes after Kian left. I think he was waiting for him to leave.” He shook his head. “I was hoping Ren could get to you before you made it here, but you were faster than I expected. I've got a bad feeling about this.”
That made two of us. Hayle stepped up and held my hand as we walked to my father’s office. Lierick and Iker hadn’t said anything, happy to play Hayle’s bodyguards for the moment. Bach pushed open the door, his eyes flashing as he took in the Baron, drink already in hand.
I couldn’t even remember a time when my father hadn’t had a drink in his hand, or within arm’s reach, at least.
“Avalon.” His voice was the same. Rough, and filled with disdain.
“Father.”
“What are you doing here?” It was clear that he’d thought sending me off to Boellium War College as their conscript would be a death sentence. It was obvious he’d never thought I’d return.
So I smirked at him, because he used to be my boogeyman. My big, bad wolf. And now I saw him for what he was: a frail old man with yellowing skin from years of being at the bottom of an ale glass. “Are you not happy to see me?”
He curled his lip at me, his gums gray and his teeth stained. “Don’t be stupid, Avalon. No one is happy to see a murderer.”
I flinched, and Hayle stepped forward, the low rumble in his chest promising violence.
My father gave him an annoyed look. “I’d run if I were you, Heir Taeme. She is like a death sentence to anything that loves her. Luckily, my wife was the last person who could ever love such a monster.”
Untrue. Untrue. Untrue. I repeated it over and over in my head, even though his words hurt me, as they always did.
Kian loved me. Bach loved me. Now Vox loved me, and Hayle would lay down his life for mine—that was how deeply he felt. Lierick… He definitely felt something for me.
Stiffening my spine, I glared at the old man. “It’s fortunate then, Father, that no one is left to love you either. You’re safe from my wicked clutches. I wonder who’ll stand at your funeral? Because it won’t be any of your progeny, of that I’m certain.”
Hayle stepped forward, getting into my father’s space. Roman Halhed had been a tall, broad man once upon a time, but self-pity and illness had shrunken him like a dried husk, and now Hayle loomed over him. “I love your daughter. She will be my wife, and she will never have to see your face again.”
Roman Halhed rolled his eyes. “Always so dramatic, this generation.” He waved a hand. “Get out of my sight. Why don’t you show your fiancé to your bedroom? Let’s see how the Third Line Heir enjoys how the Lower Six live, before he commits to a life with a murderess.”
Hayle launched at him, but Iker and Lierick caught him quickly. Gripping his hands, I dragged Hayle from the room. “Always a pleasure, Father. Perhaps next time I visit, we can skip these tender bonding moments?”
I moved down the hall toward the stairs, resisting the urge to creep up them. Instead, I stomped, so my father had no doubt about my presence. I looked over at Bach. “That was relatively painless.”
Bach smiled as we came to the first-floor landing. “I think having the hulking Heir to the Third Line staring death at him reminded him of his place.” He laughed, more like the brother I knew. “I’m getting Cook to make your favorite for dinner. Come and eat in our wing?”
Kian and Bach had always shared the eastern wing of the manor, and it was more of a home than any of the grand rooms in this crumbling hovel.
Smiling, I hugged my brother again. “I’d love that.”
I led the guys down the hall to another set of stairs, hidden by a thick door.
These narrow steps held a lot of memories, both good and bad.
Sometimes, when I was little and had been banished to the attic, I’d sat on the bottom step and listened to the sounds of the household I couldn’t enjoy.
I had run up these stairs with joy, and crawled up them battered and broken.
“You’re breaking my heart,” Lierick whispered, his hand stroking down my spine.
I stepped onto the landing of my attic room, the guys following closely behind. It looked as I remembered it, but with more dust. Except for the bed. Has someone been sleeping in it? A chill crept down my spine as I walked across the threadbare rug toward it.
Lierick’s shouted, “Wait!” was too late. Wards at the edges of the room slammed down, and it was like the magic in the room got sucked down into a vacuum.
Fuck. My eyes flew around the space, and it wasn’t until I looked up that I saw tals embedded in the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, turning it into a prison. There were tals against the First, Second and Third Lines, rendering Lierick, Iker, and Hayle without their magic in here.
I stared hard at the last one, its magic familiar but wrong.
Lierick appeared. “Take us back. We’ll kill him now, like he deserves.”
I closed my eyes, reaching into my chest for that magical reservoir Lierick taught me to find. But it wasn’t there. It was gone, or hidden away. My eyes flew open, and they could see my panic.
“I wouldn’t bother.” My father was watching us from the doorway.
“The storerooms below this building had many treasures, some worth more than others. Some I didn’t even know the value of, until someone enlightened me.
When your neighbors were historically the two most powerful Lines in Ebrus history, it paid well to invest in some powerful tals.
I should be thankful to my ancestors, I guess.
They even had ones that inhibited our own Line, especially the women.
Everyone knew the females of the Halhed Line went crazy—or so your grandfather told me.
However, the stores held some interesting tomes about the females of the Ninth Line that I found very… enlightening.”
He knew. He knew about my power.
“Why?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “Why do anything? Money and power. And Feodore Vylan has a lot of both. I’m sure he’ll be upset that he won’t have his precious son, but he did suggest that the rest of his party would be sufficient.
Wait until I tell him what you can really do.
His very own Recreationist. I’m almost glad Boellium didn’t kill you on your first day. ” He snorted. “Almost.”
Hayle ran at him, but whatever warding was on the doorway repelled him right back into the room with so much force, it knocked him out cold. “Hayle!”
My father laughed, a cruel, awful sound. “I don’t think the Baron of the First Line will have to wait long. By all accounts, his Heir pants around after you like a stray dog.” He looked down at Hayle. “No offense. He’ll be around sooner or later, and then his own Baron can take care of it.”
I was shaking with fear and rage and panic. “Kian and Bach won’t stand for this.”
My father’s face finally contorted into something ugly. “Fucking disappointments. Don’t worry about your brothers, Avalon. I don’t need two Heirs anyway, and by the time Kian returns, it’ll be just in time to plan his brother’s funeral. So sad you couldn’t stay to attend.”
With that, he slammed the door again, and I trembled. We’d walked into a trap. I’d been cocky and complacent, thinking I’d conquered bigger monsters. I’d forgotten the monster who knew me the best, who knew my weaknesses, my history.
I tried to find that magical well once more, but there was nothing. I knelt beside Hayle as he blinked his eyes open.
“Are you okay?” My voice sounded small—the effect my father had always had on me.
Hayle lifted a hand to the back of his head.
“I’m fine, Avie.” His fingers came away with blood, and I held back a sob.
“I can’t contact Alucius or Quarry. I can’t even speak to Braxus.
” He looked at the hound near his feet sadly.
Braxus whined and nudged his hand, and I couldn’t imagine how bereft they’d feel, losing that connection.
Lierick shook his head. “I didn’t see any of this in his thoughts. They were hazy and opaque, but I assumed it was the liquor. I’ve failed you both. I’m sorry.”
Iker was looking at the walls and windows, standing on a chair to get a closer look at the talismans embedded in the ceiling.
They ran along the support beams of the ceiling.
“They are embedded deep into the foundation of this beam. If we hack them out, it’ll bring the whole roof down on top of us. ”
I couldn’t believe we were trapped here, in my childhood hell, and by my father, of all people.
How long had he been plotting this with Feodore Vylan, a man he’d called a psycho on more than one occasion?
When had he, who’d made my life so miserable for “murdering” my mother, decided that killing the majority of his children was an acceptable solution?
Hayle moved to sit on the tiny pallet on the floor that had once been my childhood bed, tugging me over to settle me between his thighs.
“Don’t worry, Avie. Vox is still out there, and if there’s anyone who could outcunning your father—with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back—it’s Vox motherfucking Vylan. He’ll figure it out.”
Vox was oblivious right now, though. As was Bach. I had to warn them both.
My father had obviously planned this out, as those talismans in my ceiling were new.
There were no windows or weak spots in this tiny prison, and I was fairly sure the whole thing would be warded against us leaving, much like the door.
There were only air vents, the same ones I used to look through to see the stars late at night as a five-year-old.
Someone had given my father a powerful tal to keep us in, and there were no prizes in guessing who.
But my father had always been blinded by himself. By his pain, or in this case, by his own perceived cunning. Because I had one extremely non-magical ace up my sleeve. Literally.
Epsy climbed from the sleeve of my jacket, where he’d been huddling against the cold. I walked over to the air vent and held him up to it. “Every single hope we have rests on you now, Epsy. Find Vox and Alucius. Warn them, somehow.”
My eyes snagged on a piece of blue silk. It was the last gift my mother had given me: a tiny blue ribbon to tie back my hair. I’d been wearing it when she died, and my brother had kept it, tying it around my chair back where it had stayed for my entire life.
Pulling at the bow, I tied it around Epsy’s paw. “If you see either of my brothers, give them this. They’ll know what it means.”
And hopefully, they’d know that it meant to run, that our father’s madness had gone further than we could ever expect. And if they wouldn’t run, at least they’d know where I was.
Epsy reached up, his tiny paws on my cheekbones, and gently nipped the tip of my nose in farewell. As he scurried out the air vent and onto the roof, I prayed to the Goddess to keep him safe.
Lierick’s jaw was tense. “Now we wait.”
Wait, and hope that Epsy found Bach before my father had him killed. That he found Vox before Feodore Vylan arrived in Rewill for the first time ever. That they got us the fuck out of here before I was dragged to Fortaare on a golden leash.