Chapter 5
Five
Kieran
My pulse beats out a ferocious rhythm, echoing inside my skull, too loud to be ignored.
Wincing, I squeeze my thighs when Mozi twists to the left to avoid another swipe of Omram’s wing. This one is even less casually cruel than the first.
“Kieran.” General Roman Ryson flashes his signature grimace and the creased tawny skin around his eyes pulls tight. “I should not have to clean up your mess.”
Head lowered, I bite down on my tongue until pain flickers, keeping the words to myself. I wince against the tirade he’ll surely liberate on me.
There is no such thing as trading quiet words with my father.
“Do you see? You left me no choice but to intercede. You were holding yourself back.”
The accusation lands true. I was holding myself back.
It’s part of the reason why silence is my only recourse.
The General will soon tire of the one-sided conversation, once he’s spent his frustration and found me a willing subject.
We’ve been through these motions more times than I can begin to count.
Ryson rests his scarred hand on the glistening gem at the pommel of his sword and stares me down.
The heat of his attention burns a circular hole at the top of my head, forcing me to at last raise my gaze to meet his.
His shaggy eyebrows are drawn together and his face a picture of how I’ll look when I reach middle age.
I hate him.
I respect him.
It’s a terrible combination especially when begrudging love is in there, somewhere. It’s a love he doesn’t deserve.
“There is no going back to the way things were. We must do what we can to chart a new course for Manifest. We have a monarchy to protect.”
He’s too far away to grab me, but I feel his fingers regardless, finding the weak spots in my aching muscles and digging deeper.
I stare in my father’s eyes, and my throat closes a little further. “This is not just about our namesake and reputation, but for the good of the entire kingdom.”
His attention drops to the land below, and Omram releases a dull growl, caught between his teeth. A low roll of thunder rolls in the distance. Rain will follow, and I prepare for the first cold bite of water, wincing against it.
“You will be on cleanup duty,” he tells me with a certain degree of relish, his black eyes glowing. “A punishment, my son, for not killing enough unicorns.”
“What did you want me to do?” I blurt out, anger getting the better of me. “Personally slaughter every single unicorn?”
“Why not?” He shrugs, unbothered. “I did.”
“You were on the back of your dragon.”
My body screams from the effort of keeping my words contained, like bile, churning and burning and clawing to escape my throat and into my mouth.
“There are more traitors to the crown out there.” Ryson peels his gaze from the ground and shoots it at me.
There is only disappointment, resignation, and contempt in this gaze. Somehow, it’s much worse than his anger. I know what happens when Ryson gets angry, although he is a cool and freezing snow compared to Omram’s blistering inferno.
My father’s wrath waits for the perfect moment to chill you to the bone, and somehow, today, I’m not able to brace hard enough for it.
I pull Mozi away from Ryson and his dragon.
“Find them. Kill them if they fight you but take them prisoner if you can. It will serve a twofold purpose.”
“Which is?” I bite.
“It will show any other village considering revolt what happens to those left alive. Death is a mercy compared to what we will do with those punished with their life. It is not sparing them, it’s damning them. They will yield to the kingdom, or they will suffer.”
I can’t look at him anymore. I bite the inside of my lip and break eye contact first.
“I expect to see you actually do your duty this time,” Ryson calls out into the wind when I fly off.
That’s the only thing I do these days. Duty. Duty pelts me like a constant storm overhead and there is no escape.
Seems your father is in a good mood today, Mozi says in my head.
I grip him tighter. Charming man, isn’t he?
He’s always been a deadly sort. There is nothing soft about Roman Ryson and the only pleasure he gets is during these skirmishes.
I brace myself for Mozi landing and slip forward along his neck when he makes contact with the forest floor, his claws flexing and digging into the dirt.
Charming and ruthless. I’d like to say his attitude is dull and predictable but he continues to find ways to surprise me.
You’re not surprised about the direction we’ve been given today. I bend to loosen the straps keeping me to the saddle and by the time I land, I’m stiff everywhere.
Given the rush in my head, the tensing of Mozi’s legs and the grimace showing fangs, we share the same sensation.
I pat him on the shoulder before stepping out into a wind that should have been sweet but hits me like a bitter slap across the face.
I knew we’d be punished no matter what the outcome of the fight, Mozi agrees.
The trees in the old wood creak in the invisible breeze and their leaves shiver in our presence. It’s not the strangest backdrop we’ve had to a conversation regarding punishment but it’s certainly one of the most beautiful.
Just another part of our world tainted by power.
My back straightens. If you’re right, there will be many more than just Fallkirk and its forests and secrets.
Mozi’s smile flashes in my head. I am always right.
The wooded area off the charred grassland boasts staggeringly tall trees and a few rock formations with plenty of space between them. The hills roll gently upward toward the crest of the mountain with sporadic dots of granite crags.
Sunlight dapples the lush grass and moss underfoot. The fairy tale purity of the forest darkens under the taint of smoke and charred meat lingering in the air.
Alarm crashes into me when Omram lands as well. His bulk mangles the trees around us, large enough for only his leg and part of his torso to be visible at this angle. It takes way too long for my brain to catch up to what’s happening in front of me.
“Well?” I call to my father.
Ryson pauses, waiting for me to erupt against him, to chafe at the idea of being sent to look for survivors. My earlier explosion was a one off, and I’m back to silence, my teeth finding the grooves in my tongue from before.
“Your cousin will go with you. I don’t trust you by yourself, son.” Ryson lifts an armor-covered arm to gesture for my blond, brutish cousin to step through the trees where he’d been listening.
Tristan smirks, stepping up into the light and staring at the woods like everything is beneath him. There is nothing but disdain in his pitiless blue eyes.
Is he being punished too?
“I didn’t realize I needed a watchdog,” I say, forgetting to disguise my scorn.
Ryson perches in half light, half shadow. “Round them up. Do your duty.”
Once my cousin and I stand shoulder to shoulder, the General takes off.
“Poor little Kieran,” Tristan coos the moment my father is out of sight. “It’s almost worse than being bent over his knee. Isn’t it? You’re saddled with the repercussions of your failures.”
I don’t spare him a glance before taking off around the low limbs of a maple tree. “You’re here, too.”
I shouldn’t have to remind him.
“Yes, but I’m here by choice. I asked to be assigned to you.”
I scowl over at him. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t wait to see the look on your face.”
“How wonderful,” I say through tight lips.
Tristan is General Ryson’s first in command instead of me, the son of my father’s late brother.
At first glance, the only marked difference between Tristan and me is our hair color.
He is fair and golden like the sun kissed and blessed him, while I’ve been scolded for bringing gloom to match my dark strands.
The discarded first born, marked and dismissed for having heart.
I shoot my cousin an empty smile.
Today, in lieu of regular armor, Tristan wears a half cloak fastened with a holster strapped across his bulky chest. His trousers are high waisted and held in place with a thick belt hiding a number of weapons and vials of poison.
His specialty.
Why look your enemy in the eyes to kill them when you can accomplish the same thing when their backs are turned? Too many people have gone down against Tristan, frothing at the mouth, unaware that their wine had soured with an added ingredient.
His bandy-legged stride is as much a boast as the set of his shoulders or the unhidden ego in those blue eyes. Golden hair falls casually across a face of chiseled angles.
The golden boy.
He might as well be General Ryson’s son instead of me. Life comes easily to Tristan. I’m just the son of one of the man’s spoils of war, foisted on him.
My mother had been Roman Ryson’s first, back when he might have had a shred of decency left to his name. Or maybe he’d been born with something wrong in him. He’d taken my mother captive, the only one of her village, and dragged her back to his family’s castle with him.
She raised me, taught me who my father really is, and showed me the truth about the cities and the villages left in ruin in his wake. Maybe her knowledge made a mark on me.
Maybe Tristan would have benefitted from such an education. Instead, his father took a heavy hand in the boy’s rearing, and left us with this hulking beast of a man, uncontrollable and contemptuous.
Several others join us on the hunt on silent feet and I glance at Tristan from the corner of my eye.
He’s staring at me full on, his lips twisted in a pout.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” he asks. “After all, hunting for survivors means killing the injured and finding those who are healthy enough to be sold.”
He puts special emphasis on the last word.
“Your father explained it to you, didn’t he?”
I stare straight ahead. “He did.”
“Nothing more than cattle, really. That should make it easier for you to do your job, Kieran, really. It’s a mercy to ship them off this way. The kingdom gains hard workers doing something useful and productive for the crown, rather than—”