Chapter 46 The utioners Game
Niles
We are forced to watch an execution once a week.
It keeps us in line. It keeps escape attempts to a minimum. It keeps trust from brewing, because too many captives are eager to tattle and receive a sweet treat for their loyalty.
My small friend, Renly, has perfected our routine at this point.
He stays by my side and counts the number of times I tap my forearm with my index finger.
I never actually keep track, but every time I stop and glance down at him, he mouths the number, and I make my best surprised face.
Renly always smiles big, so proud of himself for always counting the right number.
And then when it’s time for our fellow captive to step off the block and hang with a broken neck or long, drawn out strangulation…Renly turns into my arm and hides his face, reciting the nursery rhyme native to his colony so he doesn’t hear the sound of bone snapping.
I do something similar. I go somewhere else.
To a time when Dessin invented a best friend handshake with me for my birthday.
The blatant annoyance on his face can still make me smile to this day.
How he kept glancing at Skylenna for moral support.
I remember the sense of victory when I had to slowly gain his respect and friendship while in that prison.
“It’s over, Mr. Niles,” Renly whispers, tugging on my shirt.
I scan the tall onyx pillars, leafless trees nearby, and the hanging body from the executioner’s block. A man, not much younger than me, with chestnut brown hair, deep smile lines, and kind eyes.
It’s warm day with a lightning storm looming above. Clouds so dark, they could pass for blasts of smoke and ash from an explosion.
“Did you look?” I ask Renly.
He shakes his head.
“Good man.” I pat him on the head. “Now, it’s nearly time for the big finale…”
Renly’s dark brown eyes light up with mischief. He smiles with determination, flashing me his dimples on either cheek.
“The villagers will throw magical rocks at us and yell enchanted spells. What do we do when this happens again?” I inquire.
Renly leans in so the guards won’t hear. “We put on our invisible shields and crouch low in the middle of the crowd, so we don’t get blasted with their magical rocks!”
Somehow, this part is much worse than turning away from the execution.
As we pass the horizon of the East Vexello Mountains, there is a swarm of villagers who wait for us to pass in our dirty gray rags, huddled in a tight group because we all know what’s coming.
How do I explain that to a child? These men and women are going to throw rocks at us now.
Why? Because hurting us, humiliating us, it makes them all very happy.
No, you didn’t do anything wrong. These are just evil, soulless people.
No. I’m going to make a game out of it to distract him.
Funneling through one of the villages, we come close to entering the well-guarded walls of the Blackspire Ward of The North.
But just before we get to the onyx pikes dancing with lit torches, the villagers throw the stones.
Renly and I huddle in the center of the other captives, crouching low as our eardrums are filled with grunts, moans, and shrieks from the downpour of rocks hitting bone.
There’s a group of taller, muscular men and women who rotate every week to form an outer shell around the women, children and elderly.
I offered to take a turn on the outside, but they considered me elderly to which I tried not to take offense at.
Although, I’m grateful now as I can play this sad game with Renly.
He huddles between the mashed, sweaty bodies around us, careful to stay wedged and protected as we shuffle out way past the threshold.
Renly hugs my waist as per our routine. I don’t want him to see the other captives with bloody gashes on their heads or knocked out teeth.
“Did I do good?” Renly mumbles into my shirt.
My throat is tight, but I don’t let him hear that I’m so close to tears, it hurts. So, I nod and say, “Mmm-hmm.”
“You too.”
We’re left alone to ruminate on the previous events of the execution and hateful, bloodthirsty villagers.
It’s their way of letting our new reality sink it.
Not all will we be killed if we try to escape, the villagers might do it for us.
I’ve tried asking why they are so hungry to hurt the men and women in the first place, but the answers are unclear.
“Do you still think someone’s coming to rescue us?” Renly sits in our corner, tugging open a loose brick to snack on a small piece of bread. I told him I’m allergic, so he’d finish the little loaf himself and stop offering it to me.
“I do.”
“Why?”
I smile. The “why” stage was always my favorite when Niklaus was this age. Every explanation I gave always resulted in him asking why again. Marilynn would try to distract him to put a stop to the endless loop of questions. But I loved it. I’d give elaborate answers that would fuel his curiosity.
“Because…it just so happens, I have the strongest, most powerful family in the whole world.” I cross my arms proudly and lean against the wall. “They’d find me across time, Ren Ren.”
“Are they royalty?”
My cheeks warm at the image of Ruth’s pretty face popping into my head. Her upturned little nose and freckles.
“Some of them,” I say.
“Wow! What about the others? Who is most powerful?”
“My sister, I think. Though, it’s arguable the big-headed mastermind, Dessin.”
“Why?” Renly asks with a mouth full of bread.
“Well, my sister, Skylenna, has magical powers. She—hmm, how do I put this? Take that fat warden over there, see him?” I lift my chin to point to the shittiest guard here.
“She could jump into his brain, scramble things around, and lock him up in a dark prison so he can never hurt anyone ever again.”
“You are serious?” Renly gawks at me in wonder and joy.
“Yes. And the mastermind, Dessin? He could outfight any warden here. No one would be able to take him down.”
Except his brother and Masten.
“And what’s your magical power, Mr. Niles?”
“Making them laugh. Being eccentric. Annoying everyone.”
Renly scrunched his nose as he giggles. “You have magical powers too.”
I think on this. “I am very good at picking locks.”
And pockets, but I’ll leave that out.
Renly throws his fist in the air. “Mr. Niles is the most powerful at escaping!”
I bunch my lips to the side, tempted to take on that title, but my old friend would kick my ass for stealing the thing he was known for.
“Actually, big-headed Dessin would take the cake on that one. He is a master escape artist. He used to be locked up in the Emerald Lake Asylum. Escaped loads of times.”
“Oh. Not a good place.” Renly pops his head up, facing falling.
“You know it?” Have they really heard of it from smaller villages in Vexamen?
Renly nods solemnly. “I live next to it.”
My eyes narrow. “What?”
“Right next to the two mountains behind it.”
“Hold on…” I suddenly can’t hear anyone around us having background conversations. “Renly, you’re from the Chandelier City?”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m from the Naiadales.”
“The Emerald Lake ancient colony?”
Renly nods. And abruptly, I realize why his face looks so familiar to me. Why I’ve been drawn to protect him the moment I was thrown in this penitentiary.
“What is your father’s name?”
I hold my breath.
“Rydran.” The young boy looks away sadly. “I think he’ll come for me too.”
The wet leaves he put on my burns. Golden hair braided down his back. Vines and moss covering his dark skin. Rydran. He stayed by my bedside while I recovered. He took care of me and is the entire reason I didn’t go completely insane from the intense pain of those burns.
Rydran told Ruth that one day, I’d help relieve his pain just as much as he’s relieved mine, according to their prophecy.
Renly is Rydran’s little boy, and he’s a captive in fucking Vexamen during its worst, most barbarous years.
“I know your father,” I utter to this sweet, brave boy in disbelief.
“You do?!”
Determination fills my blood in a spike of adrenaline so powerful, nothing on earth could stop me.
“I’m going to get you out of here, Ren Ren. I’m bringing you home to your dad.”