Chapter Twenty One
Pianoforte
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The Base, Dracyg Dominion.
Gedeon.
Kyra was her name. Kyra.
A name that seemed to linger in every corner of his brain since the projection, like a light he just couldn’t put out.
He was quite used to seeing fear shining in the eyes of those who looked upon him, but seeing it reflected in her piercing green gaze…
it had unnerved him in a way he didn’t quite understand.
It had only been a day, but the Earth Warden had not projected to him again, and he was not stupid enough to return the favour. She had bolted before he’d gotten the chance to explain himself. Before he could even suggest that he was not all that she thought him to be.
Or… perhaps he’d wanted to let her believe the worst. Everyone else certainly did, and he could not blame them for it.
Even with the Prince of Fire in their midst, the people of the Base were happy enough.
A small percentage of the inhabitants were now, two weeks after he and Amala had joined them, just about able to look him in the eye.
Those that would not still gave him a wide berth; out of fear, disgust or timidity, Gedeon could never tell.
Still, it did not bother him. His own company was enough to keep him sane… for the time being.
Sunsi, and he supposed her father before her, had imposed strict rules for all who dwelled in the underground city.
Rules that were only in place for the protection of all: a ten o’clock curfew each night to ensure no sound travelled above ground; prohibited magic to all but the healers and runners, (a select group of adept illusionists who risked exposure above ground to ensure supplies did not run low), and no one but those runners were permitted above ground under any circumstances.
Gedeon knew the rules had ensured their survival. But the longer he stayed, the longer he began to feel that Sunsi had been right; they could not stay here forever. Some of the older inhabitants had not seen the sun in decades. Laori included.
The sentry captain’s visits to the Base were scarce. Her commitment to the sentry order took most, if not all of her time. Gedeon had seen her only once since she released him from his temporary confinement in the cell-room. Days trickled past where she would not show her face at all.
In her absence, a man by the name Rogeron acted as Base leader.
His blindness in one eye did nothing to alter his intimidating appearance and demeanour; bald-headed and built like he was chiselled from rock, Rogeron had escaped the slave camps in the Agni Lands and lived to tell the tale.
Gedeon had never heard the story himself, but he was sure there was a good reason the old man was idolised by most in the Base.
‘How is your wound?’ Sunsi said by way of greeting some days after their last encounter, breaking him from his reverie. She had found him, eating alone as usual, on the back table of the rotunda.
‘Completely healed,’ Gedeon said, and pulled back his shirt to reveal a short pink scar beneath. ‘The pain is gone, and though Darelle found an antidote to the poison the Eternal’s arrow was tipped with, the scar will remain.’
Sunsi nodded approvingly as she sat in front of him. ‘A small price to pay. Were you human, a scar would be the least of your worries.’
‘Indeed,’ Gedeon mused.
‘And your magic?’ she asked, fractionally lowering her voice.
‘Unchanged.’ Bitter resentment flooded through him at the thought.
The impediment his dear brother had accursed him with could not be removed even by Darelle’s adept hands.
She was a great healer for physical injuries and maladies alike, but magical wounds were, unfortunately for Gedeon, far out of her depth.
Sunsi was quiet, seemingly lost in thought.
‘What is it?’ Gedeon prompted.
She looked up at him, and he noticed it then. The dark circles underneath her eyes. As though she hadn’t slept in days. ‘The bounty for your capture has increased,’ she murmured. ‘Ten thousand gold coins to the person who brings you in alive.’
Ten thousand gold coins. That amount was… extortionate. More than most of Dracyg’s citizens had put together. ‘Are you tempted?’
Her mouth twitched. ‘Would you be insulted if I was?’
‘Yes,’ he replied honestly. ‘But not surprised.’
‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’
‘Do you trust me?’ he countered.
‘Are you going to find the other Wardens?’
Gedeon leant back, resting his hands on the table. He had the feeling she had only come down to the Base to ask him that question. He said shortly, ‘I am.’
It was not a decision he had come to lightly these last two weeks. His mother’s betrayal cut deep, and yet he still found himself reluctant to oppose her. He had never been the insubordinate type. Never disloyal, never undutiful.
But Sunsi had shown him another world down here. That same world, the one seen and endured from his own people, was up there too. One he had been too blinded by duty, by honour, to see.
‘Truly?’ Sunsi asked, and for the first time, she sounded young. Much younger than her thirty and five years. A dash of hope began glittering in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ he promised her. Promised himself. Promised the downtrodden people of his lands. ‘I will do what I can.’
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How the Base citizens had managed to get a pianoforte underground, Gedeon would never know.
Since he had found the old, shabby instrument collecting dust in a deserted antechamber off of the rotunda, it had been difficult to leave it alone.
Amala had gotten into the habit of following him whenever he felt called to play, sitting quietly by his side as his fingers swept over the keys.
‘Play another, Master Gedeon,’ she begged him.
‘I am no longer your Master, Amala. Just Gedeon will do.’
‘Gedeon,’ the fledgling repeated, then made a face. ‘It does not sound right.’
‘Regardless, the title of master no longer belongs to me.’
‘What about prince?’ Amala offered. ‘My friends call you the Prince of Fire.’
‘I fear I no longer belong to that title either,’ Gedeon said.
With the attention span of a fish, Amala referred back to her previous interest. ‘Will you play another? I have not heard much music since I came to the capital.’
He obliged her, letting his fingers rest once more on the keys before him. It was in desperate need of a retune, but he found a sort of peace in the harmonious noise his hands could create. Even if his skill was about as rusty and worn as the instrument itself.
Amala could not have cared less. She listened intently as though tranced, still and captivated by the minor melody he played. He had chosen it carefully: an aria belonging to her people in the Agni lands that moved up and down the scale like the rise and fall of the dragons’ Peak.
When his fingers slowed and the song concluded, she was subdued at his side. Glistening tears sat in her brown eyes. ‘I will never see my family again.’
‘Nothing is for certain, Amala,’ Gedeon told her. ‘That is something I have learned in the last few weeks alone.’
‘Do you miss your family?’
His family had wanted him to kill the fledgling girl without a second thought. Yet she did not ask out of spite, but gentle curiosity. ‘To miss them would be to regret my actions. That of which I don’t,’ Gedeon said, and the truth behind the statement surprised even him.
But Amala was not surprised. ‘I think my father would have liked you.’
Gedeon did not know what to say to that.
‘They told me I would find you here.’
Both prince and fledgling looked up to see Sunsi standing in the doorway.
It had been only three days since her last visit, but the change to her physical appearance was quite concerning.
Her cheekbones were more prominent, her uniform did not fit as well as it had done.
The bags that had begun under her eyes were darker, her eyelids heavy and slow.
‘Amala, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with Gedeon alone,’ Sunsi said with a kind but tight smile.
Hopping from the stool immediately, Amala looked back at Gedeon before departing. ‘If you teach me how to play, can I still call you Master Gedeon?’
Gedeon smirked, but would not make a promise he would not be able to keep. ‘Perhaps.’
It was good enough for the fledgling, and she bounded away with her two braids swinging happily behind her.
‘I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,’ Gedeon said to Sunsi as he closed the pianoforte lid.
As if to make sure they would not be overheard, Sunsi peered down the hallway. Slowly, she closed the door behind her, then leant against it. ‘It’s gotten worse,’ she whispered. ‘So much worse.’
‘Has the bounty increased again?’
‘Every citizen is being forced to submit themselves for questioning. From dawn until dusk. It began yesterday. She’s…
she’s angry. I think… somehow… she knows you are still in the city.
’ She rubbed at her eyes, and the skin reddened with the friction.
‘There have been killings. The crown prince is executing anyone the Empress deems is a liar. My own sentries are amongst the dead. Demonstrations to make us work harder. Look harder.’
Gedeon’s throat tightened.
‘Of course, they won’t find you,’ Sunsi said quickly, reassuringly, as though she mistook his silence as fear for his own life.
They had not been intimate in a long time. Nor did he harbour any true romantic feelings for her… but he cared a great deal about her welfare. If her life was in danger because of him-
‘Gedeon.’
He looked up at the sound of his name on her lips. Not fierce nor reproachful like she had been since their time in the Base together, but soft-spoken. ‘I know what it is I’m asking of you,’ she said. ‘I know what you are giving up. I just… I need you to know that I understand.’
He had never seen her like this. So open, so vulnerable.
But despite the slight tremble of her bottom lip, there was hard resolution in her hazel gaze.
‘I don’t know how much longer I have left before I too am condemned to the executioner's block. I’m running out of time.
I need to know for sure that a better world is coming.
That these people will not be left here forever with no chance. No hope.’
Gedeon understood then. That her fear was not for losing her own life, but for leaving the Base without a leader.
‘My decision has been made, Sunsi. I am with you.’
‘Good,’ she breathed. ‘Because the preparations have been made. You leave tonight for Nythanor.’