Chapter 20
Eldric
A ll Eldric wanted to do was vomit. Everything he ingested tasted sour and everything he drank settled wrong. It hadn’t hit yet. Not until he saw her sitting upon the northern hill of Athera, looking out upon the road. He knew exactly what she was looking at. Exactly what day it was.
It was her. It was Lorali. The setting of the sun over the western crest marked the anniversary of her parents’ death. When he had taken her to the church and let her go. Failing her in what felt like the most unforgivable way.
The beginning of the end of his temporary time as a guardsman of Athera. As he hit roadblock after roadblock in his investigation, a girl’s voice still ringing in his ears.
The man with the star.
It could have been anyone, it could have been no one. But the glimmer of a truth he now knew reverberated through his bones as those oak doors slammed. He had delivered that girl into the hands of those who’d orchestrated it all. He hadn’t thought it strange, at first, how there was a high cleric practically waiting at the door, the papers ready for him to sign. He had never taken anyone to the Order before. Perhaps that was the way it was done. He didn’t know any better until years later when he took another young child to the Order’s doorstep and the process took longer than he’d expected. When he asked Captain Sorin, he said that Eldric had just been fortunate that someone was awake at that hour the first time.
Only then did he think to investigate further. Uncovering fires that didn’t make sense, illnesses overtaking healthy individuals, accidents claiming the lives of guardians. All the children from these incidents were taken to the Order. A feeling within his very soul knew that they were connected, but there was no proof. No clear connection between them except what happened to the children.
It's the law that young children are to be taken in by the Order, Eldric. There is no grand conspiracy, their commander had told him when he continued to bring case after unsolved case to his desk. Let it die.
And though Captain Sorin also found it strange, he hadn’t fought the order. As he watched one of the most honorable men in the guard fall in line, the realization dawned on him that true change within Athera would not come from the guard. It was then that he and Daeson found each other, the two of them teaming up in hopes of igniting change. A new cause to fight for with a central burning flame.
The memories had Eldric tossing and turning in bed, unable to get comfortable. The truth of what he had done gnawed at his soul as he berated himself.
Why hadn’t he told her the truth—that he was there, that he had failed her?
He knew the answer, deep down. And it made him sick. He didn’t want her to stop looking at him with that tender gaze that made him feel whole. She would associate Eldric Lorecaster with the night everything went wrong.
So, he’d hidden. Like a coward, he hid the truth from her, knowing not only who he was in the puzzle that was her life, but knowing her personnel file sat hidden beneath his mattress and curiosity burned within him to read the rest.
Right alongside their plans for Veridian. When it finally happened and she discovered everything, she would want nothing to do with him. Rightfully so. He was planning to use her to overthrow the Order and claim it was for her sake. To give her a better life than she would ever live within the Order. Undermining her and any semblance of a relationship they may have built, or could ever have. Betraying her trust. She would never forgive him .
He gritted his teeth and smashed his face into the pillow, a scream burning in his throat. Wanting to let out all the rage and anger and fear for what was to come. He cursed the gods who put him here. Athanasios especially, for he must have known it all when he pulled their strings together. It was a cruel fate he had orchestrated. Giving Eldric the best thing in his life, knowing it would be lost when he finally set things right.
So, he did what he shouldn’t have. What he knew in his heart was wrong as he lit the candle at his bedside, pulled the brown envelope with the Order’s broken seal from beneath his mattress, and began to read.