Chapter Thirty-Three Ruhlin #3
“But—” the king turned away from the view, stepping clear of Ruhlin’s reach “—it seems clear to me that much of your heart remains concealed. Oh, I’ve seen what you can do in the wuhltra, and quite the display it was.
But we both know there is more, Amundyr.
More you have to show me.” He paused, surprising Ruhlin with a sorrowful visage that suddenly seemed far older than the strong-jawed, lean mask he had worn until now.
For the first time, Ruhlin could believe the impossible age of this man, the weight of knowledge and depth of regret evident in his gaze was almost painful to behold.
If there was ever a soul that had seen and done too much, it was this.
“I am… sorry,” the Vortigurn told him, his voice now a strained rasp.
The voice of the old man he pretends not to be, Ruhlin deduced.
“But I must know, you see?” the king went on.
“I must know if you are worthy. Not the beast that rages in your time of need. Not Amundyr the legend. But you, Ruhlin ehs Kestryg. I need to know your heart.”
Lowering his gaze, he said no more and went to the stairs. It took a long time for the echo of his weary faltering steps to fade, but Silvahk wouldn’t allow Ruhlin to move until he was sure the king had gone.
When he returned to the Kelvengyr, he found Fernhyld waiting in his cell. “I’m sorry,” she said, rising from his bed. “The healer wouldn’t let me stay with Ohtera and…” She shifted, clasping hands to quell fidgeting fingers.
“Stay,” Ruhlin sighed, slumping down next to her.
Although the trek back hadn’t been particularly long, a terrible weariness had settled upon him.
The Vortigurn’s obscure ramblings left an aggravating confusion, and Ruhlin’s failure to take the chance to end the mad king’s life added shame to his fatigue.
“Where did Silvahk take you?” Fernhyld asked. He could hear the concern in her voice. Despite the inability to read his expression, he was continually impressed by her perception.
“To see the king.” Ruhlin lay back, putting his arms behind his head. “As with our first meeting, it was not pleasant.”
“To think you have met him twice, and I have never once even glimpsed him…” She trailed off, touching a hand to her blindfold. “Not that I could.”
“You should consider yourself fortunate,” Ruhlin told her. “How is Ohtera?”
“Sleeping, thanks to some physic the healer made her drink. She was starting to get angry and he couldn’t allow that.” Fernhyld let out a very slight laugh. “She hates to be helpless. I always thought it odd that she should despise weakness in herself but be so accepting of mine.”
“I doubt she sees you as weak. She couldn’t love you unless you were strong.”
Fernhyld lay down next to him, shuffling close enough for him to feel her trembling. “Could you hold me, please?”
He put an arm around her shoulders and she rested her head on his chest. “When I was brought here,” she said in a soft murmur, “my eyes bound and shackles on my wrists, all was pain and fear. I had no notion of where I had been taken. Voices I didn’t know shouted orders at me, rough hands pushed and pulled me.
When I fell, I was kicked. Then this…” She paused to shudder, her hand playing over the stagna embedded in her flesh.
“How I screamed and begged then. The pain of it was so bad I was sure I’d die.
Then a soft, cool hand pressed against my forehead, stilling my struggles and I heard her voice for the first time.
‘Calm now,’ she told me. ‘It would be a great shame to spoil something so pretty.’ It was the first kindness I had heard since the Ventra took me, and I clung to it, to her.
Throughout the days and weeks that followed, I stayed as close to her as I could.
Strangely, she didn’t seem to mind. That love could blossom in a place like this seems impossible, and yet it happened. ”
Ruhlin thought back to his meeting with Aleida in her father’s underground slave pen. “Love can blossom anywhere.”
“Do you have someone beyond these walls?”
“I do. I hope she is far away, although I know she is not. She will be coming for me.” He thought back to his covert sojourn through the hidden passage with Ohtera and what he had overheard there.
This Tielvik general… He had no sure way of knowing the name of that general, but felt certain of it nonetheless.
“Her and others. They will come for me, because I would come for them.” A grim smile played over his lips.
“To think that I should have such friends.”
Fernhyld said nothing for a time, then voiced a soft, tremulous whisper.
“I know Silvahk will call my name tomorrow. I heard the other Ventra talking. My eyes may be bound, but my ears are sharp. I’m to take Ohtera’s place at your side.
” Feeling her shudder, Ruhlin held her closer.
“Foolish to think I would be spared,” she said, voice catching on a sob. “Why else would they bring me here?”
He held her as she wept, waiting until her sorrow subsided before whispering what he hoped would not be another lie: “Fear nothing. There is no foe that can stand against the beast that lurks within me.”