All That Is Red (13 page)

“The walls are breathtaking,” Nalin said and, truly, they were.

“They should be,” Gerrard said with his familiar laugh. It lit his face up and he seemed more like the man I used to know. “I paid your grandfather a pretty penny to get him to
paint them.”

“My grandfather?” Nalin asked, as his hand reached out to touch the light.

We heard a sudden noise coming from the other room and everyone stood rigid. Gerrard cautiously opened the door, but relaxed upon seeing who it was. The boy strolled in and joined us.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is everything all right? Is anyone hurt?” He sounded alarmed.

Gerrard reassured him that no one was hurt and everything, for the time being, was fine. “We found these,” Gerrard said, tossing him a few of the papers.

“I don’t understand the meaning of this,” the boy said. “What are these?”

“They’re maps and notes,” Nalin told him.

“I can see that,” he replied a little testily. “But where did they come from? Are they yours?”

“A few of them are,” Nalin responded honestly. “But they’re copies.”

“Copies? I specifically asked you not to make copies,” the boy said. “If they got into the wrong hands ...”

Nalin cut him off. “I didn’t make those copies.”

“Then who did?” the boy demanded. “And what do you two have to do with this?” he asked Gerrard and me.

“Lynette did,” Nalin said.

“Lynette? What did she want with the copies?” The boy was still not putting two and two together.

“She wanted to give them to the White,” Gerrard interrupted his confusion. “She was a spy.”

“A spy? Lynette?” The new commander sunk down onto the bed looking more like a boy than the leader of a rebellion. “I almost entrusted the cause’s representation to a
spy.” he mumbled, cradling his head in his hands. To the general, he simply asked, “Did you take care of her?”

All of us in the room knew what he meant, but none of us, including the boy and Gerrard, could voice it aloud.

“Yes.”

“This goes to confirm all the more that we need a confrontation with the White,” the boy said looking at me.

“A confrontation?” Nalin asked. We had forgotten that he was the only one here who didn’t know of the boy’s plans.

“A face to face talk with the White,” the boy explained.

“I’m ... I’m not sure that’s a good idea ...” Nalin started.

“Save your breath,” the boy said. “I’m sure I’ve heard your argument before, but we have to do whatever we can to prevent a war.”

“Even if doing so is against the people’s wishes?” Nalin asked. It wasn’t his place to ask, but as the boy remained silent, he seemed to have hit at something.

When the boy eventually spoke, his answer was against what Nalin had hoped. “Yes.”

“And you’re fine with this?” Nalin turned to me.

“I trust the boy,” I said, making it clear I backed him up. “Though I am the leader of the cause, the boy is the face of it. We need unity in our midst.”

The silence was deafening in the room. After I had spoken the final words, no one had dared appose me.

“Speaking of the confrontation,” Gerrard said in an attempt to ease the mood around us. “I’ve drafted the letter.” He walked across to his desk to get a piece of
Red paper and promptly handed it to the boy.

All eyes were on him, as he attentively read over the letter. He looked to me for permission and upon receiving it, he gave the letter back to Gerrard. “Send it immediately,” he
stated.

Gerrard handed the letter over to his messenger with the same instructions. The messenger left at once, the entire weight of the cause resting directly on him.

C
HAPTER
11

Exactly a week to the day later, we received word from the White. It came on White stationary and looked like something truly befitting The Pure One. The boy read it with a grim
face, but overall, he seemed pleased with its contents.

“We’ve set the date,” he told me.

“And the location?” I asked.

“And the location,” he confirmed with a smile.

“Have you picked the two envoys to represent the cause?”

“Yes, I have,” the boy said. “Alaric and Odessa. I think they’ll represent our interests well.”

I was tempted to mention the last time he had said something of that sort, but I willed my tongue to be silent. Instead, I tactfully replied, “I’m sure they will.” In reality,
I was worried for the whole convention, but I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. I trusted the boy with everything important to me, including the cause. If he thought this was the right
thing to do, it surely must be.

“I’ll send them tomorrow,” he continued. “As you know, it’s a few days walk to the meeting place between our two lands.”

“Yes, and now we must attend to something else.” I had decided to push the issue.

“To what?” he asked.

“To announcing your succession to the post of commander,” I said. “We’ve done away with the spies and now the people have to know they have a government to rely
upon.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

I had been prepared to argue my point, so this easy victory came as a surprise. “Then you’ll do it?”

“As soon as I can.” His voice was dismissive and wordlessly cued me to leave, but I refused to listen or respond to it.

“Tomorrow?” I pressed.

“I said, as soon as I can.” His tone was quick to light on anger and I sensed something behind it. It was something he tried to hide, yet in doing so, he made it very apparent.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked the boy.

“Afraid of? Nothing?”

“You’re scared of something. That’s why you keep delaying it.”

I watched his face for a sign that I had hit the right mark. The boy struggled in keeping his countenance smooth and unwavering, but I saw through it.

“What are you afraid of?” I repeated again gently. “Are you afraid that they somehow won’t accept you?”

“Yes.” His utterance was soft and cloaked in his breath, yet it was a definite answer. “Yes.”

“You’re one of them. You’re accepted by them. You’ve helped through all the recent happenings. You were there bathing the injured’s wounds alongside their mothers,
wives, and children. You’re a part of them, something I can never be.”

“How can I help when I don’t even know who I am?” His voice was strained, as he strived to formulate his thoughts into words. “They don’t know me ... I don’t
even know me.” His throat closed, trapping his thoughts. “Who am I?”

“To them, you’re a friend, a brother, a son, and a father. You’re a helper, someone who does good and who is good. And soon, you’ll be a leader. Isn’t that
enough?”

My words were pained. What the boy really wanted was an identity, a name he could call himself. But I couldn’t give him that. No one could. He had to find it himself. Nonetheless, he had
something close to what he wanted. He had what he was to other people; relationships and roles that defined him. That wasn’t the same as a name, but it was something.

There’s no substitute for emotions. Emotions make us people. Without them, we’re just shells of what used to be. The unfeelings aren’t people, but they once were.

“Thank you,” he said faintly.

I couldn’t tell if it was a tactful dismissal or sincere gratitude. Either way, I left and went to seek solace with Gerrard, who, by now, I thought of as a friend. When I couldn’t
say something to the boy, I sought a listening ear from him.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” I asked Gerrard, after relaying what had just occurred.

“Personally, yes. I think you did do the right thing. You might have given him the final push he needed to take action. But the real judge is time. Only time can tell.”

I knew he was right, but I still wondered if my words were too sharp. Was I too severe? Now I could only wait to find out and I truly hoped my words had moved something inside the boy to take
some action. At this point, that was what the cause needed. Action, any action. If we sat on our hands any longer, I believed we would surely self-destruct.

Gerrard poured a Red liquid into two glasses and handed one to me. I remembered the drink from when the old commander was still alive and I took a long slow gulp of it. It had the same taste,
bittersweet, one could call it.

“There were more fights today,” Gerrard said.

“Between who?”

“Groups of Trigons and humans.”

The fights were getting increasingly worse. They had started as only words thrown back and forth between the Trigons and humans, but that had evolved into action. Now there were full-blown
fights.

“Did anyone get hurt?” I asked.

“Members of both sides, but luckily Devonport was there to prevent further damage,” he said.

Though I didn’t wish for war, sometimes I found myself thinking that a common enemy would have the potential to unite the Red cause. The animosity between humans and Trigons had gone on
for as long as anyone could remember. They had been forced to band together to hold against the White, but now with that threat further away from us, we were crumbling and everyone could sense
it.

The general and I talked into the night and through the early morning. It was preferable to worrying by myself in my room and I sensed that Gerrard also had his own concerns to unload.

I awoke to the sound of cheering drifting in from the nearby window. I realized that Gerrard and I had both fallen asleep at the table and my mouth tasted of memories that had emerged with the
Red drink we had last night.

When I walked to the window, I was greeted with a welcome sight. It looked like every single member of the cause was gathered around the boy. He was filling the silence with his words, which
were being received by the people with great optimism. They cheered at every other word he said and seemed so devoted.

There was one person whose grin was more radiant than the boy’s or anyone else’s and seeing it there surprised me. It was Devonport standing in the very front near the boy. She
seemed to hang on every word the boy said.

“He did it, didn’t he?” It was Gerrard who was now up and peering over my shoulder at the window. “He won the people over and he has earned the respect of
Devonport.”

“It’s high time he has.”

C
HAPTER
12

There was a knock at the door and I nodded toward Elspheth to open it.

Elspheth was here under the boy’s command. He had insisted that I needed someone to help me with my daily tasks, however mundane they might be. I had allowed this on the condition that I
did not have to change rooms. I had become attached to my room, and by now, I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving it for another.

“Lilith is here to see you,” Elspheth announced stiffly. She swiftly sat down in an extra chair by the door, all the while keeping an eye on Lilith. She was the only one I knew who
didn’t fall immediately under Lilith’s spell upon meeting her. Rather, she looked quite wary of her.

“Lilith!” I opened my arms, as she flew into them. I tried to look as happy and as excited as she appeared, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if she saw the real me.

“I came to visit you!”

“I hope she isn’t too much trouble,” a voice called and then Aurelee’s head peeked in from the door. “She said that she just had to see you. She wanted to spend the
day with you.”

“She’s no trouble at all,” I replied. “In fact, I was starting to miss her. I can look after her today and walk her over after dinner if you’d like.”

“That would be wonderful,” she said.

“Bye, Grandmama!” Lilith waved. Turning to me she asked, “Where’s the boy?”

“He’s probably in his own room. Do you want to visit him?”

She nodded.

I looked at Elspheth. “I’m not sure when we’ll be back. If anyone asks, we’ll be at the commander’s quarters.” I was careful not to call him the boy when
speaking to Elspheth, due to her stubbornly correcting me every time.

“He’s our leader now,” she would say. “Even you must be respectful.” If only she knew what really was occurring.

When we arrived at his rooms, the boy answered the door at the first knock. Seeing who was there, he swooped a giggling Lilith up onto his back, just like he always did. We played around with
Lilith and talked about important things, not important to us or the cause, but important to her. It was nostalgic spending time together like this. I could tell they were both thinking of the
simpler times when the boy was not the face of the cause, I wasn’t the leader of the Red, and we were not tense about a conversation happening miles away.

“Sir,” a voice interrupted. We had been so carefree that we had failed to notice a Trigon boy walk into the room. He was holding a candle that lit up the night-dimmed room.

“Is it important?” the boy sighed.

The messenger nodded and handed over a White envelope. Then he lit all the candles in the room. It gave a fantastical glow. Someone else might call it eerie, but, to me, it was like magic.

“It’s too early for the envoys to have reached a conclusion, so it’s probably questions from The Pure One’s delegates,” the boy said to me, as he opened the
envelope. I wondered if he was trying to ease my fears or his own.

He squinted at the letter for some time, turning it this way and that. “That’s strange ...” he mumbled. “It’s blank.” The boy pulled the piece of paper closer
to the candle on the desk. Then he sucked in a breath and his knuckles turned pale.

I asked the messenger to deliver Lilith back to her grandparent’s house and crouched down next to the boy, as soon as they left.

The boy’s hands were shaking, as he read what looked like White ink on White paper. I waited for him to speak, but he wordlessly lit the page on fire. We stood together watching the flame
lick the paper, until it was all gone.

“Killed. Both of them.” He spoke in monotone, but his voice cracked on a note. “The letter, it’s written in their blood, White blood.”

“So they were turned into unfeelings and killed?” I asked softly.

“Yes.” His voice convulsed in agony.

I tried to sooth him, but he wouldn’t listen, not to me, or to reason.