Divided (8 page)

Though, the topic of conversation was certainly not as
interesting as that vigilante.  In fact, Calis didn’t like it at all.  Surely
his parents would expect him to say yes, and if he said yes, then he would set
off a chain of events that would send him barreling towards a marriage to Lady
Avyon.  Instead, he decided to handle things a little differently.  He offered
a playful smirk as he regarded his brother, who may or may not have intended to
put him on the spot like this.  “Where in the world did you hear that rumor,
Little Brother?” he asked.

This seemed to amuse their mother, as she clasped her hands
together and let out a light laugh.  “Tareth finds gossip in the oddest of
places!” she answered for him.

Tareth nodded his head, as if this were true.  He let the
issue drop easily enough, which meant to Calis that Tareth had no ill intent in
his mention of Lady Avyon.  Tareth most likely thought that Calis wanted to
marry the lady.  He had let his own thoughts on her attractiveness known to
Calis on multiple occasions.  Even in the few letters the boys had exchanged
back and forth in Calis’s time in Dokak, Tareth had often joked about stealing
her from him.

Honestly, Calis wished he had done just that.  That would
have made his life a lot easier, since none of the other women seemed bold
enough to fling themselves at Calis so thoroughly.  “Well, don’t trust every
source you hear,” Calis teased after a moment. 

“Tareth, perhaps if you didn’t spend so much time gossiping
and spent more time doing things that you ought to be doing—there would be no
need to pester your brother with your impudent questions.”  Lavus’s
intervention in the conversation brought the entire thing to an entirely new
low, and the abruptness of it even made Calis flinch.

Surely Tareth would think that he had done that on purpose. 
Just when the two of them seemed to be rekindling some sort of relationship,
Lavus had to ruin it.  It felt as though the man was intentionally keeping the
boys at odds.  He probably was, knowing Lavus.  Wouldn’t want two brothers
conspiring against him, now would he?  Calis decided to try and salvage what he
could.  “Ah, Father, even you have information sources.  Tareth just likes
knowing what is going on.”

The words sounded lame, but Tareth seemed a little shocked
that his older brother had interceded on his behalf.  Lavus wasn’t impressed. 
“My sources are carefully picked by myself and their information is filtered
for years before I consider them reliable.  I would never think to ask about a
piece of information that I was not entirely sure of.  Tareth surely uses
peasants within Dark District he frequents.  People who wouldn’t know true
information if it slapped them in the face.  To embarrass himself by asking a
question about it is simply insulting to our family name!”  Lavus bellowed the
words, and a few of the nobles looked over.

Calis flushed, as everyone seemed to realize that he was the
subject of his father’s wrath.  Well, at least it wasn’t Tareth—or well, maybe
it was.  “Yes, but…”

Lavus cut him off before Calis could even form any sort of
coherent thought.  “Silence!  You are no better than he is if you insist on
defending him.  Defending the weak is precisely the thing that gets rulers
overthrown!  Your brother is a fool and a child.  He ought to have been born
among Dark District peasants—which is probably why he feels at home, there.”

Tareth’s face had turned a deep scarlet, and he glared away
from his father.  He turned his back on the conversation, not wanting to hear
any more of it.  Calis didn’t think he wanted to either, but as his father was
glaring at him, he couldn’t very well run away.  “Do you understand what I am
telling you, child?” Lavus asked, disregarding Tareth’s turning away.

“Y-yes, Father,” Calis answered warily.  All he wanted was
for this conversation to be over and to be as far from his father as he could
possibly get.  This ball be damned.  He didn’t want to be a part of this.  He
didn’t want to be near this man who so cruelly dealt with his own sons!  Calis
couldn’t keep up this charade anymore.

Before Tareth had even gotten all the way down the stairs,
Calis nearly ran down them.  The only reason he didn’t was because he would
have alerted people to himself, and he needed to be unseen right now.  His eyes
immediately began looking for the only person in the room that he didn’t hate.

A few moments later, he found that person.  Lee was perched
against the wall, with a glass of wine in his hand.  He wasn’t involved in any
conversations.  That was a good thing.  Calis made his way to his advisor with
a quickness that he probably should not have been exhibiting.  Lee seemed
surprised to see Calis.  “Calis,” Lee said quickly.  “You are flushed.”

“I have to get out of here.  Meet me in the courtyard, or
stay—I don’t care.”  Calis spared one last glance over his shoulder.  He could
see Lady Avyon glancing up at the balcony, wondering, doubtlessly where Calis
had run off to.  That just meant that he had to get out of this room quickly.

He did so.  He knew Lee well enough to know that his friend
and advisor would be waiting for him in the courtyard with all of the
information that he needed.  Lee didn’t need to be told when Calis needed his
assistance, and that was one of the reasons Calis liked him. 

Once Calis escaped the grand hall, the castle was completely
deserted.  There were no windows along the corridors, so nothing but the flames
within the hallways lit his return to his room.  Not that there would have been
anything more than moonlight at this late shift.  His changing room was easy to
reach.  He flung his clothes to the floor and then kicked them into his closet. 
He changed into a brown tunic that he shouldn’t have and loose-fitting gray
pants. 

Stepping into the closet, he found some work boots that he’d
convinced his servants that he needed for the travel to Dokak.  He shoved his
feet into them, and immediately felt more comfortable than he had in the tight
black ones.  Glancing across to the mirror in the room, he ran his hands
through his hair—ruining any pretense of neatness that had been bestowed upon
it by his stylist.

Surely, he still didn’t look like an ordinary Dark District
resident, but he looked ordinary enough.  Pulling his brown cloak over his
shoulders, he opened the window to the changing room.  He shimmed out to the
other side and eased the window back down.  He certainly couldn’t exit through
the grand hall, and he was used to climbing out the window.

He used the stones of the castle walls to ease himself down
to the ground, which was three stories below him.  Finally, once he deemed
himself close enough to the ground, he leapt from the wall.  Landing in a patch
of grass, he pulled himself up and stayed close to the wall as he made his way
to the courtyard.

Like the rest of the things about Castle Tsrali—the
courtyard was overdone.  There was a large, black fountain and unnatural
flowers growing all around it.  The gardens would have been pretty if Calis
hadn’t been so unnerved by their colors.  Garden lanterns draped across it,
with the same mirrors that had been in the lanterns in the grand hall.  The
moonlight danced along the flowers and created a strange feel.

Footsteps behind him startled him only for a moment before
he turned to see Lee, dressed in a very plain green tunic.  So Lee knew what
they were doing as well.  Calis shouldn’t have been as impressed as he was. 
“Are you going to tell me what happened as we go to this most certainly
scandalous event?”

Calis offered his friend a smile and nodded his head.  They
both headed towards the Dark Wall.  Lee led the way since he was the only one
who knew where they were going.  Neither of them wanted to converse too much in
the courtyard about which nobles could be lurking.  Once they were sufficiently
far enough away from the silly ball, Calis began his explanation.

Firstly, he gave Lee only the facts.  They had established
this process a very long time ago.  If Calis was going to vent to Lee, his
advisor wanted to know the story before Calis’s emotions cluttered it.  When
Lee had given Calis the ultimatum, he had assured him that this would help
Calis as well.  Calis had found that it had, and it was a process of which he’d
grown rather fond.  Once he’d finished with the unedited version, he informed
Lee of why it bothered him.

As they both pulled themselves up over the Dark Wall, Calis
was still talking to Lee.  “I don’t even want my father’s bloody position, and
yet all he can do is flaunt it in Tareth’s face.  Tareth isn’t precisely
stable.  I just don’t want a civil war on top of this business with Cathalar. 
Father has enough enemies.  I don’t want to make them too.”

They reached the top, and Lee actually responded—which was
rare.  Normally, he just watched Calis and listened without interruption.  “You
would be a better ruler than Tareth, unfortunately,” he said.  “And both of you
better than…”  He cut himself off—surely knowing that words like that could get
him hanged.

“I’m aware,” Calis said.  This wasn’t necessarily a
compliment.  Only Lee’s acknowledgement that their current ruler was a fool and
a barbarian.  Telandus would fall in the war, and Calis knew that.  “It won’t
matter.  Once Father finally pushes Lord Veyron to war—Telandus will not
survive.”

Lee looked a little mournful, but there was no denying that
simple truth.  Cathalar was not without faults, but Veyron was nothing like the
brute that Lavus was.  He ruled his lands forcibly, and was not liked by all,
but he certainly was not hated by all either.  While Lavus’s life had been
filled with one drama after another, making enemies constantly—and never
failing to be whispered about in distant lands, Veyron’s only moment of
notoriety had been the unfortunate loss of his second-born son.

Calis didn’t know much about it.  Only that the boy had left
Cathalar, after giving his father fair warning, and had not been heard from
since.  Calis was sure that he was dead, as even a competent person didn’t
survive in the wilds for five years.  And if the boy had escaped into one of
the other lands, surely they would have reported to Veyron.  For months,
everyone had searched for the kid.

This impressed Calis more than anything, for if he had ever
abandoned his family then he would be sought after for execution.  Veyron had
not only accepted his son’s decision, but he had attempted to find out if his
youngest son was alright. 

“Tareth is my brother, fool that he is, and I don’t want him
to hate me,” Calis said as they both dropped into Dark District.

Dark was a fitting title for it now, as most of the flames
were put out and the entire district was lit only by the moon.  The sounds that
usually accompanied the district were silenced, with no carts being pushed
about for trade, and no women wandering about with their gossip.  No, now Dark
District was quiet.

Unsettling as it was, the change was welcome after the
events at the ball.  Calis wouldn’t have cared if there was no dance, he would
be content to stay in this colorless place for the entire moon without a single
companion.  “Tareth resents you, and I wouldn’t say that his feelings are far
from hate—but I would hope that he sees how desperately you try to hold his
favor, when his favor should not matter to you.”

This was true.  Calis had no reason to stand up for Tareth
the way he did, and if Tareth had been Lee—he would have acknowledged that and
known that his brother cared for him, but Tareth was not Lee and that meant
that he probably didn’t even realize.  In fact, he may have thought Calis was
patronizing him with some of the defense.  “My brother is not overly bright,”
Calis reminded Lee.

Once again, Lee was unable to contest the point.  Tareth had
let himself slip through the cracks due to his dimwittedness.  “For now,” Lee
said logically, “try not to worry about it.  There isn’t anything that you can
do about your brother’s foolishness or your father’s arrogance, my friend.”

“Fair enough.  Show me this dance you promised me,” Calis
said with his best attempt at a smile.

The advisor just nodded his head and started off into Dark
District.  Lee probably knew the streets better than Calis did, as he wasn’t
watched so closely and was able to come and go into Dark District more freely. 
The guards didn’t insist on accompanying Lee when he used the gate.  “The girl
that told me about this dance is actually a friend of the girl that phantom boy
saved.  She’s changed her name and appearance and all that.”

Calis was immediately a little cheered up by this fact. 
Perhaps this moon could be salvaged after all.  He pushed away the worrying
thoughts that his father would be looking for him, especially after how he’d
run off.  But no, Lavus would never bother.  “Who is the girl?” Calis asked.

“Her name is Katt,” Lee answered.  “She is apprenticed to
the healer in Dark District.  The healer’s name is Amaral.  I know very little
else, as our exchange is usually formal.  I give her the coin, and she gives me
the information she deems relevant, or that I ask for.”

Katt.  What a funny name.  Calis could never have imagined
any noble being named such a simple name, though he rather liked it.  “The girl
apparently suffers fits,” Lee continued.  “So she is seen regularly by this
healer.”

“Fits?” Calis asked.

“Yes,” Lee answered.  He seemed to be thinking very
carefully about his next words, as if he wasn’t sure what to say.  “Terrors, in
a way, she screeches about things she doesn’t remember when the fits end.  Her
parents believes she tells the future.”

Calis frowned.  “I’m sure they do.”  Peasants, of course,
had their own flaws.  Their lives were so unhappy that they tried to change
everything into a fantastical event that meant that they were special.  Calis
didn’t blame them nearly as much as he blamed the nobles for their faults.