The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) (31 page)

“We did nothing. It was Yitch and whoever the hell those monsters are that did this. If I ever make it back home and to my father, I swear on my ancestors I’ll have my revenge on any responsible.”

They reach the iron gate embossed with the falcon and push it open and the hinges squeak.
 

Pard moves forward and the castle stands before him, silent, flames extinguished from lack of fuel and the steady snow, all left is a smoldering skeleton of stone. The bodies of dead Fairstone boys and professors litter the grounds.

Both Miles and Pard stand side by side and stare at their once glorious home.

“I can’t believe I’m seeing this,” Miles says. “Fairstone is gone, Pard.”

Pard doesn’t say a word as he stares where is room once was, the roof gone and the window missing.

“Whom do we have here?” a skinny man with wild curly hair, wearing a black Dreg uniform, and a white fur coat says, tapping his sword nonchalantly on his shoulder.

Pard and Miles both spin around and face the man, then both creep backward at the same time.

The man approaches with evil intentions in his eyes. “Would you be the Pard Wenerly we’re looking for out here while freezing our balls off?”

“No!” Pard and Miles both say in unison.

“
Hmm
, that’s interesting.” He swings his bloodstained sword off his fur shoulder and points the tip at Miles. “Because I thought I just heard you—” and then he swings his sword and points the tip at Pard, “call him, Pard. So you aren’t Pard Wenerly?”

“No!” both Pard and Miles say at the same time.

“Shame, because my orders are to kill anyone
other
than Pard Wenerly. So you say you aren’t the Pard I’m looking for?”

“Yes!” Miles says.

“No!” Pard says.

The man puckers his lips. “Guess I’ll just have to take you both back to the boss women running this shit show and let them sort you boys out.”

The ten-year-old boy who stopped Pard on the road emerges from the shadows. “Can we follow you to wherever you’re going?”

In a panic, Pard waves his hand. “No, run, he’ll kill you!”

The skinny Dreg scowls and glares at the little boy then raises his sword.
 

An older boy emerges from the shadows, then another, and another, and another.

The Dreg’s scowl and fierce aura transitions to a blank face.
 

Another boy emerges from the dark forest.
 

The man’s eyes dart from boy to boy the closer they get, too many to count. He turns square toward the oncoming boys and away from Pard and Miles.

Miles’s eyes widen with rage and the rest of his face transforms into a mask of a warrior staring down his mortal enemy. He draws his dagger fixed to his belt. “This is for Professor Videl.”

“Huh?” The man turns around meeting Miles’s dagger, piercing deep into his belly.

“
Ra
—
ra
—
ra
—!” the boys scream in a thunderous fighting charge. Running crazed through the snow-covered courtyard, they close the distance between them and the man. They swing long sticks wildly and wield large jagged rocks raised above their heads ready to pound anything that comes close to their wrath.

Miles retracts his blade and he and Pard step away. “Take that, scum!”

The Dreg, slightly hunched over, presses his hand over his wound. He gulps and looks up turning toward the oncoming boys charging.

Pard continues backing away.

The man tries to lift his heavy sword, but he’s to weak from Miles’s blow.

Fairstone’s boys descend on the man in a wave of pain and fury. Screams of horror release into the night sky as he disappears beneath the swinging sticks and pounding rocks.

Pard glances at Miles, who hasn’t moved.
 

Miles watches as Fairstone’s boys pummel the Dreg well past death.
 

“Come on, Miles, let’s get out of here.”

Miles spits on the ground and turns away. “Back to the cave?”

“I guess so.” Pard briskly walks past the rest of the castle and courtyard and greenhouse and toward the forest. Every few steps he glances to the side and back at the castle, and of what’s left of his corner and window on the fourth floor. Again he’s reminded of all he’s lost, and doesn’t know where he’ll go next,
and Selby
. Pard sighs with a heavy heart as his heavy boots trudge through the wet snow.

“Snap out of it and move!” Miles says to Pard well behind him, “You’re not dead yet and she’s still alive and all this shit isn’t your or my fault—it was just a mansion on fire, it doesn’t mean someone was inside.”

“You don’t know if she was.”

“And you don’t know either, so she’s alive, now move your ass, some of those Iinian goons are still lurking in these woods and we need to get back to the cave. If it makes you feel any better, at least you don’t look like a circus idiot with black marks tattooed on your face by a madman with a nervous twitch—so quit your moping and complaining and whining and get pissed and move instead.”

Pard crawls up the scree field, and the faint glow of the fire inside the cave seeps out of the opening.

Miles bends over and enters the cave followed by Pard.

Penter is sitting, leaning against the rock wall, legs extended and crossed, and he holds a silver pocket watch in his lap with the case open. He’s entranced, his eyes fixed on the inside cover and doesn’t look at the boys as they enter. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Miles scoffs and plops down onto his butt next to the fire.

Pard doesn’t respond and moves to the opposite side of the cave and sits, leaning his body against the smooth rock. He pulls his knees in tight and sways back and forth.

Penter raises the pocket watch in front of him and clinches his teeth tight as he snaps the dented silver case shut. “That’s what I thought—get some sleep.”

SLAVE DRIVER

The next morning, Pard wakes to Penter smothering the fire with his boot.
 

“Get up, kid, it’s time we leave this forsaken town.”

Pard sits up and wipes his sore, crusty eyes. He glances at Miles still asleep.

Penter nudges Miles’s butt with his boot, smearing a grey ash stain on his brown wool pants. “Wake up, Lord Marlow.”

Miles groans and sits up. He yawns and stares at the cave wall.

Pard gathers his things in his pack, and Miles breaks out bread and leans against the rock.

Penter slings his backpack. “Wake up means were leaving now, your lordship, so you can eat as we move.”

Miles rolls his eyes, stands, and glances at Pard. “Slave driver him, eh?”

Pard shrugs and his eyes can’t help falling on the black marks dotting Miles’s face, another firm reminder that last night was very real and everything has changed forever.

Miles gently touches his cheek. “It’s that bad, isn’t it?”

Pard quickly looks away and lies. “You look fine—can hardly notice.”

Miles shakes his head. “You suck at lying.” He grunts and glances at Star’s dead corpse. “I wish I could’ve been the one to shove his face in the fire! While he was still alive.”

Penter turns toward the cave entrance. “Never would’ve happened. He would’ve killed all of us before any of us took a single breath. Forget him, he’s dead and you’re alive. Time to move on.”

They file out of the cave and descend the scree field and turn right, east, on the path.

“Where are we heading?” Pard says to Penter, his breath visible in the frigid air. He wraps his grey scarf tight around his neck.

Penter raises his chin and eyes a line of white cloudy steam rising high above the tips of the pine trees. He points to it. In the distance, the chug of a train engine echoes as it makes its way over the tracks. “I say we follow the tracks north to the next town with a train stop, Ravin Town, which according to my maps is about forty miles and several towns north of here. Then we hop on the first available train to either the coast of Elemerin or Bivmerin. Once we get to a port city, I’ll catch a boat that steams down the Estrone Strait and make my way home to Brenton and find what’s left of my family. You two can head north to Lord Marlow’s father and his protection.”

Miles rips a hunk of bread off the loaf and hands the piece to Pard. “Sounds good, lead the way, Iinian.”

“Don’t call me that, I’m not Iinian.”

Miles flinches, taken aback. “Okay, okay, touchy, touchy. But if you’re not Iinian than what are you? You said you’re from Brenton.”

“I am Brenton.”

“Well, Brenton is part of Iinia, unless some magical revolution occurred that no one heard about.”

 
Penter scowls. “After all that’s occurred in the last year, I hold no affiliation to any country, Iinia, Brenton, or any other—only to myself and my family.”

“Got it, a lone wolf.” Miles points at Penter then bites down on the bread crust and chews with his mouth open.

“So what should we call you?” Pard says. “Is it all right if we call you Penter?”

Penter ignores Pard and clicks open his pocket watch and stares at the inside cover.

“Hey,” Miles says, “what time is it?”

Penter snaps the case shut and slides it into his pocket, then he pulls out his compass. “I don’t know the time.”

Miles chuckles. “
What
? How can you not know the time? You seem to always have your nose buried in that watch of yours.”

Penter gazes up at the sky. “I guess it’s about seven or eight in the morning from the looks of the sun.” He points ahead. “This is our direction.”

Miles squints in confusion then glances at Pard. He whispers, “How doesn’t he know the time?” Miles wobbles his head. “He guesses it’s seven or eight by the sun even though he has a watch—stupid.”

Pard shrugs.

“You can call me Deet,” Penter says. “Now keep up. We move at a fast pace—no more talking unless I say so.”

LES & RAD

Hours pass as they continue trudging through the snow-laden trail, weaving in and out of the forest along the train tracks. The sun sets on the horizon and the temperature continues to drop.
 

Pard and Miles drag through the snow in a dreary state, well behind Deet. Pard fixates on Selby, and Miles on a warm room with a roof.

“Can we stop and rest?” Pard says, yelling ahead. “I think my feet are going to fall off or freeze.”

“We need to keep pushing through if we’re going to outrun Alexa and Eeva,” Deet says without turning around. “And no yelling—keep silence protocol.”

“Keep silence protocol,” Miles mumbles as his stomach growls, “who does he think he is?” He raises his chin in defiance. “Hey, slave driver! I vote for a stop too. That’s two votes to one—we win.”

“So this is a democracy now?” Deet looks up at the sky. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This, this is what you give me to work with.”

“Come on,” Pard says with a slight plead in his tone, “we’ve been going hard all day.”

“Yeah,” Miles says, “and where does your map say is the next town? We need to find a room for the night before it gets dark.”

Deet lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “
A room now
?” He slows and turns around and faces Miles. He opens his arms wide and slightly bows. “Sorry, Lord Marlow, we aren’t staying in any room in any town. This isn’t one of your vacations or hunting retreats. That course of action is way to dangerous. You might as well just hand yourself straight over to Alexa and save her the trouble of hunting you.”

Miles places his hands on hips. “I’m not sleeping out in this cold two nights in a row, and we won’t have a nice cave to sleep in like last night.”

“You’re right, you won’t have a cave.”

Pard, freezing, rubs his hands together. “I agree with Miles, we should find a room.”

Deet snorts. “Of course you agree with him. What do you know.” Deet eyes them, scanning them both head to toe, judging them.

Pard and Miles both raise their brows and look at each other, unsure of what Deet is thinking or what to say back as he continues to stare at them.

Deet pulls out his pocket watch and rubs it in his hands.

“What’s it going to be?” Pard says, teeth chattering and body shaking.

“You two, spoiled pansy Fairstone boys, rich and privileged, with relentless killers on your trail, and all either of you can think about is a warm bed and meal.”

“Yeah,” Miles says, “what’s your point?”

Deet sighs and shakes his head, slips his pocket watch back into his duster, then pulls out his map.
 

Miles leans into Pard’s ear and whispers, “Looks promising—I guess we convinced him.”

“I can hear you, Lord Marlow,” Deet says.
 

“Still looks promising,” Miles whispers again.

Deet continues to scan the map as he runs his finger over the surface calculating where they are. He looks up to the sky then scans the trees and then his compass. Deet gestures to the left and into the evergreens. “Two miles straight through the trees is your warm bed and meal if you want it.”

Miles nods. “Sounds good.” Then he looks at Pard. “What do you think?”

“
Umm
, yeah, warm bed and food. I can hardly feel my nose, hands, or toes, and my stomach won’t stop growling, and my ears are numb, not to mention some of the other parts of my body.”

“Mine too. I say we go.”

Pard turns toward the trees and moves into the forest with Miles right behind him. He stops and glances back at Deet not following them and is eyeing his pocket watch. “You not coming with us?”

Deet, head down, clicks the case shut. He lifts his gaze, and it meets Pard’s eyes, and for the first time it feels different. Deet isn’t looking at Pard as if a menacing terror or the man who was hunting him or tormenting him for the last few weeks. Instead, his eyes say something else. Deet looks at Pard as if he knows him, he knows him on a deeper level than even Pard knows himself. A look reminiscent to the one Professor Videl always gave him, or his mother, or his father. Deet sighs and grunts and steps forward, reaching Miles and Pard and pushing past them to take the lead. “Fine, but no talking on the way there or when we reach town. Once in the inn or wherever we find a roof, no looking at anyone under any circumstances.
Especially
you, Lord Marlow. Both of you should make up cover names, don’t call each other by your given name in public.”