“We found him, my lord,” Indrid said.
“Then where is he? If he is not here, then he better be dead.”
Indrid paused. He envisioned the consequences of his failure. It could start a civil war. If Alexandal poisons the Hart River, the Merlyn Sound would become polluted and the Mern kingdom would have no choice but to respond.
“Well?” said Alexandal between bites. He was eating a dead rat with a knife and fork. When he turned his head, Indrid saw foamy blood covering the side of his face. He kept chewing.
“We didn’t capture him…he—”
Alexandal slammed the rodent’s leg on the table splattering blood everywhere. “Did you kill him?” he snapped, turning to Indrid.
The king wasn’t looking him in the eyes.
“No. But something strange happened,” Indrid began.
“I already know what happened! The one who is responsible for attacking Ikarus got away. Isn’t that right, high and mighty, General Cole?”
Alexandal’s complete lack of respect for Indrid made him feel worthless. “Yes, but—”
“That is all, General,” Alexandal said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, spreading the slimy residue across his face.
“We can still find him. Please give me time before you retaliate,” Indrid begged.
“Do you remember Grale, General?”
Indrid was addled by the question.
“How long has it been since you’ve been there, over ten years?” Alexandal asked. “Perhaps I should send you back. Or maybe I’m doing the Graleons a favor by keeping you away from their perfect kingdom. I wouldn’t want them blaming me for handing over an incompetent count.”
“My lord,” Indrid said, feeling defeated.
“Get out!” the king growled.
No matter how mentally lost Alexandal had been, Indrid was ashamed that he’d failed his king—his foster father, who once loved him. There was a part of Indrid that still loved him. When Queen Olivia was alive, he was a different, loving man; a man that reminded Indrid of his father.
And not only had Alexandal changed, Indrid’s relationship with Anna had changed. After failing in his attempt at winning her heart, he deemed himself unworthy. She hadn’t been the same since Rayne had vanished. She became evasive.
But maybe, he thought, Rayne never left. Indrid contemplated the vision he’d had of his stepbrother’s face before he almost drowned and entertained the possibility of Rayne living beyond the kingdom walls. For how smart the boy had been, Indrid believed it was possible.
When the disembodied man returned to the physical world, not remembering who he was, where he was, what he was, or when he was, he didn’t even remember life as a human. Absent of most emotions, anger was all he could feel.
Memories of a scorching fire reeled before him; blurred apparitions of men wearing masks had taken him against his will only to burn him alive. And he knew it wasn’t a dream. It had been real. Yet the man’s soul remained bound to Naan. Formless and transparent, his body was neither flesh nor bone. And he didn’t even know his own name.
With his black cloak fluttering around him, he appeared as a dark mist. He hovered across the land, slowly recalling life as a person and the experiences of joy, hope, love, forgiveness—fear, sadness, and pain.
After what he’d done to his murderers in revenge, he felt as though he was now no different; his sins were just as great as theirs. But he desired justice.
As he drifted along the shore of a partially frozen lake he thought about the army general who he had saved there. The general looked familiar and helped trigger more memories of the man’s life. But since the man had returned much was still a blur. He couldn’t ignore the haunting whispers in the back of his mind, crying for help. Growing louder by the minute one provocative voice in particular told him where to go. “Come to the Eire Mountains.” it’d said. “Come. I have something you need to see.” And out of great curiosity, the cloaked man flew across the land to the southern cordillera in shadow form.
Inside the caves, he followed the breathless air that gave a smothering unwelcome. He didn’t know where he was going or who he was looking for. Some force was luring him in. The deeper he went, the more dense and sour the smell became. In a tight cavern with a small walk space surrounded by pools of a thick liquid, reeking of formaldehyde, were bodies floating in large puddles; dead bodies preserved for what looked like centuries. Portions of coagulated foam drifted along the surface. Where these the poor souls that he’d heard before? he wondered.
A powerful rotten odor similar to sulfur filled the rheumy air. There was a collage of spider webs decorating the walls. As the cloaked man moved further down the caverns, he heard voices again. But this time, they were voices from the physical world. The man followed the excited chatter and found people wearing dirty rags, barely covering their genitals, walking around aimlessly in and out of what looked like giant wormholes dug deep throughout the metamorphic rock of the mountains. They sensed the man’s presence and crept toward him. They reached out to him with looks of wonder as if they were in disbelief at what they were seeing. But their hands passed right through his body. He was not a physical form.
These people were walking skeletons. They moved about in languid motion. Most had bruises that almost covered their atrophied bodies. Their teeth were barely hanging by their gums, and their breath was so rancid it would make an ordinary man pass out. There was no doubt that they hadn’t seen the outside world in a very long time. They were in a daze; mentally numb without focus or clear intent.
It was
