Fay nodded. The mender had finished wrapping his stomach. The clean white dressing covered from his waist to under his armpits. He rose gingerly from the cot. A second mender assisted him, carefully working his arm into the sleeve of a clean shirt. The bloody, torn rags of his previous lay scattered on the ground by his feet.
“At the moment, they have no quarrel with you or your men,” Ryl said. “They hunted me. They learned to fear me. They need to witness the horrors that await them beyond the gate.”
“I’ll see it done,” Fay agreed. “What will you do?”
Ryl thought for a moment. His mind ran the various scenarios in his head. There was a part of him that wanted to run. To abandon those lives here along the walls, as many had abandoned him and so many others as children. They’d turned a blind eye to the plight of the tributes, why now couldn’t he? The walls would hold. The gate would hold, yet not forever. Sooner or later one or the other would be breached. The ground would run with rivers of blood.
A whisper, dark and foreign, begged for it to be so. He struggled to tamp down the voice. The alexen surged through his body, overpowering the barbaric desire.
The familiar heat lit in his veins. He could feel the press of the blackness on his senses. The Horde grew close. The Lei Guard were out there, yet where he could not pinpoint.
The king was out there.
Elias was somewhere beyond these walls. As was Leiroth.
As was Kaep.
Though she had faded from his vision, he refused to believe that she was lost. Had her death been near him, he knew he would have felt it. Ryl couldn’t understand how or why she had faded so abruptly. He’d scanned with his mindsight, yet he’d found no trace of her signature. The approaching blackness covered everything to the south. Only Aelin showed yellow in his vision.
He felt the anger swell inside him as the alexen cried out for justice.
“I’ll be needed on the palisade,” Ryl answered. “Where the stairs once stood lies the weakness. It is a gap that can be crossed, though it will be hard fought. I fear that they’ll throw themselves against it until the dead pile so high they can walk across.”
Fay looked distraught. He shooed the mender off, finishing securing the buttons that held his shirt.
“Is there hope?” he asked quietly.
Ryl smiled, letting the emotion flow from him over the lord. It was the same feeling that had kept him going for cycles. That carried him through the wastes of the Outlands.
“Aye, my friend,” he said. “There is always hope.”
With a nod, Ryl stalked from the room. Aelin, who’d remained silent through the exchange, followed in tow. Averine no longer stood in the doorway.
He moved quickly upon exiting the clinic, angling toward the storeroom by the Pining Gates. He motioned to Aelin as he walked.
“I’m going to the palisade,” Ryl said. “I need you to go to Breila. Stick by her and Fay. If this wall or gate is breached, you need to lead them to the Erlyn.”
Aelin looked distraught. He opened his mouth to argue. Ryl interrupted him before he could speak.
“You promised me you would trust in me. That you’d follow my orders. Do you remember that?” Ryl asked rhetorically. “I aim to hold you to that vow. If the Pining Gates fall, you will flee.”
His voice was stern. He stopped, dropping to a knee, taking the young man by the shoulders.
“I do not intend to throw my life away,” Ryl said. The tone had softened as he reassured the boy. “The city outside these walls is dying. There are untold thousands more who failed to heed our warning. If the Horde chooses to move beyond Cadsae Proper, there is nothing that can be done to slow their destructive wrath.”
Ryl saw the gears turning in Aelin’s mind as the words struck a chord. He understood the struggle all too well, for he too had felt the same way. The internal turmoil was powerful. It tore at his insides as his heart battled with his mind.
“This world has wronged you in ways that are beyond comprehension,” Ryl continued. “When you look beyond these walls, you see only darkness. You see only the hatred that sentenced you to this life. I felt like you did for cycles. Believed it was merely the way things were. The world outside these walls is complex. In here, there is but one way. We work, or we are punished. Outside, life is not so clearly defined. I’ve seen hatred the depths of which rival the most destitute The Stocks have ever witnessed. In the same breath, I’ve seen hope. I’ve witnessed self-sacrifice. I’ve seen compassion in volumes to know that there are those out there who would not see us in chains.”
“Then why do they do nothing?” Aelin quizzed.
It was a question to which Ryl had no answer, though he’d contemplated it long and hard.
“I’ll not lie and tell you I know the answer to that,” he admitted. “There is likely no one way. Every one of us, while we share our similarities and differences, are flavored by our own perspective. Though I cannot condone their actions or likely forgive them for what they’ve done, I’ll not willingly see them all slaughtered.”
Aelin lowered his head, his shoulders slumped.
“And I’ll not give up on the ones I’ve travelled to the ends of the world and back to see free,” he reassured the wavering tribute. “Nor the ones I promised to bring home. Go now. Find Breila.”
Aelin wrapped his arms around Ryl. His grip was suffocating yet showed a concerned level of restraint. Ryl was in awe of the sheer strength that had
