Page 54 of Haunted

“Abrym, my lord.”

“Siarl’s man?”

“Yes.” Abrym gently lowers my head. “Those loyal to Siarl have come. We’re taking you into exile.”

“Why? Why not let me die?”

“Never, my lord. You must live.”

“Why?” I ask.

“For Siarl. For his people. For Elidyr. We swore to him we’d serve you.”

“How many have come? How many travel with us?”

“All of us who are loyal to Siarl, to you.”

“All?” I lift my head, expecting to see a line of people following us, but the night is so dark I see nothing.

“We go into exile with you.”

“What if we’re going to our deaths?”

“Then we will die with you,” Abrym says.

“She lets you go?”

“She cannot reach us now. We have crossed the center. We are beyond her sight.”

My head falls back in relief.

For now, I am free of her.

41

I don’t think I’ll ever breathe normally again. Neifion’s death is too painful, more so than my exile into the desert.

I lose track of how many days the cart carrying my feeble body thumps along under the unforgiving sun.

One day—weeks after crossing the Great Divide, it would seem—we come to a glorious river, and the desert abruptly ends.

Our supplies are gone. I swallowed the last drop of water at sunrise, so the men are overjoyed by the water and drink deeply from it. Abrym and my men make camp and build a barge from our carts. Though I’m listless, my energy barely recovered, I help where I can as they work. I’m amazed I have the strength to stand.

The river is broad and deep, but on the other side, a refuge from our barren hell waits. Evident in the green along the banks and the city on the river.

Islwyn, we learn. Peaceful, but comfortable because of the bounty it takes from the river. Ruled by Lord Rheinallt. He welcomes my people, those who have survived the trek across the desert.

When Lord Rheinallt learns of the powers inside me and my skills in wielding them, I become indispensable.

He reminds me of Lord Siarl, and so I become like a son.

And heir to all in Rolant, a tiny realm surrounded by mountains on two sides, the forsaken desert on one, and a cold sea in the north.

Outwardly, I appear to be a noble ruler, but inwardly my scars are jagged and uneven. For me, there is no escaping the past, a darkness so deep within me it dredges up despair.

It does not dull with time.

Over two thousand years pass after my exile.

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