Page 60 of Of Empires and Dust

Aeson let out a gasp as the Spark flooded into him, the thread of Air whirling around his body. With a sigh of relief, he pushed the thread into the door before him, where the outside lock had been fused shut.

Aclicksounded, and the door creaked open.

Aeson pushed the door open slowly, the candlelight behind him carving a path through the darkness of the room within. His footsteps echoed in the sparse room of hewn rock, each clip of his boot like a hammer drop.

“I was wondering when you’d come.”

Aeson looked down on the man who sat with his back against the far wall, steel manacles clamped around his wrists. Chains connected the manacles to a bolt in the floor, the blue light of the runes illuminating the scars on the man’s face.

“Farda.”

“It’s my time then?” Farda Kyrana lifted his gaze to meet Aeson’s. Four claw marks ran along his left cheek where Ella Bryer had raked her nails across his face. The Healers hadn’t given Farda the same attention they had Avandeer. The wounds were scabbed and red, dried blood mingling with crusted dirt.

“Not yet.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Here I am.” Aeson sucked in his cheeks, biting down. He walked to the left side of the room and lowered himself into the seat against the wall.

“Four hundred years.” Chains clinked as Farda shifted himself, pushing his back further up the wall. “This is the longest we’ve spent in the same room without trying to kill each other.”

Aeson leaned forwards and rested his elbows on his knees. “Not for lack of desire.”

“No…” A silence passed for a moment. “You took Shinyara from me.” Farda pulled in a long, hard breath. “I can never forgive you for that.”

“Forgive me?” Aeson glared at Farda, meeting the man’s cold gaze. “I would sooner open my veins than ask your forgiveness for anything. You deserved to feel the pain, the loss. What you did… You were not worthy of the bond.”

“WhatIdid?” Farda scoffed. “You’re all the same. I know what I did. I know the darkness in my choices. But it appears, after all these years, arrogance and ignorance are still your closest friends. Why are you here, Aeson? I’m tired.”

“I want to know why.”

“Is it not a little late for that?”

“No, I want to know why you came here. Why you turned your back on the empire after all this time.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters.”

“Ella…”

“Calen’s sister?”

“Mmm.” Farda nodded, his fingers clenching and unclenching.

“What of her?”

“Just go, Aeson. We’re past this. Soon my head will be on a spike and I’ll be done with this world, and we’ll all be the better for it.”

Aeson leaned forwards a little further. “Answer the question, Farda. What of Ella Bryer? After everything you’ve done, what in the gods turned your mind?”

Once more, silence filled the dark room, the light of the candles in the corridor and the runes on Farda’s shackles casting shadows across the walls. Farda let out an exhausted sigh.“Something changed in me when I met her, something that reminded me of why…” Farda looked up towards the ceiling and shook his head. “Why I fought in the first place.”

Aeson pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then looked to Farda. To his surprise, the man’s eyes glistened from welling tears. He’d needed to know. Before the judgement was passed, he’d needed to knowwhyFarda had turned on the Lorians.

“Aeson, I want you to know I think about that night every time I close my eyes. I…”

Farda’s voice trailed off as Aeson lifted himself from the chair and turned towards the door.

---