Page 36 of Wicked Thieves
But the question…
Anelize stared down at her ale, watching her reflection in the golden liquid.
Henry cleared his throat, and she caught him shaking his head at the twins.
It was an effort to speak but eventually she forced the words out. “He died on the pyre.”
The table fell silent, and she could feel Aeric watching her closely.
Henry reached across the table and gave her arm a squeeze. “You do not need to tell us anything you do not wish to share, Anya.”
While she never particularly liked reliving that horrible day, these people had allowed her to come into their lives. Help them with their cause which was—should be—just as important to her. They’d saved her life when she’d considered herself all but dead. Now they were helping her.
She could offer this much at the very least.
“Someone reported him when he went out to pay one of his patients a visit. It had been a trap. Watchmen captured himand beat him until I could hardly recognize his face. Then they dragged him and others to the pyre on the field.”
She remembered what it had felt like when Henry had come to tell her the news. The way she’d ran through the streets, ignoring his pleas not to go. The way Henry had held her in his arms to keep her from running over and stopping the horrific sights unfolding beyond the clamoring crowd. The Watchmen and council who had gathered to sentence Vedrans to death. Henry had saved her by keeping her from exposing herself and Enid that day, from forsaking both of their lives as their father burned, yet the pain had remained with her. She remembered the bite of her nails sinking into her palm. The last of his screams carrying into the air filled with smoke and embers. Then nothingness.
“I think that’s enough questions.” Aeric suddenly said, pulling her away from her thoughts of the past. When she glanced up, she watched as he took a drink from his tankard. His expression unreadable as he regarded the twins.
“I’m sorry, we should not have pried,” Idris said from across the table, nudging Adan, who also muttered an apology.
Anelize shook her head. “It’s all right. We’ve all lost someone we care about. It is…inevitable, given the world we live in.”
“The world the king has made us live in,” Adan said as he took a long drink from his tankard. “All when he decided to massacre hundreds upon hundreds of people. Arriving through the cover of night to slit their throats. They showed them, though, and they did not go down without a fight.”
Anelize looked at the harshest of the Bane twins. Like how she imagined she’d looked, there was anger, pain, in Adan’s eyes. Familiar and longstanding.Personal.
Glancing around the table, the twins and Aeric all looked to be around her age, if not a bit older. They must be in the age to have been old enough to remember the attack on the Vedrans. Could it be that they were…
“There were those who survived,” Aeric murmured, as if he had heard her thoughts. A distant look overtaking his gaze as he stared into the flickering flame of the candle on the table, the wax melting down its side and pooling around its holder. “Not easily, and what came next was equally as grueling, but those who managed to escape the Watchmen made their way to the city. Unless Watchmen had them cut their hands to prove they could not conjure, then there was no way of knowing if one was a Vedran by taking one look at them alone. It was relatively easy to hide amongst the beggars and sleep in alleyways to go unnoticed.”
The twins appeared lost in thought as they agreed. The food on their plates going untouched.
How much had they suffered by the hands of the king when they were mere boys themselves? Anelize was uncertain if she wished to know, unable to imagine a boy like Luca running into the dead of night while his family was slaughtered in their home.
“Have you all been together since then?” she asked.
Aeric said, “Not from that very moment. We each went our own paths and somehow, they joined together years later.”
“We met”—Idris chuckled—“after those fucking Watchmen tried to round us up to be tested. Much like you, Anya, we also conjured and managed to escape. Taking a few of the king’s men down in the process. Then, imagine our shock, when we were tracked down to this tavern by some cocky boy who entered as if he owned the place, plopped himself downon one of the stools beside me and asked if he could join us. Adan nearly killed him.”
“Nearly? He was five seconds away from freezing the air in my lungs,” Aeric attested with a grin. “I’ll never forget the shock on his face when he saw me conjure.”
“Singed one of my brows off, he did,” Adan grumbled, and Anelize could see a small scar on the end of one of his brows.
“You didn’t find it alarming that a Watchman was asking to join you? You merely trusted him so easily?” She looked between them curiously.
Idris continued. “Not at all. There were fights, both physical and verbal. Not a day went by where we didn’t try to chase him off whenever he showed up on Henry’s doorstep, asking us to let him join our little group. The rebels were dwindling significantly, and we were all holding on by the skin of our teeth. Henry and Zara gave us all shelter, but they weren’t fighters. With such a bleak past, I doubt anyone thought they could hold their own against the king. But Aeric never gave up, nor did droves of Watchmen show up to take us all.”
His eyes shining with admiration as he looked at Aeric, Henry then said, “You never were one to give up easily. How many days did you show up before we let you in through the door again?”
Aeric crossed his arms as he sat back in his chair.
“Seventy days, give or take.”
“How old were you?” Anelize frowned as she waited for him to answer.
