17-year-old Avera Ibori is a girl who has always longed for a life of adventure, but when her father mysteriously vanishes, she gets more of it than she can stand. Thrown into a hidden world of magic, intrigue, corruption, and kings, Avera must choo...
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He had gone out into the woods away from the cabin alone, seeking some form of solitude, some room to think and straighten his mind. The events of the past month and particularly the last week had been a bit much to handle, and he was having trouble internalizing it.
'They tell a story in Pyre of the man who said too much. He walked into the city, marched in through the palace doors, and went before the king proclaiming himself to be the heir. He thought the people would rally to his call... but he was wrong. Zephyr had him beaten and dragged him through the streets until he was within an inch of his life. Then, he took him to the public for display and dismembered him. His execution was violent and gruesome. It was also a warning.
'"This is what we say of Caliphus! Whoever stands against us will be as this man is."
'It must have been an awful sight... but no one remembers that now. It was another part of the history which Zephyr erased.
'He thought the people would save him, but they were tired of fighting, tired of war, and unsympathetic to his cause. He was no more than a rebel without anything to fight for but his own claim, and that he knew to be false. So, why try at all? He wasn't even my age.
'Still... is that all that I am - a rebel against the government, an insurgent against the king, a traitor to my own land? Eliezer would blessedly assure me that this government is illegitimate and the throne is mine to be had. So, then, they are the traitors, and we are the right. I know that the scepter was promised to me and the kingship was my father's before me. Howbeit, I wonder... what will the people do now that the Council has come against us?'
He stretched his hand out in front of him, putting it between his face and the sun so the light would shine through it.
'And what of you? What is your view on all of this? Is it treason, then? And if it be treason, would you not deliver your people, if even by my own treacherous hand?'
He heard a twig snap behind him, and he spun around, nearly falling from the log on which he was standing carefully balanced as he watched the sun set through the trees.
"Avera!" he said, surprised to see that anyone had found him.
She laughed at his ungraceful recovery of balance. "Ben, what are you doing?"
"Standing," he told her with a grin, "or... trying to be."
"I can see that," she laughed again, "but why here?"
"Ah! Alas, you've caught me clearing my mind," he glanced over his shoulder at her, hoping for some reaction to his jest.
"And when your mind is cleared, what's left in it?" Avera inquired with interest.
He shook his head. "Lineage, destiny, propriety, promise..." he paused, turning his face towards her, "love." He shut his eyes, hanging his head, and began to laugh quietly to himself. "A king is married to his people, and mine are held in the harsh chains of invisible bonds." He paused, opening his eyes and setting them on the young woman standing on the forest floor beside him. "Tell me, Avera, is it treason to save them?"
