Heir of Shandara (Book 4) (30 page)

Sarah nodded and remained quiet with her thoughts while Roselyn worked. This war couldn’t be over soon enough.
 

C
HAPTER
23

LEAP OF FAITH

Aaron stood staring at a large map in the navigation room on the
Raven
. After briefly speaking with others, he asked for some time alone. His gaze slid across the map. The continent stretched before him, and a section had been replaced since he was last in the room. Shandara was no longer in a blackened area marked
Land of Shadow.
Instead, Shandara and the White Rose Palace were clearly defined with fine gold lettering. He reached out and traced the script with his fingertips, admiring the work of the cartographer that made this map. Aaron felt a slight shudder beneath his feet as the engines were engaged. The engines could run a full burst longer, but there was a need to rotate their use to prevent overheating. Leaning against the wall was the rune-carved staff. The dark wood with the strange runes lay seemingly innocuous. The ghost of his great-grandfather, Daverim Alenzar’seth, had more or less thrust it into his hands. He had needed a good walking stick, Aaron mused. The rune-carved staff had been retrieved from the battlefield by Bayen, the man who claimed to be his son.
 

Retrieving the staff was hardly the work of a spy,
Aaron argued to himself.
 

The most convincing infiltrator of your ranks would be the one who didn’t realize he was, in fact, a spy. It wasn’t that long ago that Halcylon had used the Nanites to erase Aaron’s own identity. Aaron’s recollection of his time as Len was foggy at best. A few strange images and scattered emotions mostly surrounding Sarah. The Nanites had nearly been successful, and only the intervention of the Eldarin had saved him.
 

Verona entered the room and was followed by Admiral Morgan.

“Your Grace,” Morgan said with a salute.

“If you start doing that, then I’m going to start calling you admiral,” Aaron said.

Morgan chuckled. “Would commander be better?”

Verona grinned and glanced at the map, noticing the new section.

Morgan rested his hand upon a wooden chair. He wore a dark blue coat with silver buckles along the front. Most of the sailors on board had them to keep warm against the cool temperatures felt at high altitudes. “You’re going to have to make your peace with titles. Like it or not, you are royalty. The Alenzar’seth is the ruling house of Shandara, and that mantle falls to you. With Sarah as the High Queen, that makes both you and her among the most powerful people on Safanar.”

Aaron frowned and then nodded. “One of the things Cyrus called me was a bridge between the races. The Free Nations Army is bound together by me.”
 

“And he was right,” Morgan said.

Aaron saw the pain ringed around Morgan’s eyes. The admiral had served Prince Cyrus for most of his life. It was a quite a surprise when Morgan announced his intention to retire from service to Rexel in favor of serving Shandara.

“Sarah is pregnant,” Aaron said. It was the first time he had said it out loud, and doing so made it more real to him.

Morgan let out a hearty laugh and gave him a slap to match on his shoulder. “Good for you, lad. Nothing like having children to put things in perspective for you.”

“You don’t have any children,” Verona said.

Morgan nodded. “That’s why things are never out of perspective for me. Just wait until it’s your turn.”

The color drained from Verona’s face, and Aaron chuckled.

“You two are like peas in the pod. What makes you think that you’re not half a step behind him?” Morgan pressed, gesturing with his hand toward Aaron.

“Well, I, uh… I’m not sure,” Verona stammered.

“Are they friends?” Morgan asked.

Verona was too flustered to give Morgan more than a bewildered expression.

“Sarah and Roselyn are indeed friends,” Aaron said.

Morgan shrugged his shoulders and laid a companionable hand on each of them. “Welcome to fatherhood, Verona. You’re next.”

At this, they all laughed. Aaron wished the others were with them to share the moment. Braden and Sarik were in Shandara along with Vaughn and Garret. He missed Eric’s playful banter and Colind’s wise counsel. How many more would not be present before this was over? Would the ghosts of those who had passed always stand in silent judgment of his deeds? Aaron prayed he would be worthy of their sacrifice.

“We need to get the Zekara to face us at Shandara. If we fail to defeat them there, then the other nations will quickly fall,” Aaron said.

“What do you want us to do?” Verona asked.

“I’m not sure. Halcylon has a lot of pride. He believes humans are beneath him. I’m trying to think of a way to use that,” Aaron said.

“Best way to deal with a bully is to hit him back,” Morgan said.

“Eloquent as always, but yes, I’d say Morgan hit the nail on its head,” Verona added.

“I was thinking along similar lines. We’ll regroup at Shandara and plan our next move,” Aaron said, and glanced out the window. “Excuse me, but I need to get some air.”

Admiral Morgan headed for the wheelhouse, and Verona followed him on deck. Aaron recognized many of the sailors they saw on deck. They offered a friendly greeting before going back to their duties. The air was crisp and clear. At the bow of the ship were shields for blocking the wind. Something the sailors needed now more than ever with the new engines. It wouldn’t be long before airships themselves were nothing more than relics. Despite that, Aaron found that being on deck set his mind at ease. There were a lot of memories for him here, from his humbling first attempt at jumping great distances to Zeus, his grandfather’s wolf half-breed that helped guide him to Safanar.
 

“Are you afraid?” Verona asked.

“Of what?”

“Becoming a father.”

The question caught him off guard. “I haven’t had much time to think about it.”

“Fair enough, my friend. Tell me what your father was like.”

“My dad—” Aaron took a second to collect his thoughts. “Was much like Morgan or your uncle in a lot of ways. You always knew where you stood with him. He liked to work with his hands and enjoyed building things. He was extremely patient, though I didn’t realize how much at the time. God knows I tested his patience a lot growing up. I’m not sure he saw eye to eye with Reymius, but where my mother was concerned they were united.”

“And your sister?”

“When I left, my sister was planning her wedding…” Aaron said, thinking of Tara for the first time in weeks. “She should be married by now.”

“One of the reasons you came here was to keep her safe. She’s safe now,” Verona said.

Aaron shook his head. “From Mactar, yes, but not Halcylon.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was prisoner on Hytharia, they probed my mind. Halcylon knows about Earth. He even asked why they couldn’t go there when they put me before a tribunal,” Aaron said.

Verona shook his head. “Beings like Halcylon will never stop. War is all they know. It’s a cycle the Zekara know well. Why do you think that is?”

“Because his heart rages for the one thing he can’t have: his home world back. I doubt even he realizes it. You would think that given the lifespan afforded to them by the Nanites, that a race of beings would be better off for it. Hythariam and humans are more alike than they are different,” Aaron said.

“A lot of people would be tempted by eternal life. Wouldn’t you?”

“Forever is a long time. Right now, I can’t see past the next few days,” Aaron replied.

“There is something we should talk about,” Verona said.

“All right,” Aaron said. With Verona, it really could have been anything.

“I think you need to reconsider your stance on Bayen,” Verona said.

Aaron sighed heavily. “What do you want me to reconsider, specifically? That he could be my son who came here from the future, or that my actions will mean the end of life as we know it?”

“You’re so hell-bent on what Halcylon has done that you’re letting it cloud your judgment,” Verona said. “My friend, I would follow you to hell and back, but in this instance you’re wrong to dismiss this so quickly. You need to look at it objectively. If Sarah were here—”

“I don’t want Sarah anywhere near Bayen.”

For a moment, the two friends traded hardened glances at one another.
 

Aaron pounded a fist on the railing. “I’ll give you this. Maybe you’re right, and I do need to think more about what Bayen has said, but he’s listening to a machine. For all the Hythariam technological advancements, they aren’t infallible,” Aaron said.

“Right, but don’t you act like a machine by not listening at all? Now, Tanneth wanted the two of us to go to where they are holding Bayen. Let’s go down there and see what we can learn,” Verona said.

“All that just to get me to go down there?” Aaron asked.

“You can be quite bullheaded at times, my friend.”

Aaron chuckled and followed Verona belowdecks. There were two FNA soldiers posted outside the room where Bayen was being held. One opened the door for them, and there were two more soldiers inside. There was a small wooden desk with Bayen sitting on one side and Tanneth on the other. Bayen’s hands were bound, but Aaron suspected that if Bayen wanted to free himself, he would have little difficulty doing so.

Bayen looked up at them when they entered. There was no accusing glare, only exhausted resignation. Perhaps Bayen revealing himself had eased the burden he carried. Aaron looked into Bayen’s eyes. Were they reminiscent of Sarah’s eyes and he had been too blind to see it, or was he struggling to see a connection that simply wasn’t there? Bayen was tall and broad shouldered, approaching Aaron’s own six-foot-four-inch frame. Bayen had stayed with him throughout the battle. He fought well. Neither of them said a word, with each taking a few moments to study the other.

“I’ve come to hear what you have to say,” Aaron said, breaking the silence.

“Nothing has changed in the past few hours,” Bayen said.

Tanneth was about to speak, but Aaron held up his hand. “Let’s start from the beginning. What do you remember?”

Bayen looked at his hands for a moment, his eyes growing distant. “I woke up in a cryogenic chamber on an island a few hundred miles off the western coast. I don’t know which one, and I only looked at the map for a few seconds. We were being attacked. The facility was being overrun.”

Aaron glanced at Tanneth.

“There are islands off the western coast,” Tanneth said.

“That would mean they might have left from Khamearra then, since that would be the closest city,” Verona said.

“What happened after you woke up?” Aaron asked.

“Like I said, the facility was being overrun. We were being attacked,” Bayen said.

“By who?”

“All manner of creatures, but the biggest shockwaves came when the Eldarin attacked.”

Aaron’s gaze darted to the others. “The Eldarin are allied with us.”

Bayen shook his head. “They became infected just like everyone else.”

“Then what happened?”

“We took an elevator down into a hollowed-out chamber deep beneath the surface. They were tapping into the energy and feeding it into a prototype keystone accelerator. The war lasted years. The FNA moved from place to place. We fought, and the Ryakul virus continued to spread across multiple species. Each time there was talk of a cure, it would fail. Each failure supposedly brought us closer to a more permanent cure.”

“You were put into cryostasis. How long did you expect to be asleep?” Aaron asked.
 

“It was only supposed to be for a few weeks, perhaps a month at most, but instead it was closer to twenty years,” Bayen said.

Aaron fought to keep the doubt from showing on his face, but Bayen must have sensed it.

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“I’m still trying to understand why you would voluntarily go into cryostasis. That doesn’t add up for me,” Aaron said.

Verona pursed his lips, and Tanneth nodded.

Bayen gave him a long look before speaking. “It’s because I was infected.”