Water's Wrath (Air Awakens Series Book 4) (33 page)

“After the Knights disowned my family, they used their knowledge of the caverns to prepare a plot to drive out Solaris, to purge the Western court of all those who were no longer loyal to ‘King Jadar’s Ideals.’” Aldrik scowled. “They stole the Sword of Jadar. My mother’s father had told her where he had hidden it, and she discovered it missing within hours of my birth.”

Vhalla remembered her conversation with Ophain; the lord had mentioned the sword had gone missing, but he so carefully left out the truth of the matter.

Aldrik shifted uncomfortably and continued, “My mother left. She never even told my father where she was going. She disappeared into the night on the fastest War-strider and raced without rest to the caves, despite still recovering from the pains and blood loss of labor.”

Vhalla grimaced at the thought.

“She confronted the Knights before they could penetrate into the heart of the caverns.” Aldrik paused, blinking away shining tears. “She was alone, but she used the Knight’s knowledge against them. She was a Western princess and had access to Mhashan’s crimson history. She Bound her will with the crystals; she gave everything to block the Knights with a barrier of her magic. Even when they killed her, the barrier held.”

“How do you know all this?”

“She left a letter,” he answered. “When she went missing, my family went searching through the palace, keeping things hush before a search party was sent. I suppose there were places that she and her sisters would share, secrets with notes. My mother hid a letter in one such place. By the time they knew, it was too late.”

“Why didn’t she let someone else go?” Vhalla frowned. “Why did
she
run off?” Vhalla omitted what she really wanted to know.
Why had Aldrik’s mother left her newborn son?

But he heard it. “Who knows, really? I suppose she was magically the strongest. She knew she would be stopped by anyone she told. Perhaps she knew the route the best. Perhaps she had researched it best. If it had been me, and I had something I desperately wanted to protect, I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do what must be done. The Knights were at all levels of Western society. She could have been assassinated by telling the wrong person while trying to mobilize a force, and then it would be far too late.”

Aldrik paused and looked at her with sudden clarity. Vhalla realized that, for the first time, he understood what his mother had felt. She glanced at the paper she had clutched longingly, a mother, a father, and
their
child. Aldrik’s eyes betrayed his resolve; he was prepared to do the same for her and a child who may never even come into existence.

“If your mother gave her life to form the barrier,” Vhalla thought aloud, “how do you know about it? She couldn’t have left word about what actually transpired in the caverns.”

His expression darkened, and Aldrik looked away, cursing under his breath. “Vhalla, I am sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“For taking your father from you all those years.” He winced.

“What?” She blinked.

“For taking all those mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers from their homes. I didn’t know, I wouldn’t have . . .” He sounded like a boy pleading to a parent for forgiveness. “I didn’t know how much it hurt to lose someone you truly loved. It was my fault.”

“What was?” she asked gently, deciding arguing would be more stressful for him.

“The war.” Aldrik swallowed. “The War of the Crystal Caverns was my fault.”

“What?” Vhalla breathed, dazed and confused. “How? No, Aldrik, I’m sure . . . You’re just guilt ridden right now. Everything isn’t your fault. Even your mother. She didn’t die because of you, she died because of insane xenophobes.”

“It is!” The fire in the hearth flared, emphasizing Aldrik’s wild emotions. “
He
told me that I was powerful, like my mother—that I would be great. I didn’t know the whole truth, and I believed him. He told me that I could serve my country, help my family. That I would be loved, more than my brother ever was, more than any prince, king, or emperor ever would be.”

Vhalla opened her mouth, struggling for a word in his almost angry tirade.

“I was a fool, a boy. I was innocent, wide-eyed. And, like the idiot I was, I believed him.” Aldrik cursed at himself. “I believed him because I wanted to. Because I did not yet know the world was full of liars and deceivers. But I should have known, I was too smart not to know.”

“Who is ‘him’?” Something sunk heavy in her stomach.

“Egmun.”

“What did the bastard do to you?” Vhalla struggled to control her rage, her anger.

“Nothing I didn’t ask for myself.” Aldrik hung his head.

“I don’t understand,” she confessed, wishing she did so he would not have to endure another moment of the conversation.

“He didn’t even choose me, not at first. I’m sure I would have been high on his list, but being the prince, I was a liability to his goals. Too many eyes on me, too much risk someone would find out.” Aldrik fell back onto the pillows limply.

“Find out what?” Vhalla asked.

“He was fascinated by the caverns, and he wanted to learn their secrets.”

“For power?” she interjected.

“I don’t think so . . .” Aldrik mused softly. “Egmun was never really like that. He was addicted to knowledge. It was beyond liking books or memorizing facts. He wanted to push the boundaries. He did not just want to know, he wanted to be the
first
to know. He wanted to discover, and each discovery was a drug stronger than any other. Even if he held all the power in the world, it would have bored him after the initial rush, I think.”

Vhalla reclined on the pillows as well, too exhausted by the conversation to sit another moment.

“Egmun chose Victor.”

“Victor?”

“Indeed. But because he was my mentor, I was eventually brought in on it, too.” Aldrik sighed. “I thought—I saw the crystals as the pinnacle of what it meant to be a sorcerer: to handle them, to wield them, to control them.

“Egmun taught us both.” The prince stared at his hands. “He put crystals in our palms, he took notes, and he taught us what he knew. Victor had been at it longer than I had, but I took to it like a fish to water. I knew power, and I did not want to relinquish it. Egmun was an amazing teacher, really. He was charismatic, enthusiastic, encouraging. He wanted to watch us excel and to learn from us. I had a taste, and I was hungry and wanted more; however much he gave me wasn’t enough. It was never enough.”

“But, crystal corruption?” Vhalla asked.

“He was careful, or tried to be,” Aldrik addressed her concern. “He would only let us handle them every few days. Victor was the first to show signs of sickness though. Then we turned into test subjects without realizing it. Victor was constantly pushed to the limit to determine how much he could endure. Looking back, it was wild, it was reckless, and it was amazing Victor did not end up corrupted with taint.”

Vhalla remembered Victor’s notebook.
It was all true.

“Egmun knew. Of course, he knew. The man knew everything, even beyond what was written in books. If there was a secret whispered on someone’s lips, it would find its way to him. Maybe that’s why he’s the perfect—in all the worst ways—Head of Senate now. He knew of my mother, of her sacrifice. He knew it was her magic that sealed the caverns.

“He went to the caverns and tried to unlock it himself. He was a gifted sorcerer, but he wasn’t strong enough. The magic of the barrier rejected him.”

“But it wouldn’t reject you.” She understood what happened with horrific clarity. Magic wasn’t in the blood, but she remembered Gianna explaining how there was something about magic passed through families.

“Egmun had procured the sword, he had me. Victor was no longer needed.” Aldrik clenched his fists, barring his teeth in anger. “He took me to the caverns with our sacrifice. He paid the blood toll, but it wasn’t enough. The man we killed was simply a Commons, so it was rejected.

“Everything went wrong. The delicate stasis of the crystals was thrown out of balance by my actions, letting the power seep into the world. It unleashed taint into our world, reaching out eagerly to corrupt as quickly as possible.” Aldrik’s voice weakened. “I rode back through the rain and told my father everything. That I’d damned our people and cursed our kingdom. He sent soldiers, but they were no match and became tainted monsters, spreading the taint further. I told my father, I told him I wasn’t fit to be a ruler . . .”

Vhalla sat suddenly, staring at Aldrik. Suddenly the rainy night of a boy taking a knife to his skin made sense. “Don’t say it. I know.”

“It was my fault,” he whispered.

“No,” she said firmly. “It was Egmun’s fault. You were only a boy.”

“My father was of the same inclination.” The prince sat again also, keeping his fingers intertwined with hers. “He told Egmun to seal the caverns, whatever price had to be paid was not nearly enough. But should Egmun be successful, he would be pardoned. He went back to the caverns, and he lived up to his word. At first, the lingering magic of my mother’s barrier rejected him, and I ended up being forced to help him establish a new barrier in the structure of the old one.”

“That’s why he doesn’t have magic anymore,” she realized. The minister had given up his power to restore the barrier.

“After that, Egmun was awarded his life and a position on the Senate for holding his tongue about how the crown prince had started the War of the Crystal Caverns,” he murmured.

“I realized I was a bad person to be around. I caused countless deaths. I let evil, true evil, into the world.” Aldrik pressed his palms into his eyes. “My life, from then on, was built around a lie. A lie that I was not some monster who, had I not been the crown prince, would have been put to death. A lie that I was still a prince worthy of the crown that rested upon my head. So I became the prince of lies. I embraced being the black sheep. Perhaps I thought eventually it would make my father see I wasn’t fit for the throne. I still have never been punished properly for the weight of my crimes.”

He finally ran out of words, and the sound of his unsteady breathing filled the room. Emotions assaulted her one after the next: shock, horror, anger, pain. Half a dozen more rose in her as she stared at the man quietly suffering before her.

“You must hate me,” Aldrik said softly. “Now that you know me, truly know me, you must hate me.” He continued before she could get a word in, “I should’ve told you so long ago. But I was too selfish; I knew I’d lose you if I did.”

“I’m still here,” she whispered after a long moment. Aldrik stilled, his breathing becoming shallow so he could hang on her every word. “I do not hate you. And I know if you had told Baldair, he would have felt the same as I. He would not have hated you for this. You have punished yourself enough, more than enough; stop blaming yourself for crimes long past, whatever role you may or may not have had in them.”

“Vhalla,” he whispered weakly.

She gripped his hand tightly and pulled him to her. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed him close. “I could never hate you.”

Aldrik buried his face back into her chest and upper shoulder, much like he had before. Though this time, there were far fewer tears, far fewer emotions wracking his body.
Then again
, perhaps too many emotions were coursing through him that he was simply stunned numb. Either way, she held him gently, trying to offer him as much reassurance as she could.

“I feel better,” he confessed.

“Do you?”

“Better being relative,” he sighed. “But yes.”

“For a prince of lies, you seem to enjoy the truth.” Vhalla smiled weakly. He huffed in amusement. She relished that somehow; he had found the eye of the storm.

“I’m tired.”

“Me, too.”

“Come.” He pulled them off the floor and out of the room.

The prince led her to his room, and she joined him in his bed without a second thought. Singed, bloody clothes and red eyes, they became a tangled mess of limbs. Their chests alternated heaving with tears and feeling so empty that there was no more emotion from which to cry. He never explicitly asked for her to stay, but there was nowhere else Vhalla would’ve been. She eventually fell asleep with him tucked tightly in her arms as a storm brewed just outside the door.

T
HERE WAS A
knock on the outside door.

Vhalla rolled over in her sleep, and Aldrik’s hands followed her. He pulled her to him instinctually, his body curling around her. She sighed softly. Everything hurt less when she was in his embrace.

Another firm knock roused her further. It must have been loud, or it would’ve been impossible to hear from across the large main room and his bedroom. Vhalla blinked her eyes, opening and closing them with a wince at the blinding light.

The knocking continued, and a soft call of Aldrik’s name finally brought him to life.

“Who is it?” she mumbled, staring out the windows. It was just after dawn, so they couldn’t have slept for that long. The sun’s brilliant rays bounced off a thick layer of snow that had fallen on his balcony during the night.
The first snow of winter
, and Vhalla could feel no joy for it.