Page 103 of A Kingdom of Lies

“You did not ask, you assumed. Which will promptly end this conversation you have so desperately requested if it happens again.” Aldrick’s face was flushed red, from anger or his previous coughing, I could not tell. Speaking with him was no different than being scorned by a parent; it irked me.

“Spare Duncan,” I said again, choosing to leave the man’s pending death for another conversation. I cared little. Hell, he could have keeled over now and stopped breathing, and I would not have cared. “Surely yourgodwill not care if one is forgiven. I hear you make all the decisions on Duwar’s behalf.”

“Duwar makes its own decisions,” Aldrick said, rolling the letters down his tongue as though the name was not from his language, or any other I had heard before. “Duncan will require payment for his forgiveness. Are you willing to pay the tithe on his behalf?”

“I am.” Anything.

“As I thought so.” Aldrick rolled his eyes, pushing himself back to standing with a chorus of bones clicking and creaking. “Do you wish to know the price before throwing yourself before Duwar’s judgement?”

“From my understanding, Duwar is imprisoned and kept away. I do not fear the demon, only crazed fools who idolise false gods. You lead your Hunters blindly, with the promise of this Duwar. But what is it going to do? Long gone are the days of gods; you should realise that better than anyone.”

“Sharp tongue for someone powerless and imprisoned in my care.” Aldrick turned his back on me, taking careful steps towards a chest of drawers across the room. As he spoke, his voice echoed, amplified by the towering, barren chamber. “The world will soon remember Duwar. I cannot blame you for your insolence for you are not alone within it. I pity you, but do not blame you.”

Aldrick withdrew a cloak from the drawer. It was midnight black, plain and hooded. I watched as he struggled to put it on, tying it around his waist with a grey cord and lifting the hood across his head to cover his distinguishing features. Suddenly he was simply an old man, crooked and unimportant.

“Tonight, you will make your payment for Duncan Rackley’s pardon. Even I understand that if I desire you to work with me, not against me, I must earn your trust.”

Aldrick was preparing to leave me; I knew it from his lack of attention as he shrouded himself in the cloak. Before he reached the door he paused, age-spotted hand hovering above the handle as though he had suddenly remembered somehing. That was when he looked back to me, his face completely concealed. From within the folds of heavy material he spoke. “I almost forgot the most important thing.”

He limped towards me. I gripped onto the chair, kicking down at the ground to try and break free as his inner presence crept up my mind like a snake cornering a mouse. There was nothing I could say to him. No words that would affect him. Aldrick was so detached from this world, lost to his age and delusion, that I knew no words would reach him. He had likely heard them all before.

So, instead, I spat, a gob of thick saliva that splattered by his feet.

“With the years that have passed I have been in the company of many kings and many queens. I have shared an equal distaste for them all and yet I admit not one has ever been like you. Worthless, spitting like an animal without grace and decorum. Admittedly I had put you on a pedestal, understanding our similarities. Meeting you, Robin Icethorn, has been one of my life’s greatest disappointments”.

I gasped as though his words slapped me physically. If my hands were not strapped to the chair I would have scratched at my head, tearing through skin and bone to rip his presence out.

“Fuck…” My mind filled with images for a moment. The room fell away and in the shadows that replaced it were flashing views of lands riddled with fire. Skies awash with lightning and pregnant clouds. Sunless, dark and horrific.Red. Droplets of scarlet fell from the heavens and covered the ground.Blood. It was everywhere.

“A time of reckoning is upon us.”My vision returned and with it came the roaring of screams that filled my ears. It was me – my throat aching as I unleashed the keening cry inside of me.

“What did you do? Get out of my head!”

“I showed you the future. Not tomorrow, nor the day after and the weeks after that. But soon. A time that is not far off from this very moment.”Aldrick lowered himself with a symphony of audible groans, picked up the bowl of my blood from beside me, and held it before him. He was careful with it, while I struggled and thrashed as much as the strappings allowed. Not a drop of blood was wasted.

“You are nothing but an old, forgottenmadman,” I shouted, spit flicking onto my chin as I watched Aldrick turn back towards the door.

He didn’t flinch or show signs that he could hear me as he opened the door with a yawning creak.

“Do you hear me, you bastard?” The chair almost toppled back in the chaos of my thrashing limbs. “Heed me. Iwillstop you. I will. Iwill!”

Aldrick closed me in the room without another word spoken aloud. The sounds that tore out of me no longer made sense. My throat grew hoarse, my chest feeling as though it burned with each breathless cry. Then that dreaded, scratching presence returned as strong as it had been when Aldrick had stood before me.

“It would seem, Robin Icethorn, that you are the mad one now.”

CHAPTER 36

The human king and queen of Durmain sat rigid in twin thrones as they looked warily upon the grand room before them. At first, I’d believed they were made from stone, regal statues of wealth and power. Not a single muscle moved, even turning their heads seemed impossible. Their lips didn’t even twitch as the chamber I was seated within filled with Hunters. The black wave of leather came at once, making the air sticky with body heat and the noise unbearable.

I noticed something flickering in the king’s and queen’s eyes – it waspanic–unblinking and frantic as they darted around the room; it was almost as if they screamed through them, trapped inside a body they couldn’t control. They were imprisoned to their flesh, bones now iron bars keeping them within a cage, a feeling I shared.

“Silence – watch – comply.”

Aldrick’s command had echoed through my mind from the moment the Twins had come to collect me from the chamber I was left tied down in. At first his words were nothing but empty commands, until I discovered my body refused to follow my rebellious thoughts. I knew he was controlling me in some manner.

I couldn’t put up a fight as the Twins dragged me here. Imposing and dark, the room was overwhelming, arched ceilings so high that the top was shrouded in shadows. The walls were old, each worn brick filled with stories of this castle’s history; some stones were so large that it must’ve taken giants to carry them.

They sat me upon a lavishly decorated podium alongside the human royals. It was carved from polished slabs of marble; dark veins cut through the white stone as though they wished to devour the light. I soon learned that the podium, once a place to hold royals at a higher esteem than those who came to see them, now felt like a stage. We were the puppets; Aldrick was the hidden figure at the end of the strings.

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