Page 39 of Angel in Absentia
She collapsed into the bed. After a moment, the pounding of her heart slowed down, and she curled up calmly in bed. The morning was dawning, but it was time for her to sleep now, alone at last to enjoy a peaceful bout of rest.
She’d need to speak Myken again and sort things through with Idan, but for now, she could rest. This rest was her reward.
At last, she’d done enough.
CHAPTER 12
THE PLOT
LEA FELT LIKE a completely different person since her awakening, finally having the gift to explore who she was outside of the mantle of immediate royalty. Her father might now grow old, and perhaps another heir could eventually take Clea’s place on the throne, though her father stressed multiple times the importance of improving relations with Ruedom. A routine settled back into place as the days passed, and Clea, Dae, Iris, Yvan, and Idan, or any combination of the group, could often be found, as they were now, back in the remote haven of Dawn Field.
Clea engaged Dae eagerly in sword practice, enjoying it more in the past few days than she ever had. Afterward, Idan and Dae exchanged tricks of the trade on political matters. Yvan and Iris discussed nuances of Virdain history as Iris refreshed her own assumptions in stitching all of the pieces together. She’d already interviewed Idan multiple times on the histories of their respective homelands and had become feverish in her pursuit of some secret theories she didn’t seem ready to share with them all yet.
Clea was somewhat delighted to find how much the group had seemed to bond in her absence. Apparently, her unconsciousness had drawn them together in shifts to keep an eye on her, and they’d found their own paths to connecting with one another in ways she didn’t expect.
The castle bustled with change, and there was one person she still wanted to speak with. Myken. Myken, who remained trapped in the dungeon. She had been carefully scoping out an opportunity to talk with him in private.
The opportunity came one afternoon when the group left for Dawn Field and she had a meeting with Catagard, who then had to meet with the High Council right after. The servants had all broken for a celebratory luncheon out near the river, and the guards were distracted by the festivities.
In perfect timing, she snuck down through the entrance of the secret tunnels. The corridor was damp with moss, the air thick with the scent of rusted iron and dust. Clea moved in silence, the hem of her cloak brushing the worn stones beneath her boots. The torch she carried flickered against the stone walls and then the broad iron door, lined with gold chain.
She could hardly count the questions she had for him, for Myken was one of the few who knew about Ryson, and one of the few, perhaps, who might help her clarify and decode the persistent dream that almost seemed to grow more vivid, instead of less, as time passed.
The iron door groaned and she entered the cell, briefly sympathizing with the darkness in which Myken had spent weeks alone. She steeled herself against it after reminding herself that Venennin didn’t feel hunger or thirst. It was likely that in all this time and isolation, Myken had felt little but the urge to survive.
The light cascaded over him as she replaced the torch on the edge of the cell. Myken slowly lifted his head, silver eyes cast through black hair. He looked otherworldly in the way thatRyson often had. Those eyes had been terrifying in many ways, and yet she hadn’t been afraid of Ryson even then.
Had it really just been naivety that had fueled her curiosity?
“Myken,” she greeted as she closed the door behind her.
“Your Highness,” he replied. “I hear whispers of your healing. Congratulations on unsettling Javelin de Gal of the Ashanas and dooming us all. You should have stayed asleep. You were better off that way.” His eyes held her like hooks, and she saw the anger that had been left to brew these past few weeks. It seems the High Council had been hesitant to do anything with him while she was resting.
She wondered how she should engage him. She no longer wore the gold chains around her wrist and ankles, no longer wore a blessed Lodain cloak, but she kept the distance between them.
“The thing I destroyed was the Deadlock Medallion,” she asserted again, going straight for the matter at hand. “But you say otherwise. What else could it be? Everything points to that.”
Well, other than her dream.
Myken seemed to consider her question, his sharp features shadowed in planes of darkness and ragged hair. Dried blood still streaked his cheek. He looked tired, likely hibernating these past few months. When he seemed content to relinquish his anger in such a brief sequence, Clea assumed that was the case. She wondered then if he’d actually been angry at all or if he’d simply wanted to stir her.
“I don’t know, but it awoke something in the Insednians.”
Clea paused, regarding him carefully as she crossed her arms slowly across her chest. He seemed to read the gesture, raising an eyebrow as her defensiveness.
“I had a dream before I awoke,” Clea said after a few more minutes, and slowly, without asserting any specific names or places, she provided an outline of the events of her dream, offering only that it involved the Insednians.
“You think I’m some kind of mystic dream interpreter?” he asked, raising both brows now. She didn’t change her expression or respond, not caring to defend her actions. When she didn’t, he sighed. “Let me ask you this. In the eyes of the Insednians,” he said at last, skepticism heavy in his voice, “you made them an offering by healing one of their own leaders, but what does that mean now?”
“I don’t know,” Clea said, “but I think it could mean some kind of immunity. I’ve thought often of how I could leverage it in the future, but honestly, I’m not completely sure what it means.”
“The Insednians are in your debt and you dream about them even here, the Belgears come to you for aid, and you survived a curse of Javelin de Gal, The Breathless Eater,” Myken summarized. “You rifled through the censured literature. You risked your city’s well-being to save the ravaged city of Virday. Perhaps you aren’t completely corrupt, but you are anything but untouched by all of this. Heroes and villains often look alike, don’t you know.”
Silence pulsed in the chamber.
“What are you saying?” Clea asked. “It’s not like I asked for any of this. I wanted to learn about the darkness, not commit to it.”
Myken tilted his head, examining her, perhaps in a new light. It was no longer condescension but interest, no longer anger but cool speculation. “I don’t think you realize how those things are connected,” he said, and she watched the pair of silver eyes, completely consumed by the Insednian curse. “Interesting how out of all of your consults and council members, you snuck into a dark dungeon to ask a Venennin about what you’re truly struggling with. Maybe you and I should run away together, even if I do appear to be a poorly disguised substitute for the one you’re really looking for. What do you think?”
