Zendar, page 16
Chapter 33
“One Lost, Another Found”
Azel should have known that trying to outrun Undel’s ships was idiocy. It was a fool’s mission to begin with, and her presence had brought about her father’s death. Once more she was the fault of a parent’s death and now she was orphaned.
At times such as this, she thought, one begins to feel the smallness of their existence.
Kavil and his closest advisors were arguing behind her. They believed she placed them all in danger, and her presence would kill them. Kavil had already called a wall of sand to buy them time but that would not keep Titus delayed long enough to flee to safety. Within hours, Titus’s fleet would hunt them down. She already knew another death upon her hands would break her belief in goodness and justice.
“I will surrender myself to him,” Azel said softly. “You can manipulate the sands to protect yourself while he chases me.”
“Leave us,” he said as he bent over the desk and stared at her with thinly veiled anguish.
“It is the best possible outcome,” she explained turning back to face him fully. “I will face his charges and perhaps they will allow me leniency until you can expose Titus’s treachery.”
“I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself,” Kavil said. “You are just as Vashdi was, and I shall not allow her daughter to perish by the same fate.”
“You loved my mother,” Azel said with a smile. “I can see that in your eyes, but I am not her and I will not have you perish to preserve your love for her.”
“No, my daughter,” he said resigned to his confession. “It is you I love.”
Azel straightened; she had not expected that, “What can you possibly mean?”
“You are my daughter,” he said. “Your mother enchanted me from the first moment I saw her. Your father was away from the palace with his newfound concubine. At the time he was not a romantic man or an attentive one. She was lonely, and having just lost my wife, I was the same. After she learned of your father’s betrayal, she found comfort in my arms. It only happened once but it was enough. He returned to her soon after I left and she never came to see me unless on an official capacity.”
“How can you possibly know that I am your daughter?” Azel asked. The world suddenly seemed a little unbalanced.
“Your powers betray you as my own. If that were not enough, she hinted the last time we met that you were more powerful than her other daughters, and that though she had a weak connection to the Vandi Bloodline, Leoric did not.” he sat down heavily. “But I did, and two members of the Bloodline were needed to resurrect a long lost Bloodline such as the Vandi in such potency as you possess.”
“Why did you not tell me when we first met?” she said, coming towards him. She was slightly angered. “You even spoke to me as though you had thought to take me as your wife!”
“It was a ploy; your mother came to me in the strictest confidence. She hoped that I might protect you from the world and provide you with an honorable husband,” he admitted, stroking his chin. “You were never to know who I was. I swore on Vashdi’s life to carry this secret to my death unless I had no choice.”
She swallowed down her emotions. “That is why you would not concede to have me marry any of your sons. They are my half-brothers.”
“Yes.” He covered the lower half of his face and closed his eyes.
Her lower lip quivered and tears threatened. “I have brothers, and another sister.”
“I had hoped when you married Malik, that you might befriend them,” he said. “I would have treated you like you were my own, and you would have never known the truth. There is too much of your mother in you, and besides your gifts, there is no proof you are my daughter.”
“Zendar had another plan for me it seems,” Azel commented glancing back to the horizon of sand. “Everything is not what it seems, and what I believed to be true when I first set out is no longer accurate.”
Suddenly the reason for her mother’s insistence that she leave Undel and marry anyone but a Liege became clear. The large sum must have been paid by Kavil to secure her an honorable man. Her mother’s words and actions: it all became clear. Her mother had lived with the shame of her betrayal and a son that was not her own. She had always thought her family a happy one, but there were secrets kept from her. Azel had always felt special to her mother, as though something about her set her apart from her sisters.
“I believe my mother loved you. My sisters called me Vashdi’s pet when we were younger. I was always my mother’s favorite,” Azel said, turning back to him. “Did my father know?”
“No,” Kavil said. “By the time your powers manifested it was too late. I believe your mother intended to tell him. But he loved you as his own and she could not take that away from him.”
“You may have helped bring me into this world, but Leoric was my father,” Azel said softly. “My need to avenge his death is not any less than it was.”
He sighed bitterly. “You will have your own death instead of vengeance.”
Azel said with a smile as she touched his arm, “I am more powerful than you think.”
He pulled the bandages from his arm and found it to be uninjured. “Even if you are powerful, you cannot overcome his entire army. You know you risk death.”
“I am a princess,” Azel said proudly. “He will not be able to murder me in cold blood and take the crown without opposition. It will buy us time to complete my plan.”
“You have a plan?” He said looked relieved.
“Of course,” Azel said with a confident smile. “I would not be so foolish as to surrender myself without some assurances.”
“What is our plan?”
“I will need Caine.” Azel turned back to the window to look at the sand. “Bring him to me and I shall explain.”
Chapter 34
“Surrender”
She rode the scout ship as quickly towards Aleron as she could. Her brother’s small fleet was hunting her down. Behind her, Kavil rode the sand to safety. Although she should have been focusing on her plan, her thoughts were only of Aleron. Would he be willing to help her, or would their very birthrights keep them from happiness?
She swerved to the right as two of Undel’s scout ships were deployed. They quickly caught up to her as she tried to outmaneuver them. How easily they forgot she was of the Vandi Bloodline. She unseated them when they drew too close to her. Their ships crashed behind her as four more ships became hot on her tail.
Thankful for the goggles on her face, she punched the acceleration on the single-man airship. The solar panels were forced to turn on and absorb in more sunlight to regenerate energy and the engine clicked from effort. She dipped down and let the sand pick up behind her, blinding those that were hunting her. She tried every trick her father had taught her, starting with forming a sand trail to making them crash into one another. The open sea of sand offered her little protection from their pursuit.
Titus’s game of cat-and-mouse continued for quite a while until her brother became tired of the sport. He used an energy net. It released a pulse that took out the solar power on her ship and forced her to use the emergency landing. She turned round back towards the two fallen ships.
Azel jumped from the broken ship and began to run, as though her entire being knew only the need to reach her destination. They swarmed around her and she fought back, throwing them from their ships and attempting to steal another or reach one of the fallen ones. She could feel herself draining, and with every new attack a little more was lost. She could never hope to make it to Aleron.
As she mounted a fallen ship a man she had unseated hit her over the head with his sheathed sword. A firework of light and dark flashed before her eyes. Azel turned and hurled him back as the scout ship burst into action beneath her. She blinked as her head began to pound and she tried to focus on the scout ship she now rode. She tried to press a cloth against the cut but the throbbing in her head worsened. She felt herself slump forward, as her head ached and blackness threatened to swallow her whole. Her last thought as she fell from the speeding ship was that her act had seemed convincing.
--
“I demand a trial,” Azel said as two guards held her arms. They were both of strong Kaheron stock. They stood like towers over her, she a weak looking thing by comparison. Thankfully, as was the way of the world, things were never what they seemed. She stared into the cold eyes of her brother and could feel herself glaring. Hatred was something she was becoming accustomed to, but unlike Aleron, her hatred for Titus was razor sharp.
The advisors sat around her murdering brother, whispering amongst themselves. She could feel the drugs coursing through her veins. They had dulled her senses and weakened her powers; it was unlikely she could take both guards in such a state. She could see that some of them were clearly loyal to her brother while others seemed ignorant of her brother’s evil deeds.
“I am a princess and I will be given a trial that is due to me by my status as royalty,” Azel said, struggling to stay alert. “I will not submit to these false accusations without a proper trial on my home soil.”
“You are a murder and traitor to the Bloodline,” Titus said. The evil in him now fully visible to Azel and she wanted to spit at his words. “We will discuss how best to handle your execution.”
“My Liege,” said one of the older advisors named Kiral. “Princess Azel is beloved of the people. She should have her trial.”
“I did not ask for your advice,” Titus said with a sneer.
“You should take his advice, brother; our father would have wanted the truth to come out,” Azel said with a small triumphant smile. “Perhaps you are unfit to rule our great city.”
“Silence, traitor,” Titus said and brought his fist down on the chair’s arm. “Your voice is lost for your slaying of our father. We shall discuss at length the proper way to sentence you. Guards, take her to the brig.”
“I know the truth,” she yelled as she was led away pulling on the guards hold on her. “And soon so will everyone else.”
They lead her from the room and escorted her, rather roughly, to a small confined area. They all but tossed her into the cell and spit by her feet, calling her a traitor. She pushed herself up from the hard wood floor; it was unforgiving to her aching body. She slumped against the side bars in an attempt to let the cold metal help with her aching head.
“You’re pretty,” a male prisoner said, touching the back of his hand to her knuckles as they gripped the bar.
She glared at him before retracting her hand and sitting down. If she sat in the middle of her cell against the back wall, the men to her left and right couldn’t touch her. The man to her left was clearly a privateer while the man to her right lacked a fully functioning brain. He started screaming she was his jewel and he must possess her. He only stopped when the guards gave him an attitude readjustment.
The prisoner’s silent staring and murmured words were as unnerving as his screaming, albeit less annoying. Azel let her head rest against the back of the wall; if he tried to touch her again she would have to teach him a lesson. Exhausted and without anything to distract her from her thoughts she closed her eyes.
Aleron’s face appeared as though he were before her, with the same smirk of power before he planted a gentle kiss upon her lips. She could feel tears threaten from the ache in her heart. Love was a bittersweet thing, both deliciously rewarding and always painfully present. She did not doubt his love for her, but did his ability to forgive. Would he forgive her birthright, her threat on his life and her abandonment of him? She no longer cared what her father had done. He was beyond her now. Whatever his crimes had been, they were not hers and she prayed to Zendar that he would understand.
Chapter 35
“To Death or Not to Death”
“You are charged with the murder of the Liege Leoric, house of Kaheron,” said an older man. He looked to be in the last ten years of his life. “How do you plead?”
“Innocent,” Azel said, her arms in shackles, as she stood before the council.
“We must review the evidence,” he said in a shaky voice. “The throwing knife that was gifted on you by your father was the murder weapon. How do you explain that?”
Azel’s eyes shot over to Titus in surprise before she turned back to the council to answer. “It was aboard the ship that was attacked by Privateers. It was lost in the crash, or stolen. It could have been in anyone’s possession.”
“That may prove anyone could have been possession of it but it does not explain how it ended up being used on your father,” another councilwoman said, pointedly.
“You forget,” Azel said, glancing at the woman obviously on her brother’s payroll, “I am of the Vandi Bloodline. I would not need a knife to kill someone.”
That made everyone began to whisper amongst themselves. She knew she had made a very good point. By her right she could have killed him and made it look like an accident. Even to them it seemed foolish that she had used a knife.
“Is it not true that you intend to marry the Liege Aleron of the Corvinus Bloodline?” the woman asked and Azel resisted looking to her brother.
She had expected he would use as much against her. “It is true I wish to end the war between our people through marriage.”
“Regardless of why, did your father accept your marriage plans?” she asked, leaning forward. People whispered behind their hands.
“He did not,” Azel said softly, looking to the ground. “It disheartens me to think that his last thoughts were so distressed when he was murdered.”
“Is it your assertion that someone else murdered him?” the head of the council asked in a troubled voice.
“It is my claim, yes,” she answered.
“Have you any proof?” the same councilwoman demanded.
“My father had a secret,” Azel said, glancing at Titus with a mischievous look. “I believe he was murdered before it could be revealed.”
Titus sat forward. “Councilmembers, we have heard her side of the story. Perhaps we should break before we hear testimony of the soldiers who saw her fleeing where my father was killed.”
“How convenient,” she hissed as the guards escorted her back to the cell.
--
Many hours later Azel lay at the bottom of the cell curled in a ball. She was staring at the lines on her palm, she wondered if they represented anything. If her palm told a story she wondered what others would read. More so, what did her future hold for her? Azel knew that she would surely perish if Aleron’s love for her had waivered.
Doubts circled around her head like angry clouds. She wanted desperately to believe that the love she held in her heart for him was as strong as the love he felt for her. She closed her eyes and held her mother’s earring in her hand.
Already her family had caused so much pain, both to themselves and to others. If nothing else, she hoped Aleron would put a stop to her evil brother. She knew not the end of his wickedness. She heard the keys jangle and opened her eyes to look behind her. A guard stood with her brother, and he had that same smirk on his face.
“Hello, sister” he said. She could see the wickedness in his smile.
“I am surprised to see you, brother,” Azel said as she stood. “Come to confess your sins?”
He laughed a little as the door was opened. “I was about to ask you the same. To think our father died with uneasiness in his heart over his whore of a daughter. It’s a shame really.”
He stepped up to her. He stood just slightly taller than she and she all but spat in his face. “I would rather be a whore than a murderer, and soon everyone will know exactly what you are.”
“Bold words for someone who is going to die,” he said closing the door behind him. “What is your plan, sister?”
“Plan?” she said with a little laugh. “I was abandoned by the Liege Kavil, and my only hope was to rejoin with my betrothed. I can assure you it was never my intention to be captured. I would be forfeiting my life, but now that I am here, I will hold to my cry of innocence and speak the truth until my dying breath.”
“And you will die my sister,” he said, putting a hand around her throat. “Not today perhaps, but you shall, and you will hold your tongue until that dying breath, or else Zena and Omba will have unforeseen tragedies.”
Azel went very still. She had not expected such cruelty. At first she thought to appeal to his blood but she knew that was foolish. Instead she appealed to his place of authority. “You wouldn’t dare upset such rich families.”
“Oh, little sister,” he said, tightening his hold slightly. “They would just have accidents, you see. Fall from a roof or a tumble down the stairs. It would be painful and completely accidental in nature.”
“What do you want?” She already knew what was coming.
“Do not reveal what you know,” he said and shook her a little. “And stop accusing me. I know you are too proud to lie and admit murder but your silence will be enough.”
Her teeth pressed together and she could feel her jaw start to ache from the pressure. “And my sisters will be safe?”
“Without you, they are of no threat to me.” He released his hold on her throat with a slight shove and waved the guard over.
“Brother,” she said, holding her throat. She flicked her gaze up to him. “I would rip your limbs off but make sure you lived on through your eternity as a cripple. That way your outsides would match your twisted insides.”
She saw his jaw tighten as he drew his hand back. She straightened and brought her head up. His arm shook from the effort but it remained mid-swing. He didn’t just wish to dispose of her because she held the people’s love or because she had the heart of a Liege; he wanted her dead because he was afraid of her.
“Guards!” He yelled as she took a step back and released his arm. “She still refuses to confess her crimes. Take her before the council.”
He didn’t wait for them to respond, he bolted from the cell. He took long strides towards the temporary trial room. The first guard pulled her roughly from the cell; she pulled her arm free of his hold.
