Before the Dawn (23 page)

Another wooden door waited for him once he
reached the very top, except that this one had engravings of gold
and silver that he supposed were charms or incantations since they
resembled a form of writing. Fully expecting the door to be locked,
he nevertheless tried pushing against it and was surprised to find
that it opened quite easily. Cautiously, he studied the empty
corridor that stretched out before him. It had no windows that
allowed him to guess what time it was, but there were crystalline
torches that illuminated the way. So he continued walking, hoping
that he would eventually stumble into another door or, better yet,
someone he knew. He must have walked for a very long time, but
there seemed to be no end to the corridor in sight. It was
beginning to frustrate him and he was seriously considering
screaming out Raven or Meran's name so they would know he was
looking for them when, in the distance, a faint white glow
appeared.

The glow became brighter and brighter, and he
saw that it was actually a ball of light that was moving towards
him. For an instant, he thought about turning on his heels and
running because his experiences with strange mysterious things so
far had not proven to be very good for his health. But the glow, as
if sensing his fear, just moved faster until it became a blinding
blur that filled the entire corridor then, before he could let out
a cry, it struck him. Time seemed to stand still, then the world
shifted on its side and he was suddenly standing in a luxurious
dining room lit by gold sparkles captured in crystal globes that
hung lazily in the air. The table before him was laid out with an
otherworldly feast that looked and smelled incredibly tempting, but
the occupants of the room were completely ignoring the bounty
spread out in front of them.

Raven and an unbelievably beautiful woman
with black hair and amber eyes that resembled his were seated on
opposite ends of the long table, glaring at each other. At the
middle of the table, and right across from where Trevor was
standing, sat Meran, looking both apprehensive and irritated as her
head whipped back and forth between her two dining companions.
Raven and the woman, whom Trevor recognized as the one he had met
in the park back when he was mercifully ignorant of his past, were
apparently in the middle of an argument.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe if you
had simply said,
'Raven, come home because your brother has gone
insane and is threatening to plunge the Kingdom into war
'
instead of sending hounds to hunt me down, then I might have been
more cooperative?" Raven was saying, his normally pale face now
looking quite flushed with anger.

"Ha!" the woman snorted, managing to express
the utmost scorn in that one little sound. "You have made it quite
clear over the years that you care nothing for the welfare of
Leralond. Even if hell itself were threatening to swallow us all
up, you would not lift a finger to help anyone. So I had to resort
to manipulations and schemes just to get you to see what has become
of Benwyr."

"Please," he rolled his eyes. "You have never
had any love for Benwyr because you considered him to be the
greatest rival to my claim to the throne. And do not think for a
moment that I am not aware of the fact it was you who taught that
witch the spell that has corrupted him over these years. I never
breathed a word of it because he had vowed to kill whoever had
shared the knowledge of that working. But, really, the madness that
has gripped him would never have been so dark if you hadn't
meddled, as you always have."

"So I owe you my life now, is that what you
are saying?" she exclaimed. "I, who carried you in my womb and
nurtured you as you grew, am now the one who is in your debt?
Because I meddled? I have only ever done things for you, for the
good of an ungrateful son!"

"Spare me the wounded theatrics, please! We
both know very well that your ambition was to bear the seventh son,
the one most likely to become Crown Prince and, later, the King.
You even betrayed your own vows to the Kingdom to do so. But then
Benwyr's mother had the gall to become pregnant at the same time,
and give birth at the same time. So then there were two seventh
sons, which tended to bring misfortune instead of luck in our case,
and you just had to make certain that the one who would eventually
succeed the King would not be Benwyr. He was the better Prince, but
you employed every single trick you knew to push him into becoming
a monster. I may have been responsible for his introduction to that
mortal princess, but you are the one who made absolutely sure that
things would come to such a disastrous end."

Meran eventually came to notice that he was
present in the room and she stood up rather abruptly. "Trevor!" At
her mention of his name, Raven and his mother suddenly shut up and
stared at him. "Please," Meran was clearly begging him with her
eyes, "sit down and join us." She sat down again.

Raven then glanced at him briefly. "Good. The
spirit brought you here," he said.

Trevor was still trying to come up with a way
to tell them that he remembered things when Raven's mother smoothed
out her stormy expression and gave him a warm smile. He found it
extremely disconcerting to see how quickly she was able to shift
her mood. "Well, if it is not the young man who would rescue a
princess from a cruel captor," she said. "Please, do have a
seat."

A chair appeared in front of him and, a bit
nervously, he sat down on it. Invisible hands then pushed him
closer to the table and began to serve him food. Trevor's eyes
boggled at the sight of knives carving meat on their own and wine
bottles being lifted to pour their rich contents into goblets. The
hairs on the back of his neck rose in sudden fright.

Raven's mother laughed. "There is no need to
be so nervous. You will find yourself used to this soon enough,"
she promised, her eyes smoky and hinting at things other than the
oddness of being waited on by invisible servants.

Her son shot her an annoyed look. "Would you
please not try to charm him?" Raven said testily. "He has enough
concerns without you ensnaring him as well."

"Force of habit," she blithely replied, and
Trevor realized that she had simply been trying to get on her son's
nerves. "Eat," she now said to Trevor with no hint of seduction in
her demeanor. "Resurrections tend to sap your strength."

He realized that she was right. He was, in
fact, starving. He began to wolf down the food on his plate and
ignored Meran's worried gaze for the moment. So, instead, she
turned to Raven.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked
before he could resume his argument with his mother. "We just have
one night left to free Aline. And with Trevor's condition—" she
trailed off, and he knew that Raven had told her about the fact
that he was the one trapped in the Strangelands forever now. He
suddenly lost his appetite.

"It doesn't matter if I can't go back," he
told them, quite aware that he was lying even as he said it. But he
knew there were more important things than his eventual fate. "I
still want to rescue Aline and break the Prince's spell over her.
I'll do anything. Just help me."

Raven was silent for a very long time, and
then he sighed. "The circumstances have changed somewhat," he
began. "I've learned that in the time I was away from the Kingdom,
Benwyr has done things in his madness that now push us closer to a
war against our own people and against old rivals. Most of the
lesser nobles have turned on the Princes and the King, and these
people have allied themselves with some of the Kingdom's enemies.
They wait for the right moment to attack us and destroy the Royal
Court. To forestall this, and hopefully to appease the rebellious
nobles, the King has sent an order to all the Princes to do what we
can to prevent a great war from happening."

Trevor looked at him. He had never seen Raven
so serious before. "So, what does that mean? What are you actually
saying?" He saw that Meran was asking the same questions with her
eyes.

"It means," Raven explained very quietly,
"that the other Princes and I are going to war against our own
brother. We have been ordered to destroy Benwyr, and all of his
Court."

Trevor stared at Raven, his mind refusing to
understand what the Prince was saying. "Aline—?" he began, then
faltered.

"—has been sentenced to die," Raven finished
for him.

***

Chapter 24

There was an explosion of movement, a scream
from Meran, and then Raven was on the floor getting pummeled by a
furious Trevor. "You son of a bitch!" he snarled as his fist
connected with Raven’s face again and again. "You fucking—!" He
suddenly yelled out in surprise as a force blew him away from the
Prince and he struck the opposite wall.

A golden nimbus made Raven’s mother appear
like a goddess as she hovered in the air and stared down at Trevor.
"You never touch my son!" she hissed, raising a fist that sparked
with molten lighting and getting ready to throw it at him. But
Raven was quick to get up and hold out a hand to stop her.

"Mother, no!" he said. "Leave him to me!
Please."

She looked outraged for a moment that he
would dare to stop her from exacting revenge on his behalf, and
like she also badly wanted to blow something up just for the hell
of it, but she eventually gave in to her son’s entreaty. She
stopped glowing, set foot on the floor again, and sniffed. "Very
well," she said through her teeth, obviously still seething.

Raven sighed and looked relieved. "Now would
you please go?" he asked softly. "There are things I wish to
discuss with these two."

Her expression froze. She clearly wanted to
protest, but Raven silenced any words she might have said with a
firm and unyielding stare. Finally, she nodded quite stiffly,
turned her back to them, and disappeared from sight between one
second and the next. Raven then faced the two mortals. "Can we now
have a discussion without anyone wanting to physically attack me? I
will never understand why humans seem so fond of dialogues that
involve violence of some sort, but we are in the Strangelands now,
and that is not the way we do things here. So can we just talk
about this unfortunate little development
calmly
?" He put a
lot of emphasis on the last word.

Grudgingly, Trevor nodded, not quite trusting
himself to speak just yet. He made himself take a deep, steadying
breath, and then he walked over to the chair he had upturned when
he had flown at Raven in a rage, set it right, and sat down. Meran,
for her part, remained standing and looking anxious. She couldn’t
quite seem to make up her mind which person she was going to stand
near to but, after several seconds, she made her decision and went
to Trevor’s side. They both looked at Raven and waited for him to
speak.

The Prince gazed at Meran for a moment, his
face impassive, but she carefully avoided his eyes. He let out a
little sigh and then started talking. "I know the news I just
shared is upsetting," he began, "but it is not completely hopeless.
I understand the two of you came here to save Aline and your
friends, and I am willing to help you do that, though I think it's
a foolhardy mission, more so now than before. It can still be done,
however, but we need to be clever in going about it."

"And exactly how are we going to do that?"
Trevor wondered. He couldn't keep a tinge of bitterness from
creeping into his voice. "You just told us that you've been ordered
to kill the very same people we're trying to save. And, oh, one
more thing. I remember what happened seven years ago, you son of a
bitch. Maybe it's a side effect of being resurrected, but I got my
memories back. And I remember that you talked to Aline and asked
her to help free you from your service to your brother by giving in
to the spell. And you stole the silver leaf that was the only
protection she had against him. You knew all along how she could
have saved herself, but you didn't tell her about it because you
cared more about your own ass."

Raven looked uncomfortable at this revelation
while Meran was very obviously shaken. She stared at the Prince
with an expression that clearly conveyed she was feeling
betrayed.

Trevor suddenly laughed, sounding slightly
mad as he did so. "You skipped over those parts when you shared
your memories with me before. And I never even noticed." He glared
at Raven. "You've been lying or keeping things from us the whole
time. How the hell are we supposed to believe you now when you say
you'll help us? Just what is your agenda in all of this? We can't
even trust any word that comes out of your mouth!"

"Raven?" Meran prompted when he didn't say
anything in his defense. Her voice was strained when she asked, "Is
Trevor telling the truth?"

Reluctantly, he answered. "I did speak with
Aline. I did try to convince her to surrender to Benwyr. And, yes,
I stole the silver leaf she had that was protecting her."

"Did you also
not
tell her how she
could have broken the enchantment?" Meran wanted to know. "You
could have told her that, but you didn’t?"

He didn’t meet her eyes when he finally said,
"Yes."

"Why not?" she demanded. "You knew what was
going to happen once your brother got his way. You knew we’d be
trapped in his Court. And you didn’t say anything?"

"I just," he sighed, "I just wanted to be
released from my bond. I did nothing out of malice towards
anyone."

"I don't believe this." She exhaled sharply,
her breath catching on a sudden sob. "Trevor’s right," she
exclaimed, her eyes starting to display the unmistakable sheen of
tears. "I don’t even know if I can trust whatever you say now. Just
what is the truth about all of this, Raven?"