Heir Of Novron: The Riyria Revelations (39 page)

The next morning Hadrian found Royce sitting on the floor of the cell, his back resting against the wall, one knee up, cocked like a tent pole. His right arm rested on it, his hand hanging limp. He wore only his black tunic and pants. His belt and boots were missing, his feet bare, the soles blackened with dirt. He hung his head back, tilted upward resting against the wall and revealing a week’s worth of dark stubble that covered his chin, cheeks, and neck. Lengths of straw littered his hair and clothing, but on his lap lay a neatly folded, meticulously clean scarf.

He did not look up when Hadrian entered the cell. He was not sleeping—no one could get this close to Royce without his waking, but more obviously, his eyes were open. He stared at the ceiling, not seeing it.

“Hey, buddy,” Hadrian said, entering the cell.

The guard closed the door behind him. He heard the lock slide in place. “Call me when you want out,” he told Hadrian.

The cell had a small window near the ceiling, which cast a square of light where the wall and floor met. Through its shaft, he could see straw dust lingering in the air. A cup of water, a glass of wine, and a plate of potato and carrot stew sat beside the door. All untouched, the stew having dried into a solid brick.

“Am I interrupting breakfast?”

“That was dinner,” Royce said.

“That bad, huh?” Hadrian sat across from him on the bed. It had a thick mattress, a half dozen warm blankets, three soft
pillows, and fine linen sheets. It had not been slept in. “Not too bad in here,” he said, making a show of looking around. “We’ve been in much worse, but you know, this was pretty much the last place I was thinking you’d be. I sort of thought the idea was for you to disappear and give me time to explain why you kidnapped the empress. What happened?”

“I turned myself in.”

Hadrian smirked. “Obviously.”

“Why are you here?” Royce replied, his eyes dull and empty.

“Well, now that I know you’re here, I thought you could use some company. You know, someone to talk to, someone who can smuggle you fig pudding and the occasional drumstick. I could bring up a deck of cards. You know how much you love beating me at… Well, you just like beating me.”

Royce made an expression that was almost like a smile. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed up a handful of straw. He crushed it in his fist letting the bits fall through his fingers and watching them in the shaft of light. When the last of it fell, he opened his hand palm-up, stared at it, turning it over and back as if he had never really seen it before.

“I want to thank you, Hadrian,” he said, still looking at his hand, his voice soft, lingering, disconnected.

“Awfully formal, aren’t you? It’s just a card game,” Hadrian said, and smiled.

Royce lowered his hand, laying it on the floor like a forgotten toy. His attention turned vaguely toward the ceiling again. “I hated you when we first met, did you know that? I thought Arcadius was crazy making me take you along on that heist.”

“So why did you?”

“Honestly? I expected you’d be killed; then I could go to the nutty wizard, laugh, and say,
See? What did I tell you? The clumsy fool died.
Only you didn’t. You made it all the
way to the top of the Crown Tower, no complaining, no whining.”

“Did you respect me then?”

“No. I figured you suffered from beginner’s luck. I expected you’d die on the return trip that next night when he made us put it back.”

“Only, again I lived.”

“Kinda made me mad, actually. I’m not usually wrong, you know, about people? And man, you could fight. I thought Arcadius was feeding me a load of crap the way he went on about you. ‘The best warrior alive,’ he said. ‘In a fair fight Hadrian can best anyone,’ he said. That was the telling part—a fair fight. He knew not all your battles would be fair. He wanted me to educate you in the world of backstabbing, deceit, and treachery. I guess he figured I knew something about that.”

“And I was supposed to teach honor, decency, and kindness to a man raised by wolves.”

Royce rolled his head to the side and looked at him. “He told you about me?”

“Not everything, just some of the ugly parts.”

“Manzant?”

“Just that you were there, that it almost killed you, and that he got you out.”

Royce nodded. His face drooped, his eyes stared again, his hand absently scooped up another handful of straw to crush.

Hadrian’s eyes drifted around the cell. Centuries of captives had left a dark smoothness to all the stones a bit higher than halfway up, like a flood line. On the far wall, a year’s worth of old hatch marks scratched a pattern that looked like a series of bound bales of wheat. Up in the window, a bird had built a nest, tucked on the outside corner of the sill. It was empty, frosted in snow. Occasionally, he heard a cart, a horse,
or the sound of people in the courtyard below them, but mostly it was quiet, a heavy, dull-gray silence.

“Hadrian,” Royce began. He’d stopped playing with the straw, his hands flat, his stare focused on the wall, his voice weak and hesitant. “You and Arcadius… you’re the only family I’ve ever known. The only two people in this whole world—” He swallowed and bit his lower lip, pausing.

Hadrian waited.

Finally he went on. “I want you to know—It’s important that…” He turned away from Hadrian, facing the wall. “I wanted to say thank you for being there for me, for being here. For being the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever know. I just—I just want you to know that.”

Hadrian did not say anything. He waited for Royce to turn back, to look at him. It took several minutes, but the silence drew the look. When he did, Hadrian glared at him. “Why? Why do you want me to know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me—no, don’t look at the wall; look at me. Why is it so important that I know this?”

“It just is, okay?” Royce said.

“No, it’s not
okay
. Don’t give me this crap, Royce. We’ve been together for twelve years. We’ve faced death dozens of times. Why is it you’re telling me this now?”

“I’m upset. I’m distraught. What do you want from me?”

Hadrian continued to stare but slowly began to nod. “You’ve been waiting, haven’t you? Just sitting here, leaning against that wall, waiting—waiting for me to show up.”

“In case you forgot, they arrested me. I’m in a locked cell. There’s not much else I can do.”

Hadrian snorted.

“What?”

Hadrian stood. He needed to move. There wasn’t much
space but he still paced back and forth between the wall and the door. Three steps each way. “So when are you going to do it? As soon as I leave? Tonight? How about a nice morning suicide? Huh, Royce? You could be poetic and time it with the rising of the sun, or just the drama of midnight, how would that be?”

Royce scowled.

“How are you gonna do it? Your wrists? Throat? Gonna challenge the guard to fight when he brings dinner? Call him names? Or are you gonna make an even bigger splash? Head for Modina’s room and threaten the empress’s life again. You’ll find some young idiot, a big one, someone with an ego. You’ll draw a blade, something little, something not too scary. He’ll draw his sword. You’ll pretend to attack, but he won’t know you’re faking.”

“Don’t be this way.”

“
This way?
” Hadrian stopped and whirled on him. He had to take a breath to calm down. “How do you expect me to be? You think I should be—what? Happy, maybe? Did you think I’d just be okay with this? I thought you were stronger. If anyone could survive—”

“That’s just it—I don’t want to! I’ve always survived. Life is like a bully that gets laughs by seeing how much humiliation you’ll put up with. It threatens to kill you if you don’t eat mud. It takes everything you care about—not because it wants what you have, or needs it. It does it just to see if you’ll take it. I let it push me around ever since I was a kid. I did everything it demanded just to survive. But as I’ve gotten older, I realize there are limits. You showed me that. There’s only so far I can go, only so much I can put up with. I’m not going to take it anymore. I won’t eat mud just to survive.”

“So it’s my fault?” Hadrian slumped down on the mattress once more. He sat there running his hand through his hair for
a moment, then said, “Just so you know, you’re not the only one who misses her. I loved her too.”

Royce looked up.

“Not like that. You know what I mean. The worst part is…” His voice cracked. “It really is my fault, and that’s what I will be left with. Did you think of that? You were right and I was wrong. You said not to take the job from DeWitt, but I talked you into it. ‘Let’s leave Dahlgren; this isn’t our fight,’ you said, but I got you to stay. ‘You can’t win against Merrick,’ you said, so you went to protect me. You told me Degan Gaunt would be an ass, and you were right about that too. You didn’t do what you knew was right because of me. I pulled you along while trying to redeem myself to the memory of a dead father. Gwen is gone because of me. I destroyed what little good there was in your life trying to accomplish something that in the end means nothing.

“I’m not the hero who saves the kingdom and wins the girl. Life isn’t like that.” Hadrian laughed bitterly. “You finally taught me that one, pal. Yep. Life isn’t a fairy tale. Heroes don’t ride white horses, and the good don’t always win. I just—I guess I just
wanted
it to be that way. I didn’t think there was any harm in believing it. I never knew it would be you and Gwen that would pay.”

“It’s not your fault,” Royce told him.

“You tell me that a few million more times and I might actually start believing it. Only that’s not going to happen, now is it? You’re not going to be around to remind me, are you? You’re going to give up. You’re going to walk out on me and that will be my fault too. Damn it, Royce! You
have
a choice. I know it doesn’t seem like it, and I know I’m a fool that believes in a fantasy world where good things can happen to good people, but I do know this. You can either head into darkness and despair or into virtue and light. It’s up to you.”

Royce jerked his head up and looked at Hadrian, a shocked expression on his face. Shock turned quickly to suspicion.

“What?” Hadrian asked, concerned.

“How are you doing that?” Royce demanded, and for the first time since Hadrian had entered the cell, he saw the old Royce—cold, dark, and angry.

“How am I doing what?”

“That’s the second time you’ve quoted Gwen, once on the bridge and now—this. She said that same thing to me once, those exact words.”

“Huh?”

“She read my palm and told me there was a fork—a point of decision. I had to choose to head into darkness and despair or into virtue and light. She told me this would be precipitated by a traumatic event—the death of the one I loved the most.”

“Gwen?”

He nodded. “But you weren’t there. You couldn’t have heard her say that. We were alone in her office at the House. It was
a year
ago. I only remember because it was the night Arista came to The Rose and Thorn, and you were getting drunk and ranting about being a parasite. So how did you know?”

Hadrian shrugged. “I didn’t, but…” He felt a chill run up his spine. “What if
she
did? What if I’m not quoting her—what if she was quoting me?”

“What?”

“Gwen was a seer,” Hadrian said. “What if she saw your future, bits and pieces like Fan Irlanu did in that Tenkin village?” Now he was staring at the wall, his eyes wandering aimlessly as he thought. “She could have seen us on the bridge, and here in this cell. She knew what I would say, and she also knew you wouldn’t listen to me. She must have known you wouldn’t listen to me at the bridge either. That’s why she said
those things.” He was speaking quickly now, seeing it all before him. “She knew you would ignore me, but you can’t ignore her. Royce, Gwen doesn’t want you to die. She agrees with me. I may have been wrong in the past, but not this time. This time I’m right, and I know I’m right because Gwen saw the future and she’s backing me up.” He sat against the wall, folding his hands behind his head in victory. “You can’t kill yourself,” he said jubilantly, as if he had just won some unspoken bet. “You can’t do it without betraying her wishes!”

Royce looked confused. “But if she knew, why didn’t she stop it? Why did she let me go with you? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? She wanted us to go, and either she couldn’t avoid her death, or—”

“Or what? She wanted to die?” he said sarcastically.

“No, I was going to say, she knew she
had
to die.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know—something else she saw, maybe, something that hasn’t happened yet. Something so important it was worth dying on the bridge for, but whatever it is, it doesn’t include you killing yourself. She made that pretty clear, I think.”

Royce threw his head back against the stone wall hard enough to make an audible thud and clenched his eyes shut. “Damn it.”