Page 65
His gaze was still fixed on the book. He had no intention of answering me.
“How did you know?”
“I was your uncle’s top spy. Not long after Lex got his phoenix, and I…” He took a few steps to lean against the table in front of me, then reached out and wrapped a hand around my arm, pulling me to him. I staggered and then resisted. I needed space from him for this.
His best friend was chosen by a phoenix, and he wasn’t. Instead, my uncle gave him a position in the Shadows. It was a position he excelled at, but it didn’t mean the loss wasn’t acute. Aster and I had gotten used to watching them fly away together. It made us friends, bonded by what we lost when they went into the mountains. We were always bonded by loss and searching for a way to fix it.
My mind was spinning with lies. I landed on the one the codex had revealed. “Lex was made to take a blood oath to our uncle?”
Aster closed his eyes and stilled. It was true, and by his expression, it was so much worse than that. I had heard rumours all over court of the King’s darkness. His obsessive need for power and control, and how he kept everyone in line with the threat of “his” Riders.
A lump built in my throat remembering how Lex had withdrawn over the nine months he had been a rider. He had lost weight. Wouldn’t look me in the eye, talked less…
Between gritted teeth, I said, “Tell me.”
“He revelled in making Lex do his bidding. Making him his servant. The madness caught Lex fast…”
“And all the Riders are held in a blood oath to their Kingdom’s ruler, right?” I asked. “That’s what the codex documented. It’s not a codex at all. It talks of oaths, not how to break the curse.”
“Yes.”
My chest shuddered as I ran through everything that he had let slip over the last two nights. “They have very little free will. Bronwen’s son… who is he oath-bound to?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t or wouldn’t say. “Not the Barren, I know all those snivelling Riders, and King Malar would never let anyone go to the mountains who wasn’t under his control. The Wilds are too secretive…”
The dots joined quickly. The reason Bronwen and Torran had joined forces in the retrieval of the book.
“He joined the Northlands and does Torran’s father’s and his spiteful brother’s bidding.”
Aster didn’t even need to nod to let me know I had hit my mark.
“Someone would have to find a way to break the oath or kill the Kings that they are bound to serve and protect.” Seemed like I had more in common with the Riders and the Ruckus than I had ever imagined. Killing the Kings who conquered my kingdom was very high on my wish list too.
His jaw twitched, holding back whatever he wanted to say. But he wanted those Kings dead too…
“The Ruckus, with all those armed men and women. All training. They intend to start a war?” He didn’t deny it, but he wasn’t going to answer any questions either. “When?”
“I can’t tell you that.” And a soft green glowed beneath his shirt.
I glared at him, wanting to demand what he knew about the female Riders and where he got the amulet from, but I couldn’t reveal the little book’s secrets. Instead, I stepped away and held out the codex.
“You need to get this to Bronwen.”
“That’s not…”
“The Amulet came from here or a place like it, didn’t it? When my uncle sent you on all those missions, somehow you found out about these ancient, long-forgotten buildings, still holding their treasures, and you found it. Then you had Morlan charge it. It can be charged by witches and Riders, for it was made by both. You knew my uncle had books with all sorts of knowledge in them.” He fixed his gaze on the door, checking that Torran and Kit weren’t about to walk in. “So, you had me learn.”
He snapped back to me and stepped closer. “To give you the knowledge you might one day need.”
“You had a blood oath to my uncle too, until he was burned to death in the Barren?” I posed it as a question, but it wasn’t. “His death served you. Freed you of that oath. You understand what the Riders are going through and you sympathise.”
His eyelids closed for a second, and I finally understood that it wasn’t just the Riders who had betrayed our king and country.
“And Lex.”
He glared at me. “That had nothing to do with me. I would never…”
But I had no idea what to believe anymore, so I pressed the codex deeper into his arms and strode away. I had a FootPath door to find somewhere in the mountain workshop. And I had to get to the Annatalians in the Wilds and to Ember.
