[2016] The Bride Trials Page 6

  “Yes, it’s quite effective.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s reduced rebellion by 90% in Cryssal and the surrounding area. I’m meeting with the council to discuss implementing one in every city. It would be good for you to learn firsthand what goes into making the kingdom safer. Go with Drake. He’s supposed to conduct an inspection while there.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Half of an hour later Ditran, Emre, and Drake were on their way to the factory. Ditran needed time to think about everything with Keyla. However, it would have to wait until after Drake’s inspection.

  They drove to what was easily the largest building in the city. Made of brick it looked more like a fortress than a factory. Black smoke wafted up and away from a chimney. When the car stopped at the front, Ditran read the twisted black letters in the metalwork over the front doors. Work for Freedom.

  “Sire,” Emre said. He fidgeted slightly with his hands.

  “Yes.” Ditran looked at Emre sitting in the car next to him. “Keyla isn’t going to be sent here is she? The entire night is my fault. I should have sent a car. She’s never been good with directions.”

  “We’re just here for a tour.”

  Emre relaxed a fraction. “What is going to happen to her?” “I gave her the Plumes’s title. I imagine it’s up to her what she does.” Ditran moved to open his door.

  “She isn’t eligible for a title.” Drake got out of the car.

  “What do you mean? I gave it to her.” Ditran followed.

  “Without a caretaker for guidance, anyone underage forfeits their title,” Drake said.

  “Then what will happen to her?” Ditran asked. “She’ll be placed back with her caretakers.” Drake walked up the steps to the doors of the building.

  “The brutes that beat her?” Emre slammed the door to the car shut.

  “Provided they are willing.”

  “No. I won’t allow it,” Ditran said. “How long until she’s 18?”

  “About three months.” Emre answered. “Sire, let it go. This is one orphan who’s caused enough trouble during our stay.” Drake knocked on the door.

  “Too bad she doesn’t qualify for the trials,” Emre said.

  “It’s the perfect solution. She can be in the trials.” Ditran smiled. “I’ll use the stone.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emre asked. “Dovesti’s stone. It might unlock her powers and then she can come to the palace instead of the drunk juggler Celilia from last night.” Ditran thought about the hours he’d spent with Keyla this morning. She was witty, and strong. She understood the emptiness of not having parents left. But she didn’t offer him pity like Nixie had.

  “The stone is for emergencies. There are a lot of other places left to visit. And the stone could kill her.” The door opened to the factory, and Drake took a step across the threshold.

  “Or it could give her powers. We’ll let her decide. Now let’s get this tour over with.” Ditran walked into the factory, not sure what to expect, but he hoped it would be quick.

  They were greeted by a short round woman. “Heir Ditran, it is an honor.”

  She led them down a long grey hall. The clip of her shoes echoed with each step.

  “Tell me about your operation here,” Drake said. “The guards send troublemakers here to be disciplined. They work hard, and then they are made free. Or if they refuse to reform, they are dealt with.”

  “Define ‘dealt with,’” Drake said. She motioned to two doors. “The room on the left is phase one. The other phase two. If you have time, I can show you the other ten.”

  Drake looked into the room on the left. “That’s one of my favorites. The Heir is eager to get back, so I’ll take a written summary of the others.”

  Ditran walked up to the small window of the left door. The brightly lit room had several tall poles with chains attached to the top. An old man hung from his hands on one of the poles, his toes inches above the red floor. A guard walked up to the man with a large whip in hand. Even through the thick door Ditran still heard the sounding crack when the guard used it.

  Ditran pulled back. Torture chambers, that’s why people were so afraid of the factory. But torture was outlawed by my Great Grandfather.

  Ditran stepped away from the door and turned to the woman. “Stop it. Stop everything. This is illegal.”

  She looked at Drake. “I don’t understand.” Drake looked at Ditran with a patronizing smile. “Sire, in times of war more extreme methods are legal. The King never declared the war over. And these methods are keeping the population in control.”

  “They’re tormenting people.”

  “Only those that are sent here.”

  Ditran thought of Keyla. The Plumes would have sent her here for going to a party she was

  invited to. “Who determines if they should be here?”

  She paused then spoke. “I’m not in charge of that.”

  “You have thirty minutes to get everyone out of the building.” The woman didn’t move, just looked to Drake. “Sire, be reasonable.”

  “Fine. An hour.”

  “I’ll see that it is done.” Drake nodded at the woman and the two of them walked off together. Ditran let out a sigh of relief.

  “Wow.” Emre began clapping slowly. “What now?”

  “When everyone is out, I’ll destroy this place.” The hour dragged on and Ditran felt sick. Aside from those who worked in the factory, only a handful of victims were able to walk out. The rest were placed on special stretchers or carried out through other means. They were victims, of that he had no doubt. No one deserved what had happened to them within these walls.

  A younger man with brown hair staggered out. He was so skeletal that his clothing looked as if it was still hanging in a closet. The man shuffled over

  towards Ditran before Emre stopped him from getting closer.

  The man spit on Ditran’s shoe. “My daughter is dead because of your laws. You should have let me die so that I could have joined her in Dovesti’s embrace.”

  Ditran found himself at a loss for words. Before he could come up with a response, the man was led away. Death. That man wished for death.

  Drake came out the doors with the woman and walked to Ditran. “We’ve done as you asked.” “Good.” Ditran took a few steps toward the building, making sure everyone stood behind him. He widened his stance and took a deep breath, he lowered his hands and pushed his energy into the earth below him. The ground rumbled underneath his feet. Rumbling turned into shaking, and a few stones fell from the top of the factory.

  The energy inside him strained to do his bidding. He didn’t have enough. The factory was too large. He grabbed a vial off his belt. It was one of six specially made by Gon Solas in the Healer’s Kuil. As the most powerful healer alive, the great healer could make a drink that would sustain the weariest soldier for days or minutes depending on how it was used. Ditran didn’t need days, he only needed enough energy to level the factory.

  He pulled the stopper from the vial, and drank

  the potion. It was like swallowing a bunch of caterpillars. It stuck to his throat and slowly crawled its way down to his stomach. His middle churned, and then the potion took effect. He felt like he could level mountains or create them, and when he lifted his hand, a wave of rocks and dirt followed. Throwing his hands in the air Ditran covered the walls with earth.

  When he pulled his hands down, and sections of the walls came down, Ditran began punching the air to direct the destruction of stone.

  Forty minutes later, only rubble remained, and Ditran buried that too. No one would use this building again. He turned back towards Emre and Drake, keeping his stance strong despite the exhaustion. I need to sleep.

  “We’ll meet with Keyla in the morning.”

  alls of trees lined either side of the path Emre and Keyla walked. Birds happily chirped somewhere overhead in the emerald canopy, while squirrels squabbled over their finds in the shadowy depths. Grey light seeped through the
branches and warmed Keyla despite the early hour.

  “Where are we going?” Keyla tried to rub the sleepiness from her eyes.

  “You’ll see.” With her hands covering her face, she tripped over a rock. The pain shooting up her leg was better than any energy drink a healing elemental could make. “Are you getting me out of here?”

  “No.”

  When Emre had come to her door before anything should be moving, she thought he was smuggling her out, giving her a chance to escape before they decided to hang her. Instead he’d handed her a shirt and pants made out of some type of black cloth, thick but malleable. Her movements weren’t constricted, but the way it stuck to her like a second skin was not in line with her personal preferences.

  “You woke me up before the sun, made me dress in these weird clothes, for what? Your amusement?” Annoyance colored the tone of her voice. “If I’d known you just wanted to traipse around in the dirt for hours, I would have stayed in bed. That was the most comfortable bed I’ve ever had.” Ditran had moved her to a guest room after she woke up yesterday afternoon. She thought of their conversation. Maybe pampered isn’t the right word.

  “You’re grouchy in the morning, Keyla. It hasn’t been hours. Only one.” He gave her an overly sweet smile while holding up one finger. “Heir Ditran will explain when we get there.”

  “It’s been a lot of circles…” She grumbled. If he heard her, he chose to ignore it. She glared at his back, but kept following. As much as it would please her to stop and make him beg her to follow, he probably wouldn’t notice, and then she’d have to find her way back alone.

  He turned onto a side path. While each path

  looked the same as the next one, she trusted him. He was the big brother she’d always wanted. Even after Victa’s death.

  “When did you join?” Keyla asked. Why did you leave? Emre stopped. “It was that night. I went to her house to surprise her and found it burned to the ground. I was so angry they killed her, flames burst out of my hands. A man stopped me before I could do something stupid. He showed me there’s another way to get revenge.”

  They were silent as they continued walking. The dusty path slowly became muddy, narrowing as thick grass blended into a meadow. She only had a few minutes to appreciate its beauty. A slight mist covered the ground where the morning light warmed and evaporated the dew.

  She waded through the green sea, her feet making terrible sucking noises with each pull out of the mud. Twice she lost her shoe in the muck and had to retrieve it.

  During one fall, Emre caught her before she could make a mud face mask. He helped her stand and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. She felt a warm tingle when his fingers brushed over the scar that had appeared behind her ear.

  Stupid scar. It had darkened throughout the day yesterday. It would be difficult to disguise since it was in such a visible place. She’d stared at it in the glass of her window yesterday. While Keyla had never felt that her face was particularly attractive, the reddish black line wasn’t helping.

  He led her to another path which widened, and in the shadows, not visible from the meadow, stood Heir Ditran. Beside him stood a large man with circling tattoos she only ever saw in pictures. Captain Drake.

  One of the dark lines near his right eye moved. She blinked and looked closer at the tattoos. They weren’t a normal placement of ink on skin like she’d seen some of the rebels do with needles and ink. In fact the man’s tattoos were the same shade as the scar that now lined her jaw.

  A throat cleared, and Keyla looked over at the source. Emre motioned with his head to the Heir. Keyla quickly dropped into a curtsy before Ditran.

  “I see you brought the peasant, Officer Emre,” Drake said. “Sire, I really don’t think this is a good idea. She doesn’t even have the decency to stop staring.”

  “It looked like one of the lines on your face moved.” Keyla stood up from her curtsy. Drake ignored her comment. “Just pick the Lady in the green dress and let’s move on to the next place.”

  She clenched her teeth to keep her retort from passing her lips. She knew the kind of man he was. The way even the most capable rebels would only whisper his name. The dark shard that could strike from shadow. That branded his victims with the bite of ice.

  “Enough, Drake, We’ve talked about this.” Ditran stepped in front of her and took one of her hands in his. “I’m sorry to make you traipse through the woods all the way out here. We had a little difficulty finding an appropriate venue after an incident yesterday.”

  “Incident?” Emre asked. “Is that what you call leveling an entire factory.” Factory? The dark shard, they’d brought her out here to die. She pulled her hand away and started backing away.

  “I want you to be in the Bride Trials.” Ditran blurted it out.

  “Bride Trials?” she felt her stomach tighten. “I don’t have any powers.” “I can fix that.” Ditran said it gently, and stepped closer. “Have you ever heard of Dovesti’s Stone?”

  “The big black rock at the palace? Who hasn’t heard of it?” She’d read dozens of different textbooks on the rock over the winter. The most interesting story being about the great dragons that had protected the stone for Dovesti until disappearing a few millennia ago. Some of the

  Gon’s believed that Dovesti would return and bring back the great Dra’s with him.

  He struggled for words. “I had a speech all prepared on the legend of its creation and everything.” He smiled at her.

  “Then by all means let’s hear it.” Keyla smiled back at him. “I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll summarize. Dovesti’s stone is a piece of the fountain which housed the water sprung from Dovesti’s tears, the same water which granted the power to control the elements to any who drank it. The Great Dra’s protected this stone, and now it is the job of my family to protect the stone in their absence.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a black stone about the size of an apple. “This is a piece of it. It can unlock the gene for people with a mark like yours. I didn’t realize it when I healed you earlier. My watch has a piece, it was only enough to reveal the scar not enough to release your powers. This one is.”

  He placed the smooth stone in her hand. She turned it in the sunlight admiring how it shone like an oil slick, a myriad of colors dancing under the surface.

  “How does it work?”

  “You hold it and place a drop of blood on it.” He took a pin from his pocket. “Even if we … At least this way no one will be able to hurt you again. This has to be your choice.”

  “What’s it like when the powers first come?” There were stories she’d heard. Of pain, suffering, anguish for days. But the people who spoke of the experience always seemed to hold something back.

  “A stone manifestation is a gamble. It could kill you, or do nothing, or you could be the only person in the kingdom aside from the King and myself to have the ability to control all five elements. The first time my powers manifested…”

  “Yes?” “It was the worst day of my life. I was in the orchard, apples fell from the tree, and before they could hit me there was a layer of ice shielding me.”

  “The worst day of your life was caused by apples falling?”

  “It wasn’t the apples. Do you want this or not?” Keyla stared at the pin in his hand. This was her chance to gain powers. Then she could really fight for the rebels. She’d always heard about power manifestations being caused by strong emotions. For example Emre’s reaction to Victa’s death. Falling apples didn’t sound that scary.

  She grabbed the pin from him and pricked her finger. She let a drop fall on the stone and wrapped her hand around it. Her thumb didn’t quite meet her fingers.

  Ditran backed away. “What’s supposed to happen now?” Even as she finished speaking the stone began to glow and get hotter. She opened her hand to drop it, only it stuck to her palm like tree sap. She tried to shake it off, and it began pulsating. With each pulse it alternated through the elemental colors, green, blue, red, br
own, white, and clear. With each color sequence the stone seemed to get bigger and brighter.

  Keyla’s fingers began curling around it of their own accord. The stone turned a dark red and started melting into her hand. Red light spread over her body.

  Everything around her was forgotten. A warm tingling grew inside her even as the red light started to fade. The more it faded the angrier she became. The memories she had filed away from years of abuse, being nothing but surface. The beatings from Lord Plume and Lady Plume’s shrill words popped into her mind.

  The tingling heat spread across her body and intensified into a blaze. No longer would she be treated like nothing, told she was nothing. She would not be hurt ever again. Her hands clenched into fists at her side, and flames burst across her skin. They raced up her arms, and soon her entire passed around, and treated like

  an inconvenience, rushed to the

  body was covered in a blanket of red and yellow flames.

  The vegetation around her caught fire. Not only was an inferno inside Keyla, but everything around her was as well. Heir Ditran was still some distance from the flames, but they would reach him soon unless the fire was stopped.

  She stared at the flames covering her. How do I put it out? Captain Drake summoned water and began building a wall of ice from the ground up to trap her inside. However, the ice quickly melted before reaching her knees and rapidly evaporated away. He formed the water between his hands into a ball, and threw it at her.

  On instinct Keyla raised her arms to protect herself. A wall of flames grew in front of her. They hissed and sputtered when the water hit them but didn’t go out.

  She looked at her hands and tried cupping them. Since the fire started with her hands maybe she could smother the source. Only the more she forced the flames in her hands into a ball shape, the hotter it felt. Keyla opened her hands and a sphere of white flame shot out.

  Unprepared, Captain Drake was hit full force. It engulfed him, and mutilated cries strangled out of him as he writhed on the ground. Heir Ditran ran