31 - The Weight of Truth and Past

  A heavy silence pressed down upon the study, subduing all beneath its roof. Garrick could only stare into the fireplace. It was empty. Too hot for a fire. But the black hole felt exactly the right thing to stare at. The medallion dangled from one fist, turning at the end of the leather cord. It hung silently. Coldly. He felt his gut twisting the more he stared at it, but he couldn’t bring himself to put it away.

  Veylan, still pale, leaned on the mantelpiece, back to Garrick. Fenric sat with a bowed head. Maeve looked like she wanted to cry. The only one of them who seemed able to function at all was Lyndon. He disappeared for several long moments, during which time no one was able to speak. Then, he returned, rolling a cart with freshly brewed tea and a plate of sweets.

  He smiled wanly at Garrick and placed a comforting hand on Maeve’s shoulder as he handed her the first cup.

  “Tea. Because we’re all a little too stunned for whiskey, aren’t we? Besides, my mother always said - mint tea if you’re in shock,” he said kindly.

  She sniffled. “You know, there’s some medical backing for you there. Mint is soothing. That’s why people like it so much. It calms the body and the mind.”

  Lyndon nodded patiently before handing another cup to Fenric, who nodded in thanks. The third, he handed to Garrick. Garrick, however, did not move.

  “High Commander,” Lyndon said.

  Garrick only glanced at him. His fingers, which had wrapped tightly around themselves as he leaned forward, pressed tightly against his mouth. He blinked a few times, then turned back to the empty fireplace.

  “Garrick,” Fenric sighed.

  “Fifteen,” the high commander said, gruffly through his fingers. “Fucking fifteen.”

  Maeve turned away, trying her best to wipe away her tears before anyone could see her. Fenric stared at Garrick, his eyes tight in sorrow. Even Lyndon only stood still, his normally sanguine expression now hard with the weight of revelations. Garrick closed his eyes. Fenric was the first to break the silence this time. He cleared his throat, folded his hands together on Garrick’s desk, and spoke.

  “Listen, I hate to be the one to ask this - hate to even be thinking this - but I cannot only be horrified here. I am a king, too, and so I must ask - is there any way that Varos can build any more monsters like these?”

  Garrick’s eyes snapped immediately to Veylan. The thought alone was terrifying, almost as terrifying as finding out that Luka…finding out the truth - Garrick could barely think of it now. But Veylan shook his head stiffly.

  “No, your majesty. If that were possible, Varos wouldn’t have stopped with Luka. We would have many more monsters to deal with if that were the case, but we don’t. I said before - it’s like taking someone and destroying their very being. It’s a miracle Luka survived,” he breathed. “Honestly, I don’t think he did. It’s a mercy, in a sense. I’m not certain I could hope for anything better.”

  “What a thing to hope for,” Garrick muttered.

  No one could argue with that.

  Maeve stood up suddenly and bowed to everyone.

  “My apologies. I believe I’ve reached the end of my usefulness here,” she said, voice tight. “If you don’t need me anymore, I think…I think I should see to my responsibilities.”

  Fenric glanced at Garrick, who still didn’t move. He took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Of course, Healer Maeve,” he said.

  Maeve bowed one more time, eyes firmly on the ground. She turned away swiftly, before anyone could see her tears and left the study. Fenric turned to Garrick.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “You don’t want me to, your majesty,” Garrick said, voice tight.

  “If you don’t talk to me, I’ll be forced to use something you won’t like.”

  “More knights for the Second Order?” Garrick scoffed.

  “Your wife.”

  Garrick’s expression tightened. His hands shook. He straightened and held the medallion in one palm.

  “We’ve lost too much,” he said finally. “Too much, Fenric. I wanted to find answers. I wanted to end this bloody war. Make sure we didn’t lose anything else, but…” He paused and looked up at them. “A child. We’ve been fighting - torturing - a child. What the hell did we do, Fenric? War makes monsters of us all. None of our hands are clean. But this?” he stopped and shook the medallion at him. “This is something else.”

  Veylan’s voice was quiet. “We didn’t know.”

  “That’s what makes it worse,” Garrick said, teeth gritted. “We were so damn focused on ending the war, on getting our answers, we didn’t think.”

  “There were no signs,” Fenric began. “Our agents found nothing—”

  “I knew!” Garrick shouted, standing abruptly. “I knew and I ignored it!”

  The room fell silent. Garrick began to pace frantically. The medallion bit into his palm, the edges becoming teeth.

  “Every instinct told me something was wrong. Every time I thought, 'we’re missing something'—I pushed it down. I was desperate. Preoccupied. I saw the fear in him, the flinching, the way he acted—and I still couldn’t see it.”

  Fenric stood sharply, stepping in front of Garrick.

  “Enough!” he hissed.

  “But-”

  “I said enough!” Fenric said. “Enough! This again—thinking it’s all on you. It’s not.”

  Garrick grew red. “I failed, Fenric. I even held Veylan back. We spent two months torturing that boy—and none of it would’ve happened if I’d just let him in.”

  Veylan smiled wanly. “I could have insisted much more. I should have.”

  “You have other responsibilities,” Garrick snapped at him.

  “So do you,” Fenric snapped right back.

  “Your majesty,” Garrick began.

  But Fenric cut him off again.

  “No! Don’t you dare ‘your majesty’ me right now!” he shouted, face thunderous as he pounded his chest with every beat of his fury. “If you respected me at all, you wouldn’t say that right now. Because I’d rather be anyone else than Adern’s king today.”

  Garrick faltered.

  “You want the truth?” continued Fenric, growling. “Fine! You’re right. You messed up. You should have seen the signs and you didn’t. You ignored us. But stop acting like a damn martyr. I don’t need a martyr—I need my high commander. I need my friend. Because right now I have to make the worst decision of my reign, and I can’t do it alone.”

  Garrick opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked—really looked—at Fenric for the first time since the cell. Pale face. Shaking hands. Haunted eyes. He glanced at Veylan, who looked down at the floor, cheeks colored in shame.

  Fenric sighed, calming down. “You don’t understand, Garrick. You wouldn’t have even had to make this decision if it weren’t for me.”

  “For us,” Veylan insisted. “Don’t you be a martyr either.”

  Fenric didn’t answer. Lyndon glanced at Garrick, then looked away. Garrick looked between all three of them.

  It was Veylan who broke the silence.

  “It was before you were appointed high commander,” he said quietly. “Before we convinced you to join us. There’s a reason I know Varos’s work so well. Because he tried it.”

  Fenric sighed. “It started after I took the throne. People began to go missing. We were young, eager to prove ourselves. We threw everything into the search… but we were too late.”

  He sank into the chair, rubbing his face with both hands.

  “I’ll never forget what we found,” he muttered.

  Even Lyndon looked pale now, hands clasped behind his back.

  “He was experimenting with obedience,” Veylan said. “Redesigning the human mind. Men, women—the forgotten, the unwanted. Some starved because they lost all agency. Others went mad. Some just… never woke up.”

  “We were lucky in some ways,” Fenric said quietly. “We found him before the death toll got worse. But Varos was clever.”

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  “Devious,” Lyndon corrected. “Let’s not dress it up.”

  Garrick frowned. “I remember that case. But the name in the papers was Brennan, not Varos.”

  “Because we couldn’t prove it,” Fenric said. “We were too eager. Too fast. We saved lives, but we botched the rest. Varos pinned everything on a loyal sycophant who took the fall. All we could do was tie Varos to a few illicit connections. It was enough to exile him—not to execute.” His jaw tightened. “I still remember the smirk on his face in the courtroom.”

  Veylan’s voice dropped. “If it hadn’t been for Lyndon, I might’ve ended up in prison. I was ready to kill him myself.”

  Lyndon looked up. “No,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t have. Because if I’d been in my right mind, I would’ve let you and made sure there was no evidence left behind to incriminate you.”

  “See?” Fenric smiled wanly at Garrick. “You’re not the only one here at fault.”

  Garrick sat hard. He hadn't known. God, had they carried this burden on their shoulders all this time?

  “We all did everything we could and we all failed,” Fenric said, shrugging. “It haunts me every day, but I can’t afford to get bogged down in blame and semantics. Don’t think for one second Luka’s plight doesn’t move me.”

  “Luka?” Lyndon asked, smirking.

  “Eh, it grows on you,” Fenric said.

  Garrick laughed quietly. “It certainly does.”

  Veylan frowned. “What now?”

  The question hung between the four of them like a weight. None of them wanted to answer the question. None of them knew how to answer. But they needed one.

  “This is why I don’t want to be a king today,” Fenric said, shaking his head. “It’s moments like these I hate.”

  Garrick looked uncomfortable. Fenric immediately caught the look in his high commander’s eyes.

  “You told me what you said to your knights, remember?” Fenric said, voice steady. “This isn’t about sympathy. It’s about Adern. I already made one decision that ended up costing more lives than it should have. I can’t afford that again.”

  Garrick shook his head. “I know that, but there has to be something we can do. Luka is technically one of those victims.”

  Veylan shook his head slowly. “He’s more than a victim. That boy is still carrying raw chaos inside him. Every breath he takes is pain. The grafting - it’s not something you can live with. Not really. Not long term.”

  Garrick’s expression darkened.

  Veylan continued, quietly but without hesitation. “We saw what happened when the collar came off. That wasn’t magic—it was fire looking for a direction. He shouldn’t even be alive. That kind of power burns people out. It kills them from the inside out. But he’s... adapted. Survived it. Which only tells me he’s probably endured pain so long, so deeply, that he doesn’t even know what normal feels like.”

  Lyndon’s jaw clenched. “So your recommendation is…?”

  Veylan didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know. But I think... if you asked what would be kinder - truly kinder - it might be to end it.”

  “No.” The word came out of Garrick like a slap. “Don’t even put that on the table.”

  “Garrick—”

  “He’s a child,” Garrick said. “A child. My grandson is the same age. Coren still sleeps with the window open so he can listen to the night birds. He’s about to graduate school and enroll in the academy. He even has a girl he’s sweet on. That’s what a boy his age should be experiencing right now. And we’re sitting here debating whether or not this one gets to live because…what? He’s not normal? How is that his fault?”

  “He’s dying, Garrick,” Veylan snapped. “I can stabilize the magic. I can help shape it, maybe fend off the breaking. But you don’t come back from something like that. He’s barely human. You can’t even talk to him like a person.”

  “Why not?” Garrick argued.

  “What?” Veylan asked, taken aback.

  “Why not treat him like a person? A child?” Garrick said, voice quickening as the idea began forming.

  He reached into his pocket and squeezed the medallion. Please forgive me, Rhodney, he thought.

  “We’ve been working with him like he’s some monster, but we know the truth now. What if we tried treating him like a child—because that’s what he is? He already reacts like one. Rewards. Routines. Fear. Obedience. It’s not nothing. Maybe that’s the key.”

  “You want to coddle him?” Veylan asked, incredulous. “Play house with a chaos weapon and hope he turns into a real boy?”

  “No,” Garrick said. “I want to try something else. Because everything else hasn’t worked.”

  Veylan’s jaw tensed. “He’s not a child, Garrick. Not anymore. Not after what was done to him. The things he’s endured—the things he’s done—”

  “Because he was made to,” Garrick cut in. His voice was low but firm. “You said it yourself. Conditioned. Engineered. Forced.”

  Veylan’s gaze flickered to the hearth. He didn’t respond.

  Fenric exhaled through his nose. “We can’t afford sympathy. Not in this war. You said so.”

  “I’m not asking for sympathy,” Garrick said. “I’m asking for mercy.”

  The room stilled.

  “It’s still dangerous,” Veylan breathed.

  “Of course it is,” Garrick said.

  Veylan looked ready to argue, but Lyndon was already nodding slowly.

  “But we don’t have to pretend it’s safe,” the knight commander said. “Just… give him something he’s never had. A chance.”

  “You’re talking about reforming him,” Veylan said.

  “I’m talking about raising him,” Garrick countered.

  Fenric leaned back slowly, staring at Garrick like he’d grown a second head. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed once—quiet, breathless.

  “Well,” the king said. “Why not?”

  That brought the room to stillness again.

  “Excuse me?” Veylan asked.

  “I said—why not?” Fenric repeated. “It’s madness, yes. But what part of this hasn’t been? What are we going to do otherwise—lock him up until he dies? Gamble on him staying stable in a cell for another year while Savidor pushes our borders? Or, worse, kill him ourselves?”

  “No,” Lyndon said quickly, then blushed at his outburst. “I’m sorry, your majesty, but I don’t think I could…”

  He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Veylan’s expression was tight.

  “I get it,” he said. “But you don’t understand. I don’t want to do this because I enjoy it. He’s broken. None of you understand how much, yet, but you will. He doesn’t feel the way a child should. Doesn’t fear pain because he can’t anymore. Do you understand what that means? It’s not resilience—it’s numbness. He doesn’t know how to exist outside of pain. How can I let a child live with that?”

  His voice broke. In that moment, the man who was known for his flippancy and drawl broke. His fists clenched and his eyes glistened with unshed tears even as he gritted his teeth. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and glanced away, arms folded across his chest.

  Garrick studied him for a long moment, then asked, more gently this time, “Is there a way to undo it?”

  Veylan didn’t look at him.

  “The grafting,” Garrick clarified. “The chaos magic. You said it was fused to him. Is there any way to… remove it?”

  Veylan’s mouth twisted. “No one’s ever survived long enough for that question to matter.”

  “But Luka has,” Fenric said quietly.

  The silence returned—but it was different this time. Not heavy with grief or guilt, but filled with thought. Possibility.

  Veylan straightened slowly, uncertainly. “It would take research. Resources. Time. I’d need to study his magic more closely—map it, understand how deep the grafting runs. And even then…it’s a long shot. Maybe impossible.”

  “But not definitely,” Garrick pressed.

  Veylan blinked, then gave a shaky, bitter laugh. “You lot are ridiculous. Absolutely mad.”

  “Maybe,” Fenric said, standing now, stepping forward. “But I’ll be damned if we don’t try. I won’t turn Adern into another Savidor. I won’t stand by while we exploit a child just because it’s convenient.” He looked Veylan dead in the eye. “We made mistakes. All of us. But if we don’t act now—if we don’t try—then we’re no better than the bastards who made him.”

  The words settled over the room like a vow. Veylan shook his head, but he couldn’t hide the grin that was slowly creeping over his face.

  “That is hardly fair, dropping a line like that,” he said, scoffing. “Fine, you crazy bastards.”

  Garrick gave Veylan a nod of respect, one soldier to another. “Then let’s get to work.”

  But after a beat, his brow furrowed, and his voice dropped low. “What about Savidor?”

  Veylan straightened, alert again. “What about them?”

  Garrick’s jaw worked. “We knew from Wallace that Luka mattered to them. We thought it was a bluff. Wallace thought it was a bluff. But now… if Varos really sees Luka as something more—if he’s important enough to build—then we can’t risk them finding out he’s alive. We have to assume they’re watching. Waiting.”

  Veylan’s face darkened. “Then we hide him better.”

  Fenric nodded. “We bluff better. We tighten everything around him. The fewer who know, the better. Let Savidor keep guessing.”

  “And the tower?” Lyndon asked.

  “We leave the Second Order here,” Fenric said decisively. “Keep the routines. Keep the guard presence. If that bastard spy is anywhere around, too, we keep Savidor watching the wrong place.”

  “We move him,” Garrick said. “Somewhere quieter. Safer. Somewhere with fewer eyes.

  “Where were you thinking?” Lyndon asked.

  “My home,” Garrick admitted. “It’s private. We have the space. The training grounds.” He glanced at Fenric. “It’s manageable.”

  Veylan raised a brow. “Sentimental.”

  “But not wrong,” Fenric said, waving off the protest before it could go further. “Garrick has the right of it.”

  Veylan shook his head, but said, “I can place magical barriers—strong ones. Cloaking spells. Wards to keep anyone from sensing what’s there. It’ll take a few days.”

  Garrick shrugged. “Good. That’ll give us time.”

  Lyndon tilted his head. “Because you need Lady Amelia’s blessing?”

  Fenric laughed. “No, it’s so she has time to fuss about curtains and which pantry shelf the treats go on.”

  Garrick exhaled, lips twitching. “She’ll do more than fuss. She’ll have a strategy.”

  “Then we begin,” Fenric said. “No more hesitation. We give him a chance. And we protect that chance with everything we have.”

  He looked between them all, eyes dark.

  “It needs saying one more time - we messed up,” Fenric said firmly. “We can’t do that again. Our kingdom - our people - are at stake. Varne has been providing increasingly worrisome reports about Savidor’s movements, too. This still stays tight - locked down. We can’t afford any setbacks or leaks. Not even the court can afford to know still.”

  “Are you still concerned about lying to them?” Lyndon asked.

  “Hell, no!” Fenric scoffed. “Old bastards practically live and breathe lies at this point. We just better pray they don’t figure it out. The political fallout would be a nightmare. Just…we can’t mess this up, either.”

  He paused and glanced out the window. The sun still shone brightly, noon approaching quickly. His gaze drifted down to the little alcove right beneath them, where he knew the stairs that led down to the prison were located.

  Fenric didn’t look at them as he spoke, voice softer now. “I don’t know about you, but if we don’t do this, I fear we may become worse than our enemies. That is never a fate I want for Adern. If we lose, let us at least keep our morals.”

  “That’s easy to say now, when we still have an upper hand,” Lyndon warned. “When our families aren’t at stake.”

  “Our families are always at stake,” Garrick said darkly.

  “Not in the way Savidor means them to be. Not yet,” Veylan said.

  But his heart wasn’t in the reprimand. Fenric nodded in reluctant acceptance.

  “I suppose perhaps you’re right,” he said. “But if not now when?”

  The four men looked at each other. A steel set in each of their eyes behind the weight of the truth, and Garrick hoped it would be enough.

  It had to be.