Spoiler Fanfiction
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Chapter 40-Drawing Near
In the far outskirts of Ban Rona, Aro sat pressed up against the wall inside of an old, dark building, watching as Ryith leaned towards Nyoken, whispering something, then as he walked to the cluster of black-clad warriors on the other side of the room. For the most part, Aro didn’t hear their words. Maybe because he didn’t want to. He just watched, his eyes wide and dark while he tried to unravel the reality from his fears, the lurking, clouded feelings from the sharp, clear facts in his mind.
But nothing really seemed clear now.
He knew that people would die that night. And while he hadn’t set these events in motion, he certainly hadn’t stopped them. He had helped it happen. Then again, maybe it was something good that he had. It was supposed to be something good.
He vaguely noticed he was rubbing one fist across his scar but he didn’t care enough to make himself stop, he just pushed himself quietly further into the shadows.
If, somehow, the King and his Warden figured out what was going on, It would be catastrophic, but it would be unlikely anyone would live to regret it. If Aro managed not to get killed, and if Esben recognized him, he’d very likely end up dead anyway.
But if all had been kept secret, if Esben really would be alone in the woods after night fell, then just one teenager, possibly unarmed, no matter how well he could fight, would be no match for ten Wanderers of the Woes.
Survival was most likely if that was the case.
Early that morning, when Aro had arrived at the hideout, he had told Ryith everything he had overheard in a halting, detached voice, barely managing to stop the bombardment of chaos and confusion in his thoughts, and the sick feeling he had earlier with Artham intensified.
Ryith had merely nodded and gone inside, gesturing for Aro to come with him.
Nyoken and ten other warriors were waiting in the dim back room, and Ryith proceeded to go to the corner where Nyoken was waiting and started to shape their plan in hushed, secret tones. Of course, he had had something planned out long before now. This was the final stage, the modification of their course of action based on the invaluable information Aro had given him.
Aro had hung back, hesitant, confused, sick, not meeting the curious eyes that rested on him. A few seconds passed, then Ryith glanced toward him from the other side of the room with a look that said What are you doing still standing there? And beckoned him over, the warmth of his smile offset by the cold, calculating look in his eyes.
Cautiously, Aro drifted over to the two, crouching in the shadowed corner he was in now. Ryith was half facing him, and Nyoken at first blinked in disbelief, then glared at him and ignored him completely.
For the first few minutes he had leaned into the wall, alternating between listening intently and staring vacantly off into the distance in the direction of Oak Hill, his brow slightly furrowed in thought.
When Ryith asked him questions about the brothers and their skills and the woods, Aro answered. He felt like his own words were choking him. Between his vacant gaze and his strangely spoken answers, he was acting nothing like himself. He didn’t feel like himself, at least not like the self he had known for years.
Ryith’s first few glances were ones of skeptical confusion and slight concern, but after about half an hour of Aro’s strange behavior his gaze turned into a sharp, annoyed glare. The harsh look was enough to snap Aro back to his senses and cause the sick feeling to disappear.Well, not to disappear, but at least he was able to push it down enough to speak and act smoothly again, and in a while his odd behavior was forgotten.
Planning was completed now, and Ryith was telling the others what they needed to know of the plan. Nyoken wasn’t glaring at Aro any more- wait. Aro glanced up and half wanted to moan in exasperation and half waned to go and yell at Nyoken to leave him alone. The first wouldn’t do anything and the second old end badly, so Aro just glared back at him when his back was turned, quickly turning his head and scowling at the floorboards beneath his boots when Nyoken looked back his way.
The sick feeling was gone. He realized- no. Not realized. Accepted. He had known it for a long time.
Now, as he accepted that he was gambling with his survival, the cold calculations that held his tomorrow pushed all other thoughts from his mind.
He was left only with a strange, empty heaviness as he realized that for a long time now it had been too late to change what he had helped to set in motion and still come out of it.
He let his head fall back against the wall with a muted bang.
Why am I even thinking like this? I’m being stupid. Again. I haven’t even known Artham and Esben for a few months. My life is here, he thought, and closing his eyes he was back in the wide, bright, hot stretches of a sun baked desert.
My people are here, and opening his eyes again he saw Ryith speaking with someone on the other side of the room, nodding back in his direction, his face alight with approval. Closer by, Jaid, who’s concerned glances flickered between Aro’s anxious face, and his hand, frantically rubbing his scar in contrast to his still, tense body.
My purpose is here… and he felt the memory of blood rock dye across his face and the sharp, triumphant release of tension when his arrow aimed true, and how it felt to be free from confusion and doubt and to know with certainty who he was. A shiver ran through him as he wondered what Artham and Esben would do if they knew.
He had tried to kill the king.
And now he would again.
After midday, with the sun shining a cold white light between dark, stormy clouds, Ryith’s plan was clear. At dusk they would set out one by one, to the woods behind the Keep and Chimney Hill.
The abandoned house that they were in was on the far outskirts of town, behind it rose fields and fields of dead grass and brush and bare trees, ringed by a straggling, outstretched reach of woods.
Through tree spotted hills and empty crop fields and he forest and the dark of night, they would reach the designated place without so much as setting foot on the cobbles of Ban Rona.
Night fell. Blades were sharpened to a fine edge and patterns of bloodrock dye smeared across faces.
Aro didn’t have a bow, but the short, curved blade he was given served him well.
By the time he had streaked the bloodrock dye across his face and secured his blade at his side, there was nothing left of the young man about the warrior.
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