Keeper (First Ordinance #2)(40)

I wondered, too, how the people as a whole would be transported—would their animals and such travel with them? The whole thing made me more than curious, and I wished to speak with Reah and Kifirin about it when I had an opportunity to do so.

*

Avii Castle

Jurris had already passed sentence on Yevil—the gate waited. He was spending his last few hours in a cell beneath the castle, until the midnight hour came. He'd be shoved through, then.

Justis stayed behind with Jurris, after the Council was dismissed. Justis carried Gurnil and Ordin's votes with him when he and the others bore Yevil to the King—both had voted for the gate.

"You wished to speak with me alone?" Justis asked after the last servant left Jurris' quarters.

"Yes." Jurris dropped onto the chair behind his desk and allowed his wings to droop. "Tell me, brother—will I become that?"

Justis understood Jurris meant Yevil, who'd shouted obscenities at all the Avii while Jurris held his trial and announced the charges brought forth by Justis. He'd ended by calling them filthy, dead birds, nesting on a useless piece of glass. Jurris had ordered the criminal gagged after that, and only allowed him to speak before sentencing.

Those words hadn't been kind, either. Justis doubted if Yevil realized just how short his time had become. Regardless, he'd been gagged again and taken to the dungeons, where—no doubt—the now ungagged Yevil was likely shouting at the guards there.

"My King, if you had shown any evidence of becoming what that aberration is, I would have told you already," Justis muttered.

"You say Tamblin is in custody? He still lives?"

"Yes, although I doubt it will be for long. Had I not seen the device pulled from his neck myself, I'd have doubted such a thing existed. Nevertheless, several at the meeting recognized it. I cannot say whether Yevil dictated Tandelis' death, as well as Elabeth and Camryn's, through that infernal creation, or whether Tamblin went along with the plan willingly."

"Camryn always said there was friction between the brothers; Tandelis held much back from Tamblin as a result."

"I worried when Tandelis' wife died in childbirth, and the child with her," Justis rustled his feathers. "Tamblin already had an heir—Timblor was three years old when that happened. Tandelis believed he had enough time to find another wife and get an heir, but that's exactly what he didn't have."

"Did you get information from either as to the exact events that day?"

"Only that Yevil employed one of those weapons to kill Elabeth, Camryn and their guards first, then turned it on Tandelis, who sent guards to attack Yevil. Tandelis and his guards died, too."

"What about Lirin—their daughter?"

"Yevil claims he killed her. We know a body was delivered here, but it was damaged too badly to identify."

"What was done with the remains?"

"They lie in a glass casket inside the main vault. You were overcome with grief and melancholy at the time, so I didn't tell you what was done with them. Why do you ask?"

"I wish to see them now."

"Very well. Shall we go there, before making our way to the dungeons?"

"It would please me greatly."

*

Yevil had barely drawn breath between shouting at the guards; Justis ordered him gagged again when he was dragged from his cell. He and Jurris, followed by a dozen Black Wing guards, would usher Yevil to the gate.

Ardis walked steadily behind Justis—Justis couldn't help thinking that this trip could have been the former Captain's, had Quin not asked for his life.

Instead, it gave him grim satisfaction to be executing the one who'd killed Elabeth with joy in his heart at the deed.

What poison had Treven whispered into his half-blood son's ear before he was also forced through the gate? Justis shook his wings, angered by the thought. At least Treven stayed out of his path in the past—he'd been afraid of the black-winged Commander of the Queen's Guard—with good reason. If Treven had threatened Elabeth in Justis' presence, he would have died—with Camryn's blessing.

Instead, he'd stolen weapons from Camryn's treasury and instructed his half-blood child to do harm, instead.

"I watched your father pass through the gate," Justis leaned forward and whispered in Yevil's ear. "It will please me greatly to watch you pass through as well."

Justis stood beside Jurris, Black Wing next to Red, as Ardis and two others lifted one-legged Yevil and tossed him through the stone cavern.

It looked shallow, that cavern, but that was deceptive. Once anyone entered, they disappeared.

*

Tiralia

Yevil cursed when he landed, then looked about him. The ruins of a city lay in the distance. Around him, too, he could see bones—stripped clean of everything except feathers. The last pile was red—his father lay there.

What had killed him and the others? Yevil cared not. The broken city lay in the distance and he was determined to go there.

"You won't get far."

Yevil blinked. Tall, the creature was—more than three times the height of a tall man. Black scales gleamed in weak sunlight, and the tips of curved horns on the creature's head glinted brightly.

"Did you eat him?" Yevil nodded to the pile of bones and red feathers that had once been Treven of the Avii.