Honored (Book 2 of the In Search of Honor series)

With my plans finished, I let myself rest against the cell wall. It felt like ages ago when I rested against a similar wall with Dan. It was a different life. A life where there was hope and a thought that the people could change the City, but there just weren’t enough people that cared. Everyone wanted their soft comfy lives to not change.

If I let myself think about that life, I would get sucked into my dreams again. I couldn’t afford luxury until the castle was a pile of rubble and everyone’s comfy happy lives were disrupted enough to force them to join the struggling masses.

Too bad we didn’t have the manpower to win straight up. It would have been quite the turnaround to see the King working in the streets cleaning up trash and spit on. The bitter thought stung. What was I thinking? How could I wish the Dishonored life on anyone when that had been my own existence? Were there people who were happy to see my own family’s downfall?

Was I any better for planning to kill him by bringing his castle down on him? Was I not just extracting the same justice that he had attempted to bring about with my execution? I was kidding myself. I was no better than him with all my lofty ideals. I was just a terrible person forced to suffer a little. If we had won, I would have had him executed so there was no chance of a rebellion. I would have forced my idea of the way a government should run on the City.

I looked over the map of the City I knew so well. I thought of Daniel’s hatred for this place, and my own miserable time in the City. The village of Sunrise out beyond the edge. If only we could be back there, and this City with all it’s cursed problems could disappear from my life, but that was not my role anymore. My role was not to be the leader of the winning army taking over and restructuring everything. My place in this society was to die to give others a chance. Maybe someone else could be a better person than me and make something out of this ancient city.

The door opened, and there was the wrinkled old woman with the bowl of soup. The third meal.

“Thanks,” I smiled up at her to show my appreciation. She was one of the people the city would be left to.

Her smile back reminded me of how bright and wonderful the world outside the City was. She set the bowl down in front of me, “I made sure to bring you a nice hot bowl again. It’s good to see you looking a little better. I was afraid you were going to waste away for a bit there.”

She wasn’t completely wrong. I had felt like abandoning this world. I looked down at my hands to see my thin bony hands that looked skeletal. They told the story of how I was treating my body. I looked back up at her to see the worried wrinkles lining her eyes and her smile was gone. I forced my lips back up into a smile as I responded, “I realized I still have some more things I have to do.”

She nodded and her smile came back, “That’s good, dearie. We all have to find something to live for when we live miserable lives. Sometimes it’s our friends and loved ones, and sometimes it is simply a wish to be change. When I was yonder, I thought I could bring change. But then I met my husband, and I realized that him and my children were more important than some ideal.” She patted my shoulder. “It’s so good to see you young folks fighting back. It brings joy to this old woman’s heart. If things were different…”

Her sentence hung and she was looking away at the wall as if imagining something else. She then looked back at me, her brownish green eyes meeting my own eyes. “I lived for them for a time, and then for my grandchildren, but I’ve decided to live for myself again.” She patted my shoulder again. “I’ll see you at the briefing when you present your grand plan.” She waved her hand at my drawings, before turning to leave.

“Wait!” I called out to stop her.

And she turned back toward me with that soft kind smile of hers, “Yes dearie?”

“I...” I looked down at the floor, unsure of why I had stopped her. And then I realized why. I had no name to put to this woman. Just like that unknown woman who had pretended to be cleaning my room and then betrayed us. “What’s your name?”

“Emily. And what is your name?”

“Li-” I started to say my nickname I had been going by for so long and then stopped. If I wanted to be the face of this fight and hold responsibility for everything that was about to happen, I should do it under my true name. The name my parents gave to me. The name of a most Honored girl. The name of a girl who got her own father executed. The name a little Dishonored girl abandoned. The name an exiled teenager refused to even think. I looked straight into Emily’s eyes. “Elizabeth. Elizabeth Devenar.” I embraced my family’s name and the status it conveyed.

Her eyes widened and she glanced down toward my left hand, staring at the old faint brand of the D on that left hand and then back up at my face. “Devenar. That’s a name I haven’t heard muttered in a very long time. I hope your plans are for more than just putting yourself back in your family’s old place.”

Oh. That was what she thought by me announcing my name? I would have to be clear with my announcement on the stacks to not allow anyone to be confused by name. Though it wouldn’t really matter once I was dead. “No, I have no plans for anyone from my family to ever be back in a position of power. In fact I want to bring down Most Honored families.”

She looked down on me with concern, “Dearie, I think you should abandon that name then. If you want all the great families of the city to abandon their positions the first thing they need to give up is their proud names.”

But I had just come to terms with who I was! And then it hit me. My own pride when I told her exactly what my name was. The name I had abandoned for so many years. The name that I had refused to let people call me. The only reason I had told her my name was I had felt like it was some sort of dare. I rubbed the D on my left hand feeling my face heat up with embarrassment.

“You understand why that name needs to be left buried?” Her voice broke through my thoughts.

“Yes.” Buried. Buried with my father?” I wished so strongly I could rely on its strength. On telling the world I was back. That a Devenar was leading this whole thing, but she was right. To do so would only undermine what I was fighting for.

Who was I? An Exiled Dishonored fighting for the Dishonored and Undesirables. I was a symbol. Not Elizabeth Devenar the Most Honored. Not Liv the Exile who wanted revenge for her father. Not even Liv the village woman who just wanted to be alive. And most of all not Elizabeth Devenar who was back to bring her righteous anger to bear against the city. I had to be a symbol. I had to be someone more than I was. Someone without a name. “Then instead, call me Exile, for that is who I am.”

She smiled, “That sounds like a much better name for the leader of the Undesirables. I will bury your old names in my heart. No one else will ever need to know them.”

Old names? Did she already know my nickname? Before I could ask her about that she was gone leaving me alone in the room with my drawings and a bowl of flavored hot water.

The nasty flavor of the soup coated my mouth. Water and substance in one swallow. There wasn’t much left to do for my planning but wait. I looked over longingly at the cot and thought of Dan’s arms in my dreams, but no. I was not Liv anymore. That cot was a crutch to support a woman named Liv. This wall was what the symbol Exile deserved. Exile. The E marked on my cheek. A name no one gave me. A name to strip me of my life.