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

Time seemed almost to standstill in my chamber of eternity. Sleep was my respite where I lived in a forest topped by blues skies with Dan next to me. Soft brown hair that I gently ran my fingers through and that cute scar cutting through his eyebrow. I could see his large smile with the gap in his front teeth where his tooth was missing.

Emily came with food, her wrinkled old hands would pat me, and sometimes she would chat at me about things happening in the underground. Her voice was like a background noise to the endless space.

Sometimes it was Silvia instead with her eyes puckered together and her skin all twisted up in perpetual anger and her red hair tied back in a sharp bun. “I thought you had some grand plan, but yet I haven’t heard a whisper of it!” She yelled at me the first time. I tuned her out. Eventually she left. The second time she stormed in and slapped me. Then she yelled some more. I rubbed my ears and wondered if they were working.

Emily.

Silvia.

My life spinning around. One then the other. When would the Wall be ready?

The door opened, and it wasn’t Emily’s stooped figure or Silvia’s proud and angry flash, but instead a slow and large figure made its way in.

Dan wrapped his arms, and I felt the faintest whisper of a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll see you soon.” He whispered.

Yes, soon he would be more than just a figment of my imagination. There in the doorway stood a figure with close cropped blond hair. The man whose name was so close to my dear Dan, but was most definitely not him. My partner in bitter hatred for this world.

“Is it time?” I asked him.

Daniel nodded, “We got the full amount of explosives you asked for, and they are all on timer devices. The Wall technicians trained the castle workers on how to set them up. Everything is ready. Give me a good show, and I’ll make sure to give it a finale that won’t be forgotten.”

I walked toward him, walking once again toward my doom, but this time it was a doom of my choosing. “Do we have a device that can make my voice louder?”

“Better than that. The wall said if you speak into this little black box,” he held up a black box with lines on it. “The whole city will hear you coming from the Wall and the dome. Just push in this little soft thing on the side and speak they said.” He pointed at a thing that looked squishy sticking out of the black box.

“Leave it to the Wall to come up with weird devices,” I said as I took the box from him.

“Oh, and one last reminder from them. They would like you to discard your Wall cloaks when you get to the stack you choose and hide them in a bush or something. They don’t want to be connected to our little party.” He smiled, grabbed my hand and pulled me into the dark hallway.

“Where are we going to meet up with my squad?” I asked to the darkness he drug me through.

“To the room at the beginning of the Undesirable tunnels. From there, Wall technicians will guide you toward the stacks. After you get above ground it will all be on you.” His voice led me back to when I had walked into this cursed dark land with Dan.

Had Dan taken these same tunnels back out to the fight where he eventually died. He had to have since the above ground was controlled by the city guards. I should have listened to Dan, or maybe forced him to stay with me. Would he have survived the attack on the base we were staying in? Ah, all the what ifs. I couldn’t think that way. I had to stay here in the present. My execution was finally coming due after all these years of fighting it and escaping it. Exile or Execution? The age old question. Why not let the Exile walk to her own execution. But she did. Walked on her own two feet and then ran like a coward. Not anymore. This time she would face the sword with a smile and raise her chest to welcome it.

It was a fantastic sight for all those watching: the Exile in her leather with her arms raised and open to welcome the stroke of the sword. It was me in that image I conjured. My own fatale ending. The bodies pile at my feet that I would be joining. My father. Annie. Fire. Bryan. Kyle. Dan. The hundreds of nameless dead that fought for this terrible exile I promised.

I ran into him when he stopped, and backed up a step. He dropped my hand, and a glint of light shined through into the hallway. A door opened into a familiar round area I had once waited for Daniel and Henry within.

Three cloaked figures waited as if they had never left. The only other thing in the room was a large cloth bag that reminded me of Dishonored clothes and a bucket.

“Pull off your cloak.” The high pitched voice instructed, and then giggled. “I didn’t mean it quite like strip. Oh what am I saying? Maybe I did.” She giggled again, grating on my nerves.

One of the others sighed. “You could just stop talking and you would stop sticking your foot in your mouth.” It sounded like Mr. Repair Man.

She giggled in response to him and shrugged, “But I like word babbling. It fills the emptiness.”

I followed her first ask and pulled off my tattered and dirty cloak I’d been wearing since fleeing the headquarters.

“You stink to the dome!” She exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes. “I would expect I smell. I haven’t washed since I came here.”

“We can’t have a nasty representative showing up. You men, go stand behind the door. You,” she pointed at me, “go clean yourself with the water I brought.”

I looked down at the worn and nasty leather I was wearing. Taking it off was such a chore. “Do we have to do this? Does it matter if I am clean or not?”

“YES! Making a good opinion matters. Do you think the King will talk to some nasty beggar? We have to make you look like a queen of Exiles.” She turned and flapped her hands at the door back to the Undesirable area. “Go on. Shoo. Out of here.”

The Wall repair person who hadn’t spoken yet shrugged and moved toward the door which seemed to signal the others, and they followed them out.