SWNOVELS Chapter You Still Have A Job To Do
Underneath his son and piles of blankets, his chest was warm, so warm. And his belly and crotch were growing cold.
Jonas started, and so did Joelin, going straight into a full-blown wail. Oh, no! He’d woken his son! But he was wet. Something had to be done.
The room became chaos. Orin grizzled about the noise. Braph bellowed for assistance, and Orinia came to Jonas, arms wide to collect the wet child. She gathered him up, cooing and sympathizing, and Jonas remained sitting, not quite sure what to do with all his wetness.
Eventually, he worked his way from the rocking chair and stood, feeling useless, and awkward.
Nilv showed Jonas to the washroom and brought him a change of clothes. The whole house felt cold and metallic; in complete contrast to the comfort and warmth of the family setting the night before. The guilt of not getting to Llew in time after Braph kidnapped her settled deeper. So much had happened to her that he should have been able to stop.
After fighting free of his wet clothes and washing, he jiggled into and laced the leather trousers provided. If he were wearing them when he next saw Llew she’d come down with a panic. Or laugh. He stopped at a linen shirt over an undershirt. The leather coat would be too much.
Exiting the washroom, he paused, looking at the door at the end of the hall. Was that where it had happened? Or one of the rooms downstairs? Did it make a difference? It had happened, and he hadn’t got there in time to stop it. He wouldn’t be getting anywhere in a hurry now. He wouldn’t be stopping much. He sneered at himself. What good was he?
From the top of the stairs, he let his gaze settle on the door to the children’s room. He could be a father. That was all his son would ever need him to be.
He returned to the room and leaned his shoulder into the doorframe, watching Maura feeding Joelin porridge, the desire to do it himself strong, but he wasn’t sure how the child would respond to him in the cold light of day.
Braph approached and bumped Jonas’s shoulder with his own and nodded to the hallway. Jonas pushed off the door frame and turned from the room, Braph coming around, so Jonas’s back was to the wall.
“You still have a job to do,” Braph said. “Come.” Braph walked to the next door, to the right of the stairs, unlocked and swung the door open.
If Jonas thought the rest of the house was chilling, he was unprepared for that room. The chairs with straps at wrists and ankles, the cold stone floor, the machines he had no name for. Each piece spoke of torture. Together was a brutality he couldn’t imagine.
Llew had been brought here.
She hadn’t spoken of it. But then, he had never asked.
He wanted to pull his eyes from the chairs as much as he wanted to force himself to look upon them, study them, imagine what this room meant to Llew.
He looked at his brother, seeing Braph through her eyes. He felt sick looking at the man who could strap people to these chairs, never mind his reasons why.
Braph strode past him, to the far corner of the room, his boot clicks echoing on the slate floor.
“You may not be Syakaran anymore, but you are not so weak as to be entirely useless.” Braph turned to face him from a semi walled-off corner full of more strange contraptions. But when Jonas really looked, he recognized some. There were dumbbells and stepping machines and pulleyed weights. “And I need you to be fighting fit when you step into the ring at Kadesh’s request. The men of Turhmos believe they will be fighting Quaver’s champion, so a champion you must be. Speaking of which … Come here.” Braph curled a finger at Jonas.
Reluctant as he was to do Braph’s bidding like a little puppy, Jonas crossed the room to his brother.
Braph reached his hand out and Jonas flinched back.
“Hold still.”
As he’d been doing all his life, Jonas did as he was told, and stood like the good soldier he was.
Braph splayed his fingers over Jonas’s scalp. Jonas followed his brother’s gaze down to his stump with its metallic bracing and the vial of Orinia’s blood he had fitted. Then Braph locked his gaze with Jonas’s, concentration fixing a stern mask in place.
Jonas’s scalp tingled, not unlike when Llew healed him. He watched Braph closely. His brother wouldn’t return his Syakaran powers to him, would he?
The hair over his forehead began growing down in front of his eyes. The hair at the back of his neck tickled his shoulders.
“It’s a small thing,” Braph said. “But for some, it’s all they know you by. The hair and the tattoo.” He sneered slightly. The gryphon was a symbol for their Syakaran bloodline. Didn’t mean Braph couldn’t wear it. But he chose not to.
Stepping back from Jonas, Braph swung his arms out low, turning on the spot. “You will spend most of your days for the next week in here, while I arrange the fight. My kitchen will prepare meals to help you grow stronger, and you will have designated time to spend with your son. When all this is over, you’ll either be dead, somewhat happy in the knowledge that at least he got to meet you, or, if you’re lucky, maybe I will send him home with you.” Braph beamed liked he’d delivered the best possible news. The sad thing was, he probably had. Jonas would have a chance to fight for his and Joelin’s freedom. Not much of a chance, but a chance no less. “We’ll take care of this Aris problem and cement our family name in the history books.” Braph grinned. The smug bastard.
Llew bided her time.
She watched, and she listened.
The guards talked, but Llew couldn’t hear them through the window. Thankfully, someone came by several times a day to provide her with a simple meal and clean chamber pot. These were quick visits but, as the week progressed, the ladies brought their building excitement into the cell with them and were often still finishing discussions with the guards on their way in and restarting them on their way out.
Llew had a lot of time to think, and she spent a lot of that time thinking about her heavily pregnant mother, Jonas, and the trees she’d planted on her way through Turhmos. She tried to figure how tall they might all be now. Not big enough yet. But one day. What about the one back in Quaver? The one that spoke in two voices. It had been about a month since they’d left Quaver. For all she knew that tree could be nearly full grown. That was, if the Quavens hadn’t attacked it. She had to hope that questions thrown up by Aris’s transition would be enough for others to query why the Ajnais had been destroyed. It would be too much to hope they would remain ignorant of what the tree was.
For Jonas’s sake, she hoped they at least hesitated. She didn’t know all the ins and outs like Braph may, but if she had any chance of returning Jonas’s powers to him, that tree was her best shot.
She listened when the chamber maids visited and watched when the guards walked by, slowing her breathing, and watching their lips, even as they walked on. Anticipation grew. Now and then they mentioned ‘the Syakaran’ which, was almost certainly Jonas, even if he wasn’t Syakaran anymore. Llew wasn’t sure how far word of his weakness would have spread, but either way could be exciting for these, his mortal enemies. Whether full-strength or weakened, the fact he was captured would be all that mattered to them.
But the stories she kept hearing snippets of weren’t about his capture. They spoke about some show. A display, a fight, an event they all wished to attend. And it sounded as if many of them expected to be able to go. What reason, after all, did they have to suspect that these locked up Aenuks could do anything while they were gone?
Unless they knew that the windows were a weakness.
But the windows weren’t the last defense against escape. There were two heavy doors leading down to the dungeon beneath the Presidential Palace itself.
Which was why Llew had pocketed the keys from one of the chamber maids when she had brought in breakfast. There was little point in having years of experience at pickpocketing if one was never going to use it, was there? Besides, it wasn’t like they made it hard.
The keys had been right there, hanging from her waistband. It had been all too easy to lift them without a sound. For Llew, anyway.
So far, there had been no outburst about a missing set of keys. Llew wondered if, and hoped, it meant the doors weren’t often locked. Possibly, they relied on their guards more than a need to lock the place up. But if all these guards and maids hoped to see the show Jonas was to star in, Llew had little doubt the doors would be locked then.
Now, the only question was how many other Aenuks she should release when she made her getaway. She hated to admit it, but the safest answer seemed to be none. She’d stuffed up when she took her pa with her when she’d escaped Braph’s. And, as when they’d crossed from Quaver to Turhmos, Llew sensed a greater chance of success if she made her escape alone compared to trying to get thirty or forty other Aenuks out with her. If she were sensible, she would get out of this place, find Jonas, return him to full strength, make sure Aris was taken care of, and return when it was safe. By then her trees would have grown, and there would be no reason for Turhmos to keep the Aenuks locked away.
Llew wanted to be sensible. Even if it went against her gut, which felt sick at the thought of running out on all these innocents. But it was for the sake of their longer-term wellbeing. If Llew failed now, they all failed.
With Jonas’s strength and possibly life, and the lives of all these Aenuks in her hands, she was about as determined as she ever had been about anything.
Wearing the keys against her skin, or in her mouth when she was bathed, she kept quiet, followed all instructions, and slept soundly, biding her time.