Chapter Three

Athan could sense the change that had come over the tunnels as soon as he got into them. There was a heaviness in the atmosphere that went beyond even the tension that usually hung in the air when the Order was preparing for conflict. The feeling settling over him made him even more uncomfortable and he feared for Ellora’s safety at a new level. Carefully closing the access ramp to prevent anyone from the kingdom finding it and venturing down into the tunnels, Athan started toward the center of the network where he would be able to access the side tunnels that would bring him to the entrance where he assumed Ellora had gone inside. It was the rarely-used entrance tucked into a home rather than in the ground or the wall around the kingdom as they usually were, but it would bring her down very close to the main meeting rooms as well as dark, scarcely-seen rooms that he didn’t want to think of her encountering.

Moving quickly, Athan rushed through the changing colors of light. Suddenly he could hear other footsteps in the tunnels with him. For a moment, he felt a sense of hope thinking that it might be Ellora, but the longer that he listened to them, the more he recognized that they were too heavy, too loud to belong to the small woman. This meant that this was one of the men of the Order running through the tunnels, which told Athan that they had not only discovered that Ellora was in the forbidden area, but that they were now chasing after her. If they got their hands on her, she would be in incredible danger, and he had to do whatever he could to prevent that.

Taking a steeling breath, Athan turned in the direction of the footsteps and ran toward them. If he was able to find the man who was running through the tunnels, he would have a better chance of finding out what had happened with Ellora and possibly where she might be so that he could find her. Athan had only gone a few more yards when a figure turned the corner ahead of him.

“Malcolm!” Athan exclaimed.

The younger man skidded to a stop in front of Athan and looked at him with a frantic expression in his eyes.

“Athan,” he said. “Where did you come from?”

His tone sounded suspicious and Athan knew that he needed to redirect that feeling so that he could get as much information from him as he could. Athan was momentarily stunned. He hadn’t expected to encounter any of the members of the Order and hadn’t prepared himself for what he might say if they questioned why he had come down into the tunnels, especially considering that the higher-up members of the hierarchy were likely preparing serious discipline for his betrayal of allowing Maxim and Ivy into the tunnels and then giving the vehicles to them to use.

“I heard from the Leader,” Athan finally said. “He said that he wanted me to get down here as quickly as possible, that there is an intruder.”

He knew that Malcolm wouldn’t question instructions from the Leader, particularly if Athan kept them vague enough that it seemed he was too frantic to provide thorough information. Malcolm nodded, immediately going along with what Athan was saying.

“There is,” he said. “It is Ellora.”

“Aegeus’s wife?” Athan asked.

For a brief moment, he thought that he might have gone too far in his questioning. Everyone knew of his closeness with Ellora, particularly because he had been the closest friend and confidante of Aegeus prior to his disappearance.

“Yes,” Malcolm said, some of the suspicion finding its way back into his voice.

“I just don’t understand why she would come down here,” Athan said, trying to add an edge of anger to his own voice to counteract the tone of the younger man’s words. “There’s nothing here for her. What does she think that she’s going to find down here?”

It seemed to work and Malcolm gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She came down here angry and confronted me, then the Leader found her.”

Athan felt himself tense.

“He did?” he asked. “What did he do?”

“He picked her up off the ground. I don’t know what he planned to do with her, but by his tone I know that he was infuriated. I don’t know for certain that she would have survived much longer down here if she hadn’t outsmarted him and escaped.”

As soon as he said the words, Athan could see Malcolm’s face pale slightly. Even though the Leader was not nearby, he wouldn’t want to think that the man in one of the highest ranks of the hierarchy within the Order had heard him utter what could be thought of as even close to an insult. It would be completely unacceptable for Malcolm to say that the Leader had been outsmarted, no matter how true it was. Athan remembered a time when there wasn’t such tension and darkness in the Order. Though the hierarchy had always been there and there had always been swift and fierce punishments for those who didn’t follow the guidelines of the Order once chosen, it hadn’t been this brutal. There hadn’t been the overhanging sense of fear and hesitation that seemed to control everyone now. It had been building steadily before Aegeus disappeared, and Athan knew that it was because of that that he had made whatever plans had led to him going missing from that battlefield, presumed dead for so many years. Though after that battle it had seemed that relative peace had returned and the Order had largely returned to the way that it once was, in recent months it had begun to descend again and Athan could see the corruption again taking hold.

“What did she do?” Athan asked.

“She forced him to release her,” Malcolm said. “She released all strength and tension in her body and he wasn’t able to hold her. The moment that she hit the ground, she scurried away and she’s been loose in the tunnels since.”

“And you don’t know why she came down here?” Athan asked.

“She said that she wanted to know about the Order. She demanded that we tell her what we do and why because she wanted to know what was so important that her husband was willing to die for it, and that she had to give up the years that she could have spent with him. What did she mean by that?”

Athan realized that Malcolm didn’t know that Aegeus was alive. Though she had been hasty in her decision to come down here at all, at least she had thought through it enough that she hadn’t revealed her husband was still alive. He knew how difficult that was for her. He had seen it in her eyes when he first told her. In that one instant, her entire world crashed down around her, and the rubble of the world that already had, was rebuilt into something beautiful and tenuously hopeful. She had felt betrayed and honored, horrified and delighted, afraid and empowered. It was everything that she had ever felt about her husband’s disappearance on top of her all over again, but now with a wash of joy at the thought that she might one day soon be able to look into his face and hold him in her arms again.

“Aegeus died many years ago,” Athan said. “I can only guess that when she looks at her grown sons that they remind her of how much time has passed and that she could have spent that time with her husband rather than raising Maxim and Kyven alone. She must realize now that Maxim and Ivy are together and Kyven has Emerie that they won’t be with her any longer. She will soon be on her own and she can’t help but imagine what it would have been like if she had been able to live out the rest of her life with Aegeus the way that she had always planned that she would.”

Malcolm nodded again and looked behind himself as if expecting the Leader to come around the corner or for Ellora to run past.

“You don’t know where she is?” he asked, his tone slightly lower now as if he were trying to inspire confidence in Athan just in case he really did know where to find the missing woman.

Athan shook his head.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I don’t know. But I will help you look for her. What should I do with her if I find her?”

He didn’t want to commit to doing anything for fear that the insincerity would betray him.

“Bring her to the center meeting room,” he said. “I know that the Leader will want to see her as soon as possible.”

Athan nodded and Malcolm turned sharply, taking off running again. Taking a few deep breaths to calm the shaking inside his body, Athan started in the opposite direction. Now that he knew that the men were looking for her, it was more pressing to find Ellora as quickly as possible and get her out of the tunnels. He tried to imagine what was going through her mind when she took off from the Leader. He had been making his way through the tunnels for his entire adult life, and he still sometimes found them complicated and confusing to navigate. The thought of her being alone in them without any idea as to where she was or how she should make her way back in the direction that she needed to go was terrifying. It would be far too easy for her to accidentally loop back around and end up right back in the same hallway where she first encountered the Leader, or to even come upon the rooms and meeting centers that were hidden throughout it. Just as dangerous, though, would be if she didn’t find these at all, but rather wandered deeper into the complex of corridors. Many of those corridors hadn’t been in regular use for as long as Athan could remember, and the deeper that she went, the more likely she was to find the ones that led into dead-ends and large rooms that on their own were enough to disorient her. She could get lost in them and by the time that any of them found her, she would have long died from lack of water and food.

As he moved down the corridor as quickly as he could, the lights flashing over head to mark his progress, Athan tried to think of where she might have gone. He couldn’t imagine that Aegeus had given her any details about the underground network or the corridors themselves. If he had, she might have some way of knowing how to make her way around, but that would mean that she would have either found her way out already or that they would have found her. It was much more likely that she knew that there was something underground and that now she was essentially running blindly through the lair, hoping that she happened to stumble upon the ladder that would lead her back up and out of the hatch.

He didn’t want to encounter any other members of the Order. Malcolm was young and still saw him with the respect and reverence of being one of the elder members of the hierarchy. He either wasn’t aware of Athan’s recent transgressions, or was too intimidated by his age and station to take issue with them. The other men who were of his age and station, and even some younger ones, however, were not as forgiving as Malcolm. They would not hesitate to turn their attention from finding Ellora to capturing Athan if they saw him, and then neither of them would be safe.

As if his thoughts had lured them toward him, Athan could suddenly hear the voices of some of the other Order members coming quickly down the corridor toward him.

“And you just let him go?” one demanded.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said. “I didn’t realize it was so important.”

“The Leader was very clear about Athan’s betrayal of the Order. He said that if he was to set foot down here, he was to immediately be brought in front of the Panel for sanction.”

“What are they going to do to him?”

“He told outsiders about the Order, allowed them down into the tunnels, and gave them hidden technology to use for their own purposes. I can’t speak for the Leader or the rest of the Panel, but I can’t imagine that they will treat him gently. The members of the Order know that being chosen for this organization is not just a tremendous honor, but a responsibility unlike anything else that they might encounter. We are expected to uphold our duty to protect the Order and everything about it for our entire lives, even if that means giving up our lives. Athan knew what he was doing. The moment that he made the decision to give that information, he forsook himself and his claim for a future. No matter what happens to him, he can only blame himself.”

Athan took off running. He didn’t know where he was going or what he might encounter, but he knew that he needed to get away from the men who were coming his direction. They wouldn’t hesitate for a second to drag him in front of the Panel and sacrifice his life. None of them understood what was really happening, but it didn’t matter. Even if they did, they were so controlled by the Order and the men who had corrupted it that they likely wouldn’t be able to make a choice for themselves to help Athan. Even if they knew about Ryan and what was happening on Penthos, even if they knew that Aegeus was alive, they wouldn’t be able to process it and recognize the incredible importance of them allowing Athan to live, even if they didn’t cooperate with him. In fact, there was a chance that if they knew that Aegeus was alive, they might do anything that they could to find him so that they would be able to bring him, too, in front of the Panel.

Not for the first time since finding out that the man who was once his best friend was still alive, Athan thought back to the moment that he realized that Aegeus had disappeared from the battlefield. It was easiest then to think that he had died, even though it was the most painful experience of his life. He couldn’t think of anything else that could explain him being completely gone. Now, though, he had to wonder how he had gone from the moment that he was walking into the battle to Ryan’s clutches. He could only assume that it was somehow linked to the Order, but even that didn’t make sense. If they had found out that Aegeus knew what was happening within the Order, they would have handled it on their own. He couldn’t understand why they would have given him over to a human on Earth to be a part of breeding experiments rather than punishing him themselves. The thought of the motivations that might have caused it sent a chill down Athan’s spine and he forced himself to run faster and harder, putting the voices of the men at his back and putting more focus on finding Ellora.