Chapter Twenty-One

“He’s going to be alright.”

Icelyn shook her head slightly, not turning around to look toward her grandfather as he spoke. She was crouched beside the bed where Malcolm still lay sleeping, and now that some time had passed, the extent of his injuries was becoming more clear. As though the adrenaline of running to escape the Order had kept color in his face, now that he had been sleeping, he had gone pale and the wounds on his skin stood out bright and angry. She wanted to touch them, to soothe the pain that she knew that he must be suffering, but she worried that touching them would only make it worse. It left her feeling helpless, only able to sit there beside him and hope that her love could surround him and somehow give him the strength that he needed to pull through.

“How could they do this to him?” she whispered. “He served them. He was loyal to them every day.”

“Until he wasn’t,” Casimir said.

Icelyn’s eyes snapped to the older man, fire in them as she felt her body trembling slightly with anger at his words.

“Are you saying that he deserved this?” she demanded.

Her grandfather shook his head.

“No, Icelyn. You misunderstand me. Of course, Malcolm was loyal to the Order throughout his life since he was introduced into their hierarchy. It was what he was born for and I can already see in him that he has everything that the Order desired in its members. He is brave and strong, willing to offer himself into service for something that he believes in even if he doesn’t know fully what it entails. But he is also something that the Panel fears and the corrupt despise.”

“What is that?” Icelyn asked.

“Enlightened,” Casimir said. “His mind is open, willing to learn and capable of change. He did just as the other Order members, including me, did when he was first inducted. He followed. But then his eyes were opened and he learned that what he thought that he was following was not the path that he should be taking, so he stepped off it and returned to where he should have been. But that meant turning his back on what he believes the Order has become. So, yes, he was loyal to them and he served them. Until he didn’t. And they protected him and treated him with as much respect as his station within the hierarchy would allow. Until they didn’t.”

“But why did it take him so long?” Icelyn asked. “He said that he was kept so low in the hierarchy that he barely knew anything about what was going on within the Order. How could he be loyal and believe in something that he didn’t even truly know what it was?”

“It’s something that only those who are within the ranks of the hierarchy will ever experience and ever know. Being chosen for the Order is something that anyone who is not a part of it can never understand. Even you, the person who is likely the closest to being within the Order without the benefit of being able to be chosen for it, cannot really understand what it is like to be selected and brought into the hierarchy.”

“Me?” Icelyn asked, surprised by the way that her grandfather described her. “Why would you say that about me? I know nothing about the Order.”

“Yes, you do,” Casimir said. “You know far more than you know. It’s within you, Icelyn. There are two parts of the Order. There is the truth and there is the corrupt. You are the lineage of the truth. You were born as an act of war.”

The statement made her breath catch in her throat. It was the way that they had described her marriage to Malcolm and now Casimir was using the words to describe her birth. It struck Icelyn and she turned her body more to face her grandfather without pulling away from Malcolm.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Your parents knew that the Order would come for them. Your father was working under me and Aegeus, and he had fully broken all the restrictions of secrecy by telling your mother every detail of the Order and what was being done within it, both in the truth and in the corrupt. She worked alongside us with greater intelligence, courage, and strength than I could have ever imagined, and I was proud to consider her among my dearest friends, my closest relations, and my most devoted warriors. Because that was what she was. A warrior. She knew what was happening and even though she looked death in the face, she refused to back down. Your parents knew that they only had a matter of time. The Order was going to come for them and their days were numbered, but that didn’t stop them. They had you. Even when those days ended, they knew that you would still be there. You would be a reminder to the Order of what they couldn’t control, and because you would be so protected simply by merit of who they were and who I was, you would be untouchable to the Order when you were a child. But it was more than that.”

“What else?” Icelyn asked, starting to see herself in a different light than she ever had.

“They knew that the truth would be born within you. Your birth meant that the truth would continue and persevere and that there would be a chance for all that we had started to continue.”

Something suddenly occurred to Icelyn and she shook her head slightly.

“But what about Maxim and Kyven?” she asked.

“Maxim and Kyven?” Casimir asked.

“Aegeus’s sons.”

“What about them?”

“You said that of all people, I was the closest to being a part of the Order without being chosen. But wouldn’t that be them? Especially Maxim?”

“Maxim was not chosen as part of the Order?” Casimir asked, his tone sounding truly shocked by the revelation.

“No,” she said. “Neither of them were. Didn’t you know that?”

Casimir shook his head, his eyes diverting slightly to look into the distance as if to follow some thought.

“No,” he told her. “I would have thought…” his voice trailed off. “When I came here, they were still very young. It wasn’t yet time for them to be chosen. I never would have thought that they would have been excluded.”

“Maybe because they are Aegeus’s sons,” Icelyn said. “The Order already knew that he was working against the corruption and they thought he was dead. Maybe they didn’t want Maxim and Kyven to be a part of the hierarchy because of that.”

“No,” Casimir said. “They don’t have a choice. Who is chosen is chosen. Even the Panel is not privy to how the men are selected or why. They can only follow the guidance that is given to them and induct those who are chosen. Besides, Aegeus is not dead. He didn’t die in that battle. I assure you that there are members of the Order who still know that. Whether they think that he would have already died at the hands of Ryan is another thing.”

“Who gives them the guidance?” Icelyn asked.

“What?”

“You said that the Panel must follow the guidance that they are given and induct those who are selected. Who gives them that guidance? How do they know who they are supposed to bring in?”

Casimir shook his head.

“I don’t know. No one does.”

“And how are they given the guidance?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“So, is it possible that no one within the hierarchy knows who is actually chosen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You told me that there is the truth and the corrupt. If the corrupt will go so far as to align with enemies and offer up one of their strongest and most loyal, and are willing to kill and destroy any who stand in their way without regard to who they are, but only what damage they might cause to the hierarchy, why do you think that they would stop at not following through with the guidance of whoever it is that tells them who to select into the Order? It is kept so mysterious that no one else other than those who bring in the selected know who’s been chosen. That means that they have no real obligation to follow through. If they disagree with an appointment, then they can just not induct the person. That keeps them out of the hierarchy and away from the influence and control that the Panel doesn’t want to give them.”

“I don’t believe that the entire Panel is corrupt,” Casimir said. “There are some who still believe in the truth.”

“And even if they aren’t? Would those who follow the truth know to stand up against those who didn’t? Just like you said, the corrupt destroy what stands in their way. If there are still members of the Panel who are not corrupt, they are still alive and in control only because those who are corrupt haven’t seen them pose any threat. They might not know who has been chosen. The corrupt can reject who they want to and strike down whoever stands in their way.”

“That,” Casimir said, “is why you are the closest of any person who is not in the Order to being a part of it. You think like your father. You are beautiful and brave like your mother.” He took a step toward her, his shoulders straightening as he pulled himself up to his full height. “You are fearless like me.”

Malcolm groaned behind her and Icelyn turned to look at him again. His head turned back and forth slowly as if controlled by the images that he was seeing in his dreams.

“He’s never going to be the same,” she murmured.

“No, he’s not,” Casimir agreed. “He will be better. Stronger. More sure of the decision that he made. What he went through, no man should have survived. Malcolm did. And the only reason that he did is because his heart and his mind were telling him that there was so much more than he had to live for and to fight for than he did to die for.”

“Will he live?” Icelyn asked.

It was a thought that she hadn’t wanted to put voice to, but one that she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind since they had first found him.

“Of course, he will,” Casimir said. “He got here on his own feet and he will leave on them, too. It was smart of Mhavrych to bring him here. Not just to release me, but for him as well. The cold will be good for him. His body will fight harder to heal and it will shore him up for anything else that we might face.”

Icelyn brushed a piece of hair away from Malcolm’s face, careful not to wake him.

“I’m sorry that you had to live here for so long by yourself,” she said.

“I wasn’t always alone,” Casimir said. “Mhavrych and your parents came to visit me periodically, and I knew that there were others here.”

“Others?” Icelyn asked. “What do you mean?”

“I never knew who they were, but sometimes when I was out in the snow, I would see figures in the distance. They never approached me and I never approached them, but they were there.”

“Why would you go out in the snow?” Icelyn said. “I thought that you had to stay in the cavern because of your exile. It took a man from your lineage to release you.”

“I was permitted a small radius around the cavern. Just a few feet. Enough to go out and gather snow for water and whatever food I could trap. Mhavrych and your parents did their best to make sure that I had what I needed, but there were times when they weren’t able to visit for long stretches, and it only worsened after your parents died. It has been a very long time since Mhavrych came to visit me.”

“I don’t understand,” Icelyn said, finally saying something that had been bothering her since she first heard the details of how her grandfather came to be exiled in the snow. “You said that Mhavrych is the one who brought you here.”

“Yes. When I was sentenced to die, Aegeus was assigned to be my executioner. It was something that we knew was a possibility, and we had plans in place,”

“Malcolm was right,” Icelyn said. “He said that you and the other confidences of Aegeus would know that if you were caught and brought up in front of the Panel that you would be sentenced to death, but that Aegeus would be chosen to carry out the execution.”

Casimir nodded.

“It was the one reassurance that we had. I knew that even if the Panel found out about me, there was no way that they would find out about Aegeus. There was nothing that they could do to me to make me betray him. They would sentence me to die, but Aegeus would be asked to handle it. Because I was so high in the hierarchy and the crimes that they accused me of were so egregious, it would be a private execution. All he would need to do is return to the lair and proclaim that I was dead. They would come up with a story about my death to tell the family – which, of course, the family wouldn’t believe, but they didn’t know that – and our plans would continue.”

“But it was after you were put into exile that Aegeus disappeared. You said that you were waiting for him in the war room and that he never got there.”

“Yes,” Casimir said. “I believed him dead. Everyone did. I couldn’t see any other explanation for why he didn’t arrive as we had planned.”

“But how could you have been waiting in the war room for him when you had already been put into exile?”

“Athan told you that there were only two ways that I would be able to get out of exile. One was a man in my family. The other was Aegeus. When we had finalized our plans, Aegeus came here and released me, but only temporarily.”

“Why temporarily?”

“Once someone of the Order has been released from exile permanently, they cannot return to that place. It’s too dangerous for them and for the Order. The Panel knows that when someone is in exile they only have time, and time means that they will think. With enough time, anyone can become a serious threat. So long ago the Order established that no one who is permanently released from exile will be able to return because they didn’t want for anyone to be able to carry out plans that they made while serving their time.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Aegeus was extremely confident in everything that he believed and in his convictions, but he was also realistic. He knew that there was always a chance that something wouldn’t go exactly as it was planned and he wanted to offer me a form of protection. If the Panel had discovered that I was still alive…” he paused, a slight shudder rolling through him. “Aegeus made it so that if I needed to, I could return to this place and continue to carry out my exile until the time was right to be released. We had planned out the battle to the very detail and a few days before it was to happen, he came and brought me back to the kingdom with Mhavrych’s help. I stayed hidden in the war room, waiting for him, but he never came. I waited for three days. Finally, I knew that there was no other option for me but to return here and continue to wait. It wasn’t long until Mhavrych came to tell me that Aegeus was dead.”

“So why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you have my father release you?”

“Where would I have gone?” Casimir asked. “What was there to do? Our plans had crumbled. The war as we had designed it was over. Going back to the kingdom then would only mean certain death and the end of any hope that what Aegeus and I had started would ever be brought to fruition. All the work that we had done would have been in vain and I would be handing over the safety and persistence of the Universe and of life within it over into the hands of destruction. That wasn’t something that I was willing to do. I had to wait. I had to trust that the division between truth and corruption was still there and that if I was patient, my time would come. And now it has.”

“That was how I got my name,” Icelyn said, remembering what they had told her when she first encountered her grandfather.

He gave a single nod.

“So that no one could forget.”

“But it still doesn’t make sense,” Icelyn insisted. “Mhavrych doesn’t look like he’s more than a couple of years older than me. How could he have been the one to bring you into exile if I wasn’t even born when it happened?”

“There is a lot that you don’t know about Mhavrych,” Casimir told her. “There is a lot that no one knows about Mhavrych. I can tell you that he barely looks different now than when he brought me here.”

Icelyn didn’t know what to think about that revelation and her mind had moved to what had changed in the years that Casimir had been in exile.

“The world is different now than when you came here,” Icelyn told him.

“The war isn’t,” Casimir said. “If Aegeus has been held by Ryan for all these years, nothing has changed. The fight is still ours and there will be nothing to stop us now.”