“The what?” My father craned his neck out as if he hadn’t heard me.
Oh yeah. I don’t think I ever mentioned its existence to him.
“The Bane family is royalty. Therefore, they have a fancy mansion on the East Side. The queen wants me to live there and keep a curfew.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why? Why wouldn’t she want us to stay here?”
I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want him to know I was about to move into my eventual prison and that if we didn’t, she would kill him.
I shrugged. “Maybe the same reason she wants me to change my last name. If I am to take responsibly for the Banes, I need to start living like one?”
It was a feeble attempt to explain things, but we were both tired, and so he nodded.
“Well, we can figure it out. I’ll leave early to make it to work in time. I imagine it’s quite a walk if it’s on the East Side.”
‘It would take him about twenty-five minutes,’Yanric said.
I frowned.‘How would you know that?’
He didn’t answer.
“Yeah, I’m getting a horse so we can figure it out,” I told him. If Ayden advocated for me to have a horse, it meant he was in on this council meeting. For all I knew, he was on the queen’s council all the time.
My dad let out a deep yawn. “Okay, kiddo, let’s get some sleep.”
I followed him back to our rooms, waving good night as he went to his own, and then shut the door. Walking over to my desk, I signed the contract, rolled it up, and handed it to Yanric.‘Can you fly this to the queen? I want to make sure she knows I’m cooperating.’
He glared at me.‘Sure. And if I suddenly lose control of my bowels while I’m near her, oops.’
I laughed and reached out to scratch the space under his neck as he took the paper into his beak. I opened the window for him.
‘Yan?’I asked as he hopped up on the windowsill.
He looked back at me.
‘How do you know how far Bane Manor is?’
A sadness crept over his features then.‘Because it’s where I was born eighteen years ago and where I waited…alone until you finally came to The Gilded City.’
My heart tore open then. I hadn’t realized Yanric was born at the same time as me and that he’d waited for me alone all these years.
Yanric Bane, at your service.
I thought of his excitement at seeing me that first day at The Academy. He had been waiting for me. He was abandoned just like I was, but he didn’t have a dad to adopt him like I did.
Reaching out, I grabbed him and brought him to my chest, squeezing him harder than I should have.‘I’m so sorry I took so long.’
My heart swelled with love for the little murderous creature.
‘You are forgiven, Fallon Bane.’
With that, he flew from my bedroom window and sealed my fate with the queen. I was about to admit to all the residents of The Gilded City that I was responsible for the mistakes of my ancestors. Whether that was a good idea remained unseen.
FOUR
ARIYON
I had learned a lot over the past day or so. The tribunal was a series of fights. The House of Ash and Shadow believed that only its strongest should be allowed rebirth, and I had to prove my strength in combat. I was fighting every day, sometimes a couple times a day. From what I could gather—and this really screwed with my mind—the Realm of Rebirth was where the soul bodies of the Nightlings went when they were in shadow form up top, which was a lot of the time. Then, when they were absent here, their body was present topside in the real world. It was both horrifying and impressive, actually, to think of creatures who could transcend dimensions so easily like that. It didn’t seem that they necessarily had to be in one place or the other but that they preferred it to whatever darkness awaited their soul when they were in shadow form topside. Even more terrifying was that I knew that meant the time would come when Marissa Bane would get word that I was here, and she would no doubt want to see me. I found myself wondering if I could kill her here. Permanently. Maybe they would pit us against each other in a fight. It seemed I was fighting a whole host of random Nightlings. Some came in chains, like me, and others seemedto work or live here or just be passing through before poofing topside into the real world.
