Fugitives: Chapter 6

As Elijah and I were sitting, digesting that piece of news, Kielle opened the book. I heard the rustle of pages as she turned them, and I felt her reach for the candle. A few seconds later a match flared, and she lit the candle.

    The inside of the book was full of beautiful illustrations and neat, cursive words. Kielle was fingering a picture of a beautiful young princess, locked away in a tower, crying. “That was like me, before,” she said in her eerie high voice. “Then I escaped. No one really noticed, not yet, anyway.” She flipped though the pages, away from the end, toward the front, and rested on one. It had a handsome, evil looking young man driving a knife into an old man with a crown on his head. On the next page, underneath the words, was the young man, the usurper, wearing the crown, with people bowing down to him.

    “That was my great-great-great grandfather,” Kielle announced. She pointed to a paragraph. “Read this part.”

    I shook my head, staring in frustration at the words. “I'm sorry, Kielle. I can't read.”

    Elijah shrugged. “Me, neither.”

    Kielle stared at us in astonishment. “Oh, okay then. I'll read it.” She cleared her throat. “With the crown in hand, Jareth pronounced himself King of the Peoples of Dermen. He soon took over the kingdom's policies, and no one dared question him, for he had the cold look in his eyes, that many a persons did challenge, but were cut down by him, and their families sold to slavery. He had the blood of the people on his hands, and no matter how much he scrubbed, the mark remained, and would be passed down from generation to generation, until one of his descendants undid the wrong that Jareth the First did.” She finished reading, and clenched her hand.

    I blinked. “But, didn't the Old King, King Kylun, die of old age?”

    Kielle shook her head. “No. Great-Great-Great Grandfather Jareth killed King Kylun, and stole the crown from him. It's in here, the Histories of the Land.”

    Elijah was shocked. “But, they have that under high security!”

    She shook her head. “No. My sister, Princess Kayten, did not believe in my father's rulings of the country. She raised me to hate it too, and managed to find the Histories, and learn from it. She gave it to me for safekeeping before they dragged her away.” Kielle stared at the book, and turned the pages furiously, resting on one near the back. It showed a beautiful, brown-haired princess, crying freely, being escorted by two guards to an execution block. She touched the princess gently. “I miss her so.” Tears leaked down her face.

    I gathered her up in my arms, and hugged her fiercely. “Oh, Kielle. I'm so sorry.”

    “What did it mean, the mark on his hand?” Elijah asked slowly.

    Kielle hesitated, then unclenched her hand slowly, and put it next to the candle. It had on it a dark, crimson splotch. As if it had dried blood on it.

    Kielle started crying harder. “I was born with this mark, and so was Kayten and Esryn and Lyle, who died before I was born. My father, King Dreveis, has the mark too, and so did my grandfather King Deveron, and his brother, Jareth, my great-uncle.”

    After a while, she stopped crying enough to show us the rest of the book. In that hour that we looked at the book together, and Kielle read to us aloud, I learned more about the history of Dermen than I did with all my years of being Kerridon's slave, and listening to another slave, Jacelyn, tell stories of Dermen's history. She was always in to history, and I had learned a lot from her. However, I had learned the stories that the royal family had wanted the people to know, and now I was learning secrets that were not meant to be known.

    After a while, Kielle became quieter and quieter, until she fell asleep, her hand on a knight in armor, riding on a white horse. There hadn't been any knights for over a hundred years.

    Cadalyn gently opened the door, while I was laying Kielle down on a mattress, setting the book down beside her. “They're gone from the village,” she said softly. She came in and sat down beside Elijah, and stared at me. “Why didn't you tell me it was Prince Esryn that you escaped from?”

    I looked down. “I was so scared, and every time someone asked me that, something would happen that I wouldn't get to answer. I'm just so scared of him.”

    Cadalyn sighed. “Well, you can't stay here for long. You three will have to leave soon. There's a town, to the north, where they have groups of escaped slaves flee to Lythel, so you won't be alone. Duryis will drive you tonight.” She disappeared, and returned a moment later with some food. “Eat up.” She left, closing the door again. We had just tucked into our meal when the door opened, and Cadalyn handed Elijah his mended shirt. “You can also keep Duryis's old shirt,” she added as Elijah started to take off the old shirt he was wearing.

    “Thank you, ma'am,” he replied, and helped himself to the bread.