A Call for Brighter Days: Aeriel Trilogy #2
Chapter 30

Moonlight spilled into the atrium through the ornate slats of the skylit ceiling above.

The hall he was dragged into, the following day, was gargantuan, and surrounded by high stone walls. It had once been Reivaa’s great hall, the heart of her castle, in the years before the Rebellion.

To this day, it retained much of its original design and architecture – open ceilings, high walls, intricately carved pillars. Nobody who entered this room could doubt, even for a moment, that this building had once been home to Aeriels.

Shwaan blinked, forcing himself to focus, take stock of his surroundings.

Janak Nath stood at the center of the atrium, surrounded by a few of his men. Beside him, a makeshift fire burned in a large, stained tin can. Kaheen leaned against the wall at the back of the room, her expression grim.

At a gesture from Janak, the two guards who had dragged Shwaan from his cell to the atrium yanked on his shackles. He stumbled forward, falling to his knees inches away from Janak’s makeshift stove. Against his freezing skin, the heat was oddly comforting.

“Feeling better today, I hope.” Janak dropped to one knee in front of Shwaan, forcing him to meet his eyes with two fingers under his chin. “There’s no need to be shy, darling. You’re among friends, here.”

“Yes, it’s all warm and cozy.” His eyes flicked over to the flaming vessel beside him.

Janak laughed. “I’ll never get enough of that sparkling wit, truly.” Lifting a hand, he struck Shwaan across the face. “But entertaining as you are, you need to learn not to talk back to your superiors.

“And we’ve prepared a special treat for you today, to help speed up your re-education. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

Shwaan coughed, forcing himself to stay upright. He’d done enough collapsing for the time being. Plus, illogical as it was, he didn’t want to give Janak the satisfaction of watching him crumple to the floor once again.

When he made no reply, Janak rose to his feet, stepping closer to the burning can. “An official welcome party. That’s what we’ve gathered for, today. And what better way to make you feel at home, than to mark you as one of ours, once and for all?”

He flicked his fingers. The wiry minion from the day before rushed to his side, handing him a long, thin rod with an intricate, metallic symbol at one end.

Shwaan tensed, sensing the reinforced sif covering the surface of the symbol. Instinctively, he shrank away, trying to put some distance between himself and the sif-plated iron in Janak’s hand.

“You are a sensitive one, aren’t you?” Janak asked. “Reivaa was like that too, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Could sense sif a mile off. And all we had was the normal stuff, back then. Nothing as good as these gorgeous ores.

“Those geniuses at SifCo really are earning their keep, aren’t they? This kind of branding would never have worked with the old stuff. Would’ve healed eventually, no matter how much sif you used. Wouldn’t be permanent, if you know what I mean. But science is beautiful.” He chuckled. “Things we never dreamt of are now just a few phone calls away. These reinforced ores really are a marvel. Shame there isn’t more of it in circulation, though I hear that problem will be solved soon enough.”

“You already did this yesterday.” Shwaan was surprised by the steadiness of his own voice. “Reinforced sif can’t be easy to procure, even for the Qawirsin. Flattering as it is, are you sure you want to squander your entire stock on me?”

“How very considerate of you.” Janak’s lips parted in a toothy grin. “But you needn’t worry about my inventory. Yesterday, I used an electric iron, just to seal the wound. But while I can appreciate the many wonders of modern science, I’m a traditionalist at heart. When you mark your property, you need to seal the deal with fire. And a bit of reinforced sif, of course.

“That’s why,” he pushed the head of the branding iron into the flaming can. “We’re going to do it properly, this time. Burn my name into your skin, make sure it stays with you as long as you live. Which mightn’t be that long, anyway. But it’s the principle of the thing, you understand.”

A fraught silence descended upon the hall. Moments later, Janak reached for the handle of the branding iron.

Shwaan surged to his feet and threw himself at the man. A brief struggle followed, and they were both on the ground, Shwaan straddling Janak and pressing viciously down on his throat.

Eyes wide, mouth open, Janak gasped for air, suffocating under his prisoner’s vice-like grip.

Pressing his advantage, Shwaan dug his fingers harder into Janak’s muscular neck, cutting off his airways. Seeing the terror creep into Janak’s bulging eyes, he laughed. He probably wouldn’t survive this, but at the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Purging the earth of the stain of this man’s existence seemed almost worth the price.

“Did you really think I’d be overpowered and tamed by a pathetic mortal crime lord such as yourself?” His entire body shook under the strain, fingers burning with incipient energy. “I’m the prince of Vaan, Janak. No power on earth can stop me; certainly not your little gang of bottom-feeding troublemakers.”

Kaheen gasped, Janak’s name spilling from her lips over and over again. She rushed forward, trying to cut through the throng of gangsters that surrounded them to get a closer look.

A scream echoed through the atrium, forcing Shwaan to look away from Janak’s petrified eyes.

Janak’s wiry minion had teamed up with the two men who’d been assigned to guard Shwaan’s cell. The three of them together pinned Kaheen against a pillar, holding a sifblade to her throat and another to her gut. Light spilled from a shallow wound at her shoulder.

Shwaan’s hold on Janak’s throat slackened. Every instinct screamed at him to take to the air and save her. But he was too weak to fight off all the men in the room, much less the building. Even if he somehow managed to kill half of them, the other half would kill Kaheen in retribution, after they’d dealt with him.

He let go of Janak’s throat, but kept him pinned to the hard stone floor. “What’re you doing? She’s your ally. You think killing your own soldiers will help you win this war?”