Whispers (Book 3 of Wielder series)

Chapter 16 - What Helene Would Do

Commander Roger Sole picked at the food on his plate. He'd certainly had much better; he'd lived in the palace, after all. But he'd also eaten much, much worse than the grilled vegetables, roast hen, and thin Ausha noodles with their traditional spicy butter sauce. The noodles really were the star of the dish, even though they sat at the bottom of the plate and served as a filler. He nudged his sliced hen to the side and twirled a few noodles on his fork, a skill he'd learned as a child and had never bothered to unlearn. Those in the Realm never ate noodles with a fork. Instead there was a separate utensil that sat unused beside his plate, something called a tiln, which he could only describe as short chopsticks connected by a spring.
   Kind of.
   He'd never gotten the hang of using them, and after a while, he just gave up. The fork served him just fine, and no one had the guts to correct him for his improper use of utensils, anyway.
   Evan stared at him from across the table as he wound a large clump of noodles around his fork. "I still don't understand why you do that."
   "I'm hungry," he grunted. "This is faster."
   "They're not supposed to be eaten quickly. It's bad for digestion."
   "Then I'm sure you'll be appalled to learn that I used to eat meals consisting of only pasta drenched in artificial cheese sauce, and depending on the day, I could down an entire bowl in about a minute and a half."
   Evan scrunched his nose. "You were a boy, then. You could handle it."
   "I wasn't very active. I probably shouldn't have eaten it as often as I did."
   "Did you twirl your noodles then, too?"
   "I did. But the cheesy ones weren't long enough to. I usually stabbed them like a brute."
   "Not much has changed," Evan muttered under his breath.
   Roger let it go. If he had been any other man, he wouldn't have been able to hear what Evan had said. It was only thanks to his superior hearing that he heard.
   "She'll make a full recovery, by the way," Evan said, staring at his plate. He cut as delicately into his meat as if he had someone to impress at a dinner party. But there was just the two of them, and Roger knew he wasn't worth impressing.
   He pushed the food in his mouth into his cheek. "Who?"
   "Just because you have been a gentleman tonight and haven't brought her up doesn't mean you're not thinking about her."
   Roger swept his tongue over something stuck in his teeth. "I was trying to be polite."
   "And yet you still won't use your tiln."
   "I won't.  I want my food to make it to my mouth."
   "It's not that hard. I thought you said there were people where you come from that only use sticks to eat with."
   "Chopsticks. They're called chopsticks. And I never said I could use them."
   A hint of mischief crept into Evan's eyes. "I'll bet she can."
   Roger snorted. The flavor of the noodles lost their appeal. "You say it like I'm in a competition with her."
   "Aren't you?"
   "I couldn't care one iota whether she can use chopsticks. She still lacks what's important."
   "Oh? What's that?"
   Roger wound more noodles around his fork, then stabbed a large slice of hen and filled the entirety of his mouth with the excessively large bite.
   Evan narrowed his eyes at him. "You don't even know, do you?"
   He didn't bother answering. Evan had always had a knack for reading him as easily as a book. Hiding behind lies wouldn't change that.
   "You know what I think?" Evan set down his tiln and took a sip of the rich red wine that sat before him. "I think you're afraid of her."
   "That's ridiculous."
   "Is it? Why else do you have her caged like an animal?"
   "She deserves it." His words were clipped and harsh, but he didn't care. He did not want to have this conversation again. "She stole my only chance at getting Helene back. She deserves much worse than she's getting."
   Evan slowly lowered his wineglass back to the table, watching the crimson liquid swirl inside. "Would Helene condone what you're doing?"
   Guilt clawed up his throat, squeezing his chest so tight he could barely breathe. "I don't think about things like that." He couldn't afford to. Because they both knew she would never approve.
   "Maybe you should. She's the one you're fighting for, after all."
   "If I based all my decisions on what Helene would do, I'd get nothing done."
   "If you based all your decisions on what Helene would do, you'd be a better man." Evan took another sip of wine, glaring at him over the rim of the glass with an accusatory look.
   Roger curled his fingers into a fist in his lap. "If I knew this meal would turn into a lecture, I would have declined your invitation."
   "If you want to leave, by all means, there's the door."
   He nearly banged his hand on the table. "What do you want, Evan?"
   "I want you to keep Alison out of the arena."
   "Well, that's not going to happen. You took away my only other means of punishing her."
   "She doesn't need to be punished!" Evan did bang his hand on the table, making Roger jump. "Maybe she did keep you from bringing back Helene. But you know what else she did? She kept the blood of billions of innocents off your hands. She removed from power the one person keeping you chained in servitude, freeing you to make your own decisions for your life. And then she spared you, when she had every reason and right to end you." His nostrils flared and he huffed a deep breath, trying to compose himself. "You have no idea what a blessing she gave you. And you're squandering it by locking her away in the name of revenge."
   Anger bubbled within him. Why did Evan care so much what he did with his life? It was his to throw away if he chose. What right did Evan have to lecture him about his choices?
   "Keep her out of the arena," Evan practically begged. "Please."
   "I'll do what I want with her. She's my prisoner."
   "You'll kill her."
   "Good riddance."
   "If you truly believed that, you never would have called for me to help her."
   "I called for you to help her because I wasn't done playing with her. And you ruined my game."
   "You call torture a game?!" Evan shoved his plate away and leaned back in his chair, looking somewhat nauseous. "Maybe it's a good thing Helene is never coming back. Because if she could see who you've become, she'd be disgusted."
   Roger felt the stab of Evan's words like a knife to the gut. But he was used to that feeling. He knew how to take it and turn it into power, into raw, unfeeling malice. Swirls of dark energy unfurled from him like waves of smoke drifting out of a witch's cauldron. He let them float around him as a warning to show Evan just how close he was to strangling his friend's neck.
   To his credit, Evan showed no fear of the shadows, even as they licked out and brushed across his feet.
   Roger forced them to settle. As much as he hated Evan right now, he truly did not wish to hurt the only friend he had left in the Realm. "Let me make one thing clear," he growled between clenched teeth. "I never said I thought Helene would be proud of the things I've done to bring her back. I know exactly how she'd react if she knew. This was never about pleasing her. This was never even about being with her again. I just wanted her to have a chance to live."
   Evan's anger softened. He sagged in his chair, deflated. The food and wine sat forgotten between them, barely touched.
   Roger sighed. "I have never once tried to fool myself into thinking she'd stay with me if I found a way to bring her back. I didn't deserve her before. Now?" His voice trembled, and he swallowed hard to steady it. "This was never about me. This was about her. She could have fixed everything. She could have taken the throne. She could have reversed all the things her father did that corrupted and destroyed the Realm. She could have united the people in a way that hasn't been done since the first Sykora was put on the throne."
   Roger shook his head, the possibilities swimming - and dying - before him in his imagination's eye. "I just wanted her to have the chance," he whispered.
   Evan dropped his gaze. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Evan just stared at the table without really seeing it, his eyes glazed over the way it did when he was knee-deep in research and needed a moment to process everything he'd read.
   When Evan spoke again, Roger realized he'd zoned out, too. "You know," he said softly, causing Roger's gaze to snap back up, "it may be too late for Helene, but it's not too late for the Realm."
   Confusion furrowed his brows, until realization struck him. His mouth pursed into a flat line. "The Wielder has no claim to the throne. She's no Helene."
   "No, she's no Helene." A soft smile warmed Evan's face. "But she is still capable of great things. She's already done great things."
   "I can't free her. It's too late for that."
   Evan's smile turned sad. "It's never too late."
   "You must be mistaking me for someone with morals," Roger snorted. "I'm Commander Roger Sole. I don't show mercy. I don't make mistakes. And that's what this whole thing would look like, if I let her go. A mistake."
   Evan's earthy eyes turned pleading. "It is a mistake."
   "And I'll be damned if I admit it by releasing her." He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. The anger stirring within him had dimmed, but it still lingered not far out of reach. It always lingered, simmering like a soup that had been left on the stove, eternally bubbling just warmly enough that whenever he chose to turn up the flames, the whole thing would boil over.
   Evan looked about to cry. "Because you have a reputation to uphold?"
   "Because I am not weak," he snapped.
   The sorrow in his gaze intensified. "I've never thought you were weak. She never did, either."
   Roger said nothing. What was he to say?
   Evan licked his lips, searching for words. "She thought you were strong," he said, barely above a whisper. "She thought you were incredible."
   Roger dropped his gaze shamefully. Maybe Helene had seen something in him once, but she would hate him now. She had never considered power to be equal with strength. Strength was something she judged based on one's character. And Roger had very little character left, if he had any at all.
   "She's the one who named you, isn't she?" Evan asked. "Sole. The only. Her only."
   The cold hard stab of memory momentarily stole his breath. Roger fought through the tightness in his chest. "Yes," he whispered.
   "She really loved you, you know."
   He knew. He just never let himself think about it. Remembering... hurt. "She loved the man I used to be."
   "Aren't you still that man?"
   "No. He died the same day she did."
   Evan looked down at his hands, which wrung together in his lap. "Is there any part of that man left?"
   At first, Roger didn't think so. But there were pieces of himself he couldn't let go of. Memories. Convictions. Habits. There were pieces left of his old self he would never be able to shake.
   Those pieces haunted him, ghosts of a golden past untouchable by the hell that made up his present.
   "When was the last time you played?"
   The question startled him. Roger gaped at Evan as if he'd grown a second head. "Played?"
   "Piano."
   "I knew what you meant."
   Evan looked up uncertainly, as if he wasn't sure whether the question would upset him. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
   "Years." Decades, maybe. The last time he'd touched a piano, he'd fallen into a depression so deep, the emperor himself had needed to physically drag him off the floor and knock some life back into him.
   "That's too bad," Evan said, and Roger really thought he meant it. "I always loved listening to you play."
   Roger couldn't let this conversation progress any further. He didn't have the control to be able to stop himself from tumbling off the edge of emotion, not with all the failures he'd endured recently. Not with all the questions he still had for himself about what to do with the Wielder. He glanced at his plate, no longer hungry, and reached instead for the half-full bottle of wine. He slowly pushed back his chair and rose, his gaze turned away from his friend. "I should go."
   "I care about you. You know that, don't you?"
   Roger's throat bobbed. "Yes. I do."
   Evan, for once, had nothing to say. He nodded in acknowledgement, and watched Roger turn for the door.
   Roger paused in the hall, turning back just a moment. "You know," he said, hoping his voice wouldn't give out on him, "Helene loved you, too."
   The smile that bloomed across his face warmed Roger's heart. He closed the door before Evan could choose to do anything more with the moment, and shuffled back to his room down the hall.
   He spent the next hour sipping wine directly from the bottle until the liquid was gone and his head felt nice and muddled. But instead of dulling the emotions that threatened to overtake him, they felt stronger. He couldn't get Evan's words out of his head. He couldn't shake thoughts of Helene. He wanted to do something to get rid of the feeling of longing that thrummed through him, but he wouldn't go to the arena. He wanted, more than anything, to be alone.
   A thought popped into his head, and once it did, he couldn't get it out. Sighing, he turned to the empty corner of his room, using his power to create a large, glossy black piano.
   The instrument usually mocked him on days he dared to approach. But today, it called to him, promising release. He drifted toward it like metal to a magnet, sitting down at the bench. It creaked a little as he settled his weight on it, just like it always had. For a long time, he stared at the crisp black and white keys that waited patiently for him. The song they wanted to play hadn't reached him in a long, long time. But as he set his fingers to the keys, he began to hear it once more.
   Roger closed his eyes, and let the music carry him away.