The Arbiter Unforgiven

Chapter Five, Part C - Rigel

So now we are going to catch up with Honor and Rigel. Slowly, Honor is going to reveal secrets of the past and what the difference between Chosen and Icons really are. Enjoy! --Elizabeth

He knelt by Honor, who was resting on a couch in the hallway. Her face looked pale and waxy, and the knife she kept in her hand trembled constantly. He reached over and steadied her fingers with his own. The use of power always cost. She had been paying for their progress.

She smiled up at him. "I know I am slowing you both down."

"I can't leave you here."

"Well, you may have too. Unless you plan on carrying me...I'm so tired, that last bit of trade cost extra I think. Did you two find a secure place to hide? This looks like a place that would have a decent bed at least."

"We may have found something better than that. A passage from the house directly to the Bone Palace."

Honor opened her eyes and peered around. "This house belongs to a Chosen?"

"Once upon a time it did."

Honor rubbed her forehead. "If that's true, it will be much safer than going over land, I suppose. If Isra is sure. And we'll have to find the bolt-hole. Chosen liked to disguise those. They put a great deal of ceremony into passing down the location to their trusted follower."

"We'll find it."
"The Bone Palace is not a place I would like to set foot in ever again. When my mother sent me there for training...it is horrific my son, an awful building made for an awful purpose. The things that went on in there, the things that I saw, the bargains they made to keep Citadel from sinking under its own weight. Whatever we find there, it will not be worth using."

There it was.

"Thing are pretty awful all over. The Bone Palace is just one more thing. What we find there may help save the city. The Chosen weren't always evil you know. They were Apprentices, just like our Icon once was."

"They never took the next step, Rigel. Instead of sacrificing themselves, they sacrificed anything else to save their precious skins. My mother included. Then they charged people for the privilege. Sometimes, when there were not enough donations, they would do a cleansing of the undesirables. They called it a social program."

"Enough. We've gone over and over this."

"Then we need to go over it again. These people were monsters. Flesh stealers and blood-drainers. They said they worked in the name of peace, of the Queen. But they did just enough to keep everyone quiet."

"I don't care about their legacy, I just need to find Era."

Rigel went back to the room with the blood to make sure the door was shut, and then went about the search. This house had a lot of history. He saw it in the designs, the fashionable being remade, the portraits hung all in a line on the wall. A city of millions to a ghost town in a matter of weeks, and those that did not die in the first panic would be dead when the gangs and looters made their last sweep. How long until the city was totally abandoned? Without proper maintenance, it would eventually collapse on itself, there were too many tunnels and too much water for any real stability.

Rigel looked out the window, searching the darkness for the misshapen forms of the twisted.

He felt his skin crawl as he looked out on the city. The twisted were out there...that they had gathered so close to him, seemed like more than a coincidence. Rubbing a hand over his heart he looked up at the stars and wondered if Ru'a was looking down. He could tell that she was alive, though far away, but other than that...

...if she died up there, or came close to death, would their bond be strong enough to pass that death off to him the way that it was supposed to? She had made him into a shield precisely for that purpose.

Indeed, it looked like a blackened ruin. But if Rigel knew anything about the Chosen, he knew that they would not leave all their secrets where fire or water could sweep them into the light of day.

Rigel clenched his hand on the bow haft. He would root them out if it was the last thing he ever did. He would make them pay.

If somehow, making them hurt would hurt Ru'a. It would be impossible to attack the woman directly.

He had seen this before.

Before.

That night, when Era...died.

The twisted had looked like spiders, they'd attacked the garrison looking for something.

Coordinated.

Red metal chains clattered as they moved.

Era died right next to one. Her body washed away when he and Saiph opened the flood gate.

It was possible...possible she'd been..,

Rigel shook his head, scrubbing both hands through his hair, hoping to erase the conclusions to these thoughts from his mind

Era would probably be among them now. She had nowhere else to go, she wouldn't have tried to return home. He felt...he felt as though she had not left the city. There is a monster in the ruins. Perhaps even the very one he was looking for.

Rigel leaned back against the wall, turning his shoulder so that Isra could not see him take out the glass butterfly.

A little keepsake of his Era, his fiancée...the love of his life.

Was she a monster now?

And if she was, what did that make him?