eyes. “Now, tell me why my men parade you through the streets as though you had cast down Shinzan himself.”
Ethan thought for a moment and decided to hold nothing back. He told the king in detail everything that had happened to him since leaving the manor – including what had occurred during his memory lapse.
“I never intended any of this,” he finished off. “And I don’t want your people to die. But I can’t control how they feel. If they want more from their lives, then there’s nothing I can do to change that.”
“You can leave,” Halvar shot back. “You can leave and never return.” He regarded Ethan for a long moment and then shook his head. “But you won’t, will you? Now that the dragon has revealed itself, you’re going to stay and be the doom of us all.”
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do,” Ethan told him. “Ever since arriving in Lumnia, I’ve done nothing but try to stay alive. I haven’t had much time to think ahead. So far, almost everyone I’ve met has tried to kill me.”
Halvar chuckled. “I suppose that would be a bit off-putting. Well, you don’t have to worry about me any longer. I won’t pose a threat to you again. I swear it.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“I also give you leave to remain here as long as you wish…whatever the consequences may be. You already appear to have the protection of my people. So I will bend to their will and give you mine as well. I just pray that neither of us will live to regret it.”
The king paused then fixed his gaze. “Regardless of what I have done, or what you might think, I believe you to be a good and honorable person. And know that I felt my honor was sullied when ordering your death. But at the time I believed I had no other choice. I still foresee disaster looming, though for once in my life I want nothing more than to be proved wrong.”
He rose and walked toward Ethan. “Come with me. There is something you need to see.”
Ethan followed the king out into the receiving hall and through a door on the far right side. After making their way through a series of long hallways, they eventually came to a narrow stairwell that led into an empty basement roughly the same size as the council chamber. Moving over to the far left corner of the room, Halvar pulled on a brass handle set in a recess on the floor. In response, a trapdoor with a metal ladder attached to the side slowly opened. Halvar stepped onto the ladder first, then called for Ethan to follow.
Ethan looked down the shaft. The king had already vanished into the darkness by the time he had his foot on the top rung. While climbing down he could feel the air getting dramatically colder. After what he guessed to be about thirty feet, his boot touched solid ground. There was still no light, and the cold was causing him to shiver.
“I suppose if I really wanted to kill you, this is where I should have brought you.”
The king’s voice was somewhere off to his right. For a second Ethan wondered if he was simply having fun with him, or had really set up a trap.
“You’re fortunate I didn’t think of it before,” Halvar added. A dim glow appeared above where he was standing a few yards away.
Ethan forced a half-hearted laugh. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
The light gradually grew in intensity. Soon, several others appeared on the ceiling of a long but quite narrow passage.
“What I am about to show you is known only to myself and a very few others,” Halvar said. “You are not forbidden to speak of it, but I urge you to give this knowledge only to those you entirely trust.”
Ethan nodded. “I promise.”
Satisfied by his response, the king led him several hundred yards down the passage until it seemingly came to a dead end. There, he placed his finger in a small recess in the top left corner. With a sharp crack, the entire wall blocking their further progress slid to the left.
Beyond was a natural rock cavern, roughly fifty feet wide and double that in length. The small rajni stones set at regular intervals gave off a much dimmer light than those in the manor.
At first, Ethan was confused. The cavern appeared to be completely empty. But then Halvar strode