Antha sat near Lerran’s desk with her feet up on the tabletop as he spoke with her. Her sandals were covered in dirt, and it was already collecting on the edge of his desk. He had offered her wine from his pitcher, but she drank from a small flask held in her muscular arms. Her short brown hair hung back.
“So, why did he do it?” she asked.
Lerran was looking at a report assembled by a few of his information specialists. It said that Okarnan had been an ordinary boy growing up, and had lived in Worker’s Rise for his whole life, with his uncle Ulgo and half the extended family. “He’s mad as a rabid dog?” Lerran suggested. He pointed at one paragraph on the letter. “This is interesting. He spoke to one of the healers that is employed there, and asked for something to give him dreamless sleep. That was last month.”
“You mentioned he spoke about his dreams lots when you questioned him?” Antha asked. She sipped her flask. His twin was casual in every setting save when she crossed blades or fists with an opponent.
“The dreams must have had something to do with it,” Lerran said. “He kept going back and talking about it. Who was the ‘they’ he talked about? Was someone else actually in his dreams?” He could speak with the healer that Okarnan had turned to, but it was all starting to sound a little more like magic.
Antha just looked bored. “Interesting stuff, master of Sheld,” she said. “Congrats on your promotion, if I forgot to say so sooner.”
“And congrats on yours, by the way,” Lerran replied. He leaned back to mimic her pose.
Antha was midway through a sip. “Wait, what?” she sputtered. “What promotion?”
“See, you’re now the Captain of the City Watch,” Lerran said. He had a mug of rum on his desk; he grabbed it and took a drink.
“I’m what now?” Antha asked. “I didn’t say anything about that.”
“Too bad,” Lerran said. “You’re the most qualified fighter for the position, you’re my twin, and you’re the only one I’ll trust to do the job.”
“I’m no guard,” Antha said. “I’m a dueller. I don’t want paperwork or order giving. Put Eseveer in charge of the Watch. Not me.”
Lerran sat up straight and set his rum down. “Why do you give me so much trouble, sister…? Everyone else is helping out however they can.”
Antha sighed. She lifted her flask to her lips, then paused. “I’m not cut out for dealing with people like the rest of you are…” She took a sip, and sighed loudly. “You tell me it’s the best thing I can do, and I’ll do it. It’s just—not what I want.”
“Hire a secretary, I don’t care. Train the guards, and keep the city in order. That’s what I want you to do,” Lerran said.
Antha stood up. “Fine. Good day, twin.”
“Hire and fire whoever you want,” Lerran called. “Just make sure you have people you trust.” The door slammed before his words were finished.
Lerran took another swig of his rum, and put his head in his hands. Everything had become so complicated, and not everyone was going along with it well. Without looking, he grabbed a blank parchment from the corner of his desk and moved his inkwell closer, and then he regarded the unwritten letter with a blank look. “Havard,” he wrote, “I’m in charge of everything now. Why did you want this, and did you plan for me to rule all of Sheld? You got involved in my life and everything changed. What do you want? Lerran.”
It was a short letter, but to the point. Lerran had talked to him twice before and didn’t want to dance around any longer. Havard’s knowledge of his home was unsettling.
What better way to resolve his frustration than fighting with those wretched lock boxes again? Lerran folded the letter to Havard’s Brothers and set it aside, then placed the two metal boxes from Gharo’s safe on his table. There was still no word about his father, and Lerran had only figured out two of his father’s secrets, a brass arm brace that must have had some sentimental value, and a document that could blackmail the now deceased Lord Employers.
He slid the lock-pick into the first box and began fiddling with it. By fluke, the pin popped right away, and Lerran blinked. He had been trying to get this for weeks, and just like that had unlocked the first one. Lucky day. With his stomach in a knot, he opened the lockbox.
There was a finger inside. A severed, finger in a small jar of preservative.
Lerran blinked. His father was a madman. Surely. Lerran took out the small jar, with its finger, and set it on his desk. “What am I supposed to do with this?” Did he even want to open the second lockbox now? What if there was more than a finger in it? Gharo had kept a finger, in a jar, in a lockbox, in a safe….
“What do I do with this?” he wondered. While he thought about it, he started tinkering with the other lockbox. He’d spent all his time on the first so far. After half-an-hour, he took a break, and drank some rum while looking out his window. He spotted Antha walking out the gate of their estate, hopefully to report to the City Watch barracks.
When he returned to the lockbox, he spent another twenty minutes tinkering with it. His back hurt, because he had to hold his arms at such a bizarre angle. At last, the lock clicked, and he opened the metal lid. There was another click as the hinge opened, and he stepped away instinctively. A cloud of dark dust exploded from the open box. Lerran ran for the door, covering his face with his hands.
Even as he reached the door, he felt his lungs seizing. Gagging and coughing, he stumbled into the hall and shut his door again. Eseveer was at his side. “What’s wrong?” she asked, but all Lerran could do was hack. He felt his throat constricting, and his temperature rising. His sister brought him wine, from her desk. He forced it down his throat, and continued coughing.
Gradually, it got easier. He sat with his back against the wall, heaving for breath and still coughing. “Trap. Cursed father of mine.” He kept shaking and hacking, as he managed to suck in more air.
An hour later—after some guards had opened the windows from outside with ladders and some servants had fanned the room with dusters and waving fans—Lerran at last went back inside. He had ordered them all to leave the lockbox itself alone, and had closed it as soon as he deemed it safe to do. Now, at last, he could see the last of his father’s secrets. He made sure his office door was closed again.
Carefully, with his knife, he opened the lockbox again, but no more traps were detonated. The contraption was built into the roof of the lockbox, with a now torn string as its trigger. He used his dagger’s point to unscrew the hinge of the box and remove the lid and trap altogether.
Inside the metal case was another folded parchment, with the Family’s green eye seal on it. He cracked the seal and opened the document. It was a letter. “Gharo,” Lerran read out loud. “I’ve always been better at written words, as you know, so I am writing this letter to you. I hope we are able to speak again soon, but I understand your anger. Our own babe is no more than a year old. I hope you can one day forgive me for this crime against your name and our family, but I cannot allow you to kill my girl. I have named her Antha, which means ‘unexpected’. I will raise her as I can, as I must. Please reply to me, Gharo—you have always been my true love. With sadness, Meleen.”
Meleen was Lerran’s long deceased mother, perhaps the only thing that Gharo had ever truly cared about. There was no date on the letter, so Lerran had to place the document using its own details. In it, his mother wrote that their ‘babe’ was no more than a year old, and there was no mention of other children. I am their firstborn, he realized. Antha was not his twin, she had been born to his mother when Lerran was still a swaddled babe.
He read the letter again. Of course, his parents had smoothed things over between them—Lerran’s younger siblings were proof of that. But Antha was not related to Gharo.
That evening, after a long and miserable day, Lerran retired to his quarters. He still felt woozy from the trap his father had set, and he still coughed occasionally. Tassina brewed him some tea as soon as she saw him. “You look ill,” she said.
“I got poisoned today,” he told her. “My father is a bastard.”
Tass frowned. “Are you going to be alright?”
“Yes, I think so,” Lerran said. “I just feel a little dizzy still.” He recounted the day’s findings and events to her, and she asked him a few questions. They were always on the same page, with no secrets between them.
“So Antha is in charge of the City Watch now, and she’s only your half-sister?” Tass asked. “She looks like your twin.”
Lerran relaxed, with the warm tea. “I hope we find Gharo…” he muttered. He was more concerned about Havard though, despite everything that had happened that day.