Silver Eyes

A/N - um, not much to say this time.
smint45 - yes, he went from having no admirers to having too many ;)
WhinnieRicards - thank you for your lovely review :) I have to say I've never watched Malibu's most wanted, but now I have to go see it! I think of D'rian's name being pronounced 'DUH-ree-an' though, so dunno if it would still be the same.
If anyone wants a pronunciation guide, let me know!
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The next few days were peaceful, as Asahi and Alaex fell into a routine. Asahi would break camp, while Alaex would make a quick breakfast. The smaller man made a decent meal, even only being able to use trail rations. Afterwards, Asahi would finish packing up their saddlebags while he saddled the horses. The first few days the Knight’s mount gave him a bit of difficulty, but the battle trained stallion quickly adapted. They would ride until midday, and find a place they would stop and rest the horses while they ate a quick lunch and watered the horses. Being summer, they had a lot of daylight to work with, and used it to their advantage. During the afternoon, both would keep their eyes open for game for dinner. Once the sun started to set, they would then change their goal to finding a suitable place to set up camp. Asahi would un-tack the horses while Alaex set up camp. If they had been lucky enough to catch dinner they would then start a fire; if not, they would just have another ration bar before turning in. While it wasn’t as companionable as riding with D’rian, the Knight felt that he and Alaex definitely worked well together. The trip was unrushed and felt more like the journeys he took with his fellow Knights.

The thing that differed the most from his travels with the Fae was that they could relax in the towns they came across rather than needing to be on alert, although both were aware enough to listen for any news on what the King was up to or any rumours of non-humans. While finding non-humans needing to escape wasn’t technically their job, if they were able to help out, they still would.

The days were filled with Alaex telling Asahi what he had missed in the capital and what they would do once they got there. Apparently the King was getting worse, which didn’t come as a surprise, so they would have to be even more careful. Even the day to day business was starting to be affected by the man’s paranoia. Apparently at one point he had gotten into a shouting match in the council room with someone who wasn’t there. It was getting harder to hide his symptoms from the general populace. But on the other hand, if he got bad enough, the army would have to stop protecting him. His brother was more than capable of taking over, and would probably do a brilliant job.

The blond would spend most of his time in court, playing the naive, newly inherited Lord, and attending as many parties and gathering as he could. The ‘official’ story was that Alaex’ family had purchased an estate several weeks out of the city, but that the new Lord wanted to be more in touch with society. With Asahi acting as his bodyguard, he would have a second set of ears, and the Knight could also mingle in with the other guards, to get the ‘common’ man’s perspective. Asahi got the feeling that the blond was not only looking for any information that could help the nonhumans and their group, but for anything that might help get the King off the throne and Duke Jalen onto it.

Alaex would only meet up with his contact on the last day they were in the capital; even though he assured Asahi that it was highly unlikely they would be found out as ‘rebels’, it didn’t pay to take any chances. If someone caught wind of what they were doing, the two would already be on their way out of town, and the contact knew the risks, and had their own way out if needed. Asahi had to concede the point – while he and D’rian had been sent to flush out the rebel group, the Knights had gotten no inkling of anyone in the capital. It made sense though – all they would be doing would be gossiping, and if there were any nonhumans left in the capital, they were well hidden enough to remain so, so there was no worries about trying to rescue anyone.

During this time, however, Asahi still didn’t know that much about the other man. Alaex was very talkative, they spoke about the current political situation at great length, about the different places they had seen, and, when it was deemed safe enough to do so, Kelian and Alaex’ hopes for their group. But the blond wouldn’t speak a word about himself or his past. He knew that the lord needed to guard himself carefully, as he did need to keep his true identity a secret, but the Knight’s innate curiosity bubbled up just as it had with D’rian. And like the Fae, Asahi was determined to find out the truth. Strangely enough, he did trust Alaex; regardless of whether he was high or lowborn, if he was caught at these games, the consequences would be severe. If he wasn’t completely dedicated to what he was doing, it wouldn’t be worth the risk. As a human, he had nothing to gain, just as Asahi didn’t. There was the chance he was a spy for the King or the Knights, but then why had Asahi and D’rian been sent? The Knights or even the main army could have already taken out the base with help from inside. It’s not like there was a pressing reason to delay an attack. So yes, Asahi’s logic as well as his instincts said it was safe to trust Alaex.

On the other hand, Alaex seemed to want to know everything there was to know about the Knight; even pointless stories from his childhood. Asahi didn’t mind; it’s not like the Lord didn’t know who he was anyway, and it passed the time to tell amusing anecdotes.

It ended up taking them a little over a month to get to the capital, especially as they had to go around the long way so that it seemed like we were coming from where Alaex’ ‘estate’ was. Apparently, there was a big estate house out in that direction; it made the Knight wonder who the actual owner was. Once they were in the city, and surrounded by the sights and sounds, Asahi was reminded of how much he preferred cities to the country. It was certainly nice; and a lot more peaceful, to be out in the country, but the Knight had grown up here, and he would always enjoy the bustle of the city, even the poorer sections. That was one thing that the King’s insanity had helped with – the poorer sections were looking a lot better. It came from all of the mercenaries and soldiers he had hired – while it was based off his irrational fears of attack, they had served a dual purpose of providing jobs for a lot of people, and the excess were employed to patrol the sections that normally got ignored when there wasn’t enough manpower. Asahi had to wonder how many of the people down here were able to find jobs when the nonhumans were killed or run out – that had certainly left a lot of job openings. It was depressing to think about people benefitting from others’ misfortune, however, so he went back to looking around for obvious changes.

There weren’t that many obvious changes in the city itself, however. It appeared that the council was able to keep things running more or less smoothly even with the King how he was, and he was thankful for that. It didn’t take them too long to reach the palace, and soon the horses were stabled and the two were situated in the guest suite that Alaex had been given for his stay. Once they were in the palace, it was easy to find out why there were so many more patrols while they were riding up. The king had finally decided that he didn’t trust anyone but the veterans who had been in the war with him; and the new troops had been on the verge of being fired. The council had quickly acted and set rotating shifts to patrol the city, as a temporary measure. They wouldn’t be able to keep this up, the civilians were getting nervous at the amount of soldiers in the city, but it had given them time to come up with a better solution instead of firing thousands of people.

The two both agreed that might just end up being the final nail in Kalen’s coffin. The one thing he had going for him was the support of the armed troops, but with this last act, they had to be getting nervous. If they could be made to see the truth of the situation, that the King was not going to get better, then maybe there was hope for a peaceful resolution after all. There was no real reason to murder him, after all – if they were able to restrict him to the private areas of the castle that would be enough. They just needed to get him out of a position of power before he made another decision like the one to murder all of the nonhumans.

Alaex dressed himself up in one of the fanciest outfits he had brought with him, and left to present himself to the King. Unfortunately, the Knight couldn’t join him, but he was able to trail the blond for most of the way. While he was inside the throne room, Asahi took the time to surreptitiously look over the guards. They were all older men, which Asahi had already assumed would be the case, and really should have been thinking about retiring from active duty. However, he knew better than to judge him on their age. The captain of the Knights was old enough to be Asahi’s father, and he could still run circles around the rest of them. The King may be paranoid, but he wasn’t completely gone; he wouldn’t place incompetent people to guard him.

The blond came back out of the room looking very worried about something, but didn’t say anything until they were back in their suite.

“The Knights are gone.”

Asahi just blinked dumbly for a minute. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the Knight who was supposed to be guarding the King wasn’t there. I wonder if they’re all gone, or if they’re just no longer allowed in the throne room?”

Alaex’ voice sounded light and gossipy, but it was easy to see the real worry in his eyes. It was unheard of for the Knights to be sent away from the King; the only time a Knight had ever left a King or Queen unguarded was if they had died and a replacement had not yet arrived to take up their guard duty. The lack of one in the room meant either the loss of trust between Kalen and the Knights, and in essence, his family, or the desertion of the entire company of Knights, which they certainly would have heard of by now.
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The next step was obvious. Asahi would go to the troop’s mess hall and see what he could find out.
Grabbing a plate and the unidentified meat that was being served, the Knight’s eyes scanned the room. There were several of the regular troops he knew in here, that he would have to avoid, but also several groups of other ‘newcomers’ that he may be able to mingle safely with, and possibly get some information from. If he played it off as the first time in the city, it would be easy enough to pass his questions off as normal curiosity about the fabled company of Knights. There were none of his fellow Knights in here, which both worried and relieved him. On the one hand, he wouldn’t have to worry about giving himself away, but it also raised more questions as to where they were.

He sat down with a group after asking if he could join them, and the conversation was already about the lack of guards in the palace, which was a perfect place to cut into.

“I just got here today, and I have to agree. I’ve seen more guards at milord’s manor house. I had really hoped to see one of the Knights, too.”

One of the men gave him a sympathetic smile. “Then you should have gotten here two days past, my friend. They all up and left two days ago; went down to the barracks in the city.”

A woman on the other side of Asahi spoke up. “You’ve got it all wrong – they didn’t leave they were kicked out. The Knights wouldn’t abandon their posts!”

“Hush, Lela, you were just hoping to snag one for yourself. Hate to break it to you, but you’d need to look more like a woman.”

The man who had spoken winced as the woman in question punched him in the arm. A few of the others laughed, but no one else wanted to brave her wrath and comment.

“S’ true though, no matter how it happened. The whole Company’s just up an’ gone. Whatever’s going on, it ain’t good.”

Asahi frowned, but passed it off as worry for his ‘employer’. “I think I might advise milord to head home if there’s that much going on here. I don’t want to get caught up in anything that big.”
One of the other men at the table nodded, “Aye, I’ve told the Lady to get out of here for the past few weeks, but she refuses to go. Says this is where all the fashion is; and she won’t be ‘banished to the country just because some metal-encased muscle heads abandoned their proper places.’” A few snickers went around the table at the guard’s snotty impression of his noble charge.

The conversation branched off into conversations about their employers, and Asahi was amazed to realize he had actually had it easy as a Knight. While the nobles he guarded were born to privilege, they were all raised to respect their responsibilities. Meanwhile, the real Lords and Ladies often grew up pampered and lazy, with no responsibilities other than making sure they didn’t run themselves into bankruptcy. Some turned out alright, but others were like the Lady Ula, more concerned with her next dress than anything important. Asahi had to carefully make up a few stories, but honestly told his new acquaintances that his Lord wasn’t nearly as bad as most. After finishing his meal, the group broke up and went their separate ways. The Knight wandered back to their rooms to report what he had found out to Alaex. It looked like their visit was going to be very interesting, and they hadn’t even been there for a full day.

tbc...