The Power Rings

Chapter 3

Zayne's POV

I can't stop frowning on our walk to the tavern. When did Primora's life go to hell? How did I miss that? I shouldn't have stopped coming to the mill. But... her dad... he scared me. He was always drunk and always so mad. He never yelled at me but I have no doubt that he would if he actually knew I went there. He didn't. He didn't know it was me, not Kaya, that dropped the sack of grain. Just a simple mistake. He'd done it several times. But they weren't allowed to, that meant they were good for nothing screwups.

She glared defiantly as he beat her.

Now Kaya was gone. And Primora, the quiter, more subdued of the two, was going to be one of the most powerful people in history? I couldn't quite wrap my head around any of it. I couldn't see it. Maybe she just needs to get away from her dad... and she was kind of talkative today. That was weird.

"Zayne, would you like to tell us what you're thinking about?" Kaine asks, quirking an eyebrow. 

"Not really, no."

Kaine scoffs, "Of course not. You know, we're going to have to learn to trust each other. Most likely, anyway," he glances to Lord Otto for confirmation.

"We do need to trust each other. But that also means we must trust each other to have our own thoughts. We can still have privacy. And trust goes both ways, Kaine. Maybe if you tell Zayne what you're thinking, he'd tell you what he's thinking. Aaron, you can sit this out if you'd like," Lord Otto says, not even looking back at us  

"Would you?" Kaine asks, obviously skeptical. 

"Not everything."

"Well then I'm not telling you what I'm thinking," he retorts, angrily.

Aaron speaks up, "I think you two are petty and need to get over yourselves. Especially you, Kaine. We still need privacy. You heard Lord Otto."

Why do we respect him so much already? We met him today. That's a plot hole. 

"Fine. I'm thinking about Primora."

"Yeah tells us a lot. But ok, I'm thinking about how annoying it's going to be living with just you two and someone I don't know."

"Lord Otto will be there," Aaron points out.

"I don't know him."

"He'll still be there."

I roll my eyes but we're finally to the tavern so I don't say anything. There's only two rooms available, each with only a single bed, but after the war there's been a lot of orphans so sharing a bed isn't anything new. Kaine sleeps on the floor like he did at the orphanage. 

... ...

Aaron snores really bad. Mr. Perfect has a flaw. I punch his shoulder to wake him up, but he just grumbles and rolls over. The position change causes him to stop snoring though so at least it's something. Most nights the snoring of others doesn't bother me but I guess I have too much adrenaline pumping through my system to sleep. I don't even know why I have so much adrenaline. I'm away from the orphanage. The people who worked there were never physically abusive but they sure did like to yell at us. The town's officials would probably persecute them if they hit us. We weren't technically their kids.

And now I'm back to thinking about Primora. Situations like hers are so sad. And now Kaya is gone... I can't stop thinking about that. How does Primora manage on her own like that? I wonder if she's still only allowed to eat when he tells her she can. If so, I doubt she passes out any fewer than three times a week. She probably isn't telling her dad that she's leaving. Maybe we should have just told her to come with us. It would probably save her another beating. Especially since she was late. Our fault. 

I wonder if it will be bad. 

... ...

Sleepless nights feel like eternity but eventually it's morning. Primora is sitting outside the tavern when we walk out. She looks like she's been there for a while. She doesn't say anything when we walk out, just stands up and looks at us expectantly.

"It is time to go back to the mountain," Lord Otto says, looking Primora over. 

Something's off. She has bags under her eyes, and I see a bandage peeking out from under her sleeve. Were those there yesterday? The other three walk off, Primora follows more slowly so I match my pace to hers. 

"You don't look like you slept much last night."

She scoffs, "And you do?"

"Eh, Aaron snores really loudly," I shrug.

"He does?" she glances up from her feet to look at him, "That would make sense."

I wrinkle my nose, "How?"

She laughs a bit, "See, I don't know. I just didn't know what to say."

"Ah." I see a bird's nest in a tree and climb the tree, even though I know it's the wrong time for baby birds.

"What are you doing?" Primora asks. She stopped walking when I walked off the path.

"Looking for baby birds," I say, hopping down from the tree and walking back to the path. 

"It's the wrong time of year for baby birds. You know that."

"I know."

"Then why-" I cut her off, tapping her wrist which was easy to reach because she'd brought her arms up in a shrug.

"Let me see," I demand, meeting her eyes.

They widen when she realizes what I said and it might be my imagination but she seems to pale a bit. She shakes her head, "No."

"Primora..." she speeds up then, calling out to the others to wait for us.

"Why are you behind?" Kaine asks, slight annoyance in his voice, "Lord Otto is going faster than you two."

"Zayne wanted to look in a bird's nest to see if there were any babies."

"There's no babies this time of year," Aaron chimes in.

"That's what I told him," the green eyed girl agreed, rolling her eyes in mock annoyance.

I stay quiet. She puts on a good act. I can see why people wouldn't notice anything would be wrong. Especially if they don't know how her father is. She's going to have to learn to trust us though. I keep up, but stay at the back. I wonder if I hadn't stopping visiting if anything would've been different. Maybe Kaya wouldn't have... wouldn't have killed herself. Even if I stopped going and just told someone. But... no. They're children. His children. In our town that practically means that's his property. Even if beating your children is frowned upon there's nothing anyone could do inside our town's law.

I start noticing that it's getting harder to breathe. The path is well worn, probably something to do with Lord Otto's ring. I doubt he comes up and down the mountain very often. I'm not the only one struggling with the air. Even though the path is worn so the trek isn't too difficult, the thin air is making everyone out of breath. Well, Lord Otto might just be old... that sounds horrible. But he is old. I'm just not sure if that's the reason he's out of breath or not.

"Well," Lord Otto says from the front, "Here we are."

We walk in to the camp and Aaron visibly grimaces. 

This is going to take some work.