Arissa's Fate (Redemption Trilogy) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty

In all the time they had discussed what to do, neither of them had been able to come up with an actual plan. It was hard to know what to do without knowing what was actually happening in the first place. All they knew was that they had to get to Daer as quickly as they could. It was where the Governor had been murdered, where the General was stationed, and they both agreed that being back in the place that meant the most to them would encourage them to do everything in their power to win.

They were riding through the middle of the forest, everything around them looking the same as it had for the last hour.
Choosing to take the long way through the forest to reach Daer, they hoped they would be less likely to meet any patrols. Taking on soldiers wouldn't be a problem for either of them, but it would slow them down considerably. It left Arissa with too much empty time on her mind.

The horses they rode
had been stashed in the forests just outside of the city Landon lived in. Arissa didn't ask how he had acquired them and she honestly didn't care. He had informed them before of where they could be found, and his directions had proved accurate.

“
Where should we go when we get to Daer? Search the Governor's mansion or get into the military grounds to hunt down the General?” Arissa mused to herself, but Cayl quickly replied anyway.

“
Arissa, I know it's hard but we have to take our time and make sure we know what we're doing. We can't go charging in for battle, it would just be like handing ourselves over. We need to actually prove that you're innocent. If we don't, it doesn't matter if we kill the General or find out who murdered the Captain, you'll still be on the run from the rest of the militia.”

“
And how exactly are we going to prove that? There were obviously no witnesses and we don't even have a clue as to who would have wanted to kill the Governor.”

“
You said that you and the Governor were friends, and that you worked with him. What exactly did you do together?”

It was truly the one honest relationship she had had during her whole career with the General. In order to locate and contact the people in the distant lands to convince them to travel to their territory, she had attended scheduled meetings with
the Governor several times a week. Together, they would go find out as much as they could about what had used to be fully-functioning countries, learning about their cultures and ways of living, studying their strengths and weaknesses prior to the wars that had collapsed civilization.

They would cho
ose the ones that they thought the General would most approve of and find ways of contacting them. It hadn't taken long for Arissa to catch on to exactly what happened in the Identification Transfer and, along with the Governor's help, she had occasionally found ways to secretly warn some of the people. Sometimes, when she met with the people being sorted, she would recognize strangers trying hard to cover their foreign accents or ones who had obviously tried to dye their hair dark. She always did her best to get those people through, because once a man was in the army, they were rarely seen again, since they would always be out on one of the General's tasks.

The Governor was an older man with greying hair and stress lines that seemed to have been permanently etched into his solemn face. Despite his gravelly appearance, h
e had been one of the most kind-hearted men that Arissa had ever known. His name was unknown, like the General's, but he had been a part of the original organization of the government when it was first being rebuilt from nothing. Regardless of his status, he was still under the General's sick jurisdiction, meaning that he had to go along with the twisted system just as forcefully as Arissa had.

All this time Arissa was pondering, she realized she hadn't spoken to Cayl in several minutes. He was patiently waiting, but it took her another moment to actually remember what
his question had been.

“
We met together a lot to contact people outside of our territory, the same ones that had to go through the IT. He wasn't like the General, though, he wasn't a sick, devastating dictator. He cared about the people that lived in our cities and even the ones who didn't. It was his wish to find peace among the world's society, and he wanted the General to be abolished. Of course, he knew as well as everybody else that the General had people lined up for years to take over his position, all as power hungry and relentless as he is. We both knew it would be a losing battle until someone could step up and risk their life for what needed to be done.”

It seemed every
time Arissa brought up her past now, her mouth was flooded with rants and memories of the things she had been keeping hidden for so long. As if some mental gate had opened and now she couldn't stop spilling the secrets that she could be killed for telling. She hadn't realized it, but keeping that in her for so many years had done serious damage to her.

“
Do you have any idea who would want to kill him? He was still a governmental figure, he had to have enemies. Next to the General, he had pretty much the most power.”

Arissa jumped in quickly,
“Having power doesn't mean anything if you're not allowed to use it. He was still under the General's rule, meaning the things that he wanted to do, he still couldn't. The world wouldn't be the way it is now if he could have done his job the way he had wanted.”

Cayl sighed,
frustrated that he didn't understand all of what she was telling him. Arissa never expected him to even try to fathom the horror that had occurred in her everyday life. No normal human should have to imagine anything to that extreme.

Arissa didn't look at him while they rode side by side, feeling t
oo ashamed to meet his eye again. “I'm sorry, Cayl. I wish I didn't have to bring you into all of this. The General would kill us both if he found out you knew all this.”

Cayl's usually smooth and calming voice suddenly turned deeper and serious. He actually surprised Arissa when he said, definit
ively, “That's why we have to kill him first. A person like that doesn't deserve to live.”

It nearly startled her. She was now used to Cayl being the calm one who would hold her back when she got to
o angry or intense, but now it seemed that he shared her hatred for the General nearly as strongly as she did. It made her grin, feeling victorious.

She didn't respond
to his comment, but continued, “To answer your question, no, I don't know of anyone specifically who would want to kill him. But if I had to guess, I would say the Lieutenant would be a safe bet.”

They both glanced up at each other at the same time. Cayl's interested expression readily asking for more information, while Arissa thought back to what she had just heard herself say. It surprised her to hear her own words, because never before had she
even thought of the Lieutenant to be the murderer. She had only met the man several times but from what she could tell he was hardly better than the General himself.

“
What makes you say that?” Cayl inquired, immediately.

Guiding
her horse around a fallen tree, Arissa was trying to slow her whirling mind and trying to figure out if anything made more sense if she used the Lieutenant as the killer. “I never thought of it before, it just occurred to me. But, you know what...the more I think about it, the more I think that I may be right!” Arissa leaned ahead quickly in the saddle, feeling impatient, as if she needed to physically move.

“
The Lieutenant worked closely below the General and often with the Governor. I don't know what they were about, I was never there because...”

Her voice jerked to a halt in her throat at her words. In her mind, she was trying to piece together anything else she could remember. It was too much to focus on and her mind felt shocked by what she just realized. She jerked her horse to an abrupt stop, Cayl
immediately following suit. He looked at her with an expecting expression, waiting for an answer.

“
Cayl, he had separate meetings with the Governor. They were alone all the time, it would be the perfect time for him to kill him! Cayl...with the Governor gone, that meant the Lieutenant Governor would step up to take his place. Of course, the General would prefer him, someone just as bloodthirsty as he was, rather than the soft hearted man I knew.”

Arissa felt sick to her stomach, but joyous at the same time. She needed proof of her assumptions first,
but in her gut, she immediately knew that she was right and she never went against an instinctual feeling.

She stared at Cayl incredulously, her jaw agape.
“This was never about me! They simply used me as the one to take the fall. The General was probably looking for an excuse to have me killed anyway. This was political!”

They both stood still in the forest, the desperate sounds of warbling birds and the slight, eerie rustle of the wind in the tree branches were the only things disrupting the tense
moment of realization.

Cayl ground his jaw together hard, the muscles standing out prominently against his cheek. His
electrifying green eyes were locked on Arissa’s.

“
I think we just found our killer.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“I don't know how I can expect to just walk into the Governor's mansion without somebody calling guards on me within five minutes,” Arissa hissed quietly, careful to remain hidden behind the clump of bushy trees that grew in the picturesque grove around the Governor's former residence.

She and Cayl had left the horses farther back in the forest and had been
surveying the grounds for over an hour. It certainly had changed since Arissa had last been there. It used to be a place that actually resembled happiness. The Governor and his family lived in the house, and other important figures would often go there for meetings or to get simply together. He never turned down his home to anyone who was worthy. Even the staff that worked there, the guards and the housemaids, were friendly and welcoming to Arissa. Since she had been there so often to meet with the Governor, she had become well known among nearly everyone who worked there. Some had always been wary and too cautious around her, clearly intimidated, but Arissa never paid them much attention.

“
People here know who you are. You'll be recognized in a second. We can't trust them not to fire an alarm to the soldiers. Maybe I should be the one to go,” Cayl suggested.

His voice was becoming strained again, gasping for air on nearly each breath. He had taken the medicine that Yasmine had sent with them earlier, but it was obviously already beginning to wear off. He had repeatedly told Arissa that he was fine and the pain wasn't as bad as it had been, but she knew better. However, she did her
best to ignore his gasps of pain. There was nothing either of them could do until they could show their faces in public again without being arrested.

“
You can't go. A stranger shows up at the mansion with a bullet hole in him and people are going to get suspicious, Cayl,” Arissa informed. She could understand how he was feeling, useless with nothing that he could do except act as her guard. She would love to be able to bring him with her when she went after the General, but at the same time she knew that she couldn't, all she would feel was the immense guilt of dragging Cayl into the darkest part of her life. He would be executed on the spot if anyone knew that she had told him all the General's secrets. Arissa couldn't live with that.

“
I'm not going to sit here and do nothing, Arissa. I sympathize for what you've been through, but a lot has happened to me, too, and now it's my fight just as much as it is yours,” Cayl shot back.

“
This is not your fight, Cayl!”

“
It became my fight the second that you traded my freedom for your life's dedication! You really think that I'm just going to let that go by unnoticed?”

Arissa felt her cheeks heating with frustration quickly. The last thing she needed to be doing was having
this argument with Cayl.

“
If you know me at all, you’ll know that I have never let another person fight my battle for me and I don't ever intend to start. I am not going to be responsible for your death because of the things I've done in my past. This is between me and the General.” Arissa attempted to turn back to study the mansion, but Cayl caught her shoulder quickly, forcing her to look back at him.

“
It may have started that way, but it's grown into so much more than that. It doesn't just affect you anymore. It affects everybody we know. Our cities...Arissa, think of our family. We aren't just fighting for your freedom anymore. It's for everybody who has ever been wronged. If what we think is true, then we could change the world, help turn it back into the beautiful place that it used to be. But, Arissa, you cannot do it alone.”

His words seemed to settle in
her heart. She hadn't realized it, but since she had enlightened Cayl with her past, she had been subconsciously feeling that it was now up to her to fix everything. It made sense now that the reason behind her thinking was that if she could do something good for the world now, perhaps it would make up for all the wrong things she had done.

“
I need to fix this. All my life I have been nothing good, only a drain on society. I don't want to be that anymore, but I am. I can't be a good person while I still feel the need to kill the ones who are forcing people to live this way. I tried but I've accepted that I'm not a good person. I try to be for you, but I still don't feel like it's enough. The only way I can ever feel good about anything is if I can take down the General, because that's what this world needs now more than anything. I'm sorry, Cayl.”

She didn't speak to him again. He told her immediately that she was wrong, repeating her name several times in
an attempt to talk some self-confidence into her, but it didn't work. She couldn't force herself to hurt the man that she loved again.

There had been no movement or signs of activity around the mansion since their heated conversation had
begun. Arissa decided it was time to move. She had taken one of the knives from the bag of Landon's, securing it in the usual place in her boot, and began eyeing up the nearest open window, more than twenty feet away from where they hid.

Before moving toward the mansion, Arissa turned to meet Cayl's discouraged expression, stating bluntly,
“I'm going in right now, but you are staying here. I can take care of myself, but I can't guarantee what's going to happen in there. All I need to do is find something that incriminates the Lieutenant for the Governor's murder and I'll be out as quickly as I can. I don't need help. What I need is for you to stay safe. Please, Cayl. Just trust me on this. I know what I'm doing this time.”

She didn't wait for a reply, she just turned away as she began to pull the heavy hood of her cloak over her head. The second she began to leave, though, she was nearly startled when Cayl reached out to grab her elbow and jerk her back to where he stood. At first she didn't understand, but when Cayl's lips crushed against her own in a passionate embrace, all other thoughts vanished from her
mind. His strong hands gripped the sides of her face, pushing her hair out of her eyes and Arissa could feel his breath on her skin.

For a moment after they broke contact, she couldn't exactly process where she was. Feeling winded, she glanced up at the handsome man she hadn't been able to stop thinking about since that terrible night he had been kidnapped. His kiss only reminded her of
what she had to lose.

His voice was low and husky as he pleaded,
“Please be careful. Don't let anything happen to you. I'll be waiting.”

Even when he told Arissa he loved her, she couldn't force herself to return the gesture or even acknowledge it. Saying anything would make it feel final, as if she wouldn't see
him again.

“
Keep your gun loaded,” was the only thing that she could possibly think of to say before she disappeared.

Arissa wasn't worried about getting into the mansion. In less than a minute, she had darted across the clearing to hide against th
e wall of the house and slipped in through a window. The room she was in was vacant, appearing to be some sort of lounge area, with its plush carpeting and styled wall hangings that matched the smooth fabric of the furniture. Everything was elegant without being extravagant, exactly the way she always remembered the Governor being.

Her heart thundering painfully in her chest, Arissa took a moment to quickly recall everything she could about the manor. There were three storeys, the Governor's office in which she had found his lifeless body was on the second floor in the west wing. She was in the east. Crossing nearly the entire
ground floor without being seen would be close to impossible. The last thing she wanted to do was kill anyone in the mansion, even Arissa felt like that would be disrespectful to the reverence she had for the Governor himself.

Maybe she didn't have to go completely unseen. She only needed a minute to
re-examine the office and search for what she imagined would be all the evidence she needed. As long as she wasn't captured, it didn't matter if she was seen or not because she could escape the mansion a hundred different ways at a moment's notice, she knew it well enough. The important thing would be for her not to be recognized.

Hastily, Arissa reached to the inside layer of her cloak, near a seam and tore a great length away from where it had already been torn. She ripped a few holes into the edge of the fabric and quickly tied it around her head, forming a black, obstructing mass. With the hood of her
cloak pulled down, she could still see well enough around her, but her face was completely unrecognizable as she studied it briefly in a hanging mirror on the lounge wall.

Listening carefully for any signs of movement, Arissa quickly thought back to the last hour when they had been surveying the grounds. Her mind still felt slightly hazy from Cayl's explosive kiss, but she forced herself to clear her mind
of its intoxication. She had to be focused.

Only remembering seeing two different guards on the grounds, Arissa quickly recalled her previous trips to the mansion and knew she had to find the grand staircase as quickly as po
ssible. There had been a second, smaller staircase that was more hidden and concealed toward the back of the mansion, but it was frequently trafficked by the maids and footmen, as not to be seen in the general public of the house.

By the vacant look that the house seemed to hold, Arissa guessed that the only people there at the moment would be the workers. Besides, the grand staircase was the quickest
way to the office.

The soft soles of her boots made little noise against the polished hardwood. As she stepped out of the room she had been hiding in. Her cloak billowed out around her in a dark cloud as she swiftly ran from hall to hall, pausing to check around each corner
and door before advancing.

With each empty room, Arissa's paranoia was continuously rising. It seemed awfully suspicious that the Governor's mansion would be sitting empt
y. His family still lived there as far as she knew, and there had to be maids still working. Everything in the house was in impeccable order and it didn't stay that way by itself. Besides, she had seen the guards. She had to just be hitting a lucky time.

Still, she was extra wary while she slipped through the mansion, finding herself
feeling more and more desperate to see that glistening, marble staircase.

Finally, she was able to see it through
a window in the last door that separated her from the staircase. Arissa was about to crack open the smooth door when the handle that she had not yet grasped, turned.

Her heart leapt into her throat and she jumped away to avoid being hit. Hoping that the door would not
bump into her, she pressed herself against the wall as tightly as she could, behind the open door. Swiftly snatching up the billowing lengths of her cloak, she could literally feel herself stop breathing as she waited for the person to appear.

It was a guard. He had his rifle hiked up over his shoulder
. He seemed nonchalant as he walked casually through the door, simply letting the door swing slowly shut behind him.

He didn’t turn to notice her at all, when she slipped out from her hiding position and passed through the door
before it could close itself.

The rest of the journey was simple. She encountered nobody else while she darted through the foyer and up the exquisite staircase. Even when she entered the long
hallway with the red and black carpeting, she saw no sign of anybody else.

The office was exactly the way
she remembered it. For a moment she had to simply stand and take in the room. Being here again seemed to teleport her back to all the times she had come to see the Governor. He always had a tray of tea and other foods present while they conversed. It truly was the only happy time during all of her work. And that was all gone now.

Arissa stepped into the centre of the room, standing in precisely the same place
she had when she had discovered the Governor dead. It brought back too many sad memories to her.

She heard it before her brain caught up to her to tell her to move. Directly behind her, the distinct click of a pistol’s hammer being snapped down, ready to fire
, could be heard. Arissa’s eyes flashed up, a cold shiver running through her spine.

“I knew you would come back. The criminal
always returns to the scene of their crime.”