Free Rythe Falls by Craig R. Saunders Page B

sat on the red wizard's narrow lips.
                  'Renir, wake,' he said.
                  Renir didn't jump, or reach for his axe. He was rested and slept lightly, most nights. He was also accustomed to the occasional midnight visit from Caeus. Wasn't much you could  do about it if the most powerful creature on the face of Rythe wished to wake you in the middle of the night.
                  Renir was a pragmatist, really.
                  'Evening, Caeus,' he said and pushed himself up against his pillows as though greeting such a creature was merely an everyday (and night) occurrence for him.
                  Caeus made the room a few shades lighter with a simple trick of his immensely powerful will, so that Renir could see just as well as the wizard himself.
                  'Spoke with your friend Drun Sard a moment ago,' opened the wizard.
                  'Is he well?' said Renir, who barely had a chance to speak to any of his friends outside of his new duties - learning to fight like a King, learning to read like a King, learning to use the garderobe like a...
                  'Frankly, I think not. But that's not why I come. Do you think of yourself as a prisoner?'
                  'Eh?'
                  'Simple question,' said Caeus lightly, but Renir got the sense that though the creature's tone was light, his meaning was not.
                  Tread carefully , he thought.
                  'I would perhaps appreciate a little more...freedom...to come and go...'
                  'Would you?' Again, simple words, simple terms...but...
                  But Renir wouldn't wheedle or beg. The wizard was powerful...but he was to be a king, was he not?
                  Show some balls, man.
                  'I feel like a prisoner, yes.'
                  Caeus nodded. 'Seems I've misunderstood the situation. My apologies.'
                  Renir breathed a sigh of relief.
                  'I thought you, the priest...the Sard...I assumed you understood.'
                  'Understood what?'
                  'You are a prisoner. I've let you have more freedom that I should. I won't risk my kindness being the undoing of everything I've worked for. Not again.'
                  Renir's breath was suddenly tight in his chest again, his skin tickling from the sense the wizard held his remarkable power...and some anger...in check.
                  'I...'
                  'Oh, I understand you and your kin, your human friends. No need to explain, Renir. But let me make myself clear.
                  'I exiled my entire people, over two thousand years ago. I scattered the remnants of the Elethyn wide and far among the stars. I lost my people in one great victory, and then I lost my freedom for the crime for a thousand years. All those years, I was held captive by the power of a Soulsword, a creature known as the Lu that guard all the realms and worlds in the entirety of this universe, and perhaps others besides. I was in a gaol far stranger and far more terrible than your feeble imaginings, and only once a year was I allowed the solace of waking, when the Soulsword released me from my bonds by drawing the sword of soul from my heart.
                  'I lived a thousand more years in the guts of the revenant while it tried to absorb me for food, the thing's acid burning my skin from my flesh constantly. A thousand years as food, a thousand years with a sword crammed through my chest. I lost my people and my freedom and I did it for you .
                  'And you feel I treat you harshly, in order to protect you from yourself and a myriad threats I see in every thread of fate?
                  'Man and beast that wish to