by Carol A Park
Rescuing Vaughn. The irony didn’t escape her.
The thought had crossed her mind more than once that she didn’t have to do this. The moment Ivana had seen not one, but five brawny men materialize out of the darkness of the woods, she had made the instant decision to disappear rather than fight. Not even one of Vaughn’s captors had glanced her way as she had grabbed Vaughn’s bag where it had fallen and slipped back into the shadow of the woods to watch what had happened.
It would have been easy to flee.
But it seemed like such a waste to come all this way on Vaughn’s little mission, only to leave him in the hands of her own enemy.
And, though she kept swatting at it like a pesky gnat, the thought hovered in her mind that she didn’t want to see anything bad happen to Vaughn.
And so, after his captors had slung an unconscious Vaughn over the back of a horse and started on their way, Ivana had slunk along behind, invisible. Once the sun had risen, they had abandoned the main road to cut across the country and marched along for most of the morning until they came to a back door in the wall of Gildas’ country estate. From there, Vaughn had been taken by two of the men through a back door in the estate house itself.
She had loitered around, listening to the conversation of the remaining three men as they went on to whatever other duties they had, and gathered that Vaughn had been captured on the order of Ri Airell.
She had then done some light reconnaissance of other servants as they went about their business on the estate grounds the remainder of the afternoon, and she’d begun to formulate a plan.
It was a risky plan, based on far too little information, but Vaughn might have limited time left—if he was even still alive.
Or un-Sedated.
She would take the risk.
The door to the room opened, and Ivana’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand. A petite woman swathed in a rich, deep blue cloak and cowl entered and then quickly shut the door behind her. She leaned back against it, her eyes closed, as if thankful to finally be alone.
Ivana could sympathize with the feeling.
The woman moved to her bedside table and set the lamp she held there.
Only then did she remove her cloak.
At first glance, she looked surprisingly young; silver had not yet threaded its way into her dark locks. Ivana wondered momentarily if she had been watching the wrong room.
But then the woman turned to sit on her bed, facing Ivana, and removed her boots.
Her eyes were tired and care-worn, and, without her cloak, the skin revealed by her lowcut dress at the chest and bosom was sagging.
Ivana waited until her back was turned again, and then she slipped through the open window, moved behind the woman, and put a hand to her mouth.
The woman stiffened, but Ivana spoke quickly, using the name she had gleaned from servants. “Askata. Please don’t scream,” she said. “I won’t hurt you. I just need your help.”
There was a moment when Ivana thought the woman might fight her—but she relaxed after a few seconds and nodded.
Ivana let go and stepped back.
The woman turned, and Ivana took a deep breath, let down her hood—
And stood face-to-face with Vaughn’s mother.
Askata was darker in complexion than Vaughn, if not as dark as Ivana; it was obvious his Fereharian heritage must have come from his mother’s side, anyway.
Her eyes raked over Ivana, taking in her boots, the belted sheath at her thigh, and her cloak before coming to rest on her face. “Who are you?”
Ivana walked over to the window and closed it. “Is your room safe for private conversation?”
“The useless widow of a former Ri is no threat to anyone. Of course it is.”
Ivana inclined her head politely. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Why? I’m not.”
Ivana blinked. She had heard through snatches of gossip that there was no love between Gildas and Askata. It was what had given her hope that the woman might be willing to help her get to Vaughn. Even so, she hadn’t expected such a blatant admittance of it—especially to a stranger.
Askata gave her a wry smile. “I don’t recognize you, and it’s clear you aren’t from close by. Anyone familiar with our family is aware of my feelings regarding my late husband. So I’ll ask one more time, before I call for guards: Who are you?”
She wasn’t what Ivana had expected, but what had that been, anyway? A gentle, meek woman, frightened at her appearance? An imperious, cruel noblewoman? Vaughn’s mother seemed neither.
There was no ice or malice in her tone, but it was also calm, matter-of-fact. Her eyes were wary, and her body postured to flee, but she evidenced no fear otherwise.
“My name is Ivana,” Ivana said. “I’m a friend of your son.”
Askata raised her eyebrow. “If you’re here seeking payment for a bastard, you’ve come to the wrong person. Airell cut off my direct access to our coffers as soon as he took on the mantle of Ri. One of the few disadvantages of my husband’s death.” She looked Ivana over, as if to assess how far along she might be. “I have only a small stipend now.”
Apparently, Airell hadn’t changed his ways—even married.
“Not that son,” Ivana said. “Your son Teyrnon.”
The change in Askata’s expression so was drastic, it was almost comical. Her eyes widened, and she put a hand to her mouth. “Teyrnon,” she whispered. “I-I had heard he was alive. All these years, and Gildas never told me.”
“You know he’s a Banebringer?”
Askata’s jaw tightened. “Yes. I heard that as well. I suppose that’s why that bastard kept him from me.”
“And you don’t care?”
Askata hesitated. “I… I might have, at one point. To preserve our family reputation.” She sank down into the chair in front of her dressing table. “But my son was dead, and I grieved for him, along with Teryn—his youngest brother. And now I’m told one of them has been alive all these years?” She stared unfocused into the corner of the room, and tears shone in her eyes. “Do you know where he is? Is he in some sort of trouble?”
Ivana couldn’t help but smile. “Always.” The tension in her shoulders drained away. “But this might be worse than normal. Airell hunted him down and captured him and now holds him captive here on your estate—as of yesterday.”
Askata’s expression grew pained. She closed her eyes.
Ivana said nothing. She just waited.
Askata opened her eyes again. “Do you have children, Ivana?”
“No, my lady.” She didn’t think it was at all relevant that, in fact, she had once borne this woman’s own granddaughter, for the short time the babe had lived.
Askata picked up a brush on her dressing table and turned it over in her hand. “They never got along—Airell, and his three younger brothers. Even Glyn, my next oldest, though he tolerates Airell’s antics more than Teyrnon ever did, avoids coming home. But this… It breaks my heart. I sometimes wonder…” She shook her head. “But there’s no use in that.”
“Do you know why Airell might want Teyrnon?” Ivana asked.
“Other than spite?” Askata grimaced. “He doesn’t come to me for advice, but it’s no secret that he’s following in his father’s footsteps and ingratiating himself to the Conclave. My best guess is that he hopes to use him as a bargaining token.”
That was Ivana’s best guess as well. Of course, Ivana also knew that Vaughn was heavily involved with a secret organization of Banebringers called the Ichtaca. Depending on Airell’s sources of information, it was possible Airell hoped to torture information out of him he could then offer to the Conclave. That was the real bargaining token.
“I can’t let that happen,” Ivana said. “Will you help me free him?”
For the first time, she saw fear in Askata’s eyes—and it wasn’t fear of Ivana. “Airell—he has a temper,” she said and then she faltered. She pulled back her right sleeve and showed Ivana her
wrist. It was bruised black and blue. “I tried to tell him not to raise taxes again, and this is how he repaid my advice.” She shook her sleeve down and turned her eyes away. “He is his father’s son.”
Ivana’s jaw locked. Arrogant bastard. Unwed mothers weren’t the only women who suffered at the hands of unprincipled men.
She walked over to Askata, crouched down in front of her, and took her hands. “Airell is lost to you. Another of your sons was dead and now lives. Will you lose him again, too?”
Askata met her eyes.
Ivana held them. The seconds dragged by, and still, she held them.
Finally, Askata pressed her lips together and rose. “What would you have me do?”
Chapter Twenty
Family
Vaughn lifted his head at the sound of a key turning in the lock on the door.
The door swung open, and Vaughn flinched back from the light. A guard stood framed in the doorway.
He sneered down at Vaughn. “You have a visitor, demonspawn,” the guard said, and then he leaned down to unbind Vaughn’s manacles from the wall while still leaving his hands and feet shackled together.
The guard immediately jumped back, and it was satisfying to know he was afraid of Vaughn, even when he couldn’t use his powers. See? Dangerous, he wanted to argue with Ivana.
“Out,” the guard snapped, retreating from the chamber. There was the sound of lowered voices, and then the clang of another heavy door closing.
Vaughn stumbled to his feet. He had been forced into this one position for hours—days? He had lost track of time. He didn’t think it had been that long, but nonetheless, his knees almost gave way under the weight of his various aches and pains.
He leaned against the wall for support, gaining his equilibrium. The last thing he needed was to trip and fall flat on his face since he couldn’t use his hands to catch himself. It didn’t help that his head was still spinning. Whatever concoction Airell had been injecting him with made the room sway as he moved.
He shuffled forward, chains clinking, taking short breaths so as not to exacerbate the pain in his ribs.
The moment he left the room, he knew where he was. Airell had locked him up in the safe room at his old home—what was now Airell’s country estate. If one was going to imprison a Banebringer, he supposed that made a certain amount of sense—lest the Banebringer die and spawn a bloodbane.
He stood in one of the many rooms in Gildas’ extensive cellars; this one was mostly empty and had only two exits: back into the safe room or out into the hallway.
The guard stood in the room with a petite, hooded figure.
Vaughn’s heart leapt in his throat. Ivana? But that didn’t seem right.
“Leave us,” the person said, a feminine voice that sounded vaguely familiar, but definitely not Ivana.
The guard grunted but inclined his head. “You have fifteen minutes, my lady,” he said, much more respectfully, and then he left the room through another heavy door.
Only once it had shut did the figure draw down her hood.
Vaughn gaped and sank to his knees. It was his mother.
She looked at him long, saying nothing, while he knelt trembling on the ground. When she continued in silence, he hung his head.
His heart beat wildly. Why was she here? To gaze on her abomination of a son and give personal approval to Airell’s plans? As long as he had never seen her again, he could nurture the final hope that she wouldn’t reject him the way everyone else had, that—
His mother moved forward. “Teyrnon,” she whispered. “It’s true. You’re alive.”
He looked up at her. Tears shone in her eyes, and hope burst out of his chest.
She clasped her hands together in front of her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Your father—” Her voice broke.
“You don’t…hate me?”
She laughed unsteadily. “No. No. In fact—” She turned to look behind her.
Vaughn followed her gaze, and Ivana materialized out of the air, her dagger at her thigh and one of their bags on her back.
His cracked lips curled into a smile—they split and bled as they did so, but he didn’t care. His aching head and throbbing side overshadowed any minor pain from cracked lips. “You escaped.” And she’d come back for him.
She gave him a curt nod. “We don’t have a lot of time.” She gave him a critical onceover and then unlocked his hands and feet. “You look terrible. I hope you’re up to carrying out your part of the plan.”
He shook his hands out and rubbed at his wrists, which were raw from rubbing against the metal. “Which would be?”
“Keeping both of us invisible when we leave with your mother.”
His stomach dropped—and his head hurt more even thinking about it. “Damn.”
“Damn?”
He started to take a deep breath, and then stopped as pain lanced through his chest. “Could…be a problem.”
Ivana paced back and forth along the length of the room while Vaughn sat against a wall, his head in his hands.
“You’re sure you don’t…have enough for all of us?” he mumbled, sounding like every word was a struggle.
“There’s no way,” Ivana said. “I was concerned enough about what I had lasting long enough to sneak in, let alone get both of us out. But I figured…”
“Of course.”
Of everything that could go wrong with this hasty plan, the complication she had been most concerned about was that Vaughn would be unconscious or physically unable to move. That he would be essentially unable to use his powers hadn’t occurred to her, but it still resulted in difficulty getting out.
If they had more time, they could try making aether that she could use instead, but they didn’t. As it was, the guard would be coming back any minute.
“Any chance it’s going to wear off soon?” she asked. They both assumed it would eventually since Vaughn had said Airell had given him multiple doses.
He shook his head.
Ivana put her fingers to her temples. Askata was standing quietly in the corner. Her eyes had barely strayed from Vaughn.
And he was a mess. His nose was bloody, and the blood had clotted in his beard in silvery clumps—as well as smeared on his face. His lips were cracked and oozing a mix of red and silver—new and old blood. He moved as though he had been beaten, inhaling and exhaling short, shallow breaths, and his clothes were filthy and stained with his own piss.
Frankly, it might have been difficult to get past the guards even invisible. They would have smelled him coming.
“How many guards?” Vaughn asked, lifting his head.
“Four,” Ivana and Askata said in unison, and then Ivana added, “Not all together, though.”
Vaughn looked back and forth between them, and then his eyes settled on Ivana. “Can you…handle it?”
She sighed. This was not the way this was supposed to go. She was supposed to sneak in with Vaughn’s mother, who would be let in after appealing to Airell to see her son, however briefly.
That had worked out all right. Askata had said Airell was furious that his mother had found out, but he had also given in to her demand—though he had insisted she wait until dawn.
Ivana hadn’t been pleased with that. Sneaking out at night would be better than in broad daylight. But they were to be hidden by Vaughn, using his own invisibility, since her aether was getting low. It would have kept the danger to Askata minimal, though Askata said she was prepared to face the consequences once Airell discovered his prisoner was missing.
If Ivana had to carve their way out of here? There was no telling what might happen to any of them. She wasn’t a warrior; she worked best in shadows and stealth, not direct confrontations with household guards.
And on the way were not only guards, but the potential for running into other household staff. Of course, violence was always an option on the table, in her mind anyway, but Askata had been dead set against it, unless they had no choice.
It was s
tarting to look like they had no choice.
She stopped pacing and turned to face Askata. “Askata,” she said, “I’m afraid our original plan is no longer going to work. We’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”
Askata’s face paled. “Fight? I-I don’t fight.”
“When I say ‘we,’ I mean…” She eyed Vaughn. Gods. In his current state, he might be able to handle any vicious mice they ran across. “Me.”
“You can’t hurt them!” Askata protested. “I’ve known some of these guards since they were children. They aren’t bad people; they’re just doing their duty.” She glanced at Vaughn, winced, and then looked away, as if suddenly realizing that the very guards she had just called “not bad people” were likely some of the same people who had beaten her son.
Ivana exhaled. “I’ll do my best, but I make no guarantees. If you can somehow draw most of the guards away, that will help. Can you do that?”
Askata straightened up, pressed her lips together, and nodded. “Just tell me when.”
Ivana turned to Vaughn, but he held up his hand before she could speak.
“Yes,” he said, his jaw jumping. “I know. I’ll try not to…be a liability.”
He hated to be useless. She could see it in his eyes.
She could sympathize.
She closed the safe room door and drew her dagger. “I don’t have much aether left. We’ll get as far as we can. Who knows? Maybe it’ll hold.” She helped Vaughn to his feet and took his arm. Then she nodded to Askata. “You first.”
Askata banged on door to the hall. “I’m finished,” she shouted.
Ivana began burning what moonblood aether she had left, causing her and Vaughn to hopefully wink out of sight.
The cellar door swung open. The same guard who had let Askata in poked his head in the room and looked around.
“He’s back in the safe room,” Askata said.
The guard nodded, crossed the room, and locked the door. Then he returned to the cellar door and held it open for her.
