She knew she had to move, to force herself up, despite every fiber of being wanting to stop, to rest. Patrols would come from Rathborne soon and she’d be spotted. She needed to get going. So, Jethra found a long branch to steady herself and pushed herself to her feet, bringing her cloak about her to hide her ragged appearance, the cowl pulled low over her bruised and battered face. Then she moved forward one painful step at a time, down the road back toward Novak.
A horse and cart rolled past sometime later, the wispy-haired old man in the driver’s seat waving a greeting. Jethra managed to raise a shaky arm in reply, pitching her head away from the man, beneath her hood. She thought to ask for a ride, but the man was moving in the opposite direction, back toward Rathborne, and she couldn’t risk drawing any attention. Still the pain in her body, and the slow progress she was making as she hobbled her way down the road, was making her desperate for reprieve.
When a young couple came by in another cart some two hours later, this one heading toward Novak, she lost her will to decline. She stopped the couple and asked for a seat in the cart, and they graciously acquiesced, allowing her to get up into a pile of hay in the back. As the cart set off again, the bumps and ruts on the road sent jolts of pain through her arm, leg, and side, but she managed to sweep together enough hay to provide some padding, and a place to rest her head. The woman started to talk to her then, a nice young girl, some ten years her junior, with mousy brown hair and freckles. She heard the words, tried to respond, but despite her best efforts, she quickly fell back to sleep.
It was evening when she woke again and there were two figures standing over her. They were close, too close, and one was reaching down and grabbing her shoulder. Jethra kicked her legs and pushed her way back, away from them, then her dagger was out in front of her.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright.” It was the young girl. Her husband was standing next to her.
“You were asleep a long time,” he said. “Do you want something to drink?” He offered her a skin of water.
Jethra the leather skin and sniffed it, then tilted her head back and started to drink, not initially realizing how thirsty she was. The water flowed into her mouth and down the side of her face as she gulped. In her rush, she managed to swallow wrong, and ended up coughing, finally bringing the skin down, and wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She took another sip and then handed the skin back to the young man. “Thank you,” she said.
“Do you want something to eat?” the woman asked.
Jethra’s stomach roiled at the thought. She shook her head.
“We hate to, ah, well, ah…” the young man stammered.
“What is it?” asked Jethra, pain putting a harsher tone in her voice than she intended.
“We’re heading off the road,” said the young woman. “Toward home.”
The young man bowed his head. “You seem unwell… we hate to leave you… you’re only two days ride from Novak now.
“You could come with us,” the woman offered. “We don’t have much, but we have room enough for an extra bed.”
Jethra thought it over for some time. A chance to hide, a chance to rest, get herself back into some semblance of good health. But anywhere she went she’d be at risk and would bring that danger to those who helped her. Not to mention there was still hope to rejoin the one she had lost. So finally, after some more deliberation, she shook her head, and pushed herself to the edge of the cart, hopping down to the ground.
When she landed on the earth pain lanced up her side and around her ankle, seared through her arm and leg. It was all she could do to catch herself on the edge of the cart, her head swimming. The faces of the young couple were pained. “Are you certain you won’t come with us?” the woman asked.
All Jethra could manage was another shake of her head, and then she started down the road. She heard the cart start off over a field to the east, as she walked. The pain quickly became worse than it had been before, and when she stepped poorly on her injured ankle, it went out from under her. The ground rushed up to meet her and then all was dark.
Flashes of images came them, light, dark forms above her, pain as she was grabbed at open air, tried to move, then liquid on her lips, flowing into her mouth, coughing again, she never knew how much coughing could hurt, and then she was floating through the air, spinning in a circle, a dark room with candlelight, a sea of endless night.
“Liana,” a familiar voice said, the words thick and far away. “Liana…”
Jethra awoke some time later in the dark. If there had been any light at all, it was gone now. She saw no doors, no windows, nothing at all really. She was lying on a cot of some type, a sheet draped over her body. As she attempted to stand, she realized she was naked beneath the sheet, so she wrapped it around her body. She wandered toward the room looking for some sort of exit. In doing so she realized that she felt better. Still sore and achy, but not nearly as bad as before. She felt her arm and leg and her fingers were met with tight sutures where her wounds were, and her ankle was set with a splint of thin wood and tightly wrapped cloth.
Jethra hobbled forward in the dark and her hand met a wall. She felt along the wall and soon found the outline of a door, which she pushed open. The bright light of day blinded her for a moment, and she stumbled forward into a wide room. When she could see again, she found herself in the middle of The Drowning Goose, red-faced men and women sitting, mugs in hand, mouths agape, staring at her. Jethra turned to see Pedin equally wide-eyed, his mouth dropping open. He rushed to her side, in quick order, and took her by the arm, leading her back into the storeroom.
Once inside Pedin explained that the young couple had brought her to him, after hearing her say his name and the name of the inn, amidst fevered groans of anguish. Pedin had nursed her back to health and had done his best to get a healer to patch her up. She hugged the man when he told her and kissed him on the cheek. Pedin blushed at that and bobbed his head in acknowledgement.
Jethra spent several more days at The Goose resting and taking advantage of warm food and drink. When she felt well enough, she left, making her way back to the offices of Marsen Crake. She put another coin into the wall at the end of an arrow and held up the two remaining coins.
“This one’s close,” said Crake, with a grunt. “See your usual source.”
So, she left, and returned to The Drowning Goose again. Pedin slipped her a note sometime later, and her eyes went wide with surprise. Yet, she knew she must see things to the end, and a day hence she found herself wandering through the streets of Novak, following her next target.
A dark figure in a dark tunic, with silver scrollwork up the arms and chest. There was an Imperial blade at his waist, that marked him a master of the blade. She knew she had to be cautious. So, she watched him from afar, as he made his way from inn to tavern, taking food and drink, then back to the streets, to a cobbler, a blacksmith, a cartwright. When he moved down a narrow street with a stretch of buildings that abutted one another, Jethra made her way atop a crate, climbed onto a landing, and then to the top of the first roof.
As the sun left the sky and darkness came, she loosed her bow, nocked an arrow, and followed the dark figure in parallel as he went. She waited patiently, moving from rooftop to rooftop, looking for the right time to strike. When the man wandered down a lonely, dark, side street that ran between two storehouses, she knew her chance was coming.
The man paused for a minute and looked about. She crouched and drew her arrow back, took aim, and then… he was gone. Jethra let out of a breath she was holding. She looked about, confused. Where was he?
A rush of footfalls sounded behind her, she spun around just in time to duck below the blade of a shortsword, which crashed into the wall behind her. Her set arrow flew off into the air, as she dropped her bow and drew her dagger, but an arm hit hers, and the dagger fell from her grasp. She rolled forward, wincing with the pain of her healing body, as she did. She came up, another dagger in hand.
The dark fig
ure came in then with a slash of his Imperial blade. She ducked, caught a second blow with her dagger, and pushed his arm out wide. A third dagger came into her hand then, from her waist, and she stabbed into the gap. But the man backed away then and charged in with an overhand chop.
Jethra jumped to the side, and missed the attack, turning about with a dagger ready in each fist. The man stood before her in his dark attire, close-cropped hair, dark eyes, and sword at the fore.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.
“Viserin, they say.” She came at him, twin daggers leading the way.
He easily dodged aside, and then swiped at her back. Her tunic tore, and a fresh wound formed there, as she let loose a sharp exhale of breath.
Their blades clashed again, slash, thrust, parry; they danced the dance of swordplay, duck, roll forward, back, slash, steel ringing off of steel, as their blades met and parted, met and parted. In the end, Viserin brought his sword around in a half-circle, and sent both of her daggers clattering to the rooftop. Jethra went to duck and retrieve the weapons, but then his Imperial blade was at her neck. She had never been any match for him, he was a master at his work. She could only admire his ability.
Viserin gritted his teeth and moved to bring his sword across her throat but then he stopped. He was staring at her chest, not moving. Jethra took the opportunity to back away a step. She followed his gaze to the medallion that hung around her neck. They stood like that for many moments, before he said, “Is it you who have prevented the tenants of the Order of Asheion, or is it I?”
It was then that Jethra noticed the same medallion about his neck, a circle divided by two lines, two dots in either half. “A life for a life,” she said. “Asheion demands balance.”
“For this I will spare you,” Viserin said. “But it is clear we differ in our interpretations of the Grand Principles.”
Jethra grabbed the medallion in her hands and yelled, spittle flying from her lips. “I have lost, and so they will lose. In that the world is made whole.”
“Words from the time of Grievance, before his Enlightenment,” Viserin replied, meeting her glare with a calm gaze, eyes steady, jaw set.
“Our interpretations differ,” she said, mirroring his words of earlier.
Viserin nodded calmly and sheathed his Imperial blade at his waist. In much the same manner that he had appeared he was suddenly gone. It was not so much that she had not seen him leave, but that he had walked away with such fluidity and stealth as to have been barely perceived.
With a decade’s practice she would not reach his level of skill, and what value the death of such a figure had to Crake she could not imagine. In the absence of answers, Jethra was left only with the growing feeling that she had been sent that day to die.
Chapter Nineteen
ALAINA
The folded note tumbled from Alaina’s fingers, falling to the floor, and landing with the soft scratch of parchment on stone. Erielle ducked and retrieved it, reading the short message with a gasp. It said simply: Arbelus is dead. You are in danger. Leave now.
Alaina couldn’t believe it, could not imagine that House Casterlin and their allies power and gall were such that they could murder the lord of another House with such disregard and impunity. She was being surrounded on all sides, put in a cage of Casterlin making.
“It’s not safe,” Erielle said. “You must go, we must go. We can make it to the city tonight, find a ship with your coin, get a message off to your brother, and be on our way.”
She was right of course, Alaina knew it. To delay any further would be reckless. Her desire to bring her brother’s murderers to justice trumped her own instinct for safety, but staying would make her a pawn in Blanche and Stans Wallace’s plans. They should go.
“I can’t leave without Halster,” she said. “With him, perhaps I can find the rest of my retinue. I can’t leave them behind.”
“Halster then,” said Erielle, setting her fists on her hips. “I told you, I heard he was in the lower levels. That’s where they keep the prisoners, enlisting all manner of torments upon them, if the tales are to be believed. Tonight, we go and find him, and then we leave.”
Alaina nodded, though she wasn’t looking at Erielle, was not really paying attention to her words. She was lost in thought in all that she had risked, and at how little it had gotten her. Yet, when the sun set that evening, the door lock held open against her inserted knife blade, she followed Erielle out into the darkness of the castle hallways.
The house guardsmen seemed to be in abundance of late, but Alaina and Erielle had grown practiced at avoiding them, learning their patrols, knowing who was likely to be slow to make their rounds, or who would be asleep in a corner, or visiting a lady or lord, for a late-night encounter. They made it to the stairway to the lower levels without being seen and then descended into gloom below.
The torches were fewer and farther between down here, and they passed door after door, thick, banded in iron, locked shut. On occasion they heard voices from within, or groans, the sound of moving chains, the crack of a flail. Alaina’s mind wandered with the possibilities, but then she reminded herself not to think on it. As if to reinforce this fact she said as much to Erielle as to herself, “We mustn’t think on it. We must stay focused. Find Halster.”
Erielle nodded, yellow-orange torchlight shining off her dark hair as she did. “Yes, m’lady. Yes.” She seemed as nervous as Alaina, but set to her work as determined as ever. When then they came to one of the thick doors, unremarkable from the rest but for a series of three scratches near the bottom, she stopped. “Here it is,” said Erielle. “The mark they said they’d leave. All it took was one of your gold coins put into their dirty little paws.”
Alaina nodded and they moved to either side of the door frame. After a moment’s delay, when all was confirmed as still quiet, she leaned her head in and pressed her ear against the door, listening. There were faint sounds from within, quick breathing, a groan. All of her efforts not to envision what horrors might await behind these doors was soon to be upended. She grabbed the iron ring that was handle, put her shoulder to the thick planks, and pushed.
The door opened more easily than Alaina would have imagined. A brightly lit chamber was revealed beyond, and when her eyes adjusted, she had a difficult time registering what she was seeing. Plush, velvet pillows, a decanter of wine, a clay bowl filled with small oranges and a vine of grapes. Then there was Halster Brighton, lying in a large bed. A figure was atop of him that gasped when the door opened, and jumped to her feet. It was dark-haired Anne Casterlin, looking flush, and wearing only a thin, white, shift. She looked surprised for a moment, but when she saw Alaina, she stifled a laugh behind the back of her hand. For his part Halster looked flush, but unharmed, in good health.
But when he saw Alaina he lurched in the bed, pulling the blankets around his body. “M-m’l-lady Alaina—” As he tried to get to his feet, he stumbled over the bedclothes, and fell onto his hands and knees on the floor. Alaina backed out of the room shaking her head, fighting down the bile that was rising up in her stomach.
Erielle grabbed Alaina’s hand and pulled her back down the hall and toward the staircase upward. “We must leave,” the other woman was saying, as she hurried through the dimness. “We can find a way to get your people out later, but for now we must go.”
She was right. It was time they departed, she had no inkling as to what was going on, where the rest of the men and women that had come with her from Lyle were, what she was to do. She would have to get aid from Byron to bring them back, to figure out what to do with Halster, to make any sense of it all.
As they arrived at her chamber door, Lord Stans Wallace was just arriving from the opposite direction. Alaina’s pulse quickened, she swallowed hard.
“My lady,” he said. “I was just coming to see you. I have wonderful news.” If he was surprised at the pair being out and about in the evening, he didn’t show it.
The news was, after a fas
hion, quite wonderful, and by the next day they were preparing to depart for her brother’s coronation. The day after that, carriages and carts laden with people and supplies, were heading south from Casterlin toward Valis. Alaina’s excitement almost made sitting in a carriage with Stans Wallace bearable. He droned on for a time about the weather and the dusty hills outside the window, but for the most part was silent.
It did give her time to think. About Halster and Anne, about how to get her attendants returned to Lyle after she rejoined Byron at Valis. About what else she could do to prove House Casterlin was behind the death of her brother, and what she could do to gain information about what had happened to her father. She felt that all of her efforts in coming east had been in vain, a waste of her and everyone’s time. But soon it wouldn’t matter, she’d tell Byron all she knew, and then they’d go on the offensive, with the power of a crown now behind them.
They passed by Novak and then Laire, gathering supplies and provisions, but did not tarry long. Despite the discomfort of bedding down in the bumpy carriage, Alaina didn’t mind. She wanted to get to Valis as soon as possible, she’d had enough of the east. Perhaps she didn’t have the resolve for the lies and deceptions that came with nobility after all, despite her upbringing, perhaps she would be better taking Will up on his offer to flee to the countryside. It seemed a simpler life, one with less stress, at the least.
Alaina had insisted that Erielle come with her, and Stans Wallace had acquiesced, despite glares from his mother that Alaina was certain were rooted deeply in suspicion. At the least, Blanche and Anne were in the carriage behind her, while Erielle rode up at the front of her own, with the driver. They could see each other when they stopped for breaks and when they took midday meals. Evening meals saw Alaina eating once again with the Casterlins, Alaina having to resume suffering the leers of Stans Wallace, the drunken laughter of Anne, who she now couldn’t help but see in an entirely different light, and the nit-picking of Blanche.
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