Rabbit? You can hear me? You can hear me?! I tried to imagine the dragon screaming the words.
In response Rabbit raised a hand to her mouth and nodded.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
I tried yelling at her to let them know I was still alive, trapped in here with Lucille. But I didn’t hear any response. The tiny voice was gone, and I might have believed it was my imagination if it wasn’t for the frustrated expression on Rabbit’s face.
She had lost my voice, too.
• • •
I felt badly for Rabbit. She was mute, but she had always been good at communicating with her peers. At least that was how it had always seemed to me. Now as I saw her pacing and gesturing at Lucille and Krys, I realized that the apparent ease of her communication was due almost entirely to the self-imposed limits she had placed on what she attempted to communicate.
In other words, “I’m hungry” is a lot easier to get across nonverbally than, “Frank’s alive and I can hear his disembodied voice.”
Worse, I wasn’t exactly sure she knew I was alive. Remembering odd glances from her, here and there, I suspected she had heard me a few times now, but from her point of view I might just be a ghost.
But I wasn’t a ghost.
I was alive.
Wasn’t I?
Trapped behind Lucille’s eyes, I began to worry that it was a distinction without a difference.
Rabbit paced around the remains of the fire between Krys and Lucille, shaking her head.
“What’s the matter?” Lucille asked for what might have been the dozenth time.
Rabbit sighed and pointed at Lucille’s forehead, then at her own ear.
“You hear me?”
Rabbit made a gesture of grabbing something and not quite catching it.
“No, but close,” Kris said.
Rabbit nodded.
“I said something?” Lucille asked.
Rabbit frowned and stomped her foot.
“You want me to say something?”
Rabbit pointed at herself, then at her ears. Then she pointed at Lucille and covered her ears.
“I said something you didn’t want to hear?”
Rabbit gave a frustrated look at the heavens, spun around facing Krys, and repeated the sequence; pointing at herself, then at her ears, then pointing at Krys and covering her ears.
“Krys said something—”
Lucille was interrupted by a frustrated grunt from Rabbit.
“I’m sorry,” Lucille said. “I’m trying. Why don’t you just write it down?”
Rabbit turned and glared at us.
“What?” Lucille said.
“Your Highness,” Krys said, “we never had much chance for tutoring.”
“What do—oh.”
Rabbit gave Lucille a withering stare that I thought was a little unfair. Yes, it was a bit much to assume that a homeless teenage girl, an outlaw who had spent at least one year living a feral life in the woods, might have picked up some skills in reading and writing. But in all fairness, it was a bit much to assume a pampered aristocrat had any idea what such a life might be like.
But then Rabbit’s eyes widened and she smiled.
She pulled out her dagger and cleared a space on the ground. Literate or not, she still knew the same thieves’ symbols that Krys had used earlier. It might be a limited vocabulary, but it would probably be better getting the idea across.
That’s what I thought, anyway.
Rabbit sketched a circle with a dot followed by a pair of triangles joined at the tip.
“Ah,” Krys said.
“What does that mean?” Lucille asked.
“A friend was here before?” Krys said.
Rabbit underlined the triangles.
“A short time before?”
Rabbit underlined the triangles again.
“Very short time before?”
Underlined violently.
“Now?”
Rabbit dropped the knife and clapped her hands.
“A friend is here now?” Krys asked.
“What does this have to do with what I said?” Lucille asked.
Rabbit pointed at herself and her own ears again. Then she got up and pointed at Lucille, her finger poking the hollow between our breasts just above the hanging pendant. Then she reached over and covered our ears with her cupped hands.
“I don’t—”
Krys interrupted, “You’re hearing something we don’t!”
Rabbit spun around and clapped her hands again.
“What are you hearing?” Lucille asked.
Rabbit turned and pointed at Lucille.
“You’re hearing me?”
Rabbit sighed and put her face in her hands.
“You’re not making sense.”
Rabbit glared at us, then pointed at her ear and slowly again at our chest.
“But not me?” Lucille asked, puzzled.
Rabbit slowly nodded.
“I got it!” Lucille said.
“What?” Krys asked.
Lucille grabbed the elf-pendant that had been hanging from her neck. She held it up in triumph. “You’re hearing this thing!”
Rabbit stared at the thing, then stared at Lucille.
“No,” Lucille said, “that’s the only thing that makes any sense.” She dropped the pendant. “Why are you pointing at me when you don’t mean me?”
Rabbit spread her hands in a gesture that said, “And?” Her face looked expectant.
“How can it be me and not me?”
Come on, Lucille, what else could she mean?
Rabbit waved her hands, “Go on.”
“Me and not me,” Lucille repeated.
Rabbit turned and pointed down at the symbols she’d written in the dirt. A friend is here now.
Krys clapped her hands. “I got it! She’s talking about Frank!”
Rabbit grinned, made a joyous grunt and ran to embrace Krys so hard that she lifted the taller girl’s feet off the ground.
“Frank?” Lucille whispered.
Rabbit turned around and nodded. The goofy grin on her face froze the moment she locked eyes with Lucille.
“Frank?” Lucille’s voice sounded low and hoarse, clawing its way through muscles that were taut enough to strangle them. I felt her clenched fists, and felt her pulse throb in our neck. “You heard Frank?”
Rabbit nodded slowly, her smile boiling away like a snowdrift before an angry dragon.
Krys’s face showed a growing alarm. I didn’t blame her. Lucille’s anger was not to be trifled with, and that was only partly because she recently played the role of a dragon. Krys took a half step forward and said, “Your Highness—”
Lucille silenced her by raising one hand and glancing in her direction. She didn’t even move her head.
Why doesn’t that ever work for me?
“You’re telling me that you’ve heard my wife . . . husband . . . Frank?”
Rabbit nodded.
“How?” Lucille said.
Rabbit stared a couple of moments before slowly shaking her head and giving the barest of shrugs.
“You don’t know how.”
Rabbit spread her hands helplessly. I felt sorry for her.
“You don’t—” Lucille bit off her own words. “When? When did you hear him?”
Rabbit immediately pointed up, and then lowered her arm to point below the horizon.
“What in the Seven Hells does that mean?” Lucille snapped.
“Your Highness—”
Lucille spun around to Krys. “What!”
“She’s pointing at the sun . . .”
“And that . . . oh.”
“She’s saying that she heard him about the tim
e you both woke up. Sun just below the horizon, through the trees there.”
Rabbit nodded at Krys.
“When we woke . . .” Lucille sighed, and I felt all the tension drain from our body. I suddenly realized where her thoughts were leading her.
No! Lucille! I’m really here!
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Lucille said to Rabbit. “This wasn’t your fault.”
Rabbit cocked her head and furrowed her brow in confusion.
“We’re all under a lot of stress,” Lucille said. “But we should get back on the road to Fell Green. Time’s still slipping away.”
As she turned away from them to gather her horse, I caught Krys and Rabbit exchanging a confused glance out of the corner of our eye.
“Lucille?”
She looked back over her shoulder at Krys.
“What about Frank?”
Yes. What about me?
“Krys? You know.”
“No. I don’t.”
Lucille turned back around to face Rabbit and spoke in a voice that was little above a whisper. “You don’t hear him now, do you?”
You hear me! I mentally screamed at her. Here I am! You hear me! Of course you hear me!
Rabbit shook her head “no.”
“No,” Krys said. “No. You’re wrong. He’s still here.” She grabbed Rabbit’s shoulders and said, “He’s still here!”
“It was a dream, Krys,” Lucille said. “She just dreamed what she wanted to hear. What we all wanted to hear.”
Rabbit! Tell her she’s wrong!
Instead Rabbit reached up and hugged Krys. She shook her own head, but I could tell that she was just as convinced as Lucille was.
I’m here damn it!
But if I was, why couldn’t Rabbit hear me now?
• • •
Lucille’s trio rode on most of the morning in silence, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I didn’t feel dead. Not that I would have any clue what that would feel like. I had just assumed that death was such a disruptive change that you couldn’t help but realize when it happened.
I don’t know why I had expected it to conform to my expectations, no other aspect of my existence ever had.
Still, despite my inability to act or move under my own volition, I wasn’t some disembodied spirit. I was very bodied. I could feel Lucille’s armor chafing the inside of our thighs as we rode. I felt the fancy braided hairdo, left over from the banquet, tugging against our scalp. I felt trails of sweat dripping down the center of our chest, spreading to make the underside of our boobs itch.
I felt us breathe. I felt us sigh. I felt the corners of our eyes burn as we blinked our tears away.
I found the atmosphere so depressing that I almost felt relieved when an arrow shaft sprouted from the path ahead of us.
CHAPTER 9
The horses half-reared and backed as a huge jet-black stallion stepped out into the path. A tall gentleman with a close-trimmed beard rode the beast, his hair—as much of it as was visible beneath his broad hat—as black as his horse, his leather as black as his hair. I didn’t get the greatest look at the guy, as Lucille turned her head to look at the path behind us for an escape route. Of course, a pair of mounted highwaymen were already behind us, long swords drawn and at the ready. They had picked a good place for an ambush, where the trail hit a long blind curve between two steep hillsides covered in deadfalls impossible for a horse to navigate and dense enough to hide an archer or five.
“I am afraid this is a robbery.” Lucille turned back around as the black-clad man spoke. I felt an itching familiarity when she focused our attention on him. His skin was nearly translucently pale, in ghostlike contrast to a cascade of black that the Dark Lord Nâtlac would probably think was a bit much.
Lucille drew her horse up and straightened our spine. “You have the gall to prey on travelers on the king’s highway in broad daylight?”
“My apologies, but my archers are not very good. They need to see the target, or they have a habit of damaging things I want.” He dropped the reins and bent over to whisper something in his mount’s ear. Then he vaulted off as if his horse was an ebony statue. His landing would have done Sir Forsythe proud, lightly on both feet, facing us so he didn’t even need to turn his head to continue talking to Lucille. “But please, do not let my bowmen’s incompetence prompt any of you to act rashly. A shower of arrows would end badly for you all, no matter how poorly they are placed.”
“What do you want?” Krys snapped.
He spread his hands. “What does anyone want? Good food, strong wine, hale companions, a warm place to lay my weary head, someone to comfort me through the long dark night. Alas I must satisfy myself with your gold, weapons, and jewelry. Please be so kind as to dismount.”
Why did he seem so familiar?
Lucille exchanged a glace with Krys.
“Oh dear, you aren’t going to resist, are you? There’s no reason for this to be unpleasant.”
“Do you know who I am?” Lucille asked.
Lucille, bad plan. Royalty won’t intimidate him. He’ll just see it as an opportunity for ransom.
She dismounted, and I caught a glimpse of Krys’s face which showed the same reservations I had. When our feet touched the ground the height differential between us and the black-clad highwayman became very apparent. She only took a half step toward him, since any closer would require her to painfully bend her neck to look him in the eye.
“Will you care to enlighten me, fair lady?”
“My name is Frank Blackthorne,” she said.
Uh, what are you doing?
The highwayman arched an eyebrow. “You are?”
“You know me?”
“In my experience, very few women call themselves Frank.”
“Then you know that I carry the whole weight of the Lendowyn Crown behind me.”
“Are you trying to impress me, Your Highness?”
Steel crept into her voice, a tone of authority I had only managed to emulate once or twice myself. “Then maybe you know my history. I’ve stolen the rings off Grünwald’s Dark Queen while her whole court looked on. I cast her into darkness while the armies of the Dark Lord Nâtlac were torn apart before me. I have been that Dark Queen. I’ve married dragons and have been kissed by gods. I have torn nations apart and reassembled them. The road I travel leads to war with the elf-king himself. Do you imagine you hold any terror for me?”
Okay, when you put it that way, it sounds a little impressive.
The highwayman clapped slowly, and suddenly the familiarity made sense. The subtle combination of boredom, arrogance, and bemusement must run in the family.
Lucille apparently didn’t notice. “I suggest you allow us to go unmolested.”
He shook his head and said, “War with the elf-king, you say? That is very interesting. How is Uncle Timoras these days?”
“U-Uncle?” Krys sputtered.
“You’re an elf?” Lucille said, only slightly less startled than Krys.
“Not by my uncle’s account—and I would count him an expert on such matters.”
What was it about royal bastards that made them want to muscle in on my profession?
Lucille stared at him. I guess she was trying to see his elvish heritage. To me, it was obvious in his bearing, his posture, the body language and mannerisms, the pale skin—but I was used to looking through disguises. Most people, including Lucille, would focus on the externalities like the fact that no elf would be caught dead with facial hair or such a drab monochrome outfit.
He clapped his hands sharply. “Focus, My Lady!”
Lucille blinked. “Huh?”
“You mentioned war. That’s no trivial statement. Timoras’s kingdom has not borne arms against an enemy for over a thousand years. Were you inflating your own importance? Or has my dear demented
uncle become bored enough to play general? Are there armies moving? Tell me!”
He kept edging forward until he towered over us.
“King Timoras has threatened war—” Lucile began.
“Against Lendowyn? To what end? This kingdom is less than irrelevant to him. You must be mistaken. Or lying.”
“Not Lendowyn.”
“Of course not. Against whom then? What great foe has moved my uncle to arms? Tell me! Who does he move against?”
“Everyone,” Krys said quietly.
Our highwayman paused, closed his mouth, and took a step back, looking in Krys’s direction. “Everyone? What do you mean? Everyone?”
“In his own words,” Lucille said, “he intends to ‘declare war on the world of men.’”
He laughed.
“I fail to see the humor,” Lucille said.
He shook his head and wiped his eyes. “No. You obviously mistook some rhetorical flourish of his. He can be prone to hyperbole.”
“He seemed deadly earnest to me.”
“I know that humans can find elf humor somewhat dry. Even with my heritage, I often find some idioms inscrutable—”
“I think he was upset about Prince Daemonlas.”
“Did my cousin become involved with some mischief?” He glanced back at Lucille with a knowing grin. “Or . . . a woman? Of course! That is that what all of this is about. Daemonlas always had a weakness for mortal women. He’s found yet another royal strumpet to seduce, hasn’t he?”
“Prince Daemonlas is dead,” Lucille answered.
The grin froze on his face and he almost ceased to breathe. “What?”
“Prince Daemonlas is dead,” Lucille repeated.
“Dead? How?”
“He attacked our anniversary celebration and my . . . spouse . . . with hostile magic.”
He grabbed our shoulders. “No! Answer my question! How did the prince die?”
Krys said, “I think it was the broadsword through the chest that did it.”
That stopped our highwayman so sharply that you’d almost think the same broadsword had pierced him. He let our shoulders go, took a step back, and bowed slightly. “I apologize for my rudeness, but I am afraid I have become aware of a prior commitment that requires my immediate attention.”
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