The Aisling Trilogy

by Cummings, Carole

  “Brayden,” Corliss warned, “say it and I’ll believe it. Don’t make me arrest you.”

  Perhaps it would be wiser: allow them to be arrested then figure out a way to get them out of it. Or say what Corliss wanted to hear and then figure out how to get Wil away again. No danger of having to fire on Corliss and whomever the two others from Putnam might be; no danger of having to fire on soldiers beside whom he would have been fighting ten years ago; no danger of either one of them getting shot while trying to escape…

  Dallin leaned in toward Wil. “Whatever happens, you get on that horse and you go, understand?”

  “Brayden!”

  Corliss sounded utterly horrified. It was enough to make Dallin flinch. He turned his gaze on her, hardened it.

  “You don’t know what’s going on here,” he told her forcefully.

  “I can bloody guess!”

  Ever the mum, Corliss. Dallin clenched his teeth. He pushed Wil back a little, but kept the grip on his arm. “It isn’t what you’re thinking. At least that’s not all of it.”

  “So, you are—”

  > “It’s bigger than that, Corliss, you’ve no idea what—Didn’t Jagger tell you any thing?”

  “Chief Jagger was arrested when word came back from Dudley that you’d absconded with the prisoner.”

  Dallin fell silent, stunned. He shook his head slowly.

  “For what?”

  Corliss thinned her mouth down to a tight line. “For conspiracy,” she told him, anger and betrayal flashing bright in her hazel eyes. “He wouldn’t speak against you, wouldn’t believe what they were saying, so they assumed he was in on it.” Her glance flashed at Wil, narrowed.

  “He’s been in solitary confinement since before I left, and likely still is— I wasn’t even allowed to see him.” She looked back at Dallin, eyes going softer, pleading. “Tell me it isn’t true,” she said evenly. “Tell me it isn’t true, and we’ll arrest this man, walk out of here together.” One hand still hovered at her holster, but the other went behind her back, reaching, Dallin knew, for the shackles at her belt.

  “You can still get out of this, Brayden. Everyone slips up; it’s not too late to fix it.”

  Perhaps if she’d said ‘Dallin’ rather than ‘Brayden’… Perhaps if Wil hadn’t tensed and caught his breath when her hand came out from behind her back, cool metal clinking between her fingers… Dallin pushed Wil farther behind him, kept his eyes steady on Corliss. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Corliss told him, gaze sad and regretful. Her hand finally settled on her gun, drew it from its holster. She aimed it at Dallin’s chest. “Constable Dallin Brayden. By the authority of the Province of Putnam, Constabulary of the Commonwealth of Cynewísan—”

  “Stop,” Wil told her, raised his hand.

  Dallin caught it, turned to Wil. “No,” he said quietly, “not her.” He didn’t think he could stand to see Corliss with that blank look on her face.

  “—you are under arrest on the charges of treason—”

  Treason. Even though he knew it was coming, it still hurt. Dallin couldn’t help the sharp wince and near-flinch.

  “Then what do you propose?” Wil growled.

  “—aiding and abetting a—”

  “Get yourself to Lind,” Dallin told him. “You know the way, you’ve got the money. Get out and keep running, don’t stop ’til you—”

  “Dallin!” Wil grabbed hold of Dallin’s arm with clutching fingers, shook. “You can’t let—”

  “Chosen!” A booming shout from out in the yard.

  Wil froze, fingers digging into Dallin’s arm so hard Dallin vaguely wondered if they’d meet in the middle. Even the mare, happily teasing at Wil’s coat with her big yellow teeth, jerked up her head, snorted then danced a little at the end of her rein.

  A small gasp from Wil, a watery moan then a broken whisper, breathless and terribly shaky: “Oh… no…”

  And with that one small puff of breath, whatever spell had held the stable workers in sway broke abruptly. Gazes sharpened, heads turned. Confusion ran slow tremors over dozens of faces. Alertness honed their glances, even as Wil staggered a little against Dallin, hand still clutching, holding himself up.

  Dallin watched Corliss watching it all, watched her jaw firm itself. Watched her turn her eyes to him and harden them. “I need help in here,” she called over her shoulder. “Woodrow, haul arse!”

  Woodrow? She brought Woodrow?

  “Mister Siofra,” she said, with quite a lot more tact,

  “I’ll ask you to stay where you are until the situation is more tenable.”

  “Wil.” Dallin turned back, pried Wil’s fingers loose, dismayed to the core to see the steady stream of bright scarlet dripping from his nose. Damn it, you went and pulled it back again. Don’t you know that’ll kill you? No choice but to ignore it right now. “Wil, you have to go.”

  “Chosen, dearest lost lad! Come to me now and all will be forgiven.”

  The tone turned Dallin’s stomach: paternal, just the right mix of command and kindness, condescending compassion. Dallin didn’t know why he was so surprised the man nearly pulled it off. He’d had fifty years to practice it, after all.

  “Constable Brayden.” By the sound of her voice, Corliss was advancing steadily. “You will surrender your firearms—”

  “Wil, get up on your horse.”

  Wil’s dazed eyes turned slowly to Dallin, that threatening panic from earlier now fully bloomed and flowering steadily. “I—”

  “You can,” Dallin snarled. “You can and you will. Get up on that bloody horse, Wil.” He closed his fist over the reins in Wil’s hand. “Right now.”

  “Brayden.” Right behind him now. A rolling click, the feel of a small circle of cold metal at his nape. “Don’t make me,” Corliss said, real pleading in her shaky voice.

  Dallin’s whole attention was on Wil. On the fear flaring out of his pores, on the sadness and desolation he’d touched before when Wil had been wandering inside himself. “Wil,” he hissed through his teeth, “get up on your fucking horse.”

  Wil was still shaking his head slowly, tears crowding his eyes now, dripping slow and thick down his blanched cheeks. “Don’t go away,” he whispered.

  It wrenched. Hard. Dallin gritted his teeth. “It’s my bullet,” he told Wil thickly, tried to smile and failed. “See that? You didn’t even have to throw me in front of it. So much for prophecies.” Wil opened his mouth—to protest, to scream, Dallin didn’t know—but Dallin cut him off.

  “I’m choosing you.” He made his voice as hard and fierce as he could. “Now get up on that fucking horse. Move it, soldier!”

  He didn’t give Wil any more time for paralysis. Dallin shoved him away, turned on Corliss. He grabbed for the gun, and prayed with everything in him that Wil was lurching into the saddle as he did it. Corliss apparently hadn’t believed Dallin would actually attack her; her gasp of surprise felt like a physical blow. Ignoring the ache in his chest, Dallin closed his hand over hers and crushed it against the butt of her gun to stop her from firing. At the same time, he spun her and clamped his hand over her mouth. She was fast and skilled in hand-to-hand—Dallin knew, because he’d trained her, which rose a whole new kind of sorrow he couldn’t pay attention to right now—but there was no denying that Dallin was simply bigger and stronger. He used it to full advantage, even as some part buried at the back of his heart mourned for the years-long friendship he was in the process of severing for good.

  Dallin craned a look over his shoulder, relieved to see Wil already mounted. He paused as Dallin caught his distraught gaze, swiped his sleeve distractedly at the blood pouring from his nose. Dallin wished he had a hand free to give the horse’s rump a sharp slap and get Wil moving. Corliss was writhing in Dallin’s grip. The shackles clattered to the floor as her left arm flailed back, whacked him in the head. When Dallin didn’t let go, she dug the heels of her boots into Dallin’s toes first, then kicked back at his shins, growling and p
robably cursing against his hand all the while. Dallin ignored it all.

  “Through the paddock,” he told Wil, jerked his head at the horse. “If she can’t jump the fence, push her, you know you can.”

  “Lad.”

  From the doorway this time, softly satisfied. Dallin didn’t even look, kept his eyes on Wil. He would have said Wil couldn’t look more terrified than he had just ten seconds ago, but the dread notched itself up as Wil jerked in the saddle, started to turn his head—

  “Don’t look at him, look at me,” Dallin snarled.

  “Come to me, Chosen,” Siofra crooned. “He can’t protect you. You know what he is. You know his destiny. Come to me now and I’ll take you home. All is forgiven.”

  “Wil, look at me, damn it.” And when Wil did, slowly, Dallin set his jaw, curled his lip on a derisive sneer, barked, “Caught and caged, Aisling, is that what you want?” He forced Corliss to raise her right hand—his around hers, hers around the gun—and pointed the barrel just over Wil’s head. “It’s either that or I keep my promise. Now, move your arse, damn you, go!”

  The paralysis broke: Wil kicked his heels into the horse’s barrel, tugged the reins, and crouched over her neck as she wheeled to the left. The mare took off with a low grunt and a clatter of hoofs. Dallin tried very hard not to wonder if this might be the last he ever saw of Wil.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when Wil’s hand shot out on his way by the lad who’d saddled his horse, grabbed the crossbow from him and just kept going. Cry, Dallin thought as he watched Wil dash away, scattering beast and rider alike before him as he went.

  A cacophony of voices burst from the yard, red and gold flicking past the open doors and through Dallin’s peripheral vision. Shouts and orders rose, but Dallin didn’t listen to them. He just kept watching Wil until he cleared the fence. Clenching his jaw against the burning behind his brow, Dallin let out a long, tight breath and closed his eyes. He dipped his head.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered to Corliss, let her go abruptly and raised his hands, rested them atop his head. He took a step back and lowered himself to one knee.

  “Two revolvers,” he said as she spun, gun raised and aimed right between his eyes, “right thigh and left hip, a sword on my left and a knife in my right boot.”

  She was breathing heavily, disbelief still twisting through the betrayal in her shocked gaze. “D’you know what you’ve just done?” she whispered harshly.

  Dallin nodded slowly, looked her in the eye. “I chose him,” was all he said.

  He’d never been shackled before. Dallin stayed silent and kept his mein as blank as he could make it, while Corliss guided his hands to the small of his back and snapped the iron about his wrists. He refused to allow his cheeks to darken, refused to allow his chin to dip. He was proud of what he’d done—from the moment he’d made the decision to help Wil and not arrest him—and no humiliating procedure would dim it. Down on one knee, disarmed, searched, the ghost-weight of the badge they’d taken from his pocket uncannily heavy. All of it seared into his chest, but the burn for what he’d come to see over the past few weeks as his real duty flared hotter. The eyes of every worker in the stables were on him, Commonwealth soldiers looked on from the door, Woodrow and Creighton stared at their boots, and still, Dallin kept his head up.

  “It breaks my heart,” Corliss whispered to him as the clasps snapped home.

  “And yet you’re doing it,” he murmured in return.

  Corliss stood, stepped in front of him, anger flashing.

  “It’s my job.”

  “I began by using that excuse myself.” Dallin met her gaze steadily. “Some jobs are bigger than others.”

  “You’d do the same in my place. You’re First Constable of Putnam, Brayden— First Constable. Don’t you even remember what that means?”

  He shrugged. “That title no longer belongs to me. I have another now.”

  Corliss went nearly white with rage. “What could be so bloody important that you’d just throw all of that away?

  I could weep for you, but you’re too damned stupid to weep for yourself!”

  Dallin merely looked at her calmly for a moment, accepting the rebuke, the hurt, the disappointment. “In your place,” he told her slowly, “I would have done you the honor of asking you that question before I’d done you the dis honor of shackling you and taking another’s word against you.” He paused, watching her gaze flinch and mist. “I weep only for the trust you owed me.”

  Her chin lifted, jaw tight. “As you will,” was all she said, then left him, kneeling in the center of the floor, while the rest of the party watered their horses and milled about, awaiting instructions.

  Dallin loved her like a sister, but he couldn’t regret her anger, her betrayal at his own supposed treachery, the loss of her regard—any of it. His entire life was lying dead in this stable so far from what he’d called home, and he could concentrate on nothing else but whether or not Wil had got away clean. Whether he was safe. What kind of welcome he’d receive in Lind. What might happen if—

  “You realize, of course,” Siofra told Dallin quietly, pacing slowly across the floor to stand in front of him, black boots shining as they clicked and clocked across the wooden boards, “that I will find him and bring him home.” He crouched down in front of Dallin, smiled, all charm and understanding. “You can’t be blamed entirely. He’s a very convincing liar.” His chuckle was sad as he shook his head. “I can only imagine what he’s told you.”

  I’ll just bet you can. Dallin kept his teeth clamped tight, stared straight ahead. Siofra really was a smarmy-looking man. Narrow and pale, he might have been considered decent-looking at one time, but arrogance and calculation had turned fair looks tight and pinched.

  Dark hair worn longish in the custom of Ríocht, combed straight and tucked behind his ears; thin lips over straight white teeth that flashed brilliant with a practiced smile that could almost pass for charismatic; too-sharp blue eyes that could either look right through you or look right past you, but Dallin would wager they never actually saw anyone.

  I see you, though. And far too well. Too bad we didn’t meet when we were both back in Putnam. Wil wouldn’t have even had to tell me why he was running from you. And it wouldn’t have taken me so damned long to decide to help him.

  The man looked far too young for what Dallin assumed to be his years. He had to be at least two decades older than Wil, and yet he looked like he hadn’t yet seen his fortieth birthday.

  Right, and I bet I know how you managed that, you soul-sucking weasel.

  “He can’t help himself,” Siofra went on. “You mustn’t blame him. The poor lad can’t tell fantasy from reality most of the time.”

  That’ll happen when you’re force-fed mæting all your life, but you didn’t manage to kill or steal his mind, did you? I’ll bet the brilliance of it was like a shining gem, just out of your reach, and that’s just eating you up, isn’t it? He fought you, and for more than fifty years, you couldn’t beat him.

  Despite himself, Dallin smirked. It made Siofra’s smile slip a bit, made the rage and hatred behind his eyes flash out, just for a second, before he schooled his expression back to one of charm and concern. He leaned in close, dipped his mouth to Dallin’s ear.

  “I know what you are,” he whispered in his thin, silky drawl, like the hiss of a snake. “I know where you’ve sent him.” He pulled back just a little, softened his smile, almost intimate. “I wonder if he’ll think you’ve betrayed him when he finds what’s waiting for him? Ah, but then he won’t make it, you know, so I don’t expect we’ll ever get an answer to that question. Pity.” He sighed. “It’s all been for nothing. He’ll never even get out of the city, and you?” The smile twisted. “I believe the punishment for treason is at least one thing upon which Cynewísan and Ríocht agree.” A wave of a long, pale hand. “Gibbets are the same everywhere, I expect.”

  None of it was surprising, none of it would get the rise out of
Dallin that Siofra was obviously looking for.

  Instead, Dallin leaned in himself, let the smirk curl wide and cocky. “He knows what you’ve done,” he whispered back. “He knows what I am—he knows what he is. He knows everything.” He mimicked Siofra’s own little performance, pulled back, returned the smile, let it twist smug. “He knows you’re coming,” he told Siofra, “and he’s ready for you this time.”

  Dallin was a much better bluff than Siofra was. Siofra’s face darkened. Rage suppressed beneath charm boiled up and flowed over into the glitter of his eyes, the clench of his teeth. He stood, mouth tight, glared at Dallin for a long moment before dragging his gaze away, turning it to Corliss, who was waiting over by the storage cabinet, watching.

  “I’m done here, Constable,” Siofra said, clipped and thin. “I’ll want to continue with this one at the Constabulary. Bring him along with your men—I don’t expect he can cause much trouble anymore. Let the local law deal with the other Linder. And after they’ve completed the search of the city and found the Chosen, see that these brave soldiers are housed appropriately in one of Chester’s better establishments. On Ríocht’s coin, of course.”

  With one last narrow look at Dallin, Siofra left the stable. Dallin watched him go, just barely keeping a smirk under control. That man actually thought he was going to interrogate Dallin? Fine. Let him ask his questions.

  They’d just see who got more information than whom.

  Dallin turned to Corliss when she made her way over to him. “Taking orders from Dominion scum now?” he asked mildly.

  Corliss colored only slightly. “You’re hardly one to talk about what another does for or with ‘Dominion scum,’” she bit back. Her mouth tightened and she shook her head. “You don’t know what’s happened, Brayden.”

  She took hold of his elbow, tugged. Dallin got to his feet with only a slight grimace; his knee was bloody killing him. “Both sides are massing at the borders again. The talks have fallen apart, and according to the Elders at the Guild, the only thing keeping them from blowing their war horns is the fact that General Wheeler has personally promised that the Commonwealth will find and return their Chosen. Those aren’t just soldiers out there; they’re infantry sharpshooters, hand-picked by Wheeler himself. You’re damned lucky none of them had to shoot at you—these lads don’t miss.”