by Jane Glatt
of the house. Footsteps became louder as they approached the room she was in and her sense of old steel confirmed that they carried a sword. The footsteps stopped outside the room and silently Brenna cursed. Except for the window, her only way out lay past an armed guard. A few minutes passed with no movement from the guard. If she hadn’t been able to sense his sword, she would have sworn he’d moved off by now.
Brenna’s muscles cramped painfully but she didn’t dare move. The guard had been standing outside the door for close to an hour. He didn’t know she was in here - he would have caught her by now if he’d known, wouldn’t he? It was just bad luck that he had chosen that spot to stand in.
There was only an hour before dawn and certain discovery - she’d have to go out through the window. It would be dangerous and noisy and she’d need the help of the gods to get over the wall, but it was a chance. Unless she could find a secret exit in the wall of the office.
With prayers to Jik for protection and Toru for knowledge, Brenna inched back towards the wall. She felt along the floor where it met the wall. Please be here. Most of the triggers at Feiren’s house were higher up but standing would expose her to the silent guard. Brenna’s hands feathered over the walls and she reached as high as her crouch allowed. There, that spot. Was that something? There was a soft click and she froze. The wall began to move out towards her. Light spilled out of the passage and she blinked. A cloaked figure held a lantern above her.
“Well, look here,” a man’s voice said. “I’ve caught myself a thief.”
Rough fingernails bit into the skin of her wrist and Brenna was dragged to her feet. She clamped her lips together and forced her body to relax. She wasn’t going to give this guard an excuse to hurt her. A second guard, her unknown watcher, appeared in the doorway to the office, a round ‘O’ of surprise on his face. He closed his mouth and shuttered his expression so fast Brenna wondered if she’d really seen that surprise.
“Aye, good catch, Barton,” the second guard said. “Looks like a thief to me, though you seem to have caught her before she could steal anything. I think the master will want to know about this first thing in the morning. Why don’t I lock her up? You can finish up with the scholar.”
Barton grunted his agreement and Brenna was handed off to the second guard. Her knife was quickly unbuckled from around her waist but they didn’t seem to notice her pack. She was marched through dimly lit rooms to a door that led down to the lower level of the house. She wasn’t surprised when she was finally pushed into a cell and the door closed. She heard the sound of a wooden bar being dropped into place on the door.
Her wrist bled where the first guard had grabbed her and she rubbed it. Enough light showed through the cracks around the door for her to see that it was a small room, no more than four feet square. Not enough room for a large man to lie flat, though Brenna would be able to stretch out if she lay corner to corner. Not that she planned on being here long enough to sleep. She needed to get out now.
She ran trembling fingers along the edges of the door, looking for something, anything, that might help. But the hinges were on the outside and they’d barred the door so there was no lock to pick. She pushed at the door fruitlessly before she sank to the cold stone floor. Think, she had to think. She couldn’t afford to give in to fear or despair - not even when they brought her before Duke Thorold, as they would, eventually. The thought of Thorold laughing at her helplessness, as he had laughed at her mother so many years ago made her so angry her fear burned away. She would not let him win.
Brenna pulled her pack off and dumped the contents on the floor. There, her lock picking tools. She grabbed a long thin piece of metal and knelt beside the door. She slipped the piece of metal between the door and the frame just below the bar. If she could just get one side of the bar off, she’d have a chance. But the metal tool was too short. She hunched over the pack contents again. Her mother’s knife, how could she have forgotten it? She unsheathed it and moved back to the door. As she did, the blade of the knife brushed her bleeding wrist and she felt a shock run up her arm. The knife glowed white hot and the single note that sounded in her head sent her to her knees.
Brenna shoved the blade under her vest and mentally reached for it. But when she touched it, the song had changed to a soft, calming hum. She clamped down and the light went out. Brenna pulled the knife out and studied it.
It was a simple, serviceable knife, smaller than she remembered. The double edged blade was slightly longer than Brenna’s hand with a plain straight cross piece and a small knob of a pommel. The handle was wrapped in well-used leather, darkened by all the hands that had gripped it over the years. Brenna remembered the way the knife had flashed in Wynne Trewen’s hands as she cut herbs or stripped willow bark from branches. She leaned over and sniffed at the leather somehow hoping to catch the scent of her mother, but she only smelled oiled leather.
Caught in the past, Brenna ran a finger over the blade. And then she had to clamp down on the knife when it flared again. A drop of something dark danced on the blade and then was absorbed into it. Curious, Brenna looked at her finger. There, a small knick from the blade. She touched the cut to the old steel and was surprised at the intensity as the blade once again flared to life. This time when she reached to control it her consciousness spiraled outward in an ever expanding circle, away from the cell in Thorold’s estate where her body knelt.
In wonder, Brenna saw pinpricks of light that she knew were old steel. There, a Brother with his family’s weapon, and over there, a discordant match between wielder and weapon. As her mind’s view expanded Brenna felt the pull of the coronet, and beside it, the mortar and pestle.
There was Kane. She knew that sword, knew its owner. If only she could reach him, tell him where she was. Kane she thought. But he couldn’t hear. Why would she think he could?
Subdued, she reeled herself back to the cell. The knife lay dark in her hands and she stared at it. Her mother’s knife. Full of magic she didn’t know how to use and secrets. Secrets her mother had never known. She tucked the knife back into her pack. Her knife now.
She was still imprisoned by Thorold, but knowing she had the knife brought her comfort. And she knew how to use it as a weapon. Her training might be good enough for her to kill Thorold before he had her killed. Strangely calm, she traced her bleeding thumb on a stone block beside her and watched as the red dried to rusty brown.
Startled, Kane stopped mid stride. “Brenna?” He shook his head and continued down the hall towards his office. For a moment he’d thought he’d heard Brenna calling his name. That’s what happens when you get far too little sleep. He and Dasid had much to do before he resigned his captaincy.
Kane dreaded telling King Mattias that he was leaving, that he would not fulfill his oath. When he’d sworn that oath he’d understood the importance of it, had always believed he would live up to the promise. And he’d grown into it until it had wrapped around his soul and become part of his identity. Now he would have to strip that away, just as he was stripping away his rank. For more than ten years, ever since he’d been a fifteen year old recruit, the Kingsguard had been his life. But he’d made another promise, taken another oath, before he’d been welcomed into the Guard. That duty called him now. But he didn’t like what he had to do, didn’t want to have to choose. Breaking an oath. No man did that lightly, especially not those who lived by them. But he would not be bitter - he would accept his fate even though he felt diminished. And if, his choice made, Brenna never accepted her destiny, he would have failed that oath as well. He had to gain her trust.
Kane turned into his office and found Dasid waiting for him with Ormston. His stomach flipped. Now what? Ormston had been set to watch over Brenna with instructions to let him know the moment she was in danger. He closed the door.
“What’s happened to her?” Kane asked. Ormston and Dasid exchange glances. “Come on, you wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t wrong.” And I wouldn’t have had that feeling on my way
here.
“Well, sir, the lass has been taken by Thorold,” Ormston said. “I had word early this morning from our man inside the duke’s house.”
Kane felt cold at the thought of Brenna in Thorold’s hands.
“How did this happen? Does he know who she is?”
“We don’t think so, Captain,” Dasid said. “It seems our girl was inside the house when she was discovered. From our accounts this morning, the duke doesn’t even know she’s there.”
“In the house.” Kane’s sat down heavily. “How did she get in? No, don’t bother to answer that.” She’d found a secret way into the house. She’d been applying herself to the secrets of his uncle’s house with such enthusiasm he’d thought she was simply bored. It turned out she’d had a different plan all together. He slumped lower in the chair.
“All right, Ormston. Thank you, you can go. Dasid will let you know if we need anything more from you.”
“What do you want to do?” Dasid asked once Ormston was gone
“What do I want to do? I want to stick to our original plan,” he said. He rubbed his temple with a shaky hand. “What I have to do is go in there and get her out. They won’t treat her as a simple thief for long.
