Nobody's Lady

by Amy McNulty

  Now that Darwyn and Tayton had abandoned their posts at my sides to form their protective barrier, I was free. Jaron stood at the center of that group, his blade clumsily drawn. The specters hadn’t disarmed him or Jurij, who’d been further inward when they arrived. I scanned the statue-like crowd of ghastly pale figures. There should have been enough of them to take the blades from Jaron and Jurij. But there weren’t. Not in the cavern anyway.

  “What happened to the rest of the specters?” My heart thundered wildly at the idea of vanished specters and dead men, more lives to go back and save.

  “Specters?” Ailill echoed my word as he stepped forward, hands clutched behind his back. “Oh. I keep forgetting what you call us.”

  Us? I supposed Ailill considered himself as one with them in a way. Although he seemed convinced with the curse broken, he wouldn’t find himself joining them.

  “They are detaining the rabble-rousers from what is left of the tavern.”

  “What’s left of it?” repeated Alvilda. “What did you do to it?” I was afraid she’d launch herself at the nearest specter, but Master Tailor grabbed her forearm and pulled her back with a warning glance.

  Ailill cocked his head. “I did not do anything. It was the men of this village who started the fire.”

  “Fire?” spat Jaron. “I never told them to start a fire!”

  Ailill raised an eyebrow and nodded at the nearest specter. They all lowered their weapons, holding them at their sides. “But you told them to start a fight, I assume?” He chuckled darkly. “I should have guessed. I only wonder how you managed to get out of the cells while I was distracted.”

  I shifted uncomfortably and decided to stand beside Jurij. We alone were between the specters and the line of villagers. “I let them out.” I eyed the nearest specter, as if I really had a hope of identifying which of them had dropped the key or which had almost spoken to me. Are the specters truly one and the same? “One of the Ailills dropped the key.”

  Ailill scanned his specters, struggling to contain a smile, my comment eliciting amusement when I expected anger. “Interesting,” he said, almost as if expecting the culprit to speak up. For, now that I thought about it, the idea of these perfectly trained statues doing anything on accident was absurd. I’d either found a rogue specter—and the thought that one had tried to speak to me led credence to that theory—or I’d played right into Ailill’s plans, which his lack of utter anger and disgust might attest to.

  Both ideas seemed wrong. Possible, but wrong. I’d never known a specter to act without Ailill’s instruction, or at least a general sense of what he’d wanted. But it made so little sense to me that this would be what he wanted.

  Ailill gave up on his fruitless search for the suspect and clasped his hands together in front of him. He studied us, staring over my head at the line of people behind me. Or at the deep red glow of the pond he insisted they should know nothing about.

  I used the silence as an opportunity to ask what I’d been dreading. “Ailill.” His head snapped toward me, a mixture of surprise and delight on his face. “My father?”

  “Olivière, you knew from the pages … ” He stopped, his eyes drawn back to the pool. “He was gone. I asked the tavern masters. He was one among a dozen or so who vanished in the battle. I am sorry.”

  As I thought. All the more reason I had to make this work.

  A scream of rage echoed around the cavern as Mother launched herself at the specter who had threatened Luuk, her arms flailing.

  “Mother, no!” I shouted.

  “Aubree!” I heard again and again.

  I pushed past Jurij, determined to stop her, afraid of her getting anywhere near a specter with a blade. But Mother turned sharply, running right toward me. I stopped, surprised, but Mother kept advancing, tears running down her cheeks. She was going to try to punish somebody for this. If she somehow thought I was to blame, if she, like everyone else, just wanted to lay the blame on me without giving me the chance to fix it, then I’d let her. I’d tried. I tried staying away from everyone. I tried letting solitude be my penance for my sin. I was tired of trying.

  An arm clamped down across my chest, dragging me backward. I tried to turn, but the force was too great. I kicked.

  “Now, hold on, Aubree!” Jaron! Jaron the flirt, the instigator, the all-around troublemaker I’d considered more of a friend when he hadn’t an original thought in his head. His left arm was clenched tight across my chest, his right hand still holding the sword awkwardly at his side. The tip of the blade poked into my skirt, ruffling it as he fought to hold me.

  Mother kept running, and Jaron did the unthinkable. He raised his sword so the tip pointed at my neck. “Aubree, stop!”

  Mother froze just a short distance from us. “Jaron, let her go! How could you?” She choked on her sobs. Like a coward, he’d used me as a shield. As though my mother’s fists could possibly harm him as much as he and the rest of the men had harmed the people in the tavern.

  “I’ll let her go,” he panted, but I didn’t feel at all comforted. I struggled to keep my feet firmly planted, but he was dragging me so that I rested on my toes. “I just want you to calm down and listen.”

  Mother shrieked. “Listen? Your foolishness killed my husband!”

  “Your former husband,” pointed out Jaron, a correction not at all appropriate given the circumstances.

  Mother’s face grew dark as her eyes widened. “I don’t care! I loved him even still!” She looked like she was barely restraining herself from leaping at him. “I wish I’d never loved you! I hate you!”

  Jaron’s grip slackened somewhat, and I almost twisted away, feeling the prick of the blade on my throat. But he tightened his grip again and backed up, turning his head to and fro. Everyone around him was suddenly an enemy, even if no one else had made a move. He turned us both so I could see Ailill again, but he was gone. Gone. Impossibly gone. In desperation, my eyes darted to Jurij. He looked from me, to Jaron, to my mother, and back. Frozen in place. His hand on his sword’s hilt.

  The specters were just a blur of white at the edge of the darkness. Not a single one moved forward to stop him.

  Jaron dragged us back through the circle, even as Alvilda swooped out to lay a hand on Mother’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” she sneered. “Jaron, let Noll go right now!”

  “Ha!” spat Jaron. “You can’t order me around, Alvilda! Not anymore!”

  “This isn’t about that, Jaron!” Master Tailor stepped beside his sister. “Great goddess, man! What are you doing? Let the girl go!”

  “I’m not doing anything!” He swung his sword out, pointing it at everyone in sight. “I just want you to listen. Calmly.”

  “You’re the one who’s not calm!” said Tayton. He took a step forward, swinging his clenched fist. “We didn’t want to hurt her!”

  “Tayton, no!” shouted Darwyn, grabbing onto his shoulder.

  “No one move.” Jaron flicked the sword back to my throat. It hurt. I could feel the warmth trickling down my skin. I didn’t dare breathe.

  “All right,” said Jaron after a moment of silence. He dragged me slowly backward until I felt the water lapping at my feet, and he froze, probably realizing he couldn’t retreat any farther without falling into the pool.

  “All right,” repeated Jaron. His breath fluttered across the top of my head. “Start talking, Noll. Tell us everything. Explain to them why I had to go to such lengths. And then we’ll all go home. We’ll be fine.”

  “My father is dead, Jaron.” I expected my voice to be strengthened by anger, but I practically choked on the words. “And so are a number of others.”

  “No,” said Jaron, in denial. “He’s lying. You hear me?” He waved his sword away from me, pointing it across the crowd. “The lord just doesn’t want us to know the truth.”

  I brought my heel down as hard as I could on his toes.

  “Gargh!” He bounced back, trying to maintain a gr
ip on me, his sword hand wobbling.

  I kicked back again, aiming for his shin, twisting my leg around his to drag us both down. I fumbled, and he brought the sword toward me, but I squirmed away and eventually wound my leg through his, using my fall to take him with me.

  I heard a man’s guttural scream from some distance away as I fell, but it was drowned out by the splash of the water, and then the thud of my head against the sediment. The roar of the movement in the water made everything else impossible to hear.

  Everything else but the beat of the heart. I twisted free of Jaron, who flailed beside me, and set out for deeper waters, to the point where neither of us could stand up. My head throbbed, and my vision blurred. I was overwhelmed by the red. The burning, fiery red from the heart in the water. The thump of the heartbeat. The threat of drowning.

  Time seemed to stop, and I reached out for it. I wanted that red to go away, and I tried willing back the violet light that had been more inviting. I floated in place close to the sediment, telling the orb I needed to go to the past.

  And then, whether I imagined it or not, I heard my name whispered. “Olivière.”

  The red bled into a dark violet. Yes! Take me back. Let me undo this!

  I reached out again, but it was gone, the red drowning out the violet once more, a pair of hands grabbing my wrists and tugging me upward.

  I tried to scream, to shout “No!” But when I opened my mouth, I invited in the water. It tasted sour, like the scent of copper. I closed my mouth and kicked, feeling the pressure of the water in my chest.

  “Olivière!” This time my name wasn’t so clear, but I felt a tugging at my wrists. I floated right up beside my captor.

  My eyes were blurry, thanks to the water and my throbbing head. But he was dressed all in black, his pale face inches from mine.

  I opened my mouth, “Ailill” spilling out across my tongue but sounding like only a gurgle of water. Why was he stopping me? I knew he hadn’t wanted me to use the pool, but couldn’t he see I had to? I wasn’t going to let this evening happen.

  I panicked, throwing my head back, and Ailill kicked, bringing us back to the surface after what seemed like forever but couldn’t have been more than a moment.

  We broke through the surface, and I vomited water. Ailill hugged me close to him, resting my chin over his shoulder and pounding on my back so I could throw up the rest of the water I’d swallowed. What should have been the quiet trickling of the cavern walls was filled with splashing and shouting. I couldn’t focus. I concentrated on breathing, on the way I felt so close to Ailill. I felt warm. Safe. Even though my head told me I was neither of those things.

  I had barely started breathing again when Ailill dropped his hand and swam backward, dragging me with him. “No!” he barked. “Stay back.”

  A mess of bodies slammed into us, almost knocking me under.

  “Leave her alone!”

  “Damn you!”

  The words were halted between splashes and gasps of breath as two—no, three, four—men splashed through the water, a tumble of limbs.

  “Just stop!”

  A glint of red reflected off a gilded blade. The tip poked out from the water, driven upward with a powerful swimming kick. There was no way I could avoid it. I froze, telling myself to swim away, to duck under, anything. Get out of the way!

  But as my eyes fixated on the blade, liquid red wrapped around my legs like a rope of solid blood. All the shouting died in my ears, and I heard only the echoing heartbeat of the water below. I couldn’t move. The red of the pool had restrained me. “Olivière!” It wasn’t calling me. It was angry with me. Why? Because I’d tried to order it? Because of what I’d done the last time I went through it? Whatever the reason, it would drown me, one way or the other.

  “Olivi—gah!”

  The tip of the blade shot up, stopping a hair’s breadth from the base of my throat, and I lurched away. The blade had come through Ailill’s chest, and now it dripped, dripped, dripped blood into the glowing red water.

  “Ailill!” I grabbed his upper arms, struggling to keep him from sinking. The squeeze of the red light on my legs faded, for what good it did now. I had to kick to stay afloat, but I was panicked. I couldn’t let him move, not with the blade still struck through his chest.

  Struck through his chest from behind, just like Elric had been when I led the rebellion to stop the men of the old village. And then I’d decided that I was a fool for playing at battle. That I never wanted to see bloodshed again.

  Ailill’s lips oozed with blood, but he tried to smile. It wasn’t a cruel smile. No, it was the most genuine smile I’d ever seen across his face. “I love … when you say … my name.” He spat out a river of blood, his head lurching forward.

  “Ailill!” I screamed again, not sure what to do. Lift him off the blade? Swim to the sediment? What can I do? How can I save him? “No, no, no, no, you can’t—”

  Though I clenched his arms so hard I might have left bruises, his body collapsed, leaving me holding nothing but black leather.

  “No!” I shouted again, but he was gone. Vanished into death. The very last death.

  And behind where he’d been, still clutching the hilt of the blade that dripped red with blood, was Jurij, his mouth agape.

  “You!” I screamed. “How could you? How could … ” I swam forward, screaming nonsense, ignoring the blade that hung limply from Jurij’s grip. I pounded my fists into the water, one hand still clutching Ailill’s jerkin.

  Jurij pulled the blade out of my path and then tossed it, letting it succumb to the heartbeat of the water. He swam backward, holding his hands out to stop my approach. “Noll, wait! Noll, listen! I didn’t mean to.”

  “You didn’t mean to? You were swinging around a weapon, and you didn’t mean to?” I reached him, snarling, and tried to clobber him, but I faltered when I hiccupped and choked on the flowing streams of tears. I could barely keep myself afloat. “Who were you trying to kill then, me?”

  Jurij swam backward out of my reach, the coward, and I just got my second wind to surge after him when Darwyn and Tayton appeared on either side of me, holding me in place.

  “Calm down, Noll!” shouted Darwyn, but he got a splash of water from my foot in his face.

  “Let’s get to the sediment,” said Tayton. He leaned his head back to avoid another flurry of kicks. “Noll, Noll. Let’s go.”

  “No!” I said, determined to dive back under, but they overpowered me. I reached out toward the red glow, willing it to turn violet, but it refused. It burned.

  You are not welcome here. The echoing voice in my mind was so harsh, so final, I knew at once that my last chance to go back to the past was beyond me. There would be no undoing this night, no matter how hard I tried. It was like Ailill’s death was final not just for him, but for all hope of miracles.

  The water surged like a great gust of wind shot through it, and I flew back, hearing screams echo throughout the cavern. When hands grabbed my arms again, I stopped resisting and was dragged out of the water toward the sediment.

  “What was that?” Alvilda’s voice rang out.

  The surge calmed into ripples behind me. But my heart sank. If I dove in, the pool would send me right back out. But maybe once I got clear of all of these people, I could try. And try. As many times as necessary.

  You’re a fool. Father and Ailill are gone, and all your power to stop it is gone with them.

  As soon as I broke free of the blood-stained water, Mother and—to my surprise—Elfriede swooped in on either side of me, wrapping me in their embraces.

  “Oh, Noll!” Mother rubbed my head and cradled me, her tears falling onto my forehead. “Noll, I was so worried.”

  I pushed her away, and fury that shouldn’t have been directed at her must have been plain on my face. She nodded at Elfriede, and they gave me space. I pounded the sediment as they moved back and stared at the jerkin in my raw and bleeding fist.

&
nbsp; “Where are they?” I stood on wobbly legs, gently shoving Elfriede when she swooped in to help me stand. “Jaron! Jurij!”

  I blinked, clearing the drops of water that still clung to my lashes and ignoring the pain that throbbed at the back of my head. I looked around, trying to bring the many—too many—figures into focus. And then I noticed the piles of white clothing in a half circle around the length of the pool’s sediment.

  “No!” I screamed again, walking toward the nearest pile, shoving aside several people who tried to stop me, who let me go despite my weak pushes and faltering steps. I collapsed, laying Ailill’s black jerkin next to the white jacket.

  I traced my fingers over both. Even though the black one was dark and wet, they had the same embroidery of roses and thorns. My fingers stopped on one of the white jacket’s blooms. On the black one, there was a hole framed in dark, dark blood.

  “Where are they?” I snarled again, turning around to face the group. Master Tailor stood beside Alvilda, and between them Jaron sat cross-legged on the ground, his arms tied behind him with his own scabbard belt. Siofra stood off to the side with Luuk and Nissa, her arm around Jurij’s shoulders.

  “Why?” I asked, leaping to my feet so ferociously I almost fell over. “Why did you kill him?” I didn’t know where to direct my anger, who was more to blame. But I stepped toward Jurij, passing by Jaron to beg for answers from the man I’d once loved more than anything.

  He was reluctant to look at me, and Siofra let go of him to stand between us. “Now, Noll, you couldn’t see what was going on.”

  I gripped the jerkin to my chest. “I don’t care! He killed him.”

  Jurij’s head snapped up. “Is that such an awful thing? He was going to imprison us for life. And you said yourself you didn’t want to be with him before the curse broke, and he forced you to be with him anyway.”

  “I was working on the imprisonment! And it wasn’t all his fault. You don’t understand!”

  “Apparently not.” Jurij looked down. “I thought you loved me.”