My Love

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  Myra, seeming to not care, sat right next to the hunched over dwarf, her fingers attempting to pick up the eyelids. She humphed at that and turned to look over her shoulder, but found no one there. "Right, forgot." Digging into her pocket, she unearthed a scrap of parchment and a small quill with its own tiny ink bottle.

  With so little ink at hand, Myra seemed to be using shorthand for her notes, jotting down a few letters and numbers as she pried at the corpse. "Blood dripping from his eyes, serious internal trauma...which was probably the knife slicing through his neck and spinal cord."

  Gavin winced at the description, the man barely able to glance over at his friend being picked apart like an animal at slaughter. "Did he drown?" he whispered, his eyes shut tight.

  Snapping away from whatever she was doing to the dead man's lips, Myra looked at Gavin. "In his own blood? Did he drown in it?" he whispered as if that was the worst fate to befall someone.

  Slowly she shook her head, "No, no this would have been quick. Instant death if it sliced right through the spinal column like that. Professional job. People who do this know what they're doing." As she said the last words, her eyes darted over to Anjali who grew silent while watching the proceedings.

  "He died sitting here, not even knowing it was coming," Myra blinked a moment and suddenly her head shot over to the boy. "Gavin?!" she gasped, her lip quivering, but he merely looked over in confusion. "Um," whatever she'd been thinking faded and she jabbed a finger at the corpse, "did you move him? Shift him in any way?"

  "No," he said.

  "Good, good, that'll help. No defensive wounds on his hands, there's some blood on his book but that's probably from..." her fingers drifted near the hole in his throat crusted over with blood. "Rigor mortis has set in practically fully. I'd have to check on his liver to be sure, but with this heat I'd guess he's been dead for three maybe four hours. When did you last see him?"

  "When I left for my chores in the afternoon," Gavin said, swallowing. "He was eating an apple, and...we made plans to," the boy paused, his hands balling into fists, "never mind."

  "So you were the last one he spoke to," Myra said.

  "I..." Gavin's lips fell open, "I believe so. I don't know, there could have been others. Why?"

  Myra held up her hands, "Just getting all the facts. Trying to make a timeline."

  "It is not my sword that perforated his throat," Gavin growled as if Myra had intended to drag him before a tribunal in chains.

  "I know, I... Ah shit, you did not remove it." She glanced at the back of the dwarf's neck and Myra groaned, "You removed it. No one touch anything else, okay! This is blighted hard enough in here without any light. Where's the weapon?"

  Gavin extended it to her and for a brief moment Myra drew her fingers across his palm. She was clearly attempting to comfort the man but he seemed in no mood for it. Snatching it up, Myra twisted the dagger around to her eyes.

  "Exact same," she surmised, before jabbing it at Anjali, "I assume?"

  "Yes, yes that is mine, but I swear by the Maker himself I did not..."

  Myra waved it away, in no mood for confessions. Before anyone could think to stop her, she hobbled out of tent leaving the three of them alone with a dead man. A hollow wind whistled in the air, darkness beginning its ascent in the world while this dwarf's soul... What did a dwarf's soul do? There was something about the stone but, Maker's breath, what was she to do with his dead body?

  Rosie turned to look at Anjali, the assassin in their midst. She should be acting repentant, throwing herself upon the mercy of the crown and doing her best to prove her innocence. But aside from a few small outbursts, the woman remained deceptively quiet. Did she fear speaking because any word could be used against her? Or did she have nothing to say to back up her innocence?

  Suddenly, the corpse of the dwarf jerked forward, causing every inhabitant to panic. Rosie practically leapt behind Gavin for fear Snowy was about to turn undead. The squire was quick to form a blockade to protect her, his shoulder slotting in over her view. But the dwarf did not lift his rigid head nor rise, the movement was solitary and apparently involuntary.

  Gripping onto the boy's shoulder, Rosie peered back to see her sister's shadow looming behind the dead corpse. "Myra?" she called loudly. "Was that you? What are you doing? Are you desecrating..."

  "Taking measurements!" her sister grumbled. "This is what happens when people remove the murder weapons, sheesh. Do you want me to do this or not?"

  "Please, continue," Rosie waved her fingers, though it was doubtful Myra could see. Her sister grumbled a bit, some of her choice words breaking loud enough to be heard, no doubt that was done on purpose but Rosamund had larger issues.

  Realizing she was yet hiding behind Gavin for protection, Rosie tried to slide away, when it struck her. Danger presented itself and...she did not leap towards Anjali. In fact, she kept herself further away from the assassin. Umber eyes bored into hers, seeming to come to the same conclusion.

  It was all conjecture at this point. There'd have to be a case drawn up. And what if Anjali is guilty? What if she came here to murder a random dwarf and nothing more? Or worse. What if she was some rabid killer the whole time who only pretended to be an assassin? A wolf in deadly sheep's clothing the entire time.

  Rosie struggled to lick her chapped lips, her eyes darting over the woman's closed off form, when the tent flap opened and Myra staggered in. She didn't look at any of the gathered people, but dropped to a knee and drew a string from the ground up to the blade of the embedded dagger. "Hm," Myra mused, the end of the quill wafting against her lips.

  "Do you have the proof you need?" Gavin hissed, his amber eyes burning into Anjali, "May we dispose of this murderer now?"

  "Not, no, I'm gonna need time to mock up some... Ah shit, I wish my mother was here. Or Lunet, she was great at playing dead bodies. Mom got all snippy when I didn't do it right. Cause it's easy to figure out how someone fell when the dead body keeps moving to yell at you," her mouth was chattering away while Myra prodded at the dead dwarf.

  "I don't understand, her weapon was found upon Snowy's...upon the dead man's body. Is that not enough?" He lifted his fists, clearly hoping to sink them deep into someone. A sympathy overwhelmed Rosie a moment as she looked over at Anjali's eye. For how great it was already swelling, it must hurt terribly.

  Myra tipped her head back and forth, "Funny thing about appearances, they can be real tricky liars. What I don't get is the motive. Rosie," she turned from her squat to look dead center at her sister, "you know any reason why she'd kill him?"

  "Why are you asking her?" Gavin interrupted, the hackles rising.

  Her sister pursed her lips, her eyes darting from Rosamund to Anjali, but she didn't say the reason. It was clear though what Myra was thinking. Bedmate or no, if she did it, Myra wouldn't hold back any punches. And she'd get their father involved for certain if Rosie tried to.

  "No," Rosamund said, attempting to find whatever bit of dignity she had remaining, "none that I know of."

  "I don't get it," Myra banged her foot on the ground slowly, "why kill a random dwarf squire? You gonna fill in on any of this?" Now she stared hard at Anjali, who slowly shook her head no and crossed her arms. "Figured. Maybe someone owed him money or..."

  Her eyes narrowed and she twisted her head around. Reaching into the grass beside Snowy's leg, Myra seemed to be digging for something under him. Rosie was about to request that she stop whatever was causing the dwarf's corpse to tip back and forth, when Myra unearthed her wanted object. It looked white with a silver blade at the end that was barely good for anything.

  "Well this is something. Gavin, you seen this before?" Myra was in full on detective mode, barely caring about any pretense.

  "Yes, it was..." he swallowed hard, his eyes dribbling in tears, "It was his personal knife. He'd use it on occasion for small matters."

  "What is it, Myra?" Rosie tried to lean closer to get a look, when her sister sighed.

  "I was go
nna ask you, actually. I don't know fancy vases from cheap clay, but this thing is ooold. You can practically feel the years clinging to the designs. What's a random squire dwarf doing with something this old in his pocket?"

  Rosamund accepted the blade in her palm, her fingers tracing over carved images of what had to be dwarves facing off against some unknown foe in the darkness. "Perhaps he stole it," she said.

  Myra shrugged at the possibility, but Gavin growled deep. He would hear no ill word spoken of his dead friend. But killing someone for stealing a prized possession could be motive. And not one Anjali would have anything to do with.

  "Turn it over," Anjali whispered from the side. All three pairs of eyes honed in on her for those three words, but she only stared back at Rosie. With laborious movements, Rosie did as commanded and her breath caught in her throat.

  While the other side was difficult to make out, this was clearly a dwarf at the top of their society guiding all the other dwarves to carve out and form the deep roads. The dagger grew ten times heavier in her palm as it struck her how both foreign and familiar this was.

  Their family had something similar, not a dagger but a hairpin that showed King Calenhad himself binding together all of Ferelden's clans with giant hands. This wasn't just a dagger carved out of the bone of a great beast. It was a proclamation that whosoever used it, or owned it, was tied to the great line from which it spawned.

  It was a royal dagger.

  "Oh sweet Maker," Rosie gasped, feeling her legs give out under her.

  "What? What is it?" Gavin tried to peek over, but he didn't understand. Myra seemed to be having a bit of trouble as well, her lips twisting into an o as she stared at the pictures upside down.

  "What did you know of Master Snowy, Squire? Did he ever tell you his real name?"

  "His real...?" Gavin's eyes whipped over to the poor dead dwarf before narrowing upon Rosie. "That was his real name."

  "I fear not. Myra, I'm going to need you to go through his things and try to determine his real alias. But be respectful."

  She rolled her eyes and muttered a duh, but Rosie wasn't finished.

  Curling her fingers over the dagger, she shut her eyes tight, "Because I suspect this man was a member of the dwarven royal family."

  Both Myra and Gavin gasped, their heads whipping to the dead man who'd been cut down without anyone in their camp the wiser of his origins. Except for one. Rosie honed in on the assassin who pointed it out, who knew what would be on the other side of the dagger.

  Rising up to her full height, Rosamund ordered, "Myra, finish your investigation. I shall give you free run of whatever you need."

  "Okay...?" Her sister said as if she wouldn't simply take what was necessary for her job anyway.

  "Squire Gavin, assist with laying out the dwarf's personal belongings and categorizing them. I'm certain Myra will have questions about them all."

  "Probably. You wouldn't believe how weird my mom gets about shoes."

  Gavin had to have heard her, but his head hung limply off his neck, his eyes boring into this dead man he called a friend. Whom he thought he knew as a brother in arms, and perhaps a brother period. The man who in death revealed more about himself than he ever did in life. Rosie gritted her teeth, risking her inner thoughts to dart her eyes over to the woman who could have been playing her the entire time.

  She cupped a hand to his arm and whispered, "If you can handle it. I will understand if..."

  "No, no, your Majesty," his eyes narrowed upon Anjali. "If it will bring that murderer to the noose, I shall do all I can."

  Rosie jerked her head to Anjali and both of them left Myra to do what she did best, and poor Gavin to grieve. Hopefully, her sister could comfort him while she investigated. Once out of the tent, Rosie halfway expected the assassin to kick her in the stomach and make a run for it. But Anjali stood quietly to the side, her hands folded together as in prayer while she stared at the sudden starlight.

  "Well," the woman spoke but did not turn to the princess, "I imagine you have questions."

  "Beyond counting, but that is my sister's domain. She will be the one to put you to them and word of advice," Rosie reached up on her toes to glare into Anjali's eyes, "I wouldn't play her as you have me. Myra does not go along well."

  "I never," her lips flattened, the woman bending at the obvious weight of truth before her, "It doesn't matter what I say. You'll all make up your minds anyway. What shall I do now, princess?"

  It stung. It shouldn't sting. Rosie should be the one doing the stinging, but she winced at Anjali's frostbitten tone. She didn't want to have her father be right, to have Gavin be right, but the assassin knew something. She knew who Snowy was, and that may be enough of a reason for her to kill him. Perhaps she planned to kill the dwarf, pin the blame on them for the death, then kill Rosie as well.

  A knife right to her heart while Rosamund's lips pressed against hers.

  Rosamund spun in place to find Ser Daryan huffing from whatever part of the camp she was roused out of. "Knight," Rosie ordered, "take this woman prisoner."

  Daryan's eyes darted over to Anjali who wasn't putting up a fuss, but she kept staring at the night's sky instead of her future jailers. "Okay. Why now?" the woman couldn't help but talk back even as she snagged one of Anjali's wrists. Daryan's movements were teetering, ones the assassin could easily take advantage of, but she didn't. She let her hands be bound together, her eyes haunting through the encroaching darkness.

  "We fear she may have murdered someone." Daryan snorted at that, as if there could be any other reason. Rosie watched with her wounded heart in her hand as Anjali was shoved into the back by the Knight. The assassin stood still a moment even through the assault, her eyes boring into Rosamund's.

  "How long am I to be kept in chains?" Anjali asked.

  It was truly up to the Princess in this matter. The dalish owning the lands cared not a whit about their problems. She could have her lover cut down without a thought. Let her anger boil over any sense of justice because it'd be easier than facing the fact that she'd been used.

  "If Myra finds any reason to doubt it was you," Rosie bundled her fingers together in thought, "then I shall let you go free."

  "And if not...?" Anjali couldn't stop from her cocksure posturing. She tipped her head with a smarmy smile on, but her eyes were those of a wounded and hunted animal.

  Rosamund turned away from her and focused on Ser Daryan. "Take her away." The Knight scoffed, shoving Anjali along while Rosie turned to stare out across the purples of the land. She gave no answer because she couldn't think of one, her heart struggling to turn itself to stone.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Justice

  By day two, Myra had spoken with damn near every person who ever knew a dwarf, never mind the dead one she couldn't escape. Without Qimat around to do her doodlings, Myra was forced to make due with her paltry attempts and spend more time around a rapidly decomposing corpse than she'd like. Her sister talked something up with the Dalish and they spared a few cold runes to try and preserve their mystery dwarf for Myra's investigation, but even the best couldn't compete against full summer. Flies were always circling around the small wagon they loaded the dead man onto, a small tarp the only bit of respectfulness left to him.

  Groaning, Myra pinched into her eyes but that wasn't enough to make her notes stop dancing in the weak candlelight. She knocked her hand into her forehead, hoping it'd focus something but there didn't seem to be much point. After two days, more or less, Myra was certain of two things. One, that Snowy was killed by someone no one else in the entire damn caravan could remember seeing. And two, it probably wasn't Anjali who did it. The circumstance was a bit more circumspect than she'd like given how everyone was on edge, but her mom would call it a shut case and have already moved her on to something else.

  Yet she couldn't stop picking at the numbers, expecting for a different outcome each time. "Ugh," Myra muttered to herself, "this is getting so bad I'm seeing his dead body
in my dreams."

  "Excuse me," a voice called out from beyond her tent.

  She whipped her head away from the traveling desk Rosie was kind enough to grant her use of. A shadow flitted through the thin canvas, taller than the night and more imposing than a forest fire. Then the hand rubbed against the back of the neck and she knew who it was.

  "You can come in, Gavin," Myra called. She glanced around quickly, trying to see if there was anything to hide away but instead of underwear or other girly things she was swamped in murder paraphernalia. Not as much as she'd like, all the blood stain kits were at home, but she made due with some red yarn and a very angry handmaiden. Rather than explain, Myra just yanked off her embroidery of a fox jumping over a log -- real original there -- and used it to try and map the trajectory of the stabbing.

  There was no reason to get so cross, Myra wiped most of the blood off before returning it.

  When Gavin entered, he kept his head tipped low, his amber eyes wafting over the ground. It'd been a tense few days, no one really certain of what to do with the squire who hauled off and punched a woman. She wasn't really defenseless and she may be a murderer, but...not the best form. Daryan seemed to be hovering between wishing to punish Gavin while also thank him for dealing with the Anjali problem once and for all.

  He really wasn't going to like what Myra had to say.

  "What have you found?" Gavin began as he had been doing on and off since he helped to carry Snowy's body to the cart. He didn't have to, there were lots of other people willing -- even the other squires, but that damn fool had to do it. Even if it broke his heart while he did.

  "Hi to you too. How are you doing? Me? Just great. Up to my elbows in clotted blood, but that's rather typical for a Tuesday..." Myra muttered to herself in annoyance to cover up for a stew of emotions boiling in her gut. Sadness, exhaustion, worry, and a bit of a broken heart. Damn thing should be fine by now, but looking at him like this somehow made it all worse. She wanted to comfort him, the man clearly swallowing down the pain like eating bottles of broken glass, but that would be unseemly.