Interlude

by Krista D. Ball

  Jovan was busy peering through the cracks in the door. “I don’t see them.”

  “Who?” Bethany whispered. “What’s going on?” She glanced across the room; her Blessed Blades were ready on the trunk at the foot of her bed.

  “Aneese is after us,” Jovan whispered.

  “Oh, just get out!”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Do not tell me what to do, Jovan,” she snarled. “Buck naked or not, I can kick your ass and you know it.”

  “Bethany...” Kiner began.

  “You,” she said accusingly. “I told you to go find Arrago. I didn’t mean for you to bring him here.”

  “Sorry,” Arrago said, “they...they forced me to come.”

  Bethany turned to Jovan, who had a rather guilty look on his face. She looked back at Arrago. “They forced you?”

  “Well...” Kiner hedged.

  “Not exactly,” Jovan said.

  Arrago lifted his hands. “Not exactly? You picked up my chair with me still in it.”

  “I didn’t have time to argue with you,” Jovan said, as though it made perfect sense. “Kiner, explain it to him.”

  “Explain it to me,” Bethany said, her tone steady. “Explain why you kidnapped my aide and brought him to my bedroom while I’m naked.”

  The two people closest to her in the world stared at her, then at Arrago, and then back at her quasi-naked form.

  “Erm,” Jovan said.

  “Um,” Kiner added.

  “Exactly. This is my day off. We’re going to Eve’s tomorrow. And the next day we ride back. The next two days of my holiday will be spent on a horse. I simply wanted one evening to myself, to have a bath, to sleep, to eat olives. That’s it.” She gritted her teeth. “And then you come charging into my room with my aide! And I’m naked!”

  Jovan waved her off. “Pish, it’s not like we haven’t seen you naked before.”

  She thrust her finger in Arrago’s direction. “He hasn’t!”

  More silence.

  “Arrago,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “What are you doing here?”

  Jovan began to answer, but Bethany cast him the frostiest glare she could. Naked or not, she would break his leg in fourteen places if he didn’t shut up. Clearly he recognized the look, because he clamped his mouth shut.

  “I was at my desk,” Arrago said, clearly trying to look her in the eyes and look at the floor and not look at anything in between, “working. Then these two come bursting in, talking over each other so I couldn’t understand anything.” He shot a glare at Jovan. “Then this one says something about no time, and picks me up! Chair and all, and takes me off down the hallway with Lord Kiner over there following behind shouting at Jovan to be careful.”

  Bethany exhaled as a headache formed behind her eyes. “Then what?”

  “They dragged me up here. I still don’t know what’s going on, unless it’s something to do with the fact that I did need all of you to sign stuff.” His glare was for Bethany this time. “But some of you were too busy to talk to me.” He crossed his arms.

  She held the wet tunic closer to her. She couldn’t turn around to fetch clothes, and she refused to be so undignified as to walk backwards and hide in the closet. So she stood there. “Whatever you needed me for can wait,” she said.

  “No, that’s the problem,” Kiner said, “It can’t wait.”

  “The three of you didn’t sign the ledger for taking time off,” Arrago said.

  “So? And what ledger?”

  Arrago rolled his eyes. “If you paid attention in your senior official meetings, you‘d know. Mother Aneese wanted a ledger kept of who was and wasn’t at the temple. It was implemented a month ago.”

  “It was?” Bethany asked. She looked at Jovan. “I don’t remember that.”

  Jovan shrugged. “It sounds vaguely familiar, but I didn’t realize Torius went through with it.”

  “Yes, Father Torius did go through with it,” Arrago said. “So I’ve been trying to get Bethany to sign a letter for it all day.”

  She felt rather stupid. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Perhaps it was the threat of violence that made me feel less interested in covering your ass,” he snapped, then looked in the direction of her bare posterior and turned away, blushing even brighter. “So to speak.”

  “All right, so we didn’t sign the stupid paper thingy. So what? Just bring it here, we all sign it, you all leave, and I put on clothes.”

  “Mother Aneese knows about the ledger,” Kiner said.

  “That’s why we kidnapped the kid,” Jovan added.

  Bethany blinked. “You kidnapped Arrago, as opposed to bringing the stupid book with you?”

  Again, silence.

  “Right. Okay. Let me put some clothes on and we’ll go fix this.”

  Arrago shook his head. “It’s too late. The Diplomat arrived and Mother Aneese is looking for someone to—”

  “Babysit him,” Jovan finished. Then he shook his head, “We’re doomed.”

  “Shit,” Bethany whispered. “She’s going to make us look after him, isn’t she? Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  “Pretty much,” Jovan said gravely.

  Arrago stared at them. “Um, so you don’t have a day off and have to look after someone important? Big deal.”

  The Tranquility Trio stared at Arrago until he flinched.

  “The ‘big deal’ as you call it,” Bethany said, “is that the last time we babysat Relas, he got drunk and put his hands down Jovan’s trousers.”

  Jovan nodded. “When I objected to being manhandled, he punched me. Bethany and Kiner were drunk and jumped him.”

  “I was not drunk,” both Kiner and Bethany replied.

  “Drunk and jumped him,” Jovan repeated, “and then Relas’s guards jumped them, and on and on. By the time Allric and Torius showed up, the entire dining hall was a giant brawl.”

  “We all got sentry duty,” Bethany said meekly.

  “For a month,” Kiner added.

  “For causing a riot,” Bethany said.

  “A month on top of our regular duties,” Jovan clarified. “You can see why we want to avoid him”

  Bethany blew out a breath in irritation. “We can't stay here. Make a run for Eve’s tonight?”

  Jovan and Kiner nodded.

  “Wait,” Arrago said. “No one is after me. Why am I still here?”

  “You’re enjoying Bethany naked?” Jovan asked.

  “You are such a...a...”

  Jovan took a step toward the human. “Such a what?”

  “Asshole.”

  Jovan quirked a smile and put his arm around Arrago. “That’s my boy.”

  Arrago pushed him away. “Get your hands off me.”

  “Whoa!” Jovan said, his tone exaggerating. “The farmboy is upset.”

  “Jovan...” Bethany growled in warning.

  “You come bursting into my office, literally kidnap me, drag me up into Bethany’s bedroom, for Apexia’s merciful sake, and I’m supposed to stand here and be all friends and accomplices?” Arrago snorted. “I don’t think so, points.”

  “Oh shit,” Kiner murmured.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Jovan,” Bethany said, “leave him be. You started it.”

  “Shut up, Bethany.”

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Arrago snapped.

  “I don’t need you to defend me,” Bethany said, glaring at Arrago. “Just...everyone calm down.” She paused for a beat before adding, “I can’t believe I’m the one saying that.”

  Side-stepping to avoid turning her bare Elorian ass to the crowd, Bethany moved closer to Arrago. “Jovan, leave him be. Arrago, don’t call any elf ‘points’ again if you want to keep your face intact.”

  “You know what? Then stop calling me farmboy. I’m not even from a farm.”

  Jovan pushed Arrago. “Shut up, farmboy.”

  Arrago swung at Jovan and his fist landed square
on Jovan’s jaw. Without missing a beat, Jovan swung back and Arrago ducked—and Jovan’s fist slammed into Bethany’s nose. She fell backwards, tunic flying to one side, stars and tears filling her eyes.

  “You hit her!” Arrago yelled and rushed Jovan.

  “Stop it, both of you!” Kiner shouted, trying to pull them apart.

  Bethany tried to sit up, dizzy. She lay back and watched the ceiling spin. She knew she was sprawled naked on her rug, but her body wouldn’t respond. Had she hit her head? Ow. It sure hurt enough.

  As she groaned and finally pulled herself up, Kiner landed on top of her, slamming her back to the floor.

  “Get off me!”

  “Sorry, Bethany.” He tried pushing himself up, but struggled to find a place to put his hands.

  “Oh just get up,” she said, pushing at him.

  That’s when Jovan threw Arrago to the floor. But Arrago had a hold of him by the trousers and they all tumbled in a heap, Jovan’s trousers ripping as Arrago fell.

  Kiner was the first to laugh.

  “What is so funny?” Bethany demanded.

  “There’s three men on top of you, and you’re naked. It’s rather funny.”

  Bethany tried glaring, but a laugh burst from her too. Jovan was missing part of his trousers. Arrago’s lip was bleeding. Kiner was covered in the blood from Bethany’s bleeding nose. “Stop making me laugh, it hurts.”

  With the men trying to untangle themselves from a very naked, blood-splattered Bethany, it proved the best moment for Mother Aneese and Relas to walk into Bethany’s room.

  “Lady Bethany!” Aneese said, and her tone promised imminent violence that one would not expect from an eight-hundred-year-old elf. “What is this?”

  “Um,” Bethany said, not moving. The men on top of her were at least hiding most of her bits and pieces.

  “Erm,” Jovan added.

  Relas turned to Aneese. “This is how the most senior knights behave, is it? Is this normal?”

  “It certainly is not,” Aneese answered, steel in her voice. “They will be heavily punished for this.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Bethany exclaimed, mostly to herself. “I just wanted a day off.”

  “Then you should have gotten your time off signed for in the ledger,” Aneese said.

  “The fucking ledger,” Bethany snarled under her breath.

  ***

  Rain fell from the sky in sheets. Ocean waves crashed against the dock posts, spraying cold salt water. The wind howled and blew from the ocean, cutting through the soaked figures who stood on the forlorn dock.

  “I might never speak to any of you again,” Bethany said.

  “Hey! I’m the innocent one,” Arrago protested. “I was kidnapped! At least you’re in all that armor. I’m going to die of hypothermia.”

  Bethany looked over at her aide. “If you think dying is going to get you out of sentry duty, you’re mistaken. If I have to suffer, you will as well.”

  “A week of this,” Kiner sighed.

  “Sexual depravity,” Jovan said. He let out a snort. “Drunken disorder.”

  “Striking an on-duty knight,” Kiner recited.

  “Public nudity,” Bethany said with a sigh.

  “Behaviour unbecoming of an initiate,” Arrago sighed. “I’m not even an initiate anymore.”

  Jovan looked at him. “Stop whining. You started all this.”

  Arrago turned and said, “Me? ME?”

  Jovan put his hands on his hips and attempted to imitate Arrago. “Yes, me.”

  Bethany let out a long, frustrated sigh. All she’d wanted was a day off.

  First Day on the Job

  (Takes place between Grief and Fury)

  Enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  “How long ago did you get in?” Lord Kiner asked.

  Myra clasped her hands behind her back so Lord Kiner wouldn’t see them shaking. This was the most important day of her life and she was determined to make a perfect first impression. She stood straight, chin up, and tried to project the confidence she knew she needed to display. “Two hours ago, Lord Kiner. I would have arrived sooner, but it is a long walk from the docks.”

  Lord Kiner chuckled absently as he skimmed the report she’d handed him upon arrival at Castle Gree. He was a tall man, several shades darker than Myra. His hair and beard were both cropped very close. “And how was your journey?”

  “It was without incident, Lord Kiner.”

  “I’m glad to hear months of us fortifying the coastline was not in vain,” he said, with a touch of bitterness.

  Myra didn’t know how to respond, so she kept silent. Lord Kiner continued to read the report from Lord Jud she’d brought with her from the Temple of Tranquil Mercies. This would be the tricky part. Lord Jud hadn’t approved of her presence at the Temple, and he definitely did not approve of her being an apprentice knight.

  Well, she didn’t approve of him, either. He was an arrogant asshole who treated the knights still left at the Temple as extensions of his own ego. If the complaints of both the knights and the clergy were any indication, Jud was tearing down decades of work put in by Lord Allric. She’d even overheard Mother Aneese’s personal aide say that Lord Jud wouldn’t rest until the Silver Knights were nothing more than pretty and useless, and pretty useless organization.

  Which was probably why she was shipped to the front lines. She had no problem with that. She’d been made a knight apprentice two years ago. The youngest in history. She’d completed two full years of training in Ellentop with some of the world’s best tutors, actors, soldiers, and retired spymasters. Languages. Accents. Acting. Everything to teach her how to be someone else. She’d passed and now stood in front of someone rumored to be the head of the Silver Knights’ shadow army. Lord Jud couldn’t take that away from her.

  “Reading between the lines, it sounds like Lord Jud was eager to send you here.”

  Myra’s mouth twitched.

  Kiner smiled when it did and said, “Trust me, not being liked by Jud is considered a plus in many circles. Your qualifications are quite impressive, but I notice you have no real field work.”

  “Yes, Lord Kiner. Because of my age, my trainers didn’t want to do much field work.”

  “Ah. I see. Is it true you’re only fifty?”

  She cleared her throat. “Fifty-two, actually.”

  “That’s young for an...” He looked at her, his dark eyes focused intently on her face, “Elorian.”

  “Most people don’t notice. My ears are very elven.”

  “I know your mother. Well, I know of her. Everyone does.”

  Myra kept her neutral expression intact and didn’t respond. Her mother’s infamous, and very public, affair with a Rygent ambassador had been the talk of all elven lands for decades.

  “I have no intention of judging your performance based on your parents. I’m not Lord Jud,” Kiner said as he flicked a hand toward his own Elorian ears: with longer earlobes and smaller points. “I’m actually more concerned about your age.”

  “I realize my age is a consideration, even being Elorian, but I think it gives me an advantage. No one expects anything from a kid.” Myra gulped and clasped her hands tighter. “And I think I could do a lot. To help the cause, I mean. The war. And I want to help. I want very badly to be a part of this and to belong to your team, Lord Kiner.”

  Lord Kiner gave her another smile. “I think you have an exaggerated opinion of my position here. I have no official title, beyond being a vowed knight. I am in charge of training and I am assisting Lady Champion Bethany with troop allocation. That’s all.”

  “Oh,” she said, unable to keep all of the disappointment out of her voice. That did not match what she’d heard. She also got the distinct impression that Kiner was lying. However, if Lord Kiner assisted Lady Bethany, then she might have the opportunity to meet and work with the great Lady Champion Bethany. “Well, um, regardless, I want to help, even if it’s with troop allocation, whatever that is.”r />
  He put the letter down and picked up a large book from the corner of his desk. He flipped through several pages before he took up his quill and wrote something on the page. “Then I’ll give you a chance. I’m assigning you for the next month,” he lifted a finger, “on a temporary basis, to Queen Celeste’s personal administrative detail. She has her own people, of course, but with the war, we’ve been providing her with staff to assist her own war effort. You’ll be responsible for relaying messages from Her Majesty to the senior members of the elven service, and any additional jobs she deems necessary.”

  Myra drew on her acting lessons to hide her disappointment. Messenger was not what she had in mind. She’d worked really hard—as hard as classmates three times her age—and yet here she’d be nothing more than a little girl running around with notes. “Doesn’t she already have someone to do that? I mean, she is a queen.”

  “Coughing sickness,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “Ah,” Myra said, not even knowing what “coughing sickness” was. She’d ask someone later, and maybe not let anyone touch her. Ever.

  “I’m not giving you an easy job, if you’re worried about that. This is a tough assignment.”

  “I can handle running messages, Lord Kiner.”

  She was rather unsettled by his laugh.

  ***

  The unsettling laughter only grew worse as the morning went on. Before meeting the Queen, Myra was directed to the barracks. She was assigned a middle bunk in a long, dank hall with row upon row of three-tiered beds stacked along its length. She was warned, very severely, that she would be in serious trouble if she damaged any of the dozens of portraits still hanging on the walls.

  The portraits were of men in various outfits of purples, blues, and reds. As she didn’t recognize any of the faces, they meant nothing to her, but the frames all looked to be made of solid gold. In some spots, rich tapestries hung on the walls. Some were faded with time, while others were still vibrant displays of color and texture.

  “Is that real gold?” Myra asked the guard escorting her.

  “I don’t know.” The guard shrugged. “It’ll be expensive, whatever it is.”