[Fairytale 02] - Asleep (2013)

by Elizabeth Darcy

  “Do you remember when it happened?” she asked.

  “It’s been happening for some time now,” he said, brushing strands of her hair behind her ear, feeling the silkiness of it as it slid through his fingers.

  “I think it has been for me too. You’ve always been my friend, and I’ve always been fond of you. But at some point I realized that you were more than that. I don’t know exactly when it happened, I just know there came a day when I understood that you brought me a joy no one and nothing else ever has.”

  Moved by her sweet words, he closed the distance between them once more, cradling her face as he kissed her, holding her as if she were as fragile as spun glass. It wasn’t that he doubted her strength, it was more that there was a sense of unreality that tinged the moment, and he couldn’t shake the conviction that, if he wasn’t careful, he would wake and find that it was all just some beautiful dream. It was incomprehensible to him that Jess could love him, because he didn’t feel the least bit worthy of her.

  Her kiss was intoxicating, and he gave himself over to it. The sensation of her mouth on his, the sweetness of wine on her lips filled his head until he was dizzy. When her lips parted and their tongues met, he could not help himself, he let out a low groan of pleasure and was answered by her gasps. His body caught fire, and he trembled with want, with the need to be close to her.

  This time, when they parted, he couldn’t hear her breathing. His own breaths were too ragged for that. Her arms were around him, his around her, and they sat twined for some time, his heart hammering until he felt like it would burst.

  “For me, it started at my mother’s ball, when you were seventeen and I was nineteen,” he said when he finally regained the power of speech. “I was such a fool, still such a boy. I could hardly wait to see you, and all I could think about was how much trouble we would get into together.”

  She laughed, the sound like the most beautiful music he had ever heard. “You always did have a knack for getting me into trouble.”

  “I seem to recall you causing me my fair share of trouble,” he retorted, pulling back a little so that he could look at her face, bask in the warmth of her smile.

  “I cannot lie, I did indeed.”

  He gave her a brief kiss, and even that left him aching. “When I saw you I almost didn’t know who you were. I expected a little girl and, instead, there was the most beautiful woman on whom I’d ever laid eyes. But you weren’t just beautiful, you were Jess, my Jess, my truest friend and best companion.”

  “I will always be your Jess, your truest friend and best companion.”

  Her lips found his, and they were both lost once more.

  Chapter 32

  Jess had worried that they might have difficulty landing, but the people of Westend greeted her army with open arms. They had no love for Ellaria, and Jess took heart in this. She had worried that the entire island was on the verge of turning against its king.

  “Skyhold should be no more than a day’s hard ride from here,” Tanvir told her as they disembarked.

  It was good news, but it still wasn’t soon enough for Jess. She looked up at the sky, tempted to press forward right away, despite that the troops were weary from the sea voyage. But darkness approached, and she knew she would have to be content with setting out at first light. “We’ll lead the troops into the countryside and camp there for the night,” Jess said.

  Tanvir nodded his agreement. “I’ll round up our captains at once.”

  By the time all of the troops had disembarked and mounted their horses and the supply wagons had formed, twilight had fallen upon Westend. But they didn’t have far to ride. Even though Westend was a port city, it was a small one, unremarkable on an island that had many port cities, and not even an hour’s ride was required to reach the countryside. To Jess’s dismay, the clouds that had hung over them during the entirety of their voyage finally gave up the rain they carried, and the tents had to be set up during a steady downpour. The ground turned to mud, churned up by the horses’ hooves and the feet of troops. The temperature had been mild enough when they had landed, but between the rain and the stiff breeze coming off the sea, cold descended swiftly. Her servants busied themselves setting up a portable brazier in her tent, and the thought of it was enough to make Jess want to groan in longing.

  “Lovely Moritan,” Tanvir muttered, coming to stand beside her, where she was surveying the setup of their camp.

  “Have you ever been here before?”

  “No, and I can’t say I regret it.”

  “It’s not always this bad,” Jess said.

  “Of course. I forgot that you and Dev were here just last year.”

  She couldn’t bear to think about it. “Do you think they’re taking care of him?”

  “I don’t know,” Tanvir said, turning his gaze away from her and back to the goings on in the camp. He let out a deep sigh.

  “It worries me that I’ve heard nothing from Ellaria.”

  “It worries me too.”

  “Word of our arrival may take a day or two to reach her, but she must have heard of our coming. I don’t like that she hasn’t made any demands of me.”

  “She didn’t really need to make them,” Tanvir pointed out. “You came, just as she knew you would.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Jess sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “It looks like my tent has been set up. Let’s go inside. We can warm up, have some wine, and talk some more.” She led him into her tent, the servants dropping curtsies and bows as they passed. “Summon Lords Talmar and Weymarth and Lady Rahman,” Jess told one of her pages.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” the girl responded, scurrying off.

  A trestle table had been set up in the center of Jess’s tent, and she headed for it, opening the chest that stood near its head. Rummaging inside, she found the map of Moritan and spread it on the table, laying a pile of markers on top of it.

  “Reports from the scouts, Your Highness,” a boy said, lowering his eyes in a show of deference.

  “Notify me the moment we have word from Spymaster Medhan,” Jess said as she took the message from the boy.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” He bowed and left. Jess unfolded the parchment, pinning it down with a couple of the markers so that both she and Tanvir could read it.

  “No army in the immediate vicinity,” Tanvir read.

  Picking up the white pieces that represented their own army, Jess arranged them on the outskirts of Westend. “We know Ellaria left at least some forces behind in Skyhold,” she said, putting a few black pieces there. “If only we knew their exact numbers.”

  “We’ll hopefully find that out soon,” Tanvir said, toying with one of the black pieces. He put it down near Ygres. “You said the latest word from Medhan indicated that Ellaria had marched on Ygres with an army of twenty thousand?”

  “Make it twenty-four thousand, including casualties,” Lord Talmar said as he entered the tent. “Your Highnesses.” He bowed. Weymarth was right behind him, as was Lady Rahman, and the other two bowed as well.

  “Twenty-four thousand?” Jess asked, fixing Talmar with her gaze.

  He nodded. “I have contacts in Moritan, as my lady wife was born here and has family that lives here still. They had word waiting for me at Westend. There was a skirmish between Ellaria and King Mallaric, and she suffered some heavy losses, but lords who were once loyal to her father declared for her, bringing reinforcements to the tune of four thousand troops.”

  Thinning his lips, Tanvir set more black figures near Ygres, providing an accurate representation of what troops Ellaria had there. “Have you word of what comprises these forces?”

  Talmar shared what specifics he had, giving them a fair idea of the number of archers, lances, horsemen, and swordsmen in Ellaria’s army.

  “And the king’s forces?” Lady Rahman asked.

  “Medhan told us the king had fourteen thousand in the city and a few thousand more scattered around the island. But Ellaria dispatched small gr
oups of swords to harass the villages, so those few thousand are needed to secure other parts of the Realm,” Jess answered.

  “Any word on the losses the king suffered?” Tanvir asked Talmar.

  “A few hundred, perhaps. Not as many as Ellaria.”

  “But she outnumbers him.”

  “She does, but Ygres is a well-fortified city. The king has a good chance of defending it, but even if she were able to conquer it, it would take time,” Weymarth said. “The captain of the guard himself led me on a tour when we were here last year, Your Highness. Its walls can take a beating.”

  “Let’s hope they can last until my mother’s forces arrive,” Jess told him. Pulling a bit of parchment, a quill, and some ink from her chest, Jess scrawled a quick message to her mother, updating Farah with the information they’d just obtained from Talmar. She poured wax over the opening and pressed her seal into it. “Take two guards with you and carry this to Riddell. It is to be given to Her Majesty, Queen Farah, and no one else,” Jess instructed another page.

  “I don’t suppose you have any information on the numbers we can expect at Skyhold, Lord Talmar,” Tanvir said, though Jess could tell from his tone that he was braced for disappointment.

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I’m afraid I don’t. Skyhold is remote, and it’s not nearly as easy to gather information about such a place as it is a city the size of Ygres.”

  “Initial estimates were that Ellaria had an army of anywhere from twenty-four thousand to twenty-one thousand,” Lord Weymarth said.

  “She had twenty thousand with her at Ygres, before the reinforcements arrived. That left her with anywhere from one thousand to four thousand additional swords,” Jess said.

  “It would take at least five hundred or so to harry the villages,” Lady Rahman said.

  “Which means there could be anywhere from five hundred to thousands of troops guarding Skyhold,” Tanvir said.

  “Or, if our numbers are off, there could be more or less,” Jess added, feeling just as frustrated as he sounded.

  “Will we attack the stronghold immediately?” Lord Talmar asked.

  “No,” Tanvir said, shaking his head. “We need a better idea of their numbers. The tower is renowned for its defensibility, and we will not send our troops to their deaths without good cause. The tower’s archers will thin our ranks as soon as we’re within their range.”

  “What is your plan?” Lady Rahman asked.

  “The archers’ range is not as great as the range of our siege engines,” Jess said. “We have two catapults and materials to build two additional siege engines. We’ll station them outside of archery range, like the points on a compass.” Jess indicated the sites with her finger, sliding models to each point.

  “You’re hoping to flush the guards out?” Lord Weymarth asked.

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ll rattle them enough that they’ll lose their nerve entirely and surrender to us,” Tanvir said.

  “What of Prince Devaran?” Lady Rahman asked.

  “The dungeons of Skyhold are on the upper floors. We’ll need to strike lower points on the tower—we can’t afford to injure the prince,” Jess said, trying hard to keep her tone neutral, as if she were talking about any old prince and not the love of her life. “We can’t do much damage as we don’t want the tower to collapse, but the assault is more a distraction than anything else.”

  “What do you mean?” Lord Talmar asked, his confused look mirrored on the faces of the other nobles.

  Jess and Tanvir exchanged a glance. She had known Lady Rahman almost her entire life, and Lords Talmar and Weymarth were reputed to be two of the best, most loyal lords in all of Estoria. But someone had helped Ellaria infiltrate Mashala Palace and, no matter how much it pained Jess, she knew she could not place her blind trust in just anyone. Still, nor could she conceal her plan from the others. She and Tanvir had talked at length, and they had agreed that they could not mislead them. They would notice Jess wasn’t leading the battle, and they would remark on it because Jess had never once shied away from a fight.

  “I will take a small team, myself and five others, and attempt to enter the tower,” Jess told them.

  “Your Highness, I must speak plainly,” Lady Rahman said. “It is a risky plan. Would it not make more sense to besiege the tower in earnest? Surely Ellaria’s troops will not harm Prince Devaran.”

  “We don’t know that,” Tanvir said, his voice low. “Ellaria has everything to lose. If the battle in Ygres takes a turn, who knows what she might do.”

  “Would she not attempt to bargain her life for the life of Prince Devaran, in that case?” Lord Talmar asked.

  “Perhaps. But we cannot know for certain,” Tanvir replied.

  “I will not allow any harm to come to the prince,” Jess said, the ferocity in her voice surprising her as much as she could see it surprised the others. “Ellaria will have the upper hand until we’ve secured Prince Devaran’s safe return. It is time for us to reclaim the advantage.” The lords and lady didn’t look satisfied with the response, but none of them raised any further objection.

  “It’s imperative we keep Princess Jessmyn’s plans a secret from Skyhold’s defenders,” Tanvir said.

  “Your Highness, allow me to go with you,” Lady Rahman requested.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Jess said, softening her tone. “Your offer is much appreciated, but I need you on the field. The three of you were chosen specifically because you have such tactical minds. I will need you to buy me as much time as you are able, should I need to go into the tower.”

  “Very well,” Lady Rahman said, dipping her head in a show of respect, but the corners of her mouth turned down.

  “We should all rest now,” Tanvir said. “We will ride at first light tomorrow, and we will not stop until we reach Skyhold. Time is of the essence. Now that Ellaria has made her move, we must all be prepared to do whatever it takes to rescue my brother.”

  Chapter 33

  No one told him anything, but they didn’t have to. Even the guard who was usually so easy to provoke stood stone-faced no matter what Dev threw at him, and he could tell from the tense lines of the guard’s body that things must not be going well. The thought both pleased him and made him worry, and he took to staring out his window for long hours, anxious that he might catch sight of Ellaria’s battered troops riding back with her at their head, coming to dispose of him once and for all.

  The servant girl hadn’t said anything more, other than to ask him if he was done with his meal, but he had seen her covert glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Dev wondered how much she observed. Did she notice that his mattress looked different, or was he just being paranoid?

  Fifty men, she had said. Dev racked his brain for hours, wondering what to do with this information, and then he had an idea. Plucking a few pieces of straw from his mattress, he toyed with it, tested its flexibility. The musty, foul scent of it told him it had been in the cell for some time, and were it not such a damp, dank place, the straw would probably have crumbled by now. As it was, it was reasonably flexible, and Dev found he could bend and weave it into different forms. Dev’s artistic talents were nonexistent at best, but the task at hand didn’t seem too difficult. Surely he could fashion something that looked enough like a person that it might tip Jess off.

  He spent some time staring out his window, trying to estimate how far away various objects were, and how large they might be in reality. If he made the men too small, they wouldn’t look like much of anything. But if he made them too large, they might catch the guards’ attention. Either way, it was risky, and his efforts might be to no avail, but he had to at least try. Settling on a size at last, when he was finished with his daily round of exercises, he huddled against the wall and tried to fashion five small straw men.

  His cell offered nowhere to conceal them other than back in his mattress, and he’d had to make the hole in its cover larger, which he was sure someone would notice. Under cover of darkness,
Dev had wrestled the unwieldy mattress from the bed frame, managing to flip it over so that the hole faced the wall where no one would see it, provided they didn’t examine the mattress. Since no one had done so yet, Dev would have to count on their not doing so anytime in the near future, and he reminded himself he needed to have a care, lest he arouse their suspicions and give them reason to search his cell.

  Despite his exercises, moving the mattress had driven home the full extent of the damage that had been done to him. By the time he was finished he was soaked through with sweat, and every muscle in his body trembled so violently that he had no choice but to lie down. His muscles continued to quake for some time—or maybe it was the shivering that set in, courtesy of the gray, gloomy weather. It was impossible to know.

  When the last straw man was finished, Dev spent some time carefully pulling strips of cloth from what was left of his clothing, using them to bind the straw men to one another. Tearing off a few longer strips of cloth, he wove them into a short rope that he could tie around the bars of his window, allowing the straw men to dangle outside, against the outer wall of the tower. Achieving this would be the trickiest part of his plan. Though his guards didn’t pay him much mind, they did enjoy occasionally leering through the barred window in his door, taunting him. If his guard were to choose to look into his cell while he was in the process of tying the straw men to the bars, he would be caught. His best bet would be to do it at night, but the cloudy skies meant there were no moon and no stars to provide him with some light. Dev’s night vision had improved considerably during his captivity, but the skies were often so black he had difficulty seeing his hand in front of his face.

  Wouldn’t it just be spectacular if I fell off my chair while attempting to tie the men and broke my leg? My guards may be stupid, but even they aren’t thick enough to miss something like that.