“It’s okay, Lendra. I’m not mad at you.”
“It’s not that.” She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She glanced at the pages in front of her.
It is actually killing me that I cannot say anything about Erem leaving those stupid lilies for Lendra.
Lendra stared at the sentence on the page, her mouth dropping open.
It’s clear everyone else knows. They are lying to me about it because they’re expecting me to lose my shit or some foolishness. That just makes this all the more frustrating because I can’t tease anyone about this now. Ugh! Maybe I’ll start hinting loudly that I think it’s Erem and see what everyone does.
“What?” he asked, shifting to take a step toward her. “What is it? What are you reading?”
Lendra snapped the book shut and tossed it into the now-empty clothing trunk. “Bethany’s private journal.”
Erem smiled sadly. “If Bethany knew you were rooting around in her things, she’d probably find a way to mysteriously appear to yell at you.”
Lendra giggled. Oh, good gracious! She giggled? Lendra inwardly winced. This was worse than her childish crush on Kiner. “There’s something that’s been bothering me. I was hoping I could find an answer.” She sighed. “I guess…I need to keep busy because I’m so worried.”
Erem pursed his lips and walked toward her. He sat down on the bed next to her. The bed squeaked. Heart pounding. Palms sweaty. Throat constricting. He liked her, too. Why else would he send her flowers? He was sending her flowers! She wanted to scream with delight. She wanted so badly for him to be the one doing it, and it was him.
“I am sorry, Lendra.”
She’d been so cruel to him. Oh, it must have hurt so much when she said she hated him. She didn’t mean it. Not one word of it. She needed to find a way to show him she didn’t mean it.
She’d never kissed a man before. She’d not even hugged one, not a real hug that was the kind lovers gave each other. She’d been brought up to be a good elven girl. Train the mind for a couple of centuries. Marry the best match for her, determined by others, since the propagation of the elven race was too important to be left to chance. Have babies. Then, at five or six hundred, she’d get to live her life.
She glanced at Erem shyly. But times were changing. Bethany was no blushing virgin. Jovan certainly wasn’t. Allric had eloped. There were several makeshift brothels mixed in with the supplies, and she knew it wasn’t just human men who went there.
And she liked Erem. A lot.
“I know,” she said with a smile. “Honestly, I’m sorry for what I said. I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t?” Erem said. His voice was so full of hope.
She smiled at him. “I don’t.”
Erem looked at his hands. There were little cuts and scabs all over his fingers and knuckles. “I’m glad.”
She took his hands into hers. His hands were cold, just like hers. “How did this happen?”
Erem stopped breathing and didn’t move anything but his eyes. “Brambles,” he whispered.
“That sounds painful.”
“It wasn’t pleasant.” That lazy smile she loved stretched across his mouth.
She pulled her hands away and looked down at her lap. She was in a bedroom, sitting on a bed with Erem. She needed to stop touching him and starting thinking. Touching was bad. Thinking was good.
“What was in the journal that surprised you?” Erem asked. Then he laughed, “Oh, Apexia’s might, tell me it wasn’t anything about Arrago.”
Lendra snorted and a fit of giggles overtook her, even as she berated herself. Erem chuckled along with her, though, and they leaned just a bit closer.
“I came here to find out something.” She looked at him and very slowly reached out a hand and touched his arm. “But I think I just found out something else. About a little mystery that was happening.”
“Oh?”
“Someone was leaving lilies outside of my apartment almost every day. The servants claimed they didn’t know who was leaving them. Then they stopped.” She looked into his eyes. “Bethany was wondering who they were from.”
“Kiner mentioned it once,” Erem said. His face reddened. Even his ear tips flushed.
She quirked a smile. “I love lilies. They’re my favourite. I was disappointed when they stopped.”
“You were?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Thank you for them.”
Erem looked away, but Lendra gently touched his jaw and turned his face to look at her. “Thank you.”
“You’re not…disappointed they were from me and not…someone else?”
Lendra licked her lips. Should she kiss him? What if someone caught them? No, she was a grown woman. She was allowed to fall in love and she didn’t need anyone’s permission. She was acting ambassador to the Taftlin crown. Arrago had already written to the Elven Council, asking them to name her officially as the head diplomat to the nation. She wasn’t some little girl anymore.
She was allowed to feel.
She quickly kissed his cheek before she lost her courage. She moved so quickly she startled him, and he bumped his face against her nose. She pulled away, touching her nose. “Sorry. I, um—wanted…”
Erem cupped her face in his battered hands and brushed his lips against hers. She’d been breathing so hard that her lips were dry and they stuck to his for a brief moment. She closed her eyes, her heart thudding in her chest. A warm tingle shot through her body, one she’d never felt before, but hoped she’d feel again very, very soon. And very, very often.
“Was that okay?” he asked. A nervous laugh escaped him. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Neither have I,” Lendra said, leaning her head against his. “It was nice.”
“It was.”
“I should probably go, though.” But he didn’t take his hands away from her face. “I don’t want to…um…” He laughed. “Well, maybe I do, but this is Bethany’s room and I’m terrified she’s going to walk in and kill me at any moment.”
Lendra laughed. “I know exactly how you feel. Would you like to have dinner with me this afternoon? I usually had dinner with Bethany, and I’m missing the company.”
“I eat in the Knights’ dining hall at three.”
Lendra drew in a breath. “I was thinking in my apartment, instead. I have a lovely drawing room that doesn’t get much use.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Good.”
“Three.”
“See you then.”
****
Bethany pressed the filthy shirt to her mouth in an attempt to muffle her cough. She was half-drunk in a vain attempt to control it; Jonas had had the foresight to steal a bottle of brandy from the Chateau’s kitchen. Kia and Myra wrapped their arms around her, trying to keep themselves warm.
They’d been sitting in the icy, stagnant water of the mine for an hour now, and none of them were doing well. But the three elves were suffering even more than the humans.
It was killing Bethany not to go up there and fight. This was Myra’s fallback location and it had already been compromised. It hadn’t even been a day yet. There were fifteen of them, true, but there were at least forty outside.
They’d let the horses go in a vain attempt to throw the soldiers off their scent. They’d have to find them later, or steal some from elsewhere. Unfortunately, they couldn’t put out the wall torch lights, so those still burned up above announcing that the caves were indeed occupied recently.
They were going to freeze to death very soon if they didn’t get out of the water, but it was the only place they could all hide. There had been no time to spread out or find new escape routes.
Lantern lights flickered around the slick walls of the lower pool where Bethany and the other hid in the water, up against a wall. Bethany pressed the tunic against her mouth again and they huddled together as close as possible to the wall.
“Do you see anything?” a voice called out.
/> “Nah,” came another, significantly closer. “There’s no way down, either. If they jumped off this ledge, they’re all dead by now.”
Good. In the poor lightening, they hadn’t noticed the rope ladder that hung down the side of the ledge.
“Think they’ve moved on?” asked the closer voice.
“Either that or they’re out looking for food,” came the other. “Come on, let’s keep looking. We can leave a couple guys here to keep an eye on the place.”
“Does this place have other exits?”
“There’s dozens all of them all over this area.”
The voices faded away.
“We have to get out of here,” Bethany whispered. Her voice slurred from both the alcohol and the cold. “I…We…”
“Come on, Lady Bethany,” Jackson said. “Let’s get you elves out of the water before you all freeze to death.”
Her teeth chattered as she let Jackson lead her out. Kia and Myra followed them. Bethany felt the others looking at her in the fading light. She was their leader. Seeing her in this state would do nothing for their courage. But she needed to get out of her wet clothes and dry off. The three elven women wrapped arms around each other and stumbled alongside the rest of Bethany’s recovered team. They were alive. Some were in bad shape, but alive nonetheless.
They made it around a corner, so anyone coming down would have to splash through water to find them, alerting everyone to their approach.
“Look around for another torch or lantern,” Bethany instructed. The abandoned shafts still had a fair amount of supplies left in the tunnels, such as lanterns, oil, and flint.
It took a few minutes of searching, but Jonas found the wall lanterns for this particular area; the flint was stuffed into tiny alcoves in the wall underneath where the lanterns hung.
“This one is full,” Jonas said. He sniffed and said, “the oil doesn’t even smell bad.”
“Chances are, these shafts have been plenty of use since the barrier went up,” Jackson said.
Bethany was too cold to care. “Get it lit. Whiteriver and Kia? Head back around the corner and make sure you can’t see the light. Jonas, only light it enough that we can see our hand in front of our faces. Nothing more.”
Bethany said, “Jackson? Give me a hand before I freeze to death.”
Some of the male humans exchanged uncomfortable looks and Bethany realized most of them had probably never served with a woman before.
“I’ll help,” Myra said, laying out Bethany’s armour on the ground.
Bethany stripped down to her underclothes, just basic linen trouser liners and her breast wraps. She shivered violently as the cold air hit her, but her outer clothes were made of wool; they would take a long time to dry, but if she squeezed every last drop of water out of them it would help.
Kia gave Bethany a self-conscious smile, but Jackson helped her out of her armour, too, and peeled her down to her underclothes. She hugged her bound breasts.
The human men were peeling out of their clothes, tossing them aside with abandon.
Myra stared wide-eyed at Bethany’s near-nude form, then back at the men. Bethany recognized the panic in the girl’s face. She remembered the first time she’d had to undress in mixed company. One of the major training courses elves and Elorians went through was mixed gendered teams, to purposely overcome the ingrained prudeness that they all had.
Myra was also a girl in every true sense of the word. Bethany sighed and said, with slightly slurring words, “Myra, you’ll freeze to death if you don’t take off your clothes.”
“But…” she stammered.
“We’ve all seen it before,” one of the men said, laughing.
“Speak for yourself. I’ve not seen much naked elf,” another said.
Bethany whirled on him. “Name?” The laughter died instantly.
“Um, Waterclear, Lady Bethany. Michael Waterclear.”
“Apprentice Knight Myra is one of your team,” Bethany snarled. “You do not laugh at her, mock her, or make her feel uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form. She is one of your own. If you can’t handle being a part of a team, then feel free to crawl back out of that shaft and continue on your own.”
There was silence as Bethany stared down the man. He looked away, chastened. She stepped back and looked at Jackson, “Get them under control. Right now.”
Jackson nodded. “Lady Bethany.”
Bethany turned to Kia, “Take Myra further down the shaft. Don’t wander too far. You should be able to hear us. Help her out of her clothes and stay with her—”
“No,” Myra said weakly. “No. Thank you, but no. It’s okay.” She turned her back to them and began to peel out of her clothes. She wasn’t wearing armour, just padded trousers and a jacket. She peeled down to her tunic and Bethany realized the poor girl’s modest breasts were showing through the thin, wet fabric. She was still so young she didn’t need to support her breasts yet. Bethany felt like a fool. No wonder Myra was hesitant.
“Whiteriver! Hand me my tunic.”
Whiteriver did, without comment. Bethany wrung it out as best as she could and handed the shirt to Myra. “Take yours off and put that one on. We can dry yours out then.”
Jackson glanced over and seemed to realize that Myra wasn’t as old as she looked. Jackson walked over to Bethany and turned his back to Myra. Jackson wasn’t a huge man, but he wasn’t thin, either. His added presence blocked Myra from view of the others as she changed out of her clothes.
A couple of the men were staring at Myra. Bethany was about to yell again, but Jackson interrupted.
“Listen up,” Jackson growled. “It seems to me some of you should have been left behind in your cages. You were all assigned to work with Lady Bethany’s team. We’re a team. Miss Myra risked her life to save us and the only thing any of you perverts can do it eyeball her? She’s fucking child! And you’re ogling her like a piece of meat. The next person who steps out of line will get beaten back behind it? Have I made myself clear?”
Uncomfortable looks and nods followed, along with a muttered apology. Heads turned away as they went back to dealing with their own gear.
Bethany kept her expression stern, though the truth of it was that she was so fucking cold she could barely speak without her teeth chattering. She was relieved Jackson had taken over the yelling for her.
“Lady Bethany, what are your orders?” Jackson asked.
“Who here has proper military experience or training?”
Jackson raised his hand. Bethany did, too. Myra and Kia. Two others. Bethany pointed at the two men. “Names and experience.”
Lanny Peyton had served in King Daniel’s army as a conscript, but deserted to Arrago’s side in the civil war. He’d fought in several small skirmishes, and in Kershaw. Flanders Reef—whose name sounded like a tavern and not a person, but Bethany didn’t comment—had been in the royal guard for six months before the civil war broke out. He deserted when Daniel began calling for Magic users to come to Taftlin. He’d been working with the resistance, and eventually joined Arrago’s side.
“Jonas, you fought in Kershaw, too, right?”
Jonas nodded.
“All right. Kia, you’re as green as Myra, right?”
Kia cleared her throat. “I have more training experience, um, Lady Bethany, but, um…”
“Right,” Bethany said. “The rest of you joined up after Kershaw, right?”
They nodded.
Bethany blew out a breath and looked at Jackson. “I don’t think we can make a run for it. What do you think?”
“Good experience for them,” he said. “They could learn a lot from you.”
She snorted. “Flattery will get you nowhere. All right, look, we should stay behind and do the maximum amount of damage possible for when that barrier comes down. It’s going to come down. But that could be weeks or months from now. The army’s trapped outside. We’re inside. The smart thing is to stay here instead of making a run for it. We’re hurt and si
ck, I know. And it’s hard to understand these kinds of decisions when you’re scared and inexperienced. But this is better than us running.”
“Why?” Kia asked.
“We’ve lost the horses, have no supplies and very little collective experience.” Bethany swore under her breath. “All right, the mission need not change. We find information, look for Magi, cause trouble. Annoy, assault, abandon.”
“What does that mean?” Jonas asked.
“It’s a slogan we were taught in knight training,” Kia said. “It was for situations like these. Annoy whenever you can. Assault when you have the opportunity. Abandon if you’ve been compromised. Then restart again with a new approach until you’ve completed the mission.”
“We’re behind the lines,” Bethany slurred. She cleared her throat. “We need to annoy. Let’s rest a bit, dry off as best as we can, let me sober up, and let’s try to get our horses back.”
Jackson snorted.
“Hey, you’re the one who poured that foul soup down my throat,” she complained.
“Because you wouldn’t stop coughing.”
“Um…” Kia asked. “Why can’t we run for it?”
Bethany tried to not let her annoyance creep into her voice. “Back at the Chateau, Myra fainted and you questioned orders. It’s clear to me that neither of you have the experience necessary to make a run for the coast. And we have several others just like the two of you.”
Kia opened her mouth to speak, but Bethany raised a hand. “Further to that, getting to the coast is not as easy as it sounds. How do we get a boat? Well, we kill everyone to get it. What weapons are we going to use? Do you know how to use a garrote yet? Do you know how to make one? Does anyone here know?”
The experienced soldiers nodded; they all knew what she was talking about. The raw recruits had less confident expressions.
Fury (Tranquility Book 3) Page 17