by Barb Hendee
And he wondered why she'd returned so early from her duties at the keep.
She wore a deep tan gown that matched her skin, its vine-and-leaf pattern wrapping about her tall form. A midnight-green cloak with ermine trim hung over her shoulders, its hood down.
Chap whined softly, staring at Leesil with perked ears. His tail stopped wagging.
Mother wasn't often affectionate, but when she stepped close to Leesil, her slanted eyes showed concern.
"What is it?" she repeated. "Where is your father?"
Leesil still wouldn't speak, but the fear faded from her expression.
Nein'a's amber eyes looked into his. Her thin lips pressed together as a shadow of sorrow passed over her face. She finished a slow blink, and the sorrow was gone. She became her controlled and poised self once again.
"You have heard something, yes?" she asked.
She reached out with a soft hand. Slender fingers that seemed too fragile brushed Leesil's cheek, and her warm palm settled against his face. She seemed to know what churned inside of him.
"Never seek to know the fate of those your actions affect. We serve, and we survive. You, your father, and I live for one another. Think only of us and yourself, for now, and do as you are ordered. Let go of all else, for it will do you no good."
She brushed white-blond hair away from his face, and Leesil nodded, showing his understanding and acceptance. That nod was the first lie he'd ever told her.
The next few days were quiet. He watched the street from his house or while wandering the city with his cowl pulled forward around his face. He left Chap behind when he went out, though the dog growled and barked each time he was locked inside. Leesil watched for the ones on horseback, fine men in armor or rich dress with their retinue. Days passed, and he began wondering if his mother was right. He headed home at dusk one day, passing before the mouth of the bridge gatehouse.
Coming out along the bridge was a tall man with red hair and lightly freckled skin riding upon a bay charger. Mounted men in leather armor and yellow surcoats followed behind him. Leesil crossed the way quickly, putting the gatehouse behind as he headed for home, but he heard the horses turn his way into Favor's Row. He ducked into the first house's vvalkway though it wasn't his own home. He didn't like having anyone at his back and waited for them to pass.
The red-haired noble ignored Leesil, as did his men. A smaller figure on a roan horse rode between them. Her fur-lined cloak was pulled fully around her, hiding even her hands, and her mount's reins were held by the nobleman. The man led the girl's horse under his own control. Anyone would have thought her a daughter. Anyone who hadn't seen the portrait of Baron Progae and his family.
Hedí Progae's vacant eyes were sunken in dark rings from many sleepless nights. Her cracked and dry lips were slack, slightly separated. Whereas the guards breathed clouds of vapor in the cold air, her breath came out in a slow, thin trail. The life in her simply leaked into the winter air.
The nobleman rode on, his property in tow.
Leesil stared after Hedí Progae. He went numb inside.
She was property. They were all property here. Obedient slaves who did what was necessary in order to live one more day.
The procession passed out of sight beyond the distant bend in the road.
Leesil didn't remember stumbling home until he stood in the kitchen. His mother didn't come to him, or even his father. There was only the sound of scraping claws on the floor, as Chap raced toward the kitchen to see who'd returned.
Leesil frantically looked about as he heard the dog coming. He wanted no one near him. He lifted the cellar hatch and dropped through the hole, then jerked the hatch shut. With no light at all, it was pitch-black even to his half-elven eyes. He scurried to the cellar's back, far from the hatch, and huddled in a corner.
Chap clawed at the hatch, and his muffled whines filled the cellar. Leesil ripped his cloak off. He clamped his hands over his ears and sat shuddering in the dark, in the cold, waiting for numbness to spread from his flesh into his thoughts.
Until he felt nothing at all, finally numbed inside by his mother's counsel, and he could go on and…
168 • BARB & ). C. HEN DEE
Do what is necessary.
He had done it again, and once more, and then yet again. He'd kept on killing for Darmouth for another six years.
Silence surrounded him.
Leesil realized he was sitting on the bed in the room he shared with Magiere.
Everything became mixed and muddled as he broke out in a sweat. Was this Byrd's inn? Or was he still in the cellar?
Leesil backed away from the bed in uncertainty. It didn't make sense. Magiere hadn't been in the cellar in the dark. He couldn't hear Chap scratching overhead in the kitchen. He looked up to a timber ceiling. The floor under his feet was wood planks, not the dirt of a cellar.
Still, he should be in that cellar, where he could stay numb. He was so hot, and what he wanted was the cold. He pulled at his shirt clinging to his chest from sweat until it came off and chill air surrounded him.
The room was black, and his elvish night sight caught only the barest details.
And it was wrong. There was no crate, barrel, or sacks of vegetables. There was no narrow bed he had slept in with Magiere. He now saw dark columns of a large four-poster bed, and heard the deep breaths of a man sleeping there,
He had to protect the lives of his mother and father. He had to do what was necessary. Crouched in the corner, he wondered why the walls looked too close for a traitor's bedroom, but he knew where he was. He knew why he was always here in the dark listening to someone's last breaths.
It didn't matter what happened to Hedí Progae. It didn't matter what became of the mother and two younger daughters. He'd always do what was necessary,
Leesil jerked a stiletto from the sheath on his wrist.
Magiere stood in the upper hallway of the inn with a small lantern in her hand. There was no light coming from the crack under the door, so Leesil hadn't bothered lighting candles. If he was already asleep, she didn't want to wake him. Sleep was seldom peaceful for Leesil, but it was still some relief from all he'd faced in recent days.
She closed the lantern's shield to smother its light, then steeled herself as she quietly cracked open the door. The dim glow escaping the closed lantern revealed the shadowy form of an empty bed in the dark room.
"Leesil?" Magiere whispered.
Movement to her left. Something skittered, quick and low, to the bedside.
Magiere's sight widened instantly as her dhampir instinct surged up. A dim shadowed form became distinct.
Leesil crouched there, naked to the waist with a stiletto in hand, and his head snapped around at her voice. His amber eyes were bright sparks in Magiere's night sight. They focused on her without recognition, and his dark skin glistened with sweat.
Magiere's stomach clenched.
He pivoted in his crouch to face her… like a predator, with his head low.
"You weren't there," he whispered. "I have to finish this."
"Leesil!" Magiere flicked the lantern open and thrust it out.
He lurched back as light struck his face, and raised an arm to shield his eyes. Leesil backed toward the corner, until his shoulders struck the wall, and held out the stiletto.
"You weren't there… here," he rasped at her. "Father… Mother are waiting up for me."
Magiere's gaze shifted once to the slim blade held out at her, then back to his face. She grew more frightened with each breath as she watched him, his chest expanding and contracting erratically.
His eyes flicked once toward the bed.
What did he see that she couldn't? There was no one in the room but the two of them. Was someone else doing this to him?
She glanced quickly about the room, afraid to take her eyes off of him for too long. She remembered the night in which they'd each run into the Droevinkan forest. The undead sorcerer named Vordana had assaulted them with their own fears, trap
ped them each in a phantasm that masked the real world from their senses.
But Leesil did see her, knew who she was, though he didn't believe she was standing before him.
"One more," Leesil whispered and jabbed the stiletto in the air at Magiere. "Always one more. Always necessary!"
Leesil looked at the bed, as if he had to go to it, and if he didn't, it would cost him more than he could live with. But he held his place, cowering in the corner.
This wasn't sorcery or any magic. It was madness. And that was so much worse, Magiere almost rushed to him. Leesil was drowning in his past, and she didn't know how to follow and pull him out again.
Magiere realized she was shaking and set the lantern on the floor for fear of dropping it. Her mouth was so dry she couldn't swallow.
"You weren't there, and I have to do this," Leesil insisted. Sweat now matted tendrils of hair to his face, and he closed his eyes so tightly his features twisted. "Get out!"
"No!" Magiere growled back. "I am here, Leesil… look at me!"
Leesil's eyes snapped open, anger plain on his face. Suddenly he became blurred in Magiere's vision, and she felt the tears drip off her jaw beneath her watering eyes. She inched forward toward him.
"I'm not leaving," she insisted. "We're alone. We are in our room at Byrd's."
Magiere lunged in and snatched his wrist.
Leesil didn't try to bring the stiletto in at her, but every muscle in his body twisted against her efforts to make him lower it. He began shaking from the effort, pushing at her with his free hand. His strength was more than Magiere could counter.
Hunger rose in her throat until her strength matched his. And with it, her fear grew… of what she might do to him. Her jaws began to ache. She clenched her teeth, fighting back the change. Her dhampir nature was in her flesh, in her eyes, making Leesil's hair and amber irises searing bright in her vision.
All the pain Magiere felt in watching Leesil suffer—in losing him this way—turned her hunger to anger. She wanted to rend and tear every memory that tortured him.
"Don't… leave me!" she managed to get out. "Come back."
Leesil's eyes were so bright. For an instant the madness faltered, and he seemed aware of her as she struggled with him.
Magiere released his wrists and grabbed for his face with both hands, lunging in close. Leesil stiffened as she pressed her mouth to his.
She heard the stiletto clatter to the floor. His fingers closed tight on her upper arms, pulling and pushing to throw her aside, but she held on to him. Magiere didn't lift her face from his until he finally quieted.
Leesil looked at her. His expression was sad and wild, like he'd woken from a nightmare but still believed it was real just the same. Magiere slid her fingers up into his drenched hair.
He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again as his eyes searched her face. Then he was kissing her, but harder than he'd ever done before. He pulled her close as they slid to the floor.
Words weren't enough for Leesil at that moment, and Magiere wrapped herself around him. He buried his face in her neck, his arms tightening around her until she felt the muscles in his back clench beneath her hands. His mouth slid to the top of her shoulder, and Magiere began pulling off her own shirt.
She would not let him leave her again.
Hedí rode beside Lieutenant Omasta across the long bridge, the keep seeming to grow and fill the night as she approached. It was built like a gigantic square with a wide courtyard in its open center. Its four corners were reinforced towers rising above the main structure. Firelight from massive braziers atop the towers reflected across the water. As they crossed the lowered drawbridge, the double gates opened wide, and she passed through a long tunnel into the courtyard at the keep's center.
Omasta helped her dismount. He led the way across the courtyard as his men took away the horses. At the courtyard's far side, they entered through a set of wide doors and into the keep's main floor.
Hedí tried to remain impassive. She slowed her quick breaths and forcibly relaxed her face to show no expression.
Once inside, Omasta called for a servant. A middle-aged woman scurried out from a vast dining or common hall on Hedí's right. To her left was Darmouth's council hall, and straight ahead was a wide stone staircase leading upward. To the sides of the staircase were two corridors running in opposite directions, north and south.
"Welcome, my lady," the woman said with a submissive curtsey. "I am called Julia. I will show you to your room."
Hedí scrutinized the woman. Her hair was tucked under a muslin cap, and she had a round face with reddened cheeks. Her expression was open and warm, if a bit simple, but the woman kept nervously twisting the edge of her apron with two fingers. She carried no keys. This was not what Hedí had expected.
Lieutenant Omasta sighed in relief. "Well, then… I bid you good night, lady."
He seemed glad to release his charge into someone else's care and turned toward the council hall. Perhaps he did not enjoy abducting women for his master and pretending to play bodyguard.
"Come this way," Julia said. "Are you hungry, my lady? Do you need water to wash?"
Her kind tone made Hedí waver again. What was happening here? If Omasta had dragged her to a room and locked her in, at least she would have known for certain that she was a prisoner.
They ascended the stairs. When they reached the third floor, Julia turned left down a corridor. She opened a door midway and stepped back with a polite bow of her head as she ushered Hedí inside.
A fire burned brightly in a small hearth to the right, and to the left stood a cherry-wood wardrobe and desk. Against the back wall was a matching bed with a thick mattress, covered by a deep blue comforter. Her chest of personal effects had already arrived ahead of her, likely by Omastas men. Darmouth must have been quite terrifying in his orders for her careful retrieval.
"I hope this is acceptable, my lady," Julia said. "I prepared the room myself by our lord's instructions."
He is trying to please me, Hedí thought. She remembered Emêl's words and smiled. "Yes, it is fine. Your effort is appreciated."
Julia's nervousness faded a little as her smile broadened. "Can I bring you anything, or help you out of your gown?"
"No, I can manage myself. I would like to unpack my things. You may go."
Julia hesitated, but Hedí remained poised and waiting. Ladies did not unpack their own clothes, but neither did servants refuse dismissal. Julia nodded, and Hedí watched the woman leave. She listened, her body tense.
No click or rattle followed after the door's lever settled. Waiting a moment longer, Hedí stepped to the door and opened it herself. It was not locked. Prisoner of the keep she might be, but it appeared her personal room was not to be treated as a cell. She took a slow, shaky breath, and her thoughts cleared enough to turn elsewhere.
She now had an exceptional opportunity to gather more details of the keep for Byrd. But how would she ever get such information to him?
And poor Emêl. He must be suffering by himself at the inn, worrying about her. Perhaps she could bribe a servant to take him a message? No. Their fear of Darmouth was greater than their desire for coin.
The hour was late, and Hedí opened her travel chest. She took out the heaviest nightdress and her robe. As she laid them upon the bed, someone knocked at the door.
"Julia?" she called out. "I need nothing more. You can retire for the night."
The door swung in, and Lord Darmouth stood in the opening.
Hedí froze at the sight of his tall and wide frame filling the doorway. His cropped hair appeared more brown than gray in the dim light from the fire, but she still made out the faint scars below his left eye. He crossed his knotted arms over his leather breastplate.
"I wanted to be certain you were settled comfortably," he said, voice low.
Hedí weighed her response carefully. "The room is quite agreeable, but I did wonder why you had me escorted here. The baron's soldiers protect me at the
Bronze Bell, and it was my own foolishness in leaving without them that put me in harm's way."
Darmouth took one step inward. "They should've attended you better… or you wouldn't be wearing that ribbon around your throat."
She had no response to this, so she nodded graciously at his observation and presented her best worried front.
"Am I free to move about the keep? Or are there further concerns for security I should be aware of?"
His brown eyes softened, but this made her wary rather than relieved. He took another step toward her, now fully inside the room.
"You're my guest, here for your protection, Lady Hedí. The main floor and the upper levels are yours, but stay clear of anything below Only prisons and stores are in the lower levels, and neither are of any interest to a lady."
She felt dwarfed by his size and unnerved as he stepped ever closer His eyes were fixed upon her face but occasionally drifted elsewhere. Hedí feared that if he touched her, she would grab for a war dagger at his belt and bury it in his guts. She stepped back, fussing with her nightdress and robe upon the bed.
"Thank you for your concern, my lord, but it has been a long day and night. I am quite tired. Perhaps I will see you at breakfast?"
Darmouth hesitated.
Hedí knew her one real weapon. He wished to gain her approval and foster her affection for him. He would not force himself upon her if there was a chance he might yet win her willing consent. She had to keep him in his role of the hopeful suitor as long as possible.
Darmouth backed to the door with a curt nod. "Good night, then."
"Good night."
Once the door closed behind him, Hedí waited until his footsteps faded down the hall. She ran to the door to fasten it, but there was no key for the lock on the inside. Hedí retreated to bed, still watching the door.
She hoped Emêl would come soon.