He peers into the hall. “Yes?”
The guard’s words jog Ilvara’s brain into full wakefulness: “They’ve returned. The general and the trainer.”
Ilvara leaps out of bed. She makes for the door just as Hadrian says, “We’ll be right out,” and closes it.
“Who else is out there? Is Evelyn with them?”
“I didn’t ask,” Hadrian says. His voice is groggy. “Put something on before you go racing into the hall.”
“Evelyn could be out there,” Ilvara says.
“Put something on,” Hadrian repeats. “You’re Countess of Lockmire, not some Vixen Alley whore.”
Reluctantly, Ilvara pulls a light gown over her nightdress, not bothering with undergarments or accessories. She yanks a robe over the rest of her and pats her hair down when Hadrian gives her a disapproving glare in the dim firelight.
Torches flicker low in the hallway, but Ilvara knows these corridors well. She moves quickly, mind racing. Finally, her nightmares can be put to rest. Finally, everything can go back to normal. Somewhere behind her, Hadrian orders her to slow down, but she ignores him.
She stops at the end of the hall. Asher is at the front doors, drenched, holding a blanket-wrapped bundle. Villagers wander about, looking terrified, speaking with guards. But Ilvara’s eyes rest on Caius, approaching with Evelyn in his arms. She blinks as she takes it in.
Injured. She must be injured. She needs healing. They brought her back so I can heal her. They must have.
She moves forward mechanically now, eyes locked on Evelyn. She watches for movement—a flutter of the lashes, a heave of the chest. Nothing. Her blood runs cold in her veins.
When she finally looks up at Caius again, his eyes are filled with tears, confirming the worst of her nightmares. She doesn’t speak. She only looks back down into Evelyn’s silent face and wishes she were dreaming.
“H—How…” she gasps. A sob cuts her off. She covers her mouth.
Caius only shakes his head.
Lightning strikes again, and thunder shakes the city. Someone yells that their cottage is on fire. All the noise is suffocating. Ilvara stumbles back toward the hallway.
“Come,” she says to Caius and Asher. She leads them to her bedchamber, where she casts flame into the hearth to light the room. When she’s shut the door, locking out the ruckus of the main hall, she finds her breath again.
“Oh gods,” she moans, rushing to Evelyn’s side as Caius lays her on the bed. She thrusts her hands to Evelyn’s neck, but it’s stiff and cold. She recoils, the coldness sending chills up her arm, turning her stomach, stabbing her chest. Her hands begin to shake, and she dissolves into broken sobs as she reaches for Evelyn again. “She’s—She’s—”
“I’m sorry,” Caius whispers, voice choked.
Ilvara buries her face in Evelyn’s golden hair. It doesn’t feel real, even with Evelyn’s still body right before her. How can she be gone? Why?
After what feels like hours, she finds the strength to lift her head.
“Was it…an animal?” she asks Caius. She has a strong sense it wasn’t.
“No,” Caius replies with difficulty. “It was a woman.”
Ilvara furrows her brows. “A woman? Who?”
“A woman I met in the forest,” Asher cuts in, eyeing Caius. “She would have stabbed Caius, but Evelyn chose to get in her way.”
“Some forest lunatic killed her?”
“She wasn’t just a lunatic. I knew her,” Caius says. “We were close when we were children. That’s our daughter.” Caius gestures to the bundle in Asher’s arms. “But I left for the bandit clan before I knew she was pregnant. I didn’t find out I had a daughter at all until yesterday.”
Ilvara rises slowly. “So, this woman was going to stab you?”
“She tried to poison him first,” Asher says. “Then a bear attacked us and injured Alesia. Maven—that’s her name—was a lunatic. She tried to kill Caius.”
Ilvara nods slowly. “And Evelyn got in the way.”
Caius shuts his eyes. “Yes.”
Ilvara bows her head a moment. When she raises it again, she says, “Could you leave me, please? I just want a few minutes alone with her. Take the other girl to the main hall to receive treatment.”
Caius casts a longing look over Evelyn before nodding. He and Asher leave together, closing the door softly behind themselves.
A painful smile pricks Ilvara’s lips. She seats herself next to Evelyn, staring down at her silent form for a long moment. The heavy silence gives her thoughts a blank canvas to settle.
“Well,” she whispers, “I never thought I’d talk to you like this again.” Tears choke her voice. “With you somewhere far away, not hearing me. But this time, you’ll never hear me. Because you’re gone, aren’t you?”
Silence is her answer. Suffocating, crushing silence.
“Yes.” She sniffs hard. “You’re gone.” Her trembling fingers draw out a tendril of Evelyn’s soft, golden hair. “You never really showed me love. Not in the way that love is shown to everyone else. But then again, you never were like anyone else. You showed love in giving gifts and doing favours. I suppose that’s what the bandits did to you. You showed love in your devotion, by going to war on my behalf.” She bites hard on her lip, draws a shaky breath, and continues,
“But you’ve grown so much these last months. It’s remarkable. You’ve learned to trust and love a man. Perhaps… perhaps not the best man, but he does love you. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he held you. A mother can always tell.”
Ilvara takes Evelyn’s icy, rigid hand. “I just want to tell you how proud I am of you,” she whispers. “I am so, so honoured to have helped you this far. I am amazed at the distance you’ve flown without me. You had wings I was always too scared to see, but since you’ve used them, you’ve made incredible things happen. You’ve turned Ardellon on its head.” She makes a sound like a laugh and a sob together. “But there was so much more of this world you hadn’t conquered. You weren’t permitted to die. Not ever, and certainly not this young.”
She crumples over Evelyn’s body, sobbing against her arm. “Forgive me, Evelyn,” she croaks. “I didn’t protect you the way I should have, from Hadrian, from everything. You didn’t deserve the bandits or the death of your family or the perils of the countryside or being forced to work as a servant. You deserved to be the queen of your own nation. You would have ruled far better than I ever could.”
She sobs until every tear is cried away. Then she sits very still.
“I am so proud of what you became. How you stepped in to give your life for two people that you loved. I’ll never deserve all that you’ve done for me.” She rises to kiss Evelyn’s forehead. “I love you, my darling.”
She touches her lips to icy skin, and for the first time, Evelyn doesn’t flinch.
Chapter 3
The Bandit Slave
The wind was biting in the plains that day. A pack of wolves had chased Ilvara across fields and woods, all the way from Embrin, a village far north. Finally, they were off her path, and she had the chance to rest awhile.
The region of Nequa didn’t see snow much, but the sky seemed to threaten it today. Especially here by the mountains, where the hard ground never seemed to thaw and the weather was unpredictable. The path ahead of Ilvara was well-worn. She didn’t fear to go that way, even with talk of bandits in the area. She’d slaughtered plenty in her adventures.
She was crossing a stream when she caught sight of smoke trailing into the gray afternoon sky. She eased her horse up the hill, adjusting her cloak against the wind, and let out her breath at the sight of the abandoned camp, disappointed she hadn’t been the one to chase the bandits out of this beloved land. Barren and lifeless as it appeared, Nequa was home.
As she scanned the empty bottles, parchment, rotten food, and other garbage on the ground, her eyes stopped. Five or six of the horrid wolves gathered around something, whining, scraping their paws against it. Their
black and gray heads popped up at the sound of her approach. She pushed her horse forward when she caught the sight of flesh around the wolves’ furry bodies. Carefully, she drew her bow. She would not run this time. The thing the wolves circled was human.
The pack growled, abandoning their discovery for perhaps a warmer meal. Ilvara waited a moment, watching them, waiting to see which one would run at her first. Her horse shifted. She hushed him with a soft hand on his neck. He was no use to her spooked.
For a second, no one moved. Not the horse, nor the wolves, nor the woman slowly aiming her arrow with hands she struggled to steady. But time started up again when she sent one arrow flying, then another immediately after.
Her arrows found the neck and breast of one wolf, taking it down instantly. The rest leaped forward with a thunderous roar that made Ilvara’s horse jump in fear and throw her from her seat.
Ilvara landed heavily on her back with barely enough time to grab her sword before a wolf was upon her. Saliva splattered across her face as its jaws opened, ready to take a bite from her neck, stopped at the last moment by her blade. The beast jerked backward, yipping in pain. She was nearly upright when one of its companions barrelled into her from the right. Sharp teeth sank into her arm, and she screamed in pain. She shook them off, swinging her sword into the tangle of heavy dogs on top of her. The mess cleared a little—even more when her horse returned triumphantly to gallop through the masses.
The last wolf barked incessantly as it tried to reach Ilvara from across its fallen comrade. Ilvara shoved the dead wolf against it to knock it back, then rose and plunged her blade to the hilt into the wolf’s breast. She shook the dead beast from her weapon and cast healing over herself to take away the pain in her arm. Then, she slowly approached what the wolves had been pawing at.
The thing before her was a person, but this fact was only apparent because of the shape of it. Between purple bruises and sores or cuts caked with dark blood sprung patches of pallid skin. It took a moment for Ilvara to grasp that the person was naked, lying on its stomach with one bruised leg stretched out and the other curled beneath it. An array of ugly colours splashed across its back. Dusty blues, squash yellows, even blacks. Short tufts of yellowish hair were matted to the scalp with blood. In some parts, the skin itself was shaven off.
With the tip of her boot, Ilvara shoved the body over. A woman. But this side was so badly mutilated that Ilvara couldn’t take it. She turned away quickly to vomit into the scraggly bushes behind her. Once her stomach had rid itself of its meagre breakfast, she rose to steel herself for another look.
Her eyes trailed along the countless gashes and bruises in the woman’s face and body. Her nose was broken. There was a tear in the side of her thigh that looked infected. No, this had not only been the wolves. This woman had been beaten severely over a long period. The scars behind the fresh wounds were proof of that.
Ilvara shook her head. She had no implement with her to bury the woman, and the ground was too hard anyway. But she couldn’t just leave the body here. She knelt to touch the woman’s neck, to see if any warmth remained in her. Perhaps that would give an account of how long she’d been dead.
A low, uneven throb met her fingers. She stepped back in alarm. This mangled human was alive!
Immediately, Ilvara cast healing over the girl, as much as her strength could muster. She hoped it would last until she got to the cabin. She wrapped her cloak around the girl’s body, now warmed by the spell, and spilled the last of her water through her cracked lips. The girl sputtered at first, the signs of life sending a new kind of thrill through Ilvara, and quickly finished it. It was more difficult arranging her on the horse than it was to lift her, but Ilvara managed, and before the sun began to set, she was on the way back to her little cabin.
It was nightfall when she arrived. She tied her horse outside before carrying the girl in, surprised she was still breathing. The cold threatened Ilvara’s own life, and this girl had much more than that to contend with. But she was far stronger than she appeared.
Ilvara laid the girl in her bed and heated water over the fire. She spent the night cleansing her numerous wounds and casting healing spells until the energy drained her to exhaustion. She sliced the remaining hair from the girl’s head so she could wash her scalp. What ingredients she had were crushed or boiled into salves and mixed with wild honey to coat each gash and sore, especially the cut in her thigh. When Ilvara finished, the girl was completely covered in ragged tunics Ilvara tore to make bandages. Ilvara fell asleep near dawn, head resting on her ingredient’s table.
The next day, Ilvara filled the cabin with the aroma of soup cooked from much-used boar bones, but the girl didn’t wake.
Ilvara sat watching her silent face. What horrors had she seen? What had she been through? What brought her to that bandit camp? She couldn’t have been a traveler too, at least not recently. Her scars told Ilvara she’d been at the camp, perhaps with them, for a long time. But they wouldn’t abuse a fellow bandit in this way.
Her face was much younger now, softened by the firelight and the gentle care. She was hardly a woman, maybe sixteen years old. So young. So lovely. So mercilessly tortured in far too many ways.
Ilvara ached for this stranger, so much that it brought her to tears. If only she’d found the camp sooner, then perhaps she might have saved this girl a few years of bandit savagery. She had lost everything to these monsters, Ilvara was sure. She shuddered when she thought about it.
The first nightmare began on the evening of the second day. It was as it had been the night before. She was properly cared for. Ilvara was at her side again. As the girl’s limp hand rested between both of Ilvara’s, her grip suddenly tightened. Her eyelids shot open. Her blazing blue eyes opened for the first time.
“Let go!” she screamed. The walls rang with the sound. She bared her teeth, crying out viciously as if in pain. “Stop it. No!”
Alarmed, Ilvara took the girl’s face in her hands. Her touch made the girl jerk violently; her whisper drew frantic eyes.
“It’s all right, dear,” Ilvara said. “You’re safe. Shh. Hush now.”
She had to repeat the words many times before the girl would finally slink back into the blankets. Tears streamed Ilvara’s face. When she met eyes with this stranger, this haunted child, Ilvara had been impaled through the heart with a love that overwhelmed her, one she could not explain. A love she could only imagine a mother would have for her daughter.
The days that followed were much the same. Ilvara stayed awake most nights caring for the girl, soothing her when the nightmares came, calming her. The girl woke partially for a few moments during her nightmares, and somewhat when Ilvara gave her something to eat or drink, but never fully. Ilvara was always there. She no longer had the desire to go off on trips and adventures. Her heart was in the cabin. Even short trips to the stream or the herb garden were filled with thoughts and worries.
She wondered if the girl would ever fully wake. What if she would remain incoherent for the rest of her life, however long that would be? Her physical wounds were healing with daily washes and salves, but what about her inner pain? Would her terrified mind stop her heart?
It was only when she began to think of these things that it finally happened. On the morning of the fifteenth day, when Ilvara was standing by the fire preparing a meal, the girl whispered, “Mama?”
Ilvara’s heart clenched with emotion as she turned. “No, dear. My name is Ilvara.”
The girl’s eyes were open, but her expression was blank. She did not appear afraid or happy or sad.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“My cabin. I took you from the bandit camp.”
The girl looked down at her bandaged hands. “What are these?”
“Your skin was so dry it bled, so I rubbed them with fat and wrapped them.”
The girl nodded. “Oh.”
“I’ve wrapped all your wounds. You’re healing up nicely.” Ilvara sat down next to her. “What
is your name?”
Blue irises pierced through a sea of a red veins. She stared a moment as if to think about it. “Evelyn,” she said.
“Evelyn.” Ilvara sighed, relieved to have a name to go with her. “That’s a nice name. Do you have a surname?”
“I don’t know. What day is it?”
Ilvara checked a marker on her table. “The ninth of Nubilus.”
“Hm. My birthday.”
“Your birthday? How old are you?”
Evelyn’s eyes rolled up for a moment. In a flat voice, she said, “Sixteen.”
“Ah, lovely.” Ilvara figured it was as good a day as any, even if she was mistaken. “We must celebrate then.”
“Celebrate?” Evelyn said the word as if she’d never heard it in her life.
“Yes. I’ll get you a present.”
“A present?”
Ilvara went to the chest at the end of the bed and pulled out a violet dress. “Yes. You may have this. It isn’t much, but it’ll do better than nothing. See? It even has a sash.”
“For me?”
“Yes.” Ilvara laid it on the bed near Evelyn’s feet.
Evelyn touched the fabric gently. “What would you like me to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“For the dress.”
“You don’t need to do anything for it. It’s just a gift.”
“A gift?”
Ilvara sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes. Just something for you to keep.”
“Can I wear it?”
Ilvara laughed. “Of course you can wear it.”
Even still, Evelyn asked before wearing it for at least six months.
Evelyn’s wounds healed slowly, and as they did, Ilvara began reading to her from the books she had around the cabin—volumes taken from villages and from shops at the city’s edge. Evelyn did not share much about her past. Either she didn’t remember, or she didn’t want to talk about it. The few times Ilvara asked, Evelyn changed the subject. As time went on, Ilvara didn’t care to ask anymore. What was the use? The past was behind them, and the future was so much brighter.
Of Embers Page 2