Merek shook his head. “You wrestling that bloody wolf as though it was a pup, fresh from its mother’s teat.”
The door swung open again to crash against the wall.
Reeve exhaled loud enough to do a bellows proud. “Is your hand broken that you can’t knock, girl? We’re busy here. Now march right back outside and wait until we’re finished.”
Annette, the stiff-backed daughter of Melanie, bent over double. “I apologize, Master Chamberlain, but Lord Merek left instructions to inform him the moment Aeryn came to.”
Merek jumped to his feet with enough force to send his chair skittering back into the wall behind. His head continued to float away. The room began to spin. Instinctively, he reached out to steady himself, too late remembering the bandages on his arm. Once again, his curse drew all eyes. Only this time, a lamp punctuated it as he fell to the ground.
“My lord!” Reeve shouted.
Merek gritted his teeth to keep tears from forming as Gerald hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go,” he managed to croak.
Reeve promptly began listing all the reasons Merek should be lying in bed, Emeline standing overtop, while servants tended to his every need, instead of striding purposefully down the hall.
Arriving at Aeryn’s room, this time Reeve was the one that forcefully opened the door. He immediately cut off his diatribe and glared at Jynx, lying on a floor on a bed of linens. The draven was wrapped just as tightly as Merek’s shoulder.
“Does that thing really have to be in here?” Reeve asked.
“You better hope Aeryn doesn’t hear you say that,” Gerald said.
Merek smiled. It was the first time he had heard the huntsman call Aeryn by name.
“Hear what?” Aeryn asked. Propped up in bed by a pile of thick pillows, she looked like she had been beaten, run over by a wagon, its entire team of draw horses, then mauled by a bear just for good measure.
“Hear that since you are now confined to bed, you’ll have plenty of time to read more of those books you like so much,” Merek said. “I’ve a number that I think you’ll find quite interesting.”
Aeryn’s face immediately lost what little color remained. “You set one foot inside this room with a single one of those horrid books and I’ll make these,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward her back, “look like scratches.” Gerald grinned from ear to ear.
“You can’t even hold a knife,” Merek said.
“Neither can you,” Aeryn shot back. “Still, I’ve got a lamp within reach and I’d rather burn this place down around me than read another page of that book on the life of Georey Chance you spoke so highly of.”
“Geoffrey Chaunce,” Merek corrected. “General Geoffrey Chaunce. He was one of the greatest—“
“Oh who bloody cares,” Aeryn interrupted.
Gerald let out a booming laugh that seemed to shake the foundations of the house itself. “That’s the spirit, girl,” he said and slapped Aeryn on the back, eliciting a loud yelp from her. Turning, he did likewise to Merek, who added his cry to the mix. Reeve looked on aghast, his jaw nearly touching the floor. “Looks like you got the wolf you wanted. Hope you can handle her.”
By the time Merek had his breathing under control and the spasms of pain had subsided, Gerald was gone. So used to clever doublespeak and intrigue, Merek had forgotten how straightforward and annoying the huntsman could be.
Aeryn fixed her gaze on Merek. “You planned for Jynx and me to almost get killed? Because if you did. . .” She clenched her fist. The fire in her eyes finished the thought for her.
“Lord Merek would never do such a thing,” Reeve said.
“Go after Gerald, Reeve. Tell him he best be waiting in my study when I return. Or else,” Merek said.
“Or else what?” Reeve asked without so much as a hint of sarcasm.
Merek sighed. “Or else. . .I don’t know. Use your imagination and think something up. Now out with you.” Merek sighed as Reeve left. Aeryn and Gerald were starting to wear off on him, else he never would have snapped at the loyal chamberlain. Merek faced Annette, who bustled about changing Aeryn’s bandages. “Fetch Emeline. Then on your way back, see what the kitchens have prepared; Aeryn looks like she could use a meal.”
“Yes, my lord,” Annette said. She gave him a deep bow that would have been mocking had one of Melanie’s other girls done it, she ran off to do as told.
“Where were we?” Aeryn asked as the door clicked shut. “Oh, that’s right. You were going to explain why you planned to kill Jynx and me.”
“I had only planned on eighteen wolves showing up, not a full score,” Merek said.
“You bloody bastard. The moment I get out of this bed I’m going to—”
Merek held up his hands. “It was a joke. What I had planned wouldn’t have held a candle to this. Not in a thousand years. Certainly no one would have gotten hurt. Why, from what I saw you do the other night, you wouldn’t have blinked twice at my test.”
“You really need to work on those,” Aeryn said. “Your jokes, I mean. They’re terrible.”
“I know.” Merek looked at his feet. “I never was any good at them. Isabel and Bethany would just roll their eyes and chuckle conspiratorially as soon as my back was turned.”
Silence lingered heavily in the room. “How long was I out?” Aeryn asked, knowing well enough to stay away from the sensitive subject of his new-dead family after the last time it had come up. Still, Merek would not have minded to talk about it for a little while.
“It’s been almost four days.” Merek leaned down and gave Jynx a quick once over. Gerald, ever so familiar with administering to hounds, had shown surprising gentleness while seeing to the draven. The wounds looked to be healing already. Another two weeks and all that would remain would be a couple of scars. “You’ve been in and out. The healer that came from Whitespring brought milk of the poppy to take your pain and let you sleep.”
As if summoned, Emeline, a wizened old woman that even Gerald was reluctant to cross, strode in. Stepping with a spring that belittled her age, she moved to Aeryn’s side and pushed Merek out of the way with a boney elbow. “How do you feel, child?”
Looking like things were well in hand, Merek turned to leave.
“Wait,” Aeryn called after. She tried to brush off the woman’s pokes and prods to no avail. “I’ve learned everything you wanted me to. You are going to tell me everything.” It was most definitely a statement, not a question.
“Not now he isn’t,” Emeline said.
“But—“ Aeryn began.
“You,” Emeline pointed a crooked finger at Merek, “out. You,” the finger swiveled to Aeryn, “stop wiggling.”
Merek quickly stepped into the hall. He wanted to incur the wrath of the healer just as much as a peasant wanted a Shade appearing at the foot of their bed in the middle of the night. He grimaced at the all too vivid memory as the door began to swing shut.
“Tell me, does this hurt?” Emeline asked.
Aeryn let out a high-pitched wail. “If you stick that bloody finger there again, I’ll—“ She cut herself off with another wail.
Emeline harrumphed. “I’ll take that as a yes. How about this?”
This time the elicited shout was muffled as the door latched closed. Merek got an idea. An unexpected scream was cause for alarm, but nobody batted an eyelash at an expected one. . .
Wrangling swirling thoughts and possibilities, Merek aimed for the kitchens to give himself a chance to think before meeting with Gerald. If he played his hand right, if his allies played along, if his enemies remained ignorant for long enough, and if Aeryn agreed—that was the lynch pin—he might just pull off a feat worthy of being remembered in a bard’s tale.
Merek sighed. So many “ifs.” If even one of them should fall apart. . .well then he would cosign his neck and some hundred others to the headman’s block.
13
Gold's Dilemma
Chin resting on her hand, Aeryn stared out the window and watc
hed Jynx lope along in the distance. She wished she could join him. The draven had had his bandages removed and stitches pulled nearly two weeks ago now and had immediately unleashed his pent-up energy by sprinting full-tilt around the estate for the better part of next two days.
On the other hand, Aeryn was still wrapped waist-to-neck in linen, covered in poultices, and had explicit orders from Emeline to stay off her feet until the end of the month or she would never walk again. She felt fine. At least, she felt as fine as one could feel with dozens of scarred fissures, a loose shoulder and a hitch in her step. Aeryn was pretty sure Emeline’s orders were simply a scare tactic, but she didn’t want to take the chance. What was another two weeks of forced rest versus the being lame for the remainder of her life?
The carriage hit a rut. Aeryn’s hand slammed into her chin, her elbow cracked against the window jam. Rubbing the two new sore spots, she caught a glance of the pile of books at her feet. Two more weeks of lying around doing nothing? Could she make it that long? Reading while confined to a bed with the curtains drawn shut, servants bustling about and a healer hovering over her shoving vile concoctions down her throat at every opportunity was one thing; then, reading had been an escape. But feeling the wind and sun on her face while watching her best friend run free only served to highlight the cage she was trapped in. Getting up and on her feet a week early could not be that bad, could it?
Another series of bumps and Aeryn watched the book, “The Last Battle,” slide off the top of the stack to the floor. She had actually enjoyed that book. Though being bored out of her mind for days on end might have had something to do with it. The book beneath it though. . .
Aeryn shuddered. That dry tome should have been burned, buried and forgotten ages ago. Why it had even been written in the first place was a mystery Nameless himself could not answer.
Aeryn resolved on the spot to join Jynx the minute she arrived in Maerilin. Two weeks, two days, did it really matter that much? Far better to suffer a bit of discomfort by cutting her healing short than to go crazy and start raving about the End of Days on a filthy street corner.
“So you obviously know that my wife and daughter were murdered,” Merek said.
Aeryn started. She jerked her head from the window and studied the Lord. Where was he going with this? It was a strange way to start a conversation to say the least. Though it did shed light on why he had been brooding so quietly during the long carriage ride back from his country estate to Maerilin.
“I do,” she said cautiously. “A Shadow that had snuck into your house killed them when he was discovered.”
“I suppose that is accurate. If vastly oversimplified.” Gazing out the window, Merek lapsed back into silence.
“What happened?” Aeryn asked when it seemed he was not going to say any more. She was just about to repeat her question when Merek locked eyes with her.
“By now you must have realized that the only difference between Shadows and Shades is that Shades are trained by, and work for, Nameless by way of the Voices. As for Voices, well, they are simply better trained and more experienced at Drifting than those under their command.”
Aeryn nodded. She had not pieced together the part about Voices until that day in the cavern, but on some level had suspected it for some time.
“Shades take orders from Voices,” Merek continued, “who in turn take orders from Nameless. The closest analogy would be that Shades are the elite foot soldiers, Voices are their Captains and Generals, and Nameless is their King. Shadows, on the other hand, are any humans or animals that can Drift and do not fit into that hierarchy.”
Aeryn had a pretty good idea where he was going with this. “That’s why everyone pays their tithes. The Shades, with their ability to Drift, something Maerilin’s common soldiers and guards cannot do, are the only ones that can fight the Shadows.”
“That may have been true once. But what happens when there are no more Shadows to fight?” Merek asked, his eyebrow raised.
“What do you mean? I’m a Shadow, as are you, Jynx, and just about every animal that hunts at night.”
“Tell me,” Merek said, “how many people have you killed?”
“A couple, actually.” Most recently Mic, one of the members of Jins’ gang of street thugs. “But only in self-defense. They would have killed me otherwise.” Or done worse, she added silently.
“And how many have you tortured?”
“None! I would never—“
“Raped? Burned alive? Drowned? Strangled?” A razor sharp edge entered Merek’s voice. “When was the last time you killed a man and a street urchin who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? No? How about a mother and her child who woke up and found you in their house? Surely you, as a former street urchin, have done that. I mean, haven’t you ever broken into someone’s house to steal their coin, then upon being discovered, slit their throats so they cannot cry out in alarm or send for soldiers? It would make sense. After all, if you, a nobody, was caught, it would mean hanging.”
“No,” Aeryn said. “Never. How can you even ask that?”
“Never? Not even once?” Merek looked at her with mock surprise.
If she had not been completely sure it was feigned, injured or no, she would have jumped out of the carriage on the spot and never spoken to him again. “Not once,” she repeated.
“So what you’re telling me is that aside from breaking into my house intent on stealing everything you could get your hands on,” he quirked his eyebrow up at Aeryn, “and defending yourself against people intent on doing you harm, you have never done any of the things Nameless claims a Shadow does?
“Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.”
“And how many other Shadows aside from Jynx and me do you know?”
Aeryn thought for a moment. “Well, none.” No humans anyway.
Merek held his arms wide and said no more.
A growing realization worked its way to the forefront of Aeryn’s mind. If she had never done any of those cruel, barbaric deeds, nor had Jynx, or Merek—he did not strike her as the type to murder and pillage—and she knew of no other Shadows. . .
“You can’t mean. . .”
Merek motioned for her to continue her train of thoughts.
“But they have no reason to—“
The carriage lurched. This time, she did not notice the books slide about; she only heard the jangle of coins in Merek’s belt purse. A flower unfurling in the sun, it hit her. Only this flower was made of torn skin, smelled of offal, and had knives as thorns.
“A Shade killed your wife and daughter. Just like that Shade that killed Brin and Bran, then tortured Will so he could find me, and thus, you,” Aeryn said.
Merek nodded grimly. “Yes. Though I suspect the Shade had help from a street urchin. Otherwise how would he have known where to find Will and the others in the first place?”
Aeryn felt anger bubble to the surface. She knew one person that had everything to gain and nothing to lose by outing Will. Jins.
“I have no doubt that at the beginning,” Merek said, “the Shades were a force for good, protecting Maerilin and its people from outside invaders. Why else design Maerilin in such a defensive fashion? Four concentric walls, each bigger than the last? Nobody in their right mind spends the coin and manpower to build such a thing unless you’re at war. It’s overkill and absurdly expensive. Tithing half your income would make sense in that situation: the massive, pooled funds of the entire city would have been required to construct the walls, sustain an army, train elite soldiers to Drift, and provide for repair efforts.”
“But how could they fall so far?” Aeryn asked.
“I suspect that it began innocently enough. Once they emerged victorious, they turned their gaze inward. Using the very walls that had once protected them from outsiders, they now used them to separate and segregate, allowing them to more efficiently remove traitors, spies, and others who sought to strike from a blind spot.”
“That doesn�
��t explain how they could turn from good to evil.”
Merek shrugged. “Who knows? You would be surprised what greed and fanaticism can do to people in a handful of weeks, let alone a thousand years. I suspect that given that timeframe, even a God can be corrupted.”
Aeryn knew that for the truth. Just look at Jins and his gang, or even Rickon, who had turned his back on her at the drop of a hat.
“Assuming all this is true,” and Aeryn saw no immediate flaws to unravel the vile tapestry with, “what do you plan to do about it? You’re just one man. If you kill a soldier, another will take its place; if you kill a Shade, they’ll train another; if you kill a Voice, they’ll raise another in its stead. You can’t fight everyone beyond the Protector’s Gate at once.” She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that Merek would turn her words on their head.
“I don’t have to fight everyone at once,” Merek said. “All I have to do is remove the source.”
“You can’t mean. . .” The sinking sensation deepened.
Merek fixed steel-eyes on her. “I’m going to kill Nameless.”
Aeryn’s stomach fell out. She gasped. “What?”
“I’m going to kill Nameless to stop his Voices from driving people into poverty with his overbearing tithes. I’m going to kill Nameless to stop his Shades from having free reign over those too weak to fight back. I’m going to kill Nameless to prevent what happened to Isabel and Bethany from happening to anyone else.”
Aeryn’s mind swirled in a dozen directions at once with a hundred different questions. “When? Where? How? Nameless is a bloody God.”
“‘Where’ and ‘when’ are works in progress. As for the question of ‘how,’” Merek leaned forward and rested his arms, hands clasped together, on his knees, “that is where you come in.”
Aeryn felt her jaw unhinge as Merek rushed on, painting the framework in wide, broad strokes. The framework seemed solid, as it should after more than ten years of preparation. The problem was that it was all held up by a small handful of lynch pins, any of which would cause the entire structure to collapse if pulled.
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