Placing her hand to the door, Anjali prayed. She wished she had her mother's powers, to have known that this would happen. To never have trusted Tenna, trained her, cared one whit about her. But she didn't. She was born as normal as anyone else in the village, no spirits there to guide her through the fates pressing upon the world.
Tenna. Do not do this. Don't...don't end a life because, because once a lonely, foolish assassin took pity on you.
Dropping to a knee, Anjali unearthed a lockpick out of her headscarf. She reached deep inside the lock Tenna broke into and got to work.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Returning Home
Light burrowed into the creases of her face, each flicker of the candle lengthening the years and pain etched into a woman who wore both with a weakening grace. Queen Nerazda sat upon her knees as she had for the past three hours. Her hands were clasped together right beside the body of her youngest son. He'd been cleaned as best they could manage and dressed in a suit of fine silk, bluer than the frost runes that once circled his body. All that was left for him now was the stone to come and claim their lost son.
All that was left for her was to wait.
Behind, a shadow crept over the weeping candles. It seeped into the breadth of the stones themselves, snuffing out light and hope with each cautious step. Nerazda didn't rise from her forehead pressed into the altar, the Queen's neck perfectly stretched to be sliced in half.
The stone shifted, shadows feeling from a gust of wind. It should be soft as a newborn's breath, barely a whisper releasing as the knife slid out of its sheathe, but the candles knew. Every burnt wick danced closer, wiping away the darkness surrounding the altar. Still, the Queen did not raise her head.
What creature of the night dared to disturb this refuge, this tomb of a lost son? It cared nothing for the anguish weeping from a broken mother's heart. Slipping its silver fang to a fresh hand, it gripped onto the grieving woman's shoulder.
"Welcome home, Tenna."
Her fingers trembled, the assassin swallowing hard as she faced down her mother's head rising from the stone tomb. Slowly, Nerazda turned to eye up her wayward child. "So it is true, then. You have returned only to...to break your family."
"Me?" Tenna hissed, a hand slapping to her chest before she gripped onto her mother. "How dare you blame me. I wasn't the one to doom us to this treacherous life. You did, mother. You turned your back on everything we knew, everything we held dear and for what?"
Nerazda took a deep breath, her weary eyes struggling to focus on the daughter clinging to her shoulder as if she were hoping for a piggy-back ride. "To keep us alive."
"Alive?" Tenna spat on the ground, "We are not alive. We are nothing. We have been cast from the stone. Parade about down in your pseudo-pit all you like, pretend to claim back some lost glory, but it is gone. All is lost because of you!" She moved to swing her dagger, but Nerazda wouldn't look away.
"Why?" the mother's questions froze Tenna. "Why kill your brother?"
"You know," Tenna hissed, tears burbling in her words.
The Queen shut her eyes a moment and groaned, "He was a boy, he didn't...he chose to live. For all of us."
"He doomed us, he opened up the deep roads."
"We were dying, Tenna. We could not have survived without..."
"He made us casteless!" she shrieked, jabbing a finger at the man who'd long left the world of caring behind.
Nerazda sighed, "It depends on how you look at tradition..."
"No, mother," Tenna sucked in a sharp breath, too focused on the task to notice anything amiss in the darkness. "I will not let you warp dwarven tradition, the shaperate itself, to fit your vanity. We are here, on the surface. We have seen the sun, walked under it. Suffered from it. I know what it is to have my skin burned upon my bones while dust coats my tongue."
"That was your choice!" she turned to her daughter, a wrinkled hand struggling to catch the assassin's as if she could wrestle the dagger away. "You were not banished. You were free to remain."
"As a fraud, pretending to be a dwarf while all of it seeped away from us. Everything that made us what we were lost in a single earthquake. What we were, what we are was buried under miles of stone as we should have been."
"Tenna, please," the Queen begged, "we can rebuild. We can become stronger, and you can be a part of this still. Stay with us. Help us."
She stared longingly into the Queen's ice blue eyes, her fingers itching up and down her mother's shoulder as if she was waffling away from her decision. "No," Tenna spat out, shaking her head, "No, this is a farce and I will not play it. I am finishing you, finishing all of this."
"Then we will die."
"And something else can grow. The dwarves as we were are gone forever," Tenna hissed. "Turn around."
Nerazda tipped her head in surprise. "No."
"I said turn around! I will not..."
"You will not murder your own mother while she stares you in the eye? Well, I refuse to look away, Tenna. I birthed you, nursed you, taught you, and when your father passed led you. All of you. And now, in this dark turn of yours, I shall not look from you."
The Queen lifted her chin, glaring her daughter straight in the eye with a dare. Tenna's lips began to whiffle, a breath wheezing in and out of her nose. Her form started to wilt, the armed hand drifting limply down and she took a step back. Nerazda breathed a sigh of relief when Tenna lifted her arm up again.
"Fine," she hissed, and drove the dagger straight for her mother's heart.
Out of the shadows, a sword swung right between mother and daughter, deflecting the dagger from its target. Tenna spun on her heels, her hands gripping tighter as she spied the secret watcher stepping out of the shadows. She blinked a moment, no doubt expecting it to be the assassin. "Who are you?"
Gavin shifted on his feet, getting a feel for the dwarven lower sense of gravity. "The man chosen to stop you," he said. Tenna sighed and rolled her eyes at the dramatics, when he struck. She whipped her dagger fast in an attempt to block the blows but it had nothing on his blade. The sword had the reach, and with his arm length it was a matter of time.
Scrabbling backwards, both combatants drifted away from Snowy's corpse and the mother pinned beside it. Gavin swung wide, his eyes drifting from Tenna's sharp dagger to her free hand. At the last second, he swung hard left, then reached out to slap her hand down. A small ceramic ball helplessly tumbled to the ground. Whipping his foot out, he kicked it away into the darkness where it crumpled against a wall.
The dwarf hissed in rage at him. "Your last one, I take it?" Gavin guessed.
Tenna dug her foot in and prepared to leap up, her dagger slashing for Gavin's exposed stomach. Its silver bite cut right above his flesh, the air wooshing past, when he twisted backwards, spun his sword, and sliced right into Tenna's arm. The dagger clattered from her fingers, blood welling up at a cut deep enough to do real damage. It was doubtful she'd lose it, but her chances of picking up a weapon again greatly diminished.
But she wasn't out yet. Even weaponless, the dwarf hissed and tried to swing a punch at him. The first struck into his hip, crumpling his stance, but Gavin swung wide. Air was all the blade caught, but it kept Tenna off balance. She was exhausted, out of all of her clever little tricks, and had nowhere to turn.
Backpedaling, one hand clinging to the blood gushing from her arm, Tenna found herself pinned to the altar of her dead brother. A man she couldn't bother looking in the eye before she killed. The one she decided to murder even though he saved her life and all the other dwarves. Tenna moved to kick him, but Gavin easily deflected that. He bashed the pommel of his sword into her nose and, when Tenna dropped her head, grabbed the top of her hair.
Exposing her neck, Gavin drew his blade right beside her traitorous hide. One flick of his wrist and she'd bleed all over the floor, right before her brother. His heart slowed, the anger in his veins switching from a roiling boil to instant steam. It was so simple, it'd take almost no work for him to rid th
e world of this mistake. For a beat, Gavin let his eyes roll over to the corpse of his friend. There were so many things Snowy didn't have a chance to teach him, to share, to grow with. And she stole them all.
With a growl, Gavin pushed his arm forward. Blood began to wick against his blade, bleeding against the edge like rose petals.
"Stop!" a voice shattered the thunderous nothing in his ear. Fingers tried to pry into his arm, but he wouldn't move or budge. It wasn't until a blade drew against his neck that Gavin rose from his vengeance filled tunnel to find Anjali about to cut him down.
"You..." he hissed at her. Of course, they were in this together the whole time. How could he not...
"Please," she didn't yank her dagger away, but tears bubbled in her eyes, "please, step back."
"Let her go, after everything she's done? Everything she tried to do?!" Gavin inched closer, Tenna's fingers wrapping around his sword. Not caring how the edge sliced into her flesh, she tried to lift it away, but Gavin was stone.
"I didn't say let her go," Anjali whimpered, before rolling her eyes towards someone in the back.
Gavin let himself glance behind quick to find Princess Rosamund standing there. Her lips were pursed and hands folded to her stomach while she watched the display. "Squire..." she began as if this hadn't all been her plan. As if they didn't figure he'd be the last line of defense and the most likely to finish this once and for all.
Dust exploded in the low light and Myra skidded to a stop beside her sister. Her eyes hunted over the scene, Tenna about to bleed to death all over her dead brother, and she grimaced. If he'd killed her a few seconds earlier there would be no waffling from any of them.
"Sapheela," Anjali was in near hysterics, her own blade bobbing closer to Gavin. At that Myra hissed and flexed her fingers, but Rosie grabbed them up to stop her from launching any magic. "Please. Let me...stop this, before it gets too far."
The Princess locked in tight, her head lifting. It looked to Gavin like she was about to give the order to kill, when her eyes wandered over to the last woman in the room. "Your Majesty," she addressed Queen Nerazda. "This is your daughter."
"So it is," she drifted closer to Gavin.
"And she was attempting to kill you and your other children."
"So she was," the Queen's blue eyes burned into her child on the brink of death. With her pinkie finger, she batted into Anjali's dagger, "I don't think that's required." The assassin whipped her head back at Rosamund, as if the princess would come to her side, but she slowly withdrew her threat to Gavin.
Slam forward. Finish this. Bring justice for Snowy -- by killing his sister.
Fingers raw from digging stone, flesh dry and cracked from this dark underworld covered over the ones Gavin had wrapped around his sword. He twisted his throbbing head towards Nerazda and she in turn looked deep into his soul. Vengeance. It drove this assassin to depths beyond reasoning. It burned in the soul like pitch, never ceasing until everything around it was ash.
Running his tongue over his teeth, Gavin released his grip on the sword. Nerazda was quick to snatch it up, sliding into place to look upon her daughter. On trembling legs, Gavin slipped backwards, his eyes never leaving the scene or the assassin, when a hand grabbed onto his side. He didn't need to look over to see who it was, Myra steadying him.
"Tenna," the Queen murmured, "my baby girl." Even with a hand holding the sword to her throat, Nerazda gently pulled at a tendril of hair that fell into Tenna's face. "You chipped your first tooth on the stairs of the proving grounds. You kept two nugs hidden in your bedroom, and if anyone questioned you about the squeaking, you'd mimic the cries yourself."
Tears rolled in the assassin's eyes at her mother's gentle touch and sweet words. She drew in a breath hard and lifted her chin higher. "Finish it, mother. Finish me."
"Very well," Nerazda said. Tenna shut her eyes tight, everyone holding their breath, when the sword clattered from the old woman's hands. She wrapped both her arms around her daughter and pulled her into a hug.
Shock erupted off of Tenna's face, her hands locked in tight to her sides by her mother's embrace. In a steady voice, Nerazda said, "I can never kill one of my children. Not for dooming us to the surface world in order to save us, nor for...for letting such hatred fester in your heart because of that choice."
"What...? What the hell do we do now?" Myra whispered in shock.
"Give her to me," Anjali spoke up, every eye turning to the assassin. "I can...take her back. Return her to Rivain where... There's a life if you'll damn well take it this time, Tenna."
"No," the murderer whipped her head back and forth, "no, I will not..."
"Ten," the Queen whispered, her fingers drawing against her daughter's cheek. She glanced down at the hand laying limply beside Tenna's side. "Your arm is beyond salvaging, you will never be welcomed here or anywhere within a dwarven community again. Your life, your vengeance has failed. Take what is offered to you, or spill your blood now and get it over with."
"I thought you said you wouldn't kill me," Tenna laughed.
"I wouldn't," the Queen turned cold as ice, a viper's tongue darting from her mouth. There were dozens lined up to do the job, no doubt, Gavin certain to be the first. "Take her," Nerazda turned to Anjali, who sheathed her dagger and began to knot rope around Tenna's arms and legs. "Find a use for her, somewhere beyond these lands."
"Mother..." Tenna began, about to be tugged away by the assassin. Myra's hand locked in with Gavin's, the pair struggling in a breath but clinging tight to each other. It was Rosamund who was glaring at Anjali as she dragged Tenna by her arms and out into the night.
"And," the Queen raised her voice to be heard by the scrabbling of her daughter's boots, "if you are ever seen by any dwarves in this land or beyond, you will be killed on sight."
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Three Weeks
By morning, the tomb for young Vedrick was locked away. Sent to the stone was all they'd tell the pushy surface Princess who need not know anything else. She pursed her lips but inquired no further because she had far bigger problems on her mind. Walking with Queen Nerazda towards the surface, Rosie tried to strike while the iron was blistering.
"Your Majesty, if I may..."
"I normally refuse when anyone begins as such, but you did save my life. I suppose I owe it to you."
She sighed at the obvious hostility appearing so quickly. Even with Tenna in chains but alive, the dwarves remained unhappy with these humans perched on their doorstep. "You keep yourself isolated in an attempt to cling to tradition, but that is killing your people as surely as the earthquake would have."
"Interacting with you surfacers is against everything we dwarves believe in."
"Yet that didn't stop your son from breaking apart the doors and thrusting you all into the light of day. From saving you."
The Queen paused a moment, her head bent to her chest in thought. "Vedrick was a brash boy, but even in doing what he thought was right, he broke the laws. He had to be banished from his people, from his home. What little remains. It was my duty to command it."
"How could you do that to your own son? Knowing that he saved so many?"
Her ice blue eyes whipped over and Rosie shrunk a bit at the glare, "You walk the same thin line, I assume, Princess. Tradition, duty. When disaster befalls your people, do they not cling to it like an axe before the darkspawn swarm? If you think I enjoyed shunning my son, you are making wild and unfounded accusations."
"No, your Majesty, I am only..."
"If I'd gone against my people's traditions in such a time of upheaval, we'd have splintered even worse. Factions would form quickly, each fighting the other until our people were truly destroyed. Nothing rallies people together in tragedy like the banner of the familiar. There are few of us remaining, if we lose anymore it will spell the end of everything we ever knew."
Rosie slapped her palms together, causing a few guards to flinch. "That is precisely my point. Queen Nerazda, your people a
re on the brink of disaster every day. Allow us to assist. Form an alliance with Ferelden, nothing more. We can provide food for your shortages, aid in times of storm, assistance with matters on the surface you are unfamiliar with."
The woman tipped her head up in pride, but her shrewd eyes darted over what the princess was offering, "And there must be something Ferelden hopes to get in return."
"Your knowledge, your skills, in due time we could learn much from each other. But right now, in this instance, your people are suffering greatly and we can help."
Nerazda sighed. It didn't take Rosie more than a quick look through the barely closed doors to notice waning stores, low grains, grumbling stomachs, and a great pile of sick. If the damn dwarves weren't so proud just maybe they'd take the hand that was offered to them instead of wasting away to nothing in the dark.
"I will consider your words."
"An alliance?"
"Inroads, nothing more," the Queen insisted, which was honestly more than Rosie expected. "However, only if they come from him." She pointed her finger at the man who saved her life. After the long night, he was sitting upright in the dirt no doubt practically asleep but unable to take an eye off the prisoner tied to a stake.
"Gavin? But he is a Squire. There is no diplomatic training in his..."
"That is my only offer," Nerazda smiled wickedly.
"Then we have a deal," Rosamund sighed, "of sorts."
"Wonderful," Nerazda turned away from Rosie towards her remaining children. There were four in total who were none too pleased about the outsider's plan that put their Queen and mother in danger, but when Nerazda herself insisted, none could argue. For being the fallback ruler after her husband died, she was proving herself surprisingly staunch in the face of so much heartache.
Was that to be Rosamund's future as well?
Her eyes darted across the desolate fields, smoke battering back and forth due to barely dug in fires, to land upon her assassin. Anjali never left Tenna's side, making certain the dwarf had no picks on her, and couldn't cut the rope. Even still, she was often retying and manacling her to the stake, afraid the dwarf would make a run for it the first chance she had.
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