by B. T. Narro
She couldn’t possibly be angry with him. He’d given her up, but she’d done the same to Neeko.
“I forgive you.”
He smiled up at her, a sad smile. “I’m going to need a knife to get these ropes undone.”
As he stood to fetch one, she asked, “Why didn’t you get the guards?”
“I did.” He grabbed a knife from behind the tavern’s bar and started back to her. “But when I reported two pyforial mages, they had to gather more guards before coming.” He cut her legs free. “I ran around Aylinhall with them until we’d amassed enough bowmen and swordsmen.”
Finally her arms were cut free. She wished to stand but feared she might pass out.
“What happened?” she asked.
“We returned moments ago, but passing by Grodger’s Inn we saw another pyforial mage. He jumped out of a window on the third floor and caught himself with energy. It was incredible. The guards tried to detain him, but he flew off somehow, so they chased him.”
Was it Neeko? Hope stirred in her chest.
“I yelled for them to go after the two in my tavern, but none listened. On the way here, they were speculating that the mages had left already. I see they were right.” He blinked at her for a moment, at a loss for words. “I'm terribly sorry for what they did to you. Let me fix you a hard drink. That should help.”
“Just water,” she called out as he walked toward the bar. “Did you get a look at the mage who jumped out of the window?"
“He was young like you. Light hair, somewhere between blond and brown. Strong shoulders and chest. A kind face.”
It was Neeko! Joy took away all her pain.
“Didn’t look like a dangerous pyforial mage, if you ask me,” the tavern keeper rambled on. “A whole throng of people were there, and none of them wanted to see him captured. Some claimed he was the same mage who killed all those terrislaks.”
Dread took over. “Will he be captured?”
“I doubt it. He flew off like a bird—an unbelievable sight. I came in here soon after.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. She could feel a fighting spirit pulling her out of the pit of despair. She would find Neeko and finish what they started.
She stood, but her pain returned with such sudden force that dizziness overcame her. She fell back into the chair, embarrassed as the tavern keeper ran over with such haste that he spilled her water.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She would be, eventually. But she wouldn’t be riding to Cessri tonight—the city Neeko must’ve chosen given what he’d told her earlier about meeting Shara there.
“If you wouldn’t mind fixing me some food and water, I would appreciate it,” she told the tavern keeper. “I’m afraid I don’t have any money, though. They took what I had on me.” And it’s unlikely there’s any left in our room at the inn.
“Of course.”
Someone opened the door and poked his head inside. “Are you open?”
“Closed, sorry,” the tavern keeper called back. He went to lock the door. Turning to Cedri, he put on a smile for her. “I don’t believe either of us would wish to deal with a boisterous crowd this evening.”
He couldn’t be more right.
*****
Cedri left after she ate. There was no hiding her battered face from those she passed, many giving looks of condolence, some asking if she needed help. She declined politely.
The innkeeper gasped when he saw her enter the lobby. “Heavens and hells, who did this to you? Hold here, I’ll fetch the guards.”
“Please.” She reached out her mind and grabbed hold of the bastial energy emanating from him, then bent it to mimic what she remembered calm to be like. “I’m fine. I don’t wish to speak to the guards.”
His lips pressed together, showing concern. “If you’re certain you’re all right, then let me have a word with you.” He gestured for her to approach his desk. When she did, he leaned forward and whispered, “The man who was with you, his name isn’t Jon, is it?”
Cedri could feel his certainty. “No. His name is Neeko, as I’m sure you’ve already suspected.”
His eyes lit. “The mage who saved the villages! He’s a friend of yours?”
The question made her realize she didn’t know what Neeko was to her. Though in this context, there was only one correct answer. “Yes. What did you see?”
“Apparently he jumped from the window and landed on pyforial energy. I ran out when I heard the guards order him to surrender. He soared over my head to escape. I heard he made it out of Aylinhall.” Excitement rose off him like steam.
She leaned even closer and tried to look coy. “Can I trust you with the truth?”
“Certainly.”
“Do you remember two men coming here earlier? They probably claimed they were friends of mine.”
“Yes, they knew your name and room number.”
“They were pyforial mages here to kill Neeko. That’s why he fled.”
“But why?” She could feel the innkeeper’s attachment to her and Neeko. Anyone going against them was an enemy in his eyes.
“Neeko fights for the North. But there are other pyforial mages fighting for the South.” It was easier than explaining the PCQ. “If anyone comes looking for him or me, don’t tell them anything.”
“I won’t.”
“But if a woman named Shara or a man named Steffen come and ask about me or Neeko, tell them to go to Cessri. They are both my age.”
“I understand.” He nodded proudly. “I will do that.”
Pain was starting to overwhelm her. She needed to lie down. “But don’t tell anyone I’m associated with Neeko, not even guards. Because he’s a pyforial mage, they’re required to stop him. But you know as well as I do that he’s only trying to help.”
“Yes, of course. Guards already came by and went through your shared room. They found nothing and left.”
If guards had gone through it, then Cedri was even more certain that there would be no money left. She had a full stomach and a horse waiting within the inn’s stables, but without any money to purchase food or water, making it to Cessri and finding Neeko would be impossible.
She immediately thought of her mother. She’s probably still in the same house because it’s only been three years since I saw her. But Cedri decided against it, remembering the last thing her mother had said when Cedri left for the army.
There was someone else who would want to see her. He would help her. So long as he hasn’t gone completely insane.
She would spend the night at the inn and then pay him a visit.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CEDRI
Cedri wondered if she’d get used to her cuts and black eye drawing everyone’s gaze. She wanted to use a trick that Charlotte had tried to teach her, manipulating her own emotions to feel more comfortable, but she could never get it to work. She couldn’t even make herself drowsy, supposedly one of the easier spells of psyche. It was something she’d attempted many nights with great frustration since Charlotte’s murder.
As she walked down the familiar streets to Lennar’s wand shop, fond memories came to her. She grinned as a specific memory emerged from the rest: her sister, Callyn, asking Lennar if he realized becoming a money lender meant hearing countless references to the similarity between his name and his job.
“That’s why I became interested in the business of lending money!” he’d replied. “The phrase, ‘Lennar the Lender,’ got in my mind when I was eight years old and I lent Dirty Gribbs a pit. I told myself to remember the phrase until he paid me back. And he never did.”
Cedri surprised herself with a slight giggle as she recalled her sister’s reply. “That can’t be the reason you’re a money lender.”
“What could you find wrong with that? One reason is as good as any other if it serves the same purpose.”
“No it’s not!” Callyn insisted before a short argument had ensued.
Her sister was always the least like
ly to smile at anything. Callyn’s incredulous yet annoyed looks, as if pitying herself for being surrounded by fools, consistently made Cedri laugh without control when it was old Lennar causing the expression.
She and Callyn had worked in Lennar’s wand shop ever since their father died and left them with nothing but a dalion’s worth of debt to Lennar. Fortunately, Lennar then ceased his one percent monthly fee. Those who heard about it never failed to assume that their mother must’ve been paying Lennar the fee in her bedroom, but Cedri and Callyn knew better. The two adults hardly saw each other, and Lennar enjoyed their company more so than their mother’s.
If there was anything to be presumed from the situation, it was that Lennar felt guilty that the family owed him so much money. Though, not guilty enough to absolve the debt, apparently, even though he was a very rich man.
Crushing despair threatened to take Cedri to her knees when she came to the wand shop. A shoemaker had taken over the small building she used to cherish, its short and narrow walls covered in ugly shoes. She wanted to throw them at the owner when she stepped inside and he asked about her face.
She ignored his question, asking her own instead. “Do you know what happened to Lennar the Lender?” It was the name he’d gone by when she was fourteen, the last time she’d seen him.
The shoemaker made the same face a galled man might make when asked about his day. “He fell down a well. Now he’s in one of the two hells.”
The news knocked her back a step. “Are you…?” She squinted, focusing to read the emotion attached to the bastial energy coming off him. No, he wasn’t serious.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Cedri.”
“Sorry.” He had a breath of relief. “Lennar paid me to tell that line to anyone who asked about him except for you and a few others. He’s slightly mad, you must know?”
Cedri heaved out a sigh. “I wouldn’t even say slightly.”
“He sold me this shop a year ago. Now he spends most of his days at The Green Bear. I’d look there.”
“The Green Bear? Where is it?”
He pointed. “Just follow the road this way for fifty yards. It has a big sign. No one can miss that hideous thing. How about some new shoes before you go?” He peered down at her feet, making her conscious of the tattered laces of her buskins. It was what she’d been wearing when Steffen and the others from Ovira snuck her out of the castle. She needed a sturdier pair of boots, unfortunately.
“I have no money, but I’ll return when I do.” The shoes on the walls didn’t look as hideous as before.
When she found The Green Bear, she crooned a soft “ahh” as everything started to make sense. It was Lennar’s favorite tavern when it had gone by a different name. Whenever Cedri needed to find him, it was the place she always checked first.
She hadn’t understood why he spent so much time there. He and the tavern’s owner seemed to despise each other, acting like two ill-bred dogs whenever they came into contact. But then her sister explained that there was a look Lennar got every time he spied the tavern keeper’s wife. He came there to flirt with her, and the tavern keeper knew it.
It was a comedic scene to anyone not involved—both Lennar and the tavern keeper well past their middle years, while Betta wasn’t much younger. “Betta drink I can make you laugh,” Lennar often called out to her when she greeted him, bringing out a reserved smile. The tavern keeper would stop whatever he was doing to rush over and tell his rival to get out.
Somehow Lennar always managed to convince the red-faced owner to allow him to stay, usually through bribery of paying twice the rate for drinks. For the rest of the evening, they’d bicker each time Lennar tried to capture Betta’s attention.
Cedri found him inside. A mixture of excitement and embarrassment about her appearance whirled in her stomach. He looked to be setting chairs around the tables as if he worked here now. In fact, the place was empty except for him, so that seemed likely.
He caught her out of the corner of his eye, then slapped his hand flat against his forehead. His mouth dropped open, his eyes going wide. He slapped himself again, then seemed even more surprised.
“I’m not dreaming!”
“Hello, Lennar.”
“Where’s the goat molester that did this to you!” His familiar insult made her smile. He grabbed a chair as if to use as a weapon. “Where is he, Cedri?”
“Miles away by now. Are you going to haul the chair with you until you find him?”
He set the chair down and gave it a few wipes, then a nice hard smack. “Sit and explain.”
“First tell me what you’re doing here,” she said.
“I own ‘here’ now.”
“What about—”
“He died.” Lennar’s ecstatic smile was sickeningly disrespectful. “Don’t make that look, child.”
She fixed her scowl. “Then what about—”
“I married her. Now get to the details of your face.”
She went with him to the kitchen and tried telling him about the mages, but soon she realized there was too much that needed to be covered first. As he cooked her eggs and bacon, she told him about serving in the army, staying at the castle, the group from Ovira, the war, the others in her party, everything that mattered as of late.
Lennar asked many questions, but none were about Callyn, making it quite clear he already knew she was dead. A note must’ve been sent to her mother. It was good to know she and Lennar still spoke.
It was long after Cedri had finished eating and the pans were scrubbed clean that she finally came to the end of her tale. She felt as if she should say something about Callyn. She could tell her sister was on Lennar’s mind; the weight of his grief pressed down on her like an iron cloak around her neck.
“So now I’m about to look for Neeko in Cessri,” she said. “But I have no money, and I know nothing about the city. I remember you saying you’ve been there.”
He looked puzzled. “You’ve never been to Cessri? One might think that’s absurd given your name is nearly identical. Just replace the D with two S’s and you have it.” He laughed. “What was your mother thinking? Cedri—such a tough name for a small, beautiful girl.”
“My father named me.”
Worry crossed his face. “And a good man he was!” Lennar answered quickly. “A fine man! Worked hard. Sad to see him gone.”
She showed him a slight smile to let him know he could relax.
Cedri hadn’t mentioned anything about psyche, figuring there was little point of him knowing. But she did use some to ease his nerves.
“What did your mother say when you visited?” Lennar asked, surprising her.
“I didn’t and I won’t.”
“Cedri, don’t do this to her.”
“She said she never wanted to see me again.”
“Yes, and that was…” His mouth twisted. “How long ago?”
“Three years,” she muttered.
“Three years! Can you stand by everything you said in the last three years?”
She’d known Lennar for longer than she’d known her father, and sometimes she saw some of her father in Lennar. Whenever he became this adamant, she knew just to agree.
“I’ll see her, but are you sure she wants me to visit?”
“I’m absolutely—oh, I just realized you want money. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You want me to give you my money?”
She slouched back in her chair. “I can pay you back.”
He stood and pointed at the door. “Get out! I don’t ever want to see you again!” Although his face was serious, psyche confirmed he was joking, his bastial energy titillating her mind.
She smirked. He held his bluff for a moment longer, but then a laugh came out.
“That would’ve worked on fourteen-year-old Cedri,” he said. “How much do you need?”
“Just three or four ruffs, and whatever you can tell me about Cessri.”
He gave her ten. “And don't pay me b
ack.”
She knew him well enough not to refuse his generosity. “Thank you.”
They stood, knowing their time together was coming to an end. He gave her a quick lecture on the more dangerous areas of Cessri as well as the inns where she might find Neeko. As she hugged him goodbye, he made her promise she would visit her mother.
After purchasing a sturdy pair of leather boots and the food and water she needed for her trip, she returned to Grodger’s Inn to retrieve her horse.
On the way out of Aylinhall, she stopped outside her childhood house, nervousness buzzing in her stomach like a swarm of flies. The sound of her mother screaming came back into her memory, sharp as a knife.
Callyn told Cedri that she’d requested to join the army, but she’d never told their mother. It wasn’t until a recruiter came to Aylinhall that their mother found out. Callyn went to Glaine with the recruiter and some other recruits, leaving Cedri with their outraged mother.
The heartbroken woman blamed Lennar for filling Callyn’s mind with the idea of joining the army, which wasn’t entirely wrong. Mages were the only customers who came to the wand shop and some did speak about the army.
Their mother had wanted them to marry young and have a family. That had made it even harder for Cedri to tell her mother that she, too, was joining the army. So she didn’t. She instead waited until she turned fourteen and it was time to leave with the recruiter. Cedri was overjoyed to reunite with her sister eventually, but she wasn’t sure it was worth the things her mother screamed at her before she left.
She knocked, hoping no one would answer. But someone did—her mother wearing a puzzled look. Cedri watched her mother’s face become supple as realization set in.
“Oh my gods,” she whispered, her eyes glistening. “Oh my…gods.” She started choking on her words as tears fell. Sobs heaved up from her chest and her mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “Cedri…I…” She muttered something unintelligible, opening her arms and pulling Cedri in for a loving embrace.
Tears burst out of Cedri as she sobbed with utter relief. A warm comfort spread through her as she let her mother, her only family, hold her and cry joyous tears on her shoulder.