~
Three days after Nadezhda Melinkov reluctantly allowed Sofya, Heremon, and Simeon from her family’s keep, she was still worried. Sofya’s threats haunted her, and she worried that further repercussions might be on the way. How reliable was her information that Sofya hadn’t seen her family for over a month? Were they estranged? Nadezhda couldn’t believe how foolish she had been to take a Rykov prisoner without consulting her grandmother or older brothers. The Leshin was one thing. That was a good idea, but Nadezhda should have cut her losses when Sofya showed up looking for them. She should have let them all go and moved on to other things.
Now, even if no other reprisal came down from Sofya Rykov or her allies, Nadezhda was still in hot water. She trusted her personal guard to an extent, but eventually they would talk to the other soldiers and details of the events would reach her brothers or, Eszther help her, grandmother Alma.
At best, Nadezhda would be barred from ever managing the estate again. Alma would find a distant cousin to take her place as head of household before handing the reins over to Nadezhda. She didn’t even know what the worst case scenario was. One of her uncles was dispatched every summer to dried-up, drought-stricken plains towns for some offense against the family that happened before she was even born. Would she be forced to join him?
To limit the potential vectors for information to reach her grandmother, Nadezhda had taken to receiving all deliveries and couriers herself, so the staff wouldn’t have a chance to read anything to Melinkremlin before passing it along.
The first two days were uneventful, but on day three Nadezhda was handed a crumpled enveloped addressed to her directly from Vodotsk. There was no wax seal, but the author had scribbled the Rykov Crest—a hawk’s wing—on the back where the seal would normally be. Nadezhda knew who it was from.
With trembling fingers, Nadezhda opened the letter. She wondered if it would contain a threat or a declaration of war. The crudely sketched faux seal should have assured her that Sofya didn’t have the weight of her family name behind her, but two days of anxiety weighed upon her. She tore open the envelope and pulled out a single piece of paper. As she read the missive, her expression turned from fear to confusion. Sofya had clearly been quite intoxicated when penning the letter—the abysmal state of her handwriting attested to that—but it wasn’t the form of the message that confused Nadezhda, but the contents.
Nadezhda rushed towards the guards’ quarters and found Andrey, the captain of her personal guard. He was napping to prepare for a night shift, but that didn’t stop Nadezhda from waking him with her concerns. He was one of the few people to know the full extent of what happened with Sofya and the Leshin prisoner. That made him the only person who could answer her questions.
“Andrey, we need to talk. You didn’t do anything reckless to retaliate against the Rykov woman, did you?”
“Uh…” Andrey rubbed his head as he sat up from his cot. “Not that I am aware of.”
“She believes that we sold her out to the elves. She thinks we sent them some sort of message. Something about the prosthetic arm that elf prisoner had. Do you know anything about this?”
Andrey shrugged. “She is crazy. You are speaking nonsense. It sounds like she is speaking nonsense.”
“Yes, I certainly didn’t accuse her client of collaborating with the ir-Dyeun. And if you didn’t…”
Nadezhda threw the letter on the ground. “Did you know she wasn’t even here for the elf? She just wanted his arm. We could have saved ourselves so much trouble if we just took it from him and gave it to her.”
“She wanted his arm?”
“It seems that way.”
Andrey rubbed his temples. “I was concerned about that elf. He was never afraid. It was like he knew someone was coming to rescue him.”
“Someone tricked into it?”
“I don’t know. But I know we didn’t send a message to the ir-Dyeun to have Sofya Rykov’s client arrested. And if she thinks that, she’s certainly being tricked by someone.”
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Echoes of the Fey: The Prophet's Arm Page 13