by KM Merritt
Learn, the goddess said. I can only heal through you.
And the healing would be as faulty as the vessel. Vola bowed her head.
“I’m sorry,” she told Lillie.
Lillie put her hand on top of Vola’s head. “It wasn’t your fault, Vola.”
Vola’s lips thinned. “No, Talon’s right. I should have stopped and made sure you were okay.”
“I told you I was. I should have been honest.”
“And I should have checked for myself.” She took a deep breath and looked up to glance between Talon and Lillie. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last couple of days.”
Her eyes settled on Talon. Talon, who’d been searching for a new family to belong to. Vola and the others could have been that family if she hadn’t screwed it up.
“I’m sorry I left.” Vola swallowed. No one liked admitting they were wrong, but adding on talking about why she’d been wrong made her want to crawl in a hole. “I thought I was supposed to lead you. I thought I was supposed to be the best so we could rescue everyone. But I just got you guys hurt. I should have been protecting you so you could do the things you’re good at. ‘Cause you’re good at so many things that I’m not. Sorrel was right. I screwed up by not trusting you and now I’m worried that you won’t trust me.”
Lillie bit her lip and looked down. Vola glanced at Sorrel, who always had something to say, but the halfling leaned against the wall, staring at her sandals.
It was Talon who cleared their throat.
Then the ranger reached for the edge of their hood. Gloved fingers gripped the fabric and pulled it back.
Vola stared. Talon wasn’t that mysterious after all. They were human with light blue eyes and pale skin that didn’t get a lot of sun. Sandy colored hair had been cropped unevenly around their round ears and a patchy beard wandered over their chin.
There was nothing shocking for Talon to hide, but they’d worn the hood anyway, keeping themselves apart. And Vola decided to take this moment for what it was. A gift, and a measure of trust.
Vola met Talon’s eyes. “Is it too late to trust my pack?”
Talon grimaced. “It just sounds stupid when you say it.”
“What? Pack? Because I wasn’t raised by wolves?”
“Yeah.” Talon heaved a sigh and crossed their arms. “All right, let’s do this.”
“Do what? Give me another chance?”
Talon jerked their head at Gruff, who came to sit at their side. “We’ll stick around for a bit. See if you’re worth following now that you’re paying attention to the right things.”
“So how do we fix this?” Sorrel said. “We’re pretty deep in the hole.”
“Not exactly,” Lillie said. “We have Lord Arthorel on the run. We took away his manor and his captain of the guard. All he has left is his magic and his prisoners. If we can catch up to him…”
“We’ll be in a much stronger position than when we ran in here,” Vola finished. She tapped her teeth. “Talon, there’s a bunch of cells at the end of the passageway. And a door out to the swamp. I think that’s where Lord Arthorel escaped with his prisoners. Can you and Gruff track him, figure out where he’s going? I couldn’t see anything obvious.”
Talon nodded once, decisively. “We’ll look for the less than obvious.” The two of them disappeared down the tunnel together.
“Sorrel,” Vola said, and the halfling straightened up off the wall. “You were really good at talking to people in town. Getting them to trust you. Will you talk to them now? See if you can convince them to rise up against Arthorel. It’ll take some work, but we have his manor now. We’ll have enough evidence by the end of the night to bring him up against the nobles court and try him for…” Vola waved her hand vaguely.
“Neglecting his duty, abuse of his tenets and properties, and treason,” Lillie supplied. “Plus whatever it is he’s actually doing to his victims.”
“Magical experiments?” Sorrel said. “Slavery? I can probably use that to get the townsfolk angry enough to revolt.”
“Do it.”
Sorrel jerked her chin up and gave Vola a mock salute. “Whatever you say, boss.” She trotted up the stairs toward the manor proper.
Vola watched her go. Sorrel had been a pretty good second so far. It was time Vola recognized that and used it.
“What about me?” Lillie said quietly.
Vola hid a wince. By sending the others off, she’d left herself alone with the person she’d let down the most. The urge to run made her feet itch. She could do it. Make up some excuse. Tell Lillie she was too hurt and send her off to town to recuperate. Vola would never have to look at her again.
She shook her head roughly and slung Lillie’s arm over her shoulder. “You are going to look for clues about what Lord Arthorel is planning,” Vola said. “You’re a spell caster. I figure if anyone can tell us what he’s up to, it’s you.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“I’m going to be your crutch,” Vola said without rancor. “It’s the best place I can be right now.”
She wasn’t supposed to be out front leading the charge. Her place was here, beside her people. Meeting their needs.
Twenty-Seven
Vola helped Lillie limp all the way up the stairs to the top floor of the manor. No one bothered them. They must have taken care of all the armsmen in the courtyard and the other servants had seen what was good for them and fled. If there’d been any.
Their boots scuffed an old worn carpet, and Vola’s toe caught a hole, making her stagger into the wall with Lillie.
The wizard clenched her teeth but made no sound until they were upright again.
“This place is a mess,” she said, finally. “Arthorel’s finances must be even worse than we thought.”
“And he was covering it all up with magic. Illusions to make himself look rich and prosperous. Damn nobles, appearances are so important,” Vola said.
Lillie concentrated on her feet. “Not all nobles are like this.”
Vola opened her mouth and then thought better of what she was about to say. When Lillie had turned on the charm with the gate guard and Lord Arthorel, she’d talked about playing a part. Vola had thought that meant literally. But maybe it didn’t. Vola acted like a paladin because she was supposed to be one. Because it helped her feel real. Maybe Lillie meant something similar. Maybe nobility was a piece of her she could put on and off. A piece she wasn’t necessarily proud of.
But what was a noble like Lillie doing in a place like Water’s Edge looking for a job? Unless, she was running from something.
“We need to find an office,” Lillie said, interrupting Vola’s train of thought. “Or a study. Somewhere Arthorel keeps his paperwork.”
They poked their heads through a couple of doors, finding spare bedrooms with furniture covered in dust covers. Finally, toward the end of the hall, they opened a door on a room lined with bookshelves and a huge mahogany desk standing in front of a wide window.
“Jackpot,” Vola said and put her shoulder under Lillie’s arm to help her inside. She had to bend nearly in half to make it work.
Vola helped Lillie plop in the chair behind the desk and searched for something to prop her injured leg on. It didn’t go very well.
Vola expected sumptuous chairs, end tables, little knick-knacks. Things that would make a study feel lived in and homey. Instead, the room was nearly empty except for the desk and a single bare chair behind it. The bookshelves stood silent and devoid of books and knick-knacks.
It was almost creepy how sparse it was.
“You want to poke through the drawers?” Vola said. “I’ll go find a footstool. And when I get back, I can fetch and carry for you. Anything you need, I’ll bring to you so you don’t have to get up.”
Lillie’s brow furrowed, and Vola escaped through the door before the other woman could ask what was wrong. She felt like a coward every time she turned her back on Lillie, but it was so hard meeting those green-blue eyes k
nowing what she’d done wrong in the past twenty-four hours.
The next room held a huge four-poster bed with no canopy and a single blanket tossed carelessly over the end. The vanity sported a couple of tins of old cosmetics and empty bottles of cologne. Vola stole the stool from the vanity and carried it back to Lillie.
Lillie had lit the gas lamps along the walls, and now she poured over a stack of loose paper with a book open beside her.
“Here,” Vola said and knelt to place Lillie’s foot on the stool. While she was there, she went ahead and checked the wound.
No seeping. But Lillie’s movements were stiff, indicating a lot more damage underneath the scarring.
A stillness above made Vola look up, and she found Lillie staring at her.
Heat beat in Vola’s cheeks.
“Why do you hate me?” Lillie said quietly, the flickering glow of the lamps reflecting in her bright hair.
Vola jerked and snatched her hands away from Lillie’s leg. “I don’t hate you,” she said quickly.
Lillie tilted her head. “Maybe not now, but I think you did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be trying to make up for it so much.”
Vola glanced away, chest tight. How to explain something she wasn’t even sure she understood herself? She’d fallen into step with Sorrel and Talon without missing a beat, but somehow, every time Vola had looked at Lillie, she’d tripped, mentally. Like finding a stone in her boot.
“Sorrel told me you three have been standing watch most nights.” Lillie brushed her hair over her shoulder. “No one ever woke me to take a turn.”
Vola blinked. Truth was she’d never even thought of waking Lillie to stand watch. The other two were warriors. And that was the problem. Vola looked at Talon and Sorrel and saw fighters. Vola looked at Lillie and saw something else. Something from a long time ago that had no place in her current life. She looked at Lillie and saw a memory.
Vola wanted to stand. It would make her tower over the seated wizard, give her a position of unconscious power.
But she ignored the impulse and stayed where she was, kneeling beside Lillie, their heights flip-flopped for the moment.
“I’ve disregarded you this whole time,” Vola said. “Disregarded and underestimated and maybe hated you. Just a little bit.”
“Why?” Lillie said. “I mean, I know I’m not very good in the wilderness.” She flushed and glanced at her hands. “I’m pretty terrible at it. But I didn’t think I’d done anything to make you hate me.”
“You didn’t,” Vola said, and Lillie glanced up, catching the emphasis Vola had put on the word “you.”
“Then who?” Lillie said.
Vola sighed. Why did everyone always want words? Blades were so much easier. They didn’t get wrapped up and twisted around until you couldn’t point them straight. It would be better if she could pace, walk the nerves out while she found the words, but she was too afraid she’d take the opportunity to walk right out the door, avoiding the question.
“I grew up in a little town a lot like Water’s Edge, but a lot further east,” Vola said. Might as well start at the beginning.
Lillie waited patiently. Maybe her parents had told her stories growing up, and this ritual was familiar.
“A human village. Mostly. But our clan had settled down right next door. The humans were fine with us, as long as we kept to our side of the street and didn’t make trouble. We served as a buffer, a protection against the wilds and the bandits that raided occasionally. Maybe it would have been fine if I’d been a full orc. Or a full human. I would have fit in somewhere. But my parents wanted me to go to school with the other kids in town. The local priest taught them all how to read. He, uh, didn’t think it was worth it for me.”
Lillie watched with a small frown of concentration.
Vola swallowed and stared resolutely out the window. She’d rather tell the story about how she’d beaten a full knight to earn her place at the paladin academy. Or about the way she’d saved the human kids when the school had burned down. The racist priest, too. He’d made her life miserable, and she’d repaid him by saving his life.
But those stories didn’t explain what was going on. They didn’t tell Lillie what ate at Vola from the inside.
“The girls in the village. They were all perfect and beautiful. Skinny and blonde and blue-eyed. And I was…I was half an orc. All green skin and black hair.”
“And they were mean to you,” Lillie said. Evidently, she’d heard this story before.
Vola nodded and then shook her head. “Of course. They made fun of my skin, my teeth, my height. They called me monster. But that’s not the worst part. I could handle that. It didn’t even make me cry anymore. The part that hurt, the part that still stings, is that I wanted to be them. I wanted to look like those girls, all perfect skin and hair. Delicate and pretty. And I hated myself for it.”
Lillie sank back into the chair, her mouth open. “Oh.”
Vola rubbed her hands over her face. She’d never put the story into words before. She hadn’t thought she’d ever have to. It was a part of her that she’d left behind in that little town. She’d walked away and shed the skin of that hurting, hate-filled Vola and put on a tougher more-accepting skin. But talking about it made it feel like she hadn’t really gotten rid of it at all. All that pain was still buried somewhere inside her. Was it something she’d carry with her always? Or would there ever be a time when she could breathe free?
“I think I understand,” Lillie said. “You want to like who you are. You want to be comfortable in your skin, but it’s hard when the world is telling you that skin should look a certain way. It takes a certain strength to ignore the world. And you hate yourself when you don’t have that strength.”
Vola glanced at Lillie out of the corner of her eye. “That’s…well, yeah. That’s it. How’d you know?”
“It’s easier to see other people’s hang ups than our own, I’ve always thought. But I don’t see why you hated me.”
Vola raised an eyebrow. “Because you remind me of my weakness. You’re the spitting image of those perfect girls I so wanted to be.”
Lillie snorted. “Yes, because fat and clumsy is so very attractive.”
Vola opened her mouth to say, “No, curvy and golden is beautiful,” but found her voice dying in her throat. Maybe that was one of Lillie’s hang ups. The one she couldn’t see because she was too close to it.
“At least you’re not green,” Vola said and she managed it without any bitterness. “So, are you a noble?”
Lillie’s face fell, and she turned back to the desk. “Not anymore.”
Definitely running from something. Maybe a fiancé. Maybe a husband. Noble women were always running away to escape marriage. At least that’s what they did in all those bad adventure novels.
Vola almost asked. It seemed only fair to get some answers, but if Lillie really had run away from her family and her way of life, then she’d lost something important. Something integral to who she was. Recently.
“I’m sorry,” Vola said.
Lillie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t even know what happened.”
Vola shrugged. “I’m still sorry. And I’m sorry for lumping you in with my personal ghosts. You’re nothing like those girls, and I should have given you time to prove it.” Vola took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry I disregarded you for so long. I didn’t treat you like a friend. Or even like a full member of the party. I put you in a corner. I didn’t let you do your job. I rushed us, and I didn’t take the time to make sure you were okay before pushing ahead.”
She clenched her fists and met Lillie’s eyes. “I don’t know if you’ll ever walk the same again.”
Lillie’s gaze was steady. “I know.”
Vola swallowed. “You’re not…not mad at me?” The others had all been mad. But Lillie was the one whose life would change.
“I’m mad,” Lillie said. “But I can’t work with you if I don’t forgive you. So, I forgi
ve you.”
Vola jerked. Was she joking?
“Just like that?” she asked, harshness slipping into her voice. “Don’t you need time to forgive?”
“We don’t have time.” Lillie gestured around them. “Isn’t that what you’ve been saying since we left the tor?” She hesitated, fingers playing with the edge of a page. “Forgiveness is a choice. Not a feeling. I choose to forgive you.”
Vola heard the rest even if Lillie didn’t say it. She chose to forgive Vola even if Vola didn’t deserve it.
Vola bowed her head. She rubbed her thumb over her knuckles, over and over again. “I’ll try to do better from now on,” she said, voice quiet. It was the only thing she could do. To make up for the mistakes she made. Try not to make them again.
“I know that, too,” Lillie said, and Vola looked up when she heard a smile in her voice. “That’s the only reason I can make that choice.”
Twenty-Eight
Less than an hour later, Vola caught sight of Talon in the doorway, hood still around their shoulders. She straightened up off the corner of the desk where she’d been waiting for Lillie to need something.
“You found us,” she said.
“All the illusions are gone, and this is the only room that’s lit.” They indicated the light flickering along the walls.
“Did you see Sorrel out there?”
“Right behind me.”
“Great, what do you have for us?”
“Gruff and I found Lord Arthorel’s trail. He travels with a dozen prisoners who are dragging their feet and making life difficult for him.”
“Ha, serves him right,” Sorrel said, coming through the door. “Hey all, are we speaking to each other again?”
“We’re quite well set,” Lillie said from the table without looking up from the papers. “Now that we understand one another better.”
“You want to be in on this discussion?” Vola said when the wizard made no move to leave the desk. “Planning, meeting thing.”
Lillie waved a distracted hand. “Keep going. I’ll hear you. I would never have made it through university if I couldn’t read and listen at the same time.”