by Terah Edun
More like a grumpy, reticent know-it-all, Mae mused to herself internally.
Nevertheless it was this curmudgeon who had acted to save her life multiple times yesterday, even if his only goal was to keep her out of the hands of mages who could do more damage than he could, not to mention, stop them from using her power for their own nefarious intentions, though Mae doubted Rivan’s own purpose was as good-willed as he tried to appear to be.
As she sat up and lowered her feet to the floor, the slight sounds she had made was enough to wake Rivan from his slumber. He shot up like there was a fire under his bum and tangled in his blanket, stumbled over his own feet as he fell to the floor between the two of their nooks.
She had to grin at the sight of him on all fours while tangled in a blanket looking bleary and confused as he did so. Though she was careful not to laugh aloud.
Nevertheless Rivan looked up at her and said with accusation in his voice, “Oh, its you.”
“Yes, it’s me,” Mae said blithely. “The person you’ve been tied hip-to-jowl with since yesterday.”
He blinked and stood up with careful adjustments of his form as he yanked the blanket that had wrapped itself around him off and tossed it on the bed. Looking around for something, Rivan turned away from her and soon found it. He headed three steps away to the back of the room where a small table with an upright bowl stood upon its top. Without pausing Rivan broke the layer of ice that had frozen over the top of the bowl’s rim, and immediately dunked both hands in the presumably cold water below.
Splashing his face liberally and then wiping it clean, he turned and gestured her towards the bowl.
“Care to have a refresher?” he asked dryly.
Normally she would have said no but she hadn’t had a chance to wipe off the dirt and grime let alone the dried blood from days before, so yes, she would.
Darting over Mae did the same as he did though she winced as her hands hit the ice-cold water and her skin immediately shriveled.
Yanking her hands back with a yowl, she looked over at him with an accusing glare. “That’s freezing,” Mae complained.
Rivan yawned and said, “So warm it up.”
Mae almost asked him how before feeling stupid and realizing this would be the easiest thing she would have to do in the past day.
Lowering her hands to the water’s level again, she called up her fire gift and let the heat roil over the surface until she was confident the ice had melted. Then she lowered her still lit hands into the water as she wondered if this new element would snuff out her flames.
Mae watched in delight as her fire kept burning even under water and the liquid took on a pleasant heat that was soothing to the touch. She might have had to expend a bit of extra energy to keep the flames from dying away while within its adversarial element but it was well worth the price when she got what she wanted. Before the water got too hot, she withdrew her magic and watched her flames die instantaneously. Satisfied, Mae raised a now warm handful of water to splash up on her face.
That first wash was as beautiful as going to the hot springs in the mountains for a day.
Or at least that was what she told herself as she hurriedly cleaned her face, hands, arms, and as much as she could reach of her neck, chest and upper back.
When she turned around Rivan was watching her with a bemused expression on his face which she ignored with a sniff as she said, “You try being filthy for days on end.”
“Oh I’ve had it far worse milady,” Rivan said dryly. “But if you’re ready?”
“I’m ready,” Mae confirmed.
They left the room where they’d taken their slumber without another word and exited into the chapel beyond.
As they were walking, Rivan said casually, “I did some searching of my own while you slept last night.”
Mae peered over at him warily as she asked, “Searching for what?”
“Where Donna Marie and Ava are primarily,” he said as he stretched his limbs. “Just to get a parameter for where we should be avoiding.”
Nervous Mae asked, “They didn’t see you, did they?”
He gave a short laugh. “I didn’t go physically where they were. I used my mage senses and the sight to find their auras and work my way backwards. Simple and pretty safe tactic.”
“Couldn’t you have led with that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m telling you now.”
“You’re trying to send me into an early grave,” Mae complained as they both stopped at the entrance to the outside corridor.
One looked at the other and Mae pushed forward before she could chicken out. Cautiously she poked her out to look into the area beyond. She was lucky that she didn’t do more than a passing glance because as soon as she did, three mercenaries came around the corner walking towards them.
Heart beating fast Mae yanked her head back but she didn’t dare close the door.
The approaching mercenaries were too close and would hear it shut. Instead she plastered herself against the wall and motioned Rivan back as well. As they focused their hearing on the steps heading towards them from beyond the chapel, Mae furiously wondered what to do.
There weren’t any weapons in the holy room and she was pretty sure two soldiers screaming aloud as they died by being set on fire would just have dozens more of their brethren Cross Guard descending on them.
Not that she really thought setting someone alive on fire was much of a choice.
Her hands trembled as she had to make a decision. Steps sounded closer and Mae was nearest to the door. The one thing she had determined from the moment she saw those mercenaries coming towards them was that she was not going back without a fight. She wouldn’t be imprisoned again, neither physically or mentally.
She had to keep her freedom.
Just as she wavered and eased forward to step into the corridor to face her foes in a surprise attack, Rivan’s hand gripped her shoulder holding her back.
“Wait,” he hissed into her ear.
It didn’t take long to figure out why he’d insisted she hold back.
As they walked along the hallway, Mae noticed now that the mercenaries were doing so at a sedate amble like they were out on a stroll rather than hunting down a lost prisoner and potential turncoat. They came ever closer and the conversation between the three men drifted down before them.
“I heard she disappeared in the night, chains flapping in the wind,” said one excitedly.
“Not a guard on post saw her get up and leave either,” said another one.
“Whatever happened, that woman mage is fit to be tied,” the third mercenary said with a shudder as they approached the chapel’s entrance.
The first mercenary in the group spoke up again.
“Yeah, I’m glad we drew patrol duty with that one on a rampage,” he said starkly. “I swear I saw her throw a vase at someone’s head with her mind when she heard about the escape.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” the second mercenary said a with dark look as they passed by. “Those mages have powers fit only for the gods.”
Their conversation continued but they kept walking past Mae and Rivan’s slightly open chapel door with barely a glance. As they said, they were only out on patrol not on a search, so they had no reason to look inside. Although to Mae, it spoke of poor training to just pass by an ajar door. Poor training she could only be grateful for in this moment.
As they turned the corner, she looked back over her shoulder at Rivan in relief as she whispered, “They’re gone.”
“I know,” Rivan said as he finally peeked out the door. “And it’s time for us to do the same.”
“Where should we go?” Mae asked.
Rivan hesitated only a bit before he said, “We need to get to the stable yards, from there it’ll be easy.”
Easy for what he didn’t say but Mae’s mind was already yards ahead on planning her family’s escape.
“Is that where they’re holding the others?” she asked.
“Nearby,” he prevaricated.
That was enough for her.
She slipped out of the door and he followed like a silent shadow behind. Taking them through out of the way corridors paid off because they didn’t run into any more patrols and the hallways were empty, except for the occasional cat which stared at them from an aloof perch in a window here or there.
Mae almost breathed a sigh of relief when they managed to sneak around the back end of the kitchens and she could see freedom in sight. The doors to the outer bailey, where the horses were stabled and most carts were brought in with supplies for the kitchen and larder were unloaded, were wide open.
She could see the yard beyond and there wasn’t a better sight in the world than that small bit of sunlight waiting for them.
Just as they were about dart across the staircase landing that led down into the larders, voices sounded in the kitchen.
A lot of voices! Mae thought in horror.
“Over here,” Rivan hissed at her.
She turned to find him already backtracking down into a side hallway. With a regretful look over her shoulder, she followed him. She had no choice just as she managed to get around the corner she saw the cloaks of a whole grouping of Cross Guard members coming out of the kitchen with full plates in hand.
Resentment stewed in Mae as she crouched down low enough that she could hide behind a nearby table as she saw they were eating her family out of house-and-home. Or what was left of it anyway.
Laughter erupted from the table nearest her as she overheard snippets of confrontation.
“Did you see those yokels?” crowed one mercenary female. “They barely put up a fight!”
“Some of the teens came up at me with sticks that broke after their first hit,” her eating companion replied back derisively.
They both guffawed then at her family member’s inability to defend their home.
They had been surprised and overwhelmed! Mae thought furiously, itching to defend her family’s honor, knowing she couldn’t give up her hidden position when every Cross Guard member would be on the alert for a random female walking around.
Mae turned her focus on a new table as they too began to speak of the days-and-nights before.
She listened as one, a leader it seemed though not the one she had met in the woods, said “We gathered these fools up right quick. Wasn’t all that hard either, none of their doors locked and most of them unarmed as it was.”
“Gathered where?” Mae whispered harshly as she struggled to hear.
To her surprise this new voice continued on as he drank out of his tankard with healthy gulps.
“Had to put them somewhere, there was too many of them to individually guard single rooms,” he remembered.
“Right Sir,” his tablemate said. “They’re lucky enough we kept them alive and if they don’t stop caterwauling and demanding rights based on the Kingdom charter they’ll see just how far our charter goes.”
“We’re the authority out here!” the leader said.
“That’s right,” his tablemate exclaimed with a heavy bang on the bench beside him.
“Cross Guard, Cross Guard, Cross Guard,” was the yell that was taken up by the seemingly drunk banger and before long the whole room was ringing with their proud voices yelling out the same.
She would get nothing more now that they’d descended into partial celebration and drinks.
18
Still Mae lingered hoping against hope for names, for a specific location. But even as the voices settled down on the outer edge where she was, others began to approach where she was crouched down. She backed away as Rivan tugged on her tunic to guide her in a new direction and she turned to follow him without a word. He didn’t need her to lead them through the twists-and-turns of the greater holding now that their exit was in sight. They just needed to find a quick way around the obstacle and judging by the food piled high on their plates they couldn’t go into the great hall either. They’d just find more mercenaries stuffing their faces and having a good time at her family’s expense.
So when Rivan made a slight mistake and took them on a branch of the hallways that would lead out into the great hall, she grabbed him back and once more took the lead. Barely hesitating he let her resume her place in front as they stayed hunched over and found a new way to their initial destination, the outer bailey. Both looking for freedom although it didn’t escape Mae's thoughts that her insistence on getting to the stable yards could vary very much from Rivan’s reason. She wanted to free her family. But Rivan? He only wanted to free himself.
Fortunately for Mae he needed her to do that and her one condition was that her family came first. She just hoped that they could hatch a plan together to ensure that outcome.
She had her doubts but she wouldn’t let them overcome her hope.
She had freed herself and with Rivan’s help they had already escaped Donna Marie’s clutches twice. If they could do it for each other, they could do it for the others as well.
Occasionally during their furtive sprints through the halls of her castle, she took the opportunity to glance at Rivan. She tried to disguise it as being on the lookout for more patrols coming from different directions, which wasn’t actually a lie. In any case, Rivan was so distracted by his own worries that he didn’t notice her perusal of his expressions over the next half hour. What she saw worried her.
He was looking more and more nervous as the day wore on, she thought.
But she couldn’t fault him. He had stood by her side so far after all. She reached up an uncertain hand to halt him and talk it out. But just as her hand grasped his shoulder, a new patrol came out around the corner. They didn’t have a choice, Mae swung wide and desperately gripping Rivan’s arm for all she was worth half-fell, half-stumbled down the short flight of stairs nearest them.
Not pausing as they landed on their feet. They scrambled down the next flight and descended down into the underground level just as voices two flights above echoed in the stairs.
“Did you see that?” someone exclaimed.
“See what?’ whoever it was next to him ask. “All I see is you three sheets to the winds.”
“I saw a piece of fabric heading down those stairs,” the drunk man argued.
“Oh, was it flying on its own?” his friend cynically asked.
“Ha ha har,” snarked back the drunkard. “I think it could be something.”
“Aye, well if you want to go stumbling around in the basement darkness, you’re welcome to it,” was the derisive reply she heard.
Whatever the drunkard said back was lost to her ears but no footsteps echoed down the stairs for a long enough time that she had the thought that they were in the clear. It was safe now for her to build a small fire with her magic so they weren’t wandering around here blind at least.
Mae leaned back against the wall with a relieved sigh as she whispered, “That was close.”
“Yeah,” Rivan said. “We need to get out of these corridors and this greater holding before they realize we’re still here.”
He started forward to do just that and she slammed a restraining hand flat on his chest.
“Not before we find out what remains of my family,” Mae said with a stubborn look in her eyes.
Rivan shook her off in a huff.
“You’re insane if you think you can get anywhere near them,” he said.
Mae looked at him carefully.
“You promised,” she pointed out.
“That was before I realized Ava and Donna Marie were willing to tap into dark magic to get you back,” Rivan snapped. “Remember those fissures?”
“Of course I do,” Mae complained. “I certainly almost fell into enough of them.”
“Yeah, well normal mages don’t conjure those in the Aether realm just for any reason,” he said harshly. “I told you it drained their gifts to do so but it also invited retribution down on their heads for messing with non-mortal realms.”
“R
etribution for whom?” Mae asked curious, an enemy of those two was her ally after all.
Rivan brushed off her question. “Never mind that. The best thing you can do at the moment is put the kingdom between you and them.”
“You mean run,” Mae said flatly.
“That’s the general idea, yes!” Rivan said.
“For how long?” Mae asked while her arms crossed defiantly.
Rivan looked at her as if she was insane.
“For the rest of your life if you’re lucky,” he said slowly.
“And if I’m unlucky?” Mae asked as she realized she didn’t really want to hear his answer.
“Then they find you, they drag you back, they fillet your magical soul like a fish and you wish you’d never been born for the last days of your existence,” he said in a tone that implied she should know this already.
And maybe she should but darned it, she didn’t like those options. She had power. So did he! Maybe they could win.
Mae tried to explain that scenario to Rivan and he laughed in her face.
“We’re in the underground now,” he pressed. “You know and I know that there’s an exit down here that goes straight out to the backwoods. We could be in and out and no one would be the wiser.”
Mae pressed her lips in a displeased line that he probably couldn’t see.
So she made her thoughts as clear as could be as she lit her glowing hand extremely bright and raised the light up to her face.
Rivan winced at the sudden brightness and she said in a voice that she was unwilling to back down.
“I am not leaving this greater holding without my family with me,” Mae said icily.
Done arguing with him, she pushed past him then and started back up the stairs. It didn’t take her long to get back up to the landing they had tumbled down so quickly in the first place. Then she paused at the corner and carefully eyed the short distance she needed to run to cross the back servant’s hallway and enter into a side passage which should loop her around the outer bailey. It wouldn’t take her into the stable yards but that was fine, she no longer believed her family was there anyway.