The next morning was mild, if not as clear and sunny as the day before. Clouds hung in a haze over the sky, drab and dreary and promising cold and snow to come, but all in all it was a favorable day for the middle of a Dale winter.

Rael was sitting against a wall in an alley mouth, studying the grand building across the street. He was on the opposite end of Trelling’s Rest, right in the heart of the Palace District, watching the Hall of Valor, home and seat of power for the Knight Brotherhood of DarkFyre Dale. He knew the hall well, had spent near his whole adolescence in those sweeping halls, making his home beside the bravest men in the kingdom. He had trained, studied, learned, grown, and become a man in the Hall, and finally taken his vows as a Knight and protector of the realm. He hadn’t seen the Hall in a number of years, hadn’t even visited it upon his return Home. Seeing it never failed to stir memories, sweet and bitter alike.

He wouldn’t chance walking into the Hall openly as Lord IronWing. There could be eyes, even here. But he knew other ways into the Hall, secret ways he’d discovered as a boy. He’d try the great tree around the eastern side of the compound. It’s strong, gnarled branches overhung the tall and sturdy iron fence surrounding the Hall. That yard was rarely patrolled and he could easily slip into the Hall from there. Once inside, he would make his way to the Lord Commander’s office. If anyone happened upon him along the way…well, he would deal with it, somehow.

The Nobleman stood, rested one hand on the short sword he had concealed under his cloak, and made his way slowly across the road in a meandering, lackadaisical fashion, as if he were just another beggar on the street wandering no place in particular.

As he was about half way to the Hall, the guards opened the front gate to let a rider through and out onto the street. The older man sat his horse well, tall and proud of bearing. Rael looked at him from under his low-pulled hood, and gave a start of recognition when he saw the Knight’s raiment of red on gray, the colors of house Cador.

“Galin?” he said as loud as he dared.

His old friend pulled up short upon hearing his name. His horse danced restlessly as Galin stared down at him, his eyes narrowed at what he probably thought was some common back alley rat all bundled in rags and grime.

“What are you doing here? I thought I ordered you to stay at camp and command until I returned!” Rael hissed.

Galin’s eyes went wide with recognition. He sputtered half a dozen curses under his breath before finally growling, “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You fool! You stupid, stupid boy!”

Rael hesitated, giving his friend a perplexed look. He’d expected Galin to be surprised, yes, and the Knight was always sour when met with surprises. But this felt different. Wrong. Galin had an air of frustrated panic about him. It wasn’t like the old veteran at all.

“I came to speak with Commander Dern. Some terrible things have happened, and I need his help.”

“His help?” Galin gaped incredulously. He leaned forward in his saddle so that he was face to face with Rael, and said through his grimace, “You’re an even bigger fool than I thought. We can’t talk here or they’re going to have your head on a pike, and mine too! Forget Dern. Come to my holdings here in town, at sundown. Come through the back, and don’t be seen!”

Before Rael could ask him what this was all about, Galin raised his voice to shout in clear, carrying tones, “No, I’ve not got bread nor alms for you, you sodding mangy cur!”

He pulled his boot from his stirrup, and kicked Rael forcefully in the chest. Rael stumbled almost to the ground, stunned, and Galin turned in his saddle to shout to the guards, “Get this trash back into the gutter where it belongs!”

Galin rode off, kicking his horse hard and sending it surging down the road. Rael looked up to see the guards at the gate walking toward him at a pace that suggested they’d rather do just about anything but go chasing after a beggar. Rael levered himself to his feet and went stumbling off back into the alleyways in a respectable impersonation of a drunken hobble.

Once out of sight, Rael cursed softly and made his way back toward the Siren of The Lake. He didn’t understand what was going on. Why was Galin back in Trelling’s Rest, and why was he acting so strangely? And what had he meant, ‘they’ would have their heads on pikes? Did he mean his hunters? And if so, how did he know about them in the first place?

The thought even flickered through his mind that Galin could be leading him into some kind of trap. But he dismissed it; he’d known Galin too long, too well. The old Knight had been his friend and mentor through his entire adolescence, and close friends with his father before that. No. Galin was gruff and surly and crass. He drank too much, went whoring too often, and had a love for slaying an enemy that at times bordered on reckless and unhealthy. But he held firm to his own sense of honor, and his loyalty was above question.

Wasn’t it?

***

Silmaria was bored. Even though she recognized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Lord Rael was right to be cautious and careful, the rest of her felt smothered and trapped and stifled by his overprotectiveness. She felt pretty certain that the murderous group coming after them knew nothing about her. And she was capable and competent. She could go out, or at the very least down into the common room, and she’d be fine. She could take care of herself.

So why, she asked herself not for the first time as she sprawled across the room’s only spacious bed, did she do as he bid? What was stopping her?

Fear. As much as she felt confident that she wasn’t being searched for, even the possibility was enough to give her pause. Her last encounter with the assassins had been enough to convince her she didn’t want to encounter the men again, ever, and certainly not without Lord Rael’s sword arm near at hand. But for all that, more than fear of the murderers tracking them kept her cooped up in the small room.

It was hard for her to admit, but Silmaria was obeying Rael because not obeying him was a fearful notion as well. Oh, she didn’t think he would hurt her, but she knew he would be angry with her if she defied him. And, somehow, that notion didn’t set well with her. She was uncomfortable with the thought of him being angry with her, and it was even worse because she was sure if he were to become angry, she’d respond in kind. And then she’d say something stupid and thoughtless in the heat of the moment, like she always did.

And then he’d start hating her. She was sure of it. She’d already pushed her luck and his patience far enough with her spectacular little meltdown in the forest a few nights ago. She’d known, even as all the hurt and pain and anguish spilled like so much venom from her lips, that she was going too far. The Nobleman could decide at any moment she wasn’t worth all this grief and difficulty. How easy it would have been just then for the man to turn his back on her, withdraw all his help and protection, and leave her stranded and scared out in the middle of the woods, hunted and hungry and alone! She knew it, even as she accused and blamed him and cursed him and beat on him, and he had taken all of it and not said a word.

They hadn’t spoken about her behavior. Part of her was relieved; he hadn’t seemed changed one bit toward her. Indeed, if anything he was speaking with her more than ever. She fervently hoped with all she was that he had attributed the whole thing to an overwrought woman too full of grief to think straight.

Yet, for all that, the incident weighed on her heavily, and she dreaded what would happen if she pushed his tolerance too far.

The stubborn, willful part of her interjected, then. So what? So what if she pissed him off? What she had said hadn’t been entirely without merit, and even if he became enraged and tossed her aside in his anger, so what? She was capable, and she could take care of herself. It would be hard and ugly, but if she were on her own, she would survive.

Silmaria rolled over onto her side, tangling the sheets around her. Yes, she would survive. Alone. And that more than anything, that notion of being alone, terrified her. Not because she couldn’t take care of herself. But because she was already so much more alone than she’d ever been before. All her life, Silmaria had imagined herself alone. Isolated and shunned by many of those around her, because no one understood her. Because she was a Gnari, a Demi-Human. Because she was different. But that hadn’t been ‘alone’. She’d still had friends, people who cared about her, no matter what she was, no matter if she were different. She saw so clearly now just how much she had taken those people for granted.

And now they were gone.

Rael was all she had left. He was the only remnant of her life, now lost. It had been a good life, really. And Lord Rael was all that remained of it that hadn’t been snatched away. Despite all, despite how she struggled with conflicting feelings about him and even now found it almost impossible to understand him, she could at least admit he was a good man. And he was trying his best, for both of them. She couldn’t take that for granted, not now.

The Gnari woman reached out and grabbed one of the pillows and clutched it to her chest as she fought off feelings of fear and loss and loneliness. She buried her face into the pillow and took a deep breath, and was startled to find she keenly recognized Rael’s scent. Her sensitive nose took the smell of him in, earthy tones of sweat and leather and steel and a mild, pleasant masculine musk.

The smell recalled distinct memories of lying beside him last night. He’d tried being a gentleman and sleeping on the floor, but Silmaria’s stubbornness had won out. She insisted on the impracticality of him sleeping uncomfortably on the floor, arguing how much he needed to rest well for once during these dangerous days. Her final insistence that if he didn’t come sleep up in the bed, neither would she at last brought the man, grumbling but relenting, to lay down in the bed where he promptly and soundly fell into a sleep the dead would envy.

Sleep had been more elusive for her. Lying beside him, Silmaria had watched the dark, large shape of him in the night beside her, her sensitive eyes able to pick the details of him out in the night. His face was relaxed in sleep, some of the lines of care and worry smoothed on his face so he looked young and almost at peace. She lay there just so, not-quite touching him, with the warmth of his body heat chasing away the night chill and the scent of him surrounding her comfortingly. She felt just as she had that night in the forest. Raw, exposed, yet protected and safe.

Silmaria pressed her face into the pillow and inhaled Lord Rael’s scent once more, and remembered the warmth and strength of his powerful arms around her as she cried into his chest.

Before she was even fully conscious of it, the Gnari woman was pressing her firm thighs together, her hips tilting and wiggling as she clenched her muscles tight. The heated pressure in her loins came unannounced and quickly took on the desperate, almost painful ache of the Stirring.

“Not now,” Silmaria groaned softly, biting her thick lower lip as she squeezed her thighs together again, feeling her sex becoming wet and heated already. Her mind flitted to the sight of Lord Rael, bared from the waist up, the taut, strong muscle that corded his shoulders and chest, his toned and powerful arms. The traceries of scars and the huge, jagged one crossing along the fair white flesh of his chest and abdominals…

The memory did nothing but send her wanton desires soaring. Part of Silmaria hated herself for the lurid thoughts centering on the Knight, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d certainly never had qualms with her avid and wicked imagination in the past, no matter who it chose to wander with.

The stirring took hold of her and she trembled as the overwhelming need made every inch of her flesh long to be touched, to be tasted, bitten, scratched, pinched, slapped, anything to stimulate her raw never endings.

Silmaria quickly shimmied out of her dress and ran her hands along her body, letting her own slender fingers trace along the lush curves of her flesh. Her touch played along her flat belly and up to the ripe swell of her breasts. She cupped them, hard, her fingers playing along the sensitive, heavy orbs. She bit back a soft moan as she found her nipples already stiff and thick and demanding attention. Gladly, she gave it, rolling the pink nubs between her fingers before giving them a firm pinch.

Gods, please… let this be enough, she silently prayed.

As one hand remained at her heaving, generous breasts, pulling and plucking and twisting her nipples roughly, her other hand slinked its way sensually down her body. When she cupped her puffy cunt, her sticky arousal was already flowing in a thick and liberal dribble of juices. She let her knowing fingers glide along her slit, teasing at the pink, glossy flesh between her engorged lips for a few moments before firmly plunging two into her desperately clenching hole. Silmaria moaned, her hips immediately bucking and thrusting upward to take her fingers in deeper. Her pussy squeezed tight and wet around those thrusting, tunneling digits.

It wasn’t long before Silmaria was bucking and gyrating, grunting and groaning in concentration as she fingered her slippery sex, her fingers working in as deeply as she could. Her other hand was between her widely splayed thighs as well, working her clit hard as her tits bounced with the swaying of her lithe, curving body. Her ears laid flat atop her head and her tail lashed about as she energetically pleasured herself, building a light sweat beading along her short, velvety pelt.

The Gnari girl rolled onto her belly, her back arched, ass raised with her bosom crushed into the bed. She jammed a third finger into her yearning cunthole while she pinched and pulled at her clit. Her sticky, thick juices glistened and ran down her trembling inner thighs while her fingers plunged in and out of her clutching tunnel.

Her first orgasm shook her to the core, her whole body going taut as she came. Silmaria buried her face into the pillow, screaming into it as her cunt exploded and all the nerves in her body came alive with white hot fire. She pinched her clit, hard, and the pain lanced into her belly in a way that made the orgasm that much more intense and fulfilling. In that moment, no matter how hard she tried not to, in her head Lord Rael was behind her, fucking her, using her like the wicked whore she was.

The very thought made her sob into her pillow. This is how it would be. He would fuck her just like this, behind her with her head shoved into a pillow as he treated her like his own personal fucktoy, because that’s exactly what she was. She loved it, and it filled her with a shame she couldn’t explain and didn’t understand. She loathed that feeling even as she fucking loved it, too, and that twisted duality made her launch uncontrollably into a second even more intense orgasm.

An uncertain number of orgasms later and it still wasn’t enough. Silmaria needed more. In a moment of desperation, she tugged her sticky, wet fingers from her sodden, dribbling pussy and slid them between the round, meaty cheeks of her deliciously toned ass.

She pressed two fingers against her tight, pink asshole and quickly, roughly worked the slippery digits past her twitching pucker and into the gripping heat of her bowels. She shrieked into her pillow as she pumped her asshole fast and hard. She was already in too much of a frenzy to be patient, and the pain of the rough penetration only added to her wicked pleasure anyway. With her free hand rubbing and pressing at her clit, Silmaria fingered her ass quickly and relentlessly until just a few moments later her body began to spasm and quiver in a powerful orgasm. Her head swam, light and fuzzy as her whole body jolted and writhed in orgasmic bliss.

The trick, which she sometimes turned to when especially desperate, was fruitless. Her need was if anything, even greater. After another anal orgasm got her no further, Silmaria reluctantly pulled her fingers from her asshole, leaving the muscles there wonderfully sore and aching. She had half a mind to abuse it further, because it did feel so very wonderful and carnally pleasurable, but it just was not getting the maddening itch of her Stirring under control.

As Silmaria began to miserably consider having to descend down to the common room in search of someone to tend her needs, her eyes fell on the bundle of her belongings placed neatly in the corner. Her gaze found the dagger Lord Rael had given her, still in its leather sheath, the hilt a simple crossguard at the foot of a long, smooth, hard iron grip with a heavy, polished, round iron pommel.

Silmaria didn’t even hesitate. She snatched up the dagger, flipped onto her back, and splayed her athletic legs wide open.

“Oh, fuck,” she whimpered as she pressed that hard, heavy knob of the dagger’s pommel to her drooling slit. It was cold and unforgiving and she didn’t care. She gripped the dagger firmly and pressed inward, spreading her hot slit wide around that round iron head and then shoving forward, working the dagger hilt into her desperately stretching sex. She was so wet it slid in with little trouble, and after giving herself just a moment to enjoy the fullness, the unyielding hardness and cold bite of the iron hilt, Silmaria began to drive and thrust the dagger hilt deeply in and out of her quivering, gripping sex.

The dagger was uncomfortable and rigid and rough inside her tender sex, and exactly what she needed. Silmaria yelped and squealed and screamed, turning her head to press it into the pillow once more, inhaling Rael’s scent and envisioning him over her, pinning her down to the bed and pounding into her as hard and vigorous as the iron shaft of the dagger. She bucked and swayed, her hips arching up off the bed as she fucked herself, reveling in her wickedness and shame.

“Yes…yes, fuck yes! Gods, please…please…!” she cried into her pillow, and with one last, desperate thrust of the dagger deep into her widely stretched sex, she violently orgasmed, her back bowing up off the bed. Her belly clenched until it hurt, a deep, throbbing, vibrating ache coming from her core. Her limbs shook and her toes curled, and she was nothing but a twitching, out of control thing, her body playing out its own viciously beautiful release while she became just a passenger along for the intense and painfully pleasurable ride.

Silmaria had no idea how long she lay there, panting and dazed and hardly even connected to her body, floating along on a haze of bliss and endorphins. All she knew was, one moment she was gone, dead to the world, and the next there came three firm knocks on the door.

And she was laying naked and covered in sweat with the hilt of a dagger stuck up her greedy little cunt.

“Who is it?” Silmaria shouted, her voice breaking on her panic.

“Rael, son of Edwin.”

The dagger went spinning carelessly across the room, hurled away like it was about to burn her. Silmaria paid no mind where it landed as she scrambled up from the bed, got tangled in the sheets, and went sprawling ass first to the floor.

“Shit, shit, shit balls!” The Gnari girl cursed quietly as she struggled with the sheets twined around her ankles, all her usual grace and poise gone as her cheeks burned with raging heat. “Hang on!”

When she answered the door, she was panting, flushed, covered in sweat, her hair a mused, disheveled wreck, and her new dress he’d just bought yesterday was a wrinkled up not-so-new looking mess. Lord Rael looked down at her with an utterly perplexed look.

“I didn’t think you were going to be back so soon,” she said by way of explanation, then realized not only did that not explain anything, but he hadn’t even asked a question, and it sounded about as utterly suspicious as she could get.

Rael stepped into the room, hung up his cloak on the peg by the door, and sat on the corner of the bed. “Plans changed.”

“Oh?” Silmaria asked, trying to sound nonchalant and turning away from him to fidget with some of their supplies on the room’s solitary tiny table, arranging them even though they were already perfectly fine, then putting everything back in their original places again. She didn’t care; any excuse to keep him from seeing her face while she struggled to compose herself seemed a fine idea at this point.

“I never made it in to see Commander Dern,” Rael explained. “I ran into an old friend. Galin Cador, second son of his house, though he’s pretty much given up all right of inheritance to his nephew.”

Silmaria took a deep breath, then another. She turned to face him at last, and it was all she could do to keep her face neutrally interested as she wrestled with the potent mix of lingering arousal and shame. Her eyes wanted to roam along the Nobleman, to drink him in as a parched man drinks in fresh water. It took an immense force of will to keep her eyes on his face, and even that only helped so much.

“So is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

“I’m not sure,” Rael shrugged, and he seemed blessedly too lost in thought to notice her fidgeting and awkward posture. “Ordinarily, I’d say it’s a good thing. I trust him, and he’s a loyal ally and friend. But he’s behaving…oddly. Not like himself at all. And he shouldn’t be in the city.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” she asked.

He turned his eyes to her, and for a moment she was utterly pinned by the strange beauty of them. “Because I left him in command at the FrostFall war camp when I left.”

“Oh,” Silmaria said, and to her relief as she warmed to the conversation, her nerves started to settle somewhat. “What is he doing back in the city, then?”

“I didn’t get a chance to find out. He called me a fool, warned me away from Commander Dern, and told me to meet him at his holdings here in the city before riding off like all the minions of the underworld were on his heels.”

“That’s just a bit cryptic, don’t you think?” she asked as she fidgeted with her hair to try and get it back into some semblance of neatness.

“It is, especially for him. He’s not a man for skirting around issues or ambiguous messages,” Rael agreed. Then, as if noting all over again her disheveled appearance, asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she hastily replied, adding, “Do you think you can trust him?”

“I’m much more inclined to trust him than Dern,” Rael replied, effectively distracted. “And if he’s warning me away from the man, I’m inclined to listen, even if his behavior is strange.”

“Wasn’t he one of your subordinates?” She asked with an arch of her brow.

“Yes.”

“And you trust him more than the Lord Knight Commander?”

Rael chuckled softly and shook his head. “I see where it seems backwards. But experience has told me, Dern isn’t overly fond of me, while Galin has proven himself loyal time and again in the past. So yes. Given the choice, I’d take my chances with Galin over Dern any day.”

Silmaria perched on the edge of the bed, smoothed out her skirts, and gave a thoughtful frown.

“I don’t like it. Something feels wrong in all this.”

Rael nodded slowly. “I know. I don’t like it, either. But I don’t see where I have much choice. I have to go talk to him and see where the cards lie. There’s things in motion I don’t understand, and it seems that he has some answers.”

“I don’t understand any of this, really,” she pointed out irritably. Her conflicting emotions at last took a back seat to something that had been rubbing her wrong for quite a while. “I think it’s past time you told me what the hell it is I’ve gotten involved in. I’ve been hunted, attacked, killed someone to save my life, had my home and my friends taken away from me, and been chased through the countryside. And I have no idea what for. Tell me, Lord Rael. What the hells are you mixed up in? What am I mixed up?”

Rael’s silver gaze studied her, and for an uncomfortable moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he reached up and slowly stroked his coppery beard as he said, “I owe you that much. I’m afraid I have more questions than answers right now. But…what I know, I’ll tell you. It’s the least I can do after all this.”

“Thank you,” Silmaria nodded, and pulled her legs up to sit cross legged across from him on the bed, her hands folded in her lap as she waited, listening.

“The long and short of it is, in the middle of a battle with the Haruke, at the warfront, someone tried to assassinate me.”

“Someone from the Haruke?” she asked in confusion.

“No,” he shook his head. “It wasn’t the Haruke. The Haruke have no real concept of assassins. An assassin would be far too indirect and dishonorable to them. There’s no glory, no battle, no proving, and those things are the heart and soul of Haruke warriors. No. This was an assassination attempt from some other faction. I still haven’t found out who the assassins are, or who they work for.

“In any case, they botched it. The whole thing was brought to my attention by one of my subordinates. The means taken were unusual, disturbing, and quite serious. Like none I’d seen before. The circumstances around the attempt were unique enough for me to take notice and believe that the assassins would try again, and wouldn’t relent until I was buried.”

“I don’t understand. What did they do that was so strange?”

Rael explained the circumstances around the arrow, and the strange spell ensorcelled to it.

“That’s why you’ve been doing all this research into magic and spell work,” Silmaria mused softly.

“Exactly,” Rael nodded. “It’s one of the main reasons I decided to return home. I knew if I stayed in the war camp, they’d just wait for their chance to strike again. It would be easy; they knew exactly where I’d be.

“So I left, as quietly as I could, and came back home in the hopes they wouldn’t discover where I’d gone until I found more information,” he explained. “All I had to go on was the arrow and that spell. I’d hoped, unique and strange as the spell was, if I could find some information on it I could use that lead to discover who the assassins were and then deal with them. I’ve had no luck. And the rest…well. You know what came after that.”

“So we know nothing about them, then,” Silmaria said somberly.

“No,” Rael admitted, clenching his jaw in what she recognized as a subtle tell of frustration. “But one way or the other, I’m going to find out.”

“How many of them could there be?” she wondered aloud as she wrung her hands distractedly. “We’ve already killed…what? A dozen? More? I’ve never heard of men like them. Especially working in a group like they are. How can this kind of thing be happening?”

“There are many evils in the world,” Rael replied, and that was all the explanation he could offer.

“There has to be some information on that spell. Surely someone somewhere knows of it, or something in the writings you’ve gone through through makes some mention of it,” Silmaria insisted.

“Nothing I’ve read has spoken of the spell. There’s few enough mentions of dark arts and black magic sorcery made in most tomes on magic to begin with, and nothing about that spell in particular,” Rael replied.

“I did find someone who seemed to know something. An old sorcerer, or so he claimed. He ran a shop of… magical oddities. I showed him the arrow. He definitely recognized the runes, and when he did, he became terrified and wouldn’t say another word to me. After they attacked the Manor the first time, I went back to press the man for more information. He was gone when I arrived.”

“Gone? Gone like dead?”

“Gone like vanished,” Rael clarified. “Every sign of him and his shop was erased. Like they’d never been.”

Her ears flicked as she looked thoughtful. “Do you think he ran away?”

“I don’t know,” Rael shrugged his broad shoulders. “But I suspect something more sinister at work.”

“You don’t think… the assassins…”

“Normally, I’d say there’s no way the two could be linked,” he said in a rumbling voice. “I don’t see how the assassins could know about my visit. But, now? I don’t know anymore. I’ve no idea what they’re capable of… and at this point I’m more inclined to lean on the side of caution and say they’re capable of anything.”

Silmaria let out a soft sigh. Her tail lashed out to the front of her body, wrapping around her waist. She reached down and distractedly smoothed the sleek fur along it. “What do we do now?”

“Now, I go meet with Galin to see what news he has for me, and we go from there.”

Silmaria turned her eyes up to him, bright, vivid greens the color of fresh leaves startling against her slitted feline pupils. Some emotion flickered there, hiding behind her tough exterior. “You better not get yourself killed while you’re off trying to find your answers,” she said at last in a no-nonsense tone. “If you leave me all alone in this place, I’ll never forgive you.”

Rael met her eyes and nodded, his face somber and grave. “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

“Good,” Silmaria nodded, and seemed to relax somewhat. She even ventured a smile at him. “Now can we go eat? I’m starved. So much that I should get the double portion this time.”

The Nobleman laughed, and they left to see what the common room had to offer.

***

“What the hell is going on?” Rael asked brusquely.

“Well a fine evenin’ to you, too, and don’t you look well tonight?” Galin said with a glare as he stepped aside and allowed his Captain to enter his home.

Rael stepped through the back door and into the small, empty kitchens at the back of Galin’s modest estate. The old Knight’s holding in the city wasn’t half the size of IronWing Manor, but then House Caldor was a minor House of even lower standings than his own, and this wasn’t even the House’s main estate, but rather Galin’s own private little Manor. Galin would say it was given to him so the family didn’t have to bother with him, but Rael suspected it was rather the other way around.

The kitchen was dimly lit by a single torch in the wall and the glowing coals that remained of the cooking fire in the little kitchen’s lone brick oven. In truth, Rael was a bit surprised to find Galin himself answering his knock instead of a servant, but Galin had few enough servants left here to tend the upkeep of the diminutive Manor. Now, as Galin sat down at the small, battered kitchen table and it became evident that he intended for them to have their meeting here instead of a sitting room or some other more comfortable room, Rael’s surprise turned to annoyance.

“Drop the sarcasm and bluster, old man. I’ve no time for either. I’ve far too many questions and not nearly enough answers, so out with it. What’s going on? Why are you here?”

“Sit down already, and stop giving me that look,” Galin grumbled as he waved toward the empty cedar wood chair sitting opposite his own. “And you may as well give up on any of the usual ‘my Lord’ or ‘Sir’ garbage. If you’ve no time for levity, I’ve no time for pomp or circumstance.”

“Just as well with me,” Rael returned. He reluctantly took his seat, and shifted his chair so he kept the door in his peripheral vision. His hand rested on the hilt of the short sword at his waist. If Galin noticed, he made no comment.

“Why here?” Rael asked.

“Because it’s quieter and less likely to have bloody ears nearby than my sitting room or study. I have few enough servants, but those I have I wouldn’t trust with the knife to shave my whiskers.”

“You never shave your whiskers,” Rael pointed out with an arched brow.

“Who’s playin’ at sarcasm now?” Galin snapped irritably.

Rael leaned back in his chair and regarded the grizzled soldier closely. “Tell me what you know.”

Galin made a face and slowly shook his head. “Damned little enough. I know you’re a wanted man, for one. The price on your head would be enough to make the King himself wince.”

Rael shook his head slowly. His jaw clenched and his face turned grim. “And what have I done to earn this dubious little honor?”

“What haven’t you done would be the better question,” Galin returned. “Arson, theft, destruction of property, murder, abandonment of duty, treason against the Crown…the list got too sodding long for me to follow. Basically, they’re saying you turned traitor when you left the camp, and the mess over at your estates was all your own doing.”

Rael’s face twisted harshly as he cursed for a brief moment, before reining his temper in and saying simply, “Lies, the lot of it.”

“Course it is,” Galin scoffed, as if the very notion were laughable. “But speaking out otherwise is a quick way to a short life at this point. I no more than began to express an inkling of doubt, and now I’ve been suspended from duty and taken from the front. Indefinitely.”

“That’s ridiculous! What in the name of the gods is going on?” Rael growled.

“I was counting on you answering that bloody question,” Galin said as he scratched absently at the scar creasing his face. “Seems you’ve done something to royally piss Dern off.”

“Dern?” Rael asked, surprised. “What’s Dern got to do with all this?”

“Near as I can tell, all the accusations and orders about needing your head on a pike is coming directly from him,” Galin explained. “And it was him ordered me put on leave. Bastard refused to meet with me this morning, and his man said if I left my estate before they sent for me again, I’d be investigated for treason my ownself.”

“Gods be damned,” Rael cursed as he ran his fingers through his thick, tangled copper hair in frustration.

“You mind telling me just what in the name of Ceradi’s holy tits you’ve managed to get yourself into?”

Rael stared at the weathered, scarred face that he knew so well, searching for any sign of duplicity. “The more you know, the worse it will be for you if they turn their attention your way.”

“I’m already fucked if they look at me twice as it is. Out with it. Now.”

Rael folded his heavy hands on the table between them, took a deep breath, and told him.

“Damn all,” Galin swore quietly. He leaned back in his seat, his hands folded across his middle as he rocked gently in his chair, thinking. “And this Gnari girl…this Silmaria. You think she can be trusted?”

“She was probably closer to my father than I ever was,” Rael asserted. “And she’s had all she’s ever known stripped away. She has more reason than I to hate these men. I trust her.”

“Well. Might be it’s a moot point, anyway,” Galin harrumphed.

“Why do you say that?”

Galin leaned in closer and rubbed his hands together in a gesture Rael recognized as nervousness. “You’ve got to leave, Rael.”

“Leave? Leave how, exactly?” Rael asked with the rising feeling that he wasn’t going to like this.

“Leave Trelling’s Rest. Leave the Dale. Hell, leave the North entirely,” Galin stated, then quickly held his hands up to ward off Rael’s protests as he plowed on, “Think about it, lad. You’re a hunted man. In more ways than one. Might be these assassins of yours are in league with Dern, or be controlling him, or be him who bought them to begin with. And might be the two have nothing at all to do with one another. Does it even matter? The assassins are hunting you, the Knighthood is hunting you, and the guard, and it damn well might as well be everyone in the Kingdom! You can’t stay here. Your disguises and skulking about are only going to keep you under their notice for so long. You stay anywhere in the North, you’re going to get yourself found sooner than later, and someone’ll have your head on a pike, mark me.”

Rael listened with a mix of impatience and begrudging agreement. As much as he was loath to admit it, Galin was right.

“I can’t just run,” he said angrily, clinging to the last of his stubbornness. “What kind of life is that? And what of justice for all those that have suffered and died of these madmen? For me? I cannot let these murderers go unpunished.”

“And neither should you,” Galin agreed, gruffly, “But you won’t be punishing anyone unless you figure out who these bastards are in the first place, and you won’t find any answers here in the Dale that don’t come at the end of a blade.”

Rael lean back in his chair with a pensive look, his eyes turned to the dying coals. Galin, for once, was silent, letting the young Noble think. When Rael at last spoke, his voice was calm and level once again. “Where would you go?”

Galin thought long before replying, “You’re familiar with the Ondarian Federation, yes?”

“I am,” Rael nodded. “They’re a group of allied city-states to the south. They’re spread across The Weeping Lands, situated between the Johake Grasslands to the northwest, the Reach to the east, and the Ashlands to the far south. What of them?”

“There’s a place in the Federation. A great hall of learning called the Kahrthen Library. It’s vast, and many scholars, sages, scribes and other men of learning congregate there to pursue ancient mysteries, secret lost knowledge… and whatever other pile of complete horse shit those types go jabbering on about.”

“The name is familiar, vaguely,” Rael said thoughtfully. “You think I can find answers there?”

Galin shrugged. “Could be. Could not be. But the Ondarian Federation’s neutral ground. They keep themselves removed from the politics and power games of their neighbors, and we all leave them alone because the Federation is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the continent, so they’re about the most vital trading hub there is. The Kahrthen Library is known throughout the land for its stores of knowledge, and best of all, no one there’s likely to want to kill you. It’s the best thought I’ve got.”

“It’s a good plan. But dangerous,” Rael mused. He rose to his feet and began to pace as he thought aloud. “It’ll be a long journey. South and out of Dale lands. Then looping southeast to skirt around the Johake Grasslands, following the edge of the Reach to avoid the Haruke. Then on to The Weeping Lands and the Ondarian Federation. It’s a long way.”

“Good,” Galin returned. “The farther away from here you are, the better, at least until you’ve figured out what all this is about.”

Rael looked at his friend closely. “Come with me.”

“Pah! Not bloody likely,” Galin said with a wry grin. “There’ll be no tromping off on a grand adventure for this old soldier. I don’t have that many leagues and miles left in me. Besides, supposing I were to up and disappear, it wouldn’t take long for someone to get wind of it and put two and two together. They’re pretty convinced you’re in Trelling’s Rest, hiding out somewhere. Let them keep thinking that for as long as possible, and you’ll have that much more of a lead on any pursuit. If I went with you, that lead would be blown. Besides, here I can keep my eyes and ears open for changes while I do some digging of my own. Not to mention I can keep an eye on that Gnari friend of yours.”

Rael frozen with an expression of confusion. “What do you mean?”

Galin gave him a withering look. “Don’t be stupid, lad. The girl can’t go with you. She can’t possibly make that kind of journey. On the road trailing after your heels is no place for a woman. She’ll slow you down and get herself killed, more than like. Best you leave her here. I can look after her and keep her safe.”

He was right, of course.

Only why then did it feel so wrong, to even think of leaving Silmaria behind? She would be safer, yes. The journey would be arduous and full of danger and hardship. He could spare her all of that. He recognized the wisdom and kindness in Galin’s offer. Even though very idea left a sour taste in his mouth and a hard lump in his gut, he had to do right by her. In an otherwise impossible situation, this might be his one chance.

“You’re right,” he relented at last.

“Good man,” Galin replied. He rose and took the nearby torch from the wall, and nodded to him. “Come on, then, let’s see what supplies and provisions we can get for you. You’ll be needing them for the long road ahead, and thanks to our arse faced ‘Lord Commander’, I won’t be leaving the sodding house anytime soon.”

***

“Who is it?”

“Rael, son of Edwin.”

Silmaria opened the door to let him in, glaring at him as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. It was the middle of the night, and she’d fallen asleep almost an hour ago, waiting for him to return. “You’re an ass. My Lord. I was worried sick.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. Silmaria blinked and looked at him again. Something was off about him. Something different. There was a palpable air of sullenness about him.

“What happened? Why were you gone so long?” she asked, unnerved by his reserved demeanor. Her annoyance was quickly being replaced by uncertainty.

“Galin and I discussed many things,” he explained, stepping deeper into the room. He stood there, staring down at her, his eyes glinting silver pools in the dim light of a few low burning candles. His face was set, determined, but clearly unhappy. “He insisted it’s not safe to stay in the city. In all of the Dale, really. And, after thinking about it and talking it over, I agree with him.”

Silmaria swallowed softly, suddenly full of nervousness. “So what does that mean?”

“It means,” Rael scrubbed an agitated hand through his thick copper locks. “That I have to leave here. I’m traveling south, away from DarkFyre Dale, to a place far out of the assassins reach. Somewhere I can knowledge I seek. Somewhere someone or something can tell me who these people are, so I can bring them to justice. I don’t have any other sensible choice at this point.”

Silmaria listened with a growing queasy, aching feeling in the pit of her stomach. “‘We’, you mean. ‘We’ are leaving. Right?”

Rael stared down at her for a long moment. He had a heavy pack slung on his back, full of supplies. He was serious. But then, he so often was.

The Nobleman stepped forward and reached down to take her delicate hands into his much larger ones. She could feel callouses on his fingers and palms, built from years of gripping the sword. It was only the second time he’d ever taken her hand in his. It felt good, but she didn’t want this, didn’t want to hear what she knew he would say. She pulled her hands away.

“I can’t take you,” he said softly, and she could see the reluctance and the pain in his eyes and that only made it worse. “It’s going to be a long journey. A very dangerous, very hard one. I can’t put you through that.”

She vehemently shook her head. There were tears in her eyes, then they were spilling down her face. Damn him! Damn him for doing this to her!

“I’ll be okay. I’m strong. I can make it. I won’t slow you down, I promise I won’t,” she said, immediately hating the pathetic pleading sound of her own voice, but completely unable to stop it.

“It’s not about slowing me down,” Rael told her. “It’s just too dangerous. Traveling across the Dale in the winter and braving the passes will be bad enough. But then the wilds along the rest of the journey, too? And I may very well be hunted every step of the way. I can’t put you through that. I won’t. I’ll leave you with Galin. He’s a good man, if a bit rough around the edges. He’ll make sure you’re well cared for. He gave me his word.”

“I don’t care about his word!” Silmaria protested heatedly. She stared up at him, her face caught between a look of desperate pleading and a biting glare. Damn him all over again for being so tall, that she had to crane her head back so, just to meet his eyes! “I want to go with you. We’ve gotten this far together. I can keep up! I can help!”

“Silmaria… I can’t,” he said, and his voice was heavy indeed. “I’m responsible for all of this. For the House burning, and putting you through all this danger. For all of your friends and family dying. All those good people…it’s all my fault. You were right about that. It’s too much, Silmaria. I won’t let you be yet more blood on my hands.”

Silmaria glared up at him, her hands balled into fists as she seethed with defiance until she was physically shaking with it. Then all at once, her resolve and anger crumbled, and her shakes became barely restrained sobs. Her lower lip trembled. She leapt forward unexpectedly and pressed herself against him, her small hands gripping the front of his wool shirt as she pressed her face into his chest.

“I don’t care about what happened before! I don’t blame you. Not anymore. Don’t you understand? You’re all I have left! All I have left of him! Of my life. Of anything that makes any sense! Please. Do whatever you must, go wherever you must, only take me with you,” she cried. “Don’t leave me behind. You promised! Please…please don’t leave me alone. You promised.”

Rael stared at her as she sobbed quietly against him, utterly torn. Every scrap of logic in him said he must leave her. He had no choice. She would be in more danger than he could imagine if she stayed with him. With Galin, she would be safe, stable, well cared for and be able to start moving on with her life. It was the best thing, for both of them, to part ways now. He knew that!

Yet, as he stared down at her, pressed in close, her tear streaked face pressed to his broad chest…

The Nobleman wrapped the small girl in his arms, pulling her in closer to squeeze her tight as he muttered crossly into her ear, “Damn you, and all stubborn, thick skulled, iron willed women everywhere.”

***

“Message for you, my Lord,” Said Galin’s Manservant, Leon, in a voice that spoke of boredom, resigned patience and quite-a-lot-of-better-things-to-do, thank you.

Galin looked up from the old tome he’d been pouring over. Or, at least appeared to be pouring over. It was a collection of old customs and rituals practiced by followers of the old gods in ages gone by, the closest thing he had in his study to writings on magic. It had been a gift from Edwin many years ago, back when his dear departed friend had gone through that all too brief phase of trying to encourage Galin to become learned, or educated, or some such sodding nonsense.

He was keenly reminded, now, why he’d never bothered trying to read it in the first place.

“Hand it over, then,” Galin grumbled. He slammed the book shut, not bothering to mark his page since he honestly couldn’t remember the last five to seven pages he’d read in the first place.

The folded up message was a sheet of low quality parchment folded up and held shut with a dollop of blue wax with no seal or insignia to speak of. He flicked the paper open and glanced inside.

In Rael’s neat, tight hand, was the simple message: The Cat is with me. She wouldn’t stop mewling when I tried to go.

Galin sighed, crumbled the note into a ball, and tossed it into the nearby fire.

“Well, bollocks.”

***

Bollocks, indeed.

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