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fractured-legacies · 11 months

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Imprudent, Chapter 6: Quest

Prologue | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7

Chapter 6: Quest

According to Lt. Alphonsoni, large urban areas of the planet have been reduced or entirely obliterated, a fact that is corroborated by our limited records. However, we have detected isolated remnants of architecture and other infrastructure, mostly in the form of singular towers and other edifices in various locations. Typically these are singular structures, although there are a few areas that have multiple instances. The reason why these buildings were spared from whatever else destroyed the rest of the planetary civilization is unknown; attempts to communicate with these structures have failed, and neither our records nor the Lieutenant’s memory are detailed enough to determine the distinguishing factor of these buildings.

~o0O0o~

Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse

The chill seeped in through the holes in Fia’s clothes; honestly, that was more irritating than getting hit with an arrow. She was still upset over her favorite silk gown that had met the same fate years earlier. Oh, sure, you could get blood out of silk, but a hole right through the bodice!? You couldn’t fix that, not without ripping out the whole bloody panel, and then you had to find matching silk to put in its place.

She knew that she was distracting herself, though, and as they came to a halt at the next lock—by a small village—she could feel Raavi’s eyes on her.

She hopped out of the iceboat and started giving orders. “Yufemya, sweep for any revenants. Don’t engage unless you have to. I’m going to see about finding us some help. Raavi, prep the boat for dismantlement, but don’t do anything yet until we find out if we need it.”

“And me and Zoy?” Stylio asked.

“You’re with me. Zoy, with Raavi.”

Looking around at the group of them, she could see them wondering, but none of them spoke up or demanded answers, spreading out as she’d ordered.

Turning, she marched to the village next to the lock; another canal joined up here, creating a larger pond, which was frozen over. That explained why this lock had a settlement here at all, which was good.

Stylio fell in step with her. They walked in silence, their boots crunching the snow as the wind whipped around them. As they entered the first set of streets between the houses, Fia asked, “See anyone awake?”

“No, but there have been people here. Look.” She pointed down, and Fia followed the line, to see the uneven hummocks in the snow that showed there had been foot-traffic here, even if the later snowfalls had buried it.

They continued searching through the darkened streets and quiet houses. Just when Fia was about to call it quits, Stylio called out in a carrying whisper, “Here.”

Fia turned, and saw a patch of dark ice besides an alleyway next to an oddly shaped hummock of snow.

“Oh shit.”

Stylio brushed the snow away, revealing a dead body, a bloody gash in its belly having leaked out into the snow, making the dark patch.

“Not an oathwalker, then,” she said. “They don’t bleed.”

Shaking her head, Stylio rose. “No. Come, let’s see if we can find any survivors. I don’t know how long this one has been dead, but it can’t have been too long; he was only a few inches beneath the snow.”

Fia nodded and took point as they went deeper into the village. They reached the largest house, and outside, there were more bodies under the snow. The doors were intact, however. Hoping that they weren’t too late, she knocked.

A moment later, the door swung open and someone shoved a crossbow in her face.

Sighing, she pushed it out of the way, and hid a wince when the wielder pulled the trigger and the bolt went clean through her hand, embedding itself in the wall. The whispering in the back of her mind was brief, the hole closing almost as soon as the bolt cleared it, and she pulled the crossbow out of their hands.

“Yo-you-you’re alive!” the man stammered.

“No thanks to you,” Fia said, glancing at the quivering bolt in the wall and setting the crossbow aside. “Bit jumpy, are we?”

“They… they came! In the dark! Monsters! Dead men! They fell on us, killing, murdering…”

“How many?” Fia asked.

“Dozens… maybe hundreds…”

“And you fought them off?”

“We had to! The sleepers… down in the cellars! We had to protect them!”

Fia nodded, and glanced past the man. Another dozen or so overwinterers were huddled around the corridor, clutching weapons and giving her furtive looks. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I am Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse. I am on my way to the capital to inform King Luitpoold about these attacks. I need your help to get around your canal locks.”

“But they’re frozen, milady,” said the man who had almost shot her. “It’s winter!”

“We’re using a different form of transport,” she said. “But we need, say, half a dozen men, more if possible, to help. Can you help us?”

A bunch of the overwinterers, apparently heartened and desperate for something to do, rose and started doing up their winter coats.

“Good. We’ll meet you down at the locks,” she said, then turned and left.

As she and Stylio walked back down the road, Stylio abruptly said, “It’s a Death Curse, isn’t it?”

Fia paused and looked at the other woman. Possibilities ran through her mind. She could lie, try to misdirect, to push it off for later…

Or, most scary of all, she could tell the truth about the secret that had kept her alive through all of her adventures, including, most recently, five years of marriage.

So she nodded. “Yes.”

They continued walking. “A powerful Curse,” Stylio said after several more steps.

“I prefer to think of it as a Blessing.”

“Do you know who?”

Fia nodded. “I do. My father.” She swallowed. “He was a healer. Someone like you. And he was murdered. And he blessed me with his dying words.” You will live a full long life. Neither injury nor illness nor poison or anything but old age will take you, my daughter. “I was three.”

Stylio put her hand on Fia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. It… I don’t remember him. But the men who took him regretted it. I saw to that before I was twelve.”

A nod. “I understand. Come. We have a long way to go to the capital.”

“Not as far as you’d think,” Fia said, and forced a smile onto her face and some levity into her voice. “I know that when this is all over, I’m going to start a business making those things.”

“For courier duty in winter?”

“That, and for fun. Can you imagine taking one out to Lake Stotos and letting it go?”

Stylio laughed. “I’d like that!”

Raavi ava Laargan

I squinted, peering into the distance, unsure if I was seeing something or not through the blowing snow.

And then the clouds broke for a glorious moment, revealing the King’s Tower in all of its curved, prismatic glory.

“We made it!”

Behind me, Lady Fiaswith swore admiringly, and if there had been any question in my mind that she’d once been a sailor—and there wasn’t by this point— those questions would have been put to rest by the fluency and skill with which she swore.

I heard a click of metal on metal, and Stylio said, “We just traveled over a hundred and twenty miles in seven hours. I have never heard of such a trip outside of tall tales of people riding on dragons.” She put away her pocketwatch and said, “Well done, Raavi.”

My blush, which had already been in force from the Lady’s profanity, grew. I then almost jumped when the Lady said, “Over there. There are guards there; I can see their lights. Drop the anchor!”

With a joint sigh, Yufemya and Zoy lifted the heavy plate and dropped it over the side as I guided us over to the canal docks where indeed there were a group of miserable looking guards standing with crossbows. They heard us coming—how could they not, with the anchor’s screeching?—and leveled their crossbows at us as we came up to the dock.

“Not a good sign. Overwinterer guards shouldn’t be that jumpy…” Lady Fiaswith mused behind me, and then, taking a deep breath, bellowed out, “At ease, men! We’re coming in with news!”

As we drifted in, slowing, I tried not to stare at the crossbows and those shiny, deadly quarrels waiting to fly through the air at us…

Finally, the first guard moved his crossbow away, and motioned for his companions to do the same. “Identify yourselves.”

“Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse, and companions. We have news of an attack by roving revenants on the town of Rhaanbach and several others along the way, and we’re here to report to the King.”

As she spoke, we came up to the pier and shuddered against it with a soft thud. Lady Fiaswith ignored the guards as she started tying down the sails and getting the rest of us to tie the iceboat up to the docks, as if it was a regular ship. We were about halfway done when the head guard nodded and turned to one of his men. “Send a runner to the Tower. Inform them that Her Ladyship here has arrived and is in our custody, and we are awaiting instructions.”

The man nodded and moved off. As we finished tying up the ice boat, the guard looked us over. “If you all would come with me?” he said, although I could tell that ‘No’ wasn’t an option. I looked at the others, and I was the only one who was worried, or at least letting it show through our snow-crusted winter clothing.

Hefting our packs, we left my ice boat behind, and I gave it one last look as we walked away. I’d been working on it, on and off, for over a year and it had worked so well for its first trip.

It vanished behind a building, and I turned back to follow the others. As I did so, I could see the King’s Tower standing on High Point, overlooking the bay. It was beautiful. Three hundred and fifty feet tall, the last forty feet the finial alone, it was an exquisite gem of crystal and light which had stood guard over the bay since time immemorial. It was one of the ancient homes of the Kalltii, according to legend. Many of the pieces of art and architecture around the kingdom were done in imitation or inspiration of the style it and its brethren embodied, just done in glass and metal instead of imperishable, eternal crystal.

“Hey, keep moving!” a guardsman said brusquely, and I realized I had stopped to stare. Flushing, I started walking again, and heard him mutter, “Damned provincials…”

I flushed harder, and, bowing my head, hurried to keep up.

Stylio caught my hand and made me walk in step with her. “Do not let him get to you. You are young and you will have the chance to travel, especially with your new creation back there. He’s older and is a guard on canal watch duty in the winter,” she said to me in a low voice.

I gave her a sidelong look, but didn’t say anything.

We were led into a snow-covered brick building; I was blinded inside, after having been out with only the snow-glow and the Night-Light to see by.

“Travelers from the canal. They’re to wait here pending orders from the Tower,” said one of the guards.

My eyes adjusted, to see several other guards standing around a small oil-fueled stove; a few oil-lamps lit the space, revealing a battered wooden table with some equally battered wooden chairs around it. A card game in progress sat abandoned, along with a few sandwiches and beers. It was still cool inside, but warmer than out in the snow, and I sagged into a chair, grateful, when one of the guards motioned me into it.

I shut my eyes, only to see lines after endless lines of white—the pure white of the snow along the banks of the canal, the darker white of the ice of the canal itself—streaming before my eyes.

I groaned and grimaced, but I must have rested, because the next thing I noticed was the smell of hot food.

Opening my eyes, which took as much effort as lifting an iron ingot, I saw that Stylio had apparently raided our packs for what was left of our provisions, and had taken over the stove to reheat them.

“Oh, good, he’s awake,” I heard, and then a plate, with some steaming mashed potatoes (where had those been?) and fried sausages was slid in front of me.

Looking up, I saw Zoy standing over me, her face split in a grin. She reached down and messed with my hair. “Next time you take the boat out for a long trip, someone else gets to swap out the tiller occasionally.”

“Worried about me?” I managed to get out.

“Naaah,” she drawled exaggeratedly. “I just got bored sitting back there and want a turn to play!”

I laughed and started to eat. It was simple food, but delicious, and I was just about done when a guardsman came in.

“They’re wanted up at the Tower. Now.”

As we came up to the base of the King’s Tower, I craned my neck up to look at the smooth, sheer lines; from a distance, the entire structure could have been mistaken for a glass lamp, with a candle-flame at the finial. But up close, I could see that the smooth folds were ripples in the crystal, and deeper patterns and decorations divided it into panels. I’d been told that attempts to remove and study the sections had failed repeatedly through history.

Inside, it was quiet. Incredibly quiet, in fact. The howl of the wind ceased as soon as the doors closed behind us, despite the fact that I could see the blowing snow through the perfectly clear doors, which only had a thin band of metal around the outsides to mark where the edges were.

Lighting, though, was provided by what Night-Light came in through the windows, and from more normal oil-lamps that dotted the space.

We entered a foyer with a group of guards standing around; two were by another pair of glass doors, while another stood behind a counter, with a series of lockers and coat-racks on the wall behind her.

“Before you proceed to meet with the King, you must surrender any weapons or arms you might possess. They will be kept securely here and returned to you before you leave,” the guardswoman by the counter said. “You may surrender them voluntarily, or after a search.” She smiled thinly. “Your decision. Cloaks and coats can also be given here.”

Lady Fiaswith stepped forward. “Lady Fiaswith—”

“Of House Rechneesse. I know and I remember. You’re supposed to be dead,” said the woman.

“And some people are going to be so disappointed, I know,” she said lightly, and unbelted the sword and crossbow she’d come with, putting them on the counter, followed by her cloak and coat. Her shirt had a noticeable hole in it and a bloodstain where she’d been shot, but the guard said nothing about those, instead just bundling up the cloak and coat and sticking them on one of the coat-racks. Then she waved Lady Fiaswith forward over to the set of doors by the guards. “Next.”

Yufemya stepped forward and put down her bow and the quiver of arrows, followed by a few knives from a thigh sheath, along with her cloak and coat.

“Name?”

“Yufemya.”

“Relation to the Lady there?”

“Traveling companion.”

The guardswoman paused and frowned before glancing at Fiaswith. “She one of your pirates?”

“No, but I’ll vouch for her and the others. Come on, you know that if they’re not even giving us a chance to change clothes before going up to see Luitpoold, he’s not going to wait for a whole song and dance number.”

The guardswoman snorted and nodded. “Fine, but if there’s any problems, it’s on your head.” She motioned Yufemya through. “Next!”

I stepped forward.

“Name?”

“Uh… Raavi ava Laargan. Ironworker of Rhaanbach.”

“Good. Give up your weapons here.”

I looked around at the others. I didn’t have any weapons, so I just shrugged off my cloak and my coat, and handed them over.

“What are those?” the guardswoman asked, pointing at my toolbelts.

“Uh… my tools…” I started to say.

“Give them here,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

After glancing around at the others, I saw Stylio give a nod, and I complied, taking off my toolbelt, my vest with all of the pockets, and the bracer I had on my arm for slipping in small tools.

“Brought a whole workshop with you?” the guardswoman asked, putting them away.

“Uh… no?”

“It was a joke, kid. Next!”

Zoy and Stylio looked at each other, and Stylio motioned Zoy forward.

With a put-upon sigh, Zoy stepped to the counter, and—making my eyes go wide—started pulling out knives from her cloak and putting them in a stack on the countertop. Two knives each from sheaths concealed in the outsides of her sleeves. Another two from the collar. Two more from the forward hem, the handles disguised as part of the closures.

She shrugged off the cloak and handed it to the guardswoman before producing more knives from her coat—four from her pockets, another four from sheaths along her spine, another two from her shoulders.

As she pulled the coat off, I glanced around the room. The guards were looking at her with respect, their hands on their own weapons, while Stylio was watching her with an expression that made me think of my mother when she sighed and chuckled at my enthusiasm.

The clink of more metal on metal made me turn back, as Zoy produced another two knives from the sides of her boots, and then another two from the bottoms, followed by four more from her belt. Another two from sleeve sheaths were produced, and then another four from her vest.

Then she glanced at Stylio, who had her arms crossed; she gave Zoy a wave with her exposed hand, and Zoy… pouted and pulled out two hairsticks from her hair, popped them open to reveal pointed stilettos, and added them to the pile.

“There. Done,” she said to the awed silence.

Stylio sighed. “And the holdouts, Zoy.”

“But—”

“Give them up.”

“Fine.”

She unbuttoned her shirt and I suddenly felt the need to look away… but I still saw out of the corner of my eye that she pulled another four from the boning of her corset and put them on the counter before doing her shirt back up again and then, at a pointed look from Stylio, reached up and pulled out a wire, from some hem on her shirt, that had a pair of wooden rods on loops at either end.

“Am I done? Or are you going to make poor Raavi burst into flames from embarrassment over there?”

I flushed and looked firmly away, instead turning my attention to the guards by the glass doors; they were staring in horror and awe. One of them had his mouth hanging open and his eyes were wide white circles in the lantern-light.

“I think you’re done, yes.”

A moment passed before I heard Zoy say dryly, “You can look again, Raavi.” Flushing, I turned, to see Zoy walk over to stand next to me, her hands on her hips. She sighed. “It’s going to be such a pain to put that all away again.”

Yufemya, her voice a little strangled, said, “If you need help, just ask…”

“I’ll take you up on that.”

“Quiet. Next!” said the guardswoman, looking at Stylio. “Name?”

Stylio sighed. “Stylio of Kasmenarta.”

There was a pause. A very long pause, only to have the guardswoman say cautiously, “The Stylio of Kasmenarta?”

Another sigh came from Stylio, longer and more drawn out. “Yes. Once.”

The guardswoman motioned frantically to the two guards standing at the exit, and they left, returning a few moments later with six more.

Stylio shook her head. “This isn’t necessary, but fine.” She reached down to her belt and, opening her pouch, pulled out a knife… and a battered brass fork, followed by a spoon, and set them down. Her healer’s flute, a set of small tuning forks in better shape than the eating fork, a small wooden wand, and a small first aid kit of bandages, needles, and thread followed.

The guardswoman, moving like she was about to try to put a muzzle on a snarling dog, came out from around her counter and cautiously patted Stylio down. The hairstick in her bun turned out to be just a hairstick, but was taken anyway. Her belt turned out to be just leather, and the boning in her corset was just ordinary steel boning.

I shared a look with Lady Fiaswith, who was watching, looking like she couldn’t decide if she was offended or amused, and then looked back as the guardswoman reluctantly declared Stylio to be ready to meet with the King.

I leaned over to Lady Fiaswith. “Do you recognize that name?”

“Vaguely. I don’t know if I’m a little jealous or not!” As Stylio joined us, the Lady turned. “Come on, let’s not keep His Royal Highness waiting.” The two guards saluted and opened the glass doors, revealing a glass box with crystals mounted to the corners.

We went inside, followed by two guards. One of them was about to do something when the Lady said, “Let me. I know you lot are probably aching from this by now.”

I was baffled—what was she talking about?—only to jump as Lady Fiaswith hummed and breathed out a cloud of blue-white Breath, which settled into the polished pyrite and quartz crystals in the corners.

They glowed, and a moment later the glass box lurched into motion, upwards.

I stared, knowing that I looked like a provincial, and not caring. How was it moving? I didn’t know of any means by which Breath could be used to power a mechanism! You could heal and augment your body with it, douse and control fires with it, nudge the winds, and throw sparks—even large bolts of lightning, if you were really skilled—and of course you could imbue a crystal gem with it first thing upon waking and get an answer to a question about the future, but that was it. Okay, you could also, in a pinch, imbue an appropriate crystal with it and use that as a light source, but given that candles and lanterns didn’t require ripping out a bit of your own life force and suffering the pain that came with that, most people just used those!

But I was in a glass box with gemstones filled with Breath and it was climbing into the air.

Clearly I was missing something.

I was still thinking when the box ground to a halt and the doors opened, revealing a golden-hued chamber beyond.

Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse

Doing her best to assume a cloak of dignity and command, despite how battered and torn her clothing was, Fia walked out of the lifting box, followed by her compatriots. The ache of her donation to the crystals powering the box had faded by the time they were halfway up, and she was ready to fight this next battle.

The King was standing by a map-table, with several of his generals and marshals around him. Thankfully, he was wearing a normal working suit of black and gray wool, instead of his dress whites. That was good.

She came to a halt at the prescribed distance; as much as she hated it, she needed his help, and bringing a report back of attacks wasn’t going to be more than a down payment. Going down on one knee, she bowed. “Your Majesty.”

King Luitpoold the Second looked down at her. “Lady Fia. I see that reports of your demise were greatly exaggerated.”

“Not for lack of effort, sire,” she said, suppressing a shiver at the reminder of the trunk.

“So, what is it that you have for me? And rise.”

She came to her feet. “The town of Rhaanbach was attacked about forty-two hours ago by a force of about a hundred oathwalkers.”

He frowned. “Forty-two hours ago? Impossible. You can’t tell me that you made the trip here from Rhaanbach in forty-two hours!”

She stepped aside and pulled Raavi to the fore. The boy looked like he was considering fainting, and she squeezed his shoulders supportively. “Young Raavi here is a credit to the kingdom, sire. He built a boat that can travel over ice using skates. We traveled over the canals; according to the milestones, we were moving at close to forty miles an hour.”

Luitpoold paused, and then turned to one of his men. “Have this skate boat brought to the Tower. I want to see it, and have it tested.”

“Aye, Sire.”

As he left—going for the stairs, Fia noted—the King turned back to her. “So, Rhaanbach was attacked. So were a lot of other towns. Most of our western lands, in fact. They started attacking at the start of Winter and have been out there for weeks now.” He leaned in. “I know that you wouldn’t come here with the news if you didn’t have some ulterior motive… pirate.”

She bristled but held her tongue. Especially since he was half-right. While she would have come regardless… she did need his help.

“You said that my death was reported. By whom, and how, sire?”

He scoffed. “Who else? Duke Rechneesse. Your dear father-in-law.” He chuckled lightly. “He didn’t quite dance a jig, but…”

Glowering, Fia said, “And Faalk and Stoor?”

The King shrugged. “Hasn’t really been my concern. I believe they’re at your family’s estate, mourning your loss.”

“Well then. No need for that, is there? You can very easily announce that I am alive and that reports of my death were… incorrect.”

“Ah yes, but that would upset your father-in-law… and I rather need his help, given that my kingdom is being invaded.” He balled his fists and then relaxed them. “Lady Fia, I will be blunt with you, because I know that you are nothing more than a jumped up peasant with no long experience in courtly manners, and watching you try is amusing, exasperating, and a waste of my time. You brought your report of the attack. All well and good. It is appreciated. But I have no need of Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse right now. Especially when I will need Duke Rechneesse when spring comes to muster a response to these attacks.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “But. Fia the Bloody, terror of the Center Sea? Someone capable of traveling at forty miles an hour through the depths of winter? That I can use. So I will make you an offer, Lady Fia. Right now, I can’t march an army through the winter to fight back against this invasion. I’m going to be hard pressed enough to muster enough to secure the towns that have been attacked. They’ve come from the west, meaning the Gehtun tribes. They have oathwalkers, we know that. Go find out why they’ve suddenly set them upon us, after more than a hundred years of quiet at the border. Find out their terms. Sue for peace if you can, or just bring me back the heads of those responsible. I don’t care, so long as they stop. You do that, and I’ll help you with your family drama.”

Feeling rage but also a degree of admiration for how expertly the king was using his limited resources—resources that included her—she bowed stiffly. “I don’t think I have much of a choice, now do I, sire?” She rose. “I accept your terms.”

He nodded. “I don’t think you have much of a choice, no. You’re dismissed. Go and get yourself and your people here cleaned up and rested. I’ll see that you can requisition what supplies and information we have.” He smiled thinly. “It’s not as if I want you to fail.”

Raavi ava Laargan

The King’s words echoed in my head as we walked into a set of rooms in the Tower; they were luxuriously furnished, with a thick carpet and curtains hanging from the walls. A window that stretched from floor to ceiling of perfectly clear glass showed the howling winds and gusting snow outside. We were at least two hundred feet above the ground, and I could see the waters of the bay churning and thrashing in the wind below… and yet, in here, it was perfectly silent.

Lady Fiaswith went over to a table that had a lantern on it, and with a whistle, lit the wick with a spark from her fingertip. I winced in sympathy. That had to hurt. But she ignored it, and turned to me.

“Raavi,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I need to borrow—or better yet, buy—the ice boat from you. I’ll go with you as far as your home, and then I need to keep going. You can stay there.”

I shook my head. “So, what, you’re going to go out there, alone, to fight against all of those undead!? Why does the king want to get rid of you? Why does your father-in-law want to get rid of you?”

She looked around at the group.

“I’m coming with you,” Yufemya said. “You’ll need me to watch your back.”

“And I am coming as well, as is Zoy,” said Stylio. “But Raavi has good questions… and I think that you owe him and us, at least something of an answer.”

Lady Fiaswith sighed and sat down in a chair. She glanced around, and rose. Going over to one of the walls, she knocked on it and listened, her ear against the wall. Then she moved down the wall a bit and knocked again. “I don’t think we’re being spied on… so fine.” She sighed. “One life story, coming up.”

I sat down in a chair and leaned in to listen.

“Due to my… talents,” she motioned to the hole in her shirt, “I fell in with a mercenary crowd when I was… younger than Raavi here. Eventually, I ended up as a pirate at sea. Same basic skillset, after all. By the time I was twenty-five, I was captain of the ship, after the previous captain… well, he made a mistake and I ended up in charge. The crew knew, and they thought of me as lucky, and for seven years, we pillaged; I was a privateer, Fia the Bloody. We did some pirating, and some protecting, as if we could balance the books…” She sighed. “Six years ago, I was on shore leave in this city when I heard that House Rechneesse was looking for a bride for their son and heir… with a substantial dowry to go with it. Too substantial, really. I did some digging. According to rumor, he was under a Death Curse that his first wife would die a horrible death.”

I blinked. “Wait. Death Curses are real?”

They all looked at me, and Lady Fiaswith chuckled slightly. “Yes, Raavi, they’re real.”

“But I thought that they were just a, a, fiction! Something that they came up with for dramatic tension in plays and books and stuff!”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, leaning in, a smile growing on her face.

“Because Breath doesn’t work like that! You can’t cast a spell powerful enough to kill yourself! You pass out first, either from lack of energy or from the pain!”

Stylio spoke up. “You’re right. But a curse spoken with one’s dying Breath… well… that breaks the rules.” She nodded to the Lady. “Continue. The heir—your husband, if I understand correctly—had a Curse on him that his first wife would die horribly.”

“Yeah. And, well… I was thinking that it could be fun! Get the dowry, see what the Curse could throw at me, and then get on with my life.” The Lady shrugged. “You could tell that they just saw me as disposable, there to just discharge the Curse, and I was thinking that I was basically going to scam them. Faalk—my husband—didn’t exactly come into it with a lot of sentiment, either. And, well, the Curse tried its best. I fell down stairs, off of horses—out of a fourth story window once, that wasn’t fun… and… well…” She sighed. “If we hadn’t fallen in love… but we did. My daughter Stoor is two, now.”

“Ouch,” said Zoy. “So how did you end up getting reported dead, if you’re that hard to kill?”

“Well, my in-laws were hoping to marry him off to a princess once I was dead. Once I refused to die, they sort of… tried to help me along. Poison, assassins… that sort of thing. And I was getting cocky. Why wouldn’t I? I could survive a bullet to the brain!” She shivered. “But if half a dozen men jump me in the middle of the night and, and…” She swallowed and a tear went down her cheek, “and held me down with ropes and then came with axes and cut my head off…”

I stared as she started to cry.

Stylio rose and went over to her, and hugged her.

“I… I never had felt so helpless in my life. I was terrified. They showed Faalk my head, and I could hear and see everything but I couldn’t feel or do anything! And then they shoved me into that trunk with the rest of my body in pieces and told their men to drive as far away as they could and bury them.” She was shaking, and I couldn’t hold back anymore and went over and joined the hug.

She broke down in tears, sobbing. “And, I, I was still alive. I could feel my body trying to heal itself… but I was terrified that this was going to be it… that they were going to toss my head down a hole and I’d go insane before I finally died…” She looked up. “And then Yufemya here rescued me outside of your town. Broke open the trunk… and put me back together.” She looked across the room at the other woman. “How did you know to do that?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Yufemya said, looking down at her hands.

“Try me.”

“I saw it in a vision of the future,” she said, and the Lady frowned.

“You’re right. I don’t believe you. Fine. You still did it and I owe you. What do you want from me in return? You never said.”

“For the moment, I want to deal with these attacks on this kingdom,” Yufemya said. “So I will come with you. And I cannot let you do this alone. Not after what you have already suffered.”

The Lady… Fia broke down at that, crying into our arms.

I couldn’t imagine that. How horrible it had to have been. She’d… she’d laughed off everything—an arrow through the chest, an army of undead—but she wasn’t invincible.

And then I realized what she’d said.

“Wait. You’d just gotten out of that trunk, and you ran over to help my town!?” I demanded.

She nodded, her eyes red… and I watched the redness fade in a matter of moments. “I… I couldn’t stand back and just let it happen.”

I looked her in the eye, and knew what I had to do. “Lady Fiaswith… Lady Fia. I’m not super strong. I’m not a skilled healer like Stylio, or an archer like Yufemya. Or even someone who is a walking armory like Zoy—”

“I resemble that remark,” came from behind me.

“—but whatever help I can give you, it’s yours. I’m coming with you.”

“But why?”

I took her hands in mine and squeezed. “Because I can’t stand back and just let it happen.”

<<<<>>>>

Prologue | Chapter 5 | Chapter 7

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