23. Orthopedic Trauma
I would’ve liked to hit him. The way Kamryn the Guard’s jaw slackened in surprise when he saw me charging told me I would’ve gotten at least one good punch in before he had the bearings to fight back.
Instead, I begged.
“Please!” I pulled on the front of his barony coat, letting my knees go weak with feigned fear. “Please, help! He came out of nowhere and attacked me!”
The corner of Kamryn’s beard turned upwards as his look of shock dissolved into something more sinister. He placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder and pocketed the Skal bottle.
If he had been the guard who’d taken our Skal at the Northern Gate, he didn’t recognize me.
“Don’t worry, miss. I’ll help you. Show me where he went.”
I led him back towards the alley, pointing to the street at the other end. Ciarán was gone, and I smiled with my back to the guard.
“This way! Fast!” I bolted down the alley, giving chase to an imaginary assailant. A pair of orange eyes glowed in the shadow of an alcove as I ran past, and a moment later, the Kamryn’s heavy footfalls cut off with a grunt.
I spun around to see him struggling in Ciarán’s arms as Ciarán pulled him back into the corner where he’d been lying in wait.
“That Skal,” Ciarán growled, his elbow hooked around Kamryn’s neck from behind, “it’s ours.”
Kamryn’s eyes widened, and he stopped struggling.
“You’re the travelers who came through last night,” he realized. He locked eyes with mine. “And you, you looked half-dead at the gate!”
“I got better.” I reached into his uniform pocket and found two bottles of our Skal. “There were two more. Where are they?”
“Sold them,” he sneered. “What’re you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to make you apologize to the lady for using her condition the other night to extort us,” Ciarán said. “And then I’m going to decide if I’m going to break your fingers.”
Kamryn started to laugh, but then Ciarán twisted one of his fingers against its socket, and the guard broke off in a pained grunt.
“I’m sorry, okay? Let me go, and I won’t have you both arrested for assault!”
I reached into his other pocket and found a length of delicate chain. I pulled it out and let the precious opal pendant hang loose from my hand. The stone glinted with the same glow as the veins that spiderwebbed up the stunk of the giant willow at the citadel’s center.
“Is this yours?” I asked.
“It’s—” He cut himself off and licked his lips.
“Doesn’t really look your style,” Ciarán tutted.
“Clashes with the Baron’s uniform,” I agreed. “Who’d you take this one from, then?”
“No one!” the guard insisted, and then whimpered in pain as Ciarán twisted his hand. “I don’t take anything from anyone! They give it willingly, just like you gave me your Skal!”
“And when you and your guard friends break into their inns? Do they give willingly then?” I snarled. “You take advantage of people. Weary and sick travelers seeking refuge that they can only have after you bleed them dry.”
The guard spat at me, and phlegm splattered against my cheek.
The subsequent cracking of his finger bone was drowned out by his howl of pain.
“You weren’t supposed to actually break his fingers!” I hissed through the tether, wiping Kamryn’s spit from my cheek.
Another finger snapped.
“It was an old woman!” Kamryn sobbed. “Please—”
Ciarán leaned in so his mouth was against the man’s ear.
“Liar,” he purred.
Snap.
The man howled in fresh agony, writhing in Ciarán’s arms.
“How do you know he’s lying?” I asked.
“Because torture doesn’t work.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“He spat at you, and I wanted an excuse to break another finger.”
“You don’t need an excuse—”
Snap.
“You’re both crazy,” Kamryn sobbed. Tears spilled over the heavy pouches that hung beneath his eyes.
I stepped closer so that our noses were inches from each other.
He was much older than either of us, and his uniform was striped with patches I could only assume spoke to his level of seniority.
I wondered how many travelers he’d stolen from over the years, how many of them had been in conditions similar to or worse than mine, and how many rooms he’d broken into to take what he wanted.
To take who he wanted.
Anger rose in my throat, and before I realized what I was doing, a let heat flush my eyes. Kamryn’s bearded, weathered face fell into hues of blue as my retina guard darkened my sclera. He pulled back, withdrawing farther into Ciarán’s chest.
“You aren’t mountain people. You’re from the Frozen God’s domain,” he hissed.
“Do you fear the Frozen God?” I asked.
“I don’t need to,” the man sneered. “Now that he’s out of that glacier, the Baron is going to kill him along with the rest of your northerners.”
“Actually, the Frozen God is a woman.” I smiled blithely. “And I’ve met the Baron. She doesn’t scare me.”
“You—” Kamryn paled behind his beard. “You can’t be the Frozen God.”
“No,” I conceded. “But I am far less liked than she is, and she’d probably be kinder to you if she were here. Unless, of course, she heard what you were saying to your friends about mountain women?”
“I wasn’t actually going to hurt anyone—Dammit!” He cried out as Ciarán snapped another finger. “That was my thumb!”
“I probably should’ve started with that one.” Ciarán shrugged.
“The Frozen God,” I continued, “she’d show you mercy.”
“Then you’re going to tell your dog to let me go?”
“No. Because mercy for someone like you would be to strike you dead. I’d much rather make you miserable.
” I pressed my finger against his lips when he started to beg again.
“You wanted to hurt my friends. When we let you go—and don’t worry, we will let you go—you’re going to continue to hurt the travelers that come through your gate.
So I’m going to make the mere thought of touching another person cause you pain. ”
He shook his head against my hand, but I pressed my hand over his mouth and gripped him by his cheeks.
I’d done this before. Sort of. The last time I’d infected someone with mold, it had been to save him. Not to mention, I’d been a Nightmare.
But if magick was will-driven, then there was no reason this shouldn’t work, because it was my absolute will that this man be punished.
The first patch of red appeared above the line of his beard, splashing across his cheek like an angry red burn. Kamryn jerked his head away from my hand, but the infection was already spreading, stretching down his neck and disappearing under the collar of his Barony uniform.
“You bitch!” He writhed, trying to escape Ciarán’s hold as well as the burning of the fungus I created just for him.
“You think this will stop me? I’ll have you and all your friends arrested for assaulting an officer of the Grand Barony!
And when you’re all behind bars and no one is watching, I’ll be sure to pay you each a visit and—”
“Ciarán,” I murmured.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“He has five other fingers, doesn’t he?”
“He does.”
“Break them all.”
Bone splintered, and Ciarán shoved the hem of the guard’s uniform into his rash-riddled mouth to stifle his screams. A swift hit to Kamryn’s chin silenced him for good, and Ciarán let his unconscious body slump to the ground of the alley.
We tucked him out of sight in the shadows of our alcove, and exited the alley back past the chocolate shop where the guard’s friends were eating cake through the window.
“Got your Skal back.” My green dress—or was it a tunic?—twirled around my waist as I spun on the toe of my boot. “Now what?”
Ciarán grabbed my shoulders to gently pull me out of the way of a passing couple.
“Now we should probably make our way to the inn so the others don’t think we’ve gotten lost.”
“Or arrested!” I grinned up at him.
“Yeah. Or arrested.” He pushed the pendant we’d rescued from the guard into his pocket, and I took his hand in mine.
“Wren,” he warned.
“What? Does this bother you?” I squeezed his hand.
“No, but I’m not used to you being this comfortable.”
“It’s the acute mercurial whimsy.” I nodded importantly. “Don’t worry. It’s apparently temporary.”
“That’s probably a good thing. We don’t have time for Acute Mercurial Whimsy Wren to exact vigilante justice on every corrupt guard in Willow’s Grave.
” He squeezed my hand back. Detachment from reality was definitely a side-effect of the Ceremender’s treatment, because he’d just used the hand pressed against mine to break another man’s fingers, and I couldn’t help smiling at the memory.
Ciarán laughed at the look on my face. “You’re terrifying, you know. ”
“You really think so?” I beamed. He snorted in reply. “What’s the inn we’re staying at like? Is it nice?”
“Not sure. I stayed the night at the Ceremender’s with you, but when Orla brought your clothes, she gave me directions.”
I let him lead the way, taking in the shops and distant swaying canopy of vines until we stopped in front of a tavern. Music played inside, and someone was singing.
“The inn is in the back.” Ciarán stepped through the door first. “Our rooms are—”
He froze, and then stumbled back onto the street, knocking me back with him.
“What?” I demanded. “What’s happening?”
“Lady Quill,” he hissed.
“Orla? What’s wrong with her? Does she need—” I pushed past Ciarán into the tavern, and then backpedaled out as violently as he had.
“I don’t think she needs help,” Ciarán whispered.
I shook my head and peeked around the corner.
Orla sat in the tavern corner, halfway lost to flickering shadows.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed her there if it weren’t for Iseult’s striking hair catching the candlelight from where she perched in Orla’s lap.
Her fingers tangled in Orla’s pixie cut, and while I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing from this angle, their faces were definitely too close to just be talking.
“Are we sure she doesn’t need help?” I whispered, unable to look away. “That’s Galahad’s granddaughter.”