18. Don’t Forget Your Place
Don’t Forget Your Place
Mariana
Our first travel day was long, boring, and slow—but blessedly uneventful.
We’d packed all that remained of the homesteaders’ valuables into their rickety wagon: clothing that had survived the fire, some scant rations, a few tools, and the chickens contained in wooden crates.
Atop Simon, I led the way. Behind me, Orna drove the wagon, the dairy cow yoked and marching steadily onward.
Orna’s loom and most of her wool had been destroyed, but she’d found some yarn among the wreckage of her home and—from the driving seat—she multitasked with knitting.
Pete rode in the back with his leg elevated, whistling at his dogs as they drove the sheep.
Faren took up the rear, looking the proud picture of a gallant knight with his shiny armor and impressive steed—yet his manner was warm and personable as he regaled Pete with stories from knighthood.
I found myself listening, too, caught up in the cadence of Faren’s voice and the heartiness of his laugh.
I hated to admit it—even to myself—but he had a knack for brightening spirits, if only temporarily.
That night, we made camp early, settling under the boughs of a great oak tree.
We were sheltered on one side by a long-forgotten stone wall, overgrown with blackberries, and with the wagon parked just so, we were able to corral the livestock and settle in.
I made the fire. Faren prepared dinner. Orna and Pete tended to their animals.
Darkness descended, and the homesteaders bedded down.
As I warmed my hands and feet by the fire, I could hear Orna’s soft crying and Pete’s deep, soothing tones.
Not only had they experienced an unimaginable loss, they’d witnessed a horror of which few citizens were even aware.
A horror I could not deny nor name. For Orna and Pete, this would forever be unresolved—a cruel symptom of Lord Haron’s secrecy on top of an already devastating event.
I snatched up a piece of kindling and snapped it in half. Seated across from me, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, Faren flinched.
No one deserved to be caught up in the Lord’s mess, but having come from rural kin, I possessed a particular affection for countryfolk.
Orna and Pete reminded me a bit of my parents—perhaps not in manner, but in lifestyle.
They were honest, hardworking, good. To witness such pointless suffering…
it roused a familiar fury in me. A sense of justice.
I could still picture Lord Haron’s smirk as he denied my father’s request regarding his debts.
I could still remember the weight of the ledger in my palms, the power I’d stolen, the consequences yet unimaginable for a girl of only eleven.
Rage tingled in my fingertips, making them ache—or perhaps I was holding them too close to the fire. I curled my fists in my lap, resisting the urge to remove the ribbon from my pocket and fiddle with it in front of Faren.
If my vengeance was a bonfire, homesickness was the water that doused it.
I missed the place, but more than that, I missed an era that no longer existed.
My childhood was hazy as a dream, and I longed for a slumber that would take me back to that time of safety and love and laughter, when I could rely on someone—anyone—other than myself.
I would’ve wondered what my parents were doing right about now, but I already knew.
My mother would be kneading bread dough, preparing it to bake in the morning.
My father would be seated by the hearth, reading aloud to her.
I could almost see the scene: crinkles forming beside her eyes as he attempted the female voices, his gruff tone rasping high.
I could almost smell the rosemary and woodsmoke scent of their cottage, the rose soap my mother used to wash her hair, and the dried-fruit waft of my father’s pipe weed.
Rarely did I allow myself to linger in such memories; the blend of comfort and regret was too excruciating. Steel does not feel, I told myself, but tonight, the phrase rang false. I was flesh and blood and a beating heart. It was impossible for me not to feel.
A tide of emotion rose within me, and suddenly I couldn’t stand my own thoughts. “Can you take first watch?” I blurted.
Faren looked up, and our gazes collided.
He held his fox figurine between both hands, campfire shadows catching on his knuckles.
There was a crease between his eyebrows; he appeared as stricken as I felt.
How could a man like Faren—one whom even I could not deny was well-meaning and kind—serve a ruler like ours?
How could he not see Lord Haron’s greed, apathy, and corruption?
Why did I care whether or not he did?
“Of course,” he replied.
I stood. Faren’s throat bobbed, and mine did the same.
A slight tension had been building between us since Yar—not acrimonious, but an awareness, a tug, a bowstring pulled taut.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. As he stared at me across the fire—his light brown irises glimmering with flame—he seemed to be pondering the same tension I felt.
But, then again, maybe not. A few seconds passed, then he silently dropped his chin, back to fiddling with his trinket.
I retreated to my bedroll, which was a little ways off from the fire. My skin buzzed and my emotions felt scattered; I expected sleep to evade me, but the exhaustion and strife were a potent mix, and I fell swiftly into slumber.
I woke sometime around midnight to a robin’s song. Three trills of varying notes. Faren was hunched over the smoldering fire. He didn’t glance up from the ashes until I hovered over him.
“Get some rest,” I whispered.
Wordlessly, he rose and wandered off toward his pile of gear.
While he settled, I threw another log of the fire and sat, listening to the sounds of night.
Pete snored. Raccoons chittered distantly.
An owl hooted. The robin trilled three more times, its diurnal song entirely out of place in the darkness.
Once Faren’s breathing leveled out and I was sure he was asleep, I rose and followed the direction of the call.
Sweet notes led me through a gap in the stone wall.
Blackberry vines snatched at my trousers as I stepped over the toppled bricks and made my way into the open field beyond.
There was a figure there—no more than twenty paces from camp, but with the wall and the oak tree, the newcomer was fully out of view should anyone rouse.
As I neared, the world went silent, as if all wind and wildlife ceased.
I halted two strides away and folded my arms. “Out with it.”
“Nice to see you, too, Mariana,” Heris said. With the moon obscured by clouds, I couldn’t see much of his face, just the weathered planes of his cheeks and the deep socket of his missing eye. “This is quite the diversion.”
“I’ll say,” I quipped, gesturing at him. “Why not send one of your lackeys to check up on me, as you usually do?”
“Do not misconstrue my words,” Heris said. “Care to defend this…unique choice of yours?”
Empathy was not something Heris understood, so I shrugged and went with an excuse he was more likely to grasp. “It’s my duty, is it not? Protecting citizens of the realm?”
His lips thinned with disdain. “Has the Mighty Knight gotten to you already?”
The comment knocked me off balance. “Of course not. Nothing gets to me.” Defensively, I added, “If anything, I’ve gotten to him. You asked me to create leverage.”
“And have you?”
My fingernails bit into my palms. “I’m working on it. This diversion will allow me more time.”
“So it is not duty, but opportunity, that guides your actions?”
“It’s both,” I said through clenched teeth.
Heris took a step closer. With his sound magic shrouding our conversation, I felt as if we were the only two living beings for miles.
The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
Heris might’ve protected me as I grew up in the Valiant, but I’d never felt any sort of safety with him—only a sense of debt.
His schemes were my path to freedom from the Valiant.
He also knew where my family lived.
I had no choice but to play along. To tread carefully.
Heris’s thin lips curled into a sneer. “You forget the other tenet of our beloved Oath, dearest Mariana.”
The safe keeping of the realm’s secrets.
Thinking of Orna and Pete, a boulder formed in my stomach. “They do not know too much,” I stated.
“They saw a Morta,” Heris said simply. “That is, by its barest definition, knowing too much. And you know what we must do to citizens who—”
“No.”
Heris was taken aback. “No?”
“I will not let you harm them.” I’d seen far too many innocent folks die by Heris’s command.
There had to be another way to preserve our Order long enough to plan our uprising.
I just had to pose a solution in a manner that Heris could comprehend.
“The Mighty Knight will suspect something if we dispatch the civilians,” I reasoned.
“We could kill him, too.”
We meaning me. The boulder in my stomach grew by double.
“And risk Lord Haron’s wrath when his prize knight goes missing?” I shook my head. “We’d be the first to blame. Better to control the situation from the inside, as I am doing.”
Heris was frowning, but he couldn’t argue with that logic.
“I have it well in hand,” I assured him. “Have I ever failed you when it counted?”
His expression softened, becoming almost doting. When he reached for my face, I willed myself not to shrink from the unwanted touch. His rough fingertips scraped my cheek.
“Mariana, my secret weapon,” Heris murmured. “When we win this, I’ll set you free.”
The familiar promise felt hollow, but it was all I had.
“Are we done here?” I asked. “You’re interrupting my beauty sleep.”
His chuckle was hoarse and mocking. “There’s one more thing,” he said. “The cure you gave us? It has a…peculiar effect.”
My brows pinched together. “How so?”
“Let’s just say that it works in our favor,” Heris said cryptically.
With all the errand running for the alchemists and the distractions of this mission, I had only cured one Morta—and I hadn’t stuck around long enough to witness the potion’s full effect.
The knight-turned-monster had indeed transformed back into a man, but some monstrous features had remained; he had yet to wake up when Heris had tasked another Valiant knight to watch over him and sent me on another errand.
The Valiant’s hope was that the cure not only neutralized the Morta’s curse but solved the alchemical process that Lord Haron had set out to accomplish: the creation of a knight with unmatched strength, agility, and power.
That seemed to be what Heris was implying, but when I opened my mouth to ask more, he spoke over me.
“I am sending all our best fighters out into the wilds to administer the cure and rally our army. I need you to procure more vials.”
An army of cured Morta. Though this had been Heris’s aim for some time, the reality of it sent a chill down my spine.
I gave him a quick nod. “Fine. Is that all?”
Heris reached for me again, gripping my jaw in his long, spidery fingers. “Control this situation. Find leverage with the Mighty Knight. Get us more cure. Return before the upcoming Unity Ceremony. That is when we’ll act.”
I jerked out of his hold, the pads of his fingers dragging roughly as I shook him off. “Understood.”
“We’re close, Mariana. Don’t fuck up now.”
“I won’t.”
Heris straightened, stepped back. Suddenly, the sounds of night were all around us again: the wind hissing through the trees, critters scuttling in the blackberry bushes, Pete’s distant snores. I turned to go, but Heris gripped my wrist.
“You left this in Yar,” he said, pressing a vial into my palm.
It was the one I’d dropped when Faren distracted me during my fight with the Morta.
I hadn’t had a chance to use it, for fear of him witnessing its effects, so I’d left it behind.
“Use it on the abomination you allowed to escape. We cannot afford the creature roaming into towns where gossip can spread, and we need as many turned as possible for what’s to come. ”
Even after he released my arm, my skin still prickled from his touch. I shoved the vial into my pocket. “Already part of my plan,” I ground out.
“Don’t forget your place, Mariana,” Heris said. “Your freedom relies on your cooperation.”