4 Rhona
Rhona
Guard duty had gotten progressively more boring as Rhona stood at the edge of the cliffs for hours. The sounds of the crashing
waves far below could have lulled her to sleep on a bad day—but she was still riding the high of her future with the Iron
Retinue. Rhona was antsy to learn what Lord General Kerrigan had planned for her. Maybe stationed somewhere to the east where
she could see the mountains again, or the south . . . she’d never gotten to swim in the sea before. Part of her dreamed that
she’d be put on a mission in another country. Three years of guarding would be worth it—had to be worth it.
Out of the corner of her eye Rhona spotted Lord Wilmer stumbling along the path toward her. It wasn’t even noon yet, and the
man already seemed drunk. She thought about Lady Heathecote’s words to her just a few hours ago: Keep a close watch on Lord Wilmer today.
Unfortunately, Lord Wilmer’s drunkenness was no surprise to anyone walking through the garden.
She’d keep an eye on him as he walked out of the gardens and onto an area of the road where he couldn’t fall off of three-hundred-foot cliffs.
While Lord Wilmer’s drunkenness was a pain in her backside, she knew that he managed a lot of the smaller iron mines in the south; his well-oiled machine of a business had been imperative to equipping the Iron Retinue, which meant he was invaluable.
Rhona stepped forward to escort him out of the space, and as she did, he stumbled directly to the edge of the cliffside they
were standing on. Rhona moved without thinking, jumping and grabbing the man’s leg as he tumbled over the side of the steep,
jagged cliff face.
“Please! Help me!” he screamed, wiggling to try to get himself back up, loosening Rhona’s grip.
“You need to stop moving so I can pull you up,” Rhona shouted, grasping his leg with both hands.
She could hear the gasps behind her, then the white noise of the nobility mingling halted as they all watched her gripping
the ankle of the drunkest man they knew. Rhona fleetingly wondered if some of them already had their plans made if something
happened to him.
Everything was a game to these people.
If she let him die, there would be no chance that she’d ever rise in rank. Unable to save even a single tiny nobleman? And
an important one at that? She hated how much that thought meant she was playing the game too.
He wriggled again, and Rhona responded by grabbing his ankle tighter than she needed to. She heard him grunt in pain below
her as she started to pull herself up from the cliffside, and the man along with her.
“Help me!” he shouted again as he was slowly lifted from certain death, the roiling black waves below crashing against the
cliffs.
Moments later, Rhona painstakingly dragged him over the lip of the cliffside and he was left gasping on the ground, panicked
and shaken.
“You hurt my ankle!” he said, sitting up and touching the ankle Rhona had just let go of, wincing as his fingers brushed his skin.
“You’re welcome for saving your life, my lord,” Rhona said, standing and brushing herself off.
Three of the noblemen who had been walking with their partners ran over to Lord Wilmer, helping him up and walking him out
of the treacherous garden.
“That knight was so quick,” Rhona heard some of the noblewomen whispering as she moved back into her guarding position.
“No wonder they agreed to having a woman in their ranks if she’s that good,” another said, thinking that Rhona couldn’t hear
them.
She could.
Perhaps this event would teach the lord a lesson he desperately needed to learn; he was always drinking too much and making
a fool of himself.
The rest of her shift passed uneventfully, but Rhona was lost in thought about one thing in particular: Lady Maeve Heathecote.
The hairs on the back of her neck were prickling.
Lord Wilmer was a drunk; the entire capital knew that. But Lady Maeve had never encouraged Rhona to watch over him specifically,
and she did it on the day that he could have died.
Maybe it was an overreaction, but it seemed like it could be prophetic work—seering. This was illegal magic, banned by the
Iron Empire early into their reign. Rhona had executed a handful of witches during her hunts, and the hardest to catch were
the ones that could see you coming with their visions. Rhona supposed it could have been a coincidence, but . . . she’d always
been eerily good at spotting witches, even before most magic was made illegal.
Something about Lady Heathecote was piquing that sense of Rhona’s. A witch, caught hiding among the highest-ranking nobility
in Astra? Oh, to be the knight that caught that witch.
It was too soon to assume, but Rhona found herself leaving the garden wondering if she should quietly start to put herself in Lady Maeve’s path to see if the noblewoman showed even more signs of being a witch.
It seemed like a great way for her to prove her importance to the Iron Empire.