Hazel
“No one,” I growl, “is going to die.” I glare first at the Brag, who has returned to his centaur form and is having to stoop to not knock his head on the beams above him, and then at the rest of the Reivers who have gone very quiet. “Yet.”
All their eyes are focussed on the sword. All except those of the monster.
“And as for you, Brag. You will be on your best behaviour, or you will wish you’d died.”
The creature hangs one arm over a ceiling beam and gazes down at me. I do not sheathe my sword.
“As you wish, Lady Ryle.” He rumbles my name, or what has become my name, in such a way it’s as if he’s tasting it.
As if he’s tasting me.
But I have another rule, one particular to me.
No men. No monsters. No funny business.
And currently the Brag is all three.
In the weird, slightly nausea-inducing way from the courtyard, he swirls into his human form and takes a seat by the fire again, lifting the tankard of cider to his smirking lips.
I feel like the food I have on my tray should go straight in his lap.
But then it would be a waste of a good meal.
Instead, I put my sword away and shove his plate in front of him before I hand out the rest of my tray to the Reivers, who are uncharacteristically quiet, before going back into the kitchen.
“Busy out there, is it?” Millie asks as she stirs the stew which has been bubbling on the stove for hours.
“There’s a Brag,” I respond.
“Oooh, tricky,” Millie says.
“Are they? I don’t think I’ve come across one.” I slap my tray down on the pile and lean against the wall, pushing my hand through my hair.
“To be fair, there’s not an awful lot you do recall,” Millie says, bustling past me to another bubbling pot on the second stove.
She’s the witch who was here when I arrived, not that I can remember my arrival. She knows I have zero clue what or who I am, and she’s the only one who knows. But then Millie is the purest of pure souls, and I don’t need to have a memory to see our chef only has good intentions.
And that’s the reason she needs protecting at all costs.
“That’s true.” I sigh, picking up a bread roll and taking a bite, luxuriating in the soft, fluffy inner. “What exactly is a Brag?”
“You’ve met one. What do you think?” Millie grins at me, her face ruddy from the heat of the stoves. She wipes her hands on the striped apron covering her long dress.
“I think he has a huge ego and hooves he should keep to himself.”
“About right,” Millie says, pulling a tray of fresh pies out of an oven. “Warden is the jailer at the Shadow Keep, and you don’t end up in that position by being a shrinking violet.”
“Warden?”
“Yes, Warden. The Brag has a name…and an ego.” She chuckles.
“I think I’ll leave him to Hilda. She likes biting off more than she can chew,” I grumble. “Poor Edith got on the wrong side of a Redcap earlier though. I need to have words with Cuthbert and Edgar.”
There are so, so many things I need to do as a tavern owner, my head swirls with them from day to night. Probably for the best.
I’m still not sure if I want to know about my past, given my present is running the Dark Gibbet, a tavern of some repute in the heart of the Night Lands.
Because there’s another place, somewhere called the Yeavering, and the name represents something to me, something on the tip of my mind, something I try to grasp at, only for it to slip out of reach.
“Lady Ryle.” Hilda has pushed through the doors into the kitchen.
I look up at her, pulling myself out of the funk I’ve descended into.
“Yes?”
“I need a barrel change,” she says with a slightly sly smile. “And there’s a rush on.”
Hilda is always going to be trouble, although from the noise in the bar, I don’t doubt what she says is true.
“Which one?”
“The Callay stout.”
Of course it would be the stout. No wonder Hilda doesn’t want to go. It’s the line which gives us the most trouble.
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll get it changed. Go do some work.” I flap my hand at her, and she scurries away, still looking smug.
Lighting a candle, I pop it into the holder we keep next to the cellar door and unbolt it.
“Wish me luck,” I call out to Millie.
“You may be some time?” she queries with a laugh.
“If I’m not back in half an hour, send a search party, but preferably not Cuthbert,” I say, jokingly.
“Why?”
“Because last time he went into the cellar, he got lost for half a day, and there are only two rooms.” I shake my head. “Why do I end up with staff like him?” I add with a sigh.
“Because if he belongs anywhere in the Night Lands, it’s here,” Millie says, disappearing in the pantry as I open the door to the cellar.
I’m met with the smell of damp and cold, and it makes me shiver briefly. Millie is, of course, right. She always is. Cuthbert wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t taken him in, no matter what his size. He’s another one with a gentle soul. One which the Night Lands should have chewed up and spat out.
And yet, I’m still here.
I wonder what that makes me?