Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
ISOLDE
I regret to inform you that Cursed silver is simply silver.
I've tested it on them myself, stripping away their adornments and replacing it with items forged by us. It’s the silver that disrupts their curse somehow, though none of them know why, or how.
I’m yet to take one of their sorcerers alive so I can explore their weaknesses.
—in a letter from General Victor, Duke of La'Angi to General Dieudonné, Count of Black Borough
La’Angi Keep
I hated that it took me so long to get back to her, but I took the opportunities that arose on the way, trusting her to be safe.
When I entered the bailey, a shout came from above. “Mistress Isolde!” the call came from a grim-faced man who waved me onward, as if to hurry me.
I was already walking as fast as the skirts would allow, maintaining a forgivable level of modesty. Any faster and I would’ve had to kilt them up, and also keep the contents of my basket beneath the fabric on top.
The western door to the keep opened before I arrived, and Kaelson stood on the threshold.
He stepped back upon seeing me, heels together and chest out, settling into the formal pose as naturally as he breathed.
I took in the spray of blood over his cheek, the smears of it on his arm, the mark on one of his boots where he’d stepped into a pool, and the droplets on the other where it’d splashed.
He’d been a busy lad.
Out of habit, I did a quick once-over of our surroundings before stepping inside. Guards on the walls, mostly. Only a few castle residents going about their day. Nothing to note.
“The lady is well and resting in her tower,” he told me. “She’ll be glad to see you.”
Apparently, she’d been glad to see him, too. I ducked inside, keeping my thoughts to myself, feeling his eyes on me as I went.
“Did you hear?” Chiara asked me, her hands reaching for me from the other side of the hall. “By the wife!”
“I heard.” I didn’t stop to talk. Val, further along, stepped back out of my way, her eyes huge.
There hadn’t been much blood spilled for quite some time. Not where they’d seen it. The lady hadn’t been attacked inside these walls that they knew of since her father had left.
Never mind the games that knight had played with her.
Said knight opened the door for me, freshly washed, his hair still wet.
It was longer than the standard La’Angi length because he was too unique and brooding to fit in, or too important to visit the barber.
A lock of it dangled into his eye. I wonder if he thought it made him look dashing, or if he was too busy smoldering to care.
“She’s rattled,” he said, closing the door behind me. “And a bit bruised. Neither of which is surprising, I know, but…”
At least he never assumed I was ignorant. I paused for a moment before I left his little area, where his gear sat, bloody and waiting to be cleaned. There was a mark coming on his jaw, but he’d spoken fine.
“I’m unhurt,” he said, as if I could trust him.
He was well enough. If there had been anything significantly wrong, he’d’ve known about it by now and been unable to move comfortably.
“Look after you,” I advised, hoping he’d take some time to rest, but not really expecting it.
Audrey was leaving her own bath when I arrived. Her clothes sat in a sad, bloody heap, the crimson leeching out into the water that ran from her body into the grooves of the stone.
“I’m fine,” she said, as soon as she saw me. “Not a scratch.”
There was a mark coming on her arm, and another on the side of her head. She was paler than usual. Her hands, pushing the water off her body, were shaky. But she was whole enough.
I sat my basket aside to fetch a drying cloth. She wrapped herself in the softest, largest one. Her shoulders softened at the touch of the fabric and she let out a long breath.
I followed her even steps into her room, drinking in the sight of her.
Whole. Shaken, but whole. My heart rate was normal but fear’s unwanted fingers stroked threateningly over my shoulders.
Rarely did I act the maid. But my own worries and the sight of those broad, strong shoulders collapsed in recovery made me crave the contact. This was a sensible way to get it.
“I needed my bow.” The words held the remnants of helplessness beneath layers of post-battle exhaustion. She fell down at the dressing table. I reached for the comb, taking up position behind her.
“In those quarters?” I scoffed, sectioning off some of the auburn strands. “You needed to retreat to a room.”
“We couldn’t get to a room.” Then, with a slight shake of her head, she amended, “They came out of the rooms.”
I could picture it. The hallway. The spill of people. “They were the steward’s hirelings.”
“Can we prove that?” she asked, the spark of life back in her voice.
“No,” I admitted, knowing why she asked. “But your father isn’t a man to demand extensive proof.”
The tiny burst of energy she’d got from an actionable possibility ebbed. Her voice was flat when she said, “Considering the messages I have no doubt the steward has on the wing to him currently, I don’t need to make myself more suspect.”
I could see the logic. But… “Kaelson should report, following a direct attack on your life.”
“They were trying to take me, not kill me.” She said it with less animation than she’d discuss wheat.
I hated hearing that numbness. “Kaelson should report, following a direct attack on the Duke’s prized property,” I corrected, letting the sarcasm drip into my voice. “You know he’d want to hear of it, Audrey. You know we can justify this man’s execution.”
“How many people can I justify executing?” she asked, bitterly.
I sighed impatiently, squeezing the water from her hair. “How many would you like to execute?”
She pulled away.
“You’ve seen what you can do with power already,” I explained, trying to chase the doubts from the eyes. “On an individual level, I can comfortably justify this man’s death. Until you have some sort of bias-free decision-making system, that’s the best you can do.”
“If we kill him…”
I dropped my hands from her hair, reaching for a larger toothed comb. “If we don’t?”
She shook her head a little, her expression pained. “You’re right. It’s a risk. Either way, someone is dying. Because of me.”
That morning I’d emptied the ash from the fireplace.
I doubted we’d be using it again for a few moons.
The evenings were cold, but not so cold that another layer or two of clothing didn’t make them livable, and keeping the drafty tower heated wasn’t efficient.
Still, took a moment to take her drying cloth over the filigree iron guard before the fire all the same.
We would all die for her.
I would die for her.
It brought me peace to know. She may not understand it, but she didn’t need to.
I kept all of that to myself, easing the comb through the snarls in her hair.
“They would’ve been dying without you, too,” I reminded her.
“In case you’re feeling special. People die all the time for all sorts of reasons.
” Quite a few of them this afternoon, for the very foolish reason of trying to lay their hands on this guilt-ridden woman.
“I should’ve killed him before he set foot in the city,” she said, with a note of bitterness that surprised me. “Those men, Isolde—they were just sailors, mostly. Just poor, down on their luck fools.”
“…Who took money to kidnap you,” I reminded her.
“We don’t know that.” She stood and began pacing.
“If we’re splitting hairs, my lady, we don’t know they were down on their luck, either, or foolish, or poor. In fact, we don’t know much, except you’re alive and they aren’t.”
“Most of them fled,” she said, digging through her clothes. “I’m alive. So are they.”
“Chay and Thomas earned their keep, though,” I offered, hoping she’d notice the name I’d left out, going into my room to set down my basket.
“And Kaelson,” she said.
Happily, I took up the change in direction the conversation took. “Kaelson?” But she’d already confirmed what I’d guessed myself.
“I let him know to meet me at the steward’s when I got the summons,” she called. “He must’ve been closer than the others.”
“How fortunate.” Luck was fickle, but I wasn’t.
I doubted it’d only been luck, anyway. I kept an eye on Kaelson.
He knew what he was doing, and he had good intuition.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been where he needed when he was needed.
There was a certain type of magic to that sort of insight, but I doubted the gruff old veteran would ever acknowledge such a thing.
“I trust you got to admire some shield work, then?”
“I did.” When I came back in, she was working on her undergarment. I went over to lend a hand. “And some sword work.”
I glanced up at her, but it wasn’t the misty-eyed adoration in her eyes.
Her brows were drawn, and her long mouth pulled a little to one side, as she did when she was lost in thought.
Relief rushed through me. If this half-assed assault had driven her back into the knight’s arms, we would’ve lost a lot of progress.
Puzzlement I could deal with. Pining, less so.
For a few moments she hesitated, her breath drawn, clearly waiting to speak. The quiet stretched out. I waited, the leather laces tight against my fingers, the smell of her soap in my head. I’d hear it all, eventually. Or I’d learn it.
What had Kaelson seen?
“It was actually really interesting to watch,” she admitted, distracting me from my thoughts.
She wouldn’t have meant sailors dying. The way I held my tongue rather than speak that thought out loud was evidence that I did walk the path of the Wife sometimes, complete with tact as well as grace. “Oh?”
“The way they fought,” she explained. “Chay was everywhere.”
I didn’t look up from the last lace I threaded. “Is that a good thing?”
“I…don’t know?”
She was catching on.
“Thomas looked…relaxed. Effortless.”
I hummed in agreement, stepping back to get her skirts. “He does have experience.”
“The war didn’t go for that long,” Audrey objected. “And Chay’s seen plenty of combat.”
If she’d sounded like she believed those statements, I would’ve been worried. “So why did Thomas make it seem so easy?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I flicked her a quick, unimpressed glance and tossed over her skirts.
She stepped into them, frowning still. “Chay was important. He targeted a significant opponent and kept him busy. But Thomas and Kaelson…they did everything else.”
“And you?”
“I was surplus,” she said, with a bit of a laugh. “I could see shots, Isolde, but I had no bow. Chay got me a knife, but I only used it a few times.”
I could imagine the way it would’ve happened. “Thomas and Kaelson are trained for the melee. They know how to work together. Chay is trained for individual combat.”
“He’s a kraken,” she breathed.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Again, I checked her expression. Again, I found intense focus bordering on worry, not infatuation. This time, I couldn’t help but ask, “What makes you say that?”
“Oh—something Elnyta said.” She waved it away. “Isolde, am I a weak link, or an ambush predator?”
How we’d got from mythical sea creatures to hunting patterns…
“You’re a class traitor. I suppose that makes you a stealth predator.
But now you’re out in the open, so you can’t precisely ambush people again.
” If the Captain was referring to her as such, well, I didn’t hate them for it.
It beat whatever drivel Luca spouted. “A weak link would be another way to describe your antics, I suppose, if you’re the ruling class, holding those chains. ”
She’d started to pace again. I put down the comb in my hands and propped my hip against the vanity. We’d be here awhile.
“You’re right,” she said. “Ambush predators are only good for one attack. Then they need to reset. But krakens just…are.”
The trail between her ideas suddenly made sense. And the ocean euphemisms. “There are other types of predators, you know,” I offered, dryly.
She froze.
My mind went to the steppe cats, working together. She’d be less familiar with them, but the thought of their grace and stealth filled me with nostalgia. Rarely glimpsed, but never forgotten. That was the steppe cats.
Instead, I said, “You wouldn’t have seen wolves hunting. Only a lone worg. But you understand the concept.”
She turned, her eyes huge.
“They might ambush their prey or work together to take it down. You know when a wolf pack is around. They don’t have any natural predators. But it’s about the pack.”
“Thomas and Kaelson,” she breathed.
I wouldn’t have gone that far, myself. “Ylva, alone, was at our mercy.”
“As a group…”
“As a group, working together, we were in danger from the Southerners,” I agreed. “Stealth or frontal assault.”
“You did put an arrow through her chest.”
I waved it away. “The mage fixed it right up.”
A smile flickered over her mouth. “They’d better’ve. I hope I meet her again, one day.” She looked at her reflection in the looking glass. “A wolf. It seems more doable than a kraken.”
The imagery was a little…Barloc, though. “Wait until I tell you about the steppe cats. They’re matriarchal.”
Her eyes lit up. Obediently, she settled, passing me the comb.
It felt, for a little while, like the sun had travelled backward across the sky and candles burned upward. I set to work on her wet locks, remembering all the times I’d done this for her as a child.
She didn’t need my stories now. But she still wanted them.
In some ways, it meant even more to me than it had then.