Chapter 43 #2
I just wanted it to be done. I wanted to be in the middle of it, surviving it. I wanted to skim past the waiting periods the way I felt I’d skimmed through the last year.
Twelve months ago, I’d been dreading my wedding and wondering if I’d be forced to flee.
Now I was dug in. I had friends, allies, and connections.
There wasn’t a single person in the city I hadn’t met.
I couldn’t name them all, but I’d met them or at least seen them in person.
I hadn’t built this city myself, but I’d set in motion a series of events that had allowed wonderful things to happen.
Small community neighborhoods where you could get a free room and food, opportunities to learn new trades, even opportunities to improve health issues—at no cost. I paid a Healer a wage and they saw anyone the herbalists recommended they should.
Why should I charge people to get better?
They stayed, and they worked, and they helped to rebuild the city.
The marketplace was glorious. The gardens had never looked so loved.
People wandered along the street more than they marched, now.
“It only takes one,” Isolde told me, her hand settling on my shoulders. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t that one, Audrey.”
Except I wasn’t. No stars had marked my birth. No soothsayers came to me. I was here to get married, to bear babies.
I refused that fate. I was simply doing what needed to be done.
Mayhap one day I’d help put the one who’d bring us together into power. The thought made me feel lighter. Mayhap one day, I’d be worrying about ramifications and what-ifs of long-term plans.
Ending my father might end the war with the South. It would end the stranglehold the locways had on my city. That, I could do.
It was possible that was all she’d meant, of course. Just kill one man. Just kill the Butcher of Wolfswail.
Just end a legend.
When tears pricked my eyes, I knew I’d gone too far. I should’ve called a halt before that last fight with Chay. I knew I should’ve.
The sun was slipping behind the trees again. It was bringing my father closer.
“Come on,” she said, not unkindly. “If I have to get you up, it’ll leave bruises you’ll feel when we grapple tomorrow. I don’t have a good angle, here.”
With a little assistance, I got to my feet. The water I’d splashed over my face made me realize how clammy the rest of me felt. I let Isolde wrap the split-skirt my favorite tailors had designed around my hips, unable to stir myself when she adjusted the belt for me.
None of them told me off. I’d had the lectures at the start of autumn as the flowers fell from the tiny apples and the wind whisked away the oppressive heat of the summer.
They’d all stopped talking to me about it.
They continued to try to prove their point, though.
The way Chay had done this afternoon by attempting to crush me.
“What if he comes back early?” Chay asked, holding Storm so I could mount.
I didn’t engage in the conversation, steeling myself to swing my leg over as gently I could to save my friend’s back.
I’d have at least a day’s warning before the Duke returned. Common practice among the nobles was to send word ahead of them, and my father, while he’d never encouraged fanfare, wanted the household ready for his arrival.
Either way, he wasn’t leaving the war front before the winter forced him to. I anticipated the road would be icing over behind the hooves of his horse.
Storm carried me home while my brain tiredly turned over the return of my father, except fragments of the last fight with Chay kept popping into my head.
I could’ve avoided the arm lock, if only I’d bridged hard enough to force him to put down a foot.
I could’ve done a lot of damage, if only I’d been able to get that foot.
My mind offered up all the possibilities.
The ways he could’ve defended, how it would’ve gone.
Then I was back, rolling across the ground.
I’d been too tired for such a risky move.
I hadn’t kicked off hard enough, and my legs had no spring in them to get up off the ground anyway.
I should’ve gone body-to-body with him. I’d known I was losing.
I should’ve at least tried to throw my weight behind a lunge.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them to see the city before me.
Thanks to the skill of my tailors, I openly rode astride.
It’s what a steppe lion would do. It’s what a kraken would do.
Regardless of all that, it saved us detouring to get comfortable saddles and maximized my time with a sword in my hand.
Said hand ached. I stretched it absently.
My body remembered the feel of Isolde’s arrow in my shield.
My brain was replaying the way that could’ve gone.
If I hadn’t done the smart thing and attacked, I wouldn’t have angled my shield just so, and that arrow would’ve struck Chay in the shoulder.
Nonlethal, probably. Certainly a problem, though.
Hawkers greeted us at the gates, but only a few. “How’s the orchard, m’lady?” asked the baker who always wandered this area.
“The hives are producing well,” I said, without needing to lie. “The harvest should be a good one this year.”
“We need it, after the last,” he said, with a bow. “You’ve done much with little, m’lady. A true La’Angi woman.”
I couldn’t muster up a smile at the good-natured reminder of the expectations on other women in the city and across the nation.
Nor could I think of a response. In my head, I saw the way Chay’s shoulders would angle down a little to one side before he lunged the other way, and I responded, leading him through drills, drawing him out, watching for patterns, searching for weakness.
The market crowd was thin this time of day, and many of the stalls had closed.
A woman smiled at us, pushing her cart before her, wares safely tucked inside.
She sold pelts her husband caught. He’d returned a few days ago with a good collection.
I’d considered a few to make Elnyta a good winter cloak.
My sewing skills were more than up to the task.
But my arms had ached to even think of it.
Would I see Elnyta before my father got here?
Part of me hoped they’d stay gone, where it was safe, and build their merchant credibility so it didn’t rely on my half-stolen family seal.
The rest of me wanted their strong, calloused hands to close around my wrists and hold me down until I could rest.
“Audrey.” The note of urgency in Isolde’s voice drew my attention. I slowed Storm to face the same direction as my long-time friend.
The stallholder lifted their hand in greeting. Small and medium tapestries hung from rails and were displayed behind them. The orchard, the bay, the docks—and I suspected I spied the Siren’s Ally, done with passable skill.
Beside it was the La’Angi keep, squatting high on the cliff, the gates open.
The colors they’d chosen were blues and blacks, except the woman standing framed by the battlements, holding a torch aloft.
Warm orange light glowed around her, holding back the oppressive darkness, welcoming anyone who needed somewhere safe to go.
My heart lurched.
That was me.
“My daughters did it,” the stallholder told me, smiling, waving me closer. “Do you like it?”
I struggled not to recoil.
“It’s beautiful,” Isolde said, leaping down from the saddle and drawing the stallholder’s attention. I didn’t know how to arrange my face. Did I express gratitude? Joy? I couldn’t hear the rise and fall of Isolde’s voice, only the buzzing in my ears.
Barloc was done in a similar style, atop cliffs and hills, striding through orchards.
I could hear the staccato beat of my father’s boots. The ground vanished beneath me with dizzying speed. Tears burned my eyes, blurring the tapestries.
The reins of my horse were taken.
“We’ll see you at the keep, mistress,” Chay called.
We were moving.
I wasn’t a hero. I had done nothing heroic. I’d read illegal books and kept going until I’d tried what felt like every possible option, and one of them had been right. That was all.
The three men around me were silent. Chay’s gloved hand on my reins made Storm’s ears flick back. Beside her, Bliksem tossed his head, irritated at her proximity as much as she was, his.
“Just a little way, friend,” Chay murmured. “You’ll be okay. We’ll be home soon.”
He was talking to his horse, of course.