Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ISOLDE
“Action is easy.” ~ Matri’sion proverb
I knew Audrey wouldn’t open the door between us. I’d told her not to, and she understood and respected that I refused to be the one to make her sick. That was as complicated as it needed to be for her.
Knowing it was safe to do so, I fanned my hand over the wood separating us, listening to the rise and fall of her voice as she told me what she’d done.
I should’ve been there to hold that space for her. I should’ve held her when the battle energy ebbed, and the shakes took over. I heard the tears in her voice and swallowed my own, taken off guard by the show of emotion. Even locked safely away from her view, it still didn’t serve us.
“…but Ylva actually talked to me today, so that’s something. Do you know what a Worg is?”
Ylva had talked. “It’s a curse,” I told her, because I’d never lied to Audrey before, and I wasn’t starting now, regardless of how much I wanted to hide that truth. “And she’s a victim of it. Keep silver against her flesh, and she won’t need to deal with it.” Before she could launch more questions at me, I refocused on the key issue. “The body might be on the rocks below.”
“I know,” she said through the wood. “Well, actually, I guessed that. I don’t really know. But we’re so shorthanded, and those areas are patrolled only intermittently. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with the Acting Steward, and if he mentions he’s shorthanded, I’m going to recommend that he pull people away from that area, among others.”
I stared at my nails, hating the sight of that gray. I shoved down the hopelessness that tried to grab me by the throat. She was doing well without me, and that was all I ever wanted for her. “Good. Make sure you bury it amongst other suggestions. Not at the very start or the end, because people remember the first and last things the best, but mayhap second or third.” I’d told her this a million times, and I hated that I knew that, but I couldn’t halt myself, all the same. “Not the middle. Few remember the middle.” I didn’t wait for a response. I didn’t need one. Get it together, archer. “Do you know the woman’s name?”
“No,” Audrey said. “Or I’d seek her out.”
“Better to give that job to—” me. I cut that off. I could still walk, but I needed to save that ability. Weakening myself now would be an error. “—someone else, or let it sit for now. You don’t want her thinking about you more than she already will be if that death is uncovered.” Audrey wouldn’t hang for murder, but there would be assumptions made as to what the guardsman had wanted from her and the woman, both.
After all, we were only good for one thing.
“I’ve got plenty of other problems,” she told me on a sigh that I could hear clearly through the door. “I still don’t know what to do with the guards who are hoarding food and wealth.”
We’d spent hours going over this together. There was no good answer, only varying levels of risk. I didn’t ask if they’d progressed the cure at all. She’d tell me the moment she had even the whisper of an update on that front.
My tribe will welcome you . I wanted to tell her. You could find this woman and escort her yourself. You know the way. The image of her riding into the sunset flashed into my mind. It was the first time I’d imagined her doing it alone, and I hadn’t been terrified of the thought—it brought me a measure of calm. I withdrew my hand from the wood, using it instead to anchor the blanket closer to my shoulders.
Whatever happened, she’d be okay.
I closed my eyes to blot out the door keeping me from her, but her expression was burned on the inside of my lids. The way her head had snapped up as a child, like a rabbit hearing a hunter. Go, she’d told me.
But what if we hadn’t?
“You need to take control,” I told her, allowing no trace of doubt or worry into my voice.
“What would make me able to run it any better than the Acting Steward and the Captain?” she asked me. Her brows would be all bunched up and there would tears in her eyes as they stayed fixed somewhere to my right.
I hadn’t hugged her enough. I needed to remedy that when I was able. “You listen,” I told her. “You learn. You acknowledge you don’t know shit.” From what I’d seen, the best all started like that. “You’re willing to put in the time, and you put people first.” She was quiet, and that worried me. It was rare I couldn’t predict her reactions, but I wished I could assess which of my assurances had the most impact.
I missed her.
“You aren’t trying to accumulate more wealth or power,” I added. I couldn’t make out the exact words, but whatever she murmured sounded like a disagreement. “Wealth, then, and the power is purely what you need to seize to be safe. Isn’t it?” She was silent, and I rocked on my haunches, frustration clawing at me. “If you keep giving these men your power, they’ll keep taking it.”
“I know,” she said clearly. “I know they will. And they’re taking it from others.”
And she was positioned with enough of a leg-up that she could have half a chance at disrupting the locways. “This isn’t a pitched battle on an equal field,” I reminded her, keeping the frustration from my voice. “Your guilt is irrelevant unless you can weaponize it against the powerful. The situation is what it is.” And she wasn’t going to stop the prophecy if she felt bad about it. “If guard numbers are as low as you say, and the ranks are so badly fractured, then a few public killings as you take control and seize the reins is a kindness. Short-term cost, long-term profit.” She was quiet again, and this time, I wasn’t worried about it. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned how she’d need to roll some heads to be taken seriously. Not after what she’d done today. “You’ve got people to ask for advice, don’t you?”
“Kaelson,” she said, and the word was thick. “He seems like he knows the score, if I can ever get hold of him. And Bernadette. Graff, mayhap.”
My heart ached. How many leaders listed a cook and an errand boy as their advisors? Not enough. Bernadette had her own agenda, which could be both a boon and a barrier, but Graff was a good choice. His mouth stayed closed, and he heard and saw a lot. “So, start there.”
“But I can’t,” she objected. “I can’t staff the city. If I seize control of the guard and there’s in-fighting, we’ll lose more people. We’d become vulnerable. If I pull us back a level in the city so we’re only defending the inner walls, we could have bandit camps in the lower levels. Flushing them out later will be harder than keeping them out now. We’ll be pinned down with limited supplies and no hope of lifting that until ships arrive, and I’ve no clue when that may happen.”
“But you can’t keep them out now,” I pointed out, like I had yesterday. “You can’t feed people now. These problems all already exist. We’ve been over this.”
She gave me all the reasons, all the risks, all the things she was afraid of. My body ached, and I listened to it, held it all for her. It was all I could do from here.
I needed to draw a new bath. The warm water renewed me, and it was one of the few benefits of being locked in here endlessly. That, and the sewing I’d been able to progress.
When there was a break in the flow of negativity, I asked, “When did you last go for a ride?”
She was quiet for a moment, and I could imagine her gaping at me. “A ride?”
“Yes, a ride. Just for the joy of it and to keep your eye in and your bow limber.” And to remind her that she could exist outside of these stone walls.
“I don’t know,” she said impatiently. “I don’t have time for that, Isolde. People are dying. ”
“They’re dying while you worry, too. Your guilt is irrelevant. Get out. Clear your head.”
“Thomas is at the field hospital. I can’t go out without him.”
Curse the Duke for that. “Audrey, I think people are more worried about whether they’ll live through the winter than whether you’ve got one knight behind you, or two.” If they weren’t, they should be. “You’re moving around the castle already with just Chay. It’s no different.”
She was silent again, and I knew she was running through all the arguments in her head, weighing them all up. “Mayhap,” she said eventually. “Can I get you anything?”
“No.” I had everything I wanted, and it left me feeling strangely tired. “Go do your nighttime drills, and then rest. Tomorrow, I want you to ride.”
She mumbled something that wasn’t agreement. I listened to the sounds of her exercising, but didn’t move myself to do the same. I’d taken to doing just small spurts of activity. My body didn’t manage more, and there was no point pushing through.
Aching and hollow, I sat against the door, listening to the sound of her readying herself for bed. I could remember every step of our routine so clearly, I could just about feel her hair in my hands as I brushed it out.
Go, my heart said. But what I truly wanted of her was not flight, but fight.