Chapter Five #3
“Good,” I said, and nodded at the wide-eyed soldiers around us. “Then get your men in line.”
Without waiting for a reply, I tossed my head and turned on my heel. As I walked away to stunned silence, Madame Bracken croaked out a victorious; “Huzzah!”
And by the ensuing thud and yelp, I suspected she’d finally knocked the soldier’s boots off the table in a fit of wicked delight.
I didn’t turn to confirm as I shut the door behind me, but once it clicked shut I rested my head on the cool, varnished wood and caught my breath.
You’re an innkeeper.
I heard you loud and clear.
My mind flicked back and forth over an inner catalogue of the look he’d given me in that moment.
Assessing, inquisitive, and too gods-damned bright.
I had to remind myself to breathe. One long breath out to smother my rising Flame; one quick breath in to soothe it.
When I turned, Sorcha was watching me from behind the bar, wringing her bloodied hands before her.
I tried for a reassuring smile as I crossed the room, but if anything her eyes grew wider, brows shooting up.
I paused mid-step, confused by her reaction – until she darted forth, mouth open on a wordless scream.
And I realised far too late that I had not heard the door open behind me.
“You venomous fucking cunt.”
I spun just as Fischer barrelled into me, thick fingers clutching at the sleeve of my bodice, the momentum of his wrath driving me back until I stumbled over my own feet and fell against the bar.
Fischer hauled me upright by the sleeve, only to slam me back against the wood, my teeth rattling in my skull for just a moment before his hand closed around my throat.
He loomed over me, blood and spittle flying from his mouth as he seethed, and I was too shocked to do anything but stare up at him, scrabbling at the hand pressed to my windpipe and gasping for breath, my Flame flailing within me as he starved it of oxygen.
“Roz!” Sorcha screamed behind me. I felt the entryway plank shudder beneath me, but she couldn’t get it open with both my weight and Fischer’s holding it down. “Get off her!”
The soldier ignored her, his grasp tightening until spots popped in the edges of my vision. All I could see was his furious, purpling face, the blood from his split cheek rolling down over his lips, filling the gaps in his teeth and turning his grimace bright red.
“You need me, you meddling bitch. You and your pathetic little village.” His hand jerked viciously, my head bobbing back as I choked under the increased pressure.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re in for.
You think that shower of useless bastards are going to keep the Serpent from slithering into your midst? ”
The room tilted and blurred. Only Sorcha’s increasingly panicked screams kept me from giving in to the tug of the darkness that seeped into the edges of my vision.
Someone who sounded an awful lot like Madame Bracken was shouting obscenities, and I was vaguely aware of a dull thudding all around us, like tiny canon fire crashing into the bar again and again until finally Fischer flinched back as something small and red bounced off his skull with a thwack.
He hissed in pain, his grip on me loosening just enough for my lungs to contract in agony as a whoosh of air hooked at my wilting Flame, dragged it hot and hissing up my throat where it flared for just one moment beneath his palm.
Fischer bellowed like a wounded beast and dropped me at once, staggering back with his blistering hand cradled in his armpit.
I slid to my knees, choking on my own raw breath.
I had a brief glimpse of Madame Bracken standing a few feet away with a basket of apples from the dining hall tucked into her side, one frail arm still cocked back with another apple clutched in her gnarled fingers.
Sorcha ducked beneath the bar and dropped to my side, and I tried frantically to shove her behind me even as I gasped for air and scrambled internally to reel my Flame in.
It fought me, rearing back to take another fiery lunge at the deputy.
“What the fuck?” Fischer was shrieking, his eyes popping madly. “She fucking burned my–”
But before he could spit out the accusation, a huge figure loomed up behind him, wrenched him aside and sent him careening facefirst into the opposite wall.
Sorcha screamed again, and I shot my arms out, instinctively shielding her – but the two men were wholly focused on their own struggle.
Fischer’s face was pressed tight against the wall while the Captain twisted his arm behind his back and snarled low, overlapping threats in his ear.
His accent thickened in his rage, but I could just about pick out the words touch her again, and something that sounded like shove them down your worthless throat.
“D’you fucking hear me?”
He yanked Fischer back and shoved him into the wall once more, something crunching sickeningly with the renewed force. The Kingsmen had rushed from the dining hall to crowd around the spectacle and a few of them now staggered forth uncertainly at Fischer’s howl of pain.
“I said do you hear me?”
The Captain wrenched Fischer’s arm so far behind his back that his shoulder lifted from the wall, and he screamed a high and ragged scream.
One of the soldiers took a step forward. “He hears you, Cap, come on –”
“Leave it,” Brennan snapped, with such unprecedented venom that the soldier fell back at once, his mouth falling shut.
Fisher mumbled something into the wall, and the Captain took hold of his greasy mop of hair and tugged hard, snapping his head back.
“I fucking hear you,” Fischer panted. “I hear you!”
I could have sworn the Captain’s knuckles tightened around his deputy’s arm like he debated twisting it even further, but after a moment he shoved away and sent Fischer knocking into the wall once more for good measure.
His eyes were blazing as they swept the room and landed, for just a moment, on me.
I stared back at him from where I sat, in a heap on the floor by the bar, one arm thrown in front of Sorcha and my free hand clapped tight over my chest to ease my struggling Flame.
“You alright?” He said tightly.
I nodded, unsure if my voice would make it past my crushed and aching windpipe. His stare hardened, and he hovered there for a split second as though debating saying more. Then he turned to his men and strode into their midst, calling; “Miss Rosaleen needs seeing to. Who’s our healer on duty?”
The moment his back was turned, I twisted to face Sorcha. She was was white as a sheet, and her eyes stared past me.
“Are you alright?”
Every word was hoarse and brittle, but I knew she heard me.
She nodded distantly, still fixed behind me at where Fischer was effing and blinding from his own heap on the floor.
I spared him a glance; he was struggling to his knees now, wincing as he put his weight on his angry, blistered hand and fell forward once more.
Fuck, his fucking hand – I’d nearly forgotten.
I turned to Sorcha, swearing again under my breath.
“Roz?”
“I burned him,” I croaked urgently. “His hand.”
“With…”
Her eyes tripped down to my collar, and back up to me with a meaningful arch of her brow.
I nodded. She worried at her lip for a moment.
Then, eyes fixed cautiously on the cluster of Kingsmen now hauling Fischer to his feet, she reached up over the bar until her fingers found one of the little glass lanterns dotted across the counter – and slowly tilted it on its side.
Then she settled behind me once more, as though she’d never moved at all.
“He burned his own hand,” she said quietly. “Perhaps he knocked over a lantern.”
And that might have been that.
None of the soldiers that crowded around Fischer, herding him forcefully toward the exit, took any notice of his hissed complaints, nor the blistered hand he waved frantically in my direction.
My breath did come a little easier when the front door shut behind him.
But then the Captain reappeared, shoving through the remaining cluster of men with another soldier in tow.
He watched as the young man knelt at my side, already pulling out a jar of some strong-smelling ointment from his large leather pack.
I lifted my head at the soldier’s instruction, but I barely registered the thick, cool smear of the pungent ointment over my throat.
I was distracted by the look on the Captain’s face; the way his jaw ticked, how his eyes darkened to the green of shaded pines as he watched his healer paint over the reddened shape of Fischer’s palm on my throat.
He was so engrossed that it took him a moment to feel the weight of my eyes, and when he did, he glanced quickly away, as though he hadn’t just spent several long minutes staring at me.
I couldn’t look away, though.
Not only because the healer held my jaw in place, but because I saw where the Captain’s gaze landed next.
Saw him turn briskly, looking for somewhere to shift his attention – and saw that attention snag on the upturned lantern just a few inches above Sorcha’s head.
He frowned at it, then glanced at the door Fischer had just been forced through.
His eyes trailed, almost reluctantly, back to me, unreadable as he studied me, a little more openly now.
My Flame noted his presence, and fought my hold for all it was worth, desperate to rise to his attention like the destructive little chaos demon it was turning out to be.
I held my breath until my lungs burned as much as my throat, and mercifully, the Captain took a step back, face shuttering.
Then, frowning, he turned on his heel and strode away.