Chapter 11
Alistair held onto himself, hand around the hilt, bathing in his own blood.
Tynan hurtled forward and struck his gauntlet against the elf’s face. Sword at the throat, the Captain of the Guard imprisoned the elf and carved distance between the assassin and Alistair.
I walked towards Alistair, my steps slow, the weight of death clawing in the air. Clawing at him. Black veins gone, Alistair’s face stayed pale, falling paler still. Arms hung like a corpse. Blood vanished into his black clothes. As though Alistair was held up by twine tied in the Everlaides, the gods cut the strings, and Alistair fell.
My slow steps became a race. I twisted around the guards and grabbed Alistair, falling to the ground with him. I knelt, his head hitting my lap.
With challenged breaths and feeble strength, he tried to stand, but I held him down, my hands pressing against his shoulders.
“My lord, you need to stay still.” My words were crippled in fright.
Alistair’s hand wrapped around mine, his skin cold and grip weak.
“I-I am going to help you.” Each word shook out of me. “I will.”
Deceit prowled. Promises are but empty words when death stalks in the dead of night.
I manically bat my lashes to ward off the god, his claws boring into my eyes.
Alistair’s hand tightened for a spell, and blood poured from his lips. Neck flexing, he wheezed air. His lungs hissed. Guards began to surround the scene. Useless armor, useless steel.
“Get back!” I shouted.
“He needs room.” My mind reeled.
“Does anyone have something that can help him?” Alistair’s breath rasped in the silence. “Anything?” Nothing. Sands. But—
I sucked in air.
“Catriona!” She came to my side, kneeling beside me, and I locked eyes with her.
“Stay with the lord. I will be right back.” I looked at Alistair—pale, shivering, weak. “Do not leave him.” I lifted his head, motioning Catriona to sit in my place.
She trembled closer, and I set Alistair’s head upon her lap, his breath thinning, his eyes closing.
“Where are you going?” Her voice was desperate, pleading for me to stay, but I had no time to explain.
Questions chased at my back. I ignored and persisted. Past the meadery and into the streets, I wailed my shoulders and elbows at those standing in my path. Curse words met me at all angles, but I could barely hear them against the pounding of my heart.
At the outskirts of the city, I threw open the carriage door. Freya startled awake, and I reached below the bench and grabbed the bottle of wine—the wine to heal both body and mind.
I tore the ground as I chased to the meadery.
Curious souls lined the streets, shoulder-to-shoulder, at the meadery’s entrance. I shoved my way through, more curses thrown at me.
“Get out of the way!” I cried.
No one listened. The base of my bottle became a weapon, and I struck spines.
Neil came from the meadery’s entrance, unsheathed a blade, and pointed it at the streets. "Clear out!" He bellowed.
A divide broke in the throng. I sped through the clearing and slid past Neil’s blade.
I entered the meadery. Guards riven, clearing a way. Alistair was unconscious. I knelt beside him. His face was ashen, his breaths were shallow and gasping, and Catriona’s hands were indistinguishable beneath all the red.
Whisking Catriona away, I ripped Alistair’s shirt and grasped the bloodied hilt.
“I need to remove the blade,” I muttered to myself, Catriona’s eyes widening. I whispered in prayer.
“Alistair, please, keep breathing.”
There is already so much blood on your hands, Deceit uttered. On your face.
I counted within myself. One, two, three, and tore out the dagger. Alistair moaned. His abdomen flexed into a hunch, worsening the blood loss. My hands shook. I breathed as I could and wiped away the fresh red that pooled in the divots of his ribs. Raising the goddess’s wine, I poured it on his wound. Steam wafted, flesh boiled.
Alistair awoke in a roar.
The wound burned and charred, the smell overpowering and foul, but it did not matter. The blood flow was lessening. At the end of a pain-curdled yell, Alistair fell into still silence as fresh skin began to stitch over the clotted blood.
The entire realm fell soundless as we waited.
Patiently, the lord’s eyes began to slit open. His lungs exchanged from slow to quivering, and his muscles trembled in a shiver.
“Catriona, hand me his jacket.” She did, and I laid it over him.
“My lord?” I was given silence.
“Alistair, can you hear me?”
Alistair’s arm flexed beneath my palm, and he set his hand upon mine. Warmth seeped from his skin—slim warmth, though warmth, nonetheless.
His obsidian eyes found mine.
“I almost touched the sands,” he hushed with fingers tensing upon my hand.
“But, you…” His words slipped away, and our stare held for a moment, the realm finally still. Quiet. But, something of him carved a glare, though it was not intended for me. Alistair severed our eyes as he marked the assassin.
Tynan held the elf, blade forming a red line at his neck.
Frailly, Alistair began to rise. Halfway, he sucked his teeth, cradled the scar, and I caught him before he fell. Like crutches, I set myself beneath Alistair, draping his arm around my shoulder. Neil did the same at his other side.
The meadery door swung open, Lucien charging in.
“I heard commotion!” He shouted and ran to us while taking in the aftermath of bloodshed. His eyes grew wide at the sight of Alistair.
“My lord, are you hurt?”
Alistair ignored Lucien, all attention devoted to the elf. With a thud, Tynan threw the assassin to his knees before the lord.
The elf’s glare was a dagger on its own.
“Assassin.” Alistair’s voice hardened between thin breaths.
“Kill him,” Lucien voiced, his hand setting on the hilt of his blade. When Alistair gave no such demand, Lucien furthered.
“He should be killed. Here. Now, my lord.”
Alistair’s lips pulled back with bared teeth. Lucien lessened.
“An elvish assassin,” Alistair continued.
“Sent to kill the new Lord of Ravens.”
The elf bit the air.
“Do not play at dismay. Your damned family prevents us from expanding east. Trapped in the West. This was inevitable.”
“Elves do not send assassins.”
“We enter into a new era, Raven,” he spat.
“The Dark Era is one filled with means of death and despair. If we break our oaths, killing one man in cold blood to spare many, it would be worth enduring the wrath of the gods.”
“No, that is not the way of the elves. What is forbidden is forbidden, regardless of what era we occupy.”
A vile smile took the elf’s face.
“Do you fear, my lord?”
Alistair was at a loss for words, though I did not believe he was. His lips thinned, teeth grit. It was as though a thousand words tied his tongue, but not one left his mouth. He locked them in.
The elf laughed a horrid laugh. I hadn’t much time with elves, but I’d never imagined them so demented. They were the people of purity and passion. The echo of Sentient and Light, fauna and love.
“The elves call for your head, Raven! You will fall to be with your fath—” The elf quieted. Something was happening, and the elf knew it too.
“Oh, gods.”
Deceit spilled to the front of my mind.
The elf’s skin began to bubble. Colors bled from his eyes, and a new hue took its place. Hairs faded to grey, shortened, and thinned. A transfiguration, far less instant than my own skin snapping. The elf’s nose cracked into a new shape, and my flesh burned at the sight, knowing the discomfort of such change. But his was far more violent.
Tynan’s blade dug into the elf’s skin as he writhed. Only, it was no elf. The tips of his ears burned away, leaving rounded edges.
In one last cry, the assassin convulsed and became someone else entirely.
A human.
I called to the God of Deception for clarity. What is happening? He… He was elvish.
Alistair threw himself forward, Neil and I abandoned, and leaned to the elf as though steel had never kissed his skin.
“What magic is this?” Anger fumed, Alistair’s veins provoked by the dark.
Deceit’s tail coiled my spine. Rumors have evolved into truth. Men alter faces.
I gasped, but none cared. And someone is using the potion to kill Alistair?
The god dug into my eyes as we watched.
The assassin did not speak, lips soldered shut.
Alistair raised the dagger and set it on the assassin, point to the sternum.
“You are not of elvish blood. What are you?” Silence. His knuckles whitened then flew, striking the man’s jaw with a crack, blood spilling from his mouth.
“Tell me who you are, or I will ensure your death is direly patient.”
The man licked his bloodied lips.
“My name is Hale Mallard. A name you neither know nor will ever care to know. Though it is not me you should be concerned with, but the man who craves your death.”
“Hired arms,” was a deep hiss from Alistair’s throat.
“What do we do with him?” Tynan looked at his lord.
“He needs to die!” Lucien cried.
“Anyone who’d dare attack our good lord must be sentenced to death.” He lifted his own blade.
“Lower your arm, Lucien,” Alistair uttered.
“My lord.” Lucien’s hand tightened, devoted to the hilt.
“He aimed to take your life. Look at the massacre around you! He deserves death.”
“He needs to be questioned.”
“Your father—”
“I am not my father!” Alistair’s jaw tensed, black veins sprawling.
We all cowered like peasants groveling for alms, except Lucien. He clenched his tongue between his teeth, with a map of his own veins, pronouncing.
In surrender, Lucien laid down his tension and bowed.
“Of course, my lord. Apologies.”
Alistair sucked in a breath, grunted it out, and winced. Shifting through his tattered shirt, he unveiled the scar and set his hand upon his ribcage. Gathering a breath, he motioned towards the captain.
“Tynan, take this Hale away. Starve him. Chain him. Make him suffer before he exchanges hands to the king.”
“With pleasure, my lord.” Tynan bound Hale’s hands.
“Your bloodline is cursed.” Hale fought the bindings, twisting his arms at his back, but Tynan held him firm.
“We all know the damned smoke suffocated your father. It strangles your veins. I may have been hired arms, but I’d send you to your grave with or without payment. You, and all those loyal to the king, will be Andrael’s downfall!”
Lucien swung his leg like a pendulum and bashed his boot in Hale’s stomach.
“Your death will be dealt in gladness.”
“Men!” Tynan wailed.
“Take this disgrace to the prisons.”
Hale was dragged away by the wings of the Raven.
The door latched shut. Kneeling, Alistair retrieved the bottle of wine, and my heart sank.
“So, this is what healed me,” he said neither rude nor kind, only sure.
“Is that wine from the Goddess of Beauty?” Lucien asked with disgust in his tone, his knotted finger pointing to the crowd.
“Who owns such an artifact? None are permitted to carry trinkets of the damn gods!” His eyes charted to Alistair.
“My lord, it is prohibited. Anyone carrying godly artifacts must be arrested.”
Alistair scoffed.
“Gods, Lucien. Let it be.”
“My lord, those carrying artifacts must be tried for their sins.”
Lord Alistair lifted his chin, marking his advisor from the bridge of his nose.
“Are you about finished reminding me of the rules of our kingdom, or would you like to recite the entire royal charter for me?”
Lucien’s face struck appalled.
“My lord, you mustn’t offer forgiveness for such transgressions.”
Alistair faced me, crossing his arms with a lifted jaw.
“Miss Fallen, you saved my life.”
“It was my duty, my lord.”
Lucien’s jaw dropped.
“You owned the wine?”
Alistair ignored him.
“Advising and reviving are hardly related.” In a trice, his dimple snagged his cheek—there, then gone.
“Tell me, Miss Fallen, do you have any other bottles of the goddess’s wine in your keeping?”
“No, my lord.”
“Are you satisfied, Lucien?” Alistair asked.
“She is without any more godly artifacts.”
Lucien’s temple pulsed a novel vein, but I felt relief. Had Alistair chosen, I could have spent my remaining days in prison for possessing such wine.
Stepping forward, Alistair lost his footing, and the color drained from his face. Neil and I were quickly beside him, supporting him at both sides.
“Miss Fallen,” Neil said.
“Will you accompany the lord back to his estate? You seem to be well experienced with handling situations such as these.”
I found no trace of the austere stature upon Alistair. Nor the killer in the wine cellar. Leaning against us to stand, eyes fighting to stay open, Alistair’s severity had been chiseled away. Crumbling stone left behind a man of flesh and bone. He was direly mortal. Not of Shadows. Simply human.
A pulse of something I could not understand was a fleeting glint in my chest.
“Of course, Sir Neil. I will see him safely to the estate.”
…
Our company rallied to the carriages to leave behind the horrors of this nightfall, but red was still very much alive in my mind. The breeze burned colder as night drew long. My teeth clattered without mercy or restraint. We walked beneath the makeshift gate.
Alistair leaned from Neil and lifted his jacket to me, tattered and stained.
I gave it a nasty look.
“I know I am not to deny your requests, my lord, but your jacket is quite ruined.”
“It is to wipe the blood from your face.”
My eyes shot to him. Warmth leached from me. The blood. Blood of the man Lord Alistair killed and blood of the man I killed.
Something of Alistair’s eyes softened.
“I did not mean to upset you. I have seen many deaths for many years. I suppose I’ve forgotten the weight it carries, seeing someone killed for the first time.” He let out a thick breath.
“No, this was not your first. Was it in the wine cellar?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head, Percy’s body a portrait at the back of my eyelids. Hendry came next. Many others could have hung in the gallery beside them, but I didn’t let my mind go so far.
“It was not the first, no. I only—” I sighed.
“I suppose I am not so fortunate to become numb to it. To death. It still sickens me to see.”
“There is no fortune in becoming numb, Miss Fallen.”
“Though it would be easier.”
“What is easy is not often worthy. Keep what heart you can.”
I glanced at him, but his eyes were secured ahead, stoneface. Again. Giving away nothing apart from his words and his words alone.
Neighs and trots sounded. Freya stood from the carriage, cradling her head, holding my cloak. She walked to us, legs sloshing, feet sloppy in steps. Still rather drunk. It was when she noticed me beside Alistair that her attention swelled. Her bloodshot eyes traded from Alistair to Neil, who held the lord steady.
“My lord?” Freya closed the distance and surveyed him from hairs to feet, brows crawling up her forehead.
“What… what has happened? Are you well?”
“I—” Alistair’s face tightened with a grunt, spine arched forward.
“Gods, my lord.” Freya reached for him, then stayed her hand. Hesitated. Withdrew.
Neil spoke where Alistair couldn’t.
“Our lord was attacked in Tharen Crest. Assassins. But he will be all right. Thanks to our Rhoswen, Lord Alistair will live another day with only a scar to remember.”
“Assassins?” Freya’s eyes grew wide, noticing Alistair’s abdomen—scarred and covered in dried blood.
“You were stabbed? And Rhoswen, y-you saved him?”
“The wine,” I hushed.
Freya’s plump lips quivered, a thin weep escaping her. There were emotions brewing beneath the surface, whitecaps churning in those stormy eyes of hers. In this moment, I presumed Freya loved Alistair. Complicated, as she put it, but love. Love was often complicated.
Freya stepped nearer.
“I will see you back to the estate, my lord.”
“Miss Fallen will be escorting me,” Alistair labored.
Freya pivoted back. Curiosity pranced on her demeanor, leaving a soft clench of her fist and tightened eyes. She looked at me, eyes red, making the storm all the more blue. She inhaled, bit down her words, and handed me my cloak.
“Thank you.” I gladly accepted, rustling the cloak over my shoulders.
Nothing further was spoken. Freya left for her carriage, only glancing back for a mere second before softly closing her carriage door. I stepped towards the grander of carriages, Alistair holding his own, and Neil gone to comfort his Catriona. The coachman jolted at the sight of the lord, leaped down from the carriage, and swung the door wide.
Alistair lifted his hand at the mouth of the carriage, offering me first entry.
How chivalrous. Deceit latched to mockery as I stepped inside.
I took my seat, my spine a rod, and the lord took his place across from me.
The carriage jolted in the wake of hooves.
As the laurel wood passed us by, its branches scraping against the carriage, I sought solitude, peering through the window. The chilled air wrapped me, my cloak already a waste. We were quiet for some time—our latent trust leaving us with unspoken questions. Shades of life continued to crawl up Alistair’s neck. His lips were no longer ashen and resumed their pale ruby hues.
He sat in a weak form with legs sprawled out, and his chest concaved with the arc of his spine. An occasional sigh left him, reminding me he was there. This man, a killer of the gods’ chosen, marked by Shadows. My spine was stuck in a rigid posture. Even in the silence, his company offered distress.
But, inevitably, words were spoken, though not at my will.
“Miss Fallen, I should thank you for what you did in the meadery.”
“As I said before, my lord, it is my duty.” And a silence drew. I twisted my neck, finding Lord Alistair watching me. His gaze upon me was becoming a familiar sensation, though undesired. “My lord?”
His black eyes narrowed.
“I have a difficult time understanding you, Miss Fallen,” he said with fingers dragging along the curve of his jaw.
“I can say the same of you, my lord.”
Amusement opened his lips, showing teeth.
“Oh? What is so difficult to understand?”
I considered the man at the fountain and the man of the cellar and said.
“I have seen you kill, but—” I paused.
“You do not seem to be the killing type.”
Slight tilt in his jaw, he tucked his chin, words formless, eyes burning like black flames. The carriage juddered over the path, reminding me of the restricting confines I sat within—so near to this dark lord of Shadow.
“And you,” Alistair began with a subtle bite in his tone.
“You say you have poisoned a man, and yet you do not appear to be the poisoning type.”
Deceit’s laughter scraped my insides. It appears he does recognize you, Princess.
I wanted to reach down my throat, grab the god’s tail, and wrap it around his throat.
Alistair’s mouth twitched at one corner.
“I believed it strange. A young woman seeking solace with a bartender, telling him she’d poisoned a man. Then, the very next day, I find the same woman scooping dead bugs out of my fountain.” He relaxed and set his arm along the bench’s back.
“That day in Sariem, you had said you were a survivor. I did not believe you at first, but after today, I do. I only wonder what means you’ll take to survive.”
I hadn’t dared to touch my face. To feel the blood. Until now. The crusting felt like dead skin. The massacre came to the forefront of my mind—the sensation of steel gliding through the man’s neck, my hand at the hilt. Clearing my throat, I hunkered into Deceit’s magic and steadied myself.
“I only hope what happened tonight will not have to happen again.”
Alistair’s jaw tensed.
“You give nothing away, Miss Fallen. Your faces are well practiced.”
“Which is vital in my line of business.”
“That, I cannot argue, but you are a master of the craft. As though you hide beneath your own skin.”
Deceit hissed.
I did not care for this—Alistair detecting my mask.
“My lord, surely you are well acquainted with the same. Dark magic lives in the wood and your estate and continues to mature with each lightless day. Would you agree that this era begs concealment?”
“I would, Miss Fallen, though the truth remains inevitable. It is important to know which end of the blade you stand on when such a day comes.”
“I will not stand with a hilt in my hand or a blade at my neck.”
“Because you wield poison, not steel,” he said dryly.
“Th-that is not me.” I failed to keep my voice smooth and found myself memorizing the wood beyond the window, my eyes skipping over the trees.
The God of Deception crawled out from the dark only to say, It is, child.
“I do not take pride in the acts I’ve committed to stay alive, my lord. But, I can promise to serve your house faithfully until you decide I am no longer needed.” Glancing back at Alistair, his demeanor had shifted. His eyes softened, just as when we walked to the carriages.
“If such a day comes when the truth attempts to claim my life, there will be no poison and no blade. I will be hiding in the shadows.”
“White roses cannot hide in shadows,” he said, resuming his stone features.
“They illuminate in the moonlight.”
“My lord,” I said softly.
“You do not know me.”
“I do not, which I believe is how you intend to keep it. Though I do know your name, which can speak to one’s character more than one might believe.” He propped himself forward, elbows upon knees, and severity settled upon his face.
“Did you know Rhoswen is an old name of the White Rose? Lore speaks of the White Rose being the first people the church ever sacrificed to the gods. A holy sacrifice.”
“I do not consider sacrifices holy.”
“Why?” He asked.
“Just as you, the church was merely trying to survive.”
This lord was trying to get under my skin, and, dammit, he was. I bit my tongue.
“Rhoswen Fallen.” My name left his lips like frostbite.
“A fallen white rose. Perhaps a woman destined to survive, regardless of the cost.”
I took a calming breath.
“Lord Alistair, what is it you wish to know of me?”
His mouth was possessed to smirk.
“What price have you paid for your survival?”
The god reemerged. The purity of your hands, my dear, have been washed away by the blood.
“Rather,” Alistair amended.
“who has paid the price?”
Men whose names had been marked by the gods.
Be quiet. I threw my annoyance at the god. Or would you like to answer him for me?
“Fine,” the lord uttered to my silence.
“Then tell me this, Rhoswen Fallen—she who carries a cursed name. Are you cursed, or do you bring the curse to those you know?”
I mirrored Alistair’s mannerisms, uncrossing my legs and setting my elbows upon my knees. A smirk drew his mouth, and I wanted to smear it off his arrogant face.
“It appears we both have been cursed by our lineage, my lord.”
He scowled.
“Tell me, what did your father leave you? Mine left me without a home, a scar, and a name foreboding the life I would live. Tainted, spoiled, a purity that fell through my little fingers before I had the chance to grasp it. You asked me what I know of family legacy, and I said nothing at all, because I have denied it. Even the depths of Oldurem are not far enough from the blood that carries through my veins.”
The lord’s laughter rolled out from deep within.
“Gods, Fallen, you finally speak the truth. Doesn’t it feel good? Good to let someone just a little closer to understanding who you truly are?”
The god groomed the ripples of my mind. This lord is the last person you should let near.
“Rageful, actually,” my words came out dull.
He stole a haunting grin.
“And now, Fallen, I do see a woman who would poison.”
Before I could speak another word, a shadow chased the corner of my eye. I shot my gaze at the window, my breath shuddering in my throat. A black figure slumped through the wood. Then two, no… Seven. They kept coming, stalking like drunken men, though they were not. They were lifeless, decomposing, though walking.
My chest tightened. I was without weapons, without protection. Should they attack—
“You are right to say dark magic lives in the wood.” Alistair remained calm.
“What are those?” The control of my timbre was destroyed.
“Corpses,” he said.
“Shadows of souls that dwelled in the dark too long, possessed by whatever dark fumes cast to Oldurem after the Goddess of Light had passed.”
The blackened silhouettes halted, milky eyes watching the carriages pass. Thin, lanky, and rotting.
“Do we attack them?” I asked
The lord shook his head.
“No. They do not attack men. They are more animals of game than animals of hunt. The corpses of Shadows do not bother us. From what I have gathered, they are attracted to elves and god servers, as though they can smell the magic in blood. They live to drag those people down to the sands of Oldurem.”
And they are right here.
It was the lord, not the god, that offered comfort.
“You do not need to worry. As a man marked by Shadows, they will not strike. They do not attack those who are marked.”
“I have never seen such creatures before,” I whispered and tore my eyes from the window to see the lord’s lips curled.
“What is it?”
“Now I have seen your fear. Either your practiced faces are shattering, Miss Fallen, or perhaps you are not so difficult to understand after all.”
The God of Deception groaned.