Chapter 32 Araphi
Araphi
By the time the mercenaries have dragged her to the gates of Briarwall, Araphi can no longer hear what’s happening on the path behind her, all sound swallowed by the trees.
The Queensmen posted in the watchtowers above the gate allow them through quickly enough, once the fighters explain that they’ve managed to recover their client’s niece, and must get her to a healer with all haste, after a winter spent lost in the Northlands.
The lie is new to Araphi, but she doesn’t fight them.
Not when Sage’s freedom depends on her willingness to play along with whatever they have planned for her.
They escort her to Briarwall’s humble lodge, flinging the door open to shove her inside with rough hands, then slam the door behind her.
Araphi’s eyes widen in shock as she takes in the scene waiting for her.
There’s a fire roaring in the grate, glittering off the bottles on a shelf above a rustic bar along the back wall. Standing in the middle of the room are her mother and aunt, entirely out of place in their elegant furs and jewels.
“Mother?” Araphi gapes. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother rushes forward and pulls her into a hug. “Darling. I’m so glad to see you. You’ve been gone for months. How could you? I was so worried!”
“What are you doing here?” Araphi repeats, too stunned to say much else. She would’ve sooner expected to see her mother and aunt in the Dragon’s Bane than in this outpost at the edge of the kingdom.
“We could ask you the same,” her Aunt Menorath deadpans. “Last we heard, you were being measured for a wedding dress before you traipsed off to a spa, and then you were simply nowhere.”
Araphi shakes her head. “I don’t have time to pretend that you truly care about me, Aunt Menorath. You have to let me get back out there! I have to help Sage. You have to help Sage!”
“No one is going anywhere,” her aunt snaps.
“Do you have any idea how long we’ve been looking for you?
How much money we’ve spent trying to find you?
Gods, I’ve been making excuses to the Oreborns for months now.
Lying to them about how you’ve been sent to Locronan to aid in an important deal for the Clauneck Company. Tell her, Brenna!”
Araphi’s mother wrings her hands. “Well, that is true, Menorath, but I’m sure Araphi’s got a good reason for risking her life—”
“And her contractual obligations,” Menorath reminds them both.
“Yes. And of course, she’ll come with us. We brought our fastest carriage, darling. We’ll take the Queens’ Road and be in Ashaway tomorrow evening.”
“I’m not coming,” Araphi insists.
“But we’re here to rescue you,” her mother replies, bewildered. “Gods, your hair alone will take a week to fix. Not to mention your clothing. What are you wearing, darling? I suppose you’ll have quite a story to tell once we’re back in Ashaway.”
It’s exactly what Araphi has been afraid of all along.
That this adventure with Sage, and these months of learning more about herself and what she wants, will all be relegated to an anecdote.
That they will cease to mean anything, except perhaps late at night in her marital bed, when she’ll fall asleep to the memories of a time in her life when she was free.
No. Araphi will not let that happen.
“I don’t belong with you anymore, Mother. I’m going back out there to finish my fight, and to help the woman I love.”
Menorath’s fingers dig into Araphi’s arm. “Oh yes, your party leader, Sage Wilderstone. I know all about her.”
Her aunt’s tone is so dangerous, Araphi pauses. “What do you know? How did you find us?”
Menorath smiles her drawing-room smile, like a hawk focusing on a kill.
“When the Agent and the rest of your little ragtag party made it back to Briarwall last winter, he reached out at once, wrote to me at Hazelbend to tell me there’d been a complication.
That Sage Wilderstone and a bard named Phi Runesong had disappeared into the night with the artifact; supposedly into the Swallow, but he had his doubts about the healer’s story.
An unpracticed liar, that one. Regardless, it didn’t take me long to put the pieces together.
One missing heir with a talent for music and a terrible habit of believing that her desires are more important than the needs of her family.
So, where is my dragon’s tooth, Phi Runesong? ”
Araphi shakes off her aunt’s hand and crosses her arms. “It’s not here. I don’t have it.”
“What do you mean you don’t have it?” Menorath’s voice is measured, but poison lurks beneath it. “I’m being very reasonable, Araphi. All I’m asking is that you return what you took.”
“I didn’t take it! Well, I mean, technically, I did.
But I wasn’t going to steal it—at least, not until I found out you wanted it.
And why is that, Aunt Menorath?” She lifts her chin defiantly.
“What do you need with an artifact that powerful when you’ve already got money, influence, everything you could possibly want? ”
Menorath scoffs. “You have no idea what I want, or what I need.”
Araphi’s mother looks between them. “Perhaps we can all just sit down and talk this through? Menorath, I know you were invested in finding Araphi, but now we’ve done that, let’s all stay calm.”
“Stay calm?” Menorath turns her gaze on Araphi’s mother. “As you’ve done all these years, Brenna? Do you think I want to be like you? To give up my power and lose my spirit like you have?”
Araphi’s mother flinches, the words finding their mark. “That’s hardly fair, Menorath. You of all people should—”
“I should what?” Menorath bellows. “Enjoy living under the thumb of my husband’s family’s patron, pleading for scraps of power, constantly overlooked in favor of the bloodline?”
Sympathy blooms in Araphi—Clauneck is awful—but it’s chased by the grim understanding of how many people Menorath has hurt through her ambitions. “So, for the sake of your own power source, you’d kill—just like you tried to steal from and blackmail Margot Greenwillow,” she accuses.
“I’ll do what I must,” her aunt sneers. “I’m sick to death of having to beg favors of Clauneck anytime I want something done.”
“So when your Natural Caster Potion didn’t work out, you turned to the adventuring business?”
Menorath’s knife of a laugh could slice through flesh.
“You know nothing, silly girl. I’ve had the Agent on my payroll for years, and more like him—always with an ear to the ground, listening for stories that may prove useful.
Our family hires out adventuring parties all the time, chasing powerful artifacts to barter for allies and to shore up our own holdings.
Holdings that have become compromised since our previous disappointment of an heir began their campaign against us.
” From the neutrality of her tone, one would never guess that Menorath was talking about her own child.
“You just happened to get caught up in this particular adventure.”
“Well, now the adventure is over,” Araphi’s mother declares. She stands to move toward them. “Menorath, Araphi, let’s just go to our carriage and start on the road toward home.”
“No,” Araphi says at the same time as Menorath.
Brenna Clauneck looks between them. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean, I’m not going back with you,” Araphi says.
“You certainly are,” her aunt interjects, “but first, I’ll have that artifact if I have to claw it off you myself.”
“I’ve told you already, I don’t have it! The dragon’s tooth is long gone by now.”
Menorath lashes out, quick as an adder, and grabs Araphi’s hair to wrench her head back.
“Stop playing games with me, Araphi Clauneck! I will have that tooth! I will use it to break free from Clauneck and—” Then a horrible gurgling sound stoppers her words, just as the ground shakes around them. A voice thunders inside Araphi’s head.
So you wish to escape me, Menorath Clauneck?
Araphi clutches her ears, and her mother pales.
Menorath’s mouth opens and closes. A cloud of purple smoke seeps upward through the floor to billow around her, twining like a ghostly vine.
Suddenly she’s lifted from her feet and slammed against the wall of the lodge, seemingly flung by an invisible hand.
Menorath clutches at her throat as she crumples.
You have grown too bold, Menorath. I was careless not to watch you, but trust, I am watching now.
“Can you hear him too, Mother?” Araphi calls out.
Her mother nods grimly.
I believe this is a family affair, since each of you saw fit to risk my displeasure and wrath.
This can’t be good. Clauneck is usually so busy playing them against one another or against themselves that he rarely speaks outside one mind at a time. He must be especially furious.
“What are you—?” Menorath manages before her words are choked off by the invisible hand at her throat.
I couldn’t help but overhear your treachery, since you were declaring it so boldly.
Menorath fumbles at her collar and pulls out a handful of necklaces—some jeweled, some simple wooden markers—only for Clauneck to scoff.
Ah, your amulets can’t help you now that I’ve turned my eye on you.
Perhaps that was how Menorath had evaded Clauneck’s notice for so long. Araphi’s hand flies to the lemon charm around her neck, and she meets her mother’s eyes.
“I will be rid of you,” Menorath spits out.
Impossible. You’re nothing without me. In fact, I think we ought to be even closer, Menorath.
Her aunt opens her mouth to protest, but the writhing, ozone-and-iron stinking purple smoke rushes down her throat, pouring itself into her as she gags.
When the last of it has filled her up, she opens her eyes—now a cold, pupil-less purple—and croaks, “Help me, he’s everywhere!
I can feel him. He’ll take everything, please…
” Her words choke off, and she falls to the ground, fingers clawing at the floorboards as she tries and fails to wretch him up.
But what can Araphi do? What can any of them do?