Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Open, close. Open, close. Open, close.
Orla had whittled away the day in the gardens practicing her magic.
She had successfully made the flowers bloom and wilt on command.
She was also getting more adept at growing vines.
Many of her hours that day had been spent growing the creeping tendrils and seeing how well she could command them to creep up along the garden gates at her will.
She used the trick Owain taught her to summon her power, becoming familiar with the tantalizing hum and the ways she could open her mind to let her power flow.
Though she was overjoyed that she wasn’t as fearful of her magic as she was a day ago, she still felt a sense of unease.
What had happened at Fontina had happened because she lost control.
One lesson with Owain wasn’t enough to teach her how to control the difficult emotions that led to that massacre.
She also hated to admit it, even to herself, but she had been disappointed that Owain hadn’t decided to spend the day with her.
It was foolish to fall apart over one kiss, but Gods, it was a good kiss.
Foolishly, she thought that if they spent the day together, they would kiss again and maybe take their physical relationship even further.
She had gotten so used to his presence and him constantly skipping his meetings, that for a moment, she forgot he was here for official court business and would eventually go back to Edam. The thought made her chest ache.
It had been nearly two turns of the moon since she had been at the palace. She was painfully aware that so far, she had given King Mikki no useful information about anything to do with Owain or Edam. She knew it was only a matter of time before the king summoned her for a report.
Daily, she continued to be plagued with nervous thoughts and memories of Rhyan’s death.
Even today, when Owain had asked about training, she felt overcome with panic that he would ask her to spar again.
But slowly, she was beginning to be able to breathe past the panic and to think about Rhyan without it always leading to unending sadness.
She was able to think about how funny he was, or the way that he and Cessly would band together to spook her, knowing that if they scared her just right, flowers would burst out around her.
And Cessly. Gods, she missed her friend so much.
Thinking about the way she ran from her all those weeks ago, she felt a sense of shame.
Before Rhyan had died, Cessly’s friendship had always been a comfort.
She was the one who had told Orla about the herbs that could help her calm her nerves.
Witch’s herbs, Owain had called them. But Orla struggled to face Cessly after Rhyan’s death.
Not only did she fail Rhyan but she failed Cessly too.
The last thing Cessly had said to them before Fontina was to protect each other, and she hadn’t even done that right.
She had fought so hard these last few years to be left alone that she hadn’t realized that she had also felt lonely.
She feared what it would mean to let someone into her life again.
What if they left like her mother, or they died like her father.
Or worse, what if they needed her and she failed them like Rhyan and Cessly.
As the day bled into evening, Orla grew weary of being out in the cold autumn air.
She had been alone with her thoughts all day.
It was getting close to supper. Plus, a not so small part of her hoped that she would catch Owain before he spent all evening in meetings with the Edamish lords.
Gathering the little bouquet of flowers she had made over the past several hours, she readied herself to leave the garden.
It was surprisingly dark in the garden, the usual mage lights that illuminated her path hadn’t turned on despite the sky going from blue to inky black.
As she approached the garden gate, she heard the shifting of gravel.
Turning her head, Orla noticed a figure beyond the tree line on the edge of the garden.
Her skin prickled and the hairs on the back of her neck rose.
Something wasn’t right. Grabbing her skirts, she quickly made her way towards the gates when the figure blinked.
One moment they were behind the trees, and the next they were standing in front of her.
They wore a large, hooded cloak that obscured most of their face.
What part of their face she could see was indistinct as if they were intentionally obscuring her vision.
This went beyond normal Elven magic. Her pulse quickened as she made to move around the person, but they blinked into her path once again.
Fear surged through her as a sinister smile crept over the figure’s face.
She was alone and unarmed in a rarely traveled part of the palace grounds.
Damn her for not keeping her weapons on her.
She hadn’t had them near her for weeks, hating the way being constantly armed made her feel.
Her only option was to run, and since this person had some kind of teleportation powers, she was severely outmatched.
As if sensing her dilemma, the figure charged at her, dagger in hand.
Years of training took over, and she dodged the jab and rolled out of arm’s reach.
She scrambled quickly to her feet. But it was useless, they were on her in a heartbeat, slicing at her again.
This time, they met their mark, slicing a deep cut in her forearm before she was able to twist out of the way.
Her arm became slick with blood, the sharp pain slicing through her fear.
She was not going to let this bastard kill her in the one place in this godsforsaken palace that she felt safe.
They charged a third time, but Orla ducked and kicked out at the assassin’s legs, trying to bring them down, but the move was clumsy and unpracticed. Plus she had never had to fight in a dress before.
The assassin stumbled when she kicked, but they didn’t fall.
Orla used their moment of hesitation to run again, knowing that it was likely futile as the assassin blinked into her path again.
This time, the assassin grabbed her by her skirts, slashing her above her thigh.
Orla cried out in pain at the blow as blood seeped down her leg.
With the assassin close, she threw her elbow back and landed a hit right to the assassin’s nose.
But the cut on her leg was deep, and it made it difficult for her to walk.
Opening the channels of her magic, she conjured vines to wrap around her attacker, but they moved too quickly, leaving the vines to wrap around nothing.
The assassin grabbed her by her middle and slammed her to the ground. She felt a snap as she landed hard on her side, right on a large stone. The blow was so hard that she struggled to draw breath.
I will not die here, she thought over and over as she kicked and tried to scramble away from her attacker.
As she moved, she felt a sharp stab of pain in her back.
She tried to conjure more vines or summon the thorns that had caused so much destruction at Fontina, but the vines weren’t strong and wrapped limply around her attacker while the thorns never came.
She felt the daggers blade dig into her back once, twice, three times.
Her vision blurred, making her see double.
Not good. And the wheezing in her chest every time she took a ragged breath was even worse.
Blood pooled under her, soaking through the fabric of her dress as she looked for anything to defend herself with.
A chill was starting to settle over her that had nothing to do with the crisp night.
Her limbs felt heavier than they had moments ago, but still, she searched for something, anything that would help her.
The stone.
She grabbed the stone that she had fallen on.
Using all of her might she hefted herself onto her back in time to see her attacker bringing the blade back down.
She threw all her remaining strength into a blow.
She struck the attacker’s face. Hard. Bones crunched and skin split under the force of the rock.
They dropped their dagger, clutching at their mangled face.
Orla grabbed the dagger, her grip slick from her blood, and drove the dagger into the attacker’s throat to the hilt.
She pulled it out and stabbed them again and again until she lost the strength to raise her arm, and the attacker slumped lifelessly over her.
“Orla!” She heard a familiar voice screaming for her as the pain and blood loss blurred her vision and made her breaths shallow.
Rhyan.