Chapter 16 The Fiction of Her Own Purity
The Fiction of Her Own Purity
Elloven left her hood down and let her hair fall free, so it would be clear to anyone watching through windows that she was a woman. She had nothing to fear. No need to alert the guards. They’d be used to seeing women on their own, lured by the once-mighty Edevane stewards.
They were complicit, all of them. If Gennady had somehow discovered what Sestinn and Castien had been doing, it was unlikely the villagers knew nothing.
If any were foolish enough to stop her, she’d deal with them too.
Once she’d picked the evening and made her plan, Elloven had thought of nothing else. Had the idea come first or the conviction? They’d both been there all along, but never at the same time. Never when Elloven had been strong.
Before, when she’d reflected on Fabrien and his friends, she’d run through the justifications of her actions by reminding herself she’d endured seven years of his nightmares because she wasn’t like them. Only when pushed to the edge had she fought back. She’d had no choice.
But those late-night commiserations were a self-deluded asylum for a darker truth: she’d wanted to kill them.
Not with magic, with her own hands. Jesstin had been right about her when he’d said she needed to be a victim.
A victim was still in possession of their innocence.
Elloven had always needed to believe in the fiction of her own purity, and that belief had done nothing but hold her back.
Through the evening fog, she finally spotted the hill leading to the manor house of the small parish.
Only the gables were visible. From the ground, they looked like horns from the mythical demons the Reliquary preached about, demons that would tempt one away from the light of the Guardians using the desires that lived in everyone.
Proselytizing about demons while elevating Castien Edevane to second-in-command of the spiritual heart of the kingdom was a level of hypocrisy that was hard to match.
She’d purchased a horse from the livery rather than using one of her own. Frankie was hesitant in the reduced visibility, but Elloven wasn’t in a hurry. Hurrying led to mistakes. Her chaos controlled her when she was in a tempest, but her calm afforded her command.
A few farmworkers milled about, cleaning machinery or stacking hay, but none paid her more than a moment’s mind, save an elderly woman wrapped in the garb of a kitchen maid.
She set her water bucket aside and watched Elloven dismount and tie Frankie to a post. Her gaze followed Elloven through the gated archway and into the courtyard.
Trusting her instincts, Elloven turned around and went to her.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked her.
The woman shook her head. The solemnity in her expression was impossible to interpret.
“Do you know why I’m here?”
At this, the woman didn’t react at all.
“What if I told you I was here to kill your masters?” Elloven studied her. “What would you say?”
The wrinkles around her eyes creased deeper in her silent examination.
“Would you sound the alarm? Call the guards? Warn your masters?”
The woman’s mouth shifted. “They are not my masters.”
Elloven crossed her arms and waited for her elaboration.
“I stay for them.” She flicked a nod at a cellar door behind her.
Elloven’s heart stuttered. “Are there still children down there?”
“Asterin Edevane cleaned things up proper, but a year ago, the masters of this place started up again.”
“Has anyone told him?”
“We’ve tried getting word out. It never goes far.” She coughed and turned her gaze to the side, as if deciding whether to continue. “Someone’s been helping recently again.”
“Who?”
“You’ll forgive me for keeping some secrets. I don’t know you, and it’s my charge to protect these girls.”
“They’re monsters, and there is only one way to deal with monsters.
If you’ll pretend you never saw me, if I make it back out, I’ll help them.
” She looked again toward the door. “Years ago, my brother rescued some of them. Tonight, we can end it all. I only ask for your silence... and perhaps a nudge in the right direction. This is my first time here.”
“Your brother...” The woman squinted. “You’re too young to be the sister of Gennady or Jesstin from back then. Who are you really?”
Jesstin’s name was a surprise. A shock actually. Why murder Gennady if he was involved in helping? Or had he gotten involved after? “I am the sister of Gennady Hawthorne. Believe me or don’t. I’ve told you why I’m here, and now you decide whether you step aside or signal the guards.”
“Signal the guards...” The old woman snorted her laughter. “No, sister of Gennady. That I won’t do.”
“Then when I return with their heads, you’ll know it’s safe to free whoever is left.”
The woman’s thin brows spiked in bemusement. “Quite an endeavor for a bitsy cup of tea like yourself. Why don’t you follow me instead, through the servant’s quarters, and I’ll show you the way I’d go had I the strength and courage.”
Elloven followed her through a side door that led into a kitchen.
She’d made it undisturbed, and her instinct about the old woman hadn’t only been right; it had given her the exact path she required.
There’d be no wandering the halls and opening doors until she found the right ones.
The woman, who’d introduced herself as Gertrude, traced an exact map with her finger on a cutting board covered in flour.
Sestinn would be resting, she said, pointing at his bedchamber at the far end of the top floor.
Castien would either be in his office or the banquet room.
She explained he’d taken to spending some of his nights there, staring into the fire or carving names into the long dining table.
“You’ll find guards here,” Gertrude said, pointing at spots in the flour, “and also here. But they circuit. They aren’t stationary. Who will you visit first?”
“The one who can’t scream for help,” Elloven said.
“These servant’s steps here lead straight into the old man’s sitting room.
His bedchamber is connected.” She returned to the other side of her crude map.
“For the younger, I advise checking his office first. Banquet room will be busier, harder to stay concealed. His office is in a corner of the first floor, and if you step out from this corridor when the guard is patrolling, you’ll slip right in.
” Gertrude waited for Elloven to memorize the map, then cleared it with a swipe of her hand.
“That one can and will scream. Best make quick work of him.”
“Thank you, Gertrude.” Elloven grabbed the woman’s flour-coated hands in hers and squeezed. “You stayed for them, and that takes both strength and courage. Tonight you will be free too.”
Gertrude nodded once. A tear slid from the corner of one eye. She backed away and assessed Elloven with a frown. “Where’s your steel, girl?”
“I don’t need a weapon, madame.”
Gertrude’s delight faded to unease, as she undoubtedly thought Elloven had lost her mind and they’d both be caught and punished. “Have you any notion of what you’re getting into? Does your husband know where you are?”
“No husband,” Elloven answered. “And I have weapons available to me more powerful than daggers or swords.” Gertrude was only mildly pacified by her response, so she conceded. “I’ll take whatever you think works best, just in case.”
Gertrude studied her a moment longer and then went to the far counter, where the knives from the day awaited cleaning.
She wiped one on her apron and handed it hilt-first to Elloven.
It was a modest, medium-sized tool, for chopping vegetables.
“Any smaller, the younger one will take it from you. Any larger, you’ll struggle to get it where it needs to go.
” She tapped her rib cage. “Here, an upward motion.” Then her neck.
“Or here, straight in or across will do.” Then her leg.
“Inside, right down the middle. Don’t get fancy with it. Pick the surest option.”
Elloven accepted the knife and advice. It could come in useful, if her evasion of the guards failed, and it was never imprudent to have a backup plan.
“May the Guardians be with you, girl, for you are otherwise on your own from now forward,” Gertrude said as she led her to the narrow, spiral staircase to Sestinn’s rooms. “No one else knows you’re here?”
Elloven shook her head.
“Should you fail—”
“I will not fail.”
“Who shall I send word to?”
“No one,” Elloven said quickly, but it was impulsive, and she’d promised herself cunning that night. “Asterin Edevane. That is, if you can get the message out this time.”
“Oh?” This caught Gertrude off guard.
“He’ll know who I am and why I was here. He was once a dear friend of my mother’s.” Elloven clapped a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Though I intend to tell him myself.”
“I speak for many of us when I say I pray you do.”
Elloven left Gertrude at the base of the steps and tucked the knife into the band of her trousers.
She counted her steps in time with each beat of her heart.
As she neared the end of the smothering stairway, she listened carefully for any signs of activity.
Sestinn had a guard outside his chambers, but she’d be entering through his sitting room.
Unless he was having a read in the middle of the night, he’d be sleeping soundly at the other end of his apartments.
When she reached the door, a flash of panic set in. What if it required a key? Gertrude hadn’t mentioned the need for one, but the woman hadn’t been expecting to abet an assassin either.
But the door opened with ease. The sitting room was richly decorated, many of its accoutrements garishly filled or lined with gold. It was exactly how she’d imagined a man like Sestinn would choose to live.