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DARYNA
Daryna carefully slid down from her horse, Lilac, and ushered the mare into the stable. Lilac still had plenty of water, but Daryna brought her a pile of hay before leaving.
Teeth clenched, Daryna stomped back into her cottage. She hadn’t felt like going to Verolc and delivering tonics and remedies, but she’d done it anyway. Her satchel was now brimming with coin. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d made herself do things she hadn’t thought she could do.
Her left leg throbbed as she headed toward the chair at the dining table. Halfway there, she almost fell to her knees and crawled the remainder of the way. But she managed to hold onto her dignity as she took a seat, removing the satchel from across her chest.
Hiking up her skirt, she saw her skin had swelled where it met wood, and she hissed, unlatching her false limb from just below her knee. The skin was rubbed raw, dark pink blisters already forming along the surface, the pain heightening. Standing from the chair, she hopped to the cabinet next to the stove and leaned against it for a moment to catch her breath.
Once she found a minimal amount of relief, she opened the cabinet door and filtered through empty jars and containers. Failed concoctions. Until her fingers finally brushed the healing ointment.
Hopping back across the room, Daryna collapsed into the chair and hurried to apply the salve. She sighed in relief as the pain faded to a dull ache.
She blamed Boda for this as well. Her leg wouldn’t be hurting if the woman had done as Daryna had asked. Perhaps she would rip her old helper from the ground just to stab her in the chest again.
Leaning forward, Daryna opened her leather satchel and pulled out the pouch of coins that made the journey worth the pain.
She studied the wooden leg for a moment, resentment and torment pulsing through her. This was what had caused her to spend her life being so bitter, and she didn’t know the reasoning behind how it had happened.
In the territory of Verolc, where she’d lived before coming to Kedaf, Daryna had awoken with no recollection of anything—nothing of herself or anyone from Verolc.
A man had stumbled upon Daryna bleeding to death with her leg sliced off. He mended it for her and asked her endless questions to which she had no answer. The only thing she’d remembered, or thought she recalled, was how to make concoctions and remedies.
Desperation consumed her at one point to be whole, to the point she’d even attempted to stitch on a recent corpse’s leg. All that did was end with the attachment becoming rotten, and Daryna having to cut it off herself. She was good at what she did, but she wasn’t good enough to create a new leg.
She had thought her savior was a decent man, at least until she had healed. He then tried to force himself on her. His mistake. She glowered as she recalled the result of his actions—losing both eyes by her hand. She trusted no one after that. One evil man didn’t mean they were all that way, but to her, it was safer to keep them at a distance.
A hard knock rapped at the door. She had just come back and already someone was either wanting something from her or trying to sell her items. It was one of her days where she allowed villagers to come out into the woods to perhaps make a trade.
Daryna strapped her false leg back on and tried hard not to limp as she moved toward the door. No one knew she was lacking a part of herself, and she wanted to keep it that way. It was more than just her leg that she was missing—her mind wasn’t whole, either.
She opened the door to a short man with peppering of black and gray hair surrounding a bald spot on his head.
“Yes?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
The man peered around, sweat dripping down the sides of his thick neck, watching her as if she might bite him.
If he tried to do anything funny, she just might.
“I’ve come by the past few days, but you haven’t been home.”
“I know. I wasn’t here.” That was the only answer she was willing to give the nosey man.
“I was wondering if you wanted to purchase this clock, I ma-made.” She could tell through his stuttering that he, in fact, had not created the clock. It was a stolen good like most of the items she encountered, but she did not question the lie. It wasn’t as if she’d stolen the things herself.
“Let me see.”
He held out the clock. She took it from him and held it up to examine, flipping it around. The wood was well crafted with engraved leaves across the top, gears appearing to be made from real gold—she wasn’t sure if he knew that. Daryna could get a lot of coin for this if she found the right person to purchase it.
“How much are you wanting?” she asked, not handing back the clock.
“At least ten coin, Miss.”
Daryna would be able to get ten times that, and she felt generous. “How about I give you twelve coin, since I wasn’t here when you came last?” This would keep him returning, thinking he’d made a miraculous deal.
She turned to retrieve her coin pouch from the table when the man took a step inside. Whirling back around, she pointed at his chest. “You can wait out there, unless you want your eyes ripped out.”
His face paled and he moved back, twitching nervously.
Keeping a close eye on him, she went to collect her bag. With quick fingers, Daryna unraveled the pouch, poured twelve silver coins into her palm, and handed them to the man.
He continued to stand there. “You hear about the Bereza boy?”
“No?”
She recognized the last name. A man named Artem used to come by to sell things to her, until she’d heard he’d been caught and died.
“Maryska’s whore, Anton?”
Anton had been one of Artem’s children. She remembered Artem would sell her trinkets and discuss his children, and all Daryna had wanted to do was tell him to stop talking so she could be alone. She wouldn’t have called him anything close to a friend, but perhaps one of the more decent villagers she’d encountered.
Daryna wondered how Anton could have died. Boda had mentioned once that she could use her own coin to bring Anton out to the woods to pleasure Daryna. She’d responded by telling Boda she could go choke on a goat head.
“What of him?” Daryna focused on her nails with nonchalance.
“She poisoned him with something in his tea and fled.”
Daryna’s chest tightened, then her stomach dropped. “I had no idea.”
“Yes, no one knows where she—”
“Sorry to end this discussion, but I have to take care of something,” Daryna rushed the words out and closed the door in the man’s face.
Something vile coursed through her bones that she didn’t like to feel—remorse and regret. And now anger.
A few weeks ago, Maryska had come by begging Daryna to help her. Daryna was not taken with murdering for the sake of it. Anytime someone wanted a revenge concoction, she turned them away unless it was with cause.
She had refused her at first, but then Maryska must have fabricated her story.
Tears streamed down Maryska’s face as she spilled out a story about a young lover she’d fallen for, but an older ex-lover wouldn’t let them be together. She had escaped him once with cuts and bruises, but he was still able to locate her. If she didn’t go back with him, he promised her the gift of murder.
“Being with Anton was only supposed to be a way of getting over my old lover.” Maryska sniffed. “These are the scars my old lover left me with.” She pulled her collar down from her shoulder, and Daryna could see the pink scars across her chest and arms.
Daryna’s fists shook with fury, as she remembered the man who had tried to force himself on her once upon a time. “I can mix you a poison that can be slipped into a drink. It would be hard for most to detect.”
“Oh, thank you, Daryna. I can pay you double if you fill a cup with tea and the poison in it now.”
The request was strange, but Daryna couldn’t turn down getting double the coin. Perhaps Maryska wanted to easily dispose of the cup afterward.
Daryna prepared the mixture and handed the cup to Maryska. “Here you go. You can reheat it on the stove before serving.”
“I appreciate your gift for him,” she said.
Daryna had thought Maryska had meant the ex-lover, but now she realized it was a gift meant for Anton.
Her hands clenched with outrage, so much so that her nails punctured the skin.
She knew what she needed to do—find the deceitful woman and murder her.
