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Commander Brent watched over the men standing around the fire pots. Raf stared unseeing into the flames as he slowly rotated his hands over the heat, and even Kiam looked serious and lost. “You look tired,” he offered no one in particular.
“How is the princess?” Raf asked quietly, his focus still on the fire pot before him.
Kiam shook his head slowly.
“She can’t die,” blurted Richard, a young recruit with a stubbled chin. “We have barely arrived and we promised to keep them safe.”
“There is too much pain, or perhaps she is not used to such pain. Her head aches and I worry. But I think she will survive it,” Kiam said slowly.
“The leg is broken?” Raf asked, swallowing loudly.
“Badly,” Kiam said, and Brent sighed. “It is not your fault,” Kiam said sternly to him.
“I should not have left her to wander on her own. We should have known where she was and how long she had been gone. And,” he added, as Kiam stared at him levelly, “I should have realised just how badly she was hurt when we found her. Not the next morning.”
“We’ve seen it before, not realising a man was as seriously injured as he was.”
Brent bit back his frustration. He had been distracted by Rainger when he had seen her walking out. He should have realised that she hadn’t returned to the Keep much sooner than he had.
“And our other princess?” one of the young ones asked. “Will she wander away? How well is she?”
Raf looked at him seriously.
“Who knew they would be so hard to keep contained?” he said.
“What do you propose?” Raf snapped, quickly running his fingers through his hair. “Lock them in the front room? They appear to be struggling enough trapped out here.”
The young man looked down into the flames. “I simply pictured them sitting before the fire and sewing. Not tramping about the world.”
“You have watched over them before, have you not?” Raf asked, the anger evident in his voice.
“Of course,” the young man said. “But at a distance, in the Hall.”
“Alright Raf, I think the young man understands that women are not idle creatures incapable of anything but needlework.”
The young man argued his point. “I do know, but they are princesses first.”
“I am not sure that Princess Kellin would agree with you there,” Rainger said, stepping between Raf and Kiam towards the flames. “We need to be aware that they are two frightened young women before we try to focus on their station.”
Brent stopped himself from rubbing his hands across his face and tried to retain his serious stance. They were just frightened girls. No matter what he had thought about their situation, they were to do as directed. Raf had questioned him before they left as to the sense of it and Brent had given him the standard line, but then he had raised the same concerns with the royal commander himself. He looked out across the yard at the dimly lit window of the princess” room. They were both so much more at risk out here.
“I am going to sleep while I can,” Kiam said.
“Do you want someone by the door?” Raf asked.
Brent shook his head. “We need to stay close, but we can hear her from here if she needs us and her maid sleeps by the fire.” Brent knew that they had heard her screams from the yard as her leg had been dressed, and when she called out in her sleep. “And Kellin?” he asked, turning to Rainger.
“Sleeping,” he muttered, staring into the fire.
Brent wanted to ask just how closely he was watching, wanted to remind him of the conversation they’d had about keeping his distance and remembering his duty. He sighed instead, trying to push the fear that had crept suddenly over him, out of his mind and into the flames.
“They will become tired of being trapped indoors,” Raf said quietly, “once Princess Meggie is able to move about again.”
“Mmm,” Brent said, his focus still on Rainger.
“What can we do?” Raf asked.
“They can’t go anywhere just yet.”
“But Meggie?”
Brent looked at him seriously through the flames. “Let us wait until she survives this before you consider entertaining the girl.”
“That is not what I meant,” Raf blurted, his cheeks reddening.
Brent continued to watch him.
“I...” Raf chewed his lip. “I want to ensure we are of some use. Standing around waiting to see what might occur, or for a decision from Rocfeld to call us home—that we all know is not going to come. We will become idle and soft.”
“You are right,” Brent admitted, his eyes sweeping around the perimeter. “We have not done enough to ensure the area is safe. Rainger, you will take another group out tomorrow, head deeper into the woods. And you, Raf, will take a group south. It might appear open, but we haven’t searched far enough downriver.”
Raf nodded. And despite the sigh, Rainger did too.
“We will get those left training again. You are right, Raf, too much standing around watching princesses rather than fulfilling our duty to them.”
Kellin allowed Meg to sleep as she watched over the movement in the yard. Meg’s head was still so sore, and Kellin worried something else was broken that these men were not able to fix. The lump stuck in her throat; what would it be like if Meg never healed properly? She wondered if she would spend the rest of her days watching soldiers move around the yard.
Rainger and his men had come back the day before and after much pointing and discussion, she worried he was to go out again. She watched as they lined up and the smiling Kiam, who had helped Meg, seemed to smile less as Commander Brent spoke to the lines. She turned away from the window and threw herself into a chair by the fire.
They would never have real company again. No friends to visit with them, no dresses to discuss, and she almost missed her cousin Creena and the strange Annar and their fine silks. Although all of her dresses had come with them, all beautiful, all designed to her request, she lacked the want to wear them. No one to see her, no one to visit, and now Rainger even stayed away, busy with his men and patrols and the like.
Meg’s accident had clarified for Kellin that she would never survive as a Sister of the Brotherhood. Even if she was not a nurse, what else could she do? Dress the Sisters in finery, design new tunics, pretty up the Brothers” quarters? She wore a simple gown now, sensible and the colour of stone, she thought—pale and hard and nondescript. A nothing colour. She stood again and stepped back up to the window to see the last of the men file out around the barracks.
A Brother should have come with them, and she couldn’t understand why Elalia had not thought of such a thing. Maybe the chapel did hold the answers they needed and it could be cleaned up. That was something she could do for Meg. She could clean it out, just as Meg had wanted them to do. She ran out the door and down to the chapel without being seen by anyone.
She stopped in the doorway, the sun shining in before her. It was already beautiful. She had imagined crumbling walls and dust and leaves upon the ground, but it was perfect. The smooth flagstones clear, the rough stone walls free of cobwebs.
She stepped slowly towards the gods, thinking it strange that the Followers were not present. She looked up into their perfect faces as she ran her hands over the smooth stone of their feet. And then her fingers moved to the dark, bloody stain before their toes, on the edge of the platform.
“How did she hit it there?” she asked, looking back at the smiling, reassuring figures of Kira and Kion. The wind whispered around her and a raven screamed in the distance. She felt peace for the first time since arriving at the Keep, as though she was where she was meant to be. She dropped to her knees before the gods to offer her prayers.
“What are you doing here?” Rainger’s deep voice boomed around her and she spun to see him lurching towards her. She scrambled to her feet and backed away, but he advanced still. “What are you doing?” he yelled. “It is not safe here.” He only stopped once he had her by the shoulders, his grip hard and his face harder.
She tried to focus on the honey-brown eyes that had watched her for so long and wondered who this frightening man was. “I was praying,” she murmured, large hot tears spilling over her cheeks as he shook her. “I wanted to do something for Meg, but I stopped to pray.”
He stopped and looked at her, then around the space they stood in, his hands still tight on her shoulders. “It is not safe,” he said. Turning back to her, his face lost all the hardness of moments before. “I want you safe,” he said and then pulled her into his arms, holding her to him, close but gentle, and her panic dissipated. She felt safer than she ever had.
“Pray,” he said softly, letting go and stepping back. He turned his back and his shoulders slumped, and she took a step towards him but he walked forward. “Pray,” he said, again. “I will keep watch.”
She swallowed and nodded at his back, then watched him push his large frame through the small doorway, blocking the light and any possible intrusion. She moved back to the gods, ran her hands over their feet and then bent to gently kiss them, Kira then Kion, Kion then Kira.
She knelt slowly before them and closed her eyes. Let him hold me like that again, she prayed. Please let him hold me again.
Although they walked in silence back to the Keep, Kellin was acutely aware of the man beside her. She glanced at him, but he was focused on the Keep ahead of them, his face too serious, and Kellin longed for the easy conversation they had shared when he had watched over her in the dungeons.
As they reached the front door, he gave her a small bow and walked quickly away. She walked up the stairs to check Meg, trying to shake the man from her thoughts, but she could still feel his strong arms around her, smell the leather of his tunic and the man beneath it.
Meg appeared to be sleeping peacefully and Kellin sat in the small wooden chair beside the bed. She sat and watched over Meg until her body ached. She stretched her arms above her head and slowly stood.
Meg called out, moving strangely, her body stiff yet her arms reaching out before her.
Kellin tried to hold her arms down, but even in her sleep she fought back. Kellin’s earlier fears resurfaced, that Meg was more unwell than they had first thought. She took Meg’s arms again in an attempt to bring them down and realised they were taut but not fighting. She was reaching out for something or someone, her fingers moving slowly, as though she touched whatever it was she saw in her dreams. Kellin worried about what she could have seen, or whom she had seen in the chapel when she was injured.
Meg smiled in her sleep and then her face creased in confusion and she called out again. Her fingers still danced at the end of taut arms, her body straight. Kellin became increasingly frightened. Meg called out to the gods and the hairs on the back of Kellin’s neck stood up. She released her hold and moved back from the bed.
Meg blinked into the light and started to mumble, “Kira” and “Kion” the only words that Kellin could make out, and then she screamed.
Heart racing, unsure what to do, again thinking of how useless she’d be in the Brotherhood, Kellin opened the door to find Commander Rainger in the hallway. “Please, I don’t know what to do.”
“I heard her screaming,” he said, bowing low.
They both looked at Meg, who was now quiet.
“I wondered if I might be some help for you,” he said, softly.
“Can you magic her back to the way she was? Can you stop her creeping into the chapel in the night and hurting herself?” Her words tumbled over each other, her voice too high, giving away her panic. She dragged in a deep breath to calm some of the fear racing through her, when all she wanted was the man before her to pull her back into his arms.
“Do you think she hurt herself?” he asked, looking at her closely.
All the possible and impossible scenarios of what might have happened in the chapel ran through her mind. She pushed past the large man and down the stairs into the small but warm sitting room at the front of the Keep. Kellin turned, knowing he had followed.
“Do you?” he asked again, filling the doorway.
“I do not know what she did, or whether her mutterings in her dreams are truth and the gods pushed her over. Only I fear she may have climbed upon their platform.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “What if she blasphemed so and they did push her off?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
He looked at her closely but did not speak, and then she turned to the fire and sat slowly before it. After some time in silence, she looked up at him still watching her. “Will you stand there all day?”
“Where do you want me to stand?”
She shrugged and studied the slow dance of the fire again.
“You do not want me here,” he said softly.
“I am always more comfortable with you here,” she said, not looking away from the flames. How much fun they seem to be having, she thought, dancing together and creating such light.
She turned to Rainger just as Meg called out and then screamed from the room above. Rainger bounded ahead to push the door open and then he stopped, allowing Kellin to move into the room first. Again, Meg lay prone, her arms reaching for the ceiling, a smile playing across her sleeping face.
“Shh, Meg,” she said softly. Sitting beside her on the bed, she reached up to gently take her arms, but as she touched her skin Meg screamed again. Kellin stood in frustration, unsure how to help her.
“I don’t know what to do!” she cried as Kiam burst into the room.
“She will come right, Your Highness,” he said. “I have seen it before.”
“I have not,” she said, too loudly.
Meg woke with a large intake of breath, as though she had woken in fright. “Kellin,” she croaked. “Can you hear the whispering?”
Kellin shook her head.
“You can,” she said, her voice loud and accusing. “You can too,” she said, her eyes on Kiam.
“I can only hear you,” he said, his usual joking voice calm and clear, “calling me in from across the yard.”
She blinked slowly at him.
“Does your leg give you trouble?”
“And my head hurts,” she said, her voice a whimper, and Kellin stepped forward and took her hand.
“It was a big fall,” she said.
Meg opened her mouth to say something else and then stopped.
“Some hot wine,” Kiam said, glancing at Lora in the doorway.
“Yes, sir,” she said and disappeared.
Kellin swallowed the fear growing in her chest. When would they see a difference? When would she heal? When she had first fallen, she had seemed fine, but as the days had gone by she had become progressively worse. Kellin wondered if she would ever be herself again.
“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Rainger offered. “Kiam will sit with her.”
Kiam waved her towards the door, his eyes on his patient. Kellin looked from him to Rainger and back again. “I do not know,” she said slowly.
“I think it a good idea,” Commander Brent said, appearing in the doorway. “She needs rest, and standing over her will not help either of you. Go and walk in the air. Commander Rainger will ensure you are safe.”
She was disappointed in herself for the relief that washed over her at being dismissed. She noticed Rainger gave Brent a small nod before she left the room. Too aware of Rainger’s bulk behind her on the stairs, she was quick to walk out onto the gravel and take in the sunshine.
Commander Brent had also followed her out. “Kiam is as good as any nurse could be,” he said. “She will heal in time.”
“If only we were at Rocfeld,” she said.
“We must do as directed,” he said softly. “The Raven Queen thinks you safer here, and so here we must remain until she sends for you.”
She sighed. Given Meg’s current state, they certainly hadn’t been safer here. She just hoped she wouldn’t be returning with news of her death to Rocfeld. The idea made her bite at her lip.
“She will be well,” Rainger said, his broad hand light on her shoulder.
Commander Brent coughed and Rainger resumed his usual stance beside her. She nodded slowly; they seemed confident enough.
“Where would you like to walk?” Rainger asked as they watched Commander Brent walk back to the barracks.
She shook her head.
“The chapel?”
She shook her head more vigorously. “No,” she said. “Not the chapel. Somewhere in the open.”
“The open?”
“In the air,” she said. “By the river perhaps.”
He looked down the hill towards the flowing river.
“I will not throw myself in it,” she said half-heartedly.
He gave her a sad look and she found herself longing for a smile. Had he ever smiled at her? He always seemed so serious, so in control, and for a moment she wanted to run and be reckless. How was Meg so in control all the time? Although she wasn’t in control now. Now she muttered strange words and screamed in her sleep. Kellin stopped at the edge of the gravel and looked down the grassy slope towards the rushing water. She closed her eyes and could hear it roaring past their part of the world. Had it always been so noisy? Why had she not noticed the force of it before?
Opening her eyes slowly, she could just make out the change in green that covered the chapel, half buried in the hill, and she knew that if Meg was searching for answers she would be down there, kneeling before the gods and waiting for their guidance. Kellin did not have her patience. She wanted to demand they return Meg to her as she should be, but she knew Meg would be disappointed in such a request. They had been taught that they should never ask the gods for anything. Even in times such as these. For the gods would provide what they thought appropriate, when they thought the time was right.
“Did she question them, do you think?” she asked Rainger, her eyes tracing the outline of the chapel.
“Who?”
“The gods. Would Meg ask of them and anger them?”
“Does asking Kira or Kion for anything make them angry?”
She looked up at him in surprise. “But we were taught never to ask.”
“That it is not appropriate to ask for anything. Not that we couldn’t. Surely there are times when we need the help of the gods. That we need to ask of them.”
“No,” Kellin said. “Meg would say that the gods know when we need them and what we need from them and they will deliver if we are deserving.”
“I am sure your sister is deserving and they will see fit to help her.”
“She is more devoted than any Brother or Sister. I am sure you are correct.”
“Often, Your Highness.”
She smiled herself then and looked around to see him smiling at her.
“A walk?” he asked, offering her his arm.
She nodded and took it. “Not too far,” she said.
Once they were walking through the grass, Kellin allowed herself to focus on the world around her and not her sister. She could smell the sweet scent of flowers, but as she looked around she couldn’t see any. They walked in silence until they reached the banks of the river and she realised that it was much broader, and possibly much deeper, than she had first thought.
“Why build so close to the river?” she wondered aloud.
“It would have been a useful defence, and trading could have occurred from here.”
What boats would have visited? She didn’t even know how many years the house had stood empty. She looked out across the water, her hand resting in the fold of Commander Rainger’s arm. Why did Elalia really think they would be safer out here, so far from home?
And then Rainger placed his hand over hers. She tried to breathe as the warmth of his hand flowed over her whole body. She wanted to ask if they could walk again tomorrow; she wanted to know what exactly was on his mind. Instead she remained still, her eyes on the water, in fear he would remember himself, remove his hand and escort her straight back to the Keep.