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When Joss and Henrik reached the third door on the right, neither really knew what to expect. They assumed he probably wouldn’t answer, which he didn’t when Henrik knocked. Looking around and finding the hallway still empty, he tried again.
“Your Highness?” he asked, looking to Joss for another suggestion, which she didn’t have. They thought of barging in, but knowing he might still have her small pistol, both figured being civil would be the better route.
Glancing around again, Joss came closer to the door. “Your Highness, it’s Master Brevyn, from your execution.”
Both held their breath as a floorboard squeaked from inside. Right when they thought they might have the wrong room, the door unlocked and the doorknob turned, the door opening just enough for them to see who it was.
Joss caught sight of his dark eyes first, his umber skin taking on a rich tone in the dimness of the room. His black hair remained short and curly, which somehow defined the angles of his face she hadn’t paid attention to before.
Recognizing each other, Callan Ronen breathed hard as he begrudgingly opened the door further, Joss’s small pistol in his other hand. Eyeing the weapon, Henrik and Joss slipped in, closing the door and locking it securely behind them.
“I gather you two are bloodhounds as well,” the prince quipped, placing the pistol in his pants pocket while stepping back. Despite being dressed in the same clothes she last saw him in—a loose shirt and fitted pants, looking even more worn than before—his movements revealed he was stiff and just waking up. Joss scanned the small room, seeing the bed fully made though the blanket was creased from where he had been lying. Next to the bed was a table with a washbowl while facing the bed on the opposite side was a wooden chair in the corner with a cloak draped over it. A plain bookcase sat next to it, some of the shelves bare from past tenants who had taken a story with them. A window sat opposite them, the rain striking it. A modest candlelit chandelier dropped from the ceiling in order to spill light into the room, which Callan hadn’t bothered to blow out.
Joss eyed the cloak, knowing he didn't have one when they had last parted.
“I’m borrowing it,” Callan spoke up, noticing her expression.
Joss could only assume he meant he had stolen it, most likely from a drunkard downstairs who wouldn’t miss it until tomorrow when they were sober.
“Are you alright, Your High—” Henrik started to say, getting to the point.
“You can stop calling me that,” Callan assured both of them. “It seems to be drawing the wrong kind of attention, anyway.”
Joss figured that comment was directed towards what had happened in the town of Helix, the whole reason he was tried and almost executed. She set her saddlebag and ax at the foot of the bed, noticing a small stain of wet blood on the blanket. “May I take a look at your wound?” she asked, turning to Callan, who remained standing near the door with Henrik. “I have medicine that will help,” she offered, nodding to Henrik. He drew closer to place his bag on the bed next to hers, already digging through the pouch where the thymelock salve was stored. Finding it, he unwrapped the cloth from the jar and handed it to Joss.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said politely yet firmly. “I need to keep the wound dry for a couple days.”
“True, but the thymelock can help with the healing. I’ve used it before in these types of situations.”
“I said that won’t be necessary.” An authoritative tone was there, scratching on the surface of arrogance.
Joss reached for the blanket, showing the fresh stain. Callan’s jaw set, stubborn despite the obvious. “It’s still bleeding,” she finalized, pointing to the seriousness of the situation.
Glaring at the blanket, Callan unwillingly pulled his shirt off, keeping it balled in his fist. “Fine,” he mumbled, sitting down on the corner edge, allowing Joss a good view of the laceration. Where the arrow hit his shoulder was now a partly crusted over lesion. Somehow he had been able to cauterize some of it, but there was still an edge he missed, perhaps due to the pain.
But that wasn’t the only thing Joss saw. There were a multitude of scars, new and old, marring his smooth skin; the body of a warrior who had seen too many battles, especially for a man his age. Some were from deep cuts, likely stitched, while others resembled old cauterized wounds. A few even resembled injuries she herself had made during interrogations to make prisoners talk, but dismissed the notion as a coincidence. She had seen most marks like these from stray soldiers, though they had all been older, spending the majority of their lives earning their scars. The prince himself was in his prime, barely gracing into his early thirties, if she remembered correctly. She recalled this odd fact since she herself was nearing thirty, and her sister Celine had pointed out once, the only one in the family who ever kept up with current events outside of the town. It seemed so long ago that Joss had to pull herself back to the present, blinking back the melancholy that always followed after thinking of her.
“Before you ask, my shirt wasn't dragged into it,” Callan continued on. “I checked the fabric. It’s ripped but isn’t missing any pieces.”
“You’re extremely lucky,” Joss replied, placing the thymelock salve on the bedside table and then proceeding to clean the wound using the washbowl and the end of the blanket. Eventually, she had to face the inevitable, saying, “We’re going to need to cauterize it again.”
“Do what you must,” Callan relented.
With a nod from Joss, Henrik retrieved his dagger from his boot and stood on the bed, holding the blade over one of the candles in the chandelier. As he heated the blade, Joss kept analyzing the wound, planning her next steps.
“Have you heard any news from that town?” Callan asked somberly, and it took a moment for Joss to realize he was talking about Galmoor, the town they escaped from.
“Not yet, but I’m sure they’ve dispatched their warnings by now,” Joss replied, and briefly she thought of Quinn, hoping he had been able to dodge suspicions that he helped them escape. “We didn’t take the main road, just in case.”
“Neither did I,” Callan admitted, briefly rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, a habit he had when he was frustrated and overthinking. Realizing what he was doing, he quickly brought his hand down.
Despite his attempt to hide it, Joss already caught sight of his wrist. At first she didn’t notice until a quick second glance confirmed it. There were scars around his wrists too, several ones that were different shades, hovering around a central area where wrists were normally bound by either iron or rope. The problem was she had seen those kinds of markings, but only on men who spent years in the jailhouse.
“So the murder you were accused of occurred six months ago, when you came back from the border wars. That’s what the council stated at your hearing,” Joss said, keeping it a statement though questions remained underneath it.
“And what of it?” Callan asked, slightly turning his head while fiddling with the ends of his sleeves.
“I’m just trying to get a sense of the situation,” she answered him innocently enough. She felt the uneasiness though, knowing a few short months in a jailhouse wouldn’t have produced those kinds of marks on his wrists.
There was silence, and then a soft reply. “Yes, it was six months ago.”
Joss glanced up at Henrik, still standing on the bed with his blade over the candle. He questioned her with his gaze, knowing something was off. She replied with a slight shake of her head, a gesture she normally gave him when she’d explain things later, just not now.
“You’re going to need a gag so the neighbors don’t hear you,” Joss explained to Callan, seeing the blade was almost ready.
“I’m fine. Just do it,” Callan answered, hands braced on his knees, his shirt squashed where he was still holding it.
Blotting the wound one more time, Joss reached her hand out to Henrik, who slipped the handle to her. In one fluid motion, she moved the hot blade to the wound, hearing the sizzling as blood and flesh met the heat. Callan’s back warped as he forced himself to remain upright, a groan stifled against his clenched teeth. As she worked, she knew she had seen this type of restraint before, except it was from a man with different color eyes that seemed to be haunting her.
Blinking away the memory of Aric, she handed the blade back to Henrik who climbed down from the bed. Once the dagger was cleaned and cooled off and stuffed back in the safety of Henrik’s boot, Joss proceeded to smear some of the thymelock salve onto the wound. “So what was your plan?” she asked as she worked.
“Pull out the arrow and continue on. Obviously that didn’t happen.” The irritation in his tone dissipated, the pain easing up. “I thought I’d rest here for a couple hours and then move on.”
It was a reasonable plan, Joss had to admit. Done with the thymelock, Henrik put the jar away as Joss proceeded to rip part of the sheet that hadn’t been stained. Henrik took over the job once she started using one of the strips to bandage the wound to protect it. Under the armpit, over the shoulder, across the chest, pulling tightly—she knew this dance well, mimicking the path with a new strip Henrik ripped from the sheet. Joss kept glancing at Callan’s wrists as he fiddled with the shirt now back in his hands, not a man who could sit still for very long.
“So,” he finally spoke up. “It’s safe to assume you’re not here to take me back.”
“No, we’re not,” Joss reassured him. “We’re just as wanted as you are now. Given the circumstances, it would be better if we stay together. Hopefully, we can clear this mess up once we get you back to Aselian.”
“Of course,” Callan agreed, still playing with the shirt.
Once the last cloth was secured in place, Joss had just announced she was done when Callan got to his feet, a man of action. He was pulling his shirt back on, scouting the room and deciding, “I’ll take the chair, you two take the bed.”
“I can take the chair. You’ll need more rest than I will,” Henrik offered.
“The chair works for me,” Callan insisted. “We won’t be here much longer, anyway.”
There must have been a look that crossed their face, causing Callan to grin. “You think we can’t travel in the storm at night?”
“Obviously,” Henrik blurted out.
Callan’s smirk deepened. “It’s the best time to travel. Less people to run into, and we can cover more ground.”
Henrik was about to offer a rebuttal when Joss put her hand on his arm. “Let’s just get some rest. Sounds like we’re going to need it.” Seeing Henrik relent, she grabbed the saddlebags from the bed and dropped them on the floor to give them room. “If you start to become uncomfortable, one of us can switch with you,” she told Callan, who remained standing and eager.
Something in Callan changed, his shoulders dropping as if he was letting his guard down. “Thank you, I—”
Joss wasn’t sure if it was the sudden knock at the door or Callan’s reaction that startled her the most. The sound burst into the room, and immediately the small pistol was back in Callan’s hand, his arm stretched out as he aimed for the door. Joss put her hand up, signaling to Callan to take it easy despite the wild look that seemed to reshape his eyes, making him look crazed.
“Need any spare blankets in there?” came a masculine voice. It sounded like a younger man, and Joss wondered if it was an assistant to the tavern keeper.
“No, there’s enough here,” Callan replied gruffly.
“You sure?” the voice asked. “It’s quite a storm outside.”
Callan’s eyes, wide and alert, shifted to Joss. She shook her head and then looked over at Henrik, who eyed the scene with intensity. “See if we can escape out of the window,” she instructed with a whisper, to which he went to check.
“I said no.” Callan’s stance seemed to shift, moving from surprise to defense. He was readying himself for a battle, Joss realized as she picked up her ax, undoing the leather binding on the blade.
That’s when the door shuddered, someone ramming it from the other side. The noise caught Henrik off guard, who had pried the window open. He looked from Callan to Joss. “We have to climb out,” he mouthed to her, displaying with his hands the movements of climbing down from a ladder.
“Tie the sheets and blanket together,” Joss whispered, pointing to the bed. As Henrik got to work, Joss tucked the leather pouch against the waistband of her pants. She then proceeded to move one of the bags over to the window, her ax still firmly in hand. She was moving the second bag when the door shuddered again.
“You can’t hide in here forever.” The voice seemed to laugh, amused yet out of breath from their own exertion.
Joss rounded behind Callan, minding the gun as she came to his other side. “Go help Henrik,” she insisted, as the door shuddered again, part of the frame cracking.
“You can’t take them yourself,” Callan hissed back, refusing to back away from a fight.
“I work in a jailhouse,” she reminded him. “This isn’t my first time.”
Callan did a double take, nearly forgetting who he was talking to. Begrudgingly, he put the gun down and backed away.
Gripping the ax so her right hand was at the base of the blade and her left controlled the shaft, she stood in front of the door. Judging the distance, she made sure that once the door swung open, she’d be out of the way enough to miss it. The door shuddered again, and she observed where the impact was, holding the ax blade up about where the attacker’s head might be.
She heard against the ramming of the door Henrik giving instructions, Callan stiff against the orders but obeying as he tested the strength of one of the sheets. The prince wasn’t used to being the one taking orders, but Joss saw the teamwork there, a man used to working and relying on others to help reach a common goal.
The door cracked a bit then, and Joss focused on how the ramming was becoming more and more desperate, the grunts and yells on the other side beating along with them. Right as she was beginning to be impressed by the door’s sturdiness it broke, giving up against the poundings of the intruder.
Joss ignored the yells and splintered wood. Suddenly, she was back in the jailhouse, helping Quinn with a prisoner who was irate and couldn’t be shackled in his cell. She felt that same rush of calm even now. Everything was focused on what needed to be done, just like she would feel right before bringing an ax down on a neck or pulling the lever to the noose during a hanging. It was that intense focus inherited from her father.
In the calm, she saw two men, one in front and one behind with a third hanging back in the hall, coming forward. For a split second, she thought she recognized him but brushed it off as the actions she recognized, mimicking that of a prisoner. Joss didn’t wait once the broken door cleared the path, revealing them. She immediately slammed the blunt head of the ax right into the front man’s face, the one who had broken down the door. There was a crack that split the air, followed by an inhuman grunt and blood as the man stumbled backwards, blinded by tears with blood draining from his broken nose. He flailed as he backed up, grabbing at his friend who was still trying to come through the room. With her grip on the ax still firm, Joss swung it, missing the man’s head by inches as the blade struck the doorframe, deepening itself into the wood.
She barely caught a glimpse of the man’s face because of his hood as she changed her grip and pulled the blade out of the wood as expertly as a woodcutter. His friend with the broken nose was on the ground next to him, and as the hooded man started to charge forward in another attempt, something struck him from the side. Joss blinked, realizing it was an arrow sticking out of his neck as he dropped to the ground.
Someone was helping the man with the broken nose to his feet, the third figure she thought she saw in the hall. Another arrow whizzed by, causing the two to flee down the hall, and for a brief moment Joss thought there was another figure ahead of them, someone who was staying out of the way.
Backing into the room, Joss closed the door as best as she could. Hearing a thud behind her, she turned in time to back out of the way as Henrik and Callan pushed the long bookcase onto its side, sliding it over to barricade the door.
“It’ll buy us a little time,” Callan explained, pointing to the makeshift rope they made, tying the end to the leg of the bed. “Go,” he told Henrik, who looked to Joss while pulling the hood of his cloak on and starting his climb out the window into the rain-drenched night.
Hurrying over to the window, Joss shielded her face from the rain to make sure Henrik had his bearings. Seeing that he did, she stepped back into the room and pulled out the leather pouch, securing it back on the blade for safekeeping. Although she kept her attention on the rope and how Henrik was doing, she found herself staring at the door. There was only one person who used arrows that expertly...
The doorknob shuttered as someone gripped it from the other side. Despite the door losing its hold against the frame, the invader was being cautious. There was a slight thump as the door hit the bookcase, and then another as the stranger tried to push against the barricade.
Callan already grabbed the two saddlebags, throwing them over the windowsill, the signal that Henrik had made it. “You’re next,” he ordered quietly, and Joss winced at his tone as it broke her concentration from the door.
“You have to go,” she whispered back. “He’s here.”
Callan noticed how she eyed his shoulder, sending a reminder of who had caused his injury. “Fuck,” he hissed, hauling himself over the windowsill and out into the beating rain. Gripping the drenched sheet, he moved downward in a fluid motion that put them all to shame.
Waiting for him to reach the ground, Joss was about to follow suit but hesitated. She looked back to the door, watching as it thumped against the bookcase and then went quiet.
“Jocelyn?”
Aric. Her chest tightened at the familiarity of his voice, the longing to see those eyes again and talk about unimportant things. They were supposed to be playing another round of chess, having another conversation with more smiles and wanting looks. They weren’t supposed to be on opposite sides of that door.
Another thud came, the bookcase rocking a little against the pressure of the door. A grunt escaped, which Joss imagined was because of those injuries she had stitched up. It was such a familiar sound that for a moment she wanted to call back to him, wanted to see him one more time. She had even taken a step forward, drawn to him until something hit the floor on the other side, something wooden and heavy, and deep down she knew it was the crossbow, his weapon of choice.
That’s when she felt the full weight of the ax in her hand, the weapon that had chosen her.
She carried that burden as she backed away to the window. Leaning over, she found Henrik and Callan waving up at her, hurrying to leave. She let the ax fall first, watching as the muddy street caught it before being rescued by Henrik. Behind her, Aric continued on, the pounding of the door against the bookcase matching her heartbeats.
Pulling the hood over her head, Joss climbed over the wet windowsill and grabbed hold of the damp sheet, working fast to climb down. She caught a glance of the door shuddering against the bookcase, it disappearing as she continued on, her hands slipping a little against the wet cloth, her feet sliding against the side of the building. As quickly as she started, she was on the ground, finding Callan already running to where the horses were tied. Henrik handed her the ax and one of the saddlebags while securing the other bag in his good hand, both following after the prince.
But as they were rounding the corner, Joss let herself slow to a stop. Looking to the window, she watched as a hooded figure emerged, searching the street. When he turned, the lamplight on the street glistened off his face, and she could make out his jawline and strands of his wavy blonde hair.
Before he was able to find her, she slipped behind the building, following Henrik to the horses. As they mounted and rode out onto the rain-washed road, all Joss kept hearing was her name being called, even when the town was long behind them.
