Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

The hallway of the gladiators’ quarters was empty and silent except for the muffled cries that issued forth sporadically from behind the heavy doors. The occupants that lived on the hallway were clearly otherwise engaged, unlikely to see her leave. Their trysting partners for the evening were earning their keep, filling the night air with occasional exaggerated sounds of ecstasy, undoubtedly hoping to avoid being considered uncooperative.

Rhapsody shuddered. She hurried down to the windowed doors on the courtyard where Khaddyr and his soldiers would be waiting.

When she reached the courtyard she peered out into the snowy night.

No one was there.

The window opening spanned the wall from floor to ceiling and looked out into the empty courtyard, obviously reserved for the fighters as an exercise yard. Snow was falling lightly as she opened the window and stepped out onto the icy ground. The cobblestones stung her bare feet and she cringed, thinking of the long walk to her meeting point if her reinforcements did not come soon.

After a few minutes her feet began to feel numb. Rhapsody climbed back in the window, shutting it carefully, and hastened back to the gladiators’ quarters.

She checked Constantin’s breathing again; he was still unconscious but alive. With one more careful look around the hallway she took hold of the blanket and dragged it out the door of the room.

When she finally made it to the courtyard again, there was still no sign of Khaddyr. A deep groan escaped the blanket, but the gladiator did not move. Rhapsody opened the door. Snow swept over her almost naked body, making her shiver with cold as she had earlier from fear.

“Oh, be quiet,” she muttered. “At least you’re dressed and have a blanket. I could have put you in a loincloth, and then you’d know how I feel.” Only the wind howling in the night answered her.

By the time Rhapsody reached the rendezvous point, her feet were stinging and striped with blood. She cursed her lack of footwear, wishing she had been able to stow her shoes in a place they could have been retrieved, but her exit from the complex was at least a half-league from the arena; there was no way she could have gone back for them.

Khaddyr and the reinforcements had not yet arrived when she got there, but her mare was still where Rhapsody had left her, hidden in the same thicket that she had been tethered in. No sign of footprints disturbed the covering of snow that had fallen while she was away save for the horse’s own hoof marks. The animal seemed glad to see her, and Rhapsody rifled through her saddlebag, bringing forth a ration of oats to appease her for her long wait. Then she took out the few clothes she had brought with her—a pair of leggings and gloves, which she donned hastily.

The snow had begun to fall heavily now. Rhapsody shielded her eyes and looked up at the darkening sky. A storm was coming, and in the distance from where she had been she could see the wind picking up, laying the fields between Sorbold and the forest low as it streaked through. The lights of the city-state of Jakar twinkled at the far edge of her vision, slowly disappearing as the snow came down harder.

Rhapsody rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to stay warm. The silk shirt she had taken from Constantin’s chambers did little to keep out the wind, let alone the cold. Khaddyr and the reinforcements certainly should be here by now , she thought ruefully as the gladiator groaned under the blanket. He needed to be off the ground or he would freeze, she realized.

She found a strong tree in the thicket and secured her horse to it, using her rope in a pulley system wrapped around herself and the animal to hoist Constantin’s inert form onto the mare’s back. The gladiator outweighed her easily by three times. She narrowly avoided disaster when the rope slipped from her numb hands. The heavy body might have injured the horse if she hadn’t grabbed it in time, resulting in being dragged on her stomach through the snow a short distance.

Finally she secured him, wrapping him in the blanket and the last remaining rags she had with her. She fed him some of the contents of her wineskin and her day rations when he regained a little consciousness, returning him to his stupor with the remnants in the bottle of sleeping tonic afterward.

Daylight had come, and the snow was beginning to mix with rain and freeze, burning the naked areas of Rhapsody’s body as it fell. She scanned the horizon but could see nothing coming for as far as her vision reached. The awful thought she had been beating back all night was beginning to take new ground in her heart. Maybe Khaddyr wasn’t coming.

There wasn’t much she could do but wait. She had no food or water to speak of, and neither of them would survive the cold exposed as they were to the elements. Rhapsody used her fire lore to warm herself and her captive, but after the sun began to set, the freezing wind started to take its toll, and her ability began to ebb. Finally, when an entire day had passed, she decided that she was alone and would remain that way. She had no idea if her reinforcements had been waylaid, or had gotten lost, or even had been killed, but she couldn’t wait anymore regardless. She knew Llauron would have been careful to see that they arrived on time, and so they were probably in no position to help her anyway.

Rhapsody took stock of her minimal supplies, checked her remaining gear, and adjusted the bindings that held the gladiator to the horse. She thought about how her mother had always been insistent that she bring an extra shawl wherever she went; it was another piece of advice that was proving true too late. This forest was unknown to her; she had expected to rely on Llauron’s men to guide her through and back to Tyrian. She thought perhaps she and Ashe might have traveled through here long ago on their way to Tyrian; if so, maybe she would get her bearings somewhere along the way. In any case, she could stay here no longer.

She clicked to the mare, and set out into the wind and the thickening snow, her feet growing numb, her heart focusing on Oelendra’s roaring hearth and the warmth she knew she would find there.

It had been a long, difficult day. A bitter wind had blasted around and through Haguefort’s rosy brown stone walls and windows for the better part of the week, trapping Lord Stephen’s children within the keep and requiring the heavy winter fires to be fed constantly. The air in the castle hung heavy with smoke, making it difficult to breathe.

That by coincidence it was also the birthday of Gwydion of Manosse, dead twenty years now, did little to make breathing easier. Sorrow at the memory of finding his childhood friend so long ago, broken and bloody on the grass beneath the firstsummer moon, squeezed Stephen’s heart, opening the doors for that sense of loss, and the loss of Lydia, to weigh upon his chest like bricks. He tucked Melisande into bed without her customary lullaby, kissed Gwydion good night without their accustomed talk, truthfully pleading a pounding headache.

Around midnight the gale died down, and Stephen decided to risk the cold for a moment. He opened the balcony doors and stepped outside, bracing himself against the outer wall as the shattering breeze blew through again, freezing his face and hands. Despite the cold, the air felt sweet and clean as he drew it into his lungs, though he could still taste remnants of the smoke that was venting from the castle’s many chimneys.

The lightposts were dark; the lamplighters had given up attempting to ignite the lamp wicks in the wind, and so the courtyard below him was darker than usual. Stephen’s eyes could make out the buildings below: the newly rebuilt stable and barracks, which had burned, casualties of an unexplained peasant revolt last spring, and the Cymrian museum that edged the courtyard on the northern side, its solid stone walls marred with soot but otherwise undamaged in the raid. All seemed quiet, as if frozen in time by the wind.