James West - Lady Of Regret

The pale woman blinked slowly, as if bewildered by the necessity of introductions. “Why are you here, Nesaea?”

Nesaea might have invented a reason, and it would not have been the first time she had hedged, but could see no point in it now. “I seek my father.” Saying it aloud made her think of Brother Jathen. If any doubt remained that he had wanted to be rid of them, it had vanished.

“Your father?” the woman said, clear blue eyes widening in surprise. “Why ever would you expect to find him here?”

“I was told he came to Ravenhold.”

“Who claimed such a thing?”

“A cockless son of a one-eyed whore, that’s who,” Fira snapped.

Nesaea shushed her with a sharp gesture. “Brother Jathen of Skalos sent us.”

The woman’s features stiffened. “I do not know what he tucks into his breeches,” she allowed with a faint smirk, “but he is, without doubt, a deceitful bastard of a man. Long have I dealt with his consorts, those who seek to steal that which belongs in Ravenhold. Twice in so many days, he has sent strangers into my midst. My patience with him and his order is quickly coming to an end.”

Nesaea had heard words spoken in anger. She was not so sure she had ever heard them spoken with such hate. Distantly, she wondered who else Jathen had sent to Ravenhold.

The woman gave herself a little shake. “You mentioned your father. Tell me of him.”

“Sytheus Vonterel,” Nesaea said. “He’s a man of many talents, but for the most part a performer of illusion. Last I saw him, he was portly, middling height. A man given to laughter.”

“I know of this man.”

“Where is he?” Nesaea asked, heart beating heavily in her chest.

“Your father died in the Tanglewood, cut to bloody pieces before I could end the slaughter.”

A hand fluttered to Nesaea’s mouth, stifling a moan. For the longest time after the raiders had destroyed her family, she had believed Sytheus died, the same as her mother. She had concealed the misery of that belief deep inside her, used it to fuel her resolve in getting free of her former master, to escape Giliron and begin a far different life than her mother and father had imagined for her. That misery, once a bleeding rip in her soul, had healed into a hard, nearly invisible scar. And so it had remained, until hearing her father’s name in the Blue Piper.

Now he was dead again, and she felt like the lost and crying girl she had been, chained in the musty darkness of a ship’s hold, naked and molested to drunken cheers, destined for a life of unending degradation.

Their host stepped closer, voice at once soothing and sorrowful, and altogether mesmerizing. “I can ensure grief never again touches you.”

Nesaea peered at the woman through shimmering tears. Behind her, another guard joined the first, the gap in his visor as dark as the other’s. Shoulder to shoulder, they moved through the doorway, a burnished metal hedge.

“I want nothing from you, save our release,” Nesaea said, backing away. Her journey was short, given the size of the cell.

“You will think differently, once you begin to live in the absence of all pain and loss.”

Fira brushed by Nesaea, jammed her nose against the woman’s. “Stand aside, you pasty bitch-”

Whatever else she might have said ended when one of the guards struck her a terrible blow, toppling her to the floor. Nesaea leaped into the fray, but the second guard caught her flying hair and jerked her back. The first guard abandoned Fira, slammed his fist against Nesaea’s belly, once and again, battering the breath from her. A third blow landed against her chin, bringing with it a burst of stars.

Nesaea fell to her knees. Unsteady, she looked to Fira, reached out one quivering hand to her dazed friend.

The golden woman smiled. “Your struggles and pain will soon come to an end, and you will thank me.”

A cheerless gray dawn found the foursome bleary-eyed and exhausted from lack of sleep, but far from their previous camp. A light mist beaded every surface, sank a damp cold into weary muscles.

Horge and Yiri knelt on either side of Samba, searching the murky forest for any who might stalk them. Rathe took the moment to hone the nicks from the edge of his sword. Close by, Loro slumped against a tree trunk, bald head swathed in a drab linen bandage.

“Gods and demons,” the fat man swore, nose wrinkled. “What did you put in this poultice?”

“Remedies to heal you thrice as fast as without,” Yiri said. “ Things ,” she added with a savage smirk, “that you’re better off not knowing.”

“Well,” he grumbled, “it smells like spoiled fish and sheep droppings.”

“You’re lucky you can smell anything,” Rathe reminded him, pausing to test his blade with a thumb. Be it luck or fate, the blow to Loro’s skull had been with the flat of the sword, rather than the edge, otherwise they would have been burying him, instead of listening to him grumble. Still, Rathe could sympathize, for the same noxious ingredients had been added to the bandages Yiri placed on his shoulder wound. Fetid or not, he felt no pain, and could move as if no sword had cut him.

Deciding he had waited long enough for Yiri and Horge to begin volunteering information, Rathe sheathed his sword, and pulled a swatch of cloth from his belt. It was a piece of the tabard taken off one of the dead horsemen, before Yiri had burned them all to ash. “Tell me about the men who wear this,” he said, “these Wardens of Tanglewood.”

Horge recoiled at the Shield and Raven adorning the fabric. Yiri just stared.

“Answer him,” Loro warned, “or I’ll have out your useless tongues.” If he feared Yiri burning him alive, he gave no sign of it.

“Tell me of these men,” Rathe insisted. “I cut one in half. He did not make so much as a peep, and his blood was dry as dust. I have seen the like, but only in a crypt.”

Yiri shook her head slowly. “They were men once, but no more. And, as it happens, they have been dead long years.”

“Dead men do not ride and fight,” Loro scoffed, gaze rolling toward Rathe. “And to say the man’s blood was dry, makes me think it was you who took a knock on the head, instead of me.”

Rathe spread the scrap of tabard, poked a finger through a long slit in its center. “You made this with your sword, yet there is no blood. Can you explain that?”

“My steel never touched flesh,” Loro said.

“I assure you, it did,” Rathe said, looking to Yiri. “If they are not men, what are they?”

Yiri twisted her fingers together. Rathe waited. Nervousness did not suit her. After a few moments, she blurted, “The Wardens of Tanglewood are wights .”

“I fought no ghosts,” Rathe said, “but flesh and bone.” So far, he had avoided thinking about how those dead men and their pieces had continued to move, stopping only after Yiri set them afire.

“’Tis the power of the Wight Stone which gives them unnatural life. They are soulless beings, controlled by the holder of the stone. Those we fought were turned after they died. Those who are changed while still alive, remain alive, after a fashion.”

Rathe shook his head in disgust. “And when were you going to tell us we faced such creatures?”

“’Tis not the creatures you must fear,” Horge said in a rush, “but she who controls them-”

“Be still!” Yiri shouted.

“I suggest you remain lively,” Rathe countered.

Horge looked from Rathe to Yiri. “There is no reason to hide what they will soon learn for themselves.”

Yiri’s mouth twisted. “Very well. Tell them, for all the good it will do. Tell them, Horge, just who controls the Wardens.”