Mickey Reichert - The legend of Nightfall

Prince Edward handed over stylus and parchment eagerly.

Nightfall broke off the part Edward had scrawled. It made little sense for him to use code if the note also contained written details.

"Tell her we had to leave in a hurry and we tried to get her, but we couldn’t." The prince dictated excitedly. "Tell her we’re coming back for her. Oh, tell her where we’re going so she can follow us. And sign it from me." He pointed at the parchment. "With love.”

Nightfall met Edward’s gaze directly, brows raised. Times like this reminded him his master was still an adolescent.

Edward controlled his childish exuberance, his voice returning to its usual commanding timbre. "Did you get all that, Sudian?"

"Yes, Master, I heard it all." Nightfall ignored the prince’s guidance, writing precisely what he pleased. He returned the stylus to Edward. "Now, I need to find a messenger." The obvious choice came to him at once. He glanced toward the tack house. "The stable boy should do. He could get our packs, too, without suspicion, I’ll be right back."

Prince Edward craned to see the writing over Nightfall’s shoulder. He frowned at the two illustratives. "That says everything?”

"Not everything, Master," Nightfall admitted. "I can’t write as much in code as free hand, but this has all the important points she needs to know." Like that we don’t want her around us any longer.

“I’ll come with you." Edward rose.

"It would be unwise, Master." Nightfall gestured the prince back down. "The guards will be watching for the two of us together. They won’t notice me so much if I’m alone."

Edward nodded, though obviously not wholly comfortable with the situation. "Sudian, be careful."

The warning seemed ludicrous; it was far more likely they would spot Edward. "I will." Nightfall slithered into the shadows. The oath-bond quivered awake, intensifying the farther he went from the concealed prince. Nightfall ignored it. He would not go far nor remain away long. Within a few paces, he came upon the tack house and pressed his back against it. He glanced toward their hiding place near the paddock. His trained eyes carved Edward’s outline from the surrounding darkness with an ease that discomforted him. He would have to work fast.

Nightfall remained in place, studying the area in the moonlight briefly. Seeing no suspicious figures or movement, he opened the tack house door. First, he hauled down the gear for their horses, leaving it outside for later collection. Then, he approached the stable boy sleeping on piled straw in the corner. The youngster lay on his side, curled beneath a threadbare blanket, his breathing deep and slow.

Nightfall placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shook gently. Drowsy, brown eyes flickered open, and the stable boy sat. Pieces of straw clung to his brown hair. He studied Nightfall for several moments. Obviously recognizing him and recalling the generous tip on their arrival, he smiled and leapt to attention. "What can I do for you, sir? Should I get your horses ready?"

"No. Thank you. We can handle that." Nightfall offered a silver.

The stable boy rose quickly, gaze locked on the coin.

"I’d like you to go to the men’s inn room, get my master’s pack and mine, and quietly pass them through the window." Nightfall described their gear.

The stable boy nodded. Though it must have seemed an odd request, he did not question it.

"Then, I want you to find a woman named Kelryn. She might he in the women’s overnight room." Nightfall pressed the silver into the boy’s hand. "She’s in her early twenties. Has hair as short as mine, and it’s white like an old person’s."

The stable boy stared at the payment. "Is she the one I saw with you earlier today?"

"Yes. Good. Give her this message. Just hand it over, and don’t tell her anything. Then meet us by the packs. No matter what Kelryn actually says, tell my master that she claimed she’d wait here till we return.”

"All right.” He placed the silver into his pocket.

"I’ll give you another if you do that all correctly and quickly.”

The stable boy grinned.

Nightfall did not bother to swear the boy to silence. So long as Nightfall mentioned nothing about their destination, the boy could say whatever he liked to protect his own innocence, even the truth. There was nothing inherently illegal about assisting patrons, especially a foreign prince; and the boy would have had no way to know he helped fugitives.

The stable boy trotted off to play his role, and Nightfall gathered the horses’ gear.

As night deepened, the crowd in the He-Ain’t-Here Tavern thickened, then waned to the small group of patrons who had paid for lodgings. Kelryn sat at a table by the unlit fireplace, alone, becoming more alarmed the longer the absence of Prince Edward and Nightfall stretched. She knew she could no longer assume they had just stepped out and would soon return. Something had happened to them, though whether a voluntary escape from her or trouble she had little information to surmise. She knew only that, earlier in the evening, one of the Mitanoan travelers claimed to have overheard them talking about joining the Tylantian contests. She doubted Edward would leave her without explanation, but Nightfall would do everything in his power to strand her and talk the prince into doing the same. She knew no one better at manufacturing emergencies.

Tears welled in Kelryn’s eyes, smearing the color to a pasty green-brown. Love ached within her, a burden she felt certain she could never shed. Though understandable, Nightfall’s hatred cut like shards of the broken swan, and she felt as if her heart had shattered with it. Truth, if he would listen, would have to win him back; but even that did not seem the answer. Although it would exonerate her, the explanation might hurt him more than just letting him believe she had betrayed him.

Memory assailed her brutally then, as it did whenever she allowed her thoughts to stray to the ugliness she could never forget: the man on the floor twisting his body to escape the agony the sorcerer gleefully inflicted. The screams that cut straight to the heart and seemed to turn her insides into liquid. The driving need to do something, anything, to stop the cruelty, and the fear that had paralyzed her into a shocked and helpless silence. The knowledge that any action on her part would only have meant death for them both did not assuage the guilt she lived with every day.

Kelryn gritted her teeth, forcing the image away before it solidified. From experience, she knew that, if the details became clear in her mind, the picture would haunt her through the remainder of the day and nightmares would terrorize her sleep.

“‘Excuse me, ma’am."

Glad for the interruption, Kelryn glanced to her right. A boy dressed in the same gray linens as the serving maids stood at her elbow.

Kelryn tried to keep her voice steady. "What can I do for you?"

"Here." The boy tossed a scrap of parchment to the table. Without further explanation, he turned and headed toward the outer door.

"Wait," Kelryn said, many questions coming to her at once. She could never recall a messenger not waiting long enough for a tip, at least.

But the boy ignored the call, scurrying outside before Kelryn could shout for him again. She let him go, more interested in the parchment. Although illiterate, she knew a few words, mostly ones Nightfall had taught her; and the two had developed a sparse language of hand signs and pictograms during their courtship. She unfolded the parchment. Nightfall had used the picture code, his handwriting bold and crisp. He had drawn only two symbols. The first, a gently waving series of lines, meant love. He had penned it neatly, then slashed over it with dark, brazen lines to indicate an error. The only other marking took the shape of a guiding arrow.