She hit the stone hard, tumbling down the steps flight after flight.
The world spun, was a blur, as she banged and scraped her knees, her elbows, her forearms. She instinctively covered her head as she rolled, the way her instructors had taught her when she was a child, and shielded her head from the worst of it.
After several steps, she did not know how many, she rolled onto a plateau, on one of the corridors leading off the stairwell. She lay there curled up in a ball and breathed hard, trying to catch her breath, the wind knocked out of her.
There was no time to rest. She heard footsteps, coming down, fast, too fast, big heavy footsteps, and knew that her attacker, whoever he was, was right on her heels. She willed her body to get up, to regain her feet, and it took every ounce of energy that she had.
Somehow, she managed to get to her hands and knees, just as he came into view. It was Gareth’s dog, back again. This time he wore a single leather glove, it’s knuckles covered in metal spikes.
Gwen quickly reached down to her waist and pulled out the weapon that Godfrey had given her. She pulled back the wooden sheath, revealing the blade, and lunged for him. She was quick—quicker than she imagined she could be, and aimed the blade right for his heart.
But he was even quicker than she. He swatted her wrist, and the small blade went flying, landing on the stone floor and skidding across it.
Gwen turned and watched it fly, and felt all her hopes go flying with it. Now, she was defenseless.
Gareth’s dog wound up with his fist, with the metal knuckles, and swung right for her face. It all happened too fast for her to react. She saw the knuckles, the metal spikes, coming down right for her cheek—and she knew that in just a moment they would all puncture her face, and leave her horribly, permanently, scarred. Disfigured. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the life-changing pain that would follow.
Suddenly there came a noise, and to her surprise, her attacker’s blow stopped in mid-air, just inches from her cheek. It was a clanging noise, and she looked over to see a man standing beside her, a wide man, with a hunched, twisted back, holding up a short metal staff. It was inches from her face, and the staff blocked the blow of the man’s fist.
Steffen. He had saved her from the blow. But what was he doing here?
Steffen held his staff there with a trembling hand, holding back the attacker’s fist, preventing Gwen from being injured. He then leaned forward with his metal staff and jabbed the man hard, right in the face. The blow broke his nose and sent him plunging down to the cold stone floor, on his back.
Gareth’s dog lay there, defenseless, and Steffen stood over him, holding his staff, looking down at him.
Steffen turned for a moment and looked at Gwen, concern in his eyes.
“Are you okay, my lady?” he asked.
“Look out!” Gwen yelled.
Steffen turned back, but it was too late. He had taken his eyes off of Gareth’s dog a moment too long, and being the tricky assassin that he was, reached up and swept Steffen, kicking him behind the knee and sending him flying flat on his back.
The metal staff went clanging on the stone, rolling across the corridor, as the man jumped on top of Steffen and pinned him down. He reached over, grabbed Gwen’s blade off the floor, raised it high, and in one quick motion, brought it down for Steffen’s throat.
“Meet your maker, you deformed waste of creation,” the man snarled.
But as he brought his blade down, there came a horrible groan—and it was not from Steffen. It was from Gareth’s dog.
Gwen stood there, hands trembling, hardly believing what she had just done. She hadn’t even thought about it, she had just done it—and she looked down as if she were outside of herself. When the iron staff had landed on the floor, she had grabbed it and hit Gareth’s dog in the side of the head. She hit him so hard, right before he stabbed Steffen, that she sent him onto the floor, limp. It was a fatal blow, a perfect blow.
He lay there, blood pouring from his head, and his eyes were frozen. Dead.
Gwen looked down at the iron staff in her hands, so heavy, the iron cold, and suddenly dropped it. It hit the stone with a clang. She felt like crying. Steffen had saved her life. And she had saved his.
“My lady?” came a voice.
She looked up and saw Steffen standing there, beside her, looking at her with concern.
“It was my aim to save your life,” he said. “But you have saved mine. I owe you a great debt.”
He half bowed in acknowledgment.
“I owe you my life,” she said. “If it weren’t for you, I would be dead. What are you doing here?”
Steffen looked at the ground, then back up at her. This time, he did not avoid her gaze. This time he looked right at her. He was no longer shifting, no longer evasive. He seemed like a different person.
“I sought you out to apologize,” he said. “I was lying to you. And your brother. I came to tell you the truth. About your father. I was told you were up this way, and I came here looking for you. I stumbled across your encounter with this man. I’m fortunate that I did.”
Gwen looked at Steffen with a whole new sense of gratitude and admiration. She also felt a burning curiosity to know.
She was about to ask him, but this time Steffen needed no prodding.
“A blade did indeed fall down the chute that night,” he said. “A dagger. I found it, and took it for myself. I hid it. I don’t know why. But I thought it unusual. And valuable. It is not every day something like that falls down. It was thrown into the waste, so I saw no harm in keeping it for myself.”
He cleared his throat.
“But as fate would have it, my master beat me that night. He beat me every night, from the time I began working there, for thirty years. He was a cruel, horrific man. I accepted it every night. But that night, I’d had enough. Do you see these lashes on my back?”
He turned and lifted his shirt, and Gwen flinched at the sight: he was covered in lacerations.
Steffen turned back.
“I had reached my limit. And that dagger, it was in my hands. Without thinking, I took my revenge. I defended myself.”
He pleaded with her.
“My lady, I am not a murderer. You must believe me.”
Her heart went out to him.
“I do believe you,” she said, reaching out and clasping his hands.
He looked up, eyes welling with tears of gratitude.
“You do?” he asked, like a little boy.
She nodded back.
“I did not tell you,” he added, “because I feared you would have me imprisoned for the death of my master. But you have to understand, it was self-defense. And you promised once that if I told you I would not go to jail.”
“And I still do,” Gwen said, meaning it. “You shall not go to jail. But you must help me find the owner of that dagger. I need to put my father’s killer away.”
Steffen reached into his waist, and pulled out an object wrapped in a rag. He reached out and handed it to her, placing it in her palm.
Slowly, she pulled it back, revealing the weapon he had found. As Gwen felt the weight of it in her palm, her heart pounded. She felt a chill. She was holding her father’s murder weapon. She wanted to throw it away, get as far away from it as she could.
But at the same time, she was transfixed. She saw the stains on it, saw the hilt. She gingerly turned it over every which way.
“I see no markings on it, my lady,” Steffen said. “Nothing that would indicate its owner.”
But Gwen had been raised around royal weapons her entire life, and Steffen had not. She knew where to look, and what to look for. She turned it upside down, and looked at the bottom of the hilt. Just in case, just in some off-chance it belonged to a member of the royal family.
As she did, her heart stopped. There were the initials: GAN.
Gareth Andrew MacGil.
It was her brother’s knife.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
 
; Gwen walked beside Godfrey, her mind reeling from her encounter with Gareth’s dog, with Steffen. She could still feel the scrapes on her knees and elbows, and felt traumatized as she thought how close she had come to dying. She also felt traumatized to think that she had just killed a man. Her hands still shook, as she relived her swinging that iron staff again and again.
Yet at the same time, she also felt profoundly grateful to be alive, and profoundly grateful to Steffen for saving her life. She had badly underestimated him, underestimated what a good person he was, regardless of his appearance, his role in his master’s murder, which was clearly deserved and self-defense. She was ashamed at herself for judging him based on his appearance. He had found in her a friend for life. When all this was over, she was determined to not let him wallow away in the basement anymore. She was determined to pay him back, to make his life better somehow. He was a tragic character. She would find a way to help him.
Godfrey looked more concerned than ever as the two of them marched down the castle corridors; he had been aghast as she’d recounted to him the story of her near assassination, of Steffen’s rescue—and of Steffen’s revelation of the dagger. She had brought it to him and Godfrey had examined it, too, and had confirmed it was Gareth’s.
Now that they had the murder weapon, the two of them knew instantly what they needed to do: before going to the council with this, they had to get the witness they needed. Godfrey had recalled Firth’s involvement, his walking with Gareth on that forest trail, and he figured they needed to corner Firth in first, get him to confess—then, with the murder weapon and a witness, they could bring this to the council and bring down their brother for good. Gwen had agreed, and the two of them had set off to find Firth in the stables, and had been marching ever since.
As they went, Gwen still held the dagger in her hands, the weapon that had murdered her father, still stained with his blood, and she felt like crying. She missed her father terribly, and it pained her beyond words to think that he had died this way, that this weapon had been thrust into him.
But her emotions swung from sadness to rage, as she realized Gareth’s role in all of this. This had confirmed her worst suspicions. A part of her had clung to the idea that maybe, after all, Gareth was not as bad as all of this, that maybe he was redeemable. But after this latest attempt on her life, and seeing this murder weapon, she knew that was not the case—he was hopeless. Pure evil. And he was her brother. How did that affect her? After all, she carried his same blood. Did that mean that evil lurked somewhere inside her, too? Could a brother and a sister be so different?
“I still can’t conceive that Gareth would do all of this,” she said to Godfrey as they walked quickly, side-by-side, twisting their way through the corridors of the castle, heading towards the distant stables.
“Can’t you?” Godfrey said. “You know Gareth. The throne has been all he’s ever lived for.”
“But to kill our father, just for power? Just for a title?”
Godfrey turned and looked at her.
“You are naïve, aren’t you? What else is there? What more can someone want than to be king? Than to have that kind of power?”
She looked at him, reddening.
“I think you are the one who is naïve,” she said. “There’s a great deal more to life than power. In fact, power, ultimately, is the least attractive thing. Do you think our father was happy? He was miserable ruling this kingdom. All he ever did was complain, and pine for more time with us.”
Godfrey shrugged.
“You hold an optimistic view of him. He and I didn’t get along nearly as well. In my mind’s eye, he was as power-hungry as the rest of them. If he wanted to spend time with us, he could have. He chose not to. Besides, I was relieved when he didn’t spend time with me. He hated me.”
Gwen examined her brother as they walked, and for the first time she realized how different their experience of childhood had been. It was as if he grew up with a different father than she did. She wondered if it was because he was a boy, and she a girl; or if it was just a clash of personalities. As she thought of it, she realized he was right: her father had not been kind to him. She didn’t know why she didn’t fully realize it before, but as she did, she suddenly felt terrible for Godfrey. She understood now why he spent all his time in the tavern. She had always assumed her father disapproved of Godfrey because he wasted his time in the alehouse. But maybe it was more complex than that. Maybe Godfrey sought out the alehouse to begin with because he was the victim of their father’s disapproval.
“You could never win father’s approval, could you?” she asked, compassionately, beginning to understand. “So then, after a point, you didn’t even bother to try.”
Godfrey shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, but she could see the sadness in his face.
“He and I were different people,” he said. “And he could never accept that.”
As she studied him, she saw Godfrey in a different light. For the first time, she didn’t see him as a slovenly drunk; she saw him as a child with great potential, who was poorly raised. She felt anger at her father for it. In fact, she could even see traces of her father in him.
“I bet that if he treated you differently, you’d be a different person,” she said. “I think all of your behavior was just a cry for his attention. If he had just accepted you on your own terms, I think that, of all of us, you would have been the most like him.”
Godfrey looked at her, surprised, then looked away. He looked down with a furrowed brow and seemed to ponder that.
They continued walking in silence, opening one door after the other down the long, twisting corridors. Finally, they burst out of the castle, into the cool Fall air. Gwen squinted at the light.
The courtyard was abuzz with activity, the masses excited, bustling to and fro, people drinking in the streets, an early celebration.
“What’s happening?” Godfrey asked.
Suddenly, Gwen remembered.
“The Legion returns home today,” she answered.
With everything else that had gone on, she had completely forgotten about it. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought again of Thor. His ship would be coming home soon. She ached to see him.
“It will be a huge celebration,” Gwen added, joyfully.
Godfrey shrugged.
“They never accepted me into the Legion. Why should I care?”
She looked at him, upset.
“You should care,” she scolded. “Your brother Reese will be returning home. As will Thor.”
Godfrey turned and looked at her.
“You like that common boy, don’t you?” he asked.
Gwen blushed, silent.
“I can see why,” Godfrey said. “There is something noble to him. Something pure.”
Gwen thought about that, and realized it was true. Godfrey was more perceptive than she’d realized.
They marched across the castle grounds, and as they did, Gwen felt the knife burning in her hand, and wanted to throw it as far away from her as she could. She spotted the stables in the distance, and increased their pace. Firth was not far now.
“Gareth will find some way out of this,” Godfrey said. “You know that, don’t you? He always does.”
“Not if we get Firth to admit to it, and to be a witness.”
“And even if so, then what?” Godfrey asked. “Do you really think he’ll step down from the throne that easily?”
“Of course I don’t. But we will force him. We will get the council to force him. With proof, we can summon the guards ourselves.”
Godfrey shrugged, skeptical.
“And even if that should work, even if we should depose him—then what? Then who will rule? One of the nobles might rush to fill the power vacuum. Unless one of us rises to the throne.”
“Kendrick should rule,” Gwen said.
Godfrey shook his head.
“No. You must rule. It was father’s wish.”
Gwen blushed.
“But I don’t want to,” she said. “That’s not why I’m doing this. I just want justice for father.”
“You may, after all, get justice for him. But you must also take the throne. To do otherwise would be to disrespect him. And if you say no, then the next eldest legitimate son is me—and I am not going to rule. Never,” he insisted firmly.
Gwen’s heart pounded as she thought of it. She could think of nothing she wanted less.
They crossed the soft grass of the stable ground, and reached the large open-air entrance to the stables. They headed inside, and it was darker in here, as they walked past rows and rows of horses, each more elegant than the next, prancing and neighing as they went. They walked on a floor of hay, the smell of horses filling Gwen’s nose, and continued all the way to the end. They turned down another corridor, then down another, and finally, they came to the place where the King’s family kept their horses.
They hurried over to Gareth’s corner, saw all of his horses, and Gwen examined the weapons rack against the wall. In the row of daggers, one was missing.
Gwen slowly unwrapped the dagger, gingerly lifted it and placed it in the spot on the wall. It was a perfect fit. She was breathless.
“Bravo,” Godfrey said. “But that still doesn’t prove that Gareth used this knife—or that he ordered the murder,” she said. “He could argue that someone stole it.”
“It doesn’t prove it,” she countered. “But it helps. And with a witness, the case is closed.”
Gwen wrapped the knife back in its cloth, stored it back in her waistband, and they continued down the stables until they reached the stable caretaker.
“My liege,” he said, looking up in surprise at the presence of two members of the royal family. “What brings you here? Are you here for your horses? We have no notice.”
“It’s okay,” Gwen said, laying an assuring hand on his wrist. “We are not here for our horses. We come on a different matter. We’re looking for the stable boy who tends to Gareth’s horses. Firth.”
“Yes, he’s here today. Check around back. In the hay pile.”