“Don’t fault him for wanting something lovely to look at amid the carnage,” Jax scolded Erion. “It’s not like your face is anything to write home about.”
Erion’s feathers were visibly ruffled. Baldair laughed off his worries. He had time still. He had two months before the main army from the South would meet up with reinforcements from the East and West and march North. He’d figure out what it was like to lead before then.
Somehow.
A shrill whistle broke the evening, echoed by others. A group of men and women sprinted down the road shortly thereafter. Tabards bearing the Imperial sun on the front and rising Phoenix of the West on the back fluttered around their chests, headed toward the source of the sound.
“What was that about?” Baldair mused aloud, watching the corner the Crossroads guards had rounded.
“Only one way to find out.” Jax made a motion for Baldair to lead.
“Wait, no, I’m not done.” Erion looked dejectedly at his food.
“You can eat more back at the estate later!” Baldair called over his shoulder. There were always servants up waiting on Erion and his family’s beck and call. The Le’Dan estate was like its own palace in that respect.
Baldair heard another grumble from Erion’s direction—something about not running into danger before it was absolutely necessary—but was too far away now to make out the words.
Like schoolboys attracted by a dark fascination, the three men pursued the guards with varying levels of enthusiasm. A group of seven had formed a semicircle around what was quite clearly a murder scene. Common folk quickly filled in the gaps around them to get a better look.
“She did it!” a man shouted, pointing from the other side of the circle.
Baldair pulled his eyes away from the sight of the blood oozing out of the face-down dead man up to the woman who was standing over him. She had pulled her hair back into a braid, looping it into a sort of bun near the nape of her neck. But her eyes were unmistakable.
Lady R.
“She murdered him in cold blood!”
As poised as she was in the ring, the woman was unbothered by the claims. She stood, relaxed, hand on the sword at her hip as if to caution off the guards that she would do the same to them if they were bold enough to challenge her to it.
“Are these claims true?” one of the guards spoke over the murmuring of the crowd.
“They are, in that I did kill him.” She didn’t waste her breath denying it and didn’t seem remotely flustered by admitting the truth.
“Told you women like her were bad to involve yourself with,” Erion mumbled.
“I killed him because he stole something from me—an assault to my person when he did not return it or tell me of its whereabouts,” she informed the guards. “It was self-defense.”
“Do you have evidence of this?”
“None other than my word.” Lady R spoke as though her word was all the assurance the guards would ever need. It was enough to make Baldair wonder if there wasn’t some royalty somewhere in her.
“Were there any witnesses to this claim?”
“I saw her kill him!” another shouted.
“I already said I killed him,” Lady R sighed tiredly.
“I’m afraid we’ll need to take you to the guard offices for further questioning.”
Baldair watched the situation unfold dangerously. The guard began to move for her, and her stance changed ever-so-slightly. Her foot eased backward, balancing herself evenly. Her scabbard tilted just so with the pressure from her grip on the handle. She was going to fight her way out if they tried to take her.
She would win.
“I can vouch for her!” Baldair stepped forward.
“What are you doing?” Erion hissed.
The guards all looked to him. “As the prince of our Empire, I vouch for her.”
“M-my prince.” The previously advancing guard startled, glancing between him and Lady R. “If you say so…”
Baldair looked back to the woman, who said nothing, and prayed he had somehow not just spared a cold-blooded murderer.
“On with all of you, then.” The guards began to usher people away.
Lady R continued on without so much as a backward glance at him.
Baldair pushed through the filtering crowd, ignoring the skeptical looks and suspicious whispers at his actions, gossip already sparking to flame. He finally made it to the other side, the swordswoman several steps ahead.
“Wait!” he called. She actually stopped. He was so surprised, it took an arch of her eyebrows and an impatient look to inspire him to finish his thought. “Join my guard?”
“I told you I would if you beat me in the duel, which you did not.” It wasn’t an outright no, and the amusement in her voice was encouragement enough.
“I just got you out of a bind.” The look from a nearby woman made Baldair wish he hadn’t said as much quite so loudly.
“And you did so without negotiating for anything special in advance,” she said after a moment’s thought. “You should be more careful before you act out of the goodness of your heart. I don’t owe you something because you decided to be kind.”
“You should show more respect for your prince,” Erion spoke in Baldair’s defense. Baldair hadn’t even realized the Western noble was at his side.
The woman gave a low humming noise. “I think you give him enough respect for the rest of us.”
Baldair couldn’t stop his laughter.
“Goodnight, my prince.”
“At least tell me your name.”
She paused, thinking it over. “Raylynn,” she said cautiously.
Raylynn, he thought, running the name across his mind. It was pretty and foreign to him. Like the song of a lark he had never quite heard before.
“We will be at the Le’Dan estate, Raylynn!” he yelled to her retreating back. “Duel me again—give me another chance to earn your loyalty for my guard!”
She didn’t turn again nor grace him with a response. But he knew she’d heard him in the way her shoulders lifted in quiet amusement, laughter only for herself. It was distracting enough that Baldair didn’t even hear a moment of Erion’s lamentations all the way back to the estate.
5. Raylynn
She walked away from the endeavor unscathed but with no more information on the whereabouts of her mother’s sword than she’d had when she arrived at the Crossroads.
The gods had created the notion of nobility to be a pain in Raylynn’s rear. Dead princesses, old Western nobles with decaying ideals, Imperial princes—nothing good had ever come of the lot of them, and they all thought far too highly of themselves. She flipped a coin across the back of her knuckles in thought, sending it from one side of her hand to the other with mindless ease.
Well, at least I got some gold out of the prince. That had made him good for something. The pouch of coin clanged loudly against her hip. It seemed to call back to its former owner, reminding her that she had taken something from nobility without giving something in return.
She usually found the sound of gold joyful. Presently, it was like the droning of a crone wailing on about the Father’s eternal judgment in the realms beyond.
The Crossroads began to melt away into the desert. The sands of the Waste, like time, claimed all. Even the mighty bastion of commerce eventually gave way to the endless dunes and cloying darkness that surrounded it. The sandstone houses and flat-roofed, compact structures of the Crossroads began to diminish, the grand archways that soared between them like sapling branches disappearing in kind.
Raylynn had set up her makeshift camp on the edge of town between a condemned building, crumbling at its corners, and an abandoned home that had been claimed by mostly harmless drifters. She would have preferred a proper bed, but she had a general rule of not staying in any inns in the towns she hustled,
even ones as big as the Crossroads. One never knew what rich lord owned both a gambling hall and lodging. And, unless she had been in the town enough times to know who owned what, she made it a point not to sleep under the rooftops of those who would slit her neck in a rage over lost coin.
Raylynn dropped her satchel, the valuables in it clanking loudly, next to the makeshift lean-to she’d created with a strip of discarded canvas against one of the fractured walls. Sitting next to it, she tilted her head back. The sky above the Crossroads was tainted by the town that never slept. Her friends, the constellations, were hidden by a haze of light that never fully dimmed.
What had the prince been thinking? She couldn’t figure out his motivations. The man certainly owed her nothing. But he had spared her the trouble of cutting her way out of a sticky situation, and his intervention would yield returns: things were much neater when she didn’t have to worry about a warrant for her arrest somewhere.
Unsheathing her sword, she rummaged around for her oil and sharpening stone. But even the repetitive motions left her no more settled. Not even the ringing of her blade, singing happily at her care, could put the matter to rest in her mind.
He had asked her to be part of his guard. Raylynn chewed over the idea. Promises her mother made to long-gone nobility echoed in her mind.
She paused again, leaving her blade across her knees to braid and unbraid her hair. Her hands knew the movements before her mind could think them. More than oaths or words, she believed in the Goddess’s truth. The red lines of fate drawn by the Mother Goddess herself in time would mirror the red lines Raylynn drew in the foes that stood against her.
Those lines were her own. No man, woman, noble, or royal could change them or affect them. While she would draw them in her own time, on her own terms and as she was capable, not even she could alter them. Raylynn felt the pull of fate weighing on her already.
At the very least, if this was the moment that had been foretold, she would attempt to keep her dignity and settle a score along the way.
Packing her things took little to no time, given how lightly she made it a point to travel. Having a prince around might not be a bad thing, she tried to rationalize. She already had hazy ideas of some uses for him if he proved remotely competent.
The ones she sought, the ones who had taken her mother’s sword—the Knights of Jadar—were old nobles. Even if they swore against the Empire at every turn, they were still slaves to their titles; a prince could command respect and results others could not. Perhaps she could use this whole “prince’s guard” notion to her advantage. Perhaps she could even use the crown to root out the one thing she had left of her mother in the world.
That brought a smirk to her face.
Not a soul bothered her on her way back through town on a slightly different trajectory than she had walked before. While most could not hear the song of the sword, there was something about those the blade chose that all people could just seem to see. Perhaps it was the way she walked, or the way her hand fell on her hilt? Or it might be a certain clanking of her scabbard. Either way, even when she was known to be carrying gold or other valuables, she walked unbothered.
The rare times some ignorant fool thought it wise to challenge her, she made a quick example of them. That usually discouraged others in the town from doing so for the remainder of the time she was there. At least, that was the case in towns smaller than the Crossroads—and in towns where the Knights didn’t seem to be lurking like vermin. Her hunt of them hadn’t exactly made the shadowy organization fond of her.
Every Westerner knew where the Le’Dan estate was. It was the only structure that rivaled the castle in Norin, and was sometimes called the “Jewel of the West”—harking back to the Le’Dan family trade in jewelry, the lush gardens that sprung up over the tall walls surrounding the property, and the ornamentation within so lavish it could make a king blush.
It was a study in excess, and Raylynn had only ever seen its outer walls. In her travels, she had met the unsavory sorts who talked tall of its grand innards. She had her doubts. The only thing rumored to compare to its loveliness was its security; not many thieves ever made it out alive. Those who did were usually smart enough not to boast of their conquest.
All things considered, Raylynn didn’t even attempt subversion. She didn’t look for an unguarded back door, or an easy place to scale the relief sculpting the outer wall. She walked right up to the front gate.
Four times her size, the ironwork was a play of hard and soft. Strong vertical beams supported a latticework of lace-like detailing that must have taken the most talented of Firebearers years of metalworking to complete. It obscured the gate man who strolled over upon seeing her.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see the prince.”
“What business might you have with Prince Baldair?” The bars did not obscure the servant so much that it hid his skepticism, or his clearly low assessment of her.
“He’s expecting me,” she replied with all the arrogance she had ever seen nobles muster. She knew the question of who she was would rankle the back of his mind the whole time he was delivering the message to the main building. And it was an awfully long walk to the primary manor house. “Tell him Lady R is calling.”
Begrudgingly, the man gave a small bow and departed inward.
Raylynn folded her arms over her chest, leaning her back against the gate. Part of her mind wanted to question what she was doing, but she squelched it. Her hands had tied her hair in braids for battle. Her feet had carried her with confidence. She had walked the red line so clearly laid out for her by the will of mother and Mother alike. She had to trust in the Goddess.
If she lost her faith, she lost everything.
“Why have you not let her in?” The booming voice carried over the wind before the hasty footsteps caught up with it. “Let Lady Raylynn in, open the gates.”
She pushed away, allowing the servants to do as they were commanded. Like unwrapping a present, the obscured villa came into view. Tree-lined walkways and bejeweled fountains sat between small houses and workshops, all standing at attention before the main building that towered like a lord above all its domain.
“I didn’t think you would come,” the prince said with a note of victory. The royal thought he’d win that easily.
“Well, I don’t like debts.” She strolled in, uninvited. One of the two Western men at the prince’s side eyed her sideways—no doubt one of the little Le’Dan Lords. “All the rumors of the Le’Dan estate seem to hold true.”
“Welcome to my home.” The man with the cropped hair confirmed her suspicions. He had the darker hair of the West, but Southern eyes like the sky and fair skin to match. He was a child of two worlds, like her.
She remembered that the Lord Le’Dan’s choice of a Southern bride over a Western one had been quite the scandal when it happened. Given all the time he’d reportedly spent visiting the castle of Norin in his youth, many in the West had whispered of him favoring one of the princesses of the last king, and ending the age old Le’Dan and Ci’Dan feud through marriage. But he chose a Southern lady shortly after the war ended and squelched the notion.
“I won’t be here long.” She waved away the notion of propriety. “You said you wanted me to join your guard?”
“Yes.” The prince jumped in at the first opportunity. “The Golden Guard.” He motioned to the gold bracers on the two men’s forearms that matched his own. “It’s my personal guard, an elite fighting group of the most honorable and talented across the land.”
The long-haired man at the prince’s side snorted at the word “honorable,” earning a glance from the prince and a smirk from Raylynn. She already knew who she favored between the prince’s lackeys.
“Why do you want me to join?” Whatever he said now would hold great weight. Raylynn could feel it in her words.
“Because??
?” The prince faltered. Just like every noble she’d ever met, he lacked purpose. “You’re incredibly talented.”
“You got his sword excited,” the man who was now arranging his hair into a high knot on the back of his head added dryly.
Oh yes, she liked that one.
“Jax!” Prince Baldair groaned, confirming the suspicion. That was good information. If the prince found her wiles appealing, she could use them to her advantage. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last. Men and women alike were incredibly simple in that respect.
Raylynn let loose a low humming noise, a sound of pure seduction, playing into the new duel she found herself fighting. She took a step closer, placing her palm on the prince’s chest. “Is that so?”
He arched his eyebrows and tilted his head, but he did not pull away. If anything, she felt him swell under her with an eager breath. There it was, that pull, that spark to his eyes. The combative look she’d seen in the arena. It was raw and primal, something given at birth and not earned in life.
Raylynn eased away with a small laugh. It sounded equal parts amusement and disgust with herself that she would really allow herself to be involved with the prince. “Very well, you may come with me, Baldair.”
“That is Prince Baldair,” the little Le’Dan Lord corrected.
“It’s Baldair if I so please.” Raylynn challenged the prince with a look. “At least, if he wants me to join your infantile group.”
“Where are we going?” The prince was curious and eager before apprehensive.
“I want to see if you are worth my talents.” She drew out the last word, playing her voice like an instrument tuned specifically for the male ear. “Since you could not beat me in the ring, I have a task I want you to help me complete.”
“Very well.”
“Baldair—” the Lord Le’Dan hissed. “You don’t even know what she wants you to do.”
“When do we leave?” The prince ignored the man who seemed bent on attempting to mother him.