She wouldn’t be the least bit sad if they’d dragged the nix from the river. Ayla planted her chin on her fist, leaning further forward, then winced and straightened. It would be days before her ribs were free of pain again. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders tighter. A few minutes later the men passed out of view beneath the tall walls surrounding the castle yard. They weren’t angled towards the town gates, but towards the keep itself.
It was safest to stay on the upper floors of the castle. The more she kept out of Ditmar’s line of sight, the less likely she was to anger him. But curiosity was a strong lure in a life defined by long stretches of caged boredom. She wanted to know what had injured the men, and whether they’d seen the unicorn too. She stood from her chair, leaving behind the warm cocoon of blankets for the cold hallways, and made her way slowly towards the castle’s winding inner stair.
She heard the voices by the time she reached the great hall. She’d only passed servants on the way, wondering as each facesmiled at her whether they had betrayed her to Ditmar, or whether they were truly friend.
Ayla slipped inside the hall. She kept to the edge near the side door she’d come through, where it would be easy to flee and she wasn’t likely to be spotted. The hall was a large, dark room. Its rows of carved pillars were made from the wide trunks of their region’s trees, the wood near-black and whorled with gold. Long tables and benches filled the middle. The empty dais to her right held a throne for Ditmar, and a smaller chair for her two steps down from his.
“We chased the traitors into the mountains,” Ayla heard a deep, rumbling voice say. She couldn’t see the man who spoke. “We had them when the troll came. It was a narrow thing.”
Traitors?Ayla’s breath caught. She’d just been in those woods, not hours past. The nix had been bad enough. Had she almost become the captive of an enemy war band, too? No doubt those men, who did not even have loyalty to their country, would have been even worse captors than Ditmar. At least he kept her fed and warm. At least there was only one of him.
“I can’t risk my guards. The danger…” Ditmar started to answer.
“My men are injured,” the deep voice answered angrily. “They need to be carried out before the snow buries them.”
Ayla inched to the side of the column she stood behind, trying to move without making a sound. Now she could see the speaker's face. The huge man—she could tell he was big, even seated on one of the hall’s benches—was half collapsed there as if too injured to stand. From his plate armor and longsword, he was a knight. He wore a collection of knives and a battleaxe strapped over his back, as though he was prepared for such heavy combat he might need a dozen weapons. Blood smeared along one edge of bearded face and blackened his clothes where they emerged from beneath his dark gray platecuirass. His armor didn’t look dented; he must have taken a bad wound through one of the few openings. His companions stood deferentially behind him, as if this seated man were their leader.
Where was the healer? The knight was bleeding out in the hall. Weren’t they even going to take his armor off and bandage the wound? It was just like Ditmar to do nothing.
“Isentmen to the border,” Ditmar argued. “Those who remain are needed here.”
“Duty is not paid in half-measures.” She couldn’t help but notice the knight’s face was well-shaped, beneath the injuries. He was very young, perhaps twenty to her twenty-four. His long near-black straight hair was tied loosely back, strands falling free around a short, full beard, his eyes dark and fiercely focused on Ditmar from beneath a sharp brow. He wasn’t pretty so much as handsome, a man who exuded rough and masculine power. At least, if he weren’t bleeding out on the hall’s bench…
“Sir Corin,” Ditmar answered, his voice harsh. “Surely the Queen does not demand I leave my homeunprotected.”
Corin. She knew that name, didn’t she, from sitting in silence during supper with Ditmar? Ayla raised a hand to her neck, staring even harder than before.
The house of Mount Eyron was one of the great ruling families of Enar. The Duke of Mount Eyron had turned traitor against his own sister, the Queen of Enar. The Duke’s eldest son, Corin, had renounced his family ties to Mount Eyron and sided with the Queen against his own father.
But the Duke’s younger son, Niel, had joined his father’s treason.
She inched another step away from the pillar to peer at Corin. She hadn't expected the hero to look so young. He was a man who’d protect his beloved country at any cost. Couldn’t Ditmar see that?
The knight’s fierce eyes flicked over to hers. For a moment that seemed to last forever, he stared at her with a frown. She froze, terrified Ditmar would notice the direction of his powerful gaze but unable to break her own away. Finally the knight’s eyes flicked away from her. She quickly pulled back around the pillar.
“I have given you an order,” the knight growled to Ditmar. “You court my displeasure—and treason.”
There was a long pause.
“Ten guards…” Ditmar started.
A loud thump rattled through wood, like a fist had smashed down onto one of the tables. Ayla flinched and clenched her jaw tight.
“Damn it,” the knight snapped. “Get yourself and yourfuckingmen up into that mountain,now.The Queen requires your service.”
Ayla pressed tight to the pillar, heart beating fast. She was going to pay for the knight’s tone, later; Ditmar didn’t like feeling small. Her legs shook horribly. A long silence stretched. She prayed for peace and good feeling between the men.
“Kerr will lead you to them,” the knight said, by which she could only imagine Ditmar had at last nodded his consent. “Hurry.”
“Show him to the infirmary,” Ditmar answered, his voice prickling with displeasure.
Ayla took a step back from the pillar, intent on leaving the hall before Ditmar could realize she was there. But then Ditmar brushed past the pillar, headed towards the door Ayla had meant to take, moving faster than she’d expected him to. His eyes flashed as they found her. Ayla bowed her head and took a small step back, waiting for him to reach out and grab her.
Either he was too fixed on his task, or he didn’t dare break his wife in front of the Queen’s venerated general. Ditmar left the room. Nobody else headed towards her door; the infirmary,where the knight was headed, was fastest reached out the other side of the hall. Hands shaking, she slipped out after Ditmar and fled up the stairs, back to her embroidery. Damn her curiosity. When would she learn that good enough was good enough? She should never have come downstairs.
Ayla took the embroidery back in her hands, then bowed over it, shaking. Would a time ever come that she didn’t feel so abhorrently weak, so afraid of the man she’d married? Just knowing she’d gotten his attention was enough to make her feel like she might lose her lunch. Dragging deep breaths and trying to calm herself, Ayla lifted her head and peered out the window. She had things to be grateful for, she reminded herself. The nix hadn’t gotten her, nor the enemy soldiers. She wasn’t a captive; she was just an unhappy wife. She was the lady of a castle. She was fed good meals every day. She had thick blankets, roaring fires, fine clothes. Her family was safe back in Carinth.
She would survive. Even if she would have traded every speck of luxury away in a heartbeat to be a hundred miles from Ditmar.
