Through the window, she watched as his men rode towards the slopes: a pack of horses and warriors, her husband visible at the lead. They vanished into the treeline. Then Ayla bent her head back to the embroidery, her ridiculous and ill-formed griffon, and wondered again if she ought to just burn it. It wasn’t going to come out right.
Sighing, she set it aside and looked back out the window. How long would Ditmar be gone? Ought she to make use of the castle while he was out? If she wanted anything from the lower floors, this was the time to do it. Perhaps she ought to ask Sarella, one of the kinder kitchen maids, if she knew how Ditmar had found out about the contraceptive.
There. Movement again. Men spilled out of the woods a hundred feet to the left of where her husband had ridden into them. Two, five, a dozen,twodozen...Ayla blinked. For amoment she wondered if Ditmar had met trouble—monsters, or an army—and turned and fled immediately. But the men hurrying across the fields weren’t on horseback. And they wore different colors than Ditmar and his men-at-arms had. And there were too many of them.
Were those the traitors Sir Corin had chased into the mountains? No, of course not. How would they even know the castle’s warriors had ridden out? Two of them carried a wounded man on a stretcher. Surely they were just Corin’s men, the ones Ditmar had gone to save.
But her husband and his guards were not riding back with them. It was almost as if the men now charging the castle had waited for her husband to leave.
Her brain tried to supply explanations and logic. But a chill shivered down her spine as Ayla’s intuition screamed that something had gone wrong.
The Lady of the Castle
She at least had to tell Sir Corin. The Queen’s general, injured though he was, would know whether the men charging towards Blackfell could be trusted. She hitched her skirts and ran down the corridor towards the staircase.
It was a good run to the other end of the castle, and she forced herself to keep a swift pace. She didn’t pass any servants on the way. Ayla stopped breathlessly in the doorway of the infirmary, skirts swirling around her legs as she grabbed the door frame and gasped for breath.
The small room was entirely empty. A banked fire lay in the hearth. Dust motes danced in the cold light coming through the window. No patient lay in either of the two beds. No healer arranged the remedies on the shelves or crafted potions at the worktable.
Hadn’tthe knight gone to the infirmary?
She turned and ran back down the empty corridor towards the great hall, feet slowing with each step. She wasn’t made for running.
Rounding the corner at a jog, she nearly slammed headlong into Tedore, one of Ditmar’s manservants. He quickly sidestepped with a bow.
“I saw soldiers,” she told him. “They were almost here—”
“Calm down, my lady. It was only the general’s men,” he reassured her, his brown eyes warm. “He’s let them in already.”
“Oh. But I thought…” she trailed off, gasping for air from her brief run.
“He asked Megh to fetch you to the hall,” Tedore informed her. “I’m off to get the stableboys, if it please my lady.” He bowed again and kept walking, more inclined to listen to a general’s orders than stay and speak with her. Ayla stood alone in the hall for a moment, chest heaving.
What did Sir Corin need with the stableboys?
And the knight had said his men were injured. Why had dozens of them come pouring out of the woods after Ditmar had left? Well, one had been on a stretcher.
She thought of, and quickly dismissed, a string of doubts. Was the knight really Sir Corin? Yes, Ditmar went to court sometimes; he’d have recognized the man.
In Ditmar’s absence, she was the head of the castle, and if Sir Corin wanted her, she ought not to stand there like an anxious fool. She pushed down the small voice in her head screaming that something wasoff, and went to do her duty.
Hiding her hands in her skirts, Ayla made her way back into the great hall. Her steps slowed as she entered, eyes scanning the large room and trying to make sense of what she saw.
A handful of servants huddled in a corner of the hall without doorways, looking confused but not speaking. Men with spears and swords stood in a loose ring around them. Theweapons weren’t pointed at her people, but the image brought immediately to mind a flock of sheep surrounded by wolves. The soldiers looked weary and cold, their faces thin and exhausted. They couldn’t have been in the castle for more than a few minutes. They stared at her but made no move to approach.
Perhaps the soldiers were just standing guard, protecting her people in case the traitors emerged from the mountains and attacked the castle. Or—perhaps the knight was gathering everyone so he could make an announcement. To tell them he’d be commandeering castle Blackfell until he and his injured men were ready to leave. Although if that were the case, why her people were pinned against the wall...
Her eyes left the servants and found the knight.
His dark gaze stared at her from the seat he’d claimed: her husband’s throne on the small dais. He’d wiped the blood from his face, but he was still fully armored. A drawn sword rested in one of his hands, the flat of the blade balanced on his knee. His stern mouth slowly spread in a crooked, close-lipped smile, triumph in his eyes.
“Lady Blackfell, I presume,” the knight said. His voice sounded so deep it pierced her to her core. One of the soldiers stepped towards her and pushed Ayla forward by her back. Her skin crawled at the contact. Gulping, she stumbled towards the man on the throne. She heard laughter behind her.
Wrong. This was wrong. There was no more pushing down that voice in her head.
“I am,” she admitted. Her voice came out as little more than a whisper. But he nodded, once, seeming to hear her just fine.
“Very good.” He stood from the throne in a lithe movement, unpained. She watched him take another step towards her, and realized he had never been injured. The blood, whoever it belonged to, hadn’t been his.
