The others were there, ready to carry them.
Gwen wasn’t alone, and neither was Isobelle.
They never had been.
Chapter Fifty
Never Sende a Manne to Do a Woman’s Jobbe
The sun rose over Darkhaven town, setting the awnings and tents of Market Day ablaze with color against the brilliant blue morning sky. In the fortnight since the dragon attack on the tournament, rebuilding efforts in the town were well underway. More than one resident had chosen to keep their soot-blackened stonework, anticipating being able to point to a spot for generations to come and claim, “See? This is where the dragonsfire struck.” The thatch roofs all needed replacing, however, and teams from half a dozen nearby villages had come to assist in the effort before the onset of winter.
The forests around Darkhaven were all dressed in their best autumnal finery, and the crisp breeze brought the smells of fallen leaves to the market to mingle with the smells of frying batter, roasting meats, and spiced apples.
Gwen breathed deeply, struck by a memory. “I wondered, once, back before the tournament final, if I’d even be here to smell the changing of the seasons this year.”
Isobelle’s arm, linked through hers, tightened. Gwen couldfeelthe force of her eyes boring into her. “That’s awfully melodramatic, you know.”
Gwen let out a snort, glancing down to find that she was,indeed, being stared at by a pair of narrowed blue eyes. “Well, to be fair, you had just begged me to run away with you because you thought I was going to die, so if I was being melodramatic, I wasn’t the only one.”
The stare softened. “Hush. I am sensible and practical at all times. Oh, there’s your father! Shall we go say hi?”
They were walking down the same well-worn slope where Gwen had first laid eyes on Isobelle, clad in her pinkest, most outrageous gown and flanked on both sides by other girls dressed to the teeth. Just ahead was her father’s booth, though if Isobelle had not pointed it out, Gwen might have missed it entirely. Not a single flash of the booth, or of Amos, was visible through the throng of customers clustered about the place.
Gwen snuck a glance at the other side of the path. Her father’s main rival, the blacksmith who favored flashy—and noisy—sword demonstrations to attract customers, was leaning against the wall with a thoughtful frown on his face as he glowered at the mob of people clamoring for Amos’s figurines.
“He’s busy,” Gwen said finally, with a smile. “Fortunately, he has help. A couple of the women from Aberfarthing are still staying in Ellsdale, and the one who’s been staying in my room has been helping him with sales so he can focus on doing what he loves.”
Isobelle gave a dreamy little sigh. “If I were him, I’d rather make Sir Gwen figurines than horseshoes, too.”
Gwen drew Isobelle on down the path, flustered by the tangle of emotions that always flickered to life in her when she heard that name and title.
She wasn’t a knight. Lord Whimsitt had made that much clear, after Olivia, Sylvie, and the others had gotten Gwen and Isobelleback to Darkhaven just as dawn was breaking, the night of the battle against the dragon.
It had taken some time for the assembled lords and knights to grapple with the truth of what had taken place—that a girl, armed only with an ancient spear and the power of friendship—had done what none of them had dared even attempt. But after Whimsitt had dispatched several men to go investigate the battleground, and they’d come back visibly shaken to report that there was, indeed, the corpse of anextremelylarge dragon exactly where the ladies had said there would be... well.
When Whimsitt rather tentatively suggested that Gwen be returned to the jail “where she belonged,” the instantaneous uproar from Isobelle, her friends, the Aberfarthing survivors, and more than a few of the knights threatened rather quickly to spill over into violence. Whimsitt had been forced to pardon Gwen for her “trespasses.”
But when Isobelle had pointed out that Gwen ought to be hailed as the victor of the Tournament of Dragonslayers—after all, she had slain aliteraldragon—Whimsitt had dug in his heels.
“She is not nobility,” he retorted, face purpling. “And she is ashe! And leaving all that aside, she entered the tournament under a false name, with false patents of nobility and lineage. She was never truly, properly entered into the tournament, so she cannot be the victor.”
He would have gone on to hand Isobelle over to Orson, if Orson hadn’t objected. His face set, not daring to look at Gwen at all, he’d simply demanded the tournament be declared a draw, null and void, with no victor at all. The prize money would go back into Isobelle’s dowry, and he would lay no claim to her hand in marriage.
Of course, that meant neither Isobelle nor Gwen had any moneyof their own to spend anymore. Though they hadn’t spoken about it, Gwen knew it weighed on Isobelle heavily, the knowledge that her wealth was still locked behind an ironclad gate that only marriage, to a man, would unlock for her.
But, for now, she and Isobelle were untouchable. And the name Sir Gwen seemed to be sticking.
The first few times Gwen had heard it, she’d bristled, annoyed that the world had decided to give her a man’s title. But Isobelle had pointed out to her that there weren’t any alternatives. There was no title for a knight who also happened to be a woman, and that by using the title of “Sir,” the people of Darkhaven were, each of them, insisting on calling Gwen a knight even if the law didn’t recognize her as such.
Isobelle gave a little cry of enthusiasm, tugging Gwen’s thoughts back to the present. She slid her hand from Gwen’s arm, took her hand, and dragged her along to a spot where Jane and Hilde were waving their arms to beckon them over.
Isobelle was careful to tug only on Gwen’s left arm. Her right was still in a sling, at Olivia’s insistence. The shoulder was certainly injured again—had probably never healed to begin with, Olivia had pointed out severely—but the burn was far worse than they’d realized that night on the field. Even with the aid of that lurid green ointment Olivia insisted on using, it was healing slowly. Gwen knew she would have a nasty scar there for the rest of her life.
But she was alive. She was alive, and so were the others who’d come to aid her. And so was Isobelle.
Hilde greeted them with a shout of pleasure, offering Isobelle the remains of the spiraled fried potato on a stick she was eating. “You must fill your stomach, ja? Jinna is reopening the taverntonight, and it is important to eat before one drinks!”
The girls regaled them with the bits and pieces of news and gossip they’d gleaned from the market thus far, and Jane showed off a new tournament shirt she’d bought that featured stylized images of a knight and a dragon facing off with one another, and a line of text beneath it that read “Never Sende a Manne to Do a Woman’s Jobbe.”
