HAZEL
Ishut the door to my little office with a sigh as it masks the sounds of Edith crashing around in the kitchen and Edgar shouting something at Cuthbert, along with all the other noises of the tavern coming to life.
The sword is hung up on its usual peg. Usually, I hate it leaving my side, but today, it seems a little easier. I stare at the scattered pieces of parchment, scratched and blotted with ink from the stupid quill I find almost impossible to use.
It’s as if my hand knows there’s a better option, but my brain won’t tell me what it is. With a sigh, I drop into my seat and try to make some semblance of order from everything I have to do, the orders I need to send off with Edgar, the kitchen’s needs I have to agree on with Millie, staff wages, and consolidation of the coin we took last night, which I add to the solid safe set into the stone flagged floor.
Tonight we should make enough to cover all our expenses for the next quarter and our lives are secure.
Having completed all my tasks, I lean back and look out the window, which gives me a view of the stable yard and the pigpen. Our two pigs, Ant and Dec, root around in the mud. I told Edith it was a bad idea naming them, but she insisted.
However, it’s not Edith I see sneaking across the yard and into one of the stables. It’s Hilda, who is carrying a basket covered with a checkered cloth. As she trips her way across the cobbles, an apple falls from the basket and rolls away without her noticing.
I release a silent groan. I doubt her true purpose could be more obvious if it had kicked me in the head with an enormous, egotistical hoof.
Hilda is really going to be the death of me. If it wasn’t for the fact we found her nearly dead on the side of the road when returning from a trip to the market, I’d have let her go. But a witch without any earth magic in the Night Lands is not going to survive long, so she came to work for me.
I’ve always been too soft.
Or have I?
I gather up my papers and shuffle them together. Hilda and the Brag in the stables can wait while I get on with the actual work of running this tavern rather than messing around with a monster.
If Hilda is what he wants, then he’s welcome to her. All of which means I have to shrug off the way I felt when he had hold of me earlier. The darkness of his eyes, his scent, the feel of his skin on mine.
I don’t have time for any of his equine masculinity. I don’t have time for any of his tricks. I don’t have time to let him in.
If only someone would tell this to my heart which is still pounding at the mere thought of his proximity.
In fact, I’m so distracted, I open the door and take a step out from my office before I remember the sword. A searing pain in my shoulders is the reminder to take the thing from the peg and buckle it back on.
A deep sense of disgust settles within me at the lightness I feel having it at my side. No one should feel like this about having such a weapon with them, especially given its destructive powers.
Save for the fact that without the sword, I couldn’t run this place. Its mere presence is enough to keep the Reivers in line.
Outside, the short winter day is beginning to change into night, and it seems I spent longer in my office than I intended. My stomach rumbles, and I make my way to the kitchens in order to steal a quick bite, knowing I won’t be able to eat much, not with the wolf moon nerves.
Was I always this way? Did my appetite always leave me when anxiety beckoned? I don’t even know how old I am, only that my real name is Hazel, and I wasn’t always in the Night Lands.
And for some reason, that is enough, it seems.
As I cross the threshold into the kitchen, there is a tremble in the ground which rattles the saucepans on the racking over the stove. I grab the door jamb as the earth behaves badly.
“What wasthat?” I spit out at Millie who is unconcerned as she stirs tonight’s stew, carefully adding spices to it, pinch by pinch.
“What was what?” She doesn’t lift her head.
The tavern has stopped moving, and it’s as if nothing has happened at all, as if it was all in my head.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’m leaving the lists here for you and Edgar. When you see him, tell him to take his to the portal will you?”
“Of course.” This time she makes eye contact and gives me a smile. “Are you missing your Brag?” she adds slyly.
“No, and anyway, Hilda has him badly hidden in one of the stables, so I’m going to go out later with a pitchfork.”
Millie winces. “Ouch! You’re a cruel mistress, Lady Ryle.”
“I am no mistress to the Brag. If he wants to make a fool of me, he’ll have to bear the consequences,” I respond, adding a bit of steel to my voice because chances are Millie supplied the apples Hilda merrily took to Warden.
