Any concerns I had for wandering uninvited into someone’s home disappear instantly. Warden half carries me inside and over to the fire which is burning merrily in the hearth. Before I can say anything, he’s stripping off my dress and pulling out a dry blanket from his saddlebags.
“Sit here.” He gently pushes me down onto a small wooden stool next to the fire before adding a few more logs. “I’m going to find the owner and tell them we’re staying here for tonight.”
I don’t disagree with him. I can’t really, because I’m still too cold to speak. All I can do is check he’s left my sword in reach and watch him exit the property, closing the door behind him.
I stare around the room. The place is basic but homely. There are stairs in the centre, I can see a scullery in the rear, and the main room where I am contains a table and two beautifully crafted rocking chairs which are covered with pretty crocheted blankets.
I wonder where the occupants are, why they’d leave this bright, warm home on a night like this, leaving the fire burning in the grate.
I’m beginning to thaw when the door latch rattles. But no one enters. I have enough feeling returned to pick up the sword and hold it in front of me. I don’t want to use it. I don’t even want to think about using it, knowing what it can do. However, if it’s not Warden outside, and not the owners of this house, then…
In my hand, the sword feels like it’s heating up, not so that it’s uncomfortable, but almost like it’s making ready. The latch flicks up and down again. I’m laser focussed on the movement. The door isn’t locked, so I don’t understand why whoever is out there isn’t coming in.
“Who’s there?” I find my voice, my jaw having finally relaxed. “I’m here with Warden, the Brag, jailer of the Shadow Keep. We got caught in the storm. We just need somewhere to get dry and warm.”
Although it seems unlikely whoever is outside is the owner of this place, I may as well let them know who we are and why we’re here.
Now there is silence.
The logs in the fire crackle and sizzle. The sword cools. I pull the blanket a little closer around my shoulders because it smells of Warden.
The door bursts open, and I’m on my feet, ready for a fight. The wind whips through the place, blowing out the candles and leaving only the glow of the fire.
“I warn you,” I growl. “I’m armed.”
“So am I,” comes the response.
WARDEN
The moment I see the open door, I know I never should have left her. Inside there is no light left. The dying embers of a fire and a soaking dress without my mate inside it. I roar through the dwelling, slamming items of furniture left and right, but Hazel is not here.
She is gone.
I return to the hearth and light a candle from the remains of the fire. Whoever took her also took her sword, and as I scan the floor, I see drops of a black liquid.
As I go to touch one, it heaves itself away from me.
There’s only one thing which wouldn’t want to be near a Brag.
“Dunnie.” I growl deep in my throat as the liquid flows as quickly as it can towards the stone wall, where it disappears into a crack.
How can there be a Dunnie here? I killed them all in the Night Lands. The foul creatures are servants of the Faerie, to the very last one of them.
Or perhaps not the last one.
Because there was one here. One who took my mate.
“Warden?”
I spin on the spot with a snarl at the sound of my name. A door has opened in the floor and there are a pair of beautiful eyes peering out.
“Hazel?”
The door is pushed upwards, and there is a flash of her multi-coloured hair as I grab at the latch, wrenching the door open so she can climb out of the depths beneath.
I gather her to me, drinking in her scent, making sure she is real and not some figment of my imagination or of the Yeavering.
My mate is definitely here, real.
