By The Sword - Homepage

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“So, did you miss me?”

My former cellmate’s words almost brought out a chuckle in me. I turned to her, catching the way she brushed brown hair off of her shoulders. The sun sent rays of light into my eyes as I looked at her, forcing me to squint. She just tilted her head at me and raised an eyebrow, waiting for a response.

I rolled my eyes and gave her the same answer I’d given her nearly half an hour ago. “Of course I did.”

Kye’s lips curled up into a killer smile, one that told me so much. “Life’s boring without me?”

I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes yet again. “More like, life’s boring with nothing to do.” That earned me a sharp breath of amusement. “Can you imagine a life where the highlight of your day is talking with Jason?” And that earned me a laugh.

For a moment, Kye’s sudden laugh drowned out the murmurs of commotion around us. Then, as her amusement died back down, the sounds from the crowds of people rose back up.

Smiling to myself, I tore my gaze off Kye and toward the rest of the town. The same street that had been nearly filled to the brim with people, each and every one of them awaiting the arrival of their new Lord, now looked like any other day. If it weren’t for the fact that the market stalls and carts were still disassembled, it would’ve looked like any of the other slow afternoons when I’d been sent on a grocery run.

As soon as Marc had arrived, his throng of knights swiftly in toe, he’d gone almost straight to town hall. It was strange. He hadn’t greeted any of the people who had waited for him, he hadn’t acknowledged the decorations, and he’d barely even talked with us—the rangers that were meant to greet him as he came in. The only real thing that happened between the time of his arrival and the time of him entering town hall was that he got to embarrass Jason.

A soft laugh slipped from my lips. At least the one thing he did was worth it.

As soon as the wooden door that separated the town from the person that ran it had slammed shut, I’d thought I was off the hook. After that, Kye and the other two rangers that had accompanied her in escorting Marc to Sarin had looked so relieved.

Then, when Kye had started teasing Jason for being embarrassed in front of the whole town, I’d thought our duty had shifted. I’d thought that our work for the day would’ve been done. But apparently not.

“How long do you think their meeting will take?” Kye asked nonchalantly. I turned my gaze back to her, watching the way she too scanned over the not-so-bustling town around us.

I shrugged, remembering the way that Lionel had called us into the town hall. Apparently, Marc wanted all of the rangers who could be present to be present when he met Lorah… for some reason. And even though their exact negotiations had to happen behind closed doors with only a limited amount of ears, we were supposed to have stayed there the whole time.

“It’s already been about ten minutes. Depending on the agreement, it could take the whole hour.”

Kye turned back to me as she weaved past a couple arguing on the street. The woman was saying something about how they’d wasted money on decorations, and the man was completely red-faced and stumbling over his words as he tried to retort.

“If it takes that fucking long,” Kye started, stretching her words, “then I’m really glad we didn’t stay for the whole thing.”

I cringed for a moment, her words tugging at my now-faulty discipline. As soon as Marc and Lorah had gone to do the actual negotiations, leaving us and more than a dozen other rangers just standing around idly in the large building, Kye had wanted to leave.

At first, she’d just wanted to leave on her own and to have someone tell her when she needed to be back. But then, before she’d even found her way out the door, she’d asked me to come with.

The thin layer of unease that coated the bottom of my stomach acted up again. I wasn’t normally one to disobey orders. But Kye had looked so bored, and I couldn’t have said truthfully that I wasn’t. She’d just gotten back. And if Marc didn’t even have the time to spare to greet the people who he was going to rule over, what was the harm in leaving a negotiation that I wasn’t even apart of?

That’s the way I’d reasoned it, at least. It was one thing to convince myself of it, but it was a completely different thing to tell that to the disciplined part of me still scolding me at every turn.

“So how have things been here?” Kye asked suddenly, walking closer to me as the main part of the crowd faded behind us.

I smiled, just happy for the moment of relief. Then her question really hit.

“Al-right?” I said, instantly unsure. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. She’d only been gone for just over a week, and yet so much—or so little, depending on who you asked—had changed. For me, I’d gone from shift of guard duty to shift of guard duty without anything interesting—besides literally fearing for my life—happening in between.

For some of the other rangers, Myris specifically, I was sure their answer would’ve been clear. But to me, there was both too much and not enough to say, and I didn’t know where to start.

“Alright?” Kye asked, cocking an eyebrow at me. “My life has been knightly codes and a whole bunch of walking for the past week. Surely you can give me something a little better than ‘alright.’”

The disciplined part of me scoffed, but that’s not what came out of my mouth. What actually came out was a sharp laugh as I reorganized my thoughts.

“Well, if there was something big that had happened, it’s not like I would be the first to know about it. I’ve been on guard duty almost every night since a few days after you left.”

Kye furrowed her brow and I saw her shoulders straighten up. “Guard duty every night? Why do they need someone on guard every night?”

Amusement slowly drained from my face, leaving a much less-enthused smile than I’d hoped for. “The terrors are back. You knew this before you left, didn’t you?”

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“Of course,” she said instantly with a twirl of her wrist. “But they’re just terrors. We’ve dealt with terrors before. And if it’s this early, there’s no way they’ve gotten bad enough to warrant guarding the lodge every night.”

The weak smile dropped off my face and I stared her in the eyes. “You’d be surprised.”

Kye’s gaze hardened as we walked onto a new street. From the corner of my eye, flitting in and out of view between the small houses, I could see the lodge’s clearing and the forest adjacent to it. My hand fell to my side, instantly gripping my blade as the memory of that night was disturbed again.

“What do you mean?” she asked, a new sharpness in her tone.

I held my tongue for a moment, the part of me still afraid of even the memory of a terror holding the information back. But I eventually let it out. “They’re definitely active, even now.” A brisk gust of wind blew the sun’s warmth from my face as I spoke. “I even got the misfortune of having to deal with one during my first night on guard.”

Kye’s brow furrowed and she turned away from me, hey eyes meeting with the packed, twisted forest that spread out far behind the lodge. “How bad is it?”

I squinted, remembering the conversation I’d had after the terrifying experience. “Apparently their scourge is different this year. They’re more powerful than normal and can pull more accurately at their victim’s fear.”

She whipped her head back to me. “More powerful? What’s the source this time?”

I just shook my head, relaying the information I’d been given. “We haven’t found it yet. And the terrors have been acting really strangely, I think. From the way Myris describes them, they’re much more scattered than normal.”

“Myris?” she asked, amused surprise forcing its way into her tone. “What is he doing hunting terrors?”

I shrugged, hoping my statements didn’t contradict something in the past. “Ever since that night, he’s been kind of obsessed. He’s gone out on a mission almost every day since, looking for the source.”

“And he still hasn’t found it?” Kye asked, most of the cathartic joy already drained from her tone. I shook my head, making Kye’s face contort into a scowl. “Shit.”

Feeling the weight of the air around us, and noticing the relative silence in the section of town we were walking through, I forced a smile on my face.

“Even with the new obsession, though, he still has time to be a complete dick.”

Kye turned to me, her eyebrows raising suddenly. I smiled at her, a large, exaggerated smile etched in with just how frustrated my own comment had made me. That earned me a laugh.

The previous seriousness drained from Kye’s face with her laughter. “He really doesn’t like you, does he?”

I shook my head in an exaggerated way, using the gesture to hide the frustration still bubbling under the surface. Myris really didn’t like me, and realizing it over and over was getting aggravating. Back in Credon, I’d held so much respect—respect that I’d earned. And to have the older ranger continue to patronize me for ‘not knowing enough’ just boiled my blood.

“No,” I said, my tone colder than I’d intended. I didn’t even realize how hard my hand was gripping my blade. “He doesn’t. Before the… incident, he’d only ignored me. But now it seems like he holds a grudge more than the townspeople do.”

Kye cocked one of her eyebrows. “Well, he’s a bit stuck in his ways. And he’s much less forgiving of people wanting to keep their privacy, especially if said people end up killing his town’s lord within the first few months of being there.” The toothy smile that accompanied her last few words made my eyebrows drop.

I shot her a glare. “Right.”

Kye’s lips curled up into a smug grin. “Don’t worry, we’ve got a new lord now. Things should be going back to normal.”

Her words echoed in my head and I nearly scoffed. Normal. Right. As if anything was going back to normal. No matter how hard I tried, watching the way one of Sarin’s citizens that I didn’t even recognize kept her head down as she passed me, I still couldn’t fathom how anything could go back to normal.

I shook my head, keeping the doubts for another time. Then, focusing back on Kye’s words still hanging in the air, new questions rose up on my tongue.

“What’s the new lord like, anyway?” I asked. If we were catching up, then I’d already given her information, and now it was time for her to return the favor.

A soft groan slipped between her lips as if my statement had reminded her of the exhaustion she felt. “He’s… fine,” was all she got out.

“Fine?”

“Yeah, fine.” Kye crossed her arms. “I didn’t have much interaction with him on the way here. Even though we werethe ones escorting him.”

I noticed the bitterness in her voice and pressed further. “Well, he’s the Lord now, and I still know almost nothing about him.”

Kye shot me a glare. “Well, he’s a knight of some sort. He’s from, I think, one of the mountain states named Veron, and from what I could tell, he’s all business. The knights that came with us seemed to respect him, and after a while, I kind of did too. He grows on you, I guess.”

That answered only some of my questions. “Why is he our lord anyway?”

Kye just shrugged at that, not pretending she really understood. “I’m not entirely sure. After hearing that our town’s lordship was left empty, he jumped at the opportunity. I mean, given his track record, we really should be thankful. Especially with him being Arathorn’s cousin and all.”

I blinked, her statement stopping me in my tracks. The words churned in my head, turning over and over before it finally clicked. Marc’s last name suddenly came with a whole new meaning.

“Arathorn’s cousin?” I asked from my suddenly-dry mouth. Kye nodded. “Shit… I shouldn’t have told him my name.”

Kye raised an eyebrow at me and made a curious sound. It took her a few seconds of staring at my wide eyes to figure out what I meant. “Oh. I wouldn’t worry about that. If the conversations I overheard are to be trusted, then he didn’t have that great of a relationship with Arathorn. And that’s not even considering how much he hates kanir.”

Her words calmed me only a hair, pushing the dread just away from the forefront of my mind. I nodded, trying to convince myself that she was right. I’d told him my name, and he hadn’t even batted an eye, right? Either he didn’t know I was the one who’d killed his cousin, or he didn’t care. But the fact that he didn’t want me exiled in an instant had to be a good sign.

Physical, palpable relief slipped off my shoulders as I walked on, the small cobblestone street meeting back up with the center of town. The wooden houses and established shops sped around us as we finished our round of town. And as soon as we crossed over onto Sarin’s main street, a new clamor struck my ears, one much louder than I’d expected.

I furrowed my brow and glanced at Kye. She only returned a similar expression and a light shrug. In front of us, down the street, more and more people were crowding around the town hall.

Among the crowd, were a few of the rangers that should’ve still been waiting inside. Scanning through the sparse but quickly growing mass of people, I found two familiar faces in the form of Jason and Carter standing over by the entrance.

“I guess the negotiations ended earlier than we thought,” Kye said with dry amusement in her voice.

I shrugged off her comment, my own discipline berating me for leaving. I’d been told to stay. I’d been ordered to stay. And now, just as things were starting to happen, I was left out of the loop.

Moving on my own personal frustration, I weaved my way through the growing crowd over to where Jason and Carter were standing. As I moved between people, none of them so much as glanced at me. Each of their gazes was set, frozen in anticipation on the closed town hall door. I didn’t follow their gaze, I didn’t even stop to ask what they were looking at, I just pushed on toward my companions with Kye one step behind.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I walked up to the two idle rangers. They snapped their gaze away from the town hall and back toward us. I saw Carter open his mouth, probably ready to offer a reasonable explanation, but he didn’t get to be the one to respond.

“Well, look who finally came back,” Jason said dryly, more than a little bit of mocking in his tone.

“You were just too embarrassed to leave,” Kye snapped back with a grin on her face. Jason opened his mouth to respond, but snapped it shut quickly after and settled back with an irritated grunt and a roll of his eyes.

I swallowed a chuckle, moving my gaze back to Carter.

“The negotiations are over,” the brown-haired ranger said.

I nodded. “But why are people gathering again?”

Carter’s lips curled upward into a grin. “Right, you wouldn’t know because you weren’t there.” My hand fell to my side at that. “But Marc wanted to do something and he wanted us to tell the town.”

“Do something? Like what?”

Carter’s eyes hardened a bit before he shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s about. But he said that he had a very important announcement to make.”