The Lord takes a few steps back up to the stand, out of range of any weapon-strikes. The executioner and the knocked-down guardswoman crawl back to the safety of the line. No-one else moves. Even Meredith remains motionless in the square.
Eschen’s face does not move. He draws his sword. The crowd stops milling about and watches.
A second passes, and then Eschen advances. Leah’s arm shifts to put her shield in position, and she removes her mind from the fight as much as possible, trusting her body. The spear gives her reach, she knows, but Eschen is a large opponent, and she isn’t sure it will be enough.
For the first bout, she blocks and dodges everything he throws at her – however, she can tell he’s holding back, feeling out her abilities. She knows that he knows her memories have been lost, but she also knows he believes her muscle memory to be totally intact, instead of a semi-reliable backup system.
She tries to lead him around the square, but he refuses to be led; always she must return to meet him in the middle, between the block and the stands.
“When did you get so verbose?” Eschen asks, advancing a few steps to try to get her off-balance. Muscle-memory puts her feet where they need to be to brace her against his advance, despite her self-preservation instinct saying that against a foe his size she should be retreating. But her body knows best; even as his sword swings down she lifts her shield up to meet it, and she angles her spear to deflect the secondary blow that his left hand was aiming into her exposed belly. She sweats a bit that she didn’t even see that coming, but is grateful her training apparently did.
“I’m a woman of mystery,” Leah says, pulling the spear back at an angle to rake across his armour at the line where the breastplate meets the tasset – the chain underneath catches the blade and it does no damage. She grins. “That stab you did there…” She darts to avoid his next swing. “It’s almost as though you’re used to fighting with a dagger in your off-hand. Say!” She swings the shield at his head and he bends backwards out of the way. “Whatever happened to your dagger? Did you misplace it?”
Eschen slashes and twists to bring his free arm down a split-second after; Leah blocks the first, but has to drop to a crouch to avoid the second. She scrambles for a moment to get back to standing, and Eschen bears down on her.
“In point of fact – ” He grabs the haft of the spear as she lunges, and tries to tear it from her grip. She swings with the shield and forces him to let go. “ – I gave it away.”
“So that someone else would take the blame for starting this war?” Leah swings for his head with the butt-end of the spear, then hops back to avoid a slashing strike from the sword.
“I gave it to Jeno.” He swings the sword down at her, missing by a hair. “Because she asked me to.”
“She asked a man she’s terrified of for a murder weapon? Yeah, that makes sense.” Leah sees that he’s falling for her goads a bit more; she tries again to lure him towards Solace, hoping for some help.
“She asked her personal guard for a token – ” Eschen presses forward, then backswings the sword at her shins, to pin her spear and try to trip her. Leah jumps, blocks the return swing, then thrusts again. He dodges the spear and steps forward to close the distance. “ – To give to her lover.”
He pushes her away, and Leah, shaken, sees the dagger in his hand – gone from her belt.
He advances, and Leah’s initial guess proves right; he has been holding back. She does all she can not to get hit, and gives up any chance of scoring a hit herself. She looks over to see if Jeno has taken the opportunity to escape yet, and is furious to see she is still on the block, cowering.
Leah’s body hasn’t quite given up, however. In the frantic panic to avoid getting killed, her ability to plan moves or strategise gives way entirely; her body carries her into a series of ducks and side-steps, until eventually something quiet in her says to push forward, and too scared to question it she does.
Eschen’s sword swings down two-handed, and Leah’s spear-tip finds the unprotected gap between breastplate and pauldron. He notices it happening and drops one hand from the sword to try and protect himself, but the spear bites flesh and he winces.
He takes a few quick steps back, holding his arm close to his side. It barely bleeds, but Leah has clearly scored first blood, whatever that means. She realises in that moment that she might have accidentally signed up for a one-on-one fight to the death, when all she’d intended was a distraction for Jeno to escape before she was eventually either joined by the Valerid guards or could escape in the turmoil her statements caused.
I wasn’t convincing enough? Or they’re just here for a show, and I was stupid enough to give them one.
Eschen watches her for a few seconds, to see if she’ll take advantage of his situation, then sheathes the dagger and switches the sword to his left, raising his empty right hand, already held in some sort of pose.
Realising his intentions, Leah drops her spear and reaches up to grab the loose latch to the battery-bandolier; she hooks it closed, completing the circuit just as a storm of fire appears around the captain’s hand and surges towards her.
For a second all she sees are the flames approaching, but before they get within five feet of her they fizzle and dissolve. Eschen stands, stunned, hand still outstretched. Leah bends to pick up her spear and hefts it as a javelin, taking a few quick steps towards Eschen.
An arrowhead suddenly protrudes from her right collarbone.
It takes her a moment to understand where it came from, but as she turns to look behind her, she sees Vivitha lowering her bow, the arrow still nocked to it. The split-second of relief is washed away by the sight of all the crossbowmen around the square standing up and taking aim; a few seconds later another two bolts whizz past her and clatter off the cobbles, and a third embeds in her shield.
She looks to Solace, and sees the same distress on her face. The candle’s flame burns orange. Leah understands.
She disconnects the circuit and rushes to the block, where Jeno is still cowering. Grabbing the girl and supporting her with her good shoulder, Leah stands again to see Eschen bearing down on her, the sword back in his right hand, his left hand flipping the dagger.
“Lord Valerid!” she calls out, standing up with Jeno weak at her side. “You have been warned. The enemy is not at the gates; the enemy is already at your back.”
She holds the spear at the ready, and sees Meredith still standing at the block, a hand on her sword but not yet drawing it. “Is the fight right?” Leah asks, and she sees Meredith almost open her mouth to answer.
A rising wave of shouts spreads through the crowd gathered around the square. Leah looks back, expecting to see Eschen casting, but instead she sees a familiar silhouette, hand outstretched to interpose itself in his path.
A half-dozen identical clones of Leah, armed and bleeding from matching arrow wounds on their right shoulders, mill about the square. They form over her and step aside from the block, taking up positions around the square, each of them supporting a weak-legged Jeno, taking up defensive stances facing the captain. Leah watches Eschen’s eyes flit, trying to figure out which is the real one. Meredith has gone bone-pale, fingers slipping from the hilt of her sword.
Leah stumbles off the block with Jeno, and an overlapped illusion remains in her place, sides heaving, eyes fixed on Eschen. The captain is frozen, and the guards holding back the crowd seem confused by a lack of orders – whether to fight back or protect the citizens.
One of the illusion-Leahs talks, shouting to the guards. “You cowards will receive the undeniable proof of a betrayal whose coming was warned, and you will refuse to see it.” The voice is angry, and controlled, and distinctly similar to Solace’s. Leah looks and sees that Solace is mouthing the words as the Leah-figure says them, hiding the green flame with one hand to avoid notice – but casting like this is easily visible, and unlikely to remain unnoticed for long.
“We are not your enemies!” another Leah shouts. “Your enemy has deceived you into believing your causes are aligned, and will crush you if you do not act now to throw him out.” Crossbow bolts are being fired at the figures, but pass straight through them to no effect.
Leah shuffles unobstructed to the line, most people’s eyes riveted to the captain standing at the ready in the square. The crowd presses back from her, seemingly unsure if she is an illusion or the real Leah, and she makes it to Solace without further injury. “A little overkill, don’t you think? And not very productive if we want them not to fear magic – ”
“Oh be a little grateful, it got you out of there,” Solace says, the illusory figures still multiplying and spreading out to fill the square, imposingly. She dismisses the illusions with a wave of a hand, then grabs Leah and begins chanting a verse – different to the old travel verse, but similar in sound and cadence.
Eschen’s eyes dart around and land on her, the last Leah, but he does not move to follow her. He begins to whisper something of his own, tracing a pattern in the air subtly with his right hand, still holding his bleeding shoulder with his left. Leah can’t move to attach the anti-magic battery – nor would, if it means Solace’s magic fails.
He opens his hand as though unleashing something at them, but Leah cannot see what. In a very quick jump, her vision goes dark and then searing bright, and she falls to the ground in a carpeted room.
Immediately, she begins coughing. She can hear Solace retching a bit beside her, and Jeno falling to the floor beside her and moaning.
A few seconds pass before anyone speaks.
“I take it it went badly?” Seffon says, looking down at them from a desk in his library.
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*
Leah and Solace begin summarizing what happened, through their headaches and queasiness. Solace emphasises what they learned about Valerin planning an invasion of the Enterlan, with Cheden’s forces left behind to guard the capital.
Seffon listens, but mainly he is summoning people to the room to give them orders. The militia he sends out to gather their forces currently on rounds to bring them together for an organised defence. The guards he instructs to pair up with the students to set up wards around the Hold, to protect against any attempt to penetrate the walls or scry – unlikely, from Valerin, but still possible. Sewheil he instructs to treat Leah’s crossbow bolt wound, which she had entirely forgotten about until that moment.
Jeno has passed out on the carpet, and Sewheil’s assessment is a combination of exhaustion and fear. The travel method, Leah gathers, is generally frowned upon, as the greater the distance travelled the more likely to cause pain or disorientation, hence the sickness.
Leah insists on not being taken to the hospital until she has reported every detail, however. She emphasises to Seffon that when she accused the Cheden party of collaborating with Devad, the Duke looked surprised, but both the Duchess and the captain seemed fearful of being found out.
“There’s a book…” she winces out, as Sewheil breaks the bolt. “In the study. Two books. One about Cheden’s history and noble families…one about magical heritages. There might be something in them. I’m sure there’s something deeper going on here…”
Seffon kneels to help support her while the bolt is withdrawn. “Leah, shut up and let yourself be treated,” he says sternly, giving her the broken half of the bolt’s shaft to bite. Jeno chooses that moment to wake up.
Immediately she yelps and begins scampering across the floor, trying to get away. Leah reaches out for her, but Jeno holds her hands over her face and cowers. “Why did you say it?” she babbles. “It can’t be that, they wouldn’t – what you said was true, Eschen forced me to do it, I didn’t mean to – Eschen made me say – but I didn’t want to – I can’t even remember it, it’s been a perpetual nightmare – ” Sewheil reaches out a hand surrounded in calming blue light, making soft hushing noises, but at the sight of overt magic Jeno shrieks and cowers and kicks out. “Don’t! Don’t let her, not more, not again!”
Leah reaches over and, in spite of her injuries, picks Jeno up, holds her face, and with two weeks of pent-up worry she kisses her in full view of Seffon, Sewheil, Solace, a half-dozen guards, and two students.
The salt and dust of Jeno’s skin is unexpectedly harsh, and more than a little heartbreaking, but Leah does not wince away. She keeps her hands gently against Jeno’s cheeks as they kiss, their lips never parting, as though to give her strength through osmosis. When Leah can feel Jeno reciprocating, can feel her breathing even out, she breaks it off and leans her forehead against Jeno’s. “I would never bring you into danger, and I will never let any harm come to you so long as I am here.”
Jeno sniffles and doesn’t reply.
“You know that, right? So long as I’m here, you’re safe.”
She nods, and kisses Leah again, a quick peck, before burying her face in Leah’s neck.
Leah turns to look again at the others. Every one of them is pointedly looking at something other than the PDA except for Sewheil, who is readying a healing poultice, and Solace, who has an ‘I-knew-it-and-don’t-pretend-I-didn’t’ look.
Leah stares Seffon down until he meets her eyes. “If she’s been under magical influence that strong for a long time, she will need to be checked over. I’ll bring her to the hospital,” she says.
Seffon nods, then goes back to giving orders to the remaining guards. Leah catches mentions of the stables, but everything else is too fast and quiet to figure out.
The initial poultice applied and the arrow wound no longer bleeding profusely, Leah takes Jeno’s arm and leaves. She leads the tottering young woman through the halls, each leaning on the other but Leah trying to act stronger than she is. Sewheil follows, sweeping up helpers as she goes, giving directions, so that when they arrive the fires are lit and water is boiling.
Leah takes off the bandolier and sits on one of the cots, Jeno taking the one opposite her and reaching out a hand to hold. They stay like this while Sewheil treats them.
“Es thes th only enzữy yu resyve’?” Sewheil asks, removing Leah’s armour and shirt. She has a stack of wood splinters and sinew ready, and Leah knows what is coming.
“The only injury, yes,” she says, with a small nod – which she instantly regrets, as the movement causes her whole right shoulder to spasm.
Solace sets up the spell, Jeno not letting go even when the Gllythe doctor summons a spark of fire and directs it with her bare hands to light the threads. Leah tries to keep herself from flinching when the flames are doused, but the pain still shows on her face. When it is done there is only a faintly red scar under Leah’s collarbone.
Though her face is drawn and her breathing shallow, Jeno does not falter at any point through the spell. Her brown eyes stay fixed on Leah’s hands, blinking slowly. There are dark circles under them, and her freckles are hidden by dirt smudges and dried tear-tracks.
“An yu?” Sewheil turns to Jeno, who flinches back a bit but shakes her head.
“Her wrists,” Leah says. They are still bound in shackles.
Sewheil considers them, and opens a small vial of clear red liquid, letting a few drops run down between skin and metal, healing the scrapes. “I cannau remeuv them hỹ.”
“Thank you,” Jeno whispers out, still not looking anywhere besides Leah’s hands.
Leah repeats the thanks, and Sewheil nods to them before leaving to help direct the others she picked up along the way; potions are being brewed, it seems, and emergency treatments readied.
“Where…” Jeno begins, and Leah shifts over to sit beside her.
Leah explains it all; where they are, how she escaped and came here for answers, the fake invaders, the real reason Valerin hates Seffon. Jeno nods along.
“And my family? They…they sent those invaders? Every time the horns blew and you rode out to fight…”
“We don’t know for sure…likely, they were Devadiss, working with Cheden.”
The girl nods, accepting this.
“Jeno, do you…do you know anything about your family’s ties to Devad? The peace that Jesaii brokered?”
Jeno shakes her head.
“What about captain Eschen?”
She flinches and shrinks into herself, and Leah wraps her up in a hug. They rock together for a moment, Leah petting Jeno’s hair, before the girl finally speaks. “How long have you known all this? Did you keep it secret when you were still with us in Valerin, all that time?”
“I’ve been doing research since I got here. Back then I just suspected.”
“Could you have known about it before your memory was wiped?” Jeno takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to think you were lying to me back then. Have any of your memories of then come back?” This last is hopeful.
“I don’t think Leah knew back then, although she might have guessed.”
Jeno looks up at the odd phrasing, and Leah decides the truth needs to come out. She confesses, quietly, that she didn’t just lose all her memories; she gained a new set. She explains that her mind has switched bodies, in a way; that she is Leah from another world, and that the old Leah is gone, somewhere.
“Gone to your world?” Jeno asks.
Leah shrugs. “I don’t know. I hope not; it would probably be turning out very poorly for her if she had.”
“Poorer than this?”
That silences Leah.
They sit apart and continue talking. Leah confesses that for the first bit she was trying to pretend to be Leah Talesh, for her own safety, and because she couldn’t be sure she could trust her memories, or her experiences. Now that it’s lasted so long, and the spells seem to suggest a swap, she has come to accept that she is in another world, a real world.
“Are you going to stay?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what Seffon and I can figure out. I want to go home, but I also…I’m invested in this world now. Its future matters to me, and the people here.”
Jeno comes a bit closer as she says that.
“No, Jeno…” Leah pulls back. “That’s part of why I’m confessing. I played along with our charade while I was still trying to be someone I wasn’t, but I’ve accepted that I’m not Leah Talesh…and Leah Talesh was the one you fell for, not me. I’m an echo. Less than that, I’m a bad reflection.”
Jeno considers this. “That time you said we should start over again as friends…that was about this, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I was afraid of being found out, and felt guilty for stringing you along.”
“I see.”
Leah waits to see how this is received, and Jeno sits up a little straighter and nods. She wipes the wet from her cheeks, and the dirt from her clothes. The shackles jangle as she does so.
“Where can I get these removed?” Jeno asks finally, shaking her wrists.
“I know a blacksmith here, but I think we’d better start with looking for a lock-picker.” Leah stands up and holds a hand out for Jeno, who takes it, but coolly. As they turn to leave, Seffon enters.
Leah calls his name, and he hesitates awkwardly in the doorway, watching them approach. “Where could I find a lock-picker, to remove the cuffs?”
“Near the forges, just to the north of them,” Seffon says curtly. “I could send someone to escort you.”
“We’ll find the way, thank you,” Leah says, guiding Jeno out. Seffon seems perfectly content to let them go without even a second look as they pass him, though Leah notes that Jeno tenses slightly as they cross each other.
The Hold is bustling now. Arms and armour are being carried through the halls by militiamen and guards. Leah lets go of Jeno’s hand after a few steps, and simply walks beside her. People duck out of the way for them, and Leah realises that even without her spear and shield, she is still an imposing figure in half-armour, blood-stained and walking with purpose. The power-trip helps carry her the rest of the way to the lock-picker’s.
The room is cramped, with a variety of well-crafted locks and keys, some of them obviously enchanted from the runes carved in their metal. Remembering what got her in this mess, Leah pointedly does not try to read any of the writing.
The only person present, a young and deft-handed teenage boy, looks at her in shock, but readily accepts to take off the shackles. It takes a few tries, as the mechanism is small and well-made, but the cuffs finally spring open, and Leah gently removes them. Jeno thanks him in Volsti, and the boy looks at her in confusion and curiosity.
Heading back to the more residential area, Leah leads Jeno to her room. “You can stay here, until we get a place sorted for you,” she says, and Jeno nods politely, looking around the room. “There’s a wash closet around the corner, and spare clothes in the dresser, if you want to change out of…” Leah trails off, looking at the shift that Jeno is wearing. It is similar to hers, from her time in prison, though the activity of the past hour has shaken off most of the woodchips and grime.
“Please,” Jeno says, a little quickly but not desperately. Leah takes out a spare set of suede leggings and a loose linen top, and helps Jeno get changed; the clothes are baggy on her, but she laces them up to stay in place. The girl is not injured, she is relieved to see. There is, however, a bruise at the back of her neck.
“What’s this from?” Leah asks, touching the area next to it but not the bruise itself.
Jeno tenses. “I…can’t remember clearly. It was dark…he made the room go dark, and…”
Leah stifles the response to hug her, and instead strokes Jeno’s shoulder and nods. “I know. He did the same to me, with the truth spell.”
“This wasn’t from the truth spell. This was from before.”
Now Leah tenses up, focusing not to clench her fists. She leads Jeno to sit down on the bed, and she kneels in front of her. “Tell me what happened.”
Jeno remains somewhat hunched, looking at the floor. “I tried to argue with my parents, after I saw you in prison. I said that you couldn’t be guilty, that I knew it wasn’t true. They refused to yield, and insisted that they would not allow anyone else so easily influenced to be their daughter’s guard,” she says, distantly bitter. “They insisted that Eschen be reassigned as my protector. The Valerids were hesitant, and they tried to argue against it, but my parents held you up as an example of why I needed a mage as my protector. Lord Valerid eventually agreed that it was the only responsible thing to do, when facing a magic-using foe.”
Jeno stares into the distance for a little bit, rubbing the back of her hand. She inhales sharply and shakes out of it. “The captain put his hand there, I guess he meant it as a sort of gesture of reassurance.” Jeno gestures to the bruise, but still won’t make eye-contact. “I can’t remember much after that, not clearly. It was like watching myself as a ghost, going through the motions. I can barely even remember the wedding…the birds…”
Leah breathes a sigh of relief; Jeno looks up in confusion. “Well, I – I thought it might have been…he might have…” Leah doesn’t finish the thought, seeing Jeno’s confusion. “I’ll talk with Seffon, see if there’s anything we can do to help you recover.”
Jeno tenses up again at the name.
Leah pats her hands gently. “It’s alright, we won’t use magic if you don’t want to. We won’t even try to bring back those memories, if you don’t want them.”
Jeno does not relax, but does not become more distraught. Leah sighs again.
“I have to go. There’s a lot I need to discuss with him, and we need to prepare in case Valerin does in fact decide to go forward with their attack on Seffonshold. You’ll be alright here?”
Jeno nods, and Leah pats her hands one last time before standing up to go.