8.5

Adelyne always had a lot of time to think, eventually.

Before it was when she was slipping through the crowd looking for a good mark, or sitting on the corner to rest her legs and catch her breath after escaping her less skilled snatches.

Or when no one could offer more than a rind of bread to gnaw and watery beer to drink and she was trying to eat slowly enough she could pretend to be full.

Lately she had time to think while she failed to measure up in the tasks set by her lady.

So while trying to somehow get the floors of Kaeketeh free of dust and scraps Adelyne put her mind to thinking.

Her grandpa would say she should save some of her thoughts for when it actually mattered instead of wasting it all after the fact.

But Adelyne rarely remembered in the moment.

She acted and then thought.

In the feasting hall she had laughed.

Laughed because it was oh so silly. Then kept laughing because her thoughts had begun to creep into the space beyond the surprise. Once those terrible thoughts slipped in she had to laugh because she couldn't afford to start screaming. Her lady, her savior, the beast and tyrant and wyrm that owned her life in far too many ways was just so absolutely absurd and terrifying.

Jewel had thought those things were what children looked like!

The Wyrm had the power to curse (deservedly) almost a thousand men! With a reach that eventually had touched the entire city! And such a terrible curse it was too! Something fit for dark tales under starlight.

Adelyne’s Lady had changed them! By the stories and whispers she knew of regarding the powers of sorcery she could have made the men into pigs, or rats, or crawling worms!

Could have slain them all dead where they stood or made them into scum in the river!

Stolen their shadows so that the touch of daylight burnt them into nothing!

Sorcery as Adalyne understood it could do most anything.

But Jewel was a kind and absurdly fair lady and so had tried to turn them into children! The power of it was horrifying but even worse was the absurdity of how badly her lady Wyrm had failed to do as intended!

The creatures she had wrought of the old countess’ men were maybe the right size for children.

From a distance and the back you could maybe mistake them as children. But up close their limbs were too long despite the size, the heads shaped not quite right. And most importantly of all were the faces.

From the front there was no mistaking the curse changed for a human child.

Adelyne had seen a dozen of the accursed men. Each had different and distinct features but not one of them had a face any but the blind could mistake for a child!

Their faces did not even look human!

The shapes were all subtly wrong! their eyes far too large and tilted slightly, lashes too thick, Their mouths too small. And yet even with that it did not end. Jewel had declared that these were what she thought children looked like?!

But the faces these things wore while perhaps pretty or even adorable in an uncanny and disquieting way were definitely not children! It did not help that most of them were also scowling with expressions too old for youth, with faces that wrinkled and scrunched far more than anyone Adelyne had ever seen should be able to.

Not even the fattest lord in middle town could furrow a brow that much!

Such smooth skin as these things had was not supposed to be able to curdle up like a twisted oaken knot in anger!

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

And when one sneered?!

Noses should not be able to move like that! Nostrils flaring so wide.

Their faces squeezed and shifted in ways that Adelyne found equal parts fascinating and disturbing.

She had not seen one of them smile yet but every expression they made was a disorienting motion across their faces and she suspected if one ever did it would be terrifying.

But hopefully her lady’s declaration would mean Adelyne never had too.

It had been a dismissal and release in word, but the tone spoke of exile. No one could mistake one as anything but what they were either. They were visibly and undeniably touched by sorcery.

Every one of them looked like a foreigner in their own homeland!

And word was already spreading through the staff just who exactly the strange tiny figures (most of them now in the seeming form of girls) once were.

Their distinct look would now mark out the old Countess’ man!

Even some that had retired were changed if the gossip was right!

Everyone in Kaeketeh with a score to settle would know just who to go after. It was such a warm thought it brought a smile to her lips despite the mystery of why the dust would not go where she pushed it!

Adelyne stopped in her mostly wasted effort to sweep.

Her thinking was catching up to her.

Staring into the hall at the other staff that mostly ignored her and considering just how many fearful looks once watched the streets of Kaeketeh. How many friends cowered at the looming figures in those terrible colors. What would happen when they realized that those strange, foreign looks meant a former wearer of that hated armor?

Oh...

Oh, fortune’s stars!

Oh, that was going to be bad!

So fortune damned stars in an overflowing shitpit bad!

Adelyne felt a twinge to run to tell Jewel, but the damage was already done. Word would already be making its way out, and for all the wroth her lady showed Adelyne had learned one thing.

Despite having cursed the awful men with warped bodies and very distinct faces Jewel did not in fact want the awful things Kaeketeh was possibly already doing to them to happen. In fact the wyrm would certainly be hurt and possibly even furious at those that tried to settle old scores.

No matter how deserved.

What would an upset Jewel do to Kaeketeh?

Adelyne was already running before that thought finished blooming. She shouted to one of the Valasect footmen she recognized as she passed. Something convincing she hoped, but honestly that was less important than the vital need of getting out on the streets.

She needed to meet with her Grandfather!

He would know how to get the word out!

The cursed former guards were not to be harmed!

Run out of town?

Sure.

But not hurt!

She just had to find him on the street before someone got too high in their new standing in the world and decided to do something monumentally stupid. Did something that was unignorable and drew down the wrath of a dragon on the entire city.

Adelyne thought the shithead guards deserved worse than they got for working for the countess.

But that didn't matter! Her Lady had declared they had paid their due!

If Jewel couldn't even tell how badly she had failed to turn them into children, what would she do in trying to bring justice to one of Adelyne’s bone headed peers on the street?!

And the Lady Jewel had not just cursed one guard or a few!

The Shining Wyrm of Viznove cursed all of them!

Adelyne’s over shod feet slapped hard against the cobbles of the courtyard.

The next curse uttered for the countess’ justice might sweep the entire city!

Not a gate or shouting voice could stop the daughter of Kaeketeh in her haste to save her home!

She was through the wall fort and its bridges before she even knew it.

Now Adelyne just had to get past midtown. Without any but private guards it should be easy.

Grandpa Ginter would be by the docks eating some smoked fish for a late lunch, or maybe drinking by the gate this time of day.

She just had to run clear across the city and somehow beat the speed of stupidity and gossip.

Adelyne was running fast before, but now she fled so hard her lungs burned and her toes smarted.

This was going to end so fortune damned badly!

But maybe she could stop the worst of it?