"Lady Kel! Lady Kel!" shouted a child's voice as Kel looked up from her maps and charts in surprise.
"What is it, Meech?" Kel asked.
"Messenger came, messenger came!" Meech nearly bounced in place. After a long and boring winter when nothing and no one moved, including messengers, anything different was new and exciting.
"Thanks, Meech. I'll be right down." Kel groaned as she stood up and twisted from side to side, hearing her back pop and crunch along every vertebra.
"No, Lady, I brought 'im," responded the little boy, moving to the side. An unfamiliar man wearing royal livery stepped into the room.
"Message for Lady Knight Keladry," he intoned.
"I am she," Kel responded. She took the scroll he held out to her, noting with surprise that it bore the Royal Seal. This came directly from the King!
She ripped open the scroll as Meech led the messenger to the mess hall for a meal before he left.
"Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan," it read in the flowing hand of a palace scribe,
We commend you for your excellent performance in protecting the refugees of Haven, now New Hope, during this war. As you know, the former King Maggur of Scanra has been dethroned and his remaining nobles have surrendered. Thus we release you, Sir Nealan of Queenscove, and Sir Merric of Hollyrose from your wartime posts. By order of their majesties King Jonathan and Queen Thayet, return to Corus by Midsummer.
In addition, you will find attached an official deed designating this refugee camp as the Town of New Hope. Before you leave, please appoint leaders for the town according to the custom of the region.
It was signed: King Jonathan and Queen Thayet.
The scroll dropped from numb fingers as Kel collapsed into a chair.
It was Neal who found her, still staring into space as the room grew dark.
"Kel, why weren't you at dinner?" he demanded, bursting into the room and banging the door against the wall. "Kel?"
He picked up the scroll that still lay on the floor where Kel had dropped it.
His eyebrows traveled farther and farther up his forehead as he read. "Well, we've got our marching orders, huh?" he asked, looking at his friend in amusement. "Oh, come on Kel, it's not that bad."
"Not that bad?" she growled, roused from her shock for the first time in hours. "Not that bad? They're making us leave New Hope, leaving my people to fend for themselves. No healer, no soldiers—because they'll take the soldiers too, now that the war's over—no leader. They're making me leave New Hope to laze around Corus and twiddle my thumbs and be useless, when I could be up here where I'm actually needed!"
"Whoa, Kel, calm down," Neal said, snickering at her outburst, "First of all, these people have never been defenseless. You've taught them to fight. Plus they're northerners, so they're tough as it is. Second of all, you are not leaving them to fend for themselves. Remember, the letter said to appoint leaders. You've already got Fanche and Seafas acting as headwoman and headman. And they'll have healers. Remember, I've been teaching Ama, Teja, and Rosel since we found out that they all have the Gift. And they'll have protection from the crown—not that they need it. As an official town, a town on the border, no less, they're entitled to protection from the army, the Own, the Riders, everybody. And thirdly, if I know you, and I do, you'll find something to occupy yourself, some way to make yourself useful. You'll end up riding with the Own or tutoring pages or something. So don't worry, Kel, everything will be fine."
Kel listened to Neal's monologue with a blank face. He made sense. Her people were tough. They could take care of themselves. The people already listened to Fanche and Seafas with almost as much respect as they gave her. But still…. "But still….how can I leave them?"
Neal rolled his eyes. "All baby birds have to fly the nest sometime, Mother. Only in this case, it's really more the mother flying the nest, if you want to be technical. But it amounts to the same thing."
Kel glared at him. "I am going to hurt you."
It took most of the night for Neal to reconcile Kel to the idea that she must leave her people, but he succeeded in the end, though not without a black eye.
The next morning at breakfast, Kel stood on a crate in the mess hall as she had so long ago when she first came to Haven, and informed her people that she had been ordered to leave.
"If I'd thought about it, I would have known this day would come. However, since I didn't, this news has taken me by surprise."
Murmurs spread throughout the hall. "What does she mean?"
"Now that the war is over, the king and queen are beginning to release knights from duty. We are some of the last to go."
Utter silence fell in the hall as all eyes fixed on Kel.
"Neal, Merric, and I have been released. We are commanded to return to Corus."
Pandemonium broke loose in the mess hall. The former refugees jumped to their feet, screaming and shouting in anger.
"NO! THEY CAN'T TAKE OUR LADY KEL! YOU CAN'T LEAVE, LADY!"
"WHAT, SO THEY'RE JUST GONNA LEAVE US? NO KNIGHTS, NO HEALERS? NO COMMANDER?"
"WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW? OUR OLD HOMES LAY IN RUINS! WE HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!"
"QUIET!" Kel was forced to bellow in her battlefield roar.
Silence once more.
"My other announcement will address at least some of your concerns. New Hope is no longer a refugee camp. It is now an official town. I hereby appoint Fanche and Seafas as headwomen and headman."
She paused to wait for the cheering and impromptu dancing to die down.
"I—I have loved being here. I'll admit, at first I thought it was a soft assignment." She smiled at the knowing grins and mutters. "But it definitely wasn't." Outright chuckles swept the hall. "I love each and every one of you. I'll miss you. We leave in three weeks. Thank you."
Kel thought she'd resigned herself to the inevitable, but three weeks later, it took the combined efforts of Neal, Merric, Tobe, and Peachblossom to get her through the gates.
A/N: Phew! I'd started this awhile ago, but never finished it. Then I typed the whole thing up in one day. I apologize in advance for any errors, as it has not been beta'd. I wish I could've gotten Tobe in more, but he never seemed to fit. Two updates in one day! Aren't you proud of me?
Yo no poseo nada