Youch! And here I told myself I'd have this chapter up only a month or so after the last one. Apologies, and many thanks for baring with me. Everything is hectic and I am a mess of headaches, sleep deprivation and poor time management. I will try to do better.
Quick thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, you are all wonderful as I'm sure you know. Continual thanks to everyone who is still reading, reviewing, following and favouriting even now, every time I get a new notification that someone has followed, liked or commented my motivation levels go up - which is something I really find myself in need of at the moment.
So, with just one more note: If any of you are Naruto fans, I've recently started a new fic called A Lesson In Dying, which I'd love for you to check out (even if you don't like Naruto?) and give feedback on. Shameless self promotion complete, please enjoy the new chapter.
Chapter 27
"Elves." I breathe, turning my eyes back to Brúin who remains oblivious to the goings on around him.
"Aye, the elves have more healing power than I do," Master Oin admits as he fiddles with his hearing trumpet. "If anyone can save your brother now it is them."
The Elves. They have looked down on my people – both literally and figuratively – for years beyond counting. They think us greedy, ill tempered and similarly mannered and all the while they covet our jewels and gems.
And now the elves of Mirkwood – the very ones who left my people to fend for themselves after a dragon attack, tired, homeless and heartsick. Who would have done the same, leaving not only the King under the Mountain to his fate, but his sister-sons too – they are the ones I must seek help from.
I bristle at the thought of it. I do not like to ask assistance at the best of times, even of my own people, but to ask an elf. I shake my head, and feel the cold heavy weight of my brother hand in my own – and my pride quietens.
For my siblings I will do anything, even beg the help of an elf.
With new resolve flowering in my stomach I gently tuck Brúins hand back on the bed and push to my feet, fists clenched at my sides. "I'll go to the Greenwood and-"
"No." Both my father and Thorin say at the same time. They share a look and it is the King who turns back to me with an explanation.
"You are injured, Lady Rúin," He reminds me and I have to stop myself from reaching up to touch the tender slash on my face. "It is a days ride to the edges of the Mirkwood and even now the elves do not look kindly on our people, there is no guarantee they will aid you."
"I will not sit by and watch my brother die when there are those out there that could heal him." I say through gritted teeth, angry that anyone would think I would do otherwise.
"And I would not ask you to," His Majesty informs me, raising his hands in an almost defensive gesture. "But as I said, you are injured and in no state to travel."
"But I-" I start, my rage still sitting high in my chest, when my father cuts me off.
"You're not thinking straight lass," He says, stepping forward to place his hands on my shoulders which sag under the added weight. "You're worried about yer brother, we all are – but you took a hit too, you need rest."
"But Brúin-" I try again, desperately.
"Brúin is strong, he'll hold as long as he can." My father reminds me.
"The day is still young," The King under the Mountain speaks again, causing my father to drop his hands to his side so that he and I can turn back to Thorin. "We can send a delegation to the elves to ask for their aid. I cannot go myself but perhaps you Lord Dalkin could-"
"Aye, I'll go." My father nods.
"With me then, we have much to prepare." The King says, casting my brother one last look before nodding to my mother, sister and I. He turns on his heel and disappears behind the screen, the Princes trailing in his wake.
I move to follow but my fathers bulk blocks my way.
"Where'd you think yer going?" He asks, his voice a growl. "Didn't you hear when I said you needed rest?"
"Father I-" And am once again cut off.
"Your father is right, Rúin," My mother pipes up, her voice hitching and still not recovered from her crying. "You need to sit and rest, your father and I will take care of things now."
I look first at her, then back to my father and see the resolve in their faces. I need to remember that I am not the only one who loves Brúin, that I am not the only one who wants him safe and whole and healthy.
I nod.
"I will remain here and watch over Brúin," I say finally. "Please hurry."
My father nods, pulls both me and Trúin into a brief and crushing hug before striding off after the King under the Mountain with my mother at his heels, leaving me with only my siblings for company.
I sink back into my chair and take up Brúins hand again while Trúin drags another over to seat herself beside me. I try not to wince at the squeal of wood on stone.
We sit in silence for a few moments before Trúin reaches over and places a hand on my knee and I glance at her. Her eyes are shining with unshed tears, her face blotchy and her nose pink from sniffling – and Mahal damn it if she doesn't still look beautiful.
"Rúin, what happened?" She asks quietly and I blink my confusion back at her before she uses the hand not resting on my knee to motion at my head. "To your face I mean – when you left I.."
"You probably think me heartless for running off while Brúin lay injured," I murmur, glancing down at where my twins hand lays cold in my own. "I should have stayed I know, but I felt so scared. So useless."
I shake my head and feel Trúin's hand tighten on my knee.
"I do not think you heartless at all," Trúin assures me, and I am not sure I believe her. "Did you.. did you find the one who.."
She trails off again and I let out a sigh, then nod my head.
"Yes, I found him. He is the one who injured me," I tell her and look up to see her watching me with intense blue eyes, like deep sapphires staring back at me. Trúin nods her head and almost reluctantly I retell my whirlwind trip through the mountain after leaving her in the entry way.
I hesitate before I finish. Do I really want to admit to my sister that I almost beat the other dwarf to death? That I would have quite happily just carried on letting my fists fall until my brothers assailant no longer breathed.
No. I don't want to tell her that.
I let my eyes wander back to my lap, where Brúin's hand rests in mine. I try to block out the paleness of his skin, how cold and clammy it is and white it looks against mine. I focus on my own hands.
They hurt.
My knuckles are split, all across my left and right hand. The skin is raw and cracked, oozing a stodgy mixture of blood and serum which stings the cuts. I try to flex the hand not holding Brúins and wince.
Without a word Trúin stands and disappears behind the partition, leaving a warm patch on my leg where her hand rested. Behind the section I can hear her voice, hushed in the way people speak when in places of healing or libraries.
She returns a few moments later with small bowl of water, a lidded pot and a bundle of rags, which she rests gently at the foot of Brúins bed before she vanishes behind the partition again. Briefly I think that, had Brúin been of sound body, he would have probably tried to knock the water bowl to the floor, simply to vex his older sister.
He remains still though, no hint of mischievous grin on his blue tinged lips and I push the thought away.
Trúin reappears with what looks to be a small wooden end table, which she sets down between my chair and her own. I watch without much interest as she drags her chair still closer to mine and leaves for a third time.
When she comes back it is with another bowl of water, this one larger than the first. She places it on the end table and reaches over to extract one of the cloths from the pile at Brúins feet.
Then she seats herself, tucking her dress under her legs and shuffling minutely until she is comfortable before she turns her attention to me. My sister moves the large bowl to her lap then takes my free hand, gently - as if she is worried it will disintegrate at her touch – and then slowly lowers it into the bowl of warm water.
I bite my lip, then stop because the movement pulls on the slash down my face. Whatever mixture the healers applied to the slice has since dried, flaking away with each twitch of cheek or jaw, tightening the skin so that I am aware of each movement and how it pulls.
When Trúin removes my hand from the water it is distinctly more red than it had been before, and after she submerges my second one it looks as if Mahal himself has leant down and filled the bowl with pink tourmaline in liquid form.
I watch as she pats them dry, being careful over the split skin so it doesn't catch on the fibres of the cloth. It still does, but the water had softened the ripped skin enough that I didn't flinch.
She examined my hands for a moment, peering into the worst of the splits as if the answer to all lifes problems could be found just under the surface if only she looked hard enough. A moment later she stands up again and takes the bloodied water to the partition where she handed it off to someone else.
Then she picks up the second bowl from Brúins bed along with yet more of the rags and reseats herself.
"Tell me." She says without looking up.
I inhale deeply and am about to relay her the details of my final encounter with our brothers attacker when she dips one of the rags into the smaller bowl of water and runs it across my knuckles, filling the cuts with molten fire that turns my sigh into a hiss.
That, I think, is not water.
"Sorry," Trúin says quietly, her eyes flicking up to mine then back to her work. "The solution is to cleanse the wound and help prevent infection, I'm afraid it stings a bit."
"My thanks for the warning," I bite out, teeth clenched against the pain. It hurts more now than it did when the skin split open, hammering blows down onto the prone dwarf – a lack of adrenaline to soften the pain T suppose.
Trúin says nothing else in response, simply fixes me with a look that lets me know she is waiting and returns to her butchery of my hands. I pause a long minute, trying to faze out the feeling of glass being ground into an open wound as she wipes her cloth tenderly across my cuts and collect my thoughts.
"I was at a disadvantage after he injured me," I admit, picking up where I left off, after the would-be assassin had left me bruised and bleeding in the corridor. "My eye was all but useless and I was tiring quickly. I knew that if I was to catch Brúins assailant I had to it fast. My only advantage was that I suspect he didn't think to see me again."
Trúin nods, keeping her focus on my hands.
"I caught up to him in short time, my first strike caught him off guard as he turned to see me," I flexed my free hand and winced again. "That original strike is what split my hands apart, though I doubt the ones that followed helped. I broke his nose."
Watching Trúin from under my lashes I see she doesn't react to this news, simply carries on her ministrations and patiently waits for me to continue. I didn't want to tell her. No matter my personal feelings towards Trúin – both past and present- I have always been her little sister.
She knows I can fight and brawl and battle with the best of them, but she doesn't often see the results of such things. A split lip here, a black eye there, a broken limb on very rare occasions. I have never regaled her with tales of mine and Brúins exploits and this one especially feels too... soon. Too close. Too raw. More so than the jagged cut down my face and the gashes where my knuckles should be.
It is foolish but I realise I am ashamed of myself. Not for going after the other dwarf who injured my brother so badly – I will never regret that, nor the new scars I received while doing so – I don't even regret catching him.
I do not want to tell her how I lost control of myself. I was wild with grief, too pained to do anything other than keep hitting and hitting and hitting until the whole world went red. I didn't care that I was injured too, I didn't care that it hurt to keep going. I just wanted to kill him.
Mindless vengeance with no thought for how useful the dwarf I was beating to a bloody pulp might be. How much he might know, if given to the right people and how that information might aid the King under the Mountain. My sister is much more politically minded than myself, but even I can see how valuable that information may prove to be.
I hadn't cared.
"He fell. I made sure he couldn't get away." I tell her and my tongue feels like lead in my mouth, thick and heavy. I could stop talking, remain silent until Trúin has finished whatever other tortures she has planned for my injuries. She wouldn't blame me, I'm sure.
My sister finishes cleaning my other hand and nods to herself, pleased with how my cuts look now that the blood and gore has been wiped away. She keeps her gaze to herself as, once again, she stands and passes the small bowl of hellfire into the waiting hands of someone I cannot see and picks up the sealed pot in it's place.
She takes my hands again.
In the pot is a thick white paste which I assume is similar who whatever was slathered over my face when I first arrived some hours ago. Mahal, only a few hours ago. It feels longer than that, as if I have been sitting here for days. Years, even.
Trúin scoops some of the paste out with one finger and begins to rub it into the open space where my skin should be. It is cold, a relief compared to the last concoction she had me endure.
"I hit him," I finally say, and it is like a flood gate has been lifted from behind my teeth. "I hit him again and again. I couldn't stop myself. I hated him, still do. I would have killed him Trúin, right there in the hallway, with my bare hands, had his Majesty not stepped in. I wanted to. I wanted to rip him apart."
Trúin turns this information over in her head, her fingers working quickly to spread the paste into each cut and scrape on my hands. The silence stretches out, and just when I think she isn't going to say anything she does, "Good."
"Good?" I repeat, trying not to frown because it does something painful to my face.
"I wish his Majesty hadn't stopped you," She tells me, finally looking up. My sisters eyes are dry, no sign of the tears that had streaked her face less than an fifteen minutes ago. In their place is a cold anger, burning like blue fire under her light lashes. "I'm glad you hurt him. I'm glad he suffered, I hope he still is, wherever the King had him taken to. I hope he is weeping with pain, mad with it, even."
She is holding both my hands now, tighter and tighter as her anger reaches it's peak. I keep the grimace from my face as her hands constrict painfully around mine. Trúin has had no outlet for her anger – certainly not in the way that I had – she has not had the chance to hit out at the world for the injustice that has befallen our brother. So I let her channel it through me.
If Brúin were not lying motionless in the bed beside us, I might suggest she try her hand against a training dummy, but neither of us will leave my brother, not now.
"I want him dead, Rúin," Trúin tells me, her own knuckles turning white as they grip my hands, probably ruining all the work she has done on them. "I want to see the agony on his face, for him to feel some small portion of the pain he has caused us. I want him to regret the day he ever set foot under the mountain. I want to kill him for what he has done to my little brother."
Trúin pauses, looks down at our joined hands and instantly hers go slack as she realises the amount of pressure she has been holding on with. A sigh escapes my sisters lips and she looks up at me again, "And for the pain he has put you through. I only wish I had been there to see you do it."
"We were both of us where we needed to be, at the time," I tell her, because that is true. Trúin could not have done what I did to that other dwarf, and I could not have stayed by my brothers side and tried to stop his life blood from leaking away while his attacker escaped. "I feel no sorrow for my own injuries, I would gladly have taken more pain, even lost my eye for Brúin. If... if the worst should happen, if Brúin should die, there will be no regret that we could have done more. For either of us."
My sister simply nods and finishes the task of smearing my hands with the white paste. With that done Trúin wraps them neatly in strips of bandage and we turn to watch our brothers quiet form, the rising and falling of his chest the only indication that he hasn't already left us.
.
.
Three agonisingly slow days pass while my sister, my mother and I wait for my father and his small delegation to return from the Greenwood with an elven healer.
Three days that Brúin remains still, but for the shallow up down of his chest. If anything he looks to be getting paler, if that is possible. Almost translucent. The skin around his eyes is dark, like someone has smudged circles of charcoal there. I can see the spidery web of veins under his skin, a mottled blue like molten kyanite beneath his skin.
Three days in which I am forced to listen to my mother trying to make small talk about anything and everything except what is really important. That, or the deafening silence that fills the gaps between her mindless chatter. I'm not sure which is worse yet.
Even Trúin stopped responding after the second day, not to be rude, but simply because our mother was repeating conversations we had already had. I don't blame her. We all cope in our own ways, I just preferred to not participate in the monotonous stream of pointless conversation.
I tried reading, but I found my eyes kept sliding from the pages of my book and back to where Brúin lay, unmoving on the bed. After reading the same line three times I had snapped the book shut -which startled my mother enough to dropping the sewing hoop she was working on – and shoved it away from me.
Oin makes us take breaks from watching Brúin. Myself in particular whom he insists on inspecting to make sure my injuries are healing. Every day he washes and repacks the cut on my face with the paste that dries and leaves my skin feeling tight. He binds my ribs – one of which he suspects is broken or at least cracked – and fixes me foul tasting concoctions that he swears will air my recovery, but I am sceptical about. I take them anyway.
Trúin continues her work on my hands. It gives her something to do and at least this way I don't have to listen to Master Oin muttering under his breath about how much trouble I am. My sister might feel the same way, but she is kind enough that she doesn't mention it.
Brúin is never left alone. One of us is always with him, if not all three. If mother is off eating and I have gone to have a hurried bath Trúin remains by his side. When Trúin takes a rushed trip to the markets in search of slightly softer bandages for my hands and mother is requesting reports on my brothers attacker, I am with him. On the brief occasion I escape the suffocating air of the healing quarter to beat the stuffing out of a training dummy, or Trúin is away fending off questions from her so called friends our mother watches over him.
Despite the fact that I know Brúin is running out of time I feel restless. I should be doing all I can to keep him comfortable and breathing a sigh of relief every morning I wake up to find him still breathing. Nothing is happening. My life has ground to a halt, circling slowly around my brothers bed praying that he will hold until my father returns, which surely, surely he will do – any moment. With a handful of elven healers who will look at Brúin and know exactly what to do and how to make him smile again. I pray for it in the hours I sit silently beside him. It is all I have to give.
I can do nothing except sit and wait, and I hate every minute of it.
Which is why when Thorin appears some time in the late hours of the third day I am on my feet in seconds, not to curtsey as my mother and sister do, but to demand answers. I don't get that far.
My eyes fall on the figure beside the King. Another dwarf, not a particularly impressive one and quite plain when stood next to Thorin Oakenshield. The unknown dwarf twists the hem of his tunic under my gaze, looking everywhere but at my face, or the other members of my family.
"Your Highness, you have news?" Mother asks, stepping forward to place a hand on my shoulder. I'm not sure what she is expecting me to so, but it feels more like a motion of restraint than one of comfort.
"Lady Yutte, I'm afraid I have bad news," Thorin says, his dark eyes flicking from my mother to me, then over my shoulder where I assume Trúin is standing, then back again. "This is Merin, you may recognise him as one of the delegation sent with Lord Dalkin."
"My father? Has he returned?" I question before mother can even open his mouth. "Did he bring the elves? Are they coming?"
I almost wince at the hope tingeing my words, how they falter and die in the sombre air around us. The King under the Mountain watches me for a moment, his silence speaking more than the words that follow, "Lord Dalkin has not returned."
"Then why is Merin here, and not with my father?" I bite out, feeling unease writhing in my gut. "Why has he returned if he has bought no help for my brother?"
"My lady I-" Merin begins, then visibly flinches when I turn my gaze on him. I find I do not care. "Lord Dalkin sent me. We – that is to say, the delegation – well, your father sent a message and I was-"
"What message?" I demand, ignoring the way my mothers fingers dig into my shoulder.
"We have not yet found the elves," Merin tells me. It comes out all in a rush, like he just wants this conversation to be over and thinks the quicker he speaks the sooner he can leave. "Your father – Lord Dalkin- said to tell you that the elves are not there, or they are not making themselves known to us. He says he will not leave until one of the pompous bas- one of the elves hears him and comes to aid Lord Brúin – not unless you send word first, that..."
"That my brother has died from waiting?" I spit out, seething. I am not angry at this dwarf. Nor am I angry at my father. Nor really at the elves. What do they owe me and my family? Nothing. A grief stricken dwarf hurling obscenities into the trees -which I'm sure is what my father has been doing – is not likely to pull on their heart strings any more than an elf hammering on the doors of Erebor would mine.
I am angry at myself.
Three days I have sat here as the sands of Brúin's life slowly slip through my fingers. Three days I have waited, praying to Mahal for an elf to come and save him where my people have failed. Three days and they have not even found the elves? Three days wasted.
"Rúin..." Thorin begins, his voice quiet, but I shake my head and pull away from the hand he has extended towards me. I shrug off my mothers grip and turn my back on them, not meeting Trúins eyes as I pass her and drop heavily into the seat beside my brothers bed.
I cannot stop the tears that spill from my eyes as I take Brúin's hand in my bandaged fingers, nor do I try and stop the shaking of my shoulders as the sobs grow. I do not care who sees. My brother has been slowly decaying for days, waiting for help that isn't coming.
I let myself cry, even though I want to scream.
.
.
Night has fallen when I rise from my chair, my back aching from hunching over my brothers cold, pale body all day, refusing to be parted from him. Asking forgiveness for failing him. For leaving him.
I lean over his still form and press a kiss to his forehead, as I did the last time I left him – when this torture first began. His skin is cool under my lips, damp with sweat.
He smells ill, like he has a wound that is festering somewhere unseen, even though I know he doesn't. I have watched Oin change the dressing on his chest each morning for the last three days and there is no sickness there.
It is in his blood.
I pull away with a whispered, "Wait for me," and step back, taking in every detail in the dim half light of the covered lanterns.
This is not how I will remember my brother, if I return and he is not here. I will remember him as the bright, energetic and obnoxiously irritating older brother he is. I will see Brúin as light hearted jokes, a teasing grin and a warm embrace. It is still important to see him like this though, and I stand for too long just watching him.
Eventually I turn and edge out of the healing rooms, passed the chairs where my mother and sister are sleeping; passed the bed where Toldin still rests, snoring fitfully. I step round the guards at the door – Marrik is not there, for which I am grateful, as he would only insist on coming with me, or stopping me altogether – I wave them off when one offers to walk me to my destination, telling them I am only visiting the bathroom.
The halls of Erebor are as quiet as any large structure housing so many can be, which is to say that even in the dark evening hours it is still hectic. Not with merchants or nobles or miners, but with the staff that keep the Kingdom under the Mountain running while everyone else is pretending to do more important things.
I sidestep a pair of maids, chattering amicably as they head off to complete whatever chores they have. Once at my room I quickly gather my things; sleeping sack, bow, quiver, knife, food, sword. All my possessions found their way back to my quarters from the caravans bound for the Iron Hills, and though I don't know who had the fore-thought to order such things I am grateful. It makes sneaking away in the dead of night much easier.
With all the necessary possessions accounted for I head out again, pausing near the main entrance to let four servers carrying a large cracked mirror pass. Any other day I might have been curious enough to engage in conversation - no doubt it is one of the mirrors used to bounce light around the interior halls - but I have no time to waste. They give me a nod of thanks but I am already moving.
It doesn't take long for me to reach the wide ramp that disappears into the roots of the mountain, where ponies and mounts are housed. There is little foot traffic down here, except for the staff that run the stables.
"I need a pony," I say, coming to a stop beside a middled aged dwarf who blinks slowly up at me from behind large round spectacles. He is sitting on the floor, propped up against a hay bale and likely dozing before my interruption.
"Little late for a ride, ain't it?" He laughs sleepily, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "We don't usually have many folks down here, this time of night."
"I need a pony," I say again, this time with more force. "Do not make me ask a third time."
The dwarf looks up properly and I see his eyes roving over the scar on my face.
I am wearing breeches, boots and a thick jacket to stave off the chill of the night, over my leathers – I do not look like a noble born lady. I do not look like someone who is willing to take jokes for long. He pushes to his feet and stands for an annoyingly long second before my glare gets him moving.
"We've ponies what belong to his Highness. Any can use them, but there's a price of ten gold to be paid," The dwarf tells me as he ambles over to a ledger that sits on a desk made of crates. "You get half back when you return-"
I slap the ten gold coins on top of the ledger along with three more, "Here is your horse fare, and more besides which you can do whatever you like with so long as you stop wasting my time."
The dwarf blinks down at the coins and his hand snakes out to snatch up the three extra, dropping them into his pocket. He scribbles a name down in the leather bound book that is so scrawled that it is completely illegible, then scoops up the rest of the money which he deposits into a lock box under the crate-desk.
Finally he beckons me to follow him, and quickly saddles a midling sized brown pony that watches me with warm brown eyes, chuffing hay sweet breath into my face.
"Tess is a good girl, she'll get you where you need to be safe as you like," The dwarf tells me, patting the pony on the flank after he finishes saddling her. He hands me the reins. "I take it you know how to ride?"
My answer is to climb quickly onto the ponies back and nudge it forward with a gentle dig of my heels. Tess obediently lumbers onward and the two of us make a quick exit, heading back up the ramp that leads to the causeway.
I am both surprised and not to find Trúin standing a short way from the great doors, peering anxiously into the darkness, fearing she has missed me. The sound of Tess' hooves against the stone bridge draw her attention and relief floods my sisters face.
"Rúin! I knew you would do something like this!" Trúin tells me as she hurries to my side. "You're going to try and find the elves, aren't you?"
"Please don't try and stop me Trúin," I beg her. "I don't know if I will do any better than father, but I cannot sit by Brúins bedside and watch him die without trying to do something."
"I know, I know," My sister nods, looking torn. "I won't stop you, I came to give you this."
Trúin digs a large clinking bag from the satchel slung over her shoulder and stuffs it hurriedly into one of the ponies saddle bags. "It's not much, but you might be able to buy help from the elves."
I had a similar idea as well, a second bulging coin purse sits snugly in the other saddle bag. There is little doubt in my mind that the elves will care for such, but it is worth a try. I will take anything I can get at this point. I would give whatever fortune my parents have amassed during their lives, I would give our titles and all our riches for a chance to save Brúin.
"Thank you, but I've got to go Trúin, we are wasting time." I tell her and she nods again.
"Yes, of course," My sister grabs one of my hands and squeezes my fingers, careful of my knuckles. "Try following the river, I don't how true it is but in all the tellings of how His Majesties company escaped the Elven Kings palace it was by riding the barrels down stream. If you can follow that stream back up you will find the elves – just do it quickly. Brúin is strong, but he is fading."
I nod, a lump in my throat as I nudge Tess forward again.
"Mahals luck, little sister." Trúin whispers, her words following me as I ease my pony into a trot, taking advantage of the causeways even surface in the darkness.
Tess and I make good time down the highway to the city of New Dale. And even though we had to weave between the buildings and avoid trampling various humans we still only spent less than twenty minutes in the town until the houses began to thin out and the vast open space between Erebor and the Greenwood stretched out in front of me.
There was a path, of course. With the restoration of New Dale and the ascension of Bard to leader of the people the road to the Greenwood had also been repaired. Relations between the humans and the elves were better than those with my own people, but that didn't mean I couldn't use their pathways.
I wasn't about to risk crippling my pony and wasting my own time by trying to cut a shorter path across the plains, not when there was a paved road for me to follow that would be almost hazard free in the darkness.
Hazard free for the pony at least. There were still bandits and the various beasts that prowled the outskirts of the cities to worry about. I brushed a hand over my sword, the hilt resting comfortably against my hip and pushed Tess forward, one thought swirling round my head.
I have to get help for my brother, or he will die.
So, Rúin sneaks off to find the elves. Naughty! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Thanks to everyone on tumblr who followed along with my word count and gave me kind messages when I was wimping out over my headaches *throws cookies into the wind for you all* Please Review/follow/fave as you see if. Don't forget to give A Lesson In Dying a look in if it interests you. Until next time, much love.
