Chapter Twelve: Back Peddling

Midday, 14th July

I sat on the bed and carefully pulled my shirt over my body as David and Kate stood either side of me. Once I was done, they wrapped their arms under mine and prepared to haul me up. My wounds had healed to a point where I felt that I could just about walk back to the castle, I definitely needed my friends to help me with the initial problem of standing up though. Together, they lifted me off the bed I was sat on. My stomach strained and sent waves of pain through my body, but I ignored it as best as I could and let them pull me up.

Once I was finally upright, Kate asked, "Reckon you can stand by yourself now?"

"I can have a go, I guess," I replied, uncertain. Tentatively, they left my side but remained close and ready to hold me if I looked like I was about to collapse. I was unsteady for a moment and had to lean my hand on the back of the chair next to the bed, but I managed to compose myself and stand free. My stomach pulsed with a constant mild pain but I was used to it by this point.

"Do you think you can do this?" David asked after waiting to see if I was stable.

I took in some air to numb the pain and nodded to him. Kate made motions to my still discarded sword, saying, "We probably shouldn't leave this here."

"Kate, wait!" I called, stopping her in her tracks. "Did you forget about the potential death?"

"Fuck's sake. I did."

"I'll get it." I slowly and carefully walked over to the other side of the room with Kate keeping her arms out, ready to catch me if I fell. Keeping my back as straight as possible, I took my time to kneel down next to the sword, wincing as I went. I put the sheathe on and slowly stood up again. Through the pain, I sarcastically said, "See? No problem."

David and Kate both chuckled before Kate beckoned me towards the door, saying, "Come on; your beloved Queen is waiting," which sparked another snicker from both of them.

We exited the room and I found myself on a wooden balcony that overlooked the rest of the inn. The balcony extended in both directions with seven more doors in total that led to rooms similar to my own. I leant on the wooden barrier designed to stop people falling off to the floor below and into the communal area. The inn was nearly empty; on the ten wooden tables, only a couple of middle-aged men sat separately from each other nursing a metal tankard of ale as a tired barmaid sat behind the bar idly cleaning other metal and ceramic tankards with a dirty rag. The patrons' clothes were thin and made of tattered and clearly itchy fabric and one of them wore a cowl that was once white but had turned to more of a brown colour from dirt. Neither of their dirt-covered faces were happy and they barely glanced at us as Kate and David helped me down the narrow creaky stairs at the far end of the inn.

The younger barmaid looked up at us as we reached the bottom. I recognised her as the woman who had brought me my food when Kate and David couldn't. She was wearing a modest blue dress with a loose-fitting undergarment in a slightly dirtied white colour and her long dark hair seemed clumped from grease in certain places. She gave me a nice smile and spoke loudly with a high-pitched and thick West Country accent. "Mornin' Mister Harding. Good to see you on yer feet again. Feeling better, I hear."

"Thanks," I replied, suddenly aware of how relatively posh my accent was, as Kate and David left my side and I moved over to the bar to lean on it and balance myself. "And thank you for putting me up here."

"Oh don't you worry about that." She finished cleaning her tankard and moved over to a cask of ale behind her as she said, "In a terrible state, you were; bleedin' an' sleepin'. Least I could do to help." She filled the tankard with ale and moved back to the bar to hand it to me. "On the 'ouse. Been through a lot, you 'ave." She quickly began to clean two more tankards to pour drinks for Kate and David.

I glanced down into the dark liquid in the tankard, I really didn't fancy it and tried to think of a way to get out of drinking it without seeming rude. I'd been drinking only it for the past few days as it was all she brought me. "Thank you, but you wouldn't happen to have any water, would you?"

She gave me a slightly condescending look. "We don't usually drink much water 'round here, the ale's cleaner." I glanced over to Kate who made drinking motions at me. I took a small sip of the ale; it wasn't terrible, but wasn't as nice as even the mediocre ale we'd had at the King's feast previously.

The barmaid handed Kate and David their drinks and continued on. "When I told me mum about you, she weren't 'appy." She proceeded to do an impression of her mother by going into a somehow even higher pitched voice than her own; it sounded more like a Monty Python impression of a woman than any real voice. "'You can't be givin' out free rooms to anyone who stops by,' she says. Well I tells her, 'This mister 'arding bloke is the King's mate, we can't just ignore 'im.'" I politely nodded along as we all nursed the drinks in front of us. "She stopped complainin' when the Crown's money started coming in, anyway. Payin' us double the going rate, she was!"

"Double?" I asked, thinking I'd misunderstood her strong accent.

"Oh aye. Her messenger said she were concerned somethin' awful."

I heard a small chuckle from Kate as she took another sip before I said, "I must tell her that you've treated me wonderfully. What was your name?"

"Oh where're my manners?" She stretched her dirty hand out towards me, I reluctantly grabbed and shook it. "Sybilla Sawyer. It's nice to finally have a chat. I were a bit afeared to talk before now. Y'know, after all that shoutin' and what not, but you seem a nice enough fella."

"Yeah," I said as I awkwardly cleared my throat. "Sorry about that. I wasn't quite myself."

"Don't think anythin' of it. I've seen worse 'ere some nights anyway."

We chatted for a little while longer as we finished our drinks. She was nice and relatively easy to talk to if a bit full-on.

I realised that Sybilla could be one of the few unbiased people that I could speak to, having little connection to the Crown or events at large. "I'm not sure if it's my place to ask," I began, thinking I could get some information out of an actual resident of the city. "But do you know anything about the King's son, Edward?"

She shook her head and said, "Don't know nothing 'bout that. He only had Mary, didn't he?"

"Apparently he had a son before her, but with another woman."

"Did you say Edward?" One of the men behind us spoke up with an equally strong but gruff West-Country accent. I turned and nodded tentatively at him. He finished his drink, stood up and stumbled towards us, clearly drunk. His hair was matted with the same dirt and grease that also covered his face and clothes. He got slightly too close and stared at me, his breath reeking of alcohol. "Yeah, I 'eard of him. Most have forgotten, but I remember." His hand slipped off the bar but he managed to regain his balance and put it back. "Happened 'bout thirty years ago. He were the bastard son of Harold and some strumpet in the local brothel." He spat slightly in my direction with every hard syllable. "He tried to argue that the bastard wasn't his, but this whore wouldn't leave it alone. She made sure the 'ole city knew whose child it was. That child had a terrible life, he did. No one treated him with any respect and his mother could barely feed 'im. Queen Edith even spat in his face when the mother showed 'im to 'er.

"Anyway, when the lad turned fifteen, Harold and Edith was fed up of the rumours and so had the mother executed and the child banished from the city. Never heard anything from it all after that. S'pose he didn't make it. May God 'ave mercy on his soul."

"I 'eard he went mad and lives with the wolves now," The other man sat on a bench on the other side of the room spoke up in a similar but less rough accent. "Spends his days huntin' 'n his nights schemin'."

The first man swayed around to look at him and dismissively said, "You 'eard that, did ye? Well, I 'eard that he can control men's minds, so I wouldn't believe the first thing you 'ear." He turned back to me after the second man looked back into his drink. "I didn't tell you all this though," he said while leaning in further and lowering his tone. "King would've 'ad me 'ead if he found out. Not sure how the new Queen would take it either."

"Does she even know about him?" Kate asked.

"Dun'no. She's only a young'un, though. King probably didn't tell 'er. Not takin' any chances, though."

"Thanks for telling us all of that," I said before finishing the disgusting dregs of my drink. "But we'd best be off. Got important matters to attend to."

"Aye, good luck to ye all."

"Come back soon, won't ye?" Sybilla called to us as we made motions towards the door.

"Definitely," David said, stifling a giggle at the ridiculous encounter, as we neared the exit.

We said our goodbyes and left the inn as the man stumbled back to his place and proceeded to drink in silence again. We exited the inn and were briefly blinded by the bright midday sun directly above us. On the face of it, little had changed since I was last in the city, people were still going about their business as normal and were trying their best to ignore us.

We moved towards the looming castle, going back up the road we had previously gone down to leave the city. The uneven path was tough for me to walk on but David and Kate helped me during the multiple occasions that I stumbled and nearly fell. The hill up to the castle was gruelling for me but we made it up in the end and took a brief break at the castle wall as we explained who we were and where we were going to the castle guards.

Two of the guards at the front gate to the castle let us in and began to escort us to the Queen once they recognised Kate and me. They led us to the gardens around the back of the castle where they had a vast array of beautiful plants were growing. We were on an elevated stone floor that surrounded the castle and steps led down from it to a large gravel path that ran down the centre. It was flanked on both sides by vibrant green hedgerows which had several wooden archways placed in the hedges that led to six clearly marked out flowerbeds that each contained a huge array of vividly coloured flowers, none of which I could name. The beds were awash with purples, yellows, reds and more, all arranged into neat squares. Several stone benches sat along the central path and in the areas with the flowerbeds.

Queen Mary was in the closest flower bed area, sat on a bench that faced towards the castle. She was wearing a huge purple and white dress that was covered in various jewels and lace to the point where it must have been a full-time job trying not to catch them on anything. She was staring into space, but soon noticed us on the raised stone patio and beckoned us over.

"Tell you what," David whispered to me. "She is fit."

"Time and a place," I sternly whispered back.

Once we reached the arch that led to the Queen, one of the guards stopped me and said, "We'd best take that weapon from you, sir."

"I wouldn't advise that," I replied quickly, sincerely hoping that he wouldn't reach for the sword of his own volition.

He raised an eyebrow at me to the brim of his helmet. "Is that a threat?"

Realising how my reply sounded, I hastily answered. "No, I promise not. It's hard to explain, but it can result in death."

He put his hand on his sheathed sword and said, "That sounds like a threat to me."

"Leave him be!" Mary shouted from behind the guard and still sat on the bench. "He can keep it."

He glared at me with frustration, moved his hand away from his blade, and muttered, "As you wish, your Majesty."

"Well done, Captain cordial," David sarcastically muttered to me as we walked through the archway.

"You two can leave us," The Queen said to the guards and she beckoned them away with her hand. Despite their protests, they left us three with the Queen and returned to their posts. "It is good to see you again, Master Harding," she said with utmost dignity. "How are you faring?"

Surprised with her sudden formality, I quietly responded with, "I've been better, but I'm ok."

"I am glad to hear you're faring better than before." She looked at Kate and David. "I apologise if this is rude, but do you think we could have a moment to ourselves?"

The two looked at each other and then me suggestively as they tried to hold back a giggle. Kate said, "Certainly, your Majesty," before looking at me and saying, "We'll meet you in our chamber." As soon as they left the area, Mary stood up and leant to look around the hedge as they walked around it and out of sight.

Once they were out of sight, she glanced around the castle to see if anyone else was nearby and, once confirming that no one was, ran up to me and wrapped her arms around me in a huge hug. The force of the hug hurt my stomach wound and I let out a small whimper of pain, making her immediately loosen her grip slightly. "I'm so happy that you are ok, Mark. I was worried about you."

Through the still-present pain, I said, "Good to see you too. Could we ease up on the hug, though?"

She pulled back and apologetically looked at me. "Sorry, I was a bit overexcited." She gestured to the bench she had been sat on. "Come and sit with me." I obliged and staggered over to her bench where we sat next to each other. She looked at me, but I looked up at where we had just come from and saw Kate and David walking away, both giving me a thumbs-up as they want. I ignored them and turned to Mary.

"Thank you so much for paying for me to stay in that inn. Sybilla was very good to me, and very happy with the amount you were paying."

"I am just sorry that I couldn't visit you, but coronations are a lot of work."

"I can imagine." I thought about Harold and began to talk in a more solemn tone. "I'm sorry about your father. I wish there was more I could have done."

She looked at the floor and sighed. "I don't blame you. He should not have left the city. I told him not to go but he didn't listen."

"How are you dealing with it?"

She thought about her answer for a short while. "I think I'm ok. I miss him, but I cannot say that he was the most attentive father." She looked back at me and gave me a weak smile. "I will be fine. I have far too much else to worry about anyway."

"Ok, just know that I'm here if you need to talk about anything."

"Thank you, I appreciate it." Her expression lightened as she said her next words. "What I really want you to talk about is your sword. I have been told that you used it."

"You heard right." Her eyes widened, likely having not believed what she had been told by others. "It was really weird."

"What happened?" She asked excitedly.

"I got really bloody angry, and it somehow worked. I don't know if that's what actually triggered it or not, but it happened like that both times."

"It worked twice?" Her expression and tone were of pure amazement.

Proudly, and with something of an involuntary smug smirk, I replied, "Oh yeah."

"You will have to show me some day."

"I don't think seeing me that angry is worth it, personally."

She seemed to mentally debate this for a while before giving up and asking her next question. "So, what do you plan to do about the dastardly character that gave you this?" She indicated to my stomach wound, clearly having not been told the whole story of what happened to me.

I awkwardly cleared my throat and thought about my answer. "Not… Much."

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I plan to leave him alone."

She struggled to form words amongst her surprise. "Why? Do you not want revenge?"

"Not really." When she showed even more confusion, I continued. "Do you have any idea what he did to me?"

"He stabbed you, correct?"

"That and so much more."

Her voice started to quiver with slight worry as if she was afraid to ask any further. "What else?"

I thought about how to phrase the events carefully. "He did something to my mind. He took control of me and convinced me that someone very dear to me had been killed by Kate and David. I shouted at them, swore at them, and threatened them until Kate had to pour her heart out to me to break me out of his influence. It was fucking traumatic and I can't go through it again. I just can't."

"Oh, Mark," the Queen began, struggling to find the correct words. "I am just so sorry. I had no idea."

I sighed, wanted the conversation to be over and the matter dealt with. "It's ok. I just don't want to face him again."

"What about Sarthe, though? I thought that he wanted to destroy it."

I thought carefully about my answer, making sure that I said enough that Mary would drop it. "He said that if we stayed out of his business, he was satisfied with having killed both me and your father. Fortunately, he didn't count on me surviving my wound."

She was thinking deeply from the opposite end, clearly trying to think of way to get me to continue the crusade against Edward. "What if he finds out that you're still alive?"

"Then we've got a problem, but he shouldn't if I do nothing to wrong him."

"Are you sure he's reasonable enough to stick to his word?"

"He did seem a bit unhinged at the time, and I never did actually witness him saying all of this." I answered quickly, but deeply regretted saying that as soon as I finished the sentence. I knew that Mary would stop at nothing to convince me after that.

She thought for a moment, clearly carefully wording her sentence. "I realise that what he did to you was horrible, but I do think that you should consider doing something about him. There is simply no telling what he could do."

"I don't think I can. He put so little effort into ruining me, I'm just not strong enough to fight him."

She had another moment of thought as she stared into nothing. "My father said that you are naturally gifted in all three of the artefacts. Is that true?"

"I have no evidence to say one way or the other, but that's what he told me as well."

"I may have an idea. Follow me." She stood up and walked to the archway, expecting me to follow.

"Walking's not my strong point right now," I said as I clutched my stomach and staggered up. "Can't you just tell me here?"

"I need to check something. Please just come with me." She moved over to me, looped her arm through mine and walked with me towards the castle. I protested a little more but didn't have much choice in the matter.

We moved all of the way around the castle and through the front doors. "I don't mean to sound selfish," I said as we passed through the familiar hallways of the castle, "but this really isn't my fight. I just want to get home."

Continuing to carefully word her sentences, she replied, "I think it has to be your fight now. We can try to help you get home, but we cannot promise anything. If this man lives, we are all in danger."

I stayed quiet as she led me through the corridors and hallways and I mulled over what she had just said, not wanting to admit that she was right. I was stuck on this island and there was no guarantee that Edward would just leave us alone. Considering what he had allegedly gone through, he likely still harboured severe resentment towards the people of Sarthe.

She led me through the familiar huge wooden doors of the study; the first place the King had taken me after I wound up in the castle's jail. The sunlight coming through massive windows on the far side completely lit the room up and showed how much dust was floating in the air from the recent lack of use. Aside from an empty inkpot with a dry quill, the desk in the centre was empty and every book on the bookshelves either side had been neatly arranged.

"Please take a seat while I find the book," Mary said as she indicated to the small wooden chair behind the desk and left my side to root through the bookshelves. I was pretty sure that it was Harold's seat so I felt strange sitting on it, but was more sick of standing through the pain and so obliged and relaxed into it.

After just over a minute of careful searching, she returned with an old book entitled, Henersey – A Change in Natural Law. I recognised its severely dog-eared and yellowing pages as well as the disintegrating leather binding as the book that the late King was originally getting his information on the diamonds from. She delicately placed it in front of me and flicked through the book, looking for a specific page. "This book was written in 1483. It covers everything that my ancestors knew at the time about everything to do with the diamonds. It is still the most complete source of information we have on them."

Worried about my impending responsibilities, I asked, "What are you looking for?"

"My father briefly spoke of the third object, the amulet."

"Amulet of Sight, right? I saw its empty plinth in the same place that I got the sword."

"Yes, that's it." She concentrated on finding the page again before exclaiming, "Aha! Here it is." She pointed at the start of chapter fourteen in the book. 'The Amulet of Sight – A most dangerous vision' was the chapter's name, written in large and clear letters at the top of the page. It was accompanied by a small drawing of the amulet; an elliptical shape with several rings converging in the centre that recessed into the design. While not being the most exciting design, it was covered in similar intricate and beautiful carvings to those on both the sword and shield.

Alongside the drawing, the text was completely illegible to me. Not only was it written in full old-English, the fluid handwriting meant that the ink often merged two letters and even words together. Mary seemed to have no trouble reading it though.

"What does it say?" I asked, sparking a slightly condescending look from Mary as it must have seemed as though I was illiterate.

"It says that 'those that lacked the ability to use the diamonds were unable to use the amulet without eventually losing their minds. The afflicted often claimed seeing themselves die in a number of increasingly gruesome ways.'"

"Great," I said sarcastically. "What about those of us 'fortunate' enough to be able to use the diamonds?"

She quickly scanned the text and stopped when she was about halfway down the page. "It does not seem to say what you could do with it. 'Due to the potential danger to others, we will avoid explaining the amulet's ability in an attempt to dissuade those that would wish to use it for the wrong reasons.'" She skimmed the rest of the text and showed a flicker of recognition before summarising it for me. "It says that the amulet has been hidden away, far from Sarthe. The only way to access it is for someone with the gift to enter its home. Access to the location of this place was allegedly governed by the King at the time."

"So that should fall to you now, right?"

"Yes. My father did mention something about a secret within the castle to do with this." She thought for a moment as she tried to remember what he'd told her. She looked down at the desk in front of me and pointed out one of the drawers that had a suspect keyhole in it. She reached into her clothing around her neck and withdrew a key on a necklace.

"Isn't that the same key that the King used to open the chamber with the plinths?" I asked as I suddenly recognised it.

"Yes. I feel that it could be worth a try." She awkwardly reached past me, put the key in the hole, and turned it, resulting in a satisfying clunk as mechanism shifted. She tugged at the stiff drawer and eventually got it open, revealing an aging folded piece of brown parchment. Pushing the book aside and spreading the parchment across the table revealed a large black iron key tucked inside a map of the city and its surrounding area dated back to 1426. At the time of the map's creation, it seemed as though the city only had its original wall and the castle was little more than a small stone fort. The map extended far to the north, where it showed just how vast The Dene was. Whether it was smaller now was another matter, but its borders still seemed accurate from what we had seen. Nestled far into the forest was a small and easily missed circle highlighting a vague position.

"Is that where the amulet is supposed to be?" I asked as I pointed at the circle.

"I would assume so. There is nothing else out that way."

"How far away do you reckon that is?"

She mentally debated this for some time as she looked back and forth at the size of the city on the map and the size of the forest. "It looks as though it would be a couple of days' travel. The map may not be entirely to scale, however."

I sat back in the chair, crossed my arms and sighed as I thought things over. "I don't want to go chasing myths."

"Are you doubting that the amulet exists?"

"Not in the slightest; I've seen enough shit to believe that. I just don't want to waste God-knows how many days in trying to find something in a place that was last seen six hundred years ago."

"I understand, Mark, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to go in your current condition. I do think, however, that you need to do this. We need to be prepared for if this person comes back and I feel that this is the only way we can do that."

"Why did your father not tell me about this, then?"

"I don't think that he wanted to use the amulet until unless it was absolutely necessary. He said that there are already too many unnatural forces at play." She rearranged her dress slightly so that she could lower herself to my level and look me in the eyes. "Please do this, Mark."

I exhaled as I found no way out of this. "I'll have to convince Kate. I probably won't live without her and we kind of agreed that we'd leave him to his business."

Apparently taking that as a yes, she reached her arms around me and gave me a big, painful hug. "Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to both me and Sarthe." The hug lasted slightly longer than I would have expected and I began to feel uncomfortable, and not just from the pain.

She eventually retracted and looked deeply into my eyes. I awkwardly cleared my throat, looked down at the book, and stuttered as I said, "Is there a bit in this about the shield?"

Slightly disappointed, she moved the map to one side, pulled the book back into the centre and began to flick through the pages. "I believe so. Why?"

"Might as well know something about what I'm supposed to be fighting. Also, the other two things seem to have nasty side-effects when someone unlike me uses them; the amulet being madness and the sword being, well, death. Maybe the shield does something similar, something that we can use."

"Good thinking." Feeling slightly proud, I watched her turn page after page until she finally came across it. The page was entitled 'The Shield of Control – The Power to Influence a Million Minds' and had a large sketch of the shield that I was all too familiar with. "Here you are," Mary said, expecting me to read the incomprehensible writing.

I made a concerted effort to read it but, by what felt like the fifteenth apostrophe in ten words, I gave up. "I can't make heads or tails of this. Can you read it to me again?"

She let out a faintly audible sigh, likely both from my ignorance and consistent use of phrases that were unfamiliar to her, but obliged nonetheless. She skipped over the basic explanation of the shield's power as it allegedly told us nothing new. "'Those ungifted in the use of the diamonds have shown a distinct divide between their actions before and after its first use. Since these later actions are usually significantly more aggressive, it appears that the shield controls the user to commit heinous acts that are buried within the user's deepest depths of their mind.' So, the shield is controlling him? Not the other way around?"

I thought for a moment over what she had just said. "I guess so, or it's at least making him do what he wished he could do. That makes a lot of sense. And you're right to think we should deal with him now; who knows how much more aggressive Edward will get."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "Edward?"

"The person behind all of this. Did you not know that?"

"No. Who is he?"

"Oh dear." I realised that I shouldn't have gone down this route as I now felt that I had to explain Edward's story to her. "He's your brother. Kind of," I awkwardly worded, wishing that I had said something less specific. Her eyes widened as she tried to say words that wouldn't escape her mouth.

Eventually, she stuttered as she quietly asked, "My brother?"

I nodded before saying, "Half-brother." I went on to tentatively explain everything that Edward and the drunk man in the inn had told me, making sure to preface the latter by explaining just how drunk the he was. She patiently listened and absorbed the information, looking deeply into my eyes as she did. Her concentration was slightly unnerving, but it was only right to tell her the whole story; she deserved to know. I wrapped up and said, "I assumed that you would have been told by our one surviving escort's story of the events."

She was silent for a few seconds as she looked away and thought about everything. She absentmindedly replied, "He said that he didn't know who he was." Her eyes darted back to me. "So, my father hid his own son from me?"

I nodded and, as quickly as I could given my condition, stood up and said, "Why don't you sit down? You seem like you need it." I leant on the table for balance as I offered it to her.

She quickly slumped down on the chair and exhaled as she put her elbow on the table and rested her forehead on the same arm's hand. "Thank you," she said obligingly, clearly trained to be civil from birth. "I just don't know what to think. He told me about this devious, disgusting creature of a man that was constantly plotting our downfall. I cannot believe he is one of our own." She looked back up at me. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"

Slightly stunned, I responded, "What do you mean?"

"You can't kill him. He doesn't deserve it." Her speech sounded slightly more frantic.

"You were all for it a few minutes ago," I quietly pointed out.

"Please, he is my brother. It is the shield's fault. Take that away."

"I don't think you understand how dangerous he is. I can't just 'take away' his shield. He'll kill me."

"None of this is his doing, though."

I thought about it. The thought of actually killing him hadn't even crossed my mind until this conversation. I knew it was the plan, but I didn't actually think about the act of murder. The slightly disconnected nature of the sword's power seemed to make the idea a bit easier; turning a man to ash somehow felt less like murder than a premeditated stab. "Do we even know that taking the shield away will fix him?"

She opened her mouth, clearly about to answer 'yes' without thinking, before holding herself back and looking down at the book. "I'm not sure." She stared at the pages before her and traced the words that she was reading with her finger. "It says that, 'It is unknown whether or not taking the shield away from the afflicted ungifted user removes the curse; to our knowledge, no one has ever retrieved the shield before the user had perished.'" She mulled over the words for a moment. "So, it is not impossible?" She asked hopefully.

"It's not impossible, but that indicates to me that it's incredibly difficult to take the shield away from the person using it without killing them." She looked away from me and stared at the book. Feeling the mounting pressure, I noncommittally added, "I'll try my best, but I can't promise anything. At this point, I can't even promise that I'll succeed at all."

I quickly finished my information scouring with the Queen and made motions back to my chamber. I did want to read through the passage about my sword, but I felt that I could do that on another day, one where Mary hadn't just found out that she had a brother that I had been tasked to kill by her own father. Understandably, she needed some time to think things over. Regardless, due to my condition, I couldn't leave for The Dene for some time so I was more than happy to grant her that.

Through several breaks, leaning on walls for stability, and only slightly getting lost along the way since this was the first time I didn't have an escort, I eventually reached my chamber and found Kate and David sat chatting on a couple of the chairs facing each other.

"Took your bloody time," Kate said as I walked in a closed the door behind me.

I pulled up a chair as I began to explain. "We had a long discussion about the whole situation."

"And?" She asked in a hopeful tone. "Are we off the hook?"

"Not exactly." Both Kate and David showed visible annoyance but let me continue. "We can't just leave him to his thing. It's not safe."

"What do you mean?" Kate asked as her frustration grew. "He said it himself; he won't bother us if we don't bother him."

I stuttered a little, feeling a confrontation brewing. "I know, but we can't trust that. He's completely mental and unstable."

"I thought you were on our side, Mark," David interjected angrily. "What changed? Did Queenie suck you off or something?"

I ignored that comment and went on to explain everything we'd found out about the shield. They were extremely sceptical at the start, but I could see them coming around as I explained more of the story.

"So, he's just going to get more and more aggressive?" Kate asked once I'd finished. I nodded and gave them a small amount of time to think before Kate continued. "What can we do to stop him? He pushed our shit in last time."

"There's this amulet, the last of the three special items, that should help in some way. We've got a map that shows where it is. That's all we've got, really."

"What does it do?" David quickly questioned with genuine interest.

"No idea. According to its name, something to do with sight or vision," I replied noncommittally, making David huff slightly as he leant back in his chair.

"Is it far away?" Kate reluctantly asked.

I nodded, "We think it's a few days' walk away."

"I suppose if it's similar to your sword then it'll help." She thought for a moment before sighing loudly. "Fucking hell. This is bollocks."

"I'm so sorry to drop this on you, Kate, but can you come with me when I go? I don't think I'll survive long otherwise."

"Of course I will. If it has to be done, I want to be there to help."

"I will as well," David quickly added. While I appreciated the gesture, I wasn't sure I wanted him along. He was a good friend but I didn't trust my own skills let alone his, and I certainly didn't want to be the reason for his death. I couldn't exactly ban him from helping me, though.

"Great," Kate said sarcastically as she smirked. "Two children to look after."