There's more...right?
Oh, definitely. Several more chapters. Lauryn will get a couple more chapters, and then Kalasin will get the last one (or two).
What did Lauryn mean when she said "I love you."
Lauryn did mean what she said to Danel. Thinking about it now, i would have to guess that, had Lauryn never met Kenric, she could have loved Danel romantically, as he did her. But, Kenric did step in, and so Lauryn's love for Danel remained as something more between a friend to another close friend.
Does Nathan know his real name is Jonathan?
Yep, he does know.
Why did the General torture Danel and not Axe too?
Well, you see, Danel being ...Danel pissed the General off very early in his capture. He spoke whatever insult and taunt came to mind with very little thought of the consequences. Axe, on the other hand, is more of the silent observer. He spoke very little, but proved resilient and loyal to his own causes. So General Aleyn was more eager to torture Danel, who was quite good at causing Aleyn's temper to come flashing to the surface. He had plans to torture Axe, too, but even Axe wasn't stoic enough to hide his horror at what was happening to Danel. And General Aleyn figured, quite correctly, that the horror on Axe's face as he watched Danel's pain was more than anything he would get were he torturing Axe himself.
Hey, where'd Kenric go? He's run off to betray Lauryn, hasn't he!
Ack, have a little more faith. No, Kenric hasn't been playing Lauryn. There's something else much more significant than being a betrayer in store for him.
Author's Note: (oh, and for the reviewer who asked about saving in html: I just type normally, and the html thing doublespaces paragraphs by itself. So no need to double space while typing it, or there will be even more spaces between paragraphs once you save it html. ..that was your question, right?) This has got to be my longest chapter. Ever. Woo.
31. The Room With Large Windows
Nobles' Bane: Chapter 29
She felt someone touch her shoulder, and she quickly brushed a hand across her eyes before glancing up.
"Are you all right?" Axe's voice was gruff, but she saw the white tinge that touched his lips and strained his face.
Numbly, she nodded as she struggled to relieve herself of her cloak. Patient fingers untangled the sleeves that refused to come off, and she watched like a mute child as Lord Athaniel gently wrapped the cloak around Danel's body.
A sudden anger filled Lauryn's limbs, and she suddenly felt herself tightly gripping her knife. Her narrowed eyes cut around the dungeon to settle on the crawling Lord Jaranth. He must have regained consciousness while they had been huddling around Danel.
She savored the horror she saw in Jaranth's eyes when he saw her approach him with her knife in hand.
"No… please don't hurt me," he implored.
Hearing the lord actually beg made her pause with disgust. But then she just became angry again.
How dare he ask for mercy after what he's done?
She was in emotional turmoil. Hate for General Aleyn; aversion for Lord Jaranth; desperate grief for Danel. The moment she thought she had a firm grip on a single emotion, other thoughts came wafting through her mind, leaving her with a feeling of bewildered disorientation. She didn't know what to do.
Lord Athaniel made up her mind for her.
"Stop, lady," he said, stepping between her and Jaranth.
She struggled to speak. "You'll take my kill from me?"
"I think," he said quietly, "there are other things of more importance that should be dealt with first."
She hesitated, clearly caught with indecision. "The castle is besieged. General Aleyn isn't going to be going anywhere; I can deal with him after Jaranth is dead."
Axe stepped between her and Lord Athaniel. "But what about your companion?" He saw the puzzlement in her eyes. "Where has the General's son disappeared to?"
"Kenric," she gasped. She raked her eyes around the dungeon, but couldn't spot him. Nor was she able to communicate with him through her pin: He had volunteered his pin to Nathan's keeping before they had left him. "What? When did he… Oh, no."
Her head cleared significantly as she stood, staring back at Axe and assessing the situation.
"He must have gone to confront his father." She shook her head. "What is he thinking… he can't take him alone. I need to find him."
Axe nodded. "I'll come with you--"
"No. Lord Athaniel, I'll be within your debt if you would consent to accompanying Lord Jaranth, Axe, and… Danel to the outer walls where you will find the Lord Provost laying siege on the castle."
"Lord Travion?" Athaniel said with a frown.
She met his gaze squarely. "My brother. Show anybody who questions you this, and they'll understand." She offered him her green sash after unknotting it from around her waist.
Axe ignored the surprised gasps that rang out around them after her revelation. "Vistra, don't be foolish now--"
"Axe, please don't argue with me," she said faintly, her gaze returning to Danel. She knelt, hands at the body's waist, and deftly removed Danel's bloody cobalt sash. Then she straightened, and her hands moved as if they were carrying a heavy burden instead of a simple piece of colored cloth. She lifted her gaze to Axe's face as she tied the blue sash around her hips. "You know you're too exhausted to fight." She gave Danel's sash a last tweak, cinching it firmly into place. "Don't leave me with the burden of carrying the Russet too."
He sighed heavily. "Don't get yourself killed."
Instead of the usual assurance she had always given, she found herself shrugging. "No guarantees."
Lord Athaniel nodded, wrapping her sash firmly around his fist as he turned to a far corner of the dungeon. "Janah?"
Delice, arms wrapped supportively around the queen, stepped into the light. "We're fine," she said, tone hushed. She led the Queen to the man who had dedicated his life to taking care of her.
"Lady," Athaniel said to Lauryn, "do you mind if I bring Janah with us to your brother?"
She shook her head, and the noble turned to lead the others away. Axe carried Danel, and Lord Athaniel was holding Lord Jaranth, who now had his hands tied tautly with rope at his back, in front of him.
"Wait." Lauryn stepped in front of the estranged lord. His wound was deep, but would only prove fatal if not treated properly.
She had no intentions of letting him be treated properly, if at all.
She leaned in close so he could hear her quiet words. "You didn't know who I was earlier because of my cloak. But you know now. Are you afraid?" Jaranth refused to meet her eyes, but he couldn't help but hear her words. "I will remember what you've done here today."
He lifted his head then and leered crookedly at her. "You are no match for Aleyn. And what the dead remember is irrelevant to me."
Her response was curt. "We'll soon see about that, won't we?"
~*~*~
It was only once everyone had left her behind in General Aleyn's study that she realized she had a problem.
She didn't know where General Aleyn or Kenric could be.
Just perfect.
She hurried out the door and glanced around the empty hallway. She took a step to the right, paused, and then started moving to the left.
She cursed aloud as she sheathed the sword Axe had returned to her. Then, making up her mind, she turned back around and headed in the opposite direction, breaking into a brisk jog.
She grabbed the first soldier she came across by his collar and pressed a knife against his neck before he could reciprocate. "General Aleyn, tell me where he is unless you wish to be a dead man," she said, cutting right down to the point.
"The Seer's Tower! Watching the siege from above!" the man gasped out, momentarily too taken aback to struggle.
The Seer's Tower. She knew where that was. Working at the castle as a servant was turning out to be a lot more useful than she had previously believed it could be.
"Thank you," she said just before she knocked the soldier out. She didn't even waste time trying to figure out why she didn't just kill him this time.
She wanted to break out into a straight run, but with soldiers bustling about who could doubtlessly identify her in her attire, she had to linger, hide, and wait. And as each moment passed where she huddled and held back, her frustration built until she just wanted to hit something with her fist. And when she tried to suppress the desire to pummel something, wild desperation took its stead, her worry for Kenric threatening to rip through her skin.
Please. Don't let me be too late. Not... again.
Once she reached the tower, she started the climb up. There seemed to be an unconquerable number of steps, and she found herself out of breath when she was fumbling with the door. She stumbled through the door, a hand immediately reaching for her sword hilt once she heard the clash of swords from within.
The tower was small, with four largish windows that allowed a person to see in every direction. The Northern window had a small table and chair in front of it. Kenric and his father were fighting by the window facing south. General Aleyn's immense form hid Kenric, who stood in front of his father fending off blows with a sword, from her view.
The pair continued to fight at the other end of the small tower room, neither willing to give ground to the other by doing something as trivial as glancing at who had opened the door. After a moment of indecision, she drew her sword and quietly started to approach.
Just before she got into reach of the General's back, she raised her sword and readied herself to–
"Lauryn, no! Get back; he knows you're there!"
Kenric's words left him with an opening; his father took it. Lauryn cried out as General Aleyn slashed hard into Kenric's sword arm, and he had no choice but to let the sword fly back from suddenly numb fingers.
With his son thus disarmed, General Aleyn was free to face her. But when he saw her, he wavered in undisguised surprise.
She took advantage of that moment and stepped around the General and in front of his son, sword held out in front of her.
"General Aleyn," she said as they watched each other warily. "No words can fully express how I feel to be in your presence once more. So I'll let my sword express it instead." And she struck out first.
He was more than ready for her, holding her back with an easy parry.
"You must be mistaken," Kenric's father said nonchalantly, almost as if they weren't in the midst of a sword fight. "We have not met before."
"But we have," she said evenly, gritting her teeth from the impact of one especially powerful swing. "Not too long ago, I worked here. Before you stuck me into one of the Lord Provost's jail cells for striking one of your men. I didn't stay there for too long, fortunately. Do you recall?"
From the flat anger that was now etched on General Aleyn's face, she knew he remembered her.
"Imagine," she said. "The last member of Nobles' Bane had been in your grasp before she escaped," she taunted.
"If I remember correctly, the last member of Nobles' Bane wore the green sash. Is the companion who previously wore that sash you bear dead then?" the General rejoined coldly. Then, with a clean cut, his blade sliced through the very sash he spoke so lightly of, and it fluttered, two separate pieces, to her feet.
She tried to press forward, to find an opening, but with a single arch of his own sword, General Aleyn had her teetering off balance. With nowhere else to go, she found herself pressed against the wall, her sword barely able to meet the General's next assault.
"Pity," he murmured to her. "I was expecting more of a struggle than this." He sighed. "No matter. I'll just have to savor every moment as I cut you down to size. Slowly." Then, before she could blink, he pulled the same move he had pulled on his son, slashing into her sword arm.
She gasped aloud as she felt the wound she had received days ago, from the incident with Lord Solran's crossbow, reopen. Her arm flew back; her sword sailed through the air, bounced off a nearby windowsill, and fell out of the eastern window.
General Aleyn laughed, and in his moment of mirth, he didn't hear his son come up behind him, holding the tower's single chair with his uninjured hand.
But Kenric wasn't left-handed; the hit wasn't as damaging as either he or Lauryn wished it could be. But at least it got Lauryn out from between Kenric's father and the wall.
"Tonerian. I should have known that you would disappoint me, yet again." General Aleyn straightened and turned to face them.
Lauryn felt Kenric stiffen beside her, and reached out to touch his arm.
The General studied where her hand touched his son, and then shook his head. "You were always too weak, too soft–"
"Kenric is anything but weak," she interjected.
He continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "I was overly lenient with you. Never disciplined you enough."
Lauryn worried about how pale Kenric was under his still demeanor. She knew it wasn't just because of the blood loss from his father's blade.
Because some wounds cut deeper than others.
"I should have kept a tighter rein on you, boy. Now look at you, consorting with this– this..."
Something in Kenric changed then, as if he was mentally shaking himself to take another grab at his composure.
"Say what you will about me, General Aleyn," he said slowly, "but don't cross that same line with Lauryn."
The General hefted his sword casually. "Tonerian, if there is one thing that I will still teach you, it is to not interfere where you do not belong." And then he swung his sword.
The original swing was for her, she saw that. But Kenric pushed her away, and kept himself in the weapon's wake. And General Aleyn, taking control at the last moment, twisted his wrist so that only the broad side of his blade struck Kenric across the face. The blow was enough to send a senseless Kenric sprawling.
The General looked down at what he had done and raised a brow.
"And I had so wanted you awake and conscious, so that you could see what it means to defy me," she heard him say musingly. Then he turned to look at her.
"It's just you and me now."
"How can you do that? To your own son?" She fought to keep herself sounding calm.
General Aleyn shrugged. "I disowned him long ago. I will have no coward for a son."
What was wrong with this man? She couldn't believe the words coming from his mouth. "What do you plan to do with Kenric?"
"You should be more worried about your own well-being."
Instead of wasting breath on a reply, she drew her knives. And then she tried not to flinch when General Aleyn laughed at them and her.
"Why don't you just save us both time and give up now?" he suggested.
"Why don't you just save us both time and throw yourself out the window?" she retorted. Only later would she realize how ironic her thought would be.
She was able to block the first assault, and the second, and the third. The fourth succeeded in nicking her thigh; the fifth cornered her between the wall and the table that sat in front of the northern window.
"Please," she said, more for herself than for General Aleyn.
Oh gods, I can't fail. Not now. Not after everything that's happened. I can't die here, like this. At least not until General Aleyn is defeated first...
"Please what?" General Aleyn asked, sounding pleased.
But she wasn't listening. Her gaze had fallen beyond him, to the floor where Danel's tattered blue sash lay.
If only you were here. Would you succeed where I've failed?
She answered the question herself.
Probably.
Sweet, cocky Danel. With his too capable moon discs and agile, acrobatic feats. How she missed him already.
She barely noticed how General Aleyn sent her knives skittering out of reach. Instead, she found herself strangely fascinated with the wall she was leaning against.
From what seemed far away, she saw a sword raised above her. And from what seemed even farther away, she thought she heard someone calling her name.
"Jade!"
Suddenly, her eyes became too clear. They widened as they saw a blade starting to descend on her.
And then she jumped.
Placing a firm foot on the wall that cornered her on the left, she vaulted into the air and out of harm's way. As she flew over the table that had been on her right, she heard General Aleyn's sword thud as it landed just a moment after her departure.
She landed back on her feet in a ready crouch. A near perfect landing. Danel would have been proud of her.
Her fingers snatched up a fallen knife; her feet took her to General Aleyn, who was still trying to dislodge his weapon from the wooden table.
And she plunged her knife into his back.
She freed her weapon with the intention of repeating her act when a hand touched her uninjured arm.
"Lauryn." Kenric's voice was at its gentlest.
She blinked. From the corner of her eye, she saw General Aleyn give up on his sword and stagger away from them, towards the southern window.
She started to turn toward the man, but Kenric spoke again. "Lauryn."
She stared at him, bewildered. His black eyes were as dark as they'd ever been. They searched her gray ones as if looking for a certain answer.
What? What do you want from me?
Looking down at her hands, she realized that Kenric had managed to pry the knife out of her grip. "You... stopped me," she said numbly. "You wanted to... save him?"
"Love," he murmured, "I wanted to save you."
She glanced up at him with childish puzzlement.
"What do you intend to do?" he asked her quietly.
"I'm going to kill him," she muttered. "I'm going to hurt him just like he..."
She shivered.
Kenric pulled her into his arms. "When I first met you, the real you and not the servant, you were a killer," he told her. "And something about that dark anger and desire for vengeance drew me to you. But the person I fell in love with wasn't a murderer. She had people to care about, things other than revenge to live for. You've changed for the better, Lauryn. And, it may be selfish of me, but I don't want you to change back." He looked her closely in the eye. "And neither, I think, do you. Can you honestly say that you can go back to the way you were before? When you would quite easily stab a man in the ribs without a second thought?"
"I..."
"Why do you think I went running off without telling you in the dungeon in the first place?"
She shook her head.
"I was hoping that I was able to deal with my father on my own. I didn't want to see you as you were moments ago. Just like you were in the past. That's not the person I've come to love."
This was going too fast. She heard the words, but couldn't grasp their complete meaning. So she settled for something else that she could understand.
"You're not unconscious anymore."
He smoothed a hand over her hair as a calming gesture. "I was only momentarily knocked out."
"You're safe," she said, nodding. "I'm glad. You have no idea what it felt like, realizing you weren't in the dungeon with us anymore."
"I thought I lost you for a moment there, too," he said, motioning to the spot where she had been cornered.
I thought I lost myself...
So they stood there, silently in each other's arms. But the peace that they had gathered around themselves was fated to be broken.
Looking over Kenric's shoulder and noticing how General Aleyn threw himself at them, she was so sure that his intended victim was herself. But in the confusion, she was knocked aside, knocking her head jarringly against a corner of the wooden table.
She regained her focus just in time to see that General Aleyn had tackled his son onto the table, and they were struggling with one another, rolling... rolling...
"No!"
She grabbed at Kenric's feet but only received a splinter and a kick, accidental or not, she would never know, for her trouble.
General Aleyn was on his back, already a good third of himself out of the Northern window. Kenric struggled over him, trying to free his arms from his father's grasps. General Aleyn lifted his head and stared straight at her, but his words were for his son.
"You'll never walk away from me, boy. Never."
And with a single heave, he threw himself and his son out the tower window.