Rowena walked into her chambers to find Sable Vyrnmont there, his silhouette framed against the tall window. Nobody informed her he was here.
He stood motionless, gazing out at her sprawling gardens below, the late afternoon light casting long shadows across the stone floor. His shoulders stooped, as always, draped in a velvet cloak that hung loosely over a frame whittled thin by time. The silver hair cascading down his back was brittle and sparse, like threads of frost clinging to a winter branch, and his hands, clasped on a cane, trembled faintly, the knuckles gnarled and spotted with age.
He didn't turn as she entered, lost in whatever distant memory the view summoned. It is impossible to remember the bubbly, ambitious young man she had first met not long ago.
She strolled to a gilded table, lifted a crystal decanter, poured a measure of wine into a fine goblet with a practiced hand.
"You shouldn't have given him the antidote" he said, his voice old and weak.
"We can't afford the complications that would have come from underestimating Helene again" she replied. "Not at a time like this"
If he bought the argument, he didn't show it.
She stepped beside him, wine in hand.
"How are things on your end?"
"Just about complete" she answered.
"And the capital?"
"We have enough"
"No issues?" he turned to her.
She turned and met his gaze. "Nothing that is not under control" she replied.
He considered her for a beat, then turned back to the gardens.
"She is becoming a problem" he said.
"She has already informed the king" Rowena replied. "We didn't expect that, but there's no damage done yet"
" 'yet' is dangerous"
"It is good enough in the circumstances" she argued. "killing her will unsettle the king."
"His continued existence puts our plans at risk" he said after a pause.
"We've tried, even to the point of putting the whole plans in jeopardy"
"It is impertinent we keep trying"
She looked at him. "Why are you so obsessed with killing the boy king?" she wanted to know. "Even at risk of everything?"
He gave her an illusive smile, then face back at the gardens.
Rowena just stared at him, trying to read him. Every one involved has their own goals, thinking it is the general goal. Ulric wanted the crown of Drakoria, as he thinks is due his family; Montreal is tired of cowering to Mittelreich and wants a strong neighbor, beholden to him, for an alliance so he can stand before Mittelreich as equals; the shadows think the south of old is coming back, which would give humanity the strength to stand against the would-come.
Rowena is reaching the limits of a human, even for a witch. There's a promise of transcendence, and Vyrnmont wants it too, or so she believes, but the old part of her often wonders that perhaps, just like the rest, she too does not know the true goal.
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Fed by cold springs and tiny streams of the Mawr Mountains far to the east, the Old river cut its twisted path through miles of rocky foothills, until at last it reached the wide belt of lowlands that circled the Estonian coast. There it began its rush to the middle seas—an eighty-mile stretch of deep navigable channel through fertile farmlands and rich forests. The city Entril stood along the banks of the Old river, where its waters first rushed from the low hills onto the coastal plains. By virtue of the wide river channel, Entril was an inland port, receiving both exotic trade goods from the merchant ships that plied the middle seas, as well as the wealth of the eastern mountains, brought down the roaring waterway on rafts by the half-wild mountaineers.
The hills behind Entril were thinly forested and scarred by great outcroppings and canyons, where long ago mountain streams had slashed through the soft rock. Stone cliffs stood out in endless profusion, some rising hundreds of feet above the valleys below them. An almost uncrossable barrier, they guarded the plains of North Estonia, marking the limits where, as some scholars maintained, the ancient seas had once rolled.
It was here Mustapha had lingered longest since leaving Drakoria, and now, as he prepared to move on, the young man trailed him. He hadn't objected; the company was growing familiar. When he had asked the boy, what he wants, he had replied nothing. He just needed to travel the world. He didn't believe him, but he wasn't interested to pry further. Even though the young man is always with his sword, it remained sheathed for the entirety of their time together. A lot can be known about how a man weilds and swings his sword.
"I didn't hear you come back yesterday" the boy said as their horses moved at a steady walk along the narrow path.
"I didn't go out yesterday" he answered.
They rode in silence for a moment, the rhythmic clopping of hooves filling the space between them. Then the boy added, "I heard you leave, though."
Mustapha looked at him, but kept riding, didn't say a thing. Did someone enter his room while he was sleeping? That's unlikely, he is very sensitive and would know. So is the boy playing? It didn't seem like it.
"When was that?"
"At the dead of night, I think"
He doesn't recall that, but for some reason he wasn't quick to dismiss it. Strange things seem to be happening but he couldn't place his hands on it. The other day he woke up with the smell of blood in his nostrils, but the room was clean and he hadn't been near blood the night before. He didn't think much of it, but it bothered him. He couldn't place where his unease was coming from, and thinking about it made him more uneasy.
They continued down their path, with the incessant chatter of the young man but a distant sound. The cliffs in the hills behind Entril have been taken over by bandit groups running away from the wrath of Dragonhart, making this path less traveled, but it was the shortest way to the town Canaria, to find the famed alchemist, to see if he could get a potion that could help with the restless sleep that are slowly becoming a norm.
He suddenly reined his horse to a stop. Their path had been blocked. A boy, much younger than the one he was traveling with, came out from the right side of the forest, accompanied by a younger girl. She was lean, her wiry frame draped in patched, mud-streaked clothes that hung loose on her bones. Smudges of dirt clung to her sun-browned skin, and her tangled hair, the color of damp earth, fell wild around her sharp, wary eyes—eyes that glinted with a fractured, aching edge, even beyond the smile she was forcing.
"You seem to be in a big deal of a trouble, kind sir" the boy spoke up, with a smile that seemed obviously deceptive to a perceptive mind. "we can help, for a fee of course."
Mustapha considered them for a moment, as his companion was busy, laughing softly behind him. He exerted his presence, just a bit, and their eyes immediately widened in fearful surprise. The boy began to nervously work out an apology, or explanation, but Mustapha flipped him a coin, which he fubbled to get but couldn't and had pick it up from the ground. It was a silver coin!
Before the boy could look up, Mustapha and Arto were already maneuvering the fallen trunk and branches, and speeding off.
"I must say I didn't think you would indulge them" Arto said over the loud hooves of the horses.
It was a common tactic amongst bandits. They send in the disposables to see if the target is awakened or not. Mustapha wanted to avoid bloodshed so he showed them, and now the rest of the group would back off.
He came to an abrupt stop again. His path ahead was clear, but he couldn't go further. He wheeled his horse around and began running back. Arto was confused, but he turned and followed suit.
The youths, who were now returning to where they came from, heard them coming and were terrified. Of course! No one just gives out a silver coin! They broke off running, desperately, and the two riders in pursuit.
The girl fell, but the boy didn't stop. He darted downhill, plunging into a shallow ravine where the forest thickened into a snarl of thorns and twisted branches. He ducked low, weaved through the brambles and came out a faint trail that snaked up the side of a towering cliff. He scrambled upward, clawing at roots and jutting stones, his patched clothes snagging on the rough outcroppings. The path was a mere shelf of rock, tilting precariously over a hundred-foot drop to the valley below.
Before the girl could follow suit, Mustapha was onto her and she stopped. Her terrified eyes held him but they were not begging, as if she is use to her pleas falling on deaf ears.
The sound of distant horses running could be heard.
Mustapha leaned down. "Another silver coin, if you can tell me where they all are."
She looked at him confused. "Would you kill them?"
He sat up. Held her eyes. "...yes" he said simply. "All of them"