The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

and never see it again, but that wouldn’t help. “Gladly go with you for assistance.”

“I’ll go,” said Branwyn. “You find Tanya. Gods willing, she’s made it to the horses but not ridden off yet. Will you be all right to search?”

“Better than, thank you,” he said, and didn’t try to conceal how much he meant his gratitude. “Nothing’s broken, I just have to remember how to move.”

“That was… What was that, my lord? What you did? I didn’t see very much, was getting my breath when all hell broke loose—really so, I guess,” the footman added with a nervous laugh, “but then…what happened?”

“We stopped it,” said Zelen, “and I might be a priest.”

Saying that, feeling the shadow of Letar within him, and remembering the moments when he’d been overshadowed by Her presence seemed to push the walls further apart and let light into the hallway. He took Branwyn quickly in his arms and gave her a light kiss. That helped, too.

They were both here, even if “here” was still a wretched place. They were both alive.

He might wish for more—a large floating bed, for example—but it would have been greedy to ask. Zelen knew the gifts he’d been given.

* * *

It was a long journey through the house. The place itself was oppressive, more rigidly bare than half the peasants’ huts Branwyn had seen, despite the Verengirs’ wealth. What ornament existed seemed designed to show off money and emphasize virtue. Comfort wasn’t only an afterthought; it was as widely avoided as possible.

Branwyn, who had little to do with children, pictured four growing up in that atmosphere and found her lip curling up like an angry dog’s. She could almost feel sorry for Gedomir and Hanyi. The idea of Zelen’s youth made her want to take Yathana to the furnishings, particularly to a series of cold and disapproving portraits in one of the hallways.

There had never been much cheer in that house, but there was far worse now.

Two other guards were in the study, as Zelen had said there’d be. One was in a corner. He’d stopped screaming when his throat had given out, then curled into a ball and stared blankly into space. The other lay on his side with shoddy bandages around his arm and leg, cloth he’d slashed off the curtains. He struggled to get up when Branwyn and the footman—Mandyl—came in, but only managed to raise his head.

“What happened?” he asked.

“They’re done for,” Mandyl replied.

“The child?” The man was pale with more than blood loss.

“She’s alive,” Branwyn answered. “And well, I’m guessing.”

It was really more of a hope at that point, since she wasn’t disposed to count on either trees or horses, but Tanya had acted like a capable girl, and Zelen was nothing if not diligent. “Don’t try to move,” she advised the man, glad to see the worst of the dread leave him. “Help’s on its way.”

Similar scenes played out in other rooms, though with no wounded in those cases. There was a death, though: in the kitchen, the cook had deliberately fallen on one of his own knives. Branwyn shut his eyelids and muttered a prayer to Letar, asking that the man find healing in death for the horror that must have been his last moments of life.

Three of the newer, younger maids and grooms were in better condition, though still shaken. Branwyn deputized them to take care of the others. That group included two more huddled, speechless figures, a constantly weeping butler, and the senior housemaid, who had clawed raw lines down her cheeks but otherwise was coherent enough.

“The others will have gone back to the city with Lord and Lady Verengir,” said Mandyl. “Their personal servants. I don’t know if… Do you think they got free when we did?”

“I don’t know,” said Branwyn. “If they aren’t now, they’ll be so soon. There are plenty of people in Heliodar who can take off that spell, once they know what to look for. It won’t be as sudden or dramatic as it was with you, that’s all. And maybe it did vanish on all of you at once.”

She imagined that: the personal servants, the ones closest to the cultists, who’d probably been under the tightest control, suddenly having their bonds snap. For the sake of getting any information from the other Verengirs, she hoped that the knights had put them under close watch by the time that happened.

Slowly, they got most of the others into the study, leaving Mandyl to wait with a huddled old man—the steward, possibly—who refused to be touched or moved. There the servants stared at each other like strangers. Branwyn supposed they were, having hardly met or spoken as themselves. Horror was all that united them.

She’d seen similar groups in Oakford and elsewhere, strangers except for one or two awful commonalities, but they’d never been like this. The servants had known each other, for years, they just…also hadn’t.

Branwyn wanted Zelen’s touch at her back, or Yathana’s no-nonsense presence in her head. Failing either, she wanted a hot bath with plenty of soap and a brush with good hard bristles, which was equally unlikely. Only the winter wind helped, once she’d gotten everyone secure and stepped outside into the cold night. Rain spat into her face, and Branwyn welcomed it.

Hoofbeats approached. Branwyn turned toward them, though she didn’t raise Yathana. She’d be no good against a mounted foe in her condition, and she didn’t think there were any nearby.

She’d hoped for Tanya and Zelen, but seeing them on Jester, the girl hanging onto the saddle and Zelen’s arms sturdy around her, was as good as the bath she’d been longing for. The six mounted knights in armor, and the two shadowy figures in leather who rode near their sides, were the gravy on top of the meat.

“We’d feared we came too late,” said Lycellias, pushing open the visor of his helm, “and rejoice to know otherwise. What can we do to assist? What do you still need?”

“Sleep, for the most part,”