Page 38 of Untempered
Audrey’s hand was firm as she pressed the cloth against the throbbing back of my head, where someone had hit meafterdrugging me. I felt the water trickling down the throat of my dress. My skin was ready to crawl off my flesh, but I stayed locked in position. People moved to and fro, carrying out large dust cloths, bringing in chests of Audrey’s books and belongings. Most weren’t allowed over the threshold—only Millie, Beatrice and Grahame were permitted past the guards.
The Duke didn’t like his daughter being threatened.
The increased security didn’t matter. If he was heading off to war, delaying our leave-taking for a few weeks would only help us. There had been no time to discuss it, but I knew what Audrey was like. She’d need time to process all these new angles. And he’d be further away when she felt comfortable to take up the reins. I hadn’t looked at the maps, yet, but winter would be upon us soon. The Brannough wouldn’t freeze, even in winter, but the storms would make crossing it difficult and dangerous. We could wait until winter, and Audrey could process what she needed.
I watched as she withdrew the cloth and wrung it out. Blood bloomed in the water. Mine, from the blow I’d taken to my head, not hers, and that brought me a measure of peace. I’d played my role. She’d been able to look after herself. She’d have been fine, even if that big lout hadn’t stepped in.
He’d never believe that, I suspected, but he sure regretted his actions. Bloodsworn to Audrey. If my head hadn’t been pounding so hard, I’d have laughed myself sick.
I tipped my fuzzy, furiously aching head to one side as she cleaned my wound. My eyes fell closed as I listened to them moving around us. Occasionally, someone would stop and ask Audrey where she’d like something, and she’d give directions merrily.
At some point the spiced apple juice arrived, and she pressed a glass of it into my hand, then helped me move onto a divan that was half covered in writing implements. The folded cloth was held against my head. “Sit still,” she told me, kindly. “I’ll be back. I just need to help Millie.”
I drank the juice like a tonic, then crushed the rebellion my stomach attempted to stage. I let the noise of my surroundings wash over me, a back-and-forth conversation about getting something up the stairs, a knock at the fortified door, the scratch of bristles on stone.
It wasn’t until I heard steps coming in my direction that I cracked open an eye. The young guard with the beautiful horse and no idea how to use a shield.
He took the cup from my fingers, topped it off, and returned it, stiffly. “We haven’t really met properly,” he said, kneeling as if he were about to lay the fire. “I’m Chay.” I lifted the glass to my mouth and sipped without responding. “And Audrey needs you.”
I withdrew the cloth from my head and set down the juice. I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but he was bloodsworn to her. He couldn’t harm her if he tried. The tribes wouldn’t allow him into the Matri’sion when we left, but he could make his own way. As long as she was safe, he’d done his duty.
He understood his role and didn’t follow me, his eyes locked on the ground and his jaw stiff.
If he knew I could care for Audrey by myself, so much the better.
I kept one hand on the cold stone wall, just in case. With each step my head ached with a fierce pressure, but I climbed every damned stair to the second level. As painful as it was, the knight was right. She was best served by me.
When I got there, I found Grahame on one end of a bed held on its side, with the person on the other end hidden from my view. Grahame’s face was red and covered in dust as he tried to maneuver the massive wooden thing into the room.
I blinked at it. How had they gotten it down the spiral staircase? But I turned away, my eyes searching.
Audrey was there, on her knees, scrubbing at the floor beside Millie. “Feeling better?” she asked me, brightly. “We’re just getting rid of that old bed. It’s far too large for me anyway.”
I looked back at the bed. It didn’t look like they were getting rid of it. It looked like they were blocking off the staircase with it.
Without bothering to tell her that, I turned my eyes pointedly at the sudsy brush in her hand. Millie sent me a guilty look. I paid her no mind because I had none to spare. “What’re you doing?”
Audrey looked at me, surprised. “It’s been more than a decade since this tower’s been used. We’ve chased out mice and all sorts, haven’t we, Millie?” Millie nodded her agreement, but stayed silent. “Best to start fresh.”
She wasn’t cleaning, she was pushing water around. Before I could muster up some sort of response, there was a grating noise, and both Grahame and the bed came into the room in a rush.
“There is no way that’s getting down those stairs,” I told Audrey. She waved away my statement and shot a sunny smile at Thomas, who’d emerged from the other side of it. One of the cuts on her face left from where they’d attempted to use her face to mop up the tonic I’d shattered—picking up mostly glass—broke open. A single bead of blood appeared below her lips. His eyes skittered away.
The bed was her mother’s. The realization hit me like lightning. She wanted to get rid of it because it was her mother’s. Everything in here was.
I went up the stairs to the upper level of the tower, the pain pushed further away by necessity. The cleaning hadn’t begun here—there was a bird’s nest in the rafters, dust cloths waiting, and some aged fabric piled to the side.
I knew Arabella had died. The official story was that she’d died at the hands of a fanatic assassin. She, and everyone in the tower. There’d been no survivors. The locals didn’t talk about it often, and never at length.
I walked through the circular room. The light was excellent, with privacy and temperature safeguarded by expensive colored glass panels in the windows. There wasn’t much furniture, now the bed had gone, just a big, opulent dresser, clearly the bed’s pair. I walked over to it. The dust cloth had kept it in reasonable condition, and the tower hadn’t leaked—the wood was glossy. I ran my eyes over the tracks left from moving the bed, the boot prints and drag marks in the thick dust that had settled over the exposed floor of the tower’s upper level in the almost two decades it had sat untouched.
There was something unusual about the stones where the bed had sat. I walked over, keeping away from the tracks out of habit. My head swam and throbbed, but I narrowed my eyes, forcing myself to focus. Audrey had never spoken about what happened here. I assumed she didn’t know, either. She’d been an infant, barely old enough to walk, still not talking, if the stories held true.
I studied the flooring. It was definitely a different color here. And when I looked closely—the change wasn’t abrupt. It bled along the hairline joints between the stones. It looked neat, too, as if the stone had faded beneath the bed, which was impossible. Curious, I went over and shoved the dresser, which went all the way to the floor. It would be impossible to clean under it without moving it.
Footfalls, quick and sure, made me look over toward the stairs. Moving my head at that angle made my head throb and the world go gray around the edges. I turned my body to match the direction I faced, and some of the sickness eased.
Chay appeared at the top of the stairs, an axe in his hand. He gave me a nod and turned his gaze to the lone piece of furniture. “She might do better on the lower level.” His words were icy. “This probably isn’t going to be quiet.”
