Arc 5: Chapter 7: Admission

Arc 5: Chapter 7: Admission

We lay together after in a tangle of sweaty limbs and sheets. Catrin still held me tightly, nuzzling my chest so her curly mane hid her face.

She cooled my heated skin as well as the open window did. I pulled her close, rewarded by the satisfied sigh I heard through her mussed hair. As she had done to me earlier, I pressed my lips to the top of her head. She said something in a muffled mumble I didn’t catch.

“What was that?” I asked.

Catrin shifted to look up at me. Her eyes had become a bright, almost liquid red, like pools of blood through her bangs. “I asked if you’re alright. I think I clawed up your back pretty bad.”

I could feel the blood drying around my spine, along with a sharp heat where her nails had raked me. “I’ve had worse,” I said honestly. They were shallow wounds, and would heal within a day or so.

“I got a bit carried away,” she admitted, uncharacteristically embarrassed. “If I’d done that back at the inn and a guest made a stink of it…”

She winced, realizing what she’d said. It had bothered me a lot once, the fact she slept with the Backroad’s guests, taking blood, coin, and secrets from them in return. This time I just held her closer, unbothered. I had no stones to throw, and was just glad of her company.

“I won’t go tattle on your employer, promise. Besides, we were both a bit rough.” I hesitated a moment, unsure if I should ask. “Are you not hungry?”

She hadn’t taken any of my blood. Her lips were very close to my heart. We could both feel it thump-thumping. Strangely, I didn’t hear hers.

Catrin stared at the spot a moment, unblinking, before closing her eyes and adjusting into a more comfortable position. “I’m fine.”

Confused, but not wanting to press, I let it go.

“You told me I get one question,” she said quietly.

“You don’t have to ask it now,” I complained.

“Tsk-tsk. Shame on you Hewer, trying to get a tumble out of a working girl without paying.”

“That’s not—”

She laughed, and I trailed off. Then in a more serious tone she said, “I can’t stay the night. Gotta get going soon.”

She pulled away, to my disappointment. Not a cold distance, just so she could prop her head up on a crooked arm and look into my face. The aura in my eyes wasn’t comfortable for her, but she met them with narrowed lids and a notable expression of concentration.

“You know it doesn’t work both ways, right?” I quirked an eyebrow. “When an Alder Knight meets someone’s gaze to compel truth, the knight is the one asking the questions.”

Catrin set her mouth stubbornly. “I don’t need fancy elf magic to know when someone’s bullshitting me, Hewer.”

I snorted. “Fair enough, but don’t look at them too long. You’ll go blind.”

A worried look crossed her face. When my lips twitched, she hit me on the shoulder.

“You bastard!”

“Thought you could see bullshit,” I noted dryly.

Catrin flicked some curls out of her eyes and glared at me, pouting. I took a moment to burn the image into my memory, even as the golden ghosts sewn up in me whispered dour warnings. I shut them out of my thoughts. I’d gotten used to the aureflame stirring in discontent whenever she got too close.

Maybe Catrin was profane, but her nature didn’t rule her heart. I wouldn’t let mine rule me, either.

Catrin studied me a while, considering. I’d known her a year now, and had gotten familiar with her tells. She would press her tongue between her front teeth as she thought about something. She would work her jaw, take steady breaths, and tap her fingers in an idle fidget. Like with other kinds of undead, that constant fitfulness tricked her body into being more alive. Without those habits, she could be still and unfeeling as a corpse.

Finally, in a much more serious tone Catrin asked, “What’s the deal between you and the Empress?”

I went very still, my mind immediately going quiet. She hadn’t taken any of my blood, so I knew she couldn’t read my thoughts, but the reaction came on reflex.

Catrin poked me in the chest with a claw-sharp nail. “Hey, you promised. Any question, remember?”

I stared at her glumly. “That’s the second time we’ve been together and you’ve asked me about my relationship with another woman.”

She shrugged. “That’s what I want to know about. Wait, you don’t think I’m doing the jealousy thing, do you?” She furrowed her brow. “Al, do you want to know how many men I’ve been with the last month? How about just the week?”

“That’s fine,” I cut in, holding up a hand. “Really.” Then with a sigh I asked, “What do you want to know?”

Catrin thought about it a moment. “Well, first of all, I know she’s the main reason you came back to the city. I’m guessing there’s a lot of loyalty there, yeah?”

That understated it. “Yeah. There is.”

She poked me again. “Don’t go getting all monosyllabic on me. Give me the details, big man.”

I’d rolled onto my back by then, pillowing my head on an upraised arm. I glanced at Catrin out of the corner of my eye, saw her intent expression, and relented.

“Back when I was a kid, my parents were part of the serving staff in a country castle. My father was a clerk, my mother a laundress. Rose — that is, Rosanna, was Princess of the Karledale back then. Her parents and siblings were murdered by more distant relatives in a coup. She came to the ‘Hold seeking asylum. Lias cooked up a scheme to get her throne back.”

I closed my eyes, drifting back into memory as Catrin listened.

“Lias was just a magician back then. Lots of tricks, not a lot of Art. He’d conned himself into a position in the Herdhold. When Rosanna came with what loyal attendants she had left, seeking refuge, he saw a way to build himself a legend. Lias always was ambitious, and he had his would-be monarch to raise up. All he needed was the strong sword arm, and I was the thickest head in the ‘Hold.”

“All those times you said you weren’t noble born,” Catrin mused.

I nodded. “Lias, the earl, and my father passed me off as a House Herder bastard, to give me legitimacy. Rose figured that out soon enough. I…”

I shook my head, already dizzy at the scope of it all. “Damn, but it’s a long story Cat.”

Catrin shrugged. “I don’t need all of it tonight. I just want to know about how you got involved with the most powerful woman in the Accorded Realms. She seems important to you.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“She made me a knight. And she wasn't always Empress. She started me on this path, her and Li.”

Lias… I’d barely let myself dwell on that. Where are you, Li? What are you doing, now you’ve caused all this mess?

I hesitated, then looked at Catrin. “Lot of this is known back in the Dales, but even still…”

“I won’t give your personal business to the Keeper,” Catrin promised, her eyes steady. “I want to know this, Alken. Cross my heart and hope to die. Properly, this time.”

She did cross herself, making an X with a sharp nail over the slope of her left breast.

“I’d rather you stay at least half alive,” I told her, grabbing the hand and holding it to my lips.

Catrin shifted closer to me before asking her next question, starting to trace my jaw as she did. “So, did you and she ever… I mean, the way you talk about her, the look you get, it’s a lot like…”

I opened my mouth to tell her the same thing I told everyone — that no, Rosanna and I had never been that close, never been together. But I paused, studying Catrin in hesitation. She didn’t rush me, even as the moon climbed higher and her time ran short.

“I can trust you?” I asked.

She smiled her crooked smile. “Didn’t we have that talk? Some of the other girls are the Keep’s mouthpieces, but I never let him own me like that. I want this secret for myself.”

No reaction, even as I looked directly into her eyes. She was telling the truth, though I hardly needed to test it anymore. Besides, I had promised.

So I undid a lock I’d placed on myself in another life. I was tired of feeling guilty about it.

That I had lied to the Emperor.

“One time,” I admitted. “She and I were together just one time. We both had an… attraction to one another, but she had a kingdom to inherit, and I understood what that meant. But she was so alone, with so much weight on her, and I thought I was in love with her back then. She was my first real crush as a boy, and I held onto it as a man for a while.”

Catrin brushed my cheek with a thumb. I’d started shaving more regularly since she’d commented on it after our first night together. “You were both young, and dealing with some hard shit.”

I inhaled deeply through my nostrils. “It was the evening of the day she made me a knight. She called me to her chambers, and…”

White silk, so thin I could see what lay beneath it. Emerald eyes bright in the candle light.

“We have to be careful. This doesn’t mean—”

I had interrupted her. “I know. It’s alright.”

I had meant to be reassuring, perhaps even suave. No such luck. That familiar frustration had flashed in her pretty face.

“This is serious, Alken. I cannot get pregnant off you, or this can all collapse.”

I had been frustrated. Why couldn’t this just be simple? Why couldn’t she trust me?

But I had been young, drunk on glory, and some wine, and she’d been very beautiful. All that had drowned out the doubts.

“I think it was a reward,” I told Catrin. “I know it was. That’s how Rose thinks. But she had no one else to confide in back then except Lias, and he was as ambitious and willful as her. Me, on the other hand…”

I sighed, leaning back on the pillows. Catrin traced the burn scars on my shoulder now, listening.

“I think, and I feel ugly thinking this, that she saw me as something like a murderous doll. A Marion, one she could say whatever she liked to, play with, use to kill her enemies. Part of me hated her for it, and part of me found it very… endearing.”

I shrugged. “We were both pretty fucked up.”

“It was just that once?” Catrin asked, frowning. “I mean, if she had all this to herself…”

Her hand started to go lower. I grabbed it again, annoyed and amused at once.

“The war against her uncle occupied us after that night,” I said. “And she started getting marriage offers. She distanced herself, not wanting to take any risks. Then, after I killed her uncle and ended the civil war in the Karledale, she nominated me to the Table. I went off to the Blessed Country, and there wasn’t any time for fraternization then.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“And then you met that nun,” Catrin said, understanding. “The one who wasn’t really a nun.”

I went still at the reminder. I didn’t want to think about Fidei just then. My eyes drifted to the black book on the desk.

“I love Rosanna,” I said. “But I’m not in love with her. That was all a very long time ago, Cat, when we were both young, alone, and afraid for our lives. She trusted me enough to be vulnerable, in private at least, and believed she could secure my loyalty by letting me have her. She didn’t seem to get that she had it, favors or no.”

“If I heard that from anyone else,” Catrin noted with a cautious edge, “it would seem cold. But you have this warmth in your eyes when you talk about being toyed with like that. She manipulated you, Al.”

“She watched her parents get butchered by their own blood,” I said, defensive. “And spent years running from the same fate, or worse, from her own countrymen. She was very afraid of losing what she had, and knew I had feelings for her. I believe she had feelings for me too, or she wouldn’t have… used that method to keep me close.”

The image of my queen, older and with those children she’d been so wary of clutching her skirts in a cold tower above a gray land, flashed through my mind. My heart clenched, but not in the way it would have once.

I’d left her there. I could have gone back to her after the Fall, and she would have spurned the Accord and the Church to keep me at her side. But I’d been too stubborn, and too heartbroken over Fidei. How much would be different if I’d made other choices? Trusted my friends?

You still see her as a friend after she used you like an attack dog, slept with you as a reward for butchery, then carted you off to Seydis to elevate herself.

Maybe I am twisted. I still saw Lias as my friend too, despite everything. Perhaps they were both wicked, but I'm no saint. Had I stayed, rather than going vagabond after the Fall...

I could have kept Lias from going so far astray, been the bridge between the two of them as I’d once been.

“She’s grown into a very different woman than the ruthless princess I remember,” I said softly. “And I think I’ve messed things up badly between us.”

No more questions after that. Catrin let out a contented sigh as she pressed close to me, closing her eyes. Not in such a hurry, though I knew our time ran short. She would go soon.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, stroking her shoulder with my thumb. “I can’t hear your mind through blood like you can.”

She spoke without opening her eyes. “I’m thinking you are a good man, who’s been made to do some bad things by some very bad people. It pisses me off, but it also makes me want to hold you like this.”

She hugged me tightly.

Emotion tightened my chest. Deflecting, I tried for a joke. “I’m not some whipped puppy.”

“Yes you are,” she argued. “My big, sad, ginger boy.”

I snorted. “Didn’t seem to think I was just a boy earlier, when—”

Without warning, Catrin clamped a hand over my mouth. Thinking she was just embarrassed, I reached up to pull it away and keep talking. But she applied more pressure, and I caught sight of her face.

Catrin’s eyes, reddened from hunger and arousal, had dimmed into something closer to dried blood than freshly spilled. They’d gone out of focus, and her whole body had become very still. She didn’t breathe, didn’t fidget. I felt her heart beat through her chest where it pressed against mine, once and once only.

Then I heard it, the same thing that must have made her silence me. A creaking floorboard.

From downstairs? No, the stairs. A furtive step, but I thought also from a heavy frame. Emma wouldn’t have made any noise if she’d meant to be quiet, and if she were still awake she wouldn’t have made a secret of it. She would have wanted us to know we’d annoyed her.

A second noise came from directly above, from the roof. Outside the open window, I heard the docks creaking in the water.

Neither Catrin nor I spoke to one another. We didn’t need to, communicating instead through the tension in our bodies, or with subtle eye movements. The lamp I’d lit by the door still burned dimly, though it left most of the room in shadow save for where wan moonlight spilled in.

“Emma,” I whispered. “Can you get to her?”

I knew a bit about how the dhampir’s powers worked from past conversations, and observation. Catrin could travel through shadows, but the ability had some limits. The shadows she moved through needed to form obvious and unbroken connections at least as big as her physical body, like channels of water to swim through. She couldn’t use the power in pitch blackness — there needed to be a delineation between light and dark.

She replied in a voice so soft I mostly felt it as breath against my face. “Quicker than you can, at least.”

No telling who was in the house, or on top of it. No point in conjecture and no time to investigate. I measured the distance to my axe where it lay against the wall by instinct and familiarity.

It’ll be a two pronged attack, I thought as I held Catrin tighter, feeling her cool skin against mine. Not just for reassurance — I moved just enough, making as little noise as I could, to block the light and give her a solid patch of dark.

They’ll come through the door and the window at the same time.

“My dagger,” Catrin breathed.

I’d tossed it onto the floor after using it to cut some of the trickier laces on her bodice, at her suggestion. She’d seemed to find it exciting.

“No time,” I muttered. “Just get to Emma. I’ll keep them off you both.”

There are at least four of them, I thought as I listened to the subtle creaks around the house. One’s above, two on the stairs, one in the main room.

Were they already about to burst into my squire’s room, same as ours? Could Catrin get there in time? Once we moved, it would start. Carefully, I pulled the blanket up to block the moonlight, forming a veil over my companion.

Another creak. The one ascending to the second floor had cleared the stair. They were just outside my door, now. I grabbed Catrin by the back of the head, pulling her hair to my lips as though for a kiss. I used her curls to muffle my voice.

“Now.”

All hell broke loose.