Chapter 90: The Vanished Viscount and the Bloodied Confession

“What did you say?

Arendel is not in the camp?!”

My voice rose unwittingly, piercing sharp in the silent encampment.

In short order, Sally came panting back, but no trace of Arendel shadowed her—only the adjutant, fumbling to buckle his baldric while hurrying in disarray, plainly roused from sleep by rough hands.

That vague unease in my chest flared suddenly into a cluster of icy flame, and I could only tamp the rising ire, fixing the adjutant’s eyes as I demanded:

“Where exactly has Arendel gone?”

The adjutant’s gaze wavered, shirking my stare, mumbling evasively:

“Lord Arendel . . .

he merely said that night still held several fish that slipped the net; uneasy, he would lead a squad himself to haul them in . . .

as for the precise direction, this subordinate . . . truly does not know.”

“You mean to silence them?”

“This . . . ’twas but a query . . . I thought . . . madmen who profane the Duke’s dignity—how could they depart unscathed, without paying some price?”

His words flickered, and under my sharpening glare, he at last coughed up fractured scraps of truth.

I had no leisure to sift verity from guile; key notions flashed through my mind:

“Wait! That day— at the bridgehead, I recall you took an elf captive—that mage. Where is he now? Bring him to me at once!”

No sooner spoken than I reversed course, an ill foreboding spurring me:

“No . . . no need to bring him here. Take me to him directly!”

The adjutant’s face piled with a difficult grimace; he advanced half a step, attempting dissuasion:

“Miss . . . such bloody, filthy affairs—why trouble yourself to oversee?

Leave it to us subordinates to handle.

That elven prisoner is full of wiles; your person of utmost worth should not draw near, lest he affront you . . .”

He sought to trot out more stale platitudes, but I had utterly lost patience, snapping sharply to cut him off:

“I say it once more—

take—

me—

to—

him!”

“Sigh . . . as you command, Miss.”

The adjutant exhausted his struggles, yielding at last, head bowed in resignation.

I kept my face stern, gesturing with eyes for him to lead without delay.

Passing the guards’ bivouac, I seemed casually to slacken my pace, gaze slipping quietly over those tents—

the shadows shifting on the cloths were indeed sparser than my memory held—

“Hurry it up!”

I urged coldly, loath to squander another instant.

The adjutant dawdled, yet in the end guided me to the convoy’s hindmost.

There, solitary, squatted a crude prison wagon—plainly repurposed from a goods cart.

Thick chains coiled snakelike about the wooden door, the padlock chill iron.

My nostrils quivered faintly; from the cracks wafted not just mold and dust, but a faint, unignorable . . .

tang of blood.

The adjutant shifted, mustering a final plea, earnest in admonition:

“Miss . . . see here, this is no place for you.

Just a half-dead captive—likely an unsightly mess, bound to soil your noble sight, startle you . . .”

My eyes locked fast on that door, a barrier to secrets; my voice held no room for yield:

“I bade you open it!”

The adjutant regarded me deeply, nigh pityingly—as if beholding a moth bound for the web:

“Very well . . .

’twas your own wish to see.”

He fumbled a brass key from his breast, slotting it to the lock; a dull click sounded as it turned.

The chains slithered free with a rattle; he hauled hard, and the weathered door groaned tooth-gratingly ajar.

The dim interior struck my retinas like a maul, raising the hairs on my nape in a flash!

“Kyaa—!”

Sally, dogging my heels, loosed first a stifled shriek of horror, clapping hands to mouth, face blanching ashen.

And I, though braced for ill, still felt my heart clench at the ghastly vista!

There, the elder elven mage who but days before had commanded winds and rains at the bridgehead, all august dignity—now lay discarded like a ruptured sack in the wagon’s corner.

His head and face crusted black with clotted blood, scarce revealing his former cast; breath so faint as to evade notice, teetering twixt life and death.

Most harrowing: his hands—from wrists hewn clean, naught but ragged stumps swathed in tatters, flesh mangled raw, pallid bone stubs jutting stark—

The adjutant pivoted swift, interposing his frame to veil the atrocity, explaining:

“Forgive us, Miss.

This prisoner posed utmost peril—ere now, he sought covertly to spell his chains free; we had no choice . . .

but to sever his casting arms, to forestall recurrence.”

He paused, softening his tone with parting intent:

“You’ve seen with your own eyes—he clings by a thread now, like as not speechless henceforth.

Since your curiosity’s sated, pray return to rest; leave the rest to us . . .”

“Stand down.”

I tilted my chin to meet his gaze, voice compressed to a thread.

The adjutant, unexpecting such resolve, faltered a beat, still essaying:

“Miss, you . . .”

I drew a slow breath, repeating word by measured word, each laden with irrefutable force:

“You—

all of you, and you too, Sally—

withdraw.

Now.

I would see him alone.”

At those words’ fall, the adjutant felt an intangible weight crash down.

No corporeal shove, yet harder to defy.

His heart seized as by a frozen fist, contracting fiercely, then hammering wild; ears thrummed with pounding booms, vision’s rim blooming in eerie crimson haze, layering thick—as if viscous fluid seeped from the void.

A swift vertigo assailed; when he snapped back, aghast, he found himself swaying aside, unbidden, clearing the way.

And that miss in her dark red gown had already gathered her skirts, striding resolute into the blood-reeking wagon’s maw.

She latched the creaking door behind, sundering within from without into twin realms.

“Huff . . . huff . . .”

The adjutant gulped air, brow pearling cold sweat that pattered to the dirt.

What was that just now?

Hallucination?

That quaking dread lingered, unshakeable.

He had felt its like but once—from the Duke himself, fresh from the fields—

No, the Duke’s majesty stemmed from long years enthroned; how could this blooming girl of tender years evoke such—

Terror chilled up his spine; only then did he recall the castle’s veiled murmurs, deep as graves—

Some swore the miss was saint incarnate; attendants vowed on souls they’d beheld warm holy light from her fingertips, wielding miracles to mend wounds, rouse the fallen.

Yet whispers too, shadowy as curses, slithered in the keep’s gloomiest nooks.

Voices laced with dread proclaimed Airandil’s daughter far from the harmless bloom she seemed.

They named her a soul-thief, flesh-craver . . . a witch.

Elven enclaves oft elude outsiders’ grasp—

I narrowed my eyes, straining to the wagon’s gloom; outlines sharpened in the dark.

Truth, no bright lamp needful—any with scant wit, beholding this, inhaling the cloying sweet-rot mingled with char, would divine the cruelties wrought here.

Aye, under normal ken, every elven stead lay warded by might nigh divine, a miracle’s aegis; uninvited mortals could unearth no trace.

Save an elf bore a guiding missive, tendered to man—

or whate’er sapient kind— to reach that fabled elven hearth.

And I recalled clear . . . when parley shattered that day, this elder had bid all withdraw.

Thus . . . this fool!

He bore the elves’ own guide upon him.

I could not forbear cursing inwardly, but— such a thing should be privy utmost.

I knew of elven guides from canon lore’s world-building— how, then, had Arendel learned?

The answer lay solely with this elf . . .

I must make him speak.

I drew deep breath; heart thudded.

Divine mana, abyssal mana—after years anew, it welled from the godseed, flooding my frame.

The locket at my breast flickered holy once, then dimmed; I heeded it not, but laid hand to the gasping elder.

Viscid, blood-moon crimson radiance seeped from my palm, veiling hazily his mangled form—

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

Not just my pulse—the elder’s faltering heart boomed dull and sure, like a mill forced to grind.

Then worse sounds arose— bones grinding in coerced rebirth’s creak, desiccate veins hissing faint under strain, flesh rent and fused in slick, sodden knit . . .

This was venom dead; I could not conjure life from void, only wring the last dregs from flesh magic’s vise—but I must have him speak now.

Must— seize every fleeting tick—

If Kritiya could channel the relic’s light now, perchance sparing the elder’s life—but—

Kritiya slumbered deep; her waking a whim of fate.

One healed thus by saintly glow would lapse to sheltering torpor, voiceless then.

I knew not if time held, but . . . if chance remained to avert that canon elven village’s doom, every draining second dwindled the odds.

I should have seen!

The crux lay not in that bridge brawl!

Cough—

cough—

cough—

interminable as thrice three nights—till at last, racked with phlegm, coughs erupted hasty from the elder’s lungs.

***