Chapter 6 - Perspective

  “Charming, is he? More so than me?”

  Ophelia resisted the urge to snort or roll her eyes at Higher Keiro's words. The Trillian priest was tall, and of lean build, but with a long face and equally long nose of equine nature. He had fat cheeks and smooth dark hair, and a well of pride deeper than the sky turned upside down. He seemed to believe himself fair, having received such compliments from beautiful women he'd bought with the coin afforded him from his position.

  “Hum,” Ophelia said, staring out the carriage window, regretting her earlier statement. The wheel lurched over a rock on the road, making everyone inside jump and grunt. Fortunately —truly so, the seats were padded with the softest velvet cushions money could buy. “You pose a hard question, your reverence. I am a woman of the cloth. I am not suited to answer such questions.”

  The older man in the carriage snorted. Higher Gremald, a priest of the Second Seat of which there were only ten, was a grey haired man with a neatly trimmed beard. He'd have cut a grandfatherly figure had it not been for the scars crossing along his nose and half a missing ear. “You've learned to give political answers. Not quite the timid little roach I remember.”

  Roach?

  “Oh please,” Keiro begged. “You have to choose. Look me in the eyes and be honest. Me or the bastard lord. Who's more your fancy?”

  Ophelia made a point of not looking at him. She knew his kind well, the kind that didn't let go once you showed even an ounce of interest. Bullies the like she'd met many of during her childhood in Heira. She'd no memory of Keiro during her service days as a Healer, but Gremald had been a priest serving directly under Vicegerent Odain since their arrival at the city of Heira. Odain had left, somehow becoming advisor to the new queen, leaving ten crooked creatures of the Second Seat to manage the affairs of Heira's temple, and indeed the affairs of the city and beyond for many miles.

  Or something along those lines Ophelia had once overheard from Lord Caranel. She'd seen plenty evidence herself now, believing it in whole.

  The lord had no love for the Trillians, and less yet for Odain. Odain whom Ophelia thought as both wise and kind, though, there'd always been an unsettling air about him. She didn't at first share her lord's opinions until discovering how crooked the Second Seats really were.

  The carriage lurched again.

  “You do me a disservice, Brother Keiro. I am but a spiritual guide for Lord Caranel. I've never thought of him as anything beyond my own role.” A lie of course. Lord Caranel had not the hard angles of Richter, but he was dashing in a different sense. He was kind, where all of Ophelia's past masters had not been. He gave her purpose, and treated her well, and for that, she quite liked him.

  Ophelia risked a glance at Keiro who still stared. This horse-faced… thing. Some people just couldn't take hints.

  “Come now, he's bedded you a number of times by now, hasn't he?” Keiro remarked.

  Ophelia flushed. “That's—” she began, regretting it immediately. Staying silent would've sufficed, but now she'd piqued the Higher's interest.

  “That's what?” Keiro said. He reached out with a hand, letting his fingers glide across her bright hair before trailing all the way down and stopping upon the cloth of her long white dress just between her legs.

  Ophelia's heart hammered. She feigned disinterest. A chill as harsh as winter's breath pricked the soles of her feet. She'd often felt a cold breeze come from within dark corners when in an uncomfortable position.

  “Mind your debauchery, Keiro,” the older priest warned. “You forget the task afforded us by His Brilliance.”

  Keiro grunted. “I've forgotten nothing. Merely enjoying my pastimes.”

  “Of which there are too many of late,” Gremald said, his tone deepening. “You spend too much time wallowing in the scents and cups in the cellars beneath the temple. Remember what it is that gives us power over men like Jasim and Aarondel, or I will have you stripped of your title.”

  Ophelia felt a hidden lesson aimed her way from those words. She could see Higher Gremald's gaze fixed on her through the vague reflection shown in the carriage window. A lesson in how a frail lamb like her might maintain a hold over powerful men through exploiting their vices. As if a life of poverty would make me desire power. I'd sooner run from it and live in the woods with fairer creatures.

  Keiro stiffened, pulling his hand away at last. He huffed out much as a horse might have. “She's flat as an ironing board anyway.”

  That stung as a needle might. Say nothing. Just a prick on your pride. Nothing more.

  The chill at her feet subsided.

  Twice in a lunar year she suffered these long travels. She was the Trillian's spy in the village of Red Vine, reporting all her knowledge of Lord Caranel's doings. Twice a year priests from Heira came to collect her report and take tribute from the young lord of which he gave generous amounts in exchange for foreign wine and women. Ophelia would accompany the priests back to Heira to make use of her healing gifts to appease the masses for a while, a twice a year miracle to keep them dull and subservient, and then she would be returned to Red Vine to renew her spying acts.

  Or so it was supposed to be.

  In truth, her every report was a conjuring made by Lord Caranel himself. She was his pleasant little thief, going to Heira to steal back his given tribute to lock away in her own trunk and have returned. As for the wine and women, he sold the former to merchants, while the latter he put to work at Red Vine's temple, dressing them as his personal harem when the priests came around.

  Sold by an uncaring stepmother to service at the Order, Ophelia had then been brought to Red Vine by an abusive Second Seat priest who'd sought a monopoly over her powers to gain leverage over his colleagues, all while Ophelia doubled as a bargaining chip to the new pirate boy that'd be coming to take over. Only for that pirate to allow her to live the best life she'd had since she could remember. Lord Caranel was nothing like the rumors had painted him to be. He was benevolent, wise, and charming. “Very charming,” she muttered under her breath.

  ***

  Viper sat comfortably within the Umbra, meditating in silence as the carriage continued on, oft catching a rough patch of road. The ride provided no discomfort to those inside, their hinds at ease upon the rich cushions.

  “Very charming,” Viper heard Ophelia say, her gaze fixed on the rolling hills outside.

  Viper had more than once caught the girl staring Aaron's way with wide eyes that reached beyond mere admiration. The look of an infatuated child seeing what they wanted to, ignoring the cold, calculated cruelty beneath. Nothing would come of it. She was a child beneath Aaron's ageless gaze, and a tool for his ends. A child even to Viper, though perhaps merely five years apart at most. She was his charge, an insurance that Aaron's tribute was returned to him. The Trillians would never tell the difference with their coffers already overflowing from donations and gifts from sycophants.

  Ophelia was a bizarre little bird, Viper had found. Curious, adept, and eager to complete whatever task assigned to her. Overeager, in fact. She had a fierce will to prove herself —the kind that didn't stem from loyalty, but rather fear. The same fear a boy named Vi'An Perza once had. The fear of being useless, of being thrown away.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The girl had been passed on by guardians who thought her a burden, forced to then exhaust herself performing Healing miracles by new caretakers to earn her keep, and now finally put under Aaron's care. Through it all, her actions held a certain scintillance Viper found himself deeply admiring. The dull shine of a fleeting innocence. Hers was wearing thin, unlike the children of Red Vine, but it was there nonetheless. She hadn't been robbed of it in the same way it'd been taken from him and his friends. She wasn't thrust alone into the world to find her way along a jagged path with other broken dolls.

  While a tool for Aaron, yes, not all tools need be bloodied. Viper meant for her to remain innocent, if but for his own selfish reasons.

  ***

  Clank! Clank! Clank!

  The sound of thick sledgehammers cracking upon stone carried far down the decline leading to the base camp. Three days since hot-headed young men from Red Vine's paltry defence force of several score had been convinced to come up here, at the edge of the Spinewood and the beginnings of the ?ld Mountains, to hammer into the lowest mountain's walls in search of a forgotten mineshaft Lord Caranel claimed was there.

  Ravens flocked out from their nests high up on the limbs of spindly pines, cawing out what sounded like eerie portents to Valencia. She shivered at the cold come descended down the peaks. The ground was laden with dried pine needles blanketed in snow. Valencia was never one for wilderness far beyond the bounds of civilisation. Flowers, fields, fruit trees were all pleasant in her mind, but here in the unknown, several miles from Red Vine's walls, she felt afraid despite the comforting company of a dozen familiar faces.

  One of them the son of a man she thought she'd once loved.

  Aarondel Caranel was hunched over a thick, yet barren tome, scribbling something into its pages with a black quill. He had Agrienne's dark hair, and grey eyes to match, but nothing else. Not the jaw, the smile, nor personality. Not an unpleasant face to look at by any stretch, but Valencia couldn't help but compare. She wanted to forget that man. Those times had been both her greatest, and worst memories, now staying stuck in her thoughts as memories of significance that wouldn't leave like a den of pests.

  Aarondel wore no cloak, instead wearing a worn black coat that might've once lived a regal life. The kind of coat Agrienne would've worn once and never touched again. Its edges held the greys of road dust, and dark patches hardly visible had been sewn into holes. His attire did not fit the image of a nobleman. It was roguish, bearing too much resemblance to roving bandit lords inside old stories.

  Beside Aarondel stood a towering thing named Jengard Rask. A soldier or some such, Valencia assumed, what with the way he carried himself. Unshaved beard with spots of grey, boiled leather vest over a thick wool sweater that bulged at his great form, and a longsword at his waist. A scary thing, that man. She'd seen him around with a wolf's head helm.

  “When you're done staring at me, Valencia, do please check on the bread you've set your apprentices to make,” Aarondel said. “There's a bitter smell in the air. I fear they've burnt it.”

  The boy had his nose in his book the entire time. He should not have caught her examining him. “I wasn't—”

  “—ah, so it was Rask you were staring at then,” he cut in.

  “My lord, your jests go too far,” Rask said, his voice deep, strict, and full of authority.

  Jests. That pricked Valencia's pride. She'd once been hailed as Red Vine's prettiest flower. The least that large man could do was acknowledge her presence, but his gaze was constantly kept within the treeline, in search of some perceived threat. Flames knew what it was soldiers had in their heads. Not brains, that was for certain. “My apprentices are very adept,” she said, turning to the fires lit beneath flat stone benches. Makeshift outdoor stoves upon which to poach eggs and make flat bread. “They struggle with kneading dough in this cold, outdoor weather.”

  “Kneading dough has nothing to do with burning it, Val,” Aarondel said. “I don't want my workers coming down here to a spoiled meal.”

  Val. He called her like an equal. Aarondel made no effort toward enforcing basic hierarchical mannerisms. While everyone still addressed him as they would a lord, Valencia simply could not. He was the child of a man she'd had an affair with. That made her… makes me what? The stepmother of a man near two thirds my age? She shook her head at her own folly. Aarondel didn’t know of her affair with Agrienne, and better it stayed that way.

  Valencia turned to her two apprentices seeing to the making of bread in these unsuitable conditions. Cali, the smith's daughter, and Yara, a waitress at Red Vine's only inn, shivered as they warmed their hands by the cooking flames, occasionally tending to the flatbreads cooking on the stone tables. “Ten seconds each side,” Valencia said. “Then turn it over, or the bread will burn.”

  “But you said count to thirty when we first began,” Cali complained.

  Valencia cocked her head, wondering how it was the smith's daughter of all people didn’t understand basic heating principles. “That was when you began, doll. The stone's been on the fire for a while. It's much hotter now.”

  Yara, for her part, routinely helped at the Drunken Fairy's kitchens and knew her way around cooking. Though, mistakes were wrought of everyone, more so of fledgling little birds barely into their teens. The girl was cursing herself for forgetting to grease the surface, and now struggled with peeling a piece of burnt bread with a wooden spoon that emitted smoke upon contact with the stone. “I'm sorry,” she repeated.

  “Mistakes occur so we can learn from them,” Valencia said, smiling. She eased with cleaning the mess, and buttered the surface of new pieces of bread before setting them on the oven. “Not entirely burnt,” she then said, examining the half charred piece. Most of it was more a dark shade of brown that would have a slight bitter taste. Not quite something her proud father would have served, but then, he'd passed during the famine that'd followed Agrienne's disappearance and Xenaria's civil war. Soldiers bearing House Galadin's Great Oak crest had swept through every granary in north Xenaria, claiming it all a necessity to restore order to the nation.

  “Leave that piece to me,” Aarondel said.

  Valencia ignored the order, raising the crusty piece of bread to her own mouth, but the lordling caught her wrist. She frowned. He was as tall as his father had been, staring down at her with the same intensity. “I'm not passing the ruined food to you,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked. There were no hidden meanings in his question. He said it sharply, his hold on her wrist still firm. He was after the answer and the answer only. Odd.

  “Because you're the lord.”

  “And that entitles me to better food than my subjects?”

  Valencia almost said yes out of reflex. She felt withered beneath his hard gaze. It not only reminded her of how insignificant she'd been when under Agrienne's thumb, but Aarondel's grey eyes held the look of weathered stone of ages past. “Does it not?”

  “I asked you.”

  His selflessness came as a shock. It was… unsettling. There existed not a noble born who wasn't selfish. It'd taken her years to see Agrienne's true colors. Valencia chewed on her cheek. She relented. “It's yours.” He let go of her wrist. She then removed a small jar of grape jam hidden within a compartment of her auburn cloak, applying it over the surface of the burned bread with her fingers, before offering it to him. “To ease with the bitter taste,” she said with a smile.

  Aarondel hesitated for the span of a second. He examined the offering, then took a cautious bite as if he were a child trying something new for the first time. The burnt parts crunched in his mouth, and crumbs fell at his feet.

  How does he feel both much older and much younger than me at the same time? Like a boy lost, trying to live up to some grand responsibility that he wants no part in… She shook her head as he turned away. Perhaps she was paying him too much mind, seeing things that weren't really there. But he was odd.

  The girls behind Valencia giggled. She turned to find them muttering nonsense between themselves, cheeks flushed more than what cold weather would wrought of them. If one thing didn’t change, it was the folly of youth. She'd been much the same, dreamy eyed and full of hopes for a future that didn't exist.

  A shout from the top of the incline came, and the man named Rask half drew his sword, sheathing it again when seeing that it was one of the workers calling and waving. “We found it! We found the shaft!” he cried from several dozen meters away.

  Lord Aarondel and his towering guard began making their way up. Valencia, curious, followed after them.

  “Keep the blade loose, Rask,” Aarondel was saying. “Caves and passages in the deep are not always unoccupied.”

  The larger man grunted. “The shaft is found. Another obscure piece of knowledge of yours that turns out to be true,” he said.

  “I read about the mining shaft in a book.”

  “Ah, the ones in your personal library, yes? At least what's left of it since Agrienne's former servants made off with what they thought they might sell.”

  “…Yes.”

  “Strange. I've read all of those books. Not one mentioned a hidden mineshaft north of Red Vine.”

  Aarondel paused, resting his left hand on the pommel of his own sword. “Your unasked questions or not necessary, Rask.”

  “Neither are your lies, my liege.”

  “You were the High Lord Serene's right hand.”

  “The High Lord was and is still the most honorable man I know. I see much of him in you, and have resigned myself to—”

  “—to what? Watching over me as my loyal hand? You, the former right hand of a man who's sent me several letters, asking for my cooperation in endeavors with heavy militaristic implications?”

  Rask flexed his fingers. “You found me a drunk wretch, Lord Caranel. You pulled me from those depths. I've aided you in all your efforts. I've trained new soldiers for you, and still you'd doubt my loyalty?”

  Aarondel wheeled around, positioning himself before the grizzled soldier, standing farther up the incline to make himself a whole head taller. “No, Rask. I'm asking you, a loyal vassal, to trust his lord's judgement and refrain from asking unneeded questions!”

  The two of them stood still for a while, staring at each other. Aarondel finally took notice of Valencia climbing up the incline as well and turned away. Rask grumbled something beneath his breath, following.

  The sun was getting lower and the winds harsher. Winter's lasting whiplashes were merciless this far north. Distant howls of Silver Tails sounded from both the plains on the eastern side and the woodlands to the left. Valencia moved quickly, sticking nearer to the soldier's hulking frame. She really wasn't suited to the wilderness.