Page 90 of The Duke and the Disciple

“It’s not possible.” Pieter. “That’s double what anyone else brought in. And a boar? Really? Count again.”

“Aesylt!” Rahn’s voice cut through the confusion. She heard thrashing in the bushes, desperate crunches of boots in slush. “Is she... Lord Dereham, whathappened?”

“Too soon to say.” Rustan sighed through his teeth. “Can you stand, cub?”

Aesylt nodded and he set her down, but Rahn was straightaway at her side, one arm around her waist. Her head rolled back, her eyes fluttering as she met his troubled gaze. “Told you I could hunt, Scholar.”

Rahn’s face was frozen in worry. “I never should have let you go off by yourself.” He steadied her tighter against him. “We need to get her back. Now. She’s freezing.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured, and her eyes rolled closed.

She watched her friends tell the gathered crowd where to find the meat. There was no joy in the village square, but there was hope. They wouldn’t starve. Whatever was left of them anyway. Vaguely, she realized their losses would actually mean more food to go around.

Bonfires raged with the fuel of over a thousand bodies. Someone had counted, but she couldn’t remember who. Her father and brother were in there somewhere, their bodies at least. Their heads were on pikes greeting visitors to the Cross. She needed to get them down. There was so much to do.

Drazhan had left the wulf’s heart on the steps of Fanghelm, but no one knew where he’d gone. Aesylt only knew he wasn’t dead, because she could still feel him. If she had the energy, she could even find him, using the private, secret channel in their minds they’d discovered when she had still been in nursery.

Fezzan Castel came to where she was huddled on the steps of a tavern. He sat beside her and, for a long time, said nothing.

“I had my men take down your father and Hraz, cub. They’ve been secreted away somewhere safe, until we can honor them.” He waited for her to say something, but there was nothing to say. It was just another task completed and a million more to go. “We’ve replaced them with the men you killed. Any still foolish enough to linger will carry that message back to the king.”

“The two I killed are nowhere near what they’ve taken from us,” Aesylt stated, shivering.

“Two?” Fezzan cocked his head. “Aesylt, you killed ten of the king’s men today.”

“What?” Those were the words that finally made her look up. “No. That was someone else.”

“It’s all right, cub. Val and Nik told me everything. You’re a hero to our people. Who knows how many others would have died if you hadn’t?—”

“They’re wrong.” Aesylt shook.

He steadied a hand on her shoulder. “You really don’t remember?”

“I said it wasn’t me, Fezzan!” Her entire body convulsed, but it abruptly stopped when a woman’s arms gathered her from behind with a gentle shushing sound. Asa Castel, Fezzan’s wife. She was Aesylt’s late mother’s cousin, who had always felt more like her teta, just as Fezzan was like an onkel.

Aesylt relaxed some. The haze of fires blurred into a line of orange and smoke.

Fezzan nodded to himself, squinting at the row of fires. His voice broke. “The wife and I will take you with us tonight. Maybe for a longer spell even. Get you cleaned up. Hopefully some rest. It will be all right, cub. I promise it will be all right.”

Rahn saton one side of the bed, Imryll the other. Aesylt hadn’t regained consciousness since the forest. They’d taken her straight to Imryll’s bedchamber, upon Rahn’s insistence. He couldn’t know if Aesylt was injured until Imryll laid hands on her, and Rahn wasn’t letting the Dereham healer anywhere near Aesylt with her so unstable.

Physically, she was fine. Just some blisters on her hands and a thin scratch where her face had been resting against the ground. They’d had to wash blood off of her, but none of it had been hers.

Rahn had wanted her to ride back with him, where he could keep a close eye on whatever was happening to her, but Lord Dereham had insisted they clear out one of the wagons and use the pelts to keep her comfortable. The man’s face was pallid when he’d said,You don’t seem nearly as surprised as the rest of us, Scholar.

He’d been stunned, actually, but even in his shock, his first thought had been how he was going to protect her.

Still, he’d ridden close to the wagon, and it was a good thing, because if anyone else had been staring into the back at the young cub lying in a pile of furs, they might have noticed her blinking in and out of existence.

“Rustan is going to want answers, Rahn.” Imryll stroked Aesylt’s brow with the back of her hand, sighing. “Truthfully, I do too.”

“If I had answers...” Rahn squeezed one of Aesylt’s hands in both of his. He didn’t need to note Imryll’s soft disapproval. “I’m so worried about her, Imryll.”

“That much is quite clear.”

Rahn closed his eyes and turned his face toward the warm hearth. “She’s been dreaming recently... I hear her call for Ezra and Hraz. She sounds so small and afraid, so unlike herself.” He pursed his mouth. “But she won’t talk about it with me. Maybe you’ll find more luck than I have.”

“Even with me, there are things she can’t bring herself to say,” Imryll said softly, still passing her hand along her sister-in-law’s brow. “If Drazhan had only let her talk of that night when they were younger... if he hadn’t fled just as the village was rebuilding and families were moving on. He cannot see that, for all her strength, she is using thin gauze to heal decaying wounds. As long as she had purpose, she could keep moving. But when he came back after years away and her purpose disappeared, even the gauze was no longer effective.”

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