Talla

Servants filled the large tub—four people could have comfortably fit in it— with presumably hot water brought from the side-room and used a decrepit wooden stool to hang lanterns near the high ceiling. They bowed respectfully and left through the door. Von dropped his armor on the floor, producing a loud sound but paying it no mind, and then nonchalantly pulled his shirt over his head.

Talla looked away, not like a blushing maiden, but because she feared the arrogant lord would turn his neck round, smirk, and thrust a pointed comment in her direction. She would have thought the man would wait for the water to cool down a moment, but the sound of a body entering the tub showed her differently.

He let out a sound of deep, relaxed satisfaction. “Will you be joining me, my lady?” he asked. “Or have you merely come here to gaze?”

At least the man stopped calling her elf. That was something. “You leave me with no choice, my lord.”

“My lady, your lies are for your own benefit, I understand.” The lord’s laughter boomed around the room, echoing against the brick walls. “Yet, I ask that you consider what you imply—that I would force a woman to disrobe in my presence. Let us make clear: none of the information I withhold is vital, or even useful to you. It is just your curiosity that drives you here, nothing more.”

Loathed as she was to concede anything, this was not blame she should lay at the man’s feet. He had made it clear he held back nothing related to her goals and even mentioned he would leave his future self a letter before he disappeared. Why was she doing this? Because the Von I know might not tell me everything about himself when he returns, she admitted. There was something almost sinful about her actions, she thought. If her friend wished not to speak of his concerns, was it fair to pry them out of him while his mind was elsewhere?

Was this any different from a creature who filled another’s cup with more wine than they could handle before extorting secrets out of them? Perhaps, yet not enough that she found herself without sin. “I overstep with my accusation,” Talla acknowledged, in a respectful tone. “Forgive me, my lord.”

“Admit it,” he taunted, “you just cannot control your curiosity and sharing a bath seems like a fair price to pay for it. If,” Von added, letting the word hang in the air, “it can be said to be a price at all. Admit it, why not?”

“You may have my company or my dignity, Redgrave. Not both. Insult me again and I will leave.”

He sighed. “Aye, do not suppose one can argue against that.”

“Mayhap not. Your choice, then?”

“Your company,” he conceded. “I shall not jest about your furtive motives, and you will not accuse me of harboring nefarious ones. May we bathe on these terms?”

She allowed herself a laugh at this and turned so she wouldn’t be facing him. “Aye, my lord.” Still, she hesitated, if only for a single moment. Redgrave would seize an opening to poke at her pride if she gave him half the chance. Pretending his eyes were not aimed at her back, as if she were alone in the bath, Talla pulled her tunic over her head and grabbed a small bath towel before heading to the tub, making a point not to look in the lord’s direction, and planned her path toward the tub so he would see no more than her backside. Even that felt like too much. What would they say in Bosque if they knew I was doing this? It was not a question she wanted an answer to. They would stone me, like they did to the shoemaker’s daughter.She climbed two small wooden steps, set the towel beside her, and sank into the water she thought was warm.

“F—freezing,” she cried out, and for a split second Talla nearly leaped out of the bath. Remembering how only the water shielded her modesty, she fought against it, but shot Von a glare, only to be met by a mischievous smirk. “I—I saw the servants bring the water in. Was it not warm?”

“This is warm, my lady,” Von feigned confusion. “Warm for a Stormener. We are used to bathing in the coldest of waters.”

It would have been proper to acknowledge the hardness of the men and women of winter. Beneath the cold water, only spite touched her tongue. “I have been to your castle, Redgrave. You have hot springs.”

“Aye,” he acknowledged. “But cold water is more refreshing as well. Surely you do not think every baseborn denizen of Stormhelm has a hot spring in their house?”

“Of course not. But I thought, mayhap, they would boil some of that snow…”

“There are some that do that,” he acknowledged. “Sometimes. But that is too much hassle, and lumber is too precious to warm your baths. Melted snow is as good for cleaning oneself as anything else. Most keep a reserve inside their house, and keeping their stone walls warm enough eventually gives them enough for a bath, even if the water does not reheat enough to be what you would consider warm.”

Struggling to keep her shoulders submerged, Talla shuddered at the thought. “I would rather smell than bathe like this every day,” she muttered. There had to be better solutions to bathing than this, surely. “You would have to threaten me with a sword to do that.”

“Vizer the Frozen did, hundreds of years ago,” Von pointed out. “The first human King in the Storm, he made an edict that those who did not bathe at least once every four days would be put to the sword. His wife, Ermina the Kind, was indifferent to the matter—she did not understand his insistence, but it was hardly a bother for the Icefolk to bathe in cold water.”

“Did anyone resist?” Talla asked. “And how did the king know if someone had bathed or not?”

Von shrugged, sinking deeper into the water as if admitting defeat. “Our history does not tell us that much.”

“Stormeners do have Icefolk blood in them,” Talla mused. She was not speaking to Von, precisely, so much as voicing her thoughts aloud. “I wonder if that makes you different humans than the Ironers.” It did make them resist the cold better, at least, though not so much so that they could ignore the cold as Icefolk of old. Just enough that they could survive in that inhospitable place…and apparently take cold baths.

“Very different. You can hardly place an Ironer in the storm and expect them to thrive. Cold breaks iron.”

Your mother is from the Ironlands, is she not? Talla thought, but she knew better than to ask. “Would their body not change after living near Stormkeep’s crypts?” It was a naive question, she knew, but she had scarcely ever left Bosque aside from tournaments and they hardly had visitors.

Von shook his head, splashing water around him. He looked oddly different with long, wet hair. “No, my lady. They would have to be a babe for it to do anything. Three years old at most, if their parents were human. Two years old, if they were Ironlanders. A year-old at most, for most mixes with other princedoms.” He submerged in the water completely, then rose up to his chest. “I confess I do not know how long an elven mix would take, we hardly get many elven visitors.” He smiled, and he adopted a taunt to his tone again, as if just remembering it. “Again, I had never seen a naked elf before today.”

“You only saw my back,” Talla shot back, trying to focus on the solace, “and for only a moment. It barely counts.”

To her surprise, he sighed in defeat. “Aye,” he admitted. “I confess I did not expect you to take up my challenge—a quick glimpse of your backside hardly warrants my deepest secrets. Yet, it was a rather nice sight, for as brief as it was, and I am a man of my word. Ask away.”

Here, Talla allowed herself to stop ignoring the situation. It was not as awkward as she had expected. If only because Von would forget about it all soon enough. The water was not entirely translucent, as it would have been nearly anywhere else. In Stormhaven, the water was always nearly entirely blue, even devoid of sunlight or other material that might give it color, much like in the Waterfalls. Odd, to see it in Stormener territory. There was enough space in the tub between the two of them, and altogether her modesty felt mostly secure after the initial assault.

Anyhow, the man was right. She had paid the price to satisfy her curiosity, and she meant not to waste the circumstance. It was as well to start with the most important one. “Your lost memories—do you truly believe them to be an accident?” Talla asked him. “Or were they the result of a Heartbeat?”

“A Heartbeat, most likely. Is this a suspicion shared in Stormhelm?”

“Not openly.” Talla had overheard Von’s mother speaking of it once, though. “It seems unlikely that one’s memory should be cut at its most inconvenient moment. Almost a punishment, that.”

Von put a hand to his chin and gazed to the side. “When I was a child, I remember the Flaming Knight’s rampage after having his lands seized by the King of Princes for his crimes. The knight led brigands across the Stormlands, razing and raiding whatever he could. My father bested him, stripped him of his army, took his hands, and released him into the harsh weather outside without anything but a sword he could no longer wield. Even if the Storm Gods didn’t take him, there was no danger in a warrior without his hands.

“I heard stories,” Talla replied slowly, “of the Flaming Knight. He did not stop there, I thought.”

The human shook his head. “No, my lady, he did not. Handless, he could not wield steel, but his tongue still armed him with the sharpest of silvers. Falen of Nayder, the pirate lord, gave him three ships and promised more if he could take a city. The Lord of Castlefor defeated the charismatic bastard before Father could even get there, and when he did, he took the Flaming Knight’s tongue. It was only then that he stopped being a threat.” He eyed Talla meaningfully. “D’ye see, my lady?”

“You mean taking away your memories was like your lord father taking away the Flaming Knight’s tongue?”

“No, my lady. He may have thought so, but he only took away my hands. My tongue remained.” He laughed. “Deprived of knowing how to even hold a sword, robbed of the knowledge why my steel was aimed at him in the first place—and yet I persist down the same path.” It was hard not to laugh. “Bastard, he will see.”

“Gilver?” Talla ventured. It was a sensitive topic, yet it was time to ask. “Is that who you believe stole your memories?”

“Who else?” There was an annoyance to Von’s voice. “Bastard,” he repeated. “Can’t believe I lost to him.”

She had no intention of allowing that reticence to stand. “Bluegrave, he calls himself. Odd that for a noble House, that one. I believe that he is the first to have it?”

Von grunted. “It seems,” he said dryly, “you have surmised much of it. Have you told my current self of your theories?”

“No,” she said, somewhat guiltily. If Von had an inkling of who Gilver was, perhaps he would chase the man, not Vandyr. “Do you confirm it, then?”

“Confirm what?” Von kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his voice. “If you cannot will your tongue to say it aloud, then mayhap it is not a question you should ask me, my lady.”

She was afraid of asking it. If she were wrong, the insult would be too much. Yet there were other ways of confirming her suspicions. “Tell me about your family, Redgrave. The little I know of it comes from rumors from bards, not from your own lips.”

His anger gave way to surprise. “My family?” he asked, voice incredulous. “You know not of it?”

“Sometimes, my lord,” Talla began, in a dry tone, “your current self can be prone to looking at the sky and saying nothing.”

“And you allowed it?” Gone was the mockery from his tone, the Lord of Stormkeep too filled with disbelief to leave room for the other emotion. “You did not question me further? After over a month living with me?”

The elf raised an eyebrow. “It would have been improper, my lord. Kind as you have been to ignore our difference in ranks, I am but a baseborn elf. To inquire further would have been—”

“Improper!” Von cried out. It seemed as though he wanted to laugh, yet found the situation too absurd to even control his own features. “Elf, you call my past self Von, not lord. Elf, you insult him and command his men as if they belong to you. Elf”—Von gestured at the water around them—“you bathe with this lord now. Yet you say that propriety is what kept you from asking questions?”

Talla felt her face redden. She had kept her composure throughout most of the ordeal, not paying much mind to what glimpses the lord had gotten of her backside, yet this was harder to ignore. “My lord, I—you are the one who—”

He held up a hand to cut her off. “Elf, do you want to hear what I think?” His voice was demanding and serious. “That your properness is arbitrary. That you pick and choose the most convenient sacrifices, so that you feel not guilt for your other violations. Be they hiring a foreign champion instead of dueling Vandyr yourself”—He knows that?—“or perhaps, let us say, less direct violations of conduct.” He looked at her and smiled, hinting at something she dared not accept, even to herself. “Mayhap, my lady desires never to leave Stormkeep. Mayhap, she desires to remain there, as Lord Von of Redgrave’s—”

“My question,” she demanded. “Answer it.”

Von continued to smile for a moment, but when his laughter died, he looked at her seriously. He took a moment to compose himself before continuing. “My twin brother, Veren, got involved with dark magic. My father had no choice but to execute him.” He could not keep looking her in the eye as he spoke. Here, the cold water felt colder, more freezing. “I watched him die, then watched him be buried by the storm. Never left my room again afterwards…though it must be said I was never fond of it even before.”

Talla did not want to press him, but neither did she mean to let this chance go. It was rude, she knew, and she regretted it.

“As an aside, my lord, I have never seen Gilver of Bluegrave’s face,” Talla said. “He always wears that infernal mask with him. Have you caught glimpse of his features, by any chance?” To pay him back in kind, she added, “I wonder if I would find him handsome.”

“Aye, I have.” He looked at the bright blue water. “You would likely accuse him of such, yes. Is your curiosity limited to my opponent and my brother?”

“It was the person I was most curious about, yet I would like to know of the others.”

“My father died in the Larfogo Uprising, and my brother Vance took over the princedom, and I the title of Second Lord. My sister, Vila, married an Ironlands lord. That should cover it, yes?”

“It does not,” Talla replied respectfully. “You have more than one brother, no?”

Von pulled himself half from the tub, and for a moment Talla expected him to leave. But instead, as if he were alone in the tub, he made his way to the shallow end and stood up, the water stopping at his knees. His back was turned to her, but her eyes fell on his body immediately. He surprised me, I didn’t have time to look away, she told herself. But she had time to look away now, and yet her eyes were not opposed to this sight. “You are free to admire my rear, my lady,” Von said, grabbing a cloth to wash his arms. “After all, I did not shy away from admiring yours.”

Bastard. She did not need to be reminded of that. “You said you only saw it for a moment.”

“A kind lie, told when you appeared shyer. Now that you show yourself having no problem enjoying this sight”—Von gestured at his body—“I have no problem either admitting to having gotten an extended view or that the water does very little to conceal your modesty.”

Talla felt herself flush at that. Bastard. For a moment she nearly leapt out of the tub to grab a towel, but decided against it. If she was being truthful, this didn't bother her as much as she thought it would.

“You have more than one brother, no?” Talla repeated, trying to change the topic. But she still looked at his backside and rather disliked admitting to herself that she was enjoying the sight.

“Nelle is a Redgrave no longer, my lady. Surely the stories have reached even Bosque by now.”

The disgraced heir, the man meant to inherit Stormkeep—now, some whispered him to be the current Pirate Lord of the North. “No two bards can agree on what he did to be banished and stripped from his lands.”

“I have no talent with instruments, my lady. My hands wield weapons, but cannot produce a melody. Yet here I find myself equal to the bards.” The lord laughed happily. “My brother never told me. It was an amiable enough matter, for how severe it must have been—an agreement was reached, my brother woke me to bid farewell and I never saw him again.” He let out a deep sigh. “Now, is that enough questioning? My brother died in front of me and Gilver of Bluegrave likely erased my memories with his Heartbeat so I would stop coming to fight him—is that enough to answer your questions?”

Gilver of Bluegrave and Von of Redgrave only officially dueled once, but he made it sound like they fought many more times than that. Curious, that. “You seem unhappy with the bargain you struck, my lord.”

Von barked a bitter laugh and sat down in the water again. He turned around briefly before sinking below the water, and Talla stole a glance in that direction. The lord did not notice, she thought, but she cursed herself for doing so. What am I doing? “I accounted not for neither your courage nor your ability to hide in the water with alarming speed,” he noted, smiling, “and for that I paid the price. Unhappy memories, these ones, but it will hardly keep me awake at night.” He gestured as if toasting an invisible glass of wine to her. “To you, my lady.”

She raised her own invisible glass in response. “I have one more question.”

He took back the invisible glass. “Ah, elf, you push it too far,” he said, shaking his head. “Let us not speak of my past. I will disappear in a few days, remember? Focus on something else.”

“It is not about your past,” Talla said quickly. This she had not meant to ask him, yet it was frankly the best chance she would ever have to settle the matter. I could never ask it of him under normal circumstances. “I would like to know what Von thinks of his chances.”

“I do not understand, my lady.”

She drew a deep breath. “Allow me the bluntness, then—do you think you will be able to defeat Vandyr, having lost your memories?”

“I would hope so, my lady,” Von told her. “Elven swordsmen are concerning because of your lifespans. Polish a blade for enough moons and even the dullest blade will turn sharp enough to cut through stone. But even Reignian Steel from across the Blood Sea still breaks if you make it cold enough.” He studied his own hand, and Talla could see in his eyes that his mind was elsewhere, on a distant battlefield. “I have prepared myself to beat the man.”

She leaned forward, splashing water to either side of her. “Hark! You have been preparing to defeat Vandyr?” Von had never spoken to her or any of the elves before he lost his memories. Why would he seek the Betrayer’s head? A chill went down her spine, and she knew it came not from the cold water. “Mother of the Forest,” she whispered. “By the Chains and the Fire…you meant to conquer us.”

There was no guilt or shame in his eyes. Talla expected to see coldness in them but did not find it there. Closer to a fiery passion, perhaps, but not that either. More alike a thunderstorm, striking and decisive in its path, yet uncontrollable. The Redgrave’s symbol is not snow, she told herself. It was hard to remember, with what the Stormlands looked like. It is lightning.

“A single sword cannot change the fate of princedoms,” Von said, his grey eyes never leaving hers. He spoke in a low, commanding tone. “Champions are but sportsmen. Ah, yes, we fight for honor…but our ultimate goal is to entertain, to indulge. Our Heartbeats can only trigger in duels, they are hardly useful for war, with very few minor exceptions. We enjoy the honor, the gold, the women—or men—yet that is not enough for some. Romulo, you saw, has overindulged in his pleasures. Men of the steel are but entertainers and our contests of honor do not earn our banners land, nor do they feed our people. But there was one exception, a single way in which a swordsman can bring more than honor to his princedom.”

“It takes but a single sword to defeat Vandyr.” Talla realized the implications and did not like them. “How dare you—”

“Aye,” he cut her off. “It is most unfortunate to have a neighboring princedom full of walking corpses.” It hurt her to hear those words from him. “You lot do terrible enough a job as it is when it comes to keeping your people within your borders.” Talla bit her lip. She wanted to talk back, yet the incident on their way to Bosque kept her silent. “My brother indulged me for long enough. To repay him, I meant to defeat Vandyr, and turn the Woodlands into our vassals.”

“How—how could you even propose that?” Talla demanded. “Our people would never accept a foreign ruler.”

Von barked a laugh. “Many people have said that. But most would rather wait rather than brandish steel if given half a reason. Marriage is usually the way to go about it. Marry their princess, or the image of one, and people might accept you.” He gave a mighty shrug. “If you freed them of a curse and fed them at the same time? Why, they would bend their knees even to the dwarves. Fear not, however. My brother has me wedding the demon, so I take it that plans have changed slightly—he does not mean to invade the Woodlands. Lord Cywin must have been quite skilled. ”

“Not that,” Talla snapped. Von had said much, yet a single word stood out to her. “Never the dwarves.”

He ignored this. “Your lands are poor, you refuse all trade lest you cut down your precious damned trees, and your curse makes a simple invasion a wholly unprofitable cause. But you have lumber.” Von cupped some of the cold water from the bath and tossed it at Talla’s face. It did not feel playful. It felt like a lord imposing his will. “Do you see what my people will put up with?” His voice was calm and low, but she could feel the cold fury in it. “They bathe in the cold water, not because they like it, but because it is what they must do. Lumber is precious and we save it for the winters, while having to also sometimes trade the little we do have with the demons to have food that will see us through winter.”

It was only here that she remembered. Talla had nearly forgotten all the tales she had heard of the Stormlands, that winters were hard and Stormeners harder. She had stayed in Stormkeep, bathed in the hot springs, dined in whatever she wished, wore whatever she wanted, not unlike a lord’s wife would have. But the Stormlands were among the poorest of the Six Princedoms. Even the fallen elven princedom made light of them.

“Do you know why we refuse to build a road to Bosque, my lady?” Von asked sharply. “Because your people refuse to trade lumber with us. It is of the sacred forest, it is holy, it is not to be cut down—fucking brilliant.” She had not heard him use such language before, and it took her aback. “Do you know how many Stormeners die every year in winter?” His question was sharp and accusatory. “Do you know how many less would die if your people would get those branches out of their backsides and trade with us?”

She understood his pain for his people, but it was not so simple. “Our trees are sacred,” she barked back, leaning forward. It was not modesty, but rather concern for the lord’s authority that kept her from rising from the water and staring him down. Keep your head, or you might lose it, she told herself. “Would you destroy your Storm Crypts and sell the stone if we demanded it?”

“If we needed the coin and you offered to pay for it? Why not?” Von lifted both arms, stretching above his head then resting them along either side of the tub’s edges, pulling himself up slightly and raising his chin. “The Storm Gods are not so callous. When you need something, you take it. Life comes first of all. Yet you people refused our kind offer to allow me to champion you before—”

Talla could not keep her composure. She swam forward slightly—she needed to stare at him closely before asking this. “The Elders…heard of this?” she asked in a low voice. “You offered to champion us?”

“In exchange for establishing lumber trade. The terms were most generous.”

“When?” Talla demanded. She grabbed the man by his shoulders. “When did you make the offer?”

He smirked at her, glancing down at her chest. “My lady, your modesty—”

Talla ignored this and shook his shoulders harder. Fury touched her, and her grip tightened on his skin, enough her long nails cut his skin slightly, producing the smallest amount of blood. The Lord of Stormkeep would have been justified in calling guards and having her arrested, she knew. But it mattered not. “I need you to tell me,” she pleaded, “when…when did you make that offer? When?”

Von looked her in the eye. His eyes were harsh, unreadable, and for a moment fear crossed her heart. She was going to die, she thought. But his hands were gentle when they pulled her hands from his shoulders, and more gentle still when he lowered her back into the water, sinking along with her. “My lady, it was after I bested your champion, just before Blade Valley. The timing seemed right, having just qualified after defeating the strongest of elves…. That edition of the tournament awarded Royal Heartbeats to its participants. It seemed like a most fair offer—your curse would be lifted, and my people would fear the winds of winter no longer. My steel for your lumber.” His voice was surprisingly kind when he said, “Does this information trouble you more than the rest, my lady?”

“The Elders knew they had another option,” she muttered. “Kai needn’t have faced Vandyr. They had your steel at their disposal, yet—they killed him out of pride.” He had not perished in that duel, not truly, but sometimes Talla thought Kai had died that day, and that his body merely had not accepted it yet. Gone was the glorious, handsome, kind champion of their youth that everyone admired. There was just bitterness left, a shallow husk of what they used to be. “Von, they—they killed him. They had him experience a hellfire worse than whatever awaits anyone in the next world. And for what?”

“You just said your lumber was sacred, my lady,” Von replied. He still held her shoulders in a firm, if somewhat gentle grip. “Does it surprise you that your Elders chose such?”

“They are sacred, but—our people—the curse—KAI!” There was hypocrisy in her words, she knew, and she did not care. Her line was arbitrary, but it was hers. “I would have traded all that lumber to bring him back,” she muttered. “He was my best friend, once.” No longer. A treasonous, blasphemous thought overcame her. It was madness to think it, to say nothing of uttering it in front of a lord, yet she could not control herself. “I will kill them all,” she muttered. “I already killed one. Let the other three fall by my blade. Maybe then things will get better. As you say, my lord, it is not as though a single sword can change a princedom. Armies and lords do. Just killing Vandyr isn’t enough, they must die. All of them. Until—until—”

Von of Redgrave’s voice was soft when he spoke next. “My lady?”

She looked up at him. Haughtiness was still in his eyes, but there was unmistakable kindness in them as well. “I know my reputation precedes me unfavorably,” he told her, “and that our current state may cause you to mistake my intentions. Yet I swear it on my honor that I mean this not for satisfaction.” He paused and regarded her carefully. “But you can trust I mean no harm. Would you like me to come closer?"

It was nearly impossible to believe that the man would not take advantage of it. Yet his own words flashed in her mind. Do you think the person you have befriended and the one who stands before you are two separate people? This was still Von, and she would not have minded a hug. “I am quite furious right now,” she noted, in a calmer tone than she thought possible, “I might strangle you.”

“I accept the risk,” he said solemnly, and she nodded in response. True to his word, the man stayed relatively away from her, and when he briefly took her in an embrace only their necks touched. He was surprisingly gentle, and she would not have minded if he brought her closer. But even this was already too much for a lord, she knew.

“If it helps your pained heart, my lady,” he told her, after they distanced themselves, “you need not wish it so.”

“Whatever do you mean, my lord?”

“I received a raven from Stormkeep, earlier.” He shifted his gaze to the side pensively. “Lord Cywin Goldencloak has laid siege upon Bosque, with the aid of the dwarves. The elders will not live long.”

Talla’s eyes widened. “You don’t—it has actually happened? I have always heard talk he would do it one day, but to think he actually…you are certain of it?”

“Aye, my lady. The details are yet uncertain, but the dwarves have laid siege to the north.”

“Bosque is quite large,” she said quickly. Mother of the Forest, she had come here expecting answers but this was too much to learn at once. A deep breath was needed before elaborating. “And its walls mighty tall. The dwarves cannot have laid such a siege this quickly.”

Von shook his head. “My brother has me wedding the demon, so the scope of his plans has changed,” he said slowly. “But the Valley is too far for us to trade with, and the Waterfalls barely have enough for themselves. We yet need lumber from the Woodlands, and Lord Cywin is agreeable enough to trade.”

“What do you mean?” Talla demanded. “You….you don’t mean….”

Von nodded. “Aye. Stormkeep has sent troops to aid Lord Cywin, and will siege the city from the south.”