CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

*~~~**~~~*

Alana

*~~~**~~~*

23rd of Decepter, 935 PC

Four days spent in the brig with the Medicalist and not a single Lotus had taken advantage of the Purist’s magical healing ability. Yet, each morning, Alana had to climb out of bed before the sun woke up and make her way down to the brig. As was the case this morning. She plopped down on the crate that sat outside the Purist’s cell and leaned her head against the bulkhead. Another day of deafening silence broken up only ever so often by awkward exchanges. To her left, thirteen iron bars and ten feet of straw-covered floor separated her from Candice Poole. Names are eventually exchanged when spending eight hours a day sitting ten feet from another human. Or mage. Or whatever the woman was.

“Morning Alana,” Candice said. Her voice was weak, almost faded to the point that Alana wondered if the woman may lose it soon. Would that be a good thing?

Alana flicked her hand at the Purist with about as much care and interest as a child may put into cleaning her room. She would know. Her bedroom always looked about as clean as the filthy cell Candice sat chained to the wall in. The only differences were the straw and the terrible smell of waste.

“May I have some water?”

Alana let her head roll sideways to meet the gaze of the prisoner. Her pitiful eyes begged for a drink. Alana didn’t move. It’s her fault I’m stuck down here. Let her suffer. The momentous snowball effect associated with letting one angry thought formulate took over Alana’s mind instantly. Yes, watching her suffer would be highly enjoyable. And when she finally died I could go back to my ordinary life. Messing around with Kit, playing cards with Io and Ulla. Yes. Perhaps letting this bitch die of thirst would be for the best.

“Please, Alana.”

“Shut your mouth.” The sound of her voice seemed detached, as if she was watching herself reign over the prisoner.

Candice’s eyes wilted, her shoulders slouched, her spirit cracked. Yes. Give up. Die quicker.

She knew Candice was far from the point of no return, but she could hope, couldn’t she?

“Please. Water.”

Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. Don’t. Look. At. That awful itch in the back of her mind was too much to ignore. And in truth, Alana wasn’t one for will power anyway.

The Purist’s wrists were in manacles that hung from the bulkhead, pulling her arms above her head at all hours of the day unless she was strong enough to stand. Her fingers drooped limply. Even from Alana’s crate she could see the red marks from where the metal had been chafing skin for days. Her hair was becoming matted from the dirt and dry mud that had not been washed out. It hung stiffly over her slouched head. The remnants of throw up coated the cell floor around Candice. Still present from the first morning when the woman had gotten air sick. There wasn’t the same kind of jostling and rocking on a cloudcruiser as a regular brigantine, but being as high as they were, it could affect people similarly. The entire sight was more pitiful than usual. Too pitiful, in fact. Three hells. Why does such sympathy exist? She’s the fool who didn’t kill herself. Coward.

Candice lifted her head when she heard the cell door slide open roughly and slam against itself.

“Water,” she muttered.

“Aye. Water. I get it.”

The straw scattered beneath Alana’s boots as she walked across the cell. A bucket of water sat inconsiderately close to the shackled prisoner. Had her arms been free no effort at all would be required to reach it. Laspin had made sure to point that fact out to Candice when he slammed the bucket down by her.

Alana crouched by the bucket, directly in front of the Purist. Dry blood was still caked the cuts around her lips and under her eye. Purist or not, Laspin has no business hitting her. She grabbed at a hole in Candice’s pants and ripped a piece of cloth off. Candice didn’t seem to mind much. May not have even noticed. Alana dunked the cloth in the water and cupped her hand around the woman’s jaw. They looked directly at one another, but Alana made sure not to let their eyes lock as she cleaned away the dirt and blood on the other woman’s face. Have to make sure the pig lives long enough to be slaughtered. Right?

“Water,” Candice mumbled.

“Yes, yes. Water. One moment. You’re not going to die.” Is she? When Candice’s face was clean Alana said, “There.” She cringed at her own tactless enthusiasm for doing something to correct the inhumane choice she had made to ignore such a simple act of kindness for three days.

“Thank you.” Candice’s voice was weak and somehow it made the gesture even stronger.

Thank you. Shackled to a wall and dying of hunger, thirst, both. If not a disease and a broken spirit. And she says thank you as if I did something heroic. Either Purists aren’t as evil as we think or this one is deathly committed to an insane trick.

Alana filled the cup that was floating in the bucket and held it to Candice’s lips. Whatever water did not spill down the sides of the prisoner’s mouth seemed to breathe life back into her almost instantly. Then she choked. She coughed and spit water through her tight lips in a misty explosion. A foolish panic attacked Alana’s mind when she felt the water on her face. No. No. No. Get it off. Get it off. Poison. Disease. She dropped the cup of water on Candice’s lap who squirmed and kicked her legs as the cold water soaked her legs. Alana fell to her backside and wiped at her face with her hands tucked inside the sleeves of her gambeson.

“Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.” She stopped panicking when she heard soft chuckling. Candice was smiling weakly but it did nothing to stop her from looking cute and happy. Alana stopped. Stared.

“Sorry,” Candice said. “Swallowed wrong. Out of practice.”

Alana grumbled anything but words. She tucked her knees up closer to her chin and laid her arms over them. Then, once again, she spoke with little notice. “Why didn’t you just kill yourself?”

Candice was taken back. She looked as alert as she had been in days. But she didn’t speak. She sucked at her lips and made a strange sound as if she knew what she wanted to say but was ashamed of saying it.

“Too scared?” Alana asked when she realized Candice was struggling. The prisoner nodded her head. Alana mimicked her. “I would have been scared to die too. But hindsight says you might have made the wrong choice.” The wrong choice. Alana was familiar with the feeling of making a bad choice that had irrevocable consequences. We’re one in the same. Her death will come sooner. But mine looms not far behind. No one survives lotus magic for too long.

“Aye. Been making bad choices my entire life. But I wasn’t scared of dying. I was scared of letting my kids down. I was trying to get back to them. Lords know they’re doomed without me now.”

“What of their father?” Alana asked.

“Dead.” There was a bit of anger in Candice’s eyes now. “Your kind took him not all that long ago.”

There were several seconds worth of awkward silence. Alana spent them staring everywhere but at Candice until she said, “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Doubt it. My oldest only has nine years to her name. Her brother is an infant. They haven’t eaten in days. That’s surely the truth.”

Saying sorry wouldn’t do much good, so Alana didn’t speak. And even had she wanted to, there was noise near the ladders. Hurried, clumsy noise. Then a voice. Calling her name. Kit.

The wavy-haired blond emerged from the shadows. His cheeks were red, his breathing was labored.

“What is it?” Alana asked.

“Laspin wants-” He stopped when he noticed the odd circumstances in the cell but didn’t entirely acknowledge them either. “Laspin wants everyone on the main deck. The commoner has been spotted.”

“Gant?”

“Aye. Quickly. We’re going into The Emerald Wood.”

“Who?”

“All of us.”

*~~~**~~~*

The wind swept through Alana’s hair as she stood beside Kit and Io near the main mast. Ulla was standing at the front of the group, a majestic falcon resting on her arm. A necklace hung from its neck. Laspin was barking orders at the lot of them about how half of them would be trailing Gant and the others he had been spotted with while the others would be carried further west, to the Bridge of Bermine. The commoner’s supposed destination according to the note that had been scribbled on a torn piece of parchment and carried in a tiny scroll tube.

Kit leaned into her and whispered, “Wonder who spotted him.”

Alana shrugged. Just as she did a young woman in front of them, off to the right, looked over her shoulder at Kit. Keila. There was no question she was beautiful. Soft features around hazel eyes, not thick cheekbones that made her face look square like Alana’s. A petite nose that dare not ever sneeze or snivel, not a wide nose that seldom held her snot in place. And thin seductive lips that reminded her of her own. At least she hoped. Keila’s copper hair was divided into two braids that were loose at the ends and had a body that Alana believed she could snap over her knee if it came to it.

Kit was smiling back when Alana turned her head. “Pay attention.” Her snippy hiss sent Kit’s eyes back to the front of the group just as Laspin was finishing his spiel.

“We are to bring Gant back to The Lotus Queen alive. All others are expendable!” A chorus of understanding met Laspin’s final words and the group dispersed.

It only took a moment for Alana and Kit to realize they weren’t sure what all the captain had said.

“Are we going to the bridge or trailing Gant?” Kit asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe if you were gawking at Keila we would have heard him.”

Io put a hand on Alana’s shoulder. “You’re with Ulla and you’re heading to the bridge.” He looked at Kit. “You’re with me and we’re with Laspin.” A sober Io was far more direct than his drunken counterpart. His only words of advice now were to tell Alana not to die. He walked away with a certain grace in his movement and fell in line with another Lotus named Goma Narez. Laspin’s golden boy these days. Hopefully he doesn’t make it back.

*~~~**~~~*

Laspin and his half of the outfit was gone half an hour later. Ulla was standing at the rail of the ship, watching the ground pass by below, when Alana walked up beside her. Her bow was strapped to her back, her shortsword hung at her hip, and a knife was tucked into each booth. Exactly like Ulla. Of course, the pale Yilan had every intention to use all her weapons, and the ability to do so. Alana hoped with every ounce of her being that she wouldn’t need any of them.

“Think we will catch him this time?” Alana asked between flaps of the canvas wings.

Ulla didn’t look at her. “Of course.” If only all of us had her confidence. We’d be a better outfit for it. Make no mistake.

“Who is traveling with him?”

“We don’t know. The note was anonymous.”

“Then can we trust it?”

The cloudcruiser was slowing down now.

“Can we guarantee its credibility? No. But we have no other leads. And somehow that falcon knew to come to Laspin’s calling stone. Someone down there is familiar with us.”

“Who could that be?”

“Good question.”

The Koro River Valley came into view a moment later. The wide gap between the middle third of the giant forest and the eastern third known as the sanctuary was deep and filled almost entirely with the raging Koro River. Alana had never seen the valley but as a child she had heard plenty of stories of people trying to navigate it on boat or swim across it and getting swept down the river and dumped into the Jazak Sea. Those on boat fared poorly, those swimming even worse. The Bridge of Bermine came into view next.

“An infamous bridge to say the least,” Ulla said.

Two large statues stood atop the cover of the long, stone bridge. They were crafted to depict a duel. Alana was sure there was some kind of significance to the art but could not remember what it was for the life of her. Luckily, Ulla was as close to a walking tome of history as anyone she’d met.

“Sebastien Bermine and Epglin Galahart. Two of the most storied generals in history.”

Alana pondered whether Ulla wanted her to ask about the generals. She was almost certain she did. But in a stroke of good luck, if she could call it that, the cloudcruiser came to a stop. Ulla jumped into action immediately.

“On me!”

Nerves shot through Alana rather quickly at that point and did not let go of her as she stepped onto the retrieval plank and waited for the others to join her. Talking with Candice don’t look so bad anymore. She’s probably lonely. I should probably look after her. Perhaps if her body wasn’t frozen she would have stepped back onto the main deck and spoken to Ulla about such a plan. Perhaps if the crowd around her wasn’t growing so quickly that she was being pushed further from the deck she would have gained the courage to at least try to escape going into The Emerald Wood. Perhaps. But instead, she found herself pressed against the side railing of the retrieval plank, holding on tight as the crane lowered them. She caught a glimpse of Keila sitting in the seat of the crane, staring blankly down at them. Stupid bitch doesn’t have to do anything. Who is she to tight with?

She was still fuming about Keila escaping the dangers of the mission when she was knocked off the plank by the movement behind her. The mud covered her face like a cold, smelly pie being slammed in her face. She cursed to herself and rolled over. Ulla was standing over her, extending her hand.

“On your feet.” She smiled. Alana did not.