Meya only discovered once she had duck outside that Jerald the Head Guard was the one sitting at the reins of Lady Arinel's carriage. Thus solving the conundrum of why Arinel had revealed Lady Agnes to Meya with no fear of being overheard by Hadrian ears.

Jerald had heard everything that had been discussed in the carriage, of course. He shot Meya a knowing wink as she settled down beside him.

"Out for some fresh air, little dragon?" He murmured out of the corner of his mouth; Coris, Zier and the squires and yeomen are riding not far from them.

Meya blinked, flabbergasted, then chided herself. Of course Arinel would have confided in Jerald after learning the truth from Draken and Coris. She hadn't wasted time in telling Gretella and Lady Agnes, had she?

Fyr, couldn't a dragon have some secrets?

"No. I'm looking for some ignorance and normalcy." She hissed back along with a dour glare. Jerald tilted his head, blissfully undaunted. Meya slumped back and crossed her arms grumpily, planting her feet against the curved wooden board that served to protect her crimson silk shoes from being sprayed by horse fart.

"Unfortunately, of all the things the winds can blow away, memories aren't among them."

"Perhaps a good old thump on the head will." Jerald suggested. Meya bit back a snort.

"Well then, would you be so kind as to bestow one upon me, Sir Knight?"

Jerald's roar of laughter petered out as puffs of air through his nostrils instead.

"I wouldn't dare, but I daresay Madam Gretella would be more than willing to oblige."

Meya shuddered. As Jerald chuckled in triumph, Meya studied his profile, his blue eyes and cropped tawny hair. She wondered if he had a daughter of his own. He probably did. He wasn't young; he looked only a few years Dad's junior.

"Say, tell me about your family, Sir Jerald."

The knight turned to Meya. Behind him, past a fence of yeomen, hillocks blanketed with patches of purple heather and tall grass topped with cotton-like tufts rolled away into the blue horizon. Jerald gave her a gentle smile.

"You've already met them."

Meya blinked, then frowned. Having anticipated her reaction, Jerald smiled wider. He turned back to the meandering dirt road ahead, which was partially obscured by Sir Jarl and his horse's sleek, toned hindquarters.

"My mother was Lord Crosset's sister, Lady Arynea. She had me from an affair. She never confessed, so I never knew my father."

Meya stared unblinking at him, enthralled.

"To punish her and avoid a scandal, Lord Uncle had me sent to the church. I grew up under Friar Tumney's care. When I was eighteen, the castle alchemist, Bishop Tyberne, came to gather herbs for his experiments. That's when I met Erina, his assistant. She was already carrying Lady Arinel."

Meya had thought her eyes couldn't grow any wider already, but boy was she wrong. After a moment digesting the shocking revelation, she remembered what Zier had told her, that day outside the charity tent, and her face fell.

"Lady Arinel's mother—She died young, didn't she? In the alchemy lab?" She asked timidly. Jerald obliged with a solemn nod.

"Alchemy was her dream. Her happiness." He shook his head, his voice brimming with both awe and anguish, "And Tyberne was a talented alchemist, and a decent master. On the verge of a breakthrough. No matter what they say about a woman in a lab, I supported her. She was very passionate, though. She insisted on helping Tyberne out, even as her belly grew and grew."

"Zier said they were working on a potion to make fruits ripe?" Meya asked. Jerald whipped around, eyes wide, then turned back to the road.

"Fruits? Goodly Freda, no." A wry grin lit up his perpetually melancholic face, "Must've been a rumor they created to ward off competitors. Well, guess it dun matter anymore, dun it, Eri?"

He raised his gaze to the Heights, beaming a sad smile to his late sweetheart, as a soft breeze trickled by.

"It was a groundbreaking endeavor, you see. To create a sleeping draught strong enough for surgery."

"Sir Jury?" Meya parroted. What had the jury got to do with this? Meya had had her share of trials in Lord Crosset's court. Those jurymen didn't look like they could do with a drop of sleeping draught. Not after a whole morning presiding over cases of cheating husbands and wives, elopers, child thieves, scuffles between Marin's suitors, and farmers warring over ownership of fallen apples in their gardens.

"Surgery," Jerald corrected, "When healers cut into your body to heal you from the inside."

"You mean bloodletting?"

"Oh, no. This goes way deeper than that."

Jerald shot a wary glance at the surrounding yeomen, then leaned sideways, prompting Meya to follow suit. He continued out of the corner of his mouth, voice lowered,

"It's banned in Latakia (but I've heard Nostra's been practicing it for centuries). Healers would slice open live bodies. Cut out tumors and even babies. Stitch flesh and veins and organs together like cloth. Ghastly stuff. Very dangerous with not enough expertise on the healer's part. Not to mention the infection, and patients waking up in the middle of it all. But Erina and Tyberne believed in it."

Jerald's description conjured up horrifying, nauseous images in Meya's mind eye. Imagine being jolted awake by pain like living death, only to sit up and see some deranged, blood-spattered healer levering your guts out of your bowels, coil by coil. She couldn't see why Arinel's mum would want to help advance such a gruesome branch of medicine. And why any egghead alchemist would be interested in stealing her work, either.

Shuddering, Meya steered away,

"D'you reckon one of their competitors stole their work, then set fire to the lab to kill them? Or, maybe some religious fanatics out for blood?"

Jerald cocked his head.

"I've pondered it. But one never knows." He shrugged, "After all, they were working with explosives and flammables. It would've been an easy getaway for arsonists."

"Or a dragon?" Meya blurted out. Her theory took Jerald aback for a second, then he resurfaced with a chuckle.

"Interesting. Erina and Tyberne are humans, though. Eyes brown as burnt sugar."

Meya's eyes widened, then she nodded and sighed heavily. Competitors or fanatics, then. Unless both of them hired dragons to do the job, of course. Fyr, the things she came up with.

There was still one puzzle left, though; Jerald himself. Pushing aside Erina's mystery for further contemplation in private, Meya turned back to the head guard,

"So, how did you come to be Lady Arinel's guard?"

"On her deathbed, Mother begged Lord Uncle to bring me back to the castle and train me as a knight." Jerald jostled the reins, more to expel the stiffness rather than out of actual need to stir the horses,

"Lord Uncle was done being furious with Mother then, so he caved in. I was blessed with many happy months, working near Erina. We'd laugh over a mug of ale in the tavern after work. On weekends, we'd lay side by side on the sunny moor among the heather. She loved heather flowers, Erina. I'd whisper naughty things in her ears just to make her blush, and she'd pick a nearby crowberry and squash it on my cheek. Then we'd make love in the sunset. That was the most we could ever be."

Jerald smiled, yet his eyes were distant and wistful. Meya laid her hand on his burly forearm, feeling sorry for the exiled squire and the young alchemist, and their doomed love. Kept apart by an old man's selfishness.

"I wasn't in time to say farewell. To see her eyes for the last time, or hear her last words. I held her hand as the midwife took Lady Arinel out of her. She looked as if she were merely asleep. Not smiling. Not crying. Just serene. I consoled myself that she wasn't in pain, at least."

In Meya's palm, Jerald's arm trembled. And Meya felt her own eyes burning. She turned away and kneaded them with the heel of her free hand.

"I cradled the Lady as she took her first breath, then I delivered her to my Lord Uncle. She looks exactly like Erina—except for her eyes. She has the Crosset eyes. Like Lord Uncle. Like me. Yet, she's inherited her mother's spirit. I swore to protect her with my life. Though I didn't exactly do a fine job of it."

Jerald hung his head, his gaze downcast. Meya understood what he was referring to. She noticed the guilt and shame in those eyes, and she grasped his arm tight with both hands,

"Gillian is no roadside bandit. And our guards were barely trained. You did your best. You survived, and you were the bravest."

Jerald shook his head, eyes still staring into the distance.

"Nowhere near as brave as the five who have fallen, and you."

His sorrowful blue eyes settled upon Meya, and for the first time, she noticed the familial resemblance between him and Arinel. If she hadn't known, she would've thought he was her actual father.

"You might not remember—I was the knight who read out Lord Crosset's punishment for you at the town square, the year of the Famine."

Jerald muttered as he averted his eyes. As Meya froze and blinked in surprise, he bowed his head in contrition.

"I have never confessed, how wrong the Crossets have been to you—and how sorry—and how thankful we are."

Jerald held her gaze with those sincere, remorseful ice-blue eyes, and Meya couldn't help but smile.

It was but one tiny success, on the path of a thousand hurdles. Nevertheless, hope was stirring from its sleep, a bright green shoot poking its way out from under a thawing blanket of snow, sending ripples throughout the vast expanse of white nothingness.

🐉🐉🐉