A Country Falls (Greatest Thief 3)

Part Three - Zianna - Chapter Thirty-Seven

The trip back to East Draulin was blissfully uneventful.

The Draulin Guardian gathered quite a bit of attention in the East Draulin port. It was a huge ship, after all. Acen took the knights and some of Roland's sailors down to clear a path, and soon we were on our way up to the castle.

Things settled down fairly quickly. When Mayah wasn't with Jalor, she threw herself back into managing her city. Her advisors had, for the most part, continued working on her various projects. In theory Tannix was supposed to be helping her, but she didn't need him. Their planning meetings all quickly turned into Mayah talking her way through ideas and Tannix nodding or chiming in with the occasional remark.

The knights settled into a guard rotation. They took it as seriously as they always had, but there was a new sense of relaxation. Watching Tannix in a friendly city wasn't a hard job, compared to what they had been through. They even somewhat adopted Castin into the fold, when the knights realized that training him was much more fun than training me had been.

Kovin came by from time to time, but mostly he stayed in the port on the Guardian. Roland had grudgingly allowed him to stay onboard, even though he still wasn't allowed to work.

I rarely saw Jalor. He had accepted a private room in the castle, after Tannix had ordered him to take it. Food was delivered to his room, so we never saw him at meals. He let Mayah and Tannix into his room, but turned away the rest of us whenever we tried.

It was about two weeks after our return to East Draulin when I was walking through the barracks with Castin. We had just finished eating dinner with the knights while Tannix and Mayah were deep in a meeting. Castin never did night shifts, but Acen had sent him to walk me back to the castle. At least Castin didn't feel like a guard. We joked and taunted each other, and then I suddenly stopped, because I'd seen something.

Castin followed my gaze, and he narrowed his eyes when they landed on the bird perched above us. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. That's Jalor's hunting bird. He must be around." I took off down the little alleyway beside us.

"Finn," Castin grumbled, but he followed me.

A few turns later, I found a small private courtyard. Jalor stood in the middle of it, hacking at a wooden figure with his sword. A dark cape hung over his left shoulder, hiding his missing arm. It didn't quite work. The cloth didn't hang as if it was draped over an arm.

I waved at Castin so he would stay back, and stepped into the little courtyard. "Jalor?"

"Of course." He hacked at the training dummy again. "You would be the one to find me."

I knew his bitter tone wasn't really meant for me, but it still stung. "Your fighting looks good."

"Don't give me that, Finn," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm useless." At that, he slammed the sword into the wood so hard that it stuck there. After a moment he gave it a halfhearted tug.

I walked around to his side, where I could lean again the wall in his line of sight, but still be out of reach of the sword if he swung at the figure again. "That isn't true."

"Of course it is. What kind of knight has only one arm?" He gave the sword a violent tug, and it came loose suddenly. He stumbled back a step. His balance was compromised without his arm.

"You lost your arm in battle," I said. "And nobody expects you to stay in the guard. Hasn't Mayah asked you to marry her?"

He slashed at the figure again, leaving a clean slice across its neck. "Yes. But she doesn't want to marry me."