BROKEN

IV. RESTLESS DUTY

Black smoke rose from the Daxamite ship as the archers loosed a final volley of flaming arrows. On the cliffside above the harbor, Kara considered all she had learned this day.

The red-haired guard, called Alex by her companions, stood nearby. A misty rain fell, not enough to warrant escaping for cover, but wet enough to plaster hair to heads.

Alex drank ale from a flagon and passed it to Kara. "Your strength was welcome today."

Kara nodded and drank without comment. She had joined the women who sailed the ship from the dock to the harbor behind the cliffs of the keep, then rowed a longboat back to shore.

"They think us all witches, but..." Alex's shoulders sank with the depth of her sigh. "If they think Lena cruel and mad, if no man returns to speak otherwise, well, her legend is what keeps the warmongers away."

"Are you?" Kara asked. Alex frowned, and Kara passed back the flagon. "Witches?"

"All women who seek to stand up for themselves are called witches. Women who won't be beaten or taken against their will, who won't be treated as breed stock...hell, any woman who thinks for herself is put to question. Lena was right, that the world is full of women and children mistreated or bereft by war."

"So they come here." Though Kara had her quest to consider, she could understand the appeal.

"Why did you come?"

Kara pondered her answer, but when she took too long to respond, Alex pressed on.

"This place is so different now." She took a sip of her ale. "Lena has given so many of us hope...that tomorrow will be like today, with full bellies behind sturdy walls. The crop yield will be the best we've seen in ten years. It doesn't wipe the slate clean from all the havoc Lex wrought upon us, but...I can't remember a time when we were this long without war."

Lena's death would unsettle Luthorix once more. She had no heir, and though the keep would stand and persevere, their guiding light would be extinguished.

Kara considered the weight of the stone tucked under her bed back in her quarters, the balance of the deed to be done against the damage it would bring.

"You seem restless," the guard said. "Will you be leaving us soon?"

"Perhaps." If Kara succeeded in killing the queen, she might not escape alive.

"Will you go back to where you came from?"

Kara had told no one of her travels. Rumors of the type of calamity that would render a woman to speak as little as she did spread like water across the hold, but she wasn't the only one who spoke little of their lives before Lynellhold.

She had given no thought to where she would go next. Traveling back to the southlands where people had at least heard of the Order would be wise, but the thought of traveling again, of crossing the mountains, of the cold and the loneliness—none of it gave her comfort.

Ricar would have said such thoughts were for the weak who lacked devotion but another voice provided counterpoint. As she did so often now, Kara thought of the Ilfane's words, and the trials he'd said she must endure to understand him and his choices.

"Is it uncommon for someone to choose not to stay?" Kara asked.

Alex shrugged, a habitual gesture. "No, some come for a time, heal the wounds in their bodies or their hearts, and then take their leave."

She turned to Kara. "Are you one of those? Have you been healed here in so short a time?"

Kara did not answer.

***

That night, the queen appeared on the steps of one of the smaller holds, wiping blood from her hands with a small cloth. "A hearty boy child, full of Luthorixian fire and boldness. His mother lives, and both are resting well. "

Lena's smile was tired as the guards cheered. She glanced at Kara through the smoke and flames of the torches, her gaze long and heavy before she went back inside.

"Lena's craft is strong," one of the guards said. "We've not lost a mother to childbirth since midwinter last year."

The others agreed, and Kara once again considered her quest as the flagons passed from hand to hand. A few of the village children played nearby, taking advantage of the escape from the usual chores.

More than once, they pointed at Kara and whispered. One of them, a girl not far from womanhood, was braver than the others and came close to tug at Kara's sleeve.

"Are you the hero of the story?" The girl's eyes were wide, wondrous.

"What story is this?" Kara asked.

"The story about the monsters hiding as men who come to kill all the good people of the village, to take over the land and feast on it. But a hero defends the people and the land by standing against the monsters. Are you the hero?"

Kara envisioned the men who had come to lay claim to Lynellhold, and the woman who had stood against them.

The guards cheered their queen again when she reappeared, and pressed a flagon into her hands..

"No," Kara said to the child. "I am not."

***

The next two nights, Kara observed as the queen bid good night to those up late in the hall. Each time, Kara's was the last face Lena looked to before leaving, a smile in her eyes if not on her lips. Since the battle in the hall, Lena searched for Kara's face more than others.

They'd yet to speak of Lena's discovered identity.

This night of the new moon was filled with revelry in the main hall, but Lena was absent. The distraction of the evening's festivities was an opportunity Kara could not ignore. The time for her duty was at hand.

The thick dank smell of dirt and decaying roots in the tunnel walls below the keep gave way to a stone and wood staircase leading to a room visible only from the ground outside. The room wasn't large, but it wasn't small either, the deep shadows of its confines revealing little save its lone occupant.

Lena sat naked on the ledge, pale skin aglow in the dark, her dark hair unbraided and tangled about her shoulders.

Sweat streamed down the hollow of Kara's back and slicked the palm of the hand holding a knife.

Curiosity painted Lena's face at Kara's approach until she recognized her guest.

"Kara." Her eyes gleamed in pleasure.

Joy faded when Kara didn't answer. Lena noticed the knife Kara held, and when she glanced up again, resignation had taken its place.

"My visions of this night foretold my reckoning," Lena said. "That all I had sown would fruit beneath the new moon. I had hoped the seeds I planted with you would bear sweeter fruit but...I had forgotten only the foolish put any stake in hope."

She did not move from where she sat.

"So it's to be you, then," Lena said in sorrow. "The one who comes to kill me."