DARKHAVEN | "Three Sisters" Book One

Chapter Thirty-One

Blodwyn

The night had ended on a high note.

For Gia.

For this, Blodwyn was thankful. Her sisters deserved good nights; gods only knew they saw so few good nights as of late. 

And more, soul mates? Such notions, Blodwyn thought, had only existed in fairy tales and the stories of old told to young girls to hide the bleakness of the future ahead of them. 

Yet, Gia's Spirit Guide was not to be doubted. Soul mates they were, then. 

When at last Blodwyn was sure her sisters were asleep and knew the Lords would think she was asleep too, on went her cloak and out her door she went. The red-haired sister slipped down one hall, then another, then out onto a balcony. And from the balcony she took hold of a wisteria vine thick as her fist, prayed it would hold, and climbed. Two stories up she climbed, her feet scraping stone after stone in an attempt to find footholds. The warm light of her goal glowed overhead and confirmed her suspicions, though, so upward and upward she climbed.

The Lords would be in there—in the War Room above. Blodwyn knew that the Lords were no fools, not in truth, so she cloaked herself well with shadow magic and vaulted onto the balcony outside the room in which they'd gathered. Her leap was catlike and she landed silently.

She remained undetected.

She sat, and she listened.

It took hours for the conversation between the Lords and commanders to be over, but when it did indeed end, she knew their plan.

And she knew her plan, too.

x

Blodwyn skulked through the castle's dimly lit corridors dressed in black. Her hood was drawn and a ranger's sword—stolen from the armoury, which she had toured and inventoried weeks ago courtesy of Daeron—hung at her hip. The rain served to muffle her movements further, and the lack of light let her make her way to the stables unseen.

The Lords' party had assembled as planned, as Blodwyn had overheard: Lord Novak, Lord Alaric, Commander Daeron Dusk, and the mountain of a man Ser Lothor Axton, the scarred knight she'd spied speaking of war in the Great Hall at a banquet prior. Four other lesser knights in blues and whites were groggily saddling their horses.

Blodwyn stepped into the light.

Daeron jumped when he saw her. "Gods, woman—," he hissed at her, "–what are you doing out here? And why—wait, where did you get that sword?"

Novak and Alaric, of course, heard the exchange and stepped around the stalls. "Lady Terran." Novak regarded her with a detached suspicion. "What can we possibly help you with at this hour?"

"Saddling my horse," she told him.

The golden Lord just laughed. "And why would we do that? Taking a pony ride around the lake? Miserable weather for it."

Blodwyn normally would have grit her teeth, but she refused to allow him even the slightest bit of pleasure in knowing he successfully bothered her. "I'm going with you."

"No you're–"

"Yes, I am." She placed her hand on the hilt of her sword casually.

"The First Evil–"

"Will think I'm a ranger. I'm so shadowed that even you didn't detect me, as I was hours ago. I heard your entire meeting last night. I'm going if for no other reason than to be an ambassador for my sisters and myself."