No One's Chosen (21 page)

The introductions and pleasantries were woefully
long. Síocháin made sure to stay at a distance, speaking to lesser
Lords who tended to have fewer questions for her. Síocháin was well
known to the highborn of Spéirbaile and only a few had ever balked
at her presence. Rianaire was not bashful about unmaking Lords,
especially if they saw fit to question the few people she held
dear.

It was nearly two hours of mindless milling about and
answering the typical run of questions. There were those who would
ask her what it must be like and tell her how amazing it must be
before she could answer. There were those who would ask about
affairs of state and wonder at what her plans might be for the
future.

Síocháin's little game was one they had played before
in various forms. It almost always went the same way. Torture for
Rianaire now, punishment for Síocháin later. She wondered why it
bit at her so deeply tonight. Perhaps it was her unfulfilled
desires or her lingering frustrations or her dashed hopes, but
Rianaire had less patience for her duties as Treorai than she
normally managed. It was childish, she knew, but was she not
entitled to it every now and again?

Every glance from the subtle face of her handmaid
sent a hot bolt up her spine and every turn away sent a desperate
chill running back down. When Rianaire would turn back to the faces
of strangers, she found they annoyed her and filled her with
misplaced anger. She forced herself to smile and be patient and
tell them the things they wanted to hear but should have already
known. They did not care about her, not truly. They cared about her
status and her title and what her friendship could afford them. She
was not Rianaire except in the steely eyes of the woman across the
room. She yearned for a connection in a room full of masks and
self-satisfaction. The night they'd spent talking seemed so long
ago, though it was just the night before. She wanted it back, and
all the others since they'd met in her youth. There was no one here
for her but Síocháin and Síocháin was far away. She wanted to
scream and cry and be held.

The dinner served only to drag Rianaire through the
sort of horrors that only a dinner with nobility could. She had
been given the head of the table, as was custom. This was usually
made bearable by the presence of Aerach and Síocháin in the chairs
nearest her end of the table. They could play all manner of games
under the table coverings to pass the time and often they did. This
time, however, Síocháin had chosen to seat herself near some young
lordling who had taken to showering Síocháin in flirtations. To
make matters worse, Rianaire had had the pleasure of being seated
near two of the most vapid women she had ever heard open their
mouths. The night's chatter was an insipid mix of baseless
speculation about what might be best for the lowborn and casual,
uninformed, chatter about the goings on of the southron elves. When
talk turned to a giggling diatribe on how barbaric the desert elves
must be, Rianaire decided she had heard enough.

She pounded the table and the room fell silent. Her
smile was nothing, if not convincing as she turned to the elf woman
who had begun the rant. "Tell me, when did you last sojourn to
Fásachbaile?"

"I… I didn't mean… to… to…"

"Nonsense, you have made it well clear that you
understand them so deeply. When where you last there?"

"N-never… Treorai." The woman stared at her plate as
though Rianaire were going to eat her whole.

Rianaire's expression began to shift. "Never? But you
spoke with such conviction. And surely you have spent time among
the lowborn to speak about their well being and what would serve
them best." Her voice grew louder and harsher with each word.
"Surely you thanked them for the lives that they have given in the
mines, for the silks and linens that they've harvested that you
might sit here in such finery." She lowered her head to make the
woman meet her gaze. "What have you done— Look at me!"

The woman's head jerked around in terror but her eyes
were still averted. "What have you done but pass through the right
pair of legs on the way to the world? We were given the good grace
to be born into what we are by the Sisters and the very least we
can do is earn the place they have given us."

She stood abruptly and grabbed the woman by the face,
finally her gaze was met.

Rianaire's eyes burned. "What have you earned?"

No answer came.

Rianaire screamed it now. "What have you earned,
milady?"

The woman cried the words in the awkward, terrified
wail of a child who had been lashed for the first time. "Nothing! I
have earned nothing, Treorai! I'm sorry… please."

Rianaire pushed the woman's face back and let her go.
She pushed her chair back and made for the door. Síocháin stood
wordlessly and lead her out.

Not a word was spoken until they had made it upstairs
to the bedroom and the doors were closed.

Síocháin was unbuttoning her own dress as she spoke.
"You must have been awfully frustrated to make such a scene in
Aerach's keep. Some might even find it unbecoming of a
Treorai."

Rianaire approached from behind without a word and
tore Síocháin's unbuttoned dress down around her arms. She kissed
Síocháin's shoulder and then bit the spot as hard as she could.

Aile sat alone in the nicest room the small inn had
to offer. It was a damn sight better than the porch she had made
her shelter the night before. The owner of the hotel had been in
quite a huff and had sent her husband up to prepare the room for
the arrival of the Regent as soon as the charred body of the old
businessman had been found in the middle of the street. She had
placed it not far from her place under the deck that ran across the
front of the humble inn and it proved a wonderful seat for the show
that was to ensue.

Just after dawn, a hunched old woman had made for the
communal outhouses that sat at the far end of the city, away from
the mine and most of the houses. She had been the first to find the
body and her shriek roused Aile from an uncomfortable slumber. It
was not long after the scream that dawn broke and with it came a
quickly growing crowd. The younger— and only currently living— of
the mine's overseers had arrived on the scene well after most of
the town and immediately put his guards to clearing space around
the body. It took only an hour or so for most to lose interest and
get to their daily chores or, in the case of many, to make for the
inn in search of a hearty breakfast that wouldn't be possible once
the mine reopened.

Most talked of what a tragedy it had been and
speculated as to who among them had disliked the old man enough
kill him in so gruesome a manner. Surely, he was strict and cared
little for the people of the town, but had he deserved such a
thing? On and on they went, at length, about how awful it had all
been. Useful information had been less forthcoming. The innkeeper
had been kind enough to shout her command loud enough that Aile
knew where the Regent would be housed. After that, however, she was
given precious little. The most amusing thing she had overheard
throughout the course of the long, slow day was speculation as to
how his body had been burned without disturbing his robes. It was
as though the people of this small mining town could not fathom
that people did not wear robes at all times of day. Or perhaps they
just neglected to think that someone might dress a corpse even
though every funeral pyre Aile had ever seen lit bore clothed
elves. Regardless of the reasons, however, it cemented the idea
that vengeful spirits were responsible among a growing subset of
the villagers. What else could it have been, after all? A fire that
didn't burn clothes was no normal fire,to be sure.

The day had droned along and the mine guards removed
the body shortly before lunch. People milled about and inspected
the area the corpse had been until night fell. Aile was restless,
knowing that the ride from Cnoclean proper shouldn't take more than
a couple of hours at the most. She hoped the preparations would
take some time, at least, and would delay them well into the night
and she had been lucky on that front. The streets cleared fully
around supper and she made out from her hiding spot to inspect the
rooms above. Light beamed from every window but one of the five
rooms on the upper floor of the small inn. There was no good way to
climb the thing and she would likely have to make her way in by the
kitchen after the inn fell quiet. It was back to her porch and to
waiting. The Regent did indeed arrive late in the evening, after
most had finished their stew and their mead. He had complained of
his exhaustion no sooner than he had stepped out of the carriage
that brought him. The complaint's subtext did not escape the grasp
of the innkeeper and she ordered everyone out as soon as they had
finished their meals.

The inn fell dark and silent well before midnight.
Aile waited an hour and then left the relative safety of her wooden
shelter. The kitchen door had been locked but was a simple thing
and she forced it open quickly enough. The Regent had brought six
guards in total, but only two stood posts in the inn proper. She
lured them to the kitchen easily enough with the clanking of pots.
She could not have asked for a better pair of fools, she thought as
they loped, half drunk, into the kitchen. The first had his throat
cut unceremoniously. Aile let him clatter to the ground in a heap
and as if they meant to make her work all the easier, the other
came walking over asking after his friend.

"Ha! Tol' ya I could drink—" The guard spoke his last
as a thin dagger pierced the wet flap of his fat chin and pushed
through his throat into his brain.

Their blood pooled on the kitchen floor and she had
made sure to move over it. It wouldn't do leaving signs of her
presence.

Up the stairs and through a door that had been freed
of its guards and she found herself sitting over the sleeping body
of the Regent of Cnoclean wondering why it had been so important
that she draw him to this little mining town. She looked around the
room, considering the bland wooden walls and the poorly crafted
chest of drawers. Most of the furniture in the room was made of
unfinished wood. In more capable hands, she might have even thought
of it as a rustic stylistic choice, but here it just stank of
amateur work to satisfy a basic need. It didn't seem to be
affecting the Regent's sleep though. She had seen him when he first
arrived. Slender, lithe, almost gaunt in the face and exceptionally
pale. He had the auburn hair of a river elf, a rich reddish-brown.
It was long and if not for his particularly square jaw eyes, one
might have mistaken him for a woman at a casual glance. His slight
shoulders led down to thin, girlish arms as well and his face was
devoid of any hair whatsoever. Aile turned her nose up. She could
not attest to being fond of this sort of creature in the
slightest.

The bedside table held a vase of sad looking flowers
that the innkeeper's husband had somehow managed to round up and a
pounded-steel carafe filled with fresh water. Aile took the carafe
in a hand, held it out over the sleeping noble and upended it. The
noble shot up with a start, letting go something like a yelp in his
surprise. The Drow shushed him and struck him atop the head with
the blunt end of a dagger.

She sat the carafe calmly back on the table. She
looked the Regent over with coal black eyes, waiting to see what he
would do. A scream might draw attention, but it would not give him
his life.

"You are here to kill me." The Regent was calm, his
voice as unwavering as it was unsurprised.

"I am not. But since I have come, I must."

The Regent looked a bit confused at that. "Then why
have you come?"

"You are a piece in a puzzle that, I think, has very
little to do with you. No," she corrected herself, "you are not
even that. I would have you point me toward a piece of the
puzzle."

He sighed sarcastically. "Well, less glamorous than
I'd hoped for as deaths go. At least I will be satisfied if it is a
good puzzle. What would you ask of me, Drow?"

"I have been employed by a man. He insists that I am
to be used as a means to rectify situations brought about by some
noblewoman."

"Not uncommon."

"My question for you is a simple one, elf. What
noblewoman would make trouble at a pig farm in Fásachbaile and then
require that I draw the attention of a Regent away from his keep in
Cnoclean no more than two days later?"

The thin elf started to laugh. He stopped and looked
at her straight for the first time since they've sat down. "Your
noblewoman is quite a troublesome one, that is true enough."

Aile narrowed her eyes, expecting an explanation.

His smile faded. "I do not suppose you could allow me
to send word to Cnoclean."

"I cannot." Aile crossed her legs and leaned back in
the shoddy chair.

"I understand."

"And my puzzle piece?"

"I suspect it is walking the halls of the Bastion at
Spéirbaile with jingling pockets and a face like spoiled milk."

Aile stood without a word and flipped the dagger
around in her hand, gripping it by the hilt now.

The Regent did not beg or make an unseemly face, he
merely asked. "Would you make it as quick as you are able?"

It was a wasted question. A body being tortured did
not grasp helplessly at the hasty retreat of life. It could not
arouse the black beast inside her to see someone merely suffer. She
grabbed the elf's throat tight in her free hand and shoved him flat
on his back. He did not resist as she mounted him. He was much
larger than her even with his slight frame. She could not remember
a time it had been any different. Aile placed the dagger with great
care between the slits of his ribs, her fingers gripped his throat
as tightly as her small hands could manage. She shoved the point
with little resistance through the meat of his chest and into a
heart that beat with life. It spasmed and the blade convulsed in
her hands. His face was stoic, unmoved, dignified, even, but she
could feel the struggle in his neck. The muscles twitched wildly
beneath the surface signaling threat, signaling damage. His eyes
were locked to hers, doing all they could to repeat the lie he
wanted to believe. "This was fine," they seemed to say, "All who
live will die." But his body was honest. The knife thumped
arrhythmic and the muscles twitched ever slower until, at last,
they grew still.