The Silent Shield (Kingfountain #5)

I think the poison affects my mind. It stops me from remembering. It’s making me mad. My thoughts are muddled and sluggish. I’ve asked for water, but the jailor only gives me the sickly sweet drink. How can I stop drinking the cup? I think on it again and again. If I can figure out a way to stop drinking it, perhaps I will get my memories back. It’s difficult to focus. There is no sense of time. Yet a strange idea came to me while I was stacking my little chips of broken stone today. Where did the chips come from? So I felt around the wall and discovered a broken section. Someone has chipped away at the stone. Did I do it?

As I felt the broken wall with my fingers, rough and jagged, I realized there’s a pattern to it. The pieces are at angles. I’m so thirsty. I’ve tried not to drink for two days, but I can’t die of thirst. It torments me. Water. I need water. I’m going mad. Because I hear water. Trapped inside the wall. It wants to come out so I can drink it. In my mind, I see a vision of a man with a crooked staff. A wild, ancient man. He hits a rock with the staff, and water gushes out. Water is in the stone. Water is in the stone.





CHAPTER FIVE


Disciple




It was well into the night before all of Count Bastion’s minions had been arrested and brought to the castle in chains. Torches flickered in the night wind as Trynne walked with Captain Staeli down the corridor to the balcony overlooking the yard. The evening was cool but not cold.

Staeli had been assigned as her bodyguard following Dragan’s brutal attack on her, which had left half of her face paralyzed. A former soldier of Westmarch, he had been trained as an Espion because of his affinity for weapons and hand-to-hand fighting. Staeli was steady as stone and wholly committed to her and her family, and rarely uttered any nonsense. He had trained Trynne in secret before the Wizr Myrddin had made her swear the five oaths that had made her an Oath Maiden. Now, he was training the corps of Oath Maidens. He drilled them hard, sometimes to the point of vomiting, and felt that bruises earned in mock combat were badges of honor.

“Aye, lass, your hunters caught them assembling in the woods earlier this afternoon and kept watch on them. Mariette brought forty of the girls out to surround and capture them. I think they could have done it with twenty, the lads were so ill trained.” He snorted in derision and pushed open the door to the balcony.

Trynne nodded to him as she walked through it, then planted her palms on the edge of the balcony and watched her warriors as they lined up the prisoners. Their armor and weapons had all been stripped away and were set in neat piles to one side. Mariette had proven to be one of the most capable of the Oath Maidens. The thirty-year-old widow was older than the rest. Tall, lithe, and blond, she was beautiful enough to be mistaken for an Occitanian princess. But Mariette was a leader, and while she’d enjoyed her position of power as the widow of a wealthy merchant, she’d always wanted to learn how to fight. Being taller than most men, she was intimidating to them. Trynne watched as she told the prisoners where to assemble, walking among them in a chain hauberk topped with a tunic bearing the badge of Averanche.

Staeli folded his arms and nodded with approval. “She’ll make a good captain for you someday,” he said, gazing at Mariette. “The new girl from the desert, I would put her under Mariette to start.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Trynne said. “I’ve had my eye on Mariette for a while. I wish I were that tall sometimes. She’s going to compete in the Gauntlet of Kingfountain.”

“Aye, and she’ll do well,” Staeli said proudly. “So will that hunter, Rhiannon. She’s from Atabyrion, a tanner’s girl. She knows more about hunting than most scouts I’ve known. She’s the one who warned us about Count Bastian’s knavery.” His smile turned into a frown. “What would you like to do with him? His face is a little purple at the moment, and not from woad.”

“Purple?” Trynne asked with a laugh. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“No, you did not. I did.” He puffed out his chest a little, looking satisfied with himself.

Trynne wanted to hug him. Though he trusted her to take care of herself, he was still very protective of her. “If we let him go right away, he may not learn his lesson very well. I was thinking of holding him for ransom. He is from Legault, after all. There may be others he’s treated poorly.”

Staeli scratched his beard. “Very well, lass. It’s better to kill a snake than release one, but skinning it first is helpful. The poisoner’s name is Gawne. He’s looking even more purple than the count,” he added as an aside. “An ordinary chap from Pisan. Hired by Count Backstabber to kidnap you. That’s his specialty—abducting youths. Capturing you was going to earn him ten thousand florins, of which he had already been paid half up front.”

“So little,” Trynne said, feeling sick.

“I’m offended he didn’t demand fifty. This was not a royal conspiracy. Bastian was trying to do it on the cheap. He was woefully misinformed about your . . . your vulnerability.” At this, he gave her one of his proud, fatherly smiles. By now, there were nearly a thousand Oath Maidens spread across the kingdom—women who had come to Averanche to be tutored in the arts of war by Staeli and to leave as warriors.

Trynne stared down at the yard again. The men who were gathered there had come expecting to earn a small pouch of coins for helping kidnap the Lady of Averanche. Instead, they’d been caught off guard, surrounded, and abducted by a group of highly trained women. She shifted her gaze to the Oath Maidens. There was Gillian from the Brythonican town of Passey. Haley from Dundrennan. That girl could throw a spear unlike anyone else. Maciel, who was the daughter of a sanctuary thief but had been raised by a kindhearted family. Brooke was one of the best fighters of the bunch. Emilia was a master archer. Savanne could throw down any boy her size. Camellia had shown aptitude to be an Espion, perhaps even a poisoner. There were dozens more, each with a story of how they had come to be there. They were not all equal in talent, but they had all defied tradition by seeking to defend their kingdom. She realized that they would soon be given that chance.

“What would you have me do with the poisoner?” Staeli asked in a low, meaningful tone. She recognized the tone of his voice, the implication wrapped up in his question.