"I'M going to kill you," Aurri muttered once he saw Britius stumbling his way down the stairs of the inn. The man rose from his table and walked over to him, when he reached to help Britius waved him away.   

"I can walk by myself, not a cripple yet." He had to keep some shred of his pride at least. Sal had told him that Aurri had been the one to change his clothing, the others had been bloodied and torn and Aurri had taken the responsibility of changing him into a white tunic and brown woollen breeches. Aurri clicked his tongue took his arm still and led Britius to the stable he had been sitting on.    

"Aye, I know that you can fall and die," Aurri said with dry humour as he pulled the seat for Britius. After seating himself a serving girl in orange and white livery was by their table already, placing trenchers heavy with foods that Britius doubted he could stomach.

"Thank you," he said to the girl who only smiled and walked away again. The food smelled delicious beyond reason, water filled his mouth and Britius could feel the empty pits in his stomach. As he broke into the bread, he watched the common room under a suspicious eye, looking for any man who might have a look of the King's Guard. But there were none, the common room was quite smaller than the one in the Four Winds Inn, but it was no less grandeur.  

Low white plastered walls where fine tapestries depicting forests and birds and battle hung on the walls between the glowing windows. Sconces of rusted iron were wrought into the walls and candelabras of the same iron were scattered across the room. The floor was covered with the fine carpets that an inn could afford, a cheap wool made from Gora. They had their skills in the arts of knitting and sewing the people from that province. On each of the four sides burned a hot brazier, the flames crackling and leaping.  

Men covered every table, laying on them drunk, or nursing kegs of ale or beer while some quickly devoured their mutton pie. Those who had drunk enough paid the bards sitting in the corner near the doors and pulled the serving girl into hot-blooded dances. It was all merry, but Britius could not enjoy it.  

He did not know why but he felt a greater dread than it did before, pinched his heart, and twisted it until he could not breathe. Something was coming towards him—no, he shook his head. Not towards him but Aalina.    

When the thought settled deeply within him, his blood turned to ice. Ricardus would try to kill her now, Seven Lords be damned! I should have written to her to be cautious, he bit his tongue hard until it drew blood. The taste of it filled his mouth and turned it sour, suddenly he was no longer hungry for the food.    

Aalina had ridden into a den of snakes with a snake and she thought it would be simple. He was to blame for her nature as well, had he taught her enough about how ladies of the court behaved than she might have had an edge in playing their little games, but instead Britius had armoured her in the way he knew. With real armour and too much honour.     

In court one had to do what he willed to get what he wanted and he had trained Aalina to have limits, and those limits were going to get the queen killed. He owed it to Adame that his daughter wore the crown, but he was failing. That he knew and his gut twisted more, tying into tight knots like a ball of yarn but much heavier and dreadful.    

"You look grim like death, what's going on in that head of yours?" He looked up with a start, his musings stopped suddenly. Aurri watched him under a half-closed grey eye, he had his arms crossed over his chest and nodding and stomping his feet to the sound of the song. It was a court song, it made one wonder how a common bard learned a song of the highborn, it caused real wonder indeed. Could he have spied or listened—the idea came to him in a rush, so fast that Britius jumped from his chair and roared.    

"Yes!" Silence filled the common room, every eye turned to him. Some worried as if he was a madman and some furious that he had suddenly stopped their joys.    

"Answer odd one you are," Aurri said with a light knuckle as he took a fried onion ring from the bowl and ate it. It crunched.   

Britius smiled, "Aye but let me ask you this," he sat down pulled himself closer to the table, and leaned toward Aurri. The man leaned in too, listening.    

"Could you get me a whisperer into the House of Peers, but bind it to me and a lady there." Aurri's eyebrows shot up, the man sat back and his jaw dropped as if some great revelation of life had just appeared.  

"You are a lord? Or a lord's son, Seven Lords know those pricks outlive their sons, mostly. You would swear they give their sons souls to the Ufralian spirit-gods." Aurri laughed dryly, but when he saw Aurri not laughing he sighed and stood, scratching his head as he treaded for the door. "Come on then, best we get on with it."    

Falkirk was quite the festive town, no doubt every other village that had an easy winter would be festive. The streets were still live and lit by lights hanging from wires slung overhead. Peddlers had set up their wares on their wagons for the people to buy.  

Children darted between the people, laughing as they chased each other with burning sticks. Mothers and fathers danced with each other, hooked arms and twirls blurring in the rhythm of the songs while unmarried sons and daughters stole kisses in secret in the dark alleys. 

Aurri led Britius to the town square where a pile of logs had been stacked up and tied with a white silk ribbon. White flower petals were scattered about around the stack and bards sat at every corner of the square, singing songs to the small crowd around them. Aurri turned right at the second street from where they came and walked down the rubble path. As they went further, the music and singing died down behind them and the buildings rising began to tower. Oil lamps encaged by red glasses hung outside the building, casting a Darkly red glow at the cobbled paths.     

At each building, from either a closed window with the lights on or widely open and the lights off, moans choked the air, and the scent of pleasures and sin sweetened the air like perfume. Aurri led Britius into one of the brothels, one at the edge of the street. It was the largest in that street, the common room was dark and lit red.    

Sconces lined up the stone walls, the candles cased inside of red glass giving the room the bloody hue it held. The stench of lavender and incense lay heavy in the air, mixing with the smells of pleasure. 

Occasionally a naked woman would pass by them and into another curtain-covered door, the women were naked as sin was sweet. Only adorned with gold silvers and bronze. On the wider space of the common room, there were cushions of gold and crimson scattered about, and women—no girls no more than sixteen danced to the men before them.  

Their breasts flashed, glinting with the bronze rings bored into their nipples and the chains on their beautiful bodies.   

From the corner of his eye, Britius caught one girl. Her hair was dark and braided, her face pierced with rings, and her arms tattooed with intricate patterns and chains sewn from her hair wove between her arms and thighs and fingers. The girl mounted a man and rode him there for the whole world to see, her face sweaty and eyes closed in moments of pleasure. Britius looked away quickly, Seven Lords damned he hated whore houses. They always had his skin crawling as if being eaten by maggots.     

"Have you come to buy me a whore. I believe I asked for a whisperer not a whore." Britius murmured under his breath, trying to keep from choking on the stench and letting his eyes wander.

Aurri shrugged, "Aye and I am getting one. There is one place, one place alone where no lord or lady would think to find a spy in and that's a whore house. Do you know what is that?" Aurri asked amused as he slapped a passing girl's arse. The whore had the decency to giggle before disappearing behind a red curtain. Britius shook his head at Aurri. "Because whores are the most trusted through the kingdom. A whore only wants two things, your cock, and your money, nothing more. No lord would expect a whore to have ears and a mouth."       

There was some logic in Aurri's words, but they were truly...despicable. Ever since he lived Britius had only stepped into a whore house twice. Once when they had returned from their service in the Shadowed Hills with Adame and again when he was crowned First Advisor and Lord High Captain of the King's Guard, then he had learned one thing about himself. He could not stomach whore or their work, they made him jumpy and had his skin crawling as if rotting from the inside. Truly terrible business.  

At the end of the corridor, Aurri turned left and ascended the stairs, they passed closed shutters made of stitched fabric as they climbed. It was a tapestry of a naked woman lying with a half-man and half-snake. They were the creatures fabled to live beneath the Sunken Sea, only rising to the surface to do sin. The people from the Sealands even considered them the sea gods or often gods of the sea and sin.     

These creatures were said to be of great beauty with skin blue as sapphire and eyes of gold and the body of a man but the legs of a snake.  

During the reign of King Telamon the Second, sailors used to claim that they heard voices at sea. Those voices often drove men mad or enchanted the crews to sink their ships. But of course, they were legends and myths like all else, some believed in the Asemon Lords, the fathers and mothers of the Asemon, and some believed in gods or spirits, but life had struck Britius hard enough to separate the truth from fancy. There was no higher power in the world, only men and women were left to their own devices to sin and lust and love as they desired.    

And if there were gods then they had long forsaken the world.    

As they stepped into the Second floor of the brothel, Britius was already sick with disgust. It was like an oily taint in his pit and throat, hot like bile and terrible like pork flesh oil. The second floor was not built like the common room, with one side an open space and the other a corridor of doors.     

Instead, it was a wide circular room with six rooms, the curtains closed and shapes moving behind them. At the centre of the room was a large cushion where a man sat with his legs up and lying on his back, holding a bronze goblet.   

"Have you come for one of my girls? Sorry, I am sure you can see that they are quite busy, give them an hour." The man murmured.   

"I haven't come for your whores, Vermil," Aurri said casually. The man, Vermil, rose carefully not to spill his wine and turned his head. His blue eyes seemed bright even in the dark, red hue of the room. He was no Asemon, that put Britius at ease at least. Being around other Asemons always had him on the edge of bloodthirst. You could not outrightly ask an Asemon what their gift was but if it were a Reader or Necrosist then it would have been dangerous to be around.   

Readers who would look through your thoughts as if reading from a book and Necrosists who, if they wished it, could bind your soul to them and you would be their puppet. They were the most dangerous of all the gifts, save for the Shadowweavers. But their kind vanished when their Lord of Darkness vanished as well, or so the scholar's records said. Britius hardly trusted anything recorded in history.  

History could be easily changed or altered and no one would ever question it. Even now, at this very age, every province of Ustela has a different version of what happened fourteen years ago in Bellbroke Keep. Most said he had grown too greedy and had killed the king and the entire family but before he could seize the Thorn Crown Ricardus rode in with an army and sent him off running. If only they knew the truth of it all.  

Vermil's lips gave a hint of a smile, he jumped off the cushion and swayed with such grace that it was queer to see on a man, and he pulled Aurri into an embrace and a gentle peck on the cheek.  

"You haven't come for my whores? Well, should I bring you another pair? I'm sure these will be—" Suddenly he stopped, looking over Aurri's shoulders at him. Vermil smiled and sipped from his goblet. "And who might this handsome fellow be?" Vermil glided past Aurri towards Britius. He raised a ring-adorned finger for Britius to kiss.   

It took all of Britius' will not to sneer and spit, he cast a glance at Aurri. The other man nodded slowly and Britius grimaced. He took hold of Vermil's hand and kissed it gently, the stench of perfume and powders filled his nose. When he pulled back he saw Vermil in a new light. The man's skin shimmered like polished gold, he had dabbed himself in oils and powders until his skin shone. And the jewelry on him handed him an air of grandeur that most whore masters could not summon.       

"Oh, this one is a darling, Aurri. Can I keep him? I would make good use of him." Then he was forgotten as easily as that, Vermil had turned on Aurri again and was already gliding back towards his cushion. The gold chain locked on his middle finger ring to his nose clinked in soft music that did little to silence the moans that came behind those curtains.

"I would give him to you, but he is the one in need of your services," Aurri said, exasperated. The word 'services' served as a code to Vermil. He paused a foot from climbing his cushion and sighed.       

"Come along then, the hour is going." Vermil led them off to another small corridor then up a short flight of stairs and into a room that seemed like an office.    

There was a wide writing table inlaid with ivory sitting before the wide windows facing the doors of the office, no doubt leading to the loggia of the office. The walls were adorned with paintings depicting beautiful women and many making love in majestic gardens of roses and apples.   

Laid before the table were red, plush cushions with intricate patterns of gold. The office was much brighter than the rest of the brothel, it held not a red hue like blood but natural candlelight.  

Candles stood on the tables and wardrobe and cupboards along the walls plastered with black, red, and white paper. There were silver candelabras scattered about here and there, but what seemed most queer and unsettling were the naked serving boys in the office.  

They stood still as guards behind the table, they could not have been more than fourteen years old. They had their hair shaven closely to their scalps and their bodies painted in powder. They glistened like polished jewels, their skin held a beautiful yet sinful sheen.

Their faces were marked by powders in patterns. The eyelids were painted black, as were the temples and the rim of their lips. Their cheeks were stained red along with the rim of their eyes and their lips.    

Their ears had been pierced so many times that Britius wondered if it hurt, earrings of ivory or bronze. Their noses held one large ring placed like a bull's nose ring and their arms were framed by bangles of glass or silver. This was what made brothels a hard place to bear, even men without honour would not come in here where all could see, brothels were houses of lust and sin. Though that did not seem to faze Aurri, he seemed quite accustomed to it all.    

Vermil snapped his fingers and almost as if being moved by strings the boys silently shuffled, two went towards Vermil took off his silk robe, and hung it on the peg by the window while the other moved quickly and placed three goblets on the table and poured red wine into it. Britius prayed silently that it was no Eshan wine. After they poured the wine the other two, that which had taken Vermil's robe pushed Aurri and Britius towards the cushions and made them sit.    

After having seated them they took the other goblet in Vermil's hand and went away and returned a minute later and began massaging the man. Britius sat there frozen and distraught, Aurri had his goblet and sipped the wine casually as if nothing was happening. Vermil sat in his chair, carved elaborately by a craftsman with a good hand, his eyes closed and occasionally moaning or groaning when the serving boys touched him in certain places.    

Finally, Vermil sighed and sat up straight in his chair then eyed them each with icy blue eyes before leering at them his perfect smile, teeth glinting in the candlelight. "You asked for my services, speak."     

Aurri set down his goblet and cleared his throat. "I want to have ears and eyes in court,"    

Vermil chuckled mirthless voice booming in the office. "Everyone wants his ears and eyes in court, save for the farmers of course. All they wish for is a mild winter and some food in their bellies." Vermil laughed again, picking up his fresh goblet and sipping from it.    

"We will pay in gold," Aurri bargained, Britius bit his tongue on that. Aye we will and I am a dancing donkey, he thought crudely as he snatched his goblet from the table, spilling the wine a bit on himself.  

"Gold you say? And who's gold, this handsome fellow here?" Vermil leaned to Britius, he leaned too close that Britius could smell the spice in his perfume. 

Aurri sighed, setting his goblet down he produced a fat purse and tossed it across the table. The coin inside chinked softly.

Awkward silence awakened for a moment, each man passing a wary glance at the other, though Aurri's glance was more bored than wary. Wryly Vermil picked up the purse and opened it then spilled the coin on the table producing a rattling from the table as the coin bounced and rolled off the edge then fell to the ground and rolled. Vermil swallowed greedily, his eyes wide for a moment, but the look was gone as quickly as it had come. Had Britius not witnessed it he would have suspected he dreamt it.     

"Where did you get this much?"Vermil asked his voice tight.      

"Fifty gold crowns and more to come if you take your place in court," Aurri promised, the hint of pride in his voice was unmistakable.      

"And how do you expect a brothel keep to earn a place in court? It is nothing short of foolish." Britius grumbled, was this the madness Aurri brought him to? A whore master tries to earn a place in court. That would be the day he ate his horse raw, but he dared not say that out loud. Doing so then fate might work against him and he would have to eat White Widow, the thought had him nauseous already.  

Vermil sat back, frowning. He frowned in such a way that Britius could not tell whether he frowned at the gold or him.   

"I want two hundred pieces," Vermil muttered, taking his wine goblet.      

Aurri scoffed and waved his hand, "And I want a ruby etched into a whore's arse, but we can't all have what we wish for now can we?"       

"Two hundred gold pieces or go stew in your misery, I am not doing it for less. I am quite cheap, any other man would have charged you a thousand. I am quite generous myself for not charging more." His smile was sudden. Aurri clenched his knuckles so hard that they were white, and Britius soaked the wine in his mouth. It was good wine, aged well too.     

"You're a bastard you know that." It was not a question, but Vermil smiled.      

"Aye that I am, my phethahaehr would not let me forget it." Vermil chuckled running a finger along the stem of the goblet, his eyes focusing on the goblet.     

Aurri scrunched his nose and stood abruptly, he produced another purse and tossed it at the table. "You'll get the rest when I've received word that you arrived. You leave at first light."    

"Then I will start packing then." Vermil smiled again. Britius struggled to get to his feet, his muscles had clenched up and when he tried to force them the pain that had eased came back running and digging hot tongs into his gut.     

Out of the brothel, he went limping like a damn cripple, once he was out he breathed in the sweet fresh air without the stench of perfumes and pleasures. The walk back to Sal's inn was spent in silence, with Aurri no doubt brooding over the coin he would have spent and Britius checking off one more person who's debt he owed. When they came about the town square it was emptier than before. Fewer people moved about and no children played in the streets, some of the lights behind the shutters were off. Falkirk was tumbling to sleep.     

"Are you sure we can trust a brothel keep?" Britius asked once they were on the street to their inn, his breath misted in the air.     

"Vermil may seem strange, but I trust him. Where there is coin and wine to be had then you'll surely find him."   

Then all the way was spent in silence. The common room of the inn was empty save for the livered girls cleaning the tables and sweeping the floors. They barely spared them a glance when they stepped into the inn and walked up the stairs. Their boots thudding and the wood creaking and groaning complains.   

Britius's room was the first in the corridor and Aurri the third from his. Britius grabbed the knob and pushed the door in, before he stepped in though he paused, his heart quickening suddenly. He pulled back and looked over towards Aurri but the man had slipped in and closed the door. Britius sighed audibly before he stepped into his room and threw himself on the straw bed, drifting away to dreamless sleep.

She had expected the feast to be grand, but she never dreamed that it would be this grand. The banners that once hung on the second floor were replaced by tapestries depicting grand feasts and balls, and long tables, heavy with food, had been brought out and arranged carefully across the grand hall, taking up much of the space of the crowded hall.
        
Foods of all sorts had been laid on the clothed tables, from roasted chicken, pigeon and fowl, bathed in spices and herbs and honey to honey soaked pastries, fruit tarts and spiced cake to pigeon pies, venison brewet, pease pudding and dark rye, but that hardly covered half of the dishes being brought from the kitchens by pages in gold and green livery. Yet the most appetizing was the boar she'd killed, being brought out by four grown men in gold and green livery and placed on the table before the stairs which had been transformed into a dais where four throne-like chairs had been placed.
      
Standing against the walls, seemingly to blend in with the thick shadows which had been draped along the walls like a cloak, were the guards on watch at this time. Most of the men had been left outside the manor and more in the camp outside the manor walls. The incident in the morning had forced lord Argrand to banish half of the guard that each lord carried, a precaution that had to be taken to avoid any more spilled blood. The Seven Lords knew death in a feast was a terrible omen and thus the only men watching the lords and ladies were from House Norheim and House Eedlu. The royal family would simply not do without their trusted men, had Aalina not known better she would have thought Ricardus frightened to be without his guard.
     
But that was little distraction from the grandiose of the feast
     
Minstrels sat up in the gallery, their feet through the bars of the railing and playing their flutes or harps or rebecs or gitterns while singers, beautiful men or woman with hair long and tied in gold threads and their hair crowned in golden wreaths, sang courtly songs of love and lust of the past ages, some songs far too old for the nobles to follow but the singers had their schools where they could learn their arts. Dancers in white moved between the nobles, their clothing was just a simple white cloth wrapped around their bodies and held in place by a single golden leaf at their left shoulders.
      
As the dancers moved, pulling ladies into the movement and earning glares from the lords or even pulling the lords themselves and earning glares from the ladies, the golden thick bangles on the wrists flashed in the golden candle light and the thin glass bangles on their ankles clinked softly in rhythm.
       
Then there were the ladies and lords, they too dressed grandly, no doubt trying to show their status and wealth to the others. After suffering lessons about Ustelian fashion at the hands of Calantha during her time in Nury, Aalina learned that the fashion style was more prized the older it was.
     
There were a thousand design styles in Ustela, each one changing like the seasons of the year but tied to the fashion sense of the age and so the nobles found it would be a good show of class and power if they prized the older styles instead of new ones and thus older styles of dresses and clothing was much costly than new age styles.
     
Like one lord, he had dressed himself in a light black coat with white satin trimming along the collar and sleeves then the chest was threaded with silver embroidery. His breeches were gray made from fine wool, the boots black and polished to a gleam stopped at his knees and the top turned  down. He had a white cloak, linen, hanging on one shoulder held by a silver brooch and a single silver chain connected from his neck to his left breast. Then a lady with a shoulderless dark blue dress with the skirts billowy and bloomed like a flower and the sleeves of the dress and the tight chest that brought out her cleavage were decorated with small blue stones.
       
And Aalina herself was dressed flamboyantly, the sleeves of her dress were a white net-like fabric with patterned roses climbing up the arm and shoulders to the neck where it made the high neck locked by a silver rose-shaped locket and trimmed with rosy pink wool. Then from her breasts the net-like fabric became a tight silk bodice of rosy pink which then morphed from waist into wide, layered skirts which on the hem had white cotton fashioned into flowers and roses.
     
Golden, thin chains connected from one shoulder to the other sagged a bit when they passed over her breasts creating waves of gold chains. Then her hair, the front had been braided into her scalp and the rest of his bound into a bun and kept inside a net of thin silver thread and white pearls. Not a very grandly dress, but it was modest. It was from the bygone age before the one they lived in.
     
All is well, Aalina reassured herself as he strode forward into the grand hall, whisking a glass goblet from a trencher held by a page roaming about, she wove between the singers, dancers and the nobles present there. She reached one table near a corridor that led to a corridor and fished a dried peach slice, baked and bathed in honey, with a fork and bit into it. The flavour exploded in her mouth, the sweetness of it all. She held back a pleasure moan, the cooks would have to make more of these.
     
When Aalina fished for another, a young lordling appeared before suddenly. Smiling and seemingly nervous.
      
"My Lady," the lordling bowed, his dark hair fell to his face in a heap. Aalina returned him a courtly curtsey. When the lordling rose the dark hair covered one side of his face, his eyes were the darkest of blue she had ever seen, they were Asemon eyes she realised with a shiver crawling through her spine.
      
"My Lord, fine day is it not?" Aalina offered a smile. The lordling nodded slowly then used one pale hand to push his hair back. The lordling then reached for a slice of the baked and soaked peach and bit into it slowly, the honey stained his lower lip and ran down his fingers.
      
"Delicious," he muttered while watching Aalina with lustful eyes. It took all that she could muster not to drive the fork she had clasped tightly in her hand through his eye. Were all the lords and their sons pricks who saw nothing in women but their cunts? If so then Aalina much preferred the ladies from the men, at least among them there is jealousy and gossip. "Might you dance with me, my Lady?" The lordling gestured to the cluster of singers and whirling dancers who had nobles in their arms.
       
Aalina clenched her jaw tightly, her hand around the glass goblet stem aching from the pulse of pain rushing through it and the fork in her other hand trembled wtoth violence. Red spots dotted her vision and her mind began to fantasies on how much she would enjoy seeing the lord bleed as she gutted him. Oh the pleasure of the thought had her trembling and aching.
      
But instead of fulfilling her fantasies she set the goblet and fork to the table and gave her hand to the lordling. For a quite a short moment the lordling stopped to watch Aalina, seemingly studying her like a jewel appraiser studied a diamond. Then a smile formed on his lip, the lord licked the honey from his fingers and lip and gently took Aalina's hand and led her to the dance.
       
His palms were calloused and rough unlike what he would expect from most lordlings. Most of them were pampered and only studied the sword just for play or to charm a lady by promises of slaying a foul foe on their behalf. But their skills were far from what someone would consider enough to truly defeat a enemy.
     
But the lordling hands was calloused and his grip was strong, Aalina felt her skin prickle and goose flesh pop on it as the lordling slid one hand around her waist and the other held her hand while she cooled hers around his neck.
    
The last song ended finally then the minstrel picked up with something more joyous: shatta a' n chatta, it was an old dance and somewhat disgraceful to others, Aalina herself included.
    
It was the sort of dance where married men or women did not take part in, or dance with another than their beloved. Before she could gather her wits for dancing the lordling twirled her, now her back faced him and his pressed himself hard on her. Their hips swaying in the rhythm and their feet tapping the marble floor in a quick rhythm.
       
"I hear that you are the princess Aalina Leafvale, her body was never recovered from the blood bath in Bellbroke Keep." The lordling slurred in a low voice in her ear, the breath from his mouth caressed her neck sending a cold shiver through her, it felt like a million ants walking over her body and no matter how much she shook herself they would not come off.
   
The song called for them to change their form, so now Aalina face the lordling but now she was pressed against him tightly and his hands were just above her arse and she had her arms around his neck and their closeness tight enough that no even a fly could pass.
    
"Have you come to inquire where I am the true princess or come to dance, my Lord?" Aalina breathed at him, she did not like their proximity.
    
The lordling chuckled from his throat, "I am not a lord, not quite. Just a boy from a village picked up to play soldier in the Shadowed Hills, now Etb you not distract me?" The stance changed again and now they stood apart without an inch of them touching but they had to twirl and whirl than tap their feet in a rhythm.
    
Though she tried to suppress it, the truth of the...soldier shocked Aalina that she froze for an instant, but that was long enough for her to miss a step of the dance and nearly fall but luckily the man—soldier pull her and they were facing each other. A soldier? That meant he came with the army that had disturbed the hunt earlier in the day. The men from the army had been shuffled everyone's gaze—even hers and the lords of the House of Peers hounded the men, Seven Lords, it was then she wished she had someone to listen in there.
        
Shaking her head Aalina schooled her face to what it was once before, she could not let this man know her thoughts. "I see, why has the army returned from the Hills, should they not been watching the Ufral?" She tried to shift the conversation from her past, that was for her and her alone.
      
The soldier whirled her gain into another stance, "The Ufral," he rumbled from his throat, "will never break the fortress in the Hills, we lose men during the attacks but the fortress is enough. Nothing can break it." The proud confidence in his voice was unshakeable. Then the soldier smiled suddenly. "But do not try to change the topic suddenly, my Lady, why do you claim to be the princess?"
        
Aalina returned his smile, though it was an effort not to strangle him there. "Who ever said it was a claim when it is the truth?"
          
The man gave a  mirthless laughed. " The truth can be twisted into a lie and a lie believed strongly by the lier is often known to them as the truth."
       
Aalina widened her smile. I will kill you, " Are you calling me a lier, Sir?"I will kill you, cut you up into bloody little pieces, she thought darkly pulling away from the soldier as the song ended. "Thank you for the dance,Sir" she bowed and began walking away, but then the man held her and pulled her back. Aalina whirled around with such a speed and her hand in the air that she did not even think much about it before she slapped the man across the face leaving it raw and red. "Touch me again and I'll see to it that I cut your head of myself." She growled throatily. Then she noticed that the grand hall had fallen quiet.
        
Aalina turned her gaze to the hall. Heat rose to her cheeks and ear when weight of the eyes of those in attendance bore into her. Unable to escape the situation gracefully like a lady would have done, she picked up her skirts and bolted into one of rhe corridors, tears burning her eyes.
      
The walls blurred in her eyes covered with tears, her throat became raw with rage and the scream she had held back. She should not have let them see her cry, weakness was a luxury she could afford in court, but she came a stupid girl full of herself. That man was have been sent by Ricardus, there was no doubt about it.
     
He wanted to know which right needles pricked her skin and made her bleed. Seven Lords she was so stupid! As Aalina ran the silver thread pearl net on her hair tightened before it snapped and the pearls spilled down, cracking on the marble floor like hail. She did not turn to pick them up, she needed to be alone.
     
She needed to breath. Without the net to keep the bun in place the red hair fell down her back and some of it covered her face, falling down the sides like a waterfall of blood. As she ran, her lungs growing smaller aching her air, Aalina cursed herself endlessly for her stupidity today.

It was all merry around the camp outside the grand walls of the manor, tents and pavillions were scattered about in no order down the steep slope down the side of the hill. Cooking fires burned great, smoke flying to the sky in dark turrets.
     
Men sat around fires, those who could play and sing has gitterns in their hands and singing while the other drunk men danced around the flickering flames, often falling into the fire but quickly jumping out before catching fire. Mud squelched and sucked on boots as they tottered around, the smell of smoke and horseflesh hung in the air, the smell of the sheep they had been given earlier all gone. Damn! Had there been real game in the Wyrmwood this year then they would have feasted in deer or something else but they would have enjoyed it, but there was no game.
         
It was as if the Wyrmwood once teeming with wildlife was suddenly dried up like a river. But that did not matter anymore, they were drunk and full and happy, or Loco Vhold  was anyway. Standing from the log he sat on he tottered away from the fire which he had been sitting among with his friend who had long fallen asleep. He went away from the camp, towards the edge of it there it was darker, as if a shadow had fallen on the land and the quarter moon in the sky could not clear it away.
       
Mud suckled on his boots as he stepped brought it. When he stepped again he stepped on something smooth and wet and he fell into the mud like splat! Like a ripe melon splattered on the ground. Loco muttered a curse as he tried to stand but he slipped again and fell face in the mud. He laughed then like a mad man, he had drunk to much tonight, he would have a pounding in his head when he woke, but that was to be welcomed.
     
"Need a hand lad?" Asked a voice from somewhere in a strange accent. Gathering his strength Loco lifted his face off the mud and scanned the place. There was nothing but darkness and canvas tent rolling away from him down the hill, somewhere downhill was a huge rock jutting from the ground like spear head and the moonlight shone upon it in silver brilliance.
       
"Who are you, reveal yourself." Loco asked, suddenly frightened. His heart throbbing in his throat.
      
"Do you need a hand, lad?" The voice asked again, more darkly this time. Loco pushed off the ground in haste, trying to run but the mud was too soft and wet that he fell on his back and hit something with his head.
     
A flash of white exploded in his eyes for and instant followed by the agonizing pain blooming as the back of his skull.
      
Loco groaned, the pain growing his eyes rolling to the back of his head. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, he tried to cry out for help was his voice caught in his throat, blood filled it like water in a well.
     
"Poor lad, I asked if you needed help." The voice mused, there was the sound of mud squelching like a babe sucking from his mother's breast. The sound came from his right, Loco strained his head right, biting down the pain that came with that little movement. There was a man walking towards him, he wore dark clothes that the blackness of night seemed a part of him, a shadow itself even. Something's was in his hand, glowing like cold fire in his right At first Loco wondered what it was, but the shape  made his blood run cold.
       
It was a sword, not like any he had seen. It was slender and curved with only one edge and a square guard. It looked light but he had no doubt that he could kill a man just as any. Loco tried to shout for help but coughed instead, the blood filling his nose now. The man stopped a step away from him and looks down with dark eyes, though Loco could not see them because of the shadow cast on his face by the hood of his cloak.
     
Loco's heart now beat in a cold frightened drum, ever slowing. With all the strength he could muster he asked. "Who—are—you?" His gurgled on the blood.
    
The man did not answer, he simply raised his sword above his head. The steel catching the moon causing it to burn with a cold, silvery fire as if enchanted but it was just ordinary steel. "Now sleep, lad. "The man said with his strange accent as he brought the sword down swiftly.

The feast had continued after she had left, the music could be heard even from the balcony of her chambers on the far side of the grand hall, at the side of the wooden windmill turning in the gentle breeze caressing her face like a lovers touch.
      
After leaving the feast Aalina ran to find solace and there only place she could was her given chambers in the manor of Lord Argrand, there she had played with her sword as she wished. Twirling and turning the sword between her hands and fingers and the steel glinting when it caught candle light. After that her handmaidens had arrived and stripped the dress off her and had her wearing a night shift, a green simple thing made of silk with white sleeves and a square neckline and ending just below the knees.
     
After that Aalina had ordered her handmaidens to leave her, have the rest of the night to themselves. They deserved that much at least even though they were just spies for the other lords, so now she sat outside in the cool air of night watching the stars in the dark sky while sitting upon a chair and before her was a wooden table of gilded wood inlaid with white marble.
     
The starry sky offered much peace to her, it made her think of one of her methahaehrs stories of her own people.

"Methahaehr, what are stars?" Aalina had asked wonderingly while staring at the white dots in the sky.
     
Rosemund Leafvale had chuckled and took Aalina on her lap, as she brushed Aalina's hair slowly she told her a story, or it was more of an answer. "Long ago after the world war forged and after great battles the souls of the dead were still trapped here but unable to truly rest and so Drahmedak, the Dragon God, roared to the sky's and out then in fire and the spirits of the dead flew to the sky and became stars and so when one dies they become a star in the night sky."
      
Aalina looked up at the sky again, sadness filled her. There were to many stars to count, so many dead. Why did so many have to die? That was what she always wondered each night methahaehr told the story but she got no answer from the divine.
      
Now staring at star freckled sky Aalina felt the tears burn her eyes once again, could her methahaehr be up there? With the thousands stars, could she be one of them and her family, her Lief and phethahaehr, could they all be waiting there for her? Suddenly her peace was destroyed when the doors of her chambers ruptured open, Aalina clutch the sword on her lap and jumped to her feet, whirling around and ready to strike. That man in the Wyrmwood who hunted her could be in the manor.
      
Strangely she had forgotten about the man until now, but instead of man with a large bow ready to kill her, it was Reynald. He was dressed elaborately today, like the prince he was.
     
A maroon jacket with silver embroidery on the sleeves and a high collar trimmed with fur and black breeches and brown leather boots with silver buckles etched with rubies in them and then the half-cloak hanging behind behind him. One quarter of the cloak was cut diagonally leaving the other hanging from Reynald's shoulder.
     
Reynald's eyes burned like two blue flames, but they made her skin prickle with gooseflesh rising, they reminded her much of the soldier she had danced with and he had the dark hair too, yet Reynald seemed—felt different from him. Aalina sighed and lowered her sword, her heart slowing to its dull rhythm.
      
"Reynald," she whispered as if the music coming from the grand hall would suddenly stop if she talked any louder.
       
"Aalina," Reynald stepped in, closing the door behind him and the light in the corridor vanishing as the door clicked in place. "You seem troubled, what is it? Is it phethahaehr?" His was kind and gentle as always.
       
"No," Aalina whispered again, she feared raising her voice again, tears blurred her eyes and her throat closed. Her knees weakened, before she could fall down Reynald was there by her side and lifting her off the ground and carrying her off to the bed.
     
"Aalina, you mustn't fall weak now. You must remain strong." Reynald told her brushing a strand of red hair out of her face.
      
Aalina sobbed ugly, tears running down the side of her face. She curled herself into a ball, cursing herself in her mind for not listening to Britius. She was not quite ready for court, not yet. Maybe a few more years would have prepared her for this but even in twenty four she was still quite young.
       
"I...I...I..."slowly Aalina drifted into to sweet dreaming. It was the first pleasant dream she had had ever since the Hollow Night fourteen years ago.