Ch. 32

Their home—Elara's home—was small and cramped and cluttered in a way that Juda should have loathed, but strangely didn't.

Aleina had been the orderly type and had taught him the same, showing him how best to get the grease off the cooking pots, how to polish his boots—for a rat needn't always look like a rat, Juda—and how to neatly fold the laundry just as she did for the nobles of the upper echelons of the citadel. Ever since, he'd taken some comfort in orderliness, something that had fared him well when indoctrinated as a novice. There was little possessions to be had there, and he was used to that and cared nothing for meaningless things, but even with what little the novices were allowed to have, Juda kept everything meticulously organised. He even took some small pride in how he could fold sheets better than half the King's laundry maids. A ridiculous thing to be proud of, but Juda knew she would have been pleased and that was enough reason for him.

Yet, looking around the home Elara shared with her friends, Juda found the jumbled disorder gave him some small connection to her, even though she was not here. He could imagine her in the armchair, legs draped lazily over the side, delicate fingers trailing the spines of books that were stacked haphazardly on the small, rickety table. He could see her laid out on one of the two beds, the blankets tangled in disarray about her bare legs, gazing up at him with mocking eyes, a world of chaos in the shape of her mouth.

Chaos, that's what she was. Chaos and disorder and downfall and Juda was no longer sure he did not want to be a part of that. This yearning nagged inside him, a desperate, clawing thing that twisted in his stomach as if it fought to escape the confines of his body. She was the noise inside his head. The toll of a bell inside his chest.

Everything about her was too fucking loud.

The three he'd followed from the Sea Dog Inn to the alleyway close to their abode stared at him in silence. They stood close enough to each other for Juda to know their fear of him bound them together, uncertainty, confusion and suspicion tethering them as one.

He'd got the measure of them fast. He'd always been good at that. Sizing up everyone he met as a possible foe so that he could calculate his means of defence, and ultimately, his triumph.

There was the tall one—Anton—who was a courtesan working the nobility of the upper echelons, and much in demand in particular by Leon Kro-Balnar, a repellent sea slug of a man with deep pockets and an even deeper throat by all accounts. This Anton housed an indignant fury within him, as if Juda's very presence in their home and the newfound knowledge of a Highguard's connection to Elara offended him to the core.

Then there was Bazel, the boy thief, one of Cree's slum-rats. Light of foot and fingers and with a scowl so vehemently dark that it reminded Juda of the goblins in the fairy tales his mother used to read to him when he was a child. He was a wild thing, this lad. The one most likely to do something rash and violent.

And finally, there was the one Elara had called Kelena, but who was actually Tala Koh-Miralus, the silk merchant's young and errant wife. The one for whom Elara had risked everything. The one who'd called her monstrous for what she had done, for what she was. The one who had rejected her.

He had to admit, she was not what he had expected. There was a fierceness in her face. A surprising strength. Her hair, while still braided at the sides, was cut short into her neck and dark—so dark he suspected she'd added something to deepen the colour, because he was certain Koh-Miralus' wife had been fair, as were her parents. Her form was well-defined, and Juda knew the body of someone who had trained to shape it so when he saw it. There was a knife tucked into the side of her right boot, and a looseness to her hand and to that side of her body that suggested she would reach for it with speed if she felt the need to.

They were misfits, all three of them. Outcasts with only each other and he was all at once gladdened that Elara had them, and yet inexplicably envious that they had her.

"You still haven't explained what a King's Highguard wants with a woman from Grimfell," Kelena said, fixing him with a hard stare.

He had to credit her. There were not many who could attempt to stare at him like that and believe they would come away unharmed.

"I'm from the slums. I was raised on these streets. A Highguard I might be, but I was born here," he replied.

Kelena's derision was evident. "But you won't die here, novice. Not like we will. So don't pretend that you're one of us."

"I am more like your friends than you are. You are noble-born." Juda smiled thinly as her eyes widened. "Yes, I know who you are, or at least, who you were. But fret not, for I am not here for you, Tala Koh-Miralus."

The boy's scowl deepened, knitting his brows into one and twisting his mouth into a sneer. "She does not exist anymore, and I'll thank you not to mention her name again unless you want my blade shoved hilt-deep into your balls. I don't think the women of Clova Dell will be singing your praises after that, do you? You are him, yes? The Highguard they all talk about like you've been moulded from the celestial clay of the dead gods themselves?"

"I didn't realise I was spoken of with that much affection." Juda rested his hand on his scimitar. "And you wouldn't get more than two steps in my direction, rat, before you were shitting out your own blood through the new orifice I'd make in your throat. But of course, feel free to try, although I confess, I wouldn't know whether to respect you for your bravado or pity you for your stupidity."

"I'm not scared of you, Highguard bastard," the boy seethed.

Juda cocked his head to one side. "Oh, but you are, lad. The cadence in your voice is ever so slightly higher than it was earlier, there is a catch in your breath as if you have been running for some distance and you're sporting a line of perspiration above your top lip. Kelena has been trying to work out if she can reach that dagger in her boot and throw it before I can move against her and has already realised it would be futile and Anton here..." He shot a glance at him. "Well Anton is full of rage, but it is not fury that makes his hands tremble so, but the knowledge of what I am and what I am capable of. So yes, you are scared. And rightly so, for I also know what I am and what I am capable of, and it is far worse than what you all believe."

Bazel fisted his hands by his sides, but Juda knew he would do nothing. Brave and loose of tongue he might be, but he wasn't stupid enough to believe he could best Juda.

"You said please."

Juda looked to Kelena who was studying him, still with fear, but with an interest he found unsettling. It wasn't usual for him to have people see past the mark of The Order now, and when they did, it made him want to reach for his blade and carve the eyes from their sockets. It was half the reason why he always made Estella face the other way when he fucked her—that and the fact her arse was prettier than most. Then, there was Roth and Elara, and he couldn't say he cared much for how either of them could render the mark almost invisible. The burn of the Batak oil had been excruciating, but even Juda had to admit to himself that he liked the way it stopped people from looking any further than what it represented.

"In the alleyway," she continued. "You said please. The Order does not say please. How did a Highguard like you come to know Elara and what do you want with her? Because something tells me this is not Order business you seek her for."

Juda saw her face then. The way in which Elara had looked at him the last time he'd seen her. It had been a long time since he'd cared about causing anyone pain, but he'd seen the pain in her eyes and had despised himself for it. More than he already did.

"You're right," he said. "This is nothing to do with The Order. At least, not directly as such. Elara and I..."

Anton made a strangled sound and shook his head. "Elara and you? She would never..." He grimaced in disgust, his gaze raking over Juda. "She would not..."

"Would you like me to tell you exactly what she would and would not do with me?" Juda retorted. "Because trust me when I say the would not is few and the would is far more than even a courtesan's imagination could conjure up. I do not need to provide the detail, suffice to say that she would, and she did and now I need to find her because she's in danger. I have to get her out of the Kingdom and onto a ship before they put her in chains and drag her in front of Ban-Keren himself."

Kelena stared at him, her mouth dropping open. "You know..." she whispered. "You know what she is."

Juda sniffed and returned her stare with his own, except his was full of an accusation he knew he had no right to give. After all, had he not thought the same of Elara when he had first laid eyes upon her and realised what she was?

"Yes, I know. And I want to help her."

Anton's gaze flicked to Kelena. "So, it is true? Elara is the Naiad Leon told me the King now seeks?"

Bazel stood between them both, the scowl transformed into a strange hopeless resignation. So, they had suspected, he and Anton, but they had not known for certain. Kelena had.

Juda couldn't conceal his surprise. "You never told them," he said to Kelena. "She thought you would tell them."

Kelena took a faltering step towards him and stopped when she saw his warning glare. Her hand outstretched, pleading. "You have seen her? Where? Please, you have to tell me..." Desperation clouded her eyes as well it might, for she knew what her words had done. He could see the guilt, hear it in her voice.

"In the catacombs under the citadel," Juda replied. "There is an old Naiad temple there. It's where she goes when she needs to be with her foremothers. It's where she goes to find peace. Sanctuary."

He enjoyed the hurt in Kelena's face more than he should have, but there was a perverse pleasure in knowing more about Elara than they did—these people who claimed to be her friends and yet knew nothing of who she really was.

"But she's not there now. I searched for her, but she knows I would go looking for her there and she won't dare return to the temple. Not until she's certain she won't be found."

"Why?" Kelena demanded. "What did you do? If you and her are as close as you claim, why does she seek to hide from you?"

Juda swallowed. "She thinks I have betrayed her. My guardian, Roth Vi-Garran was once Special High Commander to the King himself. He...he was in charge of The Order when Ban-Keren gave the command that the Naiad were an enemy of the Crown. Elara discovered this and believes that Roth and I are in league to hand her over to the King."

"And are you?" Bazel asked. "You're a Highguard after all, isn't it your duty to do as your King commands?"

"My duty is none of your concern," Juda said. "But rest assured, I have no intention of handing her over and neither does Roth Vi-Garran. There's a trade ship leaving for Dreynia in six tides from now. I can get her on it, but I need you to help find her."

When they said nothing, irritation flared bright and strong in his veins, and he could hold his composure no longer.

"Look, whatever you have heard of the Naiad, whatever you have been led to believe, it is falsehood. Nothing but lies and malicious fabrication designed to make the people believe the water witches are your enemy, but they are not. I swear it on the memory of my mother who died by the King's hand. If you really believe her to be a monster, Kelena, say it now, but I don't think you do. Misguided maybe, vengeful, yes, but it is a vengeance that comes from loyalty and devotion and a loathing for injustice—the very injustices that you faced at the hands of your husband. So, tell me you think she is a monster, and I will leave here now and find her without your help, for false friends are of no fucking use to me, or her."

Bazel turned to Kelena, with wide, blinking eyes. "You think she's a monster?" He looked stunned and began to pat down his britches, as if looking for something. "By the dead gods, I need a fucking smoke. She's many things, Kelena. She cheats at dice; don't think I've never noticed that. And she's a total demon on the drink, that I'll grant you. But a monster?"

Kelena shook her head, her face crestfallen. "No...that is, maybe I did think that at first. Not because I discovered what she was, but because of the way she spoke of his death. Mica's. Like she enjoyed it."

"And so she should because it was fucking glorious."

The words formed sound before Juda could stop himself.

Kelena gasped. "You were a part of it?"

"No, I was not," Juda said, but raising his chin as if he was proud, and he was. Of her. "But I saw her do it and there's not one doubt in my mind that he got what he was owed. You might not approve of the way she and I do things, Kelena. You might think the likes of us are monstrous, but let me tell you, whatever Elara has done, she did it not because she could, but because she understands only too well that sometimes you need to be a little bit monstrous to save people from the true monsters that exist in this world. Koh-Miralus was one of them, and you should be grateful that he is dead, because the rumour coming out of The Order is that he was coming for you. Maybe you should think on that instead of rebuking Elara for having the stomach to do what no one else would have done, just to keep her friend safe."

Tears streamed down Kelena's anguished face then, her arms wrapped around her body. "I did not want to think of that darkness within her, okay? I have witnessed enough darkness in people to last me an eternity. I did not want to see it in her. Not her."

Juda studied her, unmoved by her tears, but understanding how it made her angry. Red spots stained her cheeks, her eyes blazing that same fierceness even as she cried. She despised emotion like this, that much he could tell, and Juda could, at least, relate to that more than he would admit to her.

"We all have a darkness within us, Kelena," he said. "It is not that it exists that matters, but how we chose to use it. And Elara used it to rid this world of something that possessed a capacity for darkness far greater than her own. You should remember this before you pass your judgement upon her."

Adjusting the clasp on his cloak, Juda grasped the hood and pulled it up around his face. "Now, are you going to help me find her?" he said, casting his gaze upon them all once more. "Or does a Highguard of the King's Serpent Order have to do what her supposed friends will not?"