25. The Consequences of Their Rebellion

By noontide the following day, Aesylt was Valerian Barynov's wife.

Those were not the names they'd given the local minister, but all they needed was a signed, legal document they could take back to Witchwood Cross as evidence. They'd offered twice the coin for Minister Elfreth to leave their names blank so they could fill them in themselves later.

They'd paid for discretion but received so much more. Minister Elfreth and his sister, Faustina, had invited them to their modest home for a celebration meal, and it was Valerian who'd insisted they go and enjoy at least one peaceful meal before they returned to the Cross and faced the consequences of their rebellion.

The siblings brimmed with so much unexpected warmth, Aesylt couldn't decide whether to be suspicious or grateful. Smiling, she watched them shuffle in and out of the kitchen, laughing about some story from their youth they'd obviously revisited many times from the way they were finishing each other's sentences.

Valerian had a soft, hazy glow on his cheeks as he observed their easy way with each other. A great sadness came over Aesylt when it struck her that his family had never been anything like that, at least not since the Nok Mora had taken both of his sisters from him.

"The two of you seem to have such a special relationship," Aesylt said as everyone settled at the small table in the partitioned room.

"Twins," Elfreth explained when they all had their stew and cider. "Though Fossy is ten minutes earlier, as she's wont to remind me."

"Only when you're being a self-righteous ass," Faustina teased, pointing her thick wooden spoon at him. "What you really want to know is... Why are two old bats like ourselves living together and not with families of our own?"

"Well, no, I wasn't?—"

"I'm not admonishing you for curiosity, dear. I'd want to know as well." She locked eyes with her brother. "Elfreth chose a minister's life, of course. And I was married, you see, many years past. I was a different woman then, and so was my husband. Nothing ever troubled us overlong, and we believed there was nothing we couldn't overcome, until we realized my body couldn't carry a healthy child." She smiled wistfully. "The one thing he wanted more than me was a family, but even that wouldn't have made him leave. So I did it for him. Told him what he needed to hear to hate me, so he could find a better future for himself. And he did, last I heard. Moved to the Southerlands and even has great-grandchildren now."

Aesylt had not been expecting such candid disclosure. No one in her life had ever been so open with strangers, and certainly not about pain. "That must have been very hard for you."

"Hm? Oh, at the time, I suppose." Faustina waved away the suggestion with a gentle laugh. "Not all heartaches age with us."

"Planning a big family of your own?" Elfreth asked between sips of stew.

Aesylt glanced at Valerian, both of them grinning through their awkwardness. Most marriages started with such questions already answered, but there'd been no time to consider any of their dreams or wishes. The only thing they had discussed was Valerian's willingness to father Rahn's child, should there be one. Discussed wasn't quite the right word though, because while he'd offered, Aesylt had never answered. Children were not in any vision she had for her own future, and she'd been so overwhelmed, she hadn't factored in Val's wishes on the matter.

The question only reminded her that while she had left the scholar, and her heart, in Wulfsgate, a part of him was still with her.

"Gonna start tonight," Valerian said, giving her a soft elbow. She turned her eyes on her bowl.

"That's the spirit!" Elfreth exclaimed and clinked his mug to Valerian's. "I like a young man who knows what he has. Women are the fabric of this world." He turned toward his sister and started in on some recollection about a traveling organist who had come through the village several seasons past.

I'm married. To V. Possibly carrying the child of a man who wants nothing to do with me.

"Aessy?" Valerian whispered. "Everything all right?"

Aesylt swallowed, nodding and trying to smile. Married.

He cradled her neck in one hand, leaning in for a soft kiss. It was gentler than the exuberant one he'd laid on her when Elfreth had announced their union sealed, and more intimate than she would have expected in the home of others. "We did the right thing."

She nodded. "I know."

He glanced at the squabbling siblings. "It's not how I imagined this day would go, but I'm happy. Are you?"

Aesylt had made a vow to herself that if Valerian agreed to her harebrained idea, he would do so knowing the full accounting of her truths, past and future—even if they hurt. "To be honest, I don't know what I feel right now. I have this sense of being disconnected..." She sighed and scanned the room. "Like I'm here but not."

His smile faded. "You're not having regrets?"

"Not regrets, no." She kissed him. It reminded her of the excitement of childhood, not the womanhood she'd discovered under the stars of the Wulfsgate bell tower. "I just think I'm still in shock, V. My head is looking to the future, but my heart is still lagging." Her smile felt almost real. "It'll pass."

Valerian pressed his forehead to hers. "I know what will take your mind off of it. But..." He squeezed her leg. "Not here."

Her heart inched toward her throat. She'd known what she was offering Valerian was more than a piece of paper. But her belly turned at the thought of intimacy with anyone. It reminded her either of the hole inside her or the emptiness deeper still. Know truly what you ask for before you ask, or you'll be poorer after receiving it, her father used to say, and oh, how she understood the words finally. Like an arrow to the chest. "Not here," she agreed.

"Now, we're accustomed to a lovers' need for discretion, but I can't help myself wondering if the two of you are Vjestik," Elfreth said.

Aesylt startled, adjusting herself on the rough bench. "Why do you ask?"

"It's in the eyes," Faustina said knowingly, waggling hers.

"Nay, you sow, I was gonna say the accent."

"Oh, the accent, like you're some kind of expert now!"

"And just what do you know about eyes then, more than most folks having two of them?"

Aesylt shifted her gaze to her lap with a grin. Valerian chuckled to himself and patted her leg before reaching across the table for the pitcher of sharp cider. She was already a little tipsy when he poured her a second mug, and she knew it wouldn't be her last.

"Drink up, mates," Elfreth said, raising his own glass. "The nights are cold here, and there's more than one way to warm them."

Their midnight rideproduced only futility. A squall had formed before the men even left Wulfsgate, making travel so perilous, they'd eventually had no choice but to turn back and wait for it to clear.

Going against the counsel of Dereham's top men, Rahn and Drazhan had pushed on anyway but found themselves lost, snow-blind, and near hypothermic. Drazhan had suffered a sprain in the melee, but they'd narrowly avoided anything worse.

But nothing worked against them as much as having no idea where Aesylt had gone... whether she'd fallen into trouble of her own. Her trail had gone cold just beyond the keep. They'd questioned the north and south gate guards, but they'd claimed no single riders had left, only a caravan headed north.

North then, Drazhan had grumbled, but they'd already guessed as much.

Rahn slipped into a daze watching the blacksmith sharpen his sword. He hadn't ever owned one until Drazhan had had one made for him. Rahn faintly remembered holding his father's steel, which had been far heavier than it had looked. As a six-year-old, he'd tried to hoist it only to fall, sword and all; his father's tender chuckle had lessened the sting of embarrassment as he'd helped him up. About six more years on you, and we'll be ready to visit the forge.

Sometimes those memories were his to revisit, and sometimes they were lost altogether. But whatever access he had to them were only glimpses of time. Vignettes of what might have been, not what was.

Uli had shared there'd been a confirmed sighting of Marek in the night. The roads had been cleared, and their group would depart again soon, except their second attempt would have a more defined radius and at least an hour of daylight.

No one said what they thought, but no one had to.

If Marek was out there, and Aesylt was out there, the rescue effort had become a race against time.

Drazhan and Rustan's men had gathered at the other end of the courtyard and were waiting for the signal to ride. They didn't need practice. Men like them had more training on a midweek day than Rahn had garnered in his entire life. The one and only time he'd killed had been?—

A bolt of violent pain split his head, and he went reeling into a post.

The faces of Calder and Dacian Rhiagain materialized, as clear as they'd been that day.

Rahn shook his head and lifted his sword, but the flash behind his eyes had him lowering it again.

"Let go! There's only room for two of us!"

"We'll drown, Calder. We can all make it to shore!"

"You're not a Rhiagain. Our father will have all your heads if you don't let go!"

"Tindahl?"

Rahn's eyes rolled upward to look at the cloud-darkened sky from one side, the wood beams of the forge on the other. Vertigo crashed over him, his ears ringing so loud, there were no competing sounds. He was on the ground. Half in the structure, half out.

"He's all right! We're fine," Pieter said. He shooed onlookers with his arms, and the guards drifted away, muttering in confusion. "Any reason you're on your back?"

Rahn eyeballed the man's hand with distrust but took it, worried he might fall again and draw even more notice. "Thank you," he muttered, dusting himself off. When he blinked, he saw the White Sea again. The utter nothingness. "A dizzy spell is all."

"Dizzy spell..." Pieter squinted in suspicion. "Some wine?"

"No need." Rahn glanced at his hands to find them shaking. He shoved them under his cloak and turned his attention back to the blacksmith, who was completely unfazed by Rahn's episode. The ringing in his ears droned on, a gentle buzz. "Time to leave?"

Pieter laced his hands over his torso with a pained look. "I came over to apologize to you. And... to offer my help."

The man's groundless nerve flared Rahn's nerves back to life. "You and your help," he retorted, turning to reach for his abandoned scabbard.

"I never intended to harm your work, Rahn, but to aid it."

Rahn whipped the belt around him and fastened it in a rush. The beady, calculating eyes of Calder and Dacian stared him down, waiting for him to return. "And Revelry? Was that aiding?"

"Did you know the Barynovs had been communicating with Aesylt behind her brother's back?"

Rahn coiled in anger, but it was directed more at himself, for indulging Pieter at all. "Your presumptions about Aesylt have done nothing good for her. Even the suggestion that they could get a letter to her without Drazhan finding out is madness."

"I saw the letter. It was from the baron, Esker." Pieter stepped closer, lowering his tone. "He appealed to her sensibility, offered a quiet end to the civil war if Aesylt surrendered herself to them. Presumably to marry one of his sons, though he didn't say so specifically. That's what I was reading the day she attacked me."

"Attacked you? You mean defended herself against an unwarranted assault on her person and property?" Rahn retorted. "Your delusions are almost impressive."

"And she was really upset I'd read it. More than was warranted, if she wasn't taking the offer seriously. She definitely didn't want her brother to know. Or you, as I recall, since she failed to mention it when you asked her what was going on."

Rahn turned his eyes back toward the blacksmith. He would know if they'd written to her, because she'd been with him almost exclusively since the problems had begun. But for it to be a lie was equally strange. And when Rahn weighed what he remembered of that day with Pieter's explanation, her behavior made much more sense.

And rendered their final confrontation all the more crushing.

"I thought she was marrying you," Rahn managed to say.

Pieter laughed. "We both know that was never going to happen. I wish my father had consulted with me, or I'd have saved him the breath and trouble. Curious how you counseled him into the idea though. A little counter to your own self-interest, isn't it?"

"I didn't—" Rahn drew a bracing breath. He'd already humored Pieter more than he should have.

"Drazhan doesn't want to send a raven to Witchwood Cross and risk alerting them to our whereabouts, but I've suggested we send a faction there ahead of us instead. My gold is on her riding home to follow through on the letter's offer, and I'd hate to be right... and too late to do anything about it." Pieter whistled through his teeth.

"Then you don't know Aesylt." Eager to get his sword, to leave, Rahn lifted his scabbard from where it rested against the post.

"You never said what happened to her the night at Revelry."

"What do you think happened to her?" Rahn didn't release his sword. Day turned to night, the ground to sea and storm. He blinked, recalibrating himself to the present. "Exactly what you intended. And now she's gone, and the brute who put his hands on her neck is..." Never had he known the depth of regret he owned until that last debilitating conversation between himself and Aesylt. If he'd only?—

"I said I wanted to help, and I do. I'm going to tell you something that could have my family arrested." Pieter checked to be sure they were alone. "We have our own collective of magi here in Wulfsgate. They aren't registered with the Sepulchre, and no one knows about them beyond those who need to." He reached into his cloak and withdrew a familiar nightgown. "I've already given this to our seeker. They're meditating and will have a location soon. We will find her. And when we do, I'm bringing our best healer, just in case."

Rahn's breath caught at the sight of the thin fabric. His hands clenched at the tactile memory of smoothing his hands along it... lifting it away from her skin. Oh, but what had he come to regret more, the intimacy or the betrayal of it? "Pray when we do that she's unharmed and undisturbed, or no amount of penance will absolve either of us."

"Time to move!" cried a loud, booming voice.

"I don't expect penance would ever trifle with me, Scholar, but I hold no hope for her forgiveness either." Pieter clapped a hand atop Rahn's shoulder. "As for you... First you'll have to forgive yourself."

Valerian stifleda laugh as Aesylt stumbled over the threshold, skittering into the room. Her giggles trailed into the hallway, drawing the judging eyes of the more subdued drunkards in the tavern below. He quickly pushed himself inside and locked the door before collapsing into laughter.

Aesylt was half draped over one of the rickety chairs, gripping her head and shaking it. "I survived years of Barynov wine, only to be taken down by an old man's backyard cider?"

"You're trying to make this an insult against our esteemed varietals, but really you've just validated my entire existence." Valerian picked her fur up from the floor and hung it. He stumbled in trying to remove his own but eventually got it. "You, uh, struggling with those boots there, princess?"

With her tongue wedged between her teeth and her eyes narrowed at her laces, she raised a hand in an offensive salute.

"My, you've become vulgar." He lowered before her and peeled her hands away so he could loosen her laces. "I like it."

"They were interesting people, weren't they?"

"Squabbled like an old married couple," he said, pulling one boot off.

"That would have been Drazhan and me if he hadn't met Imryll."

Valerian chuckled. "Never. You'd have always had me."

"I know, but... He would still be so broken, and I wouldn't have had the heart to leave him." Aesylt flagged over the table. She flexed the toes on her free foot. "Why is it that men are the sigils of strength in this realm but are always the ones more easily shattered when it matters most?"

Valerian fumbled her laces. Anytime she veered too close to speaking of what had happened the night and following morning of the Nok Mora, he and Niklaus had always steered her back to safe waters. She'd never been ready to face all she'd been willing and able to do in the shadow of the king's horrors. He didn't know how to get her there. "Men are just expected to be strong. It's assumed. We're only playing the part given us. But most of us aren't born that way."

She scoffed, nestling her face into her arm she'd folded atop the table. "Women are expected to be strong too, but not too strong, or we're trying to assume the man's role. And if we're not strong enough, the world is too much for us. But if we're... If we're just strong enough, to... raise families, to lead villages... No one has anything to say about it at all."

"I know you don't want to hear this, but we're married now, so I'm saying it anyway." Valerian pulled off her second boot and chucked it across the room. "The way Drazhan protects you just reeks of guilt to me. He knows you did what he couldn't, and now he thinks he's making it up to you, like those ten years didn't happen. He doesn't want to see you as you are because then he'd have to see who he was."

"I just wish he'd hear me when I say I don't care about the lost years anymore. We both dealt with things in our own ways, and at least he—" Aesylt hiccupped with a sour-faced frown. "We should have left after supper, V. I'm going to be tasting this for days."

"At least he what, Aessy?"

"Found his happiness at the end of it all." She planted her hands on the table and pushed to her feet, faltering.

Valerian quickly gathered her from the side and guided her to the bed. He sat at the edge, mulling her words. At least he found his happiness at the end of it all. Ancestors, how it stung, but what had he really expected, riding through the night to answer her desperate call? He'd rightly guessed why she'd sent for him, and he'd known, even before accepting, he wasn't her first choice. Then. Now. Maybe ever. She'd always kept him at arm's length, the space between them filled with a love more familial than ardent, and he'd pushed to narrow the distance inch by inch, blurring and perhaps even disrespecting the lines she'd established. It was always him pushing the boundaries. Always him making the moves. And she loved him too much to refuse.

And what good is love if it leaves her like this?

"Volemthe, Aessy." He leaned in and kissed her forehead. "Volemthe auvjek."

"I love you evermore too," she whispered, her eyes struggling to stay open.

Valerian had never been so nervous around her. Hadn't thought twice about what to say or do. Before everything had gone so badly, he wouldn't have hesitated to kiss her. Inebriated though he was, it hadn't been enough to kill the desire raging within him. "Aesylt, I have to say something."

She opened her eyes and met his.

"I want—badly—to touch you, but I'm scared it's not what you want."

"Oh..." Aesylt strained to rise onto her elbows. She scooted aside to make room for him. "We're married now, and you shouldn't have to feel like?—"

"Don't. Don't finish that thought." Valerian lay down beside her. "You've been through the wars, and you need time."

Aesylt sighed, turning her face against the pillow. "You shouldn't have to wonder whether it's appropriate to touch your own wife on your wedding night."

"I can wait." He shrugged, hoping he looked more indifferent than he felt. "And I was thinking, about the child... You know, the scholar and I have similar features. Both have dark hair, for one. No one should question it, other than the timing, but women give birth early all the time, don't they?"

Aesylt peeled back from the pillow. "Valerian, I don't want children."

"Understandable that you wouldn't want this one."

"You've known this about me since..." She swallowed. "Since we were children ourselves. I would never have been so reckless with Rahn if I hadn't truly believed we were exempt from such consequence in the celestial realm." Her head shook. "There was one time we were not so careful, but it was near the end. By then I'd have already been gone with child."

Valerian cringed at the visuals this produced, but her revelation disturbed him more. She'd been repeating the line about a childfree life since the Nok Mora, but so did most Vjestik, and yet still they had families. It wasn't uncommon for them to have five or six or even seven children, to compensate for what they would sacrifice in the Vuk od Varem. "I understand your fear, because everyone in the Cross shares it, but most people change their minds. You're only twenty."

"And when I am thirty, forty, fifty, there will still be a Vuk od Varem. Still a son, every single year, who must give all for our village. Every family must provide one." She sucked in, her head shaking. "I won't do it. Call me selfish, cold... I don't care. But I have already sacrificed almost everything for our people, and I won't give more. You, of anyone, should understand that after what you endured out there."

"I do understand, but..." Valerian chewed his lip, lost for what he could or should say next. It was unfair to suggest she had been dishonest because she hadn't. "We don't have to decide now."

"Valerian, I have decided. You're a good man for wanting to step into another man's responsibility, but I'm not asking you to."

Valerian struggled with her confession, though he knew she wouldn't think differently of him. He wasn't less of a man for what had happened to him, but it felt that way. The vedhma had tried and tried to make it right, but his wounds had been too grievous to return all his function. His family was indifferent to his disfigurement, but he expected as much from the parents who had passed over their eldest son for the Vuk od Varem to send their second in his place. "I can't have children. My internal injuries... Not everything could be saved. I can still... you know... but if you change your mind about children years down the road, it will be too late. This child will be our only chance."

Pity flashed across her eyes—fleeting, but he saw it. "Then you chose your wife wisely, for I have no expectations." Her smile faltered. "I'm sorry, V. I really am. And I know your relationship with your own family is convoluted right now. But Drazhan and Imryll are generous with sharing Aleksy, and will be with all their children. Being his teta is such an honor. One day I'll have to watch him..." Her voice caught. "Go into the forest as well, and that will be the hardest day, hard enough without making it worse by adding the only child I would ever have to the pain."

"It doesn't have to be a death sentence."

"But it almost always is." Aesylt looked away. "The year Drazhan won his bid against the wulf, he had help. The sorcerer Mortain intervened... the same creature who put Witchwood Cross in the sights of the king. Imryll's real father, who put them on the path to each other. We'll never know if my brother would still have won without it, but my heart knows the answer."

He'd heard that rumor, but Aesylt verbalizing it gave the claim veracity. Of course he'd thought about what it would mean to send his own child into the forest, but it was their way of life, and Drazhan wasn't the only son who'd conquered the wulf, help or no. The first one had actually been a Barynov.

"V, the very last thing I would ever want is for you to regret this." Her eyes had glazed. He could see she was drifting. "Once we've returned to the Cross and put an end to all of this, we could undo what we've done. I would understand. You'd still be my dearest friend."

"Just rest now, Aessy." Valerian kissed her temple and rested his mouth there. His thoughts were spinning in so many directions, wild and detached, and he needed time with them. "We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

Aesylt woke abruptlyin the night. She glanced at Valerian, snoring softly beside her.

Spirits had always affected her strangely. Exhaustion visited on the front end, followed by wicked insomnia hours later. But the thoughts she'd held as she'd drifted to sleep were still as fresh several hours later, and there was no chance of returning to sleep with her mind so full, so she slipped carefully from the bed and tiptoed to her knapsack.

Aside from the clothes she'd stolen from Rahn, she'd packed only a couple of outfits, both practical: trousers and blouses appropriate for the long ride.

Aesylt dressed quietly and shrugged Rahn's bulky cloak over her shoulders. Valerian hadn't stirred at all and probably wouldn't until morning. She blew him a kiss, unbolted the door, and exited into the hall.

A handful of patrons were still cozied up at the bar, but the tavern was otherwise empty. The pubkeep nodded at her as she descended the stairs, and she nodded back, bracing for the biting cold waiting for her.

An icy gale swept the night. She pinched the cloak tighter, lowered her head, and made for the stables. It would be warm enough for the privacy she needed to make sense of not only the past day but the past season. Her heart was still too sore to visit the celestial realm.

She passed no one on the short walk. The stables were empty, other than the horses boarded there. Just to be safe, she threw the wooden bolt once inside and made her way down the row to the beautiful mare she'd stolen. Exelcius, her saddle had said, but she didn't look like an Exelcius, so Aesylt had taken to calling her Bella.

Bella immediately moved to the opening to say hello.

"Dobranok, Bella," she said as she reached up to pet her snout. "We have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow, but I'll make sure you have a fine breakfast in the morning before we go."

Bella snuffled and nudged her mouth across Aesylt's forehead, making her giggle.

"You like that word? Breakfast? There's also noontide meal and supper and—" Aesylt stuttered a breath in when cold steel pressed against her throat. She couldn't speak or turn. She held her breath as her thoughts sped through the possibilities.

"Move before I tell you to, and I'll kill you. Run, scream, or fight, and I'll kill you and my brother both." A tug on the knife broke her flesh.

"Marek." Aesylt's fingers twitched, thinking of the dagger she'd foolishly left in the room. She had no excuse for the slip beyond exhaustion. "Just tell me what you want."

"I'll show you," he said. "Not here."

She remembered what Hraz had taught her about dangerous men. Never go anywhere without a fight. Once you leave the unknown, no one will be able to follow you. "You can show me here."

He gathered her hair in his hand and ripped backward until she was staring at the ceiling. "I said not here. You know your choices. Make one."

Blood trickled down her throat and into her blouse. A cautious glance revealed nothing close enough to help her. Marek had to know where she was staying, because he'd been waiting for her in the barn.

Which meant he knew where to find Valerian.

Aesylt wasn't ready to die, but there'd been enough suffering. She was still the only one with the power to avoid more. "Okay, Marek." She slowly raised her hands to her sides, to demonstrate compliance. "I won't fight you."

"Good girl," he hissed in her ear just before he shoved a hood over her head.