“Pardon me, Lady Eira.” The messenger bowed deeply. He was little more than a boy, bearing a grimy face and a nervous disposition. “But I’m not quite sure, as the message I was given . . . came from a source unknown to me.”
“What do you mean?” Cian asked, sweeping her sword through the air in leisurely arcs.
Eira didn’t blame her sister for giving the messenger only half of her attention. The boy was obviously new to his post, and she thought his strange words nothing more than a reflection of his inexperience.
His face twisted with worry, the messenger reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small bit of parchment.
Eira took the paper, read it, and looked at him sharply. “Who gave this to you?”
Catching the harshness of her sister’s question, Cian returned her sword to its scabbard. “What’s wrong?”
“Who gave this to you?” Eira repeated, taking a menacing step toward the messenger.
The boy put his hands up pleadingly. “Apologies, my lady. He was a stranger in a cloak. I didn’t see his face. I was riding in the forest and he appeared on the road, startling my horse. I nearly fell from the saddle.”
He blushed at this admission but continued. “I thought at first he was a bandit intent on robbing me, but he held out this parchment and said, ‘Your masters are needed.’ He disappeared into the forest before I could question him.”
“What does the note say?” Cian asked, seeing Eira’s furrowed brow.
Wordlessly, Eira handed her sister the parchment. Three words had been scratched in ink onto the paper’s surface.
Dorusduain is gone.
“The village is gone?” Cian frowned. “How can that be?”
“Did you investigate this claim?” Eira asked the messenger.
He hung his head. “No, my lady. Pardon me, but I’m training to be a scribe, not a warrior. I was afraid to go.”
Cian patted his shoulder. “No harm done, lad. You’d best leave this to the Guard, though I’d be surprised if it were more than a hoax. You did right in bringing this note to us; now go and find a meal.”
The boy smiled gratefully and scurried off toward the manor.
“Why would anyone jest about a village disappearing?” Eira asked Cian. “If that’s even what the note’s meaning is.”
“I don’t know,” Cian answered. “But it must be false. Dorusduain is small, but villages don’t simply go missing. I suppose we should give this to Lukasz and he’ll send a scouting party.”
Eira began to nod but then said, “Or we could go ourselves.”
Cian laughed, but her sister remained stone-faced.
“We should go,” Eira said slowly. “Now. We have no obligations for the rest of the day. Dorusduain isn’t far. We would be back not long after nightfall.”
Shaking her head, Cian muttered, “This is work for the Guard.”
“We still belong to the Guard,” Eira countered. “Serving in the Circle may draw us from the field, but it doesn’t mean we can’t return should we so choose.”
When Cian fixed a dubious gaze on her, Eira said, “When was the last time we rode out together? Don’t you miss it?”
“I miss time spent with you,” Cian answered. “I’d much rather hunt trolls than listen to Thomas discuss the state of the treasury.”
Eira offered her a slight smile. Since they’d joined the Circle, their hours were increasingly spent on matters bureaucratic and political. Eira knew her sister well enough to be certain that Cian longed to be away from the keep and into a good fight as much as Eira did.
Watching Cian’s resolve waver, Eira said, “If we tell Lukasz, it’s time wasted while a scouting party is formed. And if it is a hoax, that’s even more of a waste for the Guard. We can be on our way in a few minutes.”
A smile twitched across Cian’s mouth. “It isn’t a very long way to Dorusduain, is it?”
Without answering, Eira turned and walked quickly to the stables, knowing Cian would be right at her heels. They saddled their horses, two mares with coats like mist. Their horses were sisters too, foaled from the same mare: Geal for Eira and Liath for Cian. The sisters’ abrupt arrival in the stables earned a few curious glances from Ian the stable hand. He was respectful—or wary—enough to refrain from asking any questions.
Soon enough they passed through Tearmunn’s gates and brought their horses to a gallop. The sisters didn’t bother with the main road. They’d spent enough years exploring Glen Shiel’s terrain to know the drovers’ paths and game trails that cut a journey’s time in half. Having been cooped in the stable as their riders were in the keep, the horses were eager to run.
Giving Geal free rein, Eira mused that she and Cian should be tired of running after all these years. They’d been running since they were small girls. At first they ran from a town overcome by plague. A town filled with more dead than living, including their own dead parents. The sisters had continued running. They dashed from place to place, knowing that quick hands and quicker feet would win them a meal and spare them the lash or a dungeon. Through luck or fate, the one time Eira and Cian weren’t fast enough they’d been stealing loaves from the large open kitchens of a monastery. The rough handling of the burly, red-faced baker who’d dragged them before the monastery’s abbot didn’t prepare them for the priest’s sympathy or his kindness. Not seeing two thieves like the baker, the abbot saw Eira and Cian’s dirty faces and tattered clothing as an opportunity for charity. He fed the girls and offered hot water to rub months of grime from their skin and a bed to sleep in instead of the forest floor. The next day he changed their lives forever by sending them to serve Conatus.
At Tearmunn the sisters still ran, but with a new purpose. Now they chased monsters—creatures more frightening than any they’d imagined when they’d been huddled together, cold and hungry, in the dark. But Conatus taught them to fight, not fear, the wicked things that lived in the dark. The sisters grew tall, grew strong, and grew ferocious.
Eira sighed. A warrior’s reward after two decades of battle should not be a seat at a council table where one’s bones ached and muscles went weak as porridge. She recognized the honor of being called to the Circle and the rarity of a woman serving in the role, but the endless squabbling over expenses and ridiculous accommodations to keep Abbot Crichton happy had become nearly intolerable.