“Until now,” Lia said with a smile and a little shove. “I have hardly heard you say five words together since you arrived. I did not realize you were so watchful. Or carried so many concerns.”

Ellowyn flushed and smiled guiltily. “I could talk to Sowe, or Bryn, or you. In truth, I still feel like a wretched, even though I know my birth. You act like a highborn girl despite your station. Why is that?”

Lia bent her neck and thought a moment. “It is my temperament. I do not like being sad, so I choose not to be sad…as often as I can. I try not to regret what I do not have and enjoy what the Medium has given me. I have much to be grateful for. I have the Aldermaston’s trust. I have Sowe and Brynn as friends. I have had good teachers in Pasqua and Martin. And I have enjoyed the torturous pleasure of Colvin’s friendship, until today when my outspokenness, as you put it, ruined it. I swear I would look miserable right now if I did not feel like laughing at myself for being such a fool. An irrevocare sigil. How could I have known such a thing existed?”

Ellowyn squeezed the final garment and set it down. “You could not have known until you were told. Just as I did not know that my parents were married that way. They are dead, of course. But they are together still outside of this flesh. Some day, do you think we will see them again? Those who have passed on?”

Lia pursed her lips and thought. “Martin believed it. He said there is a fair country after this life, where there are no knaves. I imagine the Earl of Dieyre will not be there then,” she added impishly.

Ellowyn laughed. “What do you think he is telling them?”

“I suppose we will have to wait until he finishes before we will know.” There was a gentle knock on the door. They both looked at each other in surprise. “That was a hasty conversation,” Lia said, rising and going to the door. “Marciana?” she asked through the crack.

“Astrid,” replied the lad. “M…message from the Aldermaston.”

Lia lifted the crossbar, sorry for the boy since it was so late. She saw his eyes first, quailing with fear.

“What is wrong?” Lia asked. The boy slipped inside the room, his entire body trembling. He walked past her, turned and looked at her, his face white.

“Lia, behind…!” Ellowyn shrieked in warning.

She heard the footfall, so soft it could have been the scuffing of a pillow. A strong arm enclosed around her neck, pressing against her throat. She could not breathe as she realized that the kishion had found them.

* * *

“A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of any maston. These dispositions must all be repressed. In play acting, as in the ancient days of Idumea, the applause of the audience is of more importance to the jongleur than their own approbation. But upon the shabby stage of this life, while conscience claps, let the world hiss.”

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE:

Muirwood Awakened

There is nothing more sacred than air to someone dying. How many times had Martin practiced with her. How many times had he said that protecting her breath would save her life. A year earlier, she would have had no thought how to free herself. There was no time to think, no time when each thudding pulse of her heatbeat would bring her to oblivion.

Lia grasped the kishion’s arm with both hands and tugged down. As she did, she twisted and stepped backwards, bringing her leg behind his. The motion brought her entire weight against the pressure of his arm and it was enough to force open an airway, to breathe again. Twisting out of the noose, she kicked at the back of his knee, meeting the hard muscle but bending it. If she moved quickly, she could get his hand and twist it the right way to subdue him. She did not see his other elbow whipping around until it struck her cheekbone.

Pain blinded her. The blow was so sudden, so fast, she had not prepared herself for it. Ellowyn shrieked in warning. Lia backstepped quickly, trying to find her vision again. She staggered back into the far wall, realizing there was no where to run.

Her vision cleared as a forearm rammed at her throat. Lia ducked the blow and the kishion’s arm struck the wall with a shudder. She was frantic. With one hand, she clawed at his eyes and felt skin rip beneath her fingers. She brought up her knee but he was moving again, her fingers suddenly tangled and he threw her to the ground.

She knew at once that she could not stop the kishion. He was trained every bit as a hunter, even more so and more deadly. It would have been easier to fight off Martin, and she knew that his experience dwarfed hers. As she gazed up at him, she was amazed by what she saw. The strength of his hands belied his size, for he was shorter than her. Wiry and thin, like a page boy. Had she seen him in a crowd, she would not have looked twice – except his eyes. They were a muddy brown color and devoid of any spark of compassion. It was like staring into a spider’s soul. He had killed countless men, dispatched them with brutal efficiency. He had no care that he was killing a girl. Only his assignment mattered to him.