Lero
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I listened to their footsteps fade upward while I kept my eyes on the man before me. Once they were gone, he spoke.
"Who are you?"
"What does it matter?" It was clear the Baron had no intention of releasing me. All he did was shove me in a cell and give me the vaguest possible goal.
"If you tell me, I'll untie you."
"Don't touch me," I snapped, my annoyance a quivering thread.
The man sighed. "I'm not going to hurt you. What did he tell you about me?"
"Nothing." I struggled my way up to a sitting position, pressing my back against the bars of the cell. "I have no clue what he wants me to do. He's just playing with me, I'm sure."
"He never struck me as a man for games." He stepped further out of the shadows. The sparse moonlight revealed green eyes that greatly betrayed his bedraggled body; they looked full of life and vibrant. It was almost bizarre seeing them in his dark and haggard face. "My name is Leroantessan. Lero, for short."
"A Dorrin name," I mused.
"Yes," the man said, with some surprise.
He had dark hair that was a bit long and messy, and a beard on the lower half of his face that was a little scraggly but not quite as out-of-control as his hair. He wore a battered and beaten rough-spun shirt with many holes and an aged brown color. His pants, short at the ankles, were in equally bad shape and tied with twine at his waist. Both items of clothing were far too big for him, and his feet were bare.
I swung my hair from my face to get a better look at Lero and his green, green eyes. Something about them comforted me. "I'm Myra. Will you untie me now?"
Lero stepped forward in silence; he walked with unerring grace, unusual for someone who had spent any amount of time in a place like this. He knelt down next to me. Involuntarily, I tilted my head away, but he didn't say anything. His fingers worked quickly on the ropes behind my back.
I remained silent, taking in a bit of his scent while I breathed. It was strangely not dirty or dingy, but almost like a musk. I raised my eyebrows at it; it wasn't something I was used to smelling on people. But by the time I realized that, he had gotten rid of the rope on my wrists and had moved down to my ankles.
I let out a small sigh of relief as I pulled my arms forward, rolling my hands. The rope had left deep red welts on me. They hadn't spared any thought of mercy for my skin. Soon, my ankles were free as well, and I let my feet fall apart, closing my eyes for a moment.
When I opened them, I saw that Lero had retreated back to the corner he had been in, behind the light coming in from the high window on the right.
"Myra," Lero said, "why did you mention my namesake?"
I could still see his eyes, even in the darkness that enshrouded him. "Baron Eaves asked me where I was born. Dorria." I shrugged a little, partially stretching my shoulders. "You were, too. Is that why he put me in here with you? Does he have something against Dorrins? I haven't even been in my home territory. My parents...well, I wasn’t raised there.”
"There are few Dorrins," Lero said. "I don't know how much you learned or remember about Dorria, but it's only gotten smaller over the years."
"So he's...collecting us Dorrins?"
"No."
Slowly, I stood. I wrapped the fingers of one hand around a steel cell bar, yanking on it. Unwavering and sturdy. "So you do know, then."
He'll tell you, Baron Eaves had said.
"Why is he keeping you here? What does it have to do with me?"
Lero blinked, hiding his eyes for the briefest of moments. "Before I give the time of day—or night—to his insanity, do me the favor of telling me why you're here. If you don't know why he's locked me up, then your imprisonment must be for a very different reason."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "You make it sound so complicated. I was stealing from him. Almost...successfully."
"Stealing, but he didn't kill you? It would have been perfectly within his rights. It still is."
"Thanks for the reminder," I growled. "Now it's your turn."
"He kept you alive...he asked where you were born, and he brought you here." Lero raised a hand to his bearded chin. "Have you met the Baron before?"
"Briefly."
"A failed attempt on his estate, then."
I didn't respond to that. "Lero. You owe me an explanation."
He was looking closely at me now, his strangely-bright eyes going up and down. I might have been offended if I wasn't just plain irritated with him.
"Damn it, are you going to talk or not?"
"Myra, can you do me just one more small favor?" Lero asked. His voice sounded thin; strained. Like he was out of breath, even though he'd hardly moved.
"What?" I asked warily, very aware of the bars pressing into my back.
"Just...step into the light for me." He glanced up at the barred window.
I hesitated.
"Just your hands," he said, raising his own to indicate that he had no intention of harming me. "Put them in the light. Then I swear I'll tell you everything I can."
It was an odd request, but it didn't seem dangerous. My reflexes were a sharp as anyone's; if he tried to grab me, I would be across the room in a second. Apart from that, I wasn't really afraid of him. My nature made me scrutinize every person's actions, and it if were anyone else, I doubt I'd even approach them, but those eyes...they made it seem okay.
So I walked forward and raised my hands, palms-down, into the beam of moonlight coming in from the window.
Lero was taller than I, and I saw his eyes drop down to my hands, watching them closely. I was only a few feet from him now, but true to his word, he made no move toward me. He watched my hands for a few moments, and then I saw his eyes go wide, and he tottered where he stood before taking a step back and catching himself.
"What?" I said. "What is it?" I drew my hands back from the moonlight, looking at them. They seemed perfectly normal. And yet Lero was almost in a panic.
"How...how could he..." Lero was whispering to himself, eyes on me. He flicked his gaze to the ceiling; the window; the bars behind me. "Stay quiet, Myra. He could be listening. This...this changes everything..."
He was starting to worry me. Maybe he was crazy. The way he was looking at me all of a sudden, not like I was a stranger; but like I was someone he had been waiting for. His emerald eyes shone with hope, desire, longing...but only for a split second. Then it was gone.
"I'll talk, but let me show you something. Here." He dropped down to his knees and slid his hands into the moonlight on the floor, the shadows from one of the bars curving over the tops of his hands. "Look closely. Look at the base of my fingernails."
I crouched down as he had asked, very curious as to what had made his heart rate double so suddenly. I looked at the white half-moon at the base of his nail, where it met his skin.
"You see the white half-circle, yes? Now, watch..." Lero wasn't looking at me, but down at his hands, so I watched.
And something happened.
It was subtle. It would have been impossible to notice if you weren't looking for it. But the white half-moon (the lunula, as I would later learn) was changing. It was growing sharper, becoming less of a curve and more of a point, like a needle trying to poke through a stubborn bit of cloth. My breath stopped as I watched it taper up to a third of the length of his nail, then stop.
Lero looked up at me. "Put your hands in the light."
I did. And as I watched, the same thing happened to me. Slowly, steadily, that strange shape grew in my nail, until I yanked my hands from the light with a gasp and stood up.
"What is this? What did you do to me?"
Lero shook his head. "It's always been this way."
"It's...because I'm Dorrin?"
"Not exactly." That look was back in his eyes, and he was staring at me. His lips moved, like he wanted to say something but couldn't quite form the words.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. "What does it mean?"
"You need to be calm. If the Baron hears...he can't know," Lero urged, his voice low. He jerked his head to the side, wanting me to come over to him. "I'll explain. But if we're not careful, it will all be over." Those green eyes were looking at me with fascination and hope, and I had no idea why, but I had to know. I walked over to him, unconsciously ducking under the stream of light. We pressed our backs against the wall and turned our heads toward each other.
"Baron Eaves has kept me here for three weeks," Lero said quietly, "but he's been hunting me much longer than that. He hasn't told anyone why, because they would think that he's crazy. Any other person would. Anyone except for me."
"And why was he hunting you?" I whispered.
Lero swallowed. "Baron Eaves is convinced that I am a werewolf."
"A...a werewolf?" I repeated. "That's why he's keeping you here? And what, he's waiting for you to magically turn into some...beast to prove his point?"
"Myra," Lero said, putting those shining eyes on me, "I am a werewolf."
Good lord, he really was crazy, and I was in a cell with him.
Lero said, "Before I...saw what I just saw in you, I was prepared to continue pleading ignorance. I was hoping to convince you that the Baron was out of his mind, and we could work together to escape and then go our separate ways. But now..."
I shifted my gaze to the bars and thought about escape for a moment before what he was implying crashed into me. I jerked visibly and scooted away from him along the wall.
"Myra—"
"You're crazy," I said, continuing to inch away from him. "You think that I'm just going to accept that you're some...some creature out of myth, and then you're going to try to tell me that I'm the same as you? Because of some tiny little change in the bed of my nails?" I scoffed, but it came out sounding more nervous than I wanted it to.
Lero didn't look surprised at my reaction. He was as calm as still water, and he spoke without worry or urgency. "I'll show you tonight, Myra." His voice was still quiet, but the words were weighty, his stare unblinking. "Late, when the Baron is asleep and there are no eyes or ears on us, I'll show you. Then you'll believe me."
His claim drove ice into my heart. He was deadly serious. I thought about what happened to his hand, and to mine. I thought about what it would mean if it were true.
"Then," he said, "you'll know why the two of us have to escape. Why we must."
"I'm not a werewolf." My voice was shaky, and damn it, I couldn't get it under control.
He smiled then. A small, grim one; the smile of a man who has learned his fate and come to terms with it.
"I said the same thing a long time ago."