Chapter Sixteen
The journal Matilda had given her became her lifeline. She used it to plan tasks that she would need to do up to a year in advance. It seemed to be taking her forever to learn her way around the keep. When the shutters were open, the landscape was a vast sloping expanse of white. It was shaping up to be the coldest winter anyone could remember. When Jonis took her up to the turret to show her the frozen sea, he said that the icebergs were closer together than they usually were this early in the winter. “Do you remember our wedding?” he asked.
“Hmmm,” she teased him. “I remember a wedding, were you there?”
He drew her into his arms. “Remember the toasts? That is the top of the world.” He nodded toward an iceberg so vast that Hanne couldn’t really fathom it. Spreading out from it into the purple sea were countless icebergs that jostled for space amid the icy foam.
“Is it really the top of the world?”
“It is,” he answered. “They say there’s a similar one on the bottom of the world, but I don’t know anyone who has seen it. Let’s go in,” he said. “It’s amazing and majestic out here, but it will kill you fast as a wink.”
Reluctantly, she agreed.
A shout caught their attention. Jonis immediately understood what was happening, but Hanne did not. Two men were carrying another man between them in some sort of sling. The crimson trail they left behind them made it clear that the passenger was gravely wounded. Jonis began to ring the bell. This time the pattern was one that Hanne had never heard before. Almost instantly a door opened along the base of the wall and Hanne saw a number of people rush out to help.
“What happened?” she asked.
“They were boar hunting. I am afraid he got gored.” Jonis grabbed Hanne’s elbow. “You need to be waiting at the infirmary.”
She gathered up her skirts and ran. She had heard of hunters being gored before and she was certain that the wild animals up by the wall were more ferocious than their southerly counterparts. She washed her hands under the scalding water that gushed from the tap. She opened a basket of bandages and laid out things needed to stitch a wound. A prayer for wisdom was still on her lips when the door slammed open. Young Abil was ferried onto her table. The gash in his abdomen was frightful. Blood had seeped through the cloth that a clever fellow knight had pressed into the wound.
Hanne raised her voice. “Everyone out, except for Dortha and Armund.”
If they noticed that she had not referred to the elderly knight as ‘sir’ they didn’t say anything. They dutifully gave way.
“Wilma, I need garlic broth,” Hanne called over her shoulder.
Armund was murmuring words of comfort to the patient, while he poured sips of poppy syrup into the man’s mouth. Hanne pressed as hard as she could to stop the bleeding. Pulling the wad of bandages away, she was relieved to see that although they were sopped with blood, no filth from his bowels was seeping out. While she waited for the medicine to take effect, Hanne threaded a needle and dropped it into a pot of water over the fire. While her suture kit boiled, Armund and Dortha cut away Abil’s clothes and leaving his wound bare, began to cover him with blankets. The wound was a deep and jagged tear through the skin and flesh. Hanne fished the threaded needle out of the pot. Dortha wrung out a cloth that she had dipped into vodka and swabbed the skin around the gaping hole with it. Armund pressed his hands into the skin of Abil’s belly and pushed the open sides together. The dame began to stitch him up with shaking hands. Her shoulders were taut with tension as with tiny stitches, she drew the wound shut. Dortha had stirred up the fire and Hanne felt sweat gliding down her back. By the time she was finished, she was lightheaded. She swabbed the stitched laceration with more alcohol and was relieved to see that it wasn’t seeping blood. It took a few minutes to remove the soiled blankets and make sure Sir Abil was warm and dry.
There was a quiet knock on the door. Hanne’s and Armund’s eyes met over the still body of the injured knight. The garlic broth was here. This would tell them if there was any chance of Abil surviving. Gently Hanne spooned the strong-smelling broth into the injured man’s mouth. She took her time and made sure he had swallowed a fair bit. The last sip she gave him was laced with more poppy juice. She took the bowl out to Wilma in the hall. Leaving the door open, Hanne took the large fan that Dortha offered her. The women moved around the sick room, waving their fans through the air until no smell of the garlic broth remained. Together they draped a large blanket from the cross beam. The tent formed by the blanket covered Abil from his shoulders down to his knees. There was nothing to do but wait. Every fifteen minutes Hanne ducked her head under the blanket and took a deep sniff. By the time the candles burned down to nubs, she was confident. There was no smell of garlic broth seeping from Abil’s wound. His bowels were intact. If they could keep purulence at bay, he might live.
* * *
One of her tasks was to ensure that the boys performed their chores. She was not as firm about this as she should be. She was barely on top of her own responsibilities, so chiding someone else for being behind seemed unfair. More than once, Jonis had reminded her that she did not have time to add the boys’ chores to her own. It was necessary that the lads learn that living in a keep required everyone to do their share. Hanne agreed in theory, but in practice she found it difficult. She would pick up the laundry left outside of the hamper, and quietly re-sweep a floor when Jonis was busy elsewhere. Her position required her to jump in to help whenever it was necessary so she set her hand to different tasks practically every day.
There was certainly always enough work for Hanne to do of her own. She reassured her women that no task was beneath her and she would jump in to help wherever needed. While gathering carrots from the root cellar, she noticed the smell emanating from the rabbit hutches. She thought of the vast kitchen, and the long walk to the part of the keep where lessons were held. Hanne decided that figuring out which boy was responsible for them and then finding that boy was more trouble than it was worth. Disregarding Jonis’ insistence that she hold the boys accountable for lackadaisical chore performance, she found the wheelbarrow. Just this one time, she told herself. No one would know, and she resolved that next time, she would do as her husband asked. It seemed to her that the simplest way to proceed was to shoo the rabbits deeper into the hutch and shovel out the droppings. Then she would open the other end of the hutch and repeat the process. She struggled to jostle the barrel that they used to compost the droppings to the front of the hutch. She did not notice that there was a sliding gate that would allow her to close off each half of the hutch. The rabbits scurried back away from her as she banged on the wire screen door of the home. Opening the door, she bent to retrieve her shovel. The bravest of the rabbits shimmied past her and hopped out. Hanne shut the door, but in her haste did not latch it. While she was chasing her hopping quarry, a small avalanche of his compatriots came tumbling out. Hanne muttered every swear word she could think of. They were everywhere. An avalanche of hopping vegetable eaters, expanded to fill the available space. Rabbits ended up in the barrel of compost and tumbled out, leaving stinky tracks in their wake. There were hundreds of them and they were moving intently toward her root cellar where the vegetables she needed to feed the entire keep were. She ran to secure the door but she was actually afraid of stepping on any of the rabbits. She was still essentially a city girl and saw them as soft, big-eared bunnies. Every second she spent in gathering up one and returning it to the hutch, the others were getting closer and closer to her precious vegetables. Thankfully, Wilma heard the scuffling and the muttered oaths and opened the door at the top of the stairs. Seeing the encroaching horde of rabbits, she slammed the door and spun, calling for help.
Hanne shuffled her way to the root cellar and grabbed rabbits by the scruff, tossing them out into the hallway. “Shoo! Stop it! Shoo!” she shrieked ineffectually. It was hopeless, there were too many of them. The pounding feet of the boys, unexpectedly released from lessons and cheerfully running to gather up the rabbits was a most welcome noise. It took the small army of boys more than an hour to get all the rabbits rounded up and returned to their hutch. They had saved most of the vegetables, the carrots being the hardest hit, but in the melee, crates of produce had been knocked over and rabbit droppings now covered the floor of the entire cellar.
Jonis stood at the foot of the stairs. “Snow Force! You cannot leave your work for others. You will clean up this mess and then instead of free time, we will get caught up on lessons.” Hanne was embarrassed to see the knights joining in the shoveling and sweeping efforts. One of the boys showed Hanne how to secure the rabbits in one end of the hutch and clean the other half.
Jonis corrected him sharply. “Our dame doesn’t need to know how to do that. Chores like this are the reason we feed all of you boys!” There was laughter, but also mumblings of apologies.
Hanne glanced down at herself. The hem of her skirt was covered in shit, her hair had come loose into a rat’s nest, and she had a long smear of what she sincerely hoped was dirt along her cheek. The boys were sent upstairs and Jonis didn’t need to tell her what awaited her. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. “Can I take a bath before you spank me?” she whispered pitifully. The paladin gave an amused nod, but did not offer her a reprieve.
Even knowing what her fate was, the bath was a delightful relief. She worked up fragrant suds in her hair and used a nailbrush to scrub her hands. She was afraid that he was going to use the strap. Not allowing herself to dwell on that thought, she rubbed oil into her skin. After pulling on a clean dress and braiding her hair, she realized that there was no avoiding it any longer. There were only a few people in the corridors; everyone was busy catching up on the jobs they had interrupted to play rabbit catcher. This was a relief since Hanne could not even meet her women’s eyes.
Surely they knew she was an idiot who was about to get her bare bottom strapped by their very handsome, very capable paladin.
He was waiting for her. The only defense she had to offer was, “That’s a lot of fucking rabbits.”
Jonis threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, we have a lot of fucking rabbits. Do you know what else we have?”
“What?”
“A fortress full of boys whose job it is to take care of them.”
She nodded miserably.
He stroked her hair. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”
Easy for you to say, she thought, no one is going to roast your backside. She appreciated his comforting gesture, though.
He directed her to bend over the table. It was solid and unyielding under her belly. When he folded her skirts up and over her back, she shivered.
His voice was low. “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.”
“I will,” she promised.
“Yes, you will,” he said. With his left hand in the small of her back, he began to spank her forcefully.
Hanne tried to stay still, but couldn’t for very long. He seemed to be directing his attention to the juncture between her bottom and thighs. It stung like fire. Shifting her weight from side to side did nothing to shield her bottom from his slapping hand. She yelped and whimpered.
“You earned this,” he reminded her sternly. “Take it like a good girl.”
Keeping her feet still was impossible though. When he relented, she had not quite begun to cry.
Jonis rubbed her back. “Almost done, my dove.”
Hanne felt him reach over her and retrieve a strap from the hook. Hanne tried to raise herself up to see which one. Her husband would not allow it.
“Be still,” he commanded. “I’m going to give you five, and then this will be over.”
Hanne buried her face in her hands and willed herself to be brave. She heard the whistle of the strap before it landed across her bottom, causing her to gasp and writhe.
He waited her out. “Tell me when you are ready for the next one,” he said.
“I will never be ready,” she cried.
Jonis said nothing, but waited while his wife slowly got control of her breathing. The sparks burning across her backside began to fade a little. She nodded.
“Say it, Hanne,” he gently commanded.
“I am ready,” she whispered.
The second stroke caught her lower, at the very top of her thighs. She tried to stand up, begging for him to stop.
He pressed her down, stroking her hair. “You are a dame of Pinnacle Keep, you mold warriors; you can do this.”
“No, no, I can’t. It hurts.”
“It’s supposed to hurt; it’s a spanking.”
The third lash of the strap made her tremble. A whimper broke from her throat, but she was able to control herself.
“Good girl, I’m proud of you,” he said.
She stilled herself and whispered, “I’m ready.”
He took pity on her and applied the last two strokes swiftly, one after the other. The breath went out of her, and she began to sob. Jonis smoothed her skirts down and gathered her into his arms. “You will do as I ask, and insist that the boys pull their own weight. It’s for their own good. You have enough to do as it is,” he reminded her, as she wept into the front of his tunic. He gently patted her burning flesh and gave her gentle kisses all along her hairline. He let her cry herself out, gently rocking her the whole time. She rested her face in the manly curve of his neck and breathed him in. Jonis smelled of a warm summer day just before a storm rolled in. Hanne surprised herself by pressing her lips into the soft flesh of his throat. She had assumed she would be angry with him after he punished her, and yet she felt refreshed and beloved. There was also no ignoring that between her thighs she felt a distinct glow. Her hands roamed down his chest and began to unbuckle his belt. She felt a chuckle rumble up through his chest. “That’s my good girl,” he whispered. She had found that being called his good girl met some deep unspoken need that had lain hidden in her woman’s heart. A tear rolled down her cheek, but it was very different from the tears his strapping her had evoked. Jonis lifted her easily and carried her to their bed. Hanne reached back and undid her hair, knowing how much Jonis liked it when it cascaded down her shoulders.
“I don’t want you to hate belonging to me,” he admitted. “But, you do. You are my wife. I will die for you if called upon to do so, and you must know that you are mine.”
Of that there was no doubt, as he pressed her back onto the pillows and slid his hands up her skirt. With a palm pressed against each thigh, he spread her legs.
She yielded to him, all honey and warmth. For all of his power, he took her as gently as a virgin on her wedding night, pausing before he entered her to make sure she was wet for him. She was, and her hips moved of their own accord, pulling him deeper and deeper into herself. It was all she had ever longed for in a union with a man, save one thing. She ached to hear him say over and over again that he loved her. He was tender and attentive and her body responded. His familiar fingers gently twisting a nipple made her moan with delight.
She was about to blurt out that she loved him, when a wave of pleasure overtook her and she became incapable of forming words. She could only cry out in bliss as her body tumbled with satisfaction. When she could speak, she had more control of her vocalizations and instead of saying she loved him, she whispered, “I want to belong to you and be your good girl.” She had rarely said anything more true.
This pleased Jonis. He responded with stronger thrusts, punctuating his words. “Wife… you… are my… very good girl.” The final thrust was hardest of all. His orgasm was powerful and she felt his hot seed fill her belly. Resting in his strong arms, Hanne pondered that perhaps being his good girl would be enough, perhaps she didn’t need him to love her. Deep in her heart though, she knew that it would never be enough. She could never be a truly happy woman until her husband loved her as much as she loved him. Still though, Lilja was safe, and she was in a cozy bed with a man who she had no doubt would die to insure her safety. There was much to be said for her situation.
Her reverie was broken when Jonis leapt out of bed. “We have to get dressed, hungry boys need their supper. We owe it to them to be on time.”
She did not want to venture out into the keep for dinner, sure that everyone knew she was an idiot and precisely what sort of punishment she’d earned. “Couldn’t I just stay here,” she implored.
Jonis was insistent. “A dame does not hide from her keep,” he said. Hanne was so mortified that she almost burst into tears. She was considering how to word her counterargument when a tentative knock on the door revealed Miri. The maid had arrived to help Hanne do her hair and dress for dinner. Jonis took advantage of this interruption, dropping a kiss onto his wife’s shoulder and firmly reminding her that he’d see her shortly. No sooner had the door shut behind the paladin than Miri held out a small jar.
“Soothing liniment,” she said with a conspiratorial wink. Hanne felt her face flush. The maid was quick to reassure her embarrassed mistress. “Oh, don’t you worry. I don’t think less of you. People make mistakes, paladins spank dames, and it’s the way of it.” Hanne gave Miri’s hand an affectionate squeeze. The dame wasn’t clear how her husband would react to her using pain-relieving ointment to quell the sting she’d earned with disobedience. “I’ll use it in a little bit,” she reassured her maid, knowing as she said it that she would not. She would take the punishment she had earned and strive to not earn another one. It was the honorable thing to do, and she was a dame of the North Wall.
With her hair coiled in an elaborate braid, Hanne went to dinner. For the first time, she did not trip on the stairs. It was enough of an event that she mentioned it to Armund who was also going down the stairs. “I finally figured out these stairs!”
Armund offered her his arm. “Perhaps the stairs have finally figured you out.” Hanne chuckled; the old knight was lovely company, but taking the things he said too literally was a very good way to make your head explode.
* * *
The days rapidly grew shorter. Before she knew it there were only a few hours of dusky light each day. Jonis and his knights were busy with the large number of messages the keep seemed to receive every day. One day she found Benny sitting at the top of the stairs forlornly with a ball between his knees. Hanne hadn’t had a moment to herself in a week. Dortha’s arthritis had flared up and Hanne had taken over making the ale. Most of the boys seemed to have chosen the exact same moment to outgrow their trousers. Tucked under her arm, otherwise occupied in carrying a large basket of mending, was a book. She was going to sneak in a quarter of an hour all by herself and read. The dejected look on the little boy’s face clutched at her heart. She stopped in her tracks. “Why so long-faced, my wolf cub?”
“Papa said he’d play with me. The lads are having lessons, so they are busy. Papa got a falcon and no one has played with me in forever.”
This was absolutely not true. Hanne had seen him on the shoulders of Mattias that very morning. Still, the little boy was clearly in poor spirits. She set down her basket of laundry and with it her precious novel. “All right, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Benny looked up. “Can you even kick a ball?”
It was a reasonable question, but she ignored it. “Shows what you know.” She scooped the ball out of his lap and drop kicked it against the wall. The ball ricocheted around the stone corridor and rolled back to the now smiling little boy. Benny studiously placed the ball and gave it a wobbly kick. Hanne caught it easily and was delighted with herself. Again and again they ran along the hallway. The dame was relieved that shutters were opened so there was enough light without the torches being lit. She decided to forget the mending. No one was yet forced to run around naked, and this was what she needed to be doing at this exact moment. Benny was happier than she had ever seen him. He needed the love of a mother so badly and was so easy to love.
A small shadow moved across one of the doorways. Sera lurked, eager to join in but held back by the contempt she mostly showed her stepmother. Hanne moved from basking in the warm glow of Benny’s easy admiration to a much harder audience. The dame held out her hand. “Please, come play with us.” Sera hesitated. “Come on, please. I need your help. I am not very good at this.”
She deliberately gave an awkward flailing kick at the stationary ball. Sera grinned. “You are not! But I am.” She walloped the ball and it careened around the deserted corridor. The three of them shouted and kicked and darted. At times they played for themselves and there seemed to be a loose shifting alliance with Hanne quietly helping whichever child seemed to be struggling. Jonis appeared in a doorway smiling ear to ear.
“What is this infernal racket in my peaceful keep?”
“It is us!” Sara hollered. “We will beat you boys!”
Jonis stood Benny between his own legs. “Now you say, ‘Do your best, scoundrel’!”
“Do your best, scound—”
“REL,” completed his father.
“REL,” the little boy crowed and his sister gave the ball a sharp kick. With his father’s help, Benny had no problem stopping and returning the ball. Sera beamed. “When my sister Lilja can walk, we will outnumber you!”
Jonis reached over and gave her unraveling braid a gentle tug. “Only until your next little brother arrives.”
“Yay!” cried Benny. “A brother!”
Hanne caught the ball and rolled it back with a look of consternation on her face. “Let us not get ahead of ourselves…”
Jonis lifted Benny onto his shoulder and whispered, “Now you say, ‘Less of this…’”—he moved his hand in a yapping motion—“‘and more of this.’” He gave the ball a skilled kick.
“Yeah! More of that!” Benny yelled, throwing his arm up in a gesture of victory.
As classes finished, the boys joined the fracas. Hanne had decided that this was insane and she was simply going to have to put her foot down; you couldn’t have a traveling game of this size weaving through the keep without leaving injury and destruction in its wake. She saw Sir Armund in a nook off of the corridor that she had never noticed before. She could have sworn the corridor was narrow and straight. She had so much to learn about her new home. “I have to stop them,” she laughed. “Someone will get hurt.”
Armund shook his head. “No, they won’t. There will be plenty of room.” She did not share the elderly knight’s confidence and was relieved when the dinner bell rang. Jonis had a look of contentment on his face that Hanne hadn’t yet seen. Her wimple hung by a single hairpin, she was out of breath, and rarely had she been less dignified. Her husband leaned close and whispered, “I thank you.” A warm dragon eye peered happily from the collar of his tunic.
Hanne gave a happy smile and they went to sit down to dinner. Sera sat beside her stepmother. Benny solemnly imitated his father as he led them in grace and the entire keep tucked into a meal of smoked monkfish, a stew of vegetables, and fresh yogurt with rhubarb. Hanne held Lilja on her lap and fed her some finely mashed carrots. A twinge in her lower back seemed to worsen until it was a dull throb. Jonis noticed her discomfort and reached for the baby, who was delighted to go to him. Benny offered the baby spoons of yogurt that she opened her mouth like a baby bird to receive. Most of it dripped onto Lilja’s sweater. Hanne cringed; that was going to take some scrubbing to get clean. As the pain increased, Hanne struggled to maintain her composure through the meal. It was a long one since some of the boys had recently taken exams and each of the knights had something to say about the hard work put in by their students. When they finally stood up, Hanne felt a pain like a bolt of lightning shoot down her hip. Jonis offered her his arm. “I think you pulled a muscle,” he said.
“Could be,” she moaned. “I was raised to be a princess. I am not sure I even have muscles.” Sera solemnly offered Hanne her hand to help her to their apartments. It didn’t actually help. Sera wasn’t tall enough that Hanne could hold her hand without stooping. Still, she was going to hold that sassy little hand every chance she got. Tucking the children into bed, she groaned in pain. Seeing their concern, she rallied and promised then that all she needed was a good night’s sleep.
She hobbled into their bedroom leaning on her husband’s strong arm. A solemn dragon watched her from the collar of his shirt. The dragon seemed very aware of how Hanne had succeeded in breaking down Sera’s walls.
“What do you really need?” Jonis asked, his voice tinged with concern. “A plaster of crushed comfrey would help. I asked Miri to bring me one.”
The maid appeared with the bruised herb stalks layered into cheesecloth. “Heat would help this work much better,” Miri said.
“I know, but for now this will do,” Hanne said, ushering the maid out of the room with what she hoped was a gracious gesture, but was probably a clumsy, pained wave.
“What you need to do is let me put a hot cloth on that,” Jonis offered.
The idea of her warrior husband nursing her was discomfiting. She thought of the mess involved with sheets getting wet, and stone floors being dripped onto and she demurred. “If it still hurts tomorrow, I will soak in a long hot bath. Right now, could we just go to sleep?” She pressed the herbal plaster against her back and wrapped some strips of linen around her middle to hold it in place. Jonis helped her slip a flannel nightgown on. He gently kissed her between her breasts. “I’m sorry you are hurt; thank you for playing with Benny today.”
“I love him,” she replied simply. And I love you and want you to love me back.
“I am grateful for it,” he said, holding the swinging bed still, so she could safely climb aboard. He stroked her hair. “Your beauty makes it hard to control myself, but the last thing I want is to hurt you more, so I will be a gentleman. Thank God, I have a knight’s lifetime of discipline.” He helped Hanne turn onto her side and curled himself around her. “One of the things you learn on the battlefield is to sleep when you can,” he murmured. It appeared that that training had been driven home, because he fell asleep almost immediately.
Hanne was not so lucky. She was pretending that it didn’t hurt as much as it did and she forced herself to be still so that Jonis could stay asleep. She knew how hard he was working, and she wanted him to rest. The pain was biting though. She shifted her hip, trying to take some of the pressure off. It failed. She bit her lip. Without heat the comfrey plaster was next to worthless. Climbing out of the swinging bed without waking up her husband seemed impossible. There was simply nothing to be done; she would suffer silently tonight and deal with it properly tomorrow. Sleep was simply out of the question, she thought.
There was the familiar flurry of sparks that she felt when the dragon swam around on Jonis’ skin. To her amazement, she felt herself growing drowsy as the pain somehow became less sharp. She felt a warmth spread through her and the aching muscles of her back relax. The grassy smell of the comfrey met her nostrils. She didn’t know what could have caused this respite but she was grateful. A flash of dragon scale moved across Jonis’ arm, which was draped over her. As she allowed herself to melt into the warmth that surrounded her, she realized where the blissful relief was coming from. The dragon had settled into Jonis’ belly so that he could soothe her painful back. She reached back and ran a finger over the dragon’s brow. “I love you too,” she whispered as quietly as she could. “Both of you.” She felt a spark of hope; if the dragon could care for her, perhaps his warrior would as well.
* * *
The frigid temperatures and the endless white vistas were going to take some years to get used to, it seemed to Hanne. Winter raged around them. Late afternoons when the boys and knights were busy with arms training she would set a tray with some warm spiced wine and a few cookies made with ginger and join Armund by the big fireplace. He spoke of the wall as if it were alive. He described to her how it was originally built by an invading army so that they could better navigate the border. But the invaders had not realized that the wall ran along a fissure of magic. When they reached the pinnacle and dug the foundation, magic had flowed from the top of the world and seeped down the entire wall. Seeing her bemused expression, he was quick to reassure her. “You don’t believe in magic?”
Well, that had once been true. But she had seen a sky on fire, a wood sprite, and wooly mammoths. “I might believe in magic.” The elderly knight dunked his ginger cookie into his warm wine and delightedly took a bite. “The magic line is a marker of transformation.”
She helped herself to a cookie.
“To the north is the past and the wall transforms it into the world we know.” Sensing her skepticism, he continued, “The wall can change people too.”
That she knew to be true. A thought occurred to her. “Does being here change the boys? More than just growing up does, I mean.”
“Oh, yes, the wall makes of us what it needs us to be. We are our truest selves astride this vein of magic. Twice, I have clapped eyes on a boy and known that he was destined for great power on the wall. You are married to one of them. I knew it was just a matter of time until he transfigured.”
“Is the other boy a gilded paladin somewhere else?”
A haunting sadness came over the old man. “No. No, we lost him.” Armund appeared to be haunted by the fate of the other boy, and he muttered that he was going to go read.
Hanne knew the training the boys underwent was dangerous, but she hadn’t thought that it could kill one of them. She shuddered at the thought.
The weather was also making her shudder. It was the earliest, iciest winter any of the knights, even Armund, could remember. She was thankful for the warm keep, and its candles that kept the icy darkness at bay.