Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) (10 page)

If she had learned anything about people in
power, it was that very rarely did they tell the truth of what they
were doing. Not that she could blame them; it was much easier to
get a task accomplished by not bothering to explain the real
purpose to all of the pawns involved. If she had to get it through
the servants’ thick heads the whys of all her orders, she'd never
get things done. However, she was not going to sit around and let
the Order pull her strings, she was not a worthless servant who
should blindly accept commands without question.

She sat back down in the chair and sipped her
wine, having forgotten about her pledge to stay away from the
stuff. She let the wheels in her mind turn to find that special
something that would allow her to stand the man's arrogance just
knowing that he had arrived here as...
something.
But
what?
She asked herself.

The day wound down and still no brilliant
ideas had hit her. Jezebel was frustrated enough to give up and go
to bed when Devon entered the room through one of the secret
entrances. His appearance startled her and she felt a wave of
disapproval that he would enter her presence with no preamble. He
looked serious, however, so she just sat silently, watching him as
though she had known he was going to come through the wall at that
particular time and had been waiting for him. He swiftly approached
her chair and knelt next to it, a letter in his hand.

“Apparently, the Order wants to make it clear
that they have been checking up on us as well, my lady. I found
this letter in the confession box where I first learned of their
society.” Jezebel raised an eyebrow in a bored expression, and
Devon quickly continued. “The priest whose lips uttered the secrets
of the Order now lies dead, sprawled in a locked room in a pool of
his own blood that spread seeping from a dozen wounds. The members
of the church say that although his office was filled with rare
treasures and items of value, the only ones missing are books,
documents, and a few coins from a purse he carried. No one saw or
heard anything, and I barely got out with this before the officials
came.”

Jezebel's expression had changed from boredom
to worry and he held the letter out to her tensely. She knew that
the Order protected their secrets vehemently, but it disturbed her
that they had found out so quickly about the betrayal of trust, and
reacted with such violence. She took the letter from Devon with
slightly shaking hands, and fought hard not to show any hint of
fear. Fear was an emotion she was neither familiar nor comfortable
with, and not one that she cared to show any sign of. She carefully
ran a nail across the wax seal to break it. ‘
Consider this your
warning’
, it said, ‘
We guard our secrets with our lives and
our lives are forfeit if we fail. You would be wise to think upon
this before reading further’
.

She glanced up at Devon and dismissed him
with a nod, forgetting to reprimand him for his carelessness in her
anxiety. He left reluctantly, obviously having hoped to be filled
in on the contents of the letter, but Jezebel had no intention of
sharing her secrets with anyone and ending up like the priest, her
earlier confidence shaken.

Once he had exited back through the secret
passage, Jezebel dropped her gaze to the letter in front of her.
‘
With that said,’
it continued
, ‘we would like to invite
you to use your extensive network of informants (run by your fine
man) on a matter of real importance rather than waste his expertise
trying to find answers to issues you don't even know the questions
for’
. Jezebel frowned at this jab, and she could feel her face
growing hot. ‘
We have learned that our eastern neighbor,
Treymayne, whose borders have been closed to us for hundreds of
years, has started filtering a few people across at a time. We
believe these people are spies, and we'd like Devon to help us
identify them. For now, we'll expect his people to gather any
information on traders, nomads, or any other person that cannot
give a definite place of origin inside of Gelendan and report back
to us anything that you learn. We will be in touch with you again
soon at which time you may relay your findings and we will fill you
in on more of the details. Thank you for lending us your help in
this matter. We trust that you will dispose of this letter once
digesting this information’
. It was unsigned and written in
perfectly scribed letters which gave no clues to indicate anything
to Jezebel about the author, though she knew it must be that worm
Jonathan.

She reread it several times before walking
over and tossing it into the fireplace where it crackled and curled
up as it burned into a blackened fragment. She stood staring at the
fire for some time.
Why is the Order suddenly interested in
spies?
A log snapped and a spark flew out towards her
. I
suppose that spies would pose a threat to their way of life if
those spies were a prelude to conflict between the two
countries
.
Perhaps there is already something
brewing
.

Treymayne had silently been their eastern
neighbor since the end of the Massacre and the erection of the
barrier between them, and so far they had held on to a tentative
peace with Gelendan. If the Order was suddenly paying attention to
a country that had been ignored for so long, perhaps it was an
indication of a future dispute.

This led Jezebel to a happy daydream; maybe
she would get the chance to increase her kingdom if Treymayne chose
to attack and was defeated. She could start an empire, claiming the
mysterious Treymayne to the east and taming the savage lands to the
north.

Jezebel's train of thought was punctuated by
a yawn, and she decided to head to bed. Tomorrow she would think on
this further. With that decision made, she headed to her suite. But
it wasn't until several hours later that she actually fell into
sleep, as she was unable to stop her mind from whirling. Some of it
was happy thoughts of her eventual rule. But what kept her awake
most of all, was the unwelcome fear that perhaps the Order was a
force to be reckoned with after all.

CHAPTER 8

A knock sounded at Layna's bedroom door, and
she hurried to answer it with a smile. The smile faded when she saw
that it was Aaron standing there, a servant who had repeatedly
displayed his interest in her, and who unfortunately was also the
object of Katrina’s affection.

“Expecting someone else?” he asked.

Layna flushed in embarrassment, but he didn’t
give her time to come up with an excuse.

“May I come in for a minute?”

Layna wanted nothing more than to tell him
that now was not a good time, but the look on his face was more
serious than usual, not his normal crooked grin in his attempt to
be charming. So instead, she opened the door wider and gestured for
him to come in. He stepped inside, taking a moment to look around
her small room, and she closed the door behind him and then simply
stood, looking at him expectantly.

“Look, Layna, I know you’re not interested in
me,” Layna flushed again and wished that she had told him she was
busy, “but I wanted to warn you not to get yourself hurt.” She
raised her eyebrows with wide eyes, uncertain what he was talking
about. He simply gave her a stern look. “There’s been talk among
the servants of you spending an inordinate amount of time with the
lord staying here.” He paused and waited for her to respond, but
when she remained silent he sighed. “I really don’t want to see you
hurt, but I know these types. He’ll tell you all sorts of silly
things that girls want to hear and then he’ll end up breaking your
heart once he gets what he wants from you. And worse, he’ll
probably tell Lady Jezebel about you and you’ll end up fired – or
worse.”

Despite her initial flare of annoyance, Layna
did pause to think for a minute, and the voice in the back of her
mind took full advantage of her moment of weakness to run down all
of the horrible things that it had imagined could possibly come of
her secret friendship. If word was getting out among the servants,
where gossip was like wildfire, there was no telling how far the
stories had spread – or what they had turned into.

“Thanks, Aaron,” she said simply, but he
didn’t look satisfied.

“Nobles don’t court the lower class. They use
us, and that’s it.”

“He’s not at all like –“

“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, “It just
doesn’t happen. Whatever fantasy you’re expecting in your head
can’t happen in real life. You will get hurt, one way or another.”
His shoulders slumped in defeat, realizing that he wasn’t going to
get any more agreement out of her than she already had. “Just be
careful okay?”

“I will,” she promised and hurriedly changed
the subject before he could push it any further. “Hey, have you
seen Katrina lately?”

“The pretty girl that’s always hovering in
the corner in the kitchen?”

Katrina loved to cook, though it wasn’t part
of her job, and in her free time she often stayed to help the real
cook come up with new recipes. Layna couldn’t wait to tell her that
he called her pretty.

“Yeah, she wanted to ask you about getting
some herbs for teas…” Layna made up a little white lie, if Katrina
couldn’t bring herself to break the ice, perhaps Aaron would.
And Katrina really does like making teas, someday she’ll thank
me
…Aaron happened to be in charge of the greenhouse and loved
it; if someone showed an interest in his work he could go on for
hours about it – a polite mistake she had once made herself.

“Really?” His eyes lit up with curiosity and
Layna bit back a smile.

After planting the seed to hopefully spark
his interest with a couple of other remarks about Katrina’s
interest in cooking, she ushered him out the door.

She sighed and picked up the project that she
had abandoned, staring at it in thought. It was a gift for Gryffon,
an armband to protect his forearm from the bowstring when he shot.
She had thought it would be a nice gesture, a return favor for the
charm, but now Aaron’s words were disturbing. She had hoped that no
one had noticed their stolen moments, meeting him at the stables
rather than leaving the manor together and such, but apparently
they had been more obvious than she had thought.
Now what am I
to do?
She wasn’t as concerned about Gryffon being like the
other nobles, she knew him better than that – or at least she
thought she did – but if people were noticing, that meant that
Jezebel could notice. And no matter what the situation really was
between her and Gryffon, what mattered was what Jezebel might think
of it. And what Jezebel might think of it spelled trouble for
Layna. Gryffon may be able to get away with inappropriate comments
to her and about her, but Layna at least had enough good sense left
to realize that she would be afforded no such courtesy.

Another knock sounded at her door and Layna
deflated, setting her work aside to go tell Aaron that she really
was, in fact, taking him seriously. She was surprised when it
turned out to be Gryffon, wearing a wide grin on his face. His
smile was infectious and she returned it with sincerity, though she
would have been happier to see him before her visitor, and perhaps
not in her room which was only bound to fuel the more illicit
stories.

“Are you up for a little tour around?” he
asked her.

Her mind whirled, finally settling on a
compromise. She would agree to today, but it would have to be the
last, she’d bring it up with him on the way. “I’d love to,” she
replied finally, hoping he didn’t notice the hesitance in her
voice. She stepped out of her room and closed the door behind her
so he didn’t come inside.

“Excellent,” he beamed, “I need to pick up
something in town, so I was hoping you'd like to go for a little
shopping trip.”

Layna laughed. “Not that I have all that much
to spend, but I do love to look!”

“I’ll stop by my room to grab my things and
meet you at the stables?” he asked, and she nodded.

They saddled up the usual horses and started
the trek to town, falling easily into conversation. Gryffon seemed
to have a never-ending supply of knowledge, and on the rare
occasion that he didn't know something, he admitted it rather than
making something up. It was a trait that Layna found refreshing.
Layna picked up a thread of conversation that they had been
discussing during their last outing, deciding that her bad news
could wait until later.

“Why is it that in ancient ballads and
stories, magic was predominant in society, and now there are very
few great talents?”

Gryffon considered the question before
replying. “Well, there is always the time factor.” When Layna
looked at him quizzically, he explained. “Stories become
exaggerated over time, so it's hard to tell the truth behind
ancient stories. But I, for one, do believe that there was more
magic around. There are too many remnants of its past power
surviving in spells, and even though I blame the priests for
suppressing a lot of the talent that there is today, I still think
that there used to be even more of us around. Do you know much
about the histories about the Dark Age?”

“They didn't spend much time teaching us
history in farm girl or maid school,” she said wryly. “I have read
some of the books on it in the library though. Enough that I know
that the Dark King somehow became popular despite his twisted
ideas, and eventually gained enough support that he elevated
himself to god-like status. He explained to the people that he was
preparing for the Sleeping God's return, but those close to him
reported that he believed he was the god himself. That's when he
started massacring all those who he didn't believe fit his
definition of an ideal person. I'm not at all clear on the purpose
or reasons that he killed the ones he did – I mean what made them
unworthy in his eyes.”