Private Sink your teeth

[Lysanne Shard]

The courtyard reeked of steel, horse sweat, and the dry dust kicked up by booted feet. A line of Ashcloaks drilled with spears, their black cloaks snapping in the wind.

Lysanne cut a dark shape against the pale stone. From the shadow of the arched entryway, she watched them for a moment, the Captain among them. Her gown was cut in the sweeping, high-shouldered style favored by noblewomen, close-fitted through the bodice, sleeves long and flared to the wrist. The cloth was deep charcoal, almost black, with subtle embroidery of green thread along the neckline and cuffs. Dressed for a court chamber, not a dusty barracks. Violet eyes caught the light like a cat’s as she closed the distance to the Captain of the Ashcloaks.

She didn’t announce herself until she was close enough to speak without raising her voice. Lysanne stepped into his shadow. Her tone carried that faint curl of mockery she reserved for men she’d rather address by their names, but didn’t. The mountain wind came knifing down between the walls, carrying the smell of oiled leather and the faint copper bite of blood from the butts of raw hands.

"Captain"

Her gaze flicked past him to the line of Ashcloaks, then back again.

“We should talk. Somewhere your men won’t hear.”

It was not a suggestion, nor courtesy. Her tone had that quiet, inexorable pull of deep water; there was nothing urgent in it, yet demanded movement all the same. . Around them, the crack of spear hafts against the packed earth continued. Her chin lifted a fraction, the smallest motion, as though weighing whether he would need further motivation.

 

[Jan Walczak]

It was a cold day in the Iron Gate. Sharp, howling winds blew through the crenelated teeth of the old fortress, causing many a sentry and sod to shiver. 'Keep it tight, you dogs! Shoulder to shoulder!' Cried a sergeant, the knotted club in his hand correcting those whose dawdled overly long. 'Diethelm! Pull your head out of your arse! We're training, not getting ready for the next barn dance.'

Watching from the sidelines, Jan nodded in approval as the sergeant's gaze caught his for a moment. Green, they may be, but everyone had to start somewhere, and these lads and lasses showed-

The sergeant's gaze shifted, eyes widening in sudden concern and... Was that interest?

A voice at his shoulder answered the question for him as the sergeant quickly averted his gaze. Jan dipped his head in greeting. 'Lady.' What brings you here this morning? Nothing good, I'd wager. 'Of course. The view from the walls should suffice, if you're not opposed to the idea.' The acoustics were less precise up there, and the Ashcloaks on duty knew better than to approach him when he was engaged with a member of the household.

Turning, he swept his arm towards the nearest tower, inviting her to walk ahead of him.

 

[Lysanne Shard]

The wind bit harder as they ascended. It tore at her sleeves and tugged strands of dark hair loose from a coiffure that had taken her handmaid the better part of an hour to arrange. Pins, oils, braids and all to shape into the precise image Lysanne allowed the world to see: effortless, composed, untouchable. The wind’s meddling was a personal affront, however small.

She smiled without looking at him, just the barest curl of the lips.

“You served my father a long time, Captain”

It wasn’t flattery. No warmth sat behind the words. It was a statement of record. She paused, letting the wind whistle between them for a moment. She turned toward him, her violet eyes catching the dull grey light. There was something patient and terrible in her gaze, like a knife laid out on a table.

"Longer than most. Long enough to know which orders were spoken, and which ones were simply… understood.” Then, as if it were only a passing curiosity, she tilted her head.

She took a step closer, not enough to crowd him. "Long enough to know who he ignored. Who he fed. Who he ruined.” There was a purr behind her voice now, velvet-lined and honey-thick. "And long enough, I think, to know where the bones are buried."

Her hand brushed some leaves of the cold stone parapet beside him, absent-mindedly almost. "I know he left things behind. I’m living proof of that. But I wonder…” Her violet eyes flicked toward him again, this time sharper, clearer. "Because lately, I've heard things..."

Her gaze dropped deliberately to the weapon at his side. The mace, iron-headed and brutal, a relic of old loyalties. She knew it well. Everyone in the Iron Gate did. A gift. A favor. A symbol. "So I thought I’d ask you, since you’re such a dependable man..."

Then her hand moved. Not fast. Not hesitant. She reached for it with the same certainty one might use to pluck a cup from a table, as if she had every right. Slender fingers brushed the iron shaft where it rested against his hip.

“Strange, isn’t it?” she murmured, still looking down. “The things we inherit from dead men. Steel. Names. Secrets.” She curled her hand around its head, letting the metal bite slightly against her palm.

"Karnhollow."

 

[Jan Walczak]

Lysanne had always been wily. A bastard and a daughter, the odds had been against her from the moment she was conceived, and so it was no surprise she turned out the way she had. Never would she inherit; never would she bear children that carried the family name. Forever branded by her father's sin, and yet tolerated by the House Matron and her half-siblings, some of whom had eventually come to regard Lysanne with some modicum of warmth. Maybe even affection.

Jan bore no love for her. But he did respect her.

She was beautiful and intelligent, and oh-so very dangerous, as he believed all beautiful and intelligent women to be. She knew how to play the game almost as well as her father had, before his untimely demise. Jan had never quite managed to work out what happened to his old friend. Life happened, the Captain told himself, listening to Lysanne's every word, undaunted by the way she wove her web, like the matriarch she no doubt hoped to be, one day.

'You flatter me, Lady.' Bowing his head in recognition, Jan chose to ignore the subtle mockery hidden behind her words. Yes, he supposed he was "dependable," but that would only last until his first failure as Captain. Then, it would be "useless" or "incompetent." But why stop there?

'Strange?' Jan pondered the question as Lysanne drew near, her violet eyes possessing a quiet cunning that the young Shard must've thought belonged to her, and her alone. 'Perhaps. Perhaps not. To me, "strange" is the door left ajar in the dead of night. The sentry post left unmanned.' Fingers that weren't his brushed cold metal that didn't belong to them.

Standing fast, the Ashcloak Captain met Lysanne's gaze as the fated words were spoken.

Ah. So, that's what she was driving at. Steel and secrets. A list of names that hadn't been uttered in years. A covetous neighbour that had yet to learn their place.

'Karnhollow, Lady?' The old knight grew a little straighter.

 

[Lysanne Shard]

Jan spoke like a soldier, always did. Doors ajar. Sentry posts unmanned. Cute. “Mm. You think in breaches and battlements,” she said, her voice low, curling at the edges like smoke off a funeral pyre. “That’s how you survive men like my father, isn’t it? Watch the walls. Pretend the danger comes from outside.”

Bare fingers curled harder around the worn iron shaft, nails pale against the dark metal. The edges of the flanged head bit into the base of her palm, sharp, jagged, unkind. She didn’t pull back. She pressed harder, and pressure built. A flare of white-hot pain bloomed along her palm as the iron’s ridge broke skin. A bead of blood welled up where her skin broke.

“Yes, Karnhollow..” she repeated.

Blood, rich, dark, slick, and she sucked in a soft breath through her nose as the pain seared its way through her nerves. Not unpleasant, a familiar and welcomed sensation. Reliable. Real. One of the few feelings that hadn't dulled. Pain was the only thing the world couldn’t counterfeit.

“There’s someone in that miserable little hamlet who calls himself Tourmalet. Raised by stonecutters.”

The words left her with such sweetness that it soured. She released the mace at last, slow and precise, as if letting go of a lover’s throat and leaving behind a faint smear of blood. She flexed her fingers once, watching the blood spread and smear across her lifeline. Without taking her purple eyes from her palm, she smiled, small and sharp and hungry.

"Says he’s my father’s son. Says he has a sealed letter, a debt of blood and coin. Says my father meant to return for him." It didn't matter if her father had actually made promises between closed doors and opened legs... or not. She was the only mistake he ever acknowledged. And Lysanne would not share that distinction.

“Sound familiar?"

 

[Jan Walczak]

I know where the danger comes from, Lady, the Captain thought as he followed Lysanne's violet eyes to where her crimson flowed wetly across an upturned palm. Jan sighed. 'Oh, my dear, sweet Lysanne!' He spoke softly, as if they were more than just bodyguard and bastard. 'Only ever happy when someone's bleeding.' Frowning, he withdrew a strip of linen from a pouch on his belt, kept in case of emergencies like this one.

A breach of protocol, maybe, but he would not stand idly by whilst a ward bled her lifeblood upon the cold stone of the Iron Gate - a privilege the Captain reserved for the House's enemies, not those who shared its interests.

Taking hold of her hand, gently, but firmly, Jan began to wind the bandage about the pricked flesh. That she had marked his iron left him with a bad taste in his mouth, but he put his thoughts aside in favour of hers, violent and bloody as they were.

'Aye, I had heard tell of a young lad claiming to share your father's blood.' And not for the first time, alas. 'What of it?'

Did she wish for him to arrange a tragic "accident"? To ride to Karnhollow, sword in hand, and smite the little tyke in front of his family? Maybe she'd take pleasure in inviting the claimant to the Iron Gate, only to have him thrown headfirst from the castle walls?

Jan was not that man. Nor had he ever been. For her half-brother, the Matron of the House, or, indeed, her father before them.

'This child is not the first to have come forward claiming ties to the family, and I very much doubt he will be the last.' Dylar had been a lover and a fighter. If only he had loved less frequently, thought Jan, regarding Lysanne in a sympathetic light, a moment as rare as it was real. Perhaps then I would not be here, having this conversation.

 

[Lysanne Shard]

'Oh, my dear, sweet Lysanne!' How quaint. Being addressed so intimately might have offended another. A trace of amusement flickered in her violet eyes. Lysanne let her bloodied fingers rest in his hands as he wrapped the linen around her palm. “You have no idea what I enjoy,” she murmured. “Jan,” The name rolling off her tongue like something dangerous, almost poisonous.

The thread soaked in the warmth of her blood. A thin line of crimson streaks across the cloth. She flexed her hand slowly, a small flash of pain ran up her arm, and she welcomed it. “As for… that man who claims my father’s name. He’s been speaking to House Armdall. Offering coin. Calling favors he should not have... I intend to find this bastard. I simply wish to see if he is a lie or not."

She stepped closer, close enough that her breath kissed the space between them. “He’s a crack in the wall, he's rot in the beams... a gate unbarred,” she said softly, almost nonchalant.

“Do I need to spell it out, my Captain?” she asked, voice low, impatient. “Or does a man like you understand that this bastard is trouble when it's too late?” Brushing her fingers over the crease of his doublet where a button had slipped free, deftly fastening it again. Her gaze swept his face, reading him like a map of weaknesses. Yes. He’ll understand. He must...

Her hand withdrew, leaving the button secure.

 

[Jan Walczak]

His name sounded strange coming from her lips. Spoken without any warmth, as if intended to cut rather than caress. 'True.' Securing the bandage, the Captain took a step back, brow furrowing as he listened to Lysanne speak.

Armdall. An old name. Respected, and conniving.

All bastards are trouble, Lady, as you well know. Keeping the thought to himself, Jan grew still as Lysanne pressed close once more, seeking to persuade him, to convince him of a threat that had yet to blossom. She saw the sword poised to strike, feared its keen edge, unaware of just how blunt an instrument it truly was. Especially in ole Horace's hands. Perhaps he needs reminding, of what happens when you poke the bear.

'Perhaps you did not hear me, Lady.' Placing a hand to his chest, Jan frowned, nodded. 'I said I had heard of him, "his" claims- outlandish as they are.' Weak-willed. Impressionable. A young lad, barely into his manhood. Eager to ascend, and far too naïve to play the game he found himself a part of. House Armdall had chosen their pawn well.

Shame, then, that their household had more leaks than the Royal Armada.

They lacked the wealth and manpower to press the bastard's claims; House Tourmalet, on the other hand, wanted for neither. 'You wish to meet with this bastard and so disprove his claims? Very well.' Hands clasped calmly behind his back, Jan took a step closer to the battlements, his gaze leaving Lysanne to admire the world that awaited them beyond the parapet. Land that had long since been broken to the fist.

'I did not wish to play our hand so early, and end up sacrificing valuable assets best held in reserve' he spoke softly and to the side. 'Indeed, it occurred to me that we might yet use this boy to our own advantage. Tell me: what do you know of House Armdall's dealings with the Marches?'

 

[Lysanne Shard]

His sudden caution, his reluctance to burn the boy too soon… Interesting. How the old warhound still had surprises buried under all that loyal sinew. Her hand rested lightly on the stone beside him, fingers pale against the dark lichen-crusted battlement. Her violet eyes remained on him, not the horizon.

“You want to use him?" There was no heat in her tone. She tilted her head, voice soft, almost curious. She could press. He could lie. Or half-lie, which was worse. The wind toyed with a few strands of her dark hair.

"I’ve heard whispers. Marchland steel and men who don’t wear colors. But I suspect you’ve heard more..."

She reached out, not harshly, but slowly, and straightened a fold in his cloak. The scent of her perfume, juniper and bitterroot, bloomed in the narrow space between them. Her voice was soft. Intimate. Threatening in the way only Lysanne could manage, as if she were complimenting him, and promising to peel back his skin at the same time. “You’ve been keeping secrets, Jan.” He always did. Know a little more. Hear what the rest did not. That was what made him so useful. But he knew something she didn’t.

And she hated that.

“So tell me, my dear Captain,” she purred and leaned her back against the cold stones. The wind tugging at her sleeves as if trying to remind her of the chill but, she barely felt it. Her eyes, violet and unreadable, stayed on the Captain. “What exactly is it you see in the Marches that I don't?”

“What’s really festering out there?”