Chapter Four

Janice didn’t always dream about soaring through the sky. She didn’t always dream about journeys to secret hideaways and legendary locales. Sometimes, she simply dreamed about the people she loved.

Before she decided to move out of her mother’s house and into the distant guest house, she dreamed about that conversation. In that dream, she could explain all the turmoil going on in her mind.

“I don’t know what I want,” she would say.

“And what I do know, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I need to find myself. I need to not be defined by my family, but by what exists deep inside my heart.”

“I’m afraid for my future. That I won’t be able to achieve my dreams. If I even want to achieve my dreams, or if they’re just based on what you and father want for me.”

“I don’t even understand what you and father want for me. You’re so different. I don’t know what is right.”

“There’s so much more I need to see in this world.”

“I’m suffocating.”

“I’m scared.”

“And my heart has been broken….... I’m sorry I never told you about her.”

But, of course, in reality those words were never spoken. Stripped of the confidence and grit she harnessed so easily while asleep, only fear and self-doubt came to bear. And anger.

Janice couldn’t stop thinking about her mother’s tears. The crack in her voice, as she pleaded for her to stay.

When she was young, her mother would call her baby. This wasn’t a term she used for her older sister. Just her. She was always baby. But that stopped after she grew. When she traded in fur skirts for leather trousers. When she balked at being labelled a “little girl.”

But on the day, it was all her mother could utter. “But Baby…...”

Janice knew she was breaking her mother’s heart. But in the moment, she didn’t care. She wanted out with such a primal passion that no amount of motherly love could keep her in check.

She’d been simmering for far too long.

When she wasn’t drifting off into the dull, never-changing horizon of the forest blur, Janice found her gaze drifting toward the hunched form of Lawrence. She found herself scouring her memory for a glimmer of this man.

His broken figure. His shaggy beard and puffy cheeks. He wasn’t in complete shambles though. He had a lean figure, and despite his original drunken nature, he seemed quite capable of the long journey. She recalled his exceptional speed during their flight from the forest spirits. Given his age and status as a knight, it was even likely he’d seen combat during the 10 Years War. The bodies she’d found at his feet at the tavern lent credence to his martial prowess.

And yet, she could not recall his face. She began to doubt if he ever truly knew her mother. And yet, he had recognized her upon their meeting.

Janice resolved to remain guarded while traveling with him. She would not allow him to follow her into her father’s manor. Her father’s manor. She suddenly realized how faulty that thought was.

For nearly a full day of travel, the only future she could imagine would be a future wrapped in his arms, bathed in the safety of his home. But it wasn’t his home. It was his wife’s. Passed down to her in a previous marriage. And she would be the one pulling the strings.

That reality, as they inched closer and closer came rushing to her. And suddenly, Janice was struck with the knowledge she may not be journeying from danger to safety after all. That hard-fought battle for independence. Her shame over petulant tirades. Her mother’s tears. Would it all have been for nothing?

Already, she felt she knew a little more about herself. She looked at Lawrence and noted his sullen, silently trudging form. He didn’t walk. He marched. He marched as though he were wound up by a key, gears and cranks managing his movement rather than muscle and sinew.

In him, she saw a possible glimpse into her own future. Hell, not even the future anymore. She felt empty and machine-like in her own movements since escaping her family home.

She’d read countless tales on the 10 Years War, and had always dreamed of glory in battle. To fight on the Crossroads and become a legend in combat like the Lioness Manami or even the Flying Ace himself.

But now, she’d experienced death. And she knew loss. Watching Lawrence, she wondered if perhaps a quiet life at home would truly benefit her most. Like her sister. Married. With child. With a man. A man who could never love her like she wanted. Like Triss had.

“We’re close.” Lawrence’s words broke her from the jumble of thoughts bouncing in her brain. And for the first time, Janice noted the setting sun. The orange hue seemed to set fire to the horizon, blotted out in part by the immense stone walls on the distant hillside. They had arrived indeed.

Lawrence placed a hand on the reins and pulled her ride around toward him.

“I’ll leave you now,” he said.

His words took her by surprise, and all she could do was mumble a response.

“I won’t bore you with any words of encouragement or advice. I don’t know that I have any. But thank you. Thank you for letting me see you to safety in this……. well... shit time.”

A laugh slipped from Janice’s lips, sudden and uncontrolled like a sneeze.

“I know I didn’t do much.”

“You didn’t,” she replied with a warm smile. It was the first smile, genuine and heartfelt, that she’d known all day.

“What exactly was that? Back there?” he asked with his now typical sheepish grimace and head scratch.

“If I had to guess, Leshy.”

“Leshy? Those are uhhhhhh…..” He held out a single wagging finger as his face scrunched in concentration. “Some kind offffff spirit…..” He finished with a defeated drawl.

“Wood spirit actually,” Janice said. “They usually only resort to pulling harmless pranks. A dark, unusual energy resides in these woods. To make them kill…..”

Lawrence nodded before frantically pulling a small pouch from his belt.

“I do have one thing for you,” he said, emptying the contents of the pouch into his grimy, calloused hands. Janice looked upon the assortment of crystals and found a pang of familiarity, a newfound companionship with the old warrior. She gently pulled herself down from the horse and took his hand in hers to admire the vibrant, shimmering jewels.

“Your mother gave these to me a long time ago. I’m afraid I don’t remember what they mean or do.”

“Why’d you keep them then?”

“I never really believed in this stuff. All that healing, supernatural mumbo jumbo,” he admitted with a gruff tone. “But when I traveled with these, it was as if I was never traveling alone.” Lawrence flashed a crooked smile and heaved an exasperated sigh. His body, that had momentarily brightened with a youthful energy, slunk again to its usual sullen form.

“Pick one for me and keep the rest,” Janice said. “We should keep close whatever we have from her now that she’s gone. Especially now that she’s gone.” She surprised herself with those words and the magnanimity behind them. She released his hand and held out her own.

He studied the crystals briefly before picking one, seeming to do so on instinct, without thought. He placed the small piece of smooth, black obsidian in her hand.

“A protective stone,” Janice said with a nod, clasping her hand over it, feeling the curved edges against her fingers, which though calloused and worn seemed to soften at its touch.

Lawrence deposited the remaining crystals into the pouch, leaving only the rose quartz in one hand. He gazed upon it momentarily before slipping it into one of the many pockets on the front of his quilted jacket. She recognized it as the love stone.

Janice pocketed her obsidian and pulled herself back onto the horse.

“Did you love my mother, Lawrence?” she asked.

She actually had a hundred questions for him, but only the one seemed to matter in that moment.

The question had never really occurred to her before either. She didn’t want to know what previous relationship had precipitated Lawrence’s loyalty to her. She didn’t want his loyalty. She’d wanted to be alone. Alone to boil in her grief. Or alone to feel nothing at all. And the freedom to not be judged for either.

But the aging knight had softened her will. And the reminder of what her mother had so patiently and lovingly taught her poked like a needle at what she had lost. And she desperately needed what reminder remained of that loss.

Lawrence spent little time pondering the question, as he looked up at Janice with a devilish glimmer in his eye.

“The past tense could never be used to describe my feelings for her,” he said.

“Then we will always have something in common, Sir Lawrence.”

Lawrence smiled. And with a nod and a slow wave, he bid her goodbye.

Janice traveled a hundred yards or so before looking back. Lawrence was gone, and she breathed a heavy sigh. Her father’s place loomed over her from its hillside perch, casting a deep, chilly shadow, as the last vestiges of the sun barely crept over the stone palisades.

It had been built as a fortress, and at one point during the war had been occupied by the rival Leuthen. Many lives had been lost to reclaim the Moldav Estate. Lives lost in a war her father had never fought in. This fact had never escaped Janice in all her dreams of combat.

For years, when her step mother’s patience with her had reached its limit, Janice would spend her days exploring the nearby scenes of battle. The Marius Line, and its miles-long series of trenches and criss-crossing spiked chevaux de frise, many of which were little more than charred remains, had proven of vital sustenance to her burgeoning imagination.

And sometimes, when she laid her head to rest within the ruins of war and death, she swore she could enter the minds and memories of those who perished long-ago. While her memories of such dreams were not as sharp and vivid as usual, she often awoke with a glimmer of a feeling not her own. Sometimes she would feel sad. Sometimes angry. And always with an intensity that shocked, even frightened her.

But she could not stop, hoping to one day achieve that feeling of excitement and fearsome pride she could only imagine came with battle. But on the precipice of returning to her father after a loss of unimaginable proportions, Janice felt she finally understood the power of those raw emotions that seethed from the core of her being after those dreams.

And she no longer wanted them.

As she strolled through the small village on the outskirts of the Moldav Estate, Janice could barely recognize her surroundings. It had been nearly a year since she visited, a state entirely her father’s doing, but something Janice had done little to fight against. But she could not believe the squalor around her.

While the village could never be described as vibrant and bustling, her father’s skills as a land steward could only be described as lacking, it had at least contained life. Now, the crows appeared to outnumber the humanity. What few people she saw, covered in rags, hustled through the muddy streets, the wet earth spraying their legs in the wake of their mad skittering.

And once again, Janice felt fear.

And this time, she did not have the comfort of the forest and the strength of the spirits there to embolden her resolve. Janice reached into her pocket and gripped the obsidion as an elderly man shuffled up beside her.

The quickly vanishing light obscured his hooded face. Only his gnarled hands appeared to her, from beneath his brown robes as he reached out, his cracked, coldly white nails scraping her shoulder.

“Please,” he rasped.

“What?” is all Janice could manage to sputter as she reeled back from his touch.

“Please,” is all he would say. The man dropped to his knees and clutched at her legs with an almost soft, gentle embrace.

Before Janice could respond, an armored boot flashed from the corner of her eye and landed squarely in the side of the beggar. He dropped with a splatter into the mud, marring the legs of both Janice and the guard in its cold, stickiness.

“Goddamn beggars,” said the guard, clad in full plate mail emblazoned with golden lining, his hand resting on the hilt of the long sword, still in its scabbard at his side.

“He wasn’t doing anything,” Janice spat.

The guard looked upon her with a cold, uncaring gaze. “This BEGGAR has been a nuisance all week. What you think is of little concern to me.”

Janice was tired. Her knees sagged, her shoulders slumped. The hunger in her stomach threatened to burn a whole through her from the inside out. But it did nothing to smother her fury.

Janice lept upon the man, slamming a shoulder into his side, through the gap between his back and breast plate. She felt the edges of the plate dig painfully into her bicep but did not allow it to stymie the full force of her assault. No doubt partly due to surprise more than anything, the guard flew back and landed with an impressive splat.

Janice stood over his prone form defiantly, looking down upon his confused, somewhat frightened face. She no longer felt fear. Only emmence impatience. And the boldness it lent her.

“I want to see my father, and I don’t want any of your shit.”

“The, the master?” he sputtered, flakes of spit splashing from his mouth.

“Noooo, my father.”

He stared upon her face before a blink of understanding hit his eyes, and he rose up on his hands.

“Lady Janice, I’m so sorry.” He rose up fully, attempting futiley to wipe the mud from his plate, only to find it merely smeared the once resplendant armor. He gloured in anger and flashed an evil stare at the beggar, who remained in the mud, his face down.

“I apologize for my rudeness,” he said with a bow, turning his attention from the beggar onto Janice, his cruel demeanor replaced with a calm, pleasing smile. “I shall take you to him.”

“Wait,” Janice said calmly and ran to the side of the beggar. He turned his head in her direction, but his face was still obscured by the hood.

“What can I do for you,” she asked warmly.

“Please.” He reached out a hand.

Janice felt a pang of remorse run through her body, knowing she had nothing at the moment to give him. And looking upon this frail, pathetic figure before, all feelings of her own pain relapsed. If only for the moment.

Where normally she would have looked on with pity but simply walked away, now she couldn’t help but see herself, her inner self of turmoil and grief personified physically in this poor man before her. She almost wanted to curl up in the wet earth beside him.

Wouldn’t that have been easier than facing the uncertainty before her?

She reached back into her pocket and again felt the obsidion still warm from her touch.

“I don’t have anything of value but take this,” she said, dropping the crystal into his open hand. It landed for but a second, before he curled his fingers about it like a mechanical claw. “It’s the only thing I care about right now. Hold onto it, and return it once I’ve got some food and coin, ok?”

The man pulled his clasped hand tight into his breast, only responding with a low, guttural moan.

Janice hesitated in her crouched position. She thought of her mother. She thought of Lawrence. And she regretted giving this man something that could have proven to mean so much to her. But she also knew there’d be plenty more time for regret.

She arose and turned toward the guard, who continued to vainly attempt to wipe clean his mud-stained armor.

“I just polished it too,” he mumbled, as Janice strode to his side.

“Well?” she said impatiently. “I can’t announce myself.”

Contrasting with the spoil represented by the surrounding town, the manor remained exquisite in its beauty, even if it lacked in charm.

Ostentatious.

Gaudy.

Self-serving.

Unnecessary.

Tasteless.

Huge fucking ego.

These were the words Janice once overheard her mother use when speaking of it to a family friend. It certainly was nothing like the home she’d been raised in. Nowhere were the practicle elements curated under her mother’s care. The smell of burning frankencense and myrrh. The clutter of books, their frayed edges displaying years of use. The warm, dim lighting of candles, occasionally accentuated by the rays of sunlight breaking through the full, clear windows.

The guard and Janice paused as the 10-foot tall double doors creaked open, pushed by two servants clad in gold-lined red robes. Janice knew the protocal from here, taking a seat in a plain wooden chair just inside the entryway. The servants finished with a groan, both from their lips and the massive wooden structure.

Janice sat passively as the crouched robed man, a grimace upon his face, went about cleaning the wet and grime from her boots. The emotions bubbled within her, as she withstood the ceremony. What emotions not even she could tell.

It was a pit in her stomach. A fluttering in her chest. A thousand-yard stare, burrowing a hole through the nearby stained-glass window. A crowned man, holding a scepter. “Fancy Bubby” she called him growing up. Her hands shook, floating precipitously above the chair arms.

Here at the Moldav Estate, clutter was nowhere to be found. In its place, were tables and chairs, delicately etched on the corners, gleaming with perfection, not a speck of dents or scrapes, placed ornamentally throughout the entryway. Bookshelves were lined with jewel-encrusted spines, color-coordinated, dust nowhere to be found.

A massive chandelier towered twenty-feet above, keeping every ruby gem, every polished stone, every speck-less, perfect corner in brilliant, glimmering light.

Janice’s legs bounced impatiently before the servant finally gave up and rushed back to the doors. Along with the other, who had finished long before, began the slow, arduous process of pulling them closed. Janice watched the robed figure of the old man standing outside, peering up at them from the bottom of the long steps leading to the front door. She still couldn’t see his face but felt his eyes upon her all the same.

“Finally,” Janice said as she marched alongside the guard, following him through the entryway, under the chandelier and passed the winding stairs on both sides that led to the upper floors where the family rooms were located. Janice knew she still had some time to wait as they walked toward the “waiting room” at the far end.

She paused before the archwayed entrance and looked upon the white, stone statue of a man dressed in an ancient style of armor, notable for its skirt and sleeveless cuirass. Janice had always envisioned herself in that armor and placed a hand upon the arm bearing a spear that reached several feet above her head. “Big Me” she called it growing up. Little girls wore skirts, afterall. Or so she had always been told. By her father. Never her mother.

Before tears threatened to form, Janice pushed through the archway and passed the guard, who gave her an impatient wave. Inside was another servant, this one dressed in more finery. More and more finery. He was surprised at Janice’s arrival, peering up from a massive tomb, a reading glass held up to his right eye, appearing like a gnat in the giant, empty room about him.

The guard announced Janice’s name, utilizing titles and honorifics she could hardly remember and doubted she even earned or obtained in the eyes of law.

“Not a good time, not a good time,” the man mumbled to himself, as he rose from the chair and hurried out of the room.

The guard turned toward Janice and appeared ready to speak before simply marching himself out of the room, leaving Janice alone. She took a seat at the massive desk, pearing at the open tomes before her. Fire and damnation. Hellspawn. Control. The words might have sparked her interest had she not been burdened by exhaustion and anger.

Anger, not just at her circumstances but at herself. Sitting in this room, resplendent with pointlessly gaudy tapestries, self-serving statues of formerly powerful men, she seethed. Janice’s eyes turned from an empty stare at the books and settled on a stone bust of her father staring back at her from the edge of the desk.

Huge fucking ego.

Janice could only help but wonder why she had come here. How she could be so delusional as to think any amount of safety and most importantly, healing, could be found in this house of tastelessness.

And for the first time in her life, Janice thought she could perhaps see her father for who he truly was. And yet, that did not stymy her desire to see him. She watched the doorway with an ache of anticipation.

He could not save her, but that did not mean she no longer needed his love.

The wait was not short. And as she sank into the folds of the massive chair, its green felt lining caressing her aching limbs, Janice struggled to stay awake. She thought of falling asleep. Thought of at last succumbing to the dreams she knew would give her a sanctuary from all the hurt and pain of the past 24 hours.

But something burned within her, giving her spirit the fuel it needed to raise her drooping eyelids and stiffen her sleepy form. She stared straight ahead, eyes on nothing in particular, thoughts both racing and empty at once. She didn’t think about what she would say or do when her father finally came. She thought of home. She thought of her mother. Jasper, she could not forget him.

Her eyes blurred, as she drifted on the edge of sleep. And in the archway, she saw her cousin. Or could she? He did not move. And held no pose of particular note. Just arms at his side. The blood from his wound continuing to slowly seep down his face as though his body were a fountain with a never-ending supply of blood to pump.

She stared at him. Wanted to say something. Say anything. But exhaustion froze her.

Kasper vanished though, as a much larger form burst through him and into the room. Janice shook as though raising from a deep slumber.

It was not her father.

Marlie strode in with a sweep of her long blonde hair, which flittered from her slender fingers with a weightless ease. She walked toward the desk barely registering Janice’s presence, her focus more on smoothing the creases in her white, silken gown caused by the flurry of her entrance.

“This isn’t a good time,” she said absent-mindedly before squaring her shoulders toward Janice with a huff. “Why are you here, girl?”

“Wh... wh... where’s my dad?” Janice stuttered. She sank even further into her chair and wished to close her eyes and be free from this room altogether. Her step mother’s eyes smoldered, an aire of power and control in her tall, lanky form towering before Janice, who felt as a child once again. Nothing but a little girl.

Before either could say a word, Janice’s father bounded into the room, shattering the tension with a bludgeoning bellow.

“My girl,” he shouted, rushing to her side with an exuberance Janice could have scarcely imagined.

He gripped her arm and pulled her from her seat, enveloping her in a swallowing embrace. Janice sank. She wanted to cry. She felt the threat of tears stinging at her face, but no more than a sniffle, gutteral and raw, escaped her lips.

Her father either did not hear or chose to ignore it, as he twirled the two of them about.

“Now we can really celebrate,” he exclaimed.

Janice almost collapsed as he pulled away. She’d gotten what she wanted. After all this time. And yet.

A smile on his ruddy cheeks, Janice’s father turned his back to her and threatened to bolt from the room with the same energy in which he entered.

“She’s dead,” Janice shrieked.

Her father turned toward her with a look of confusion.

“They’re all dead,” she stammered. The exclamation seemed to sap her of all remaining willpower, sending her stumbling backward into the chair.

“Jacob,” Marlie said sternly. “We have so much to do.”

Her father hesitated before turning back toward Janice.

“Who?”

“All of them.” It was all she could muster.

Her father paused before shaking his head. “No no no no no. I made assurances.”

“Jacob?”

Her father stood before her, appearing more as a beggar in his simple brown tunic and black belt than the lord of the land. He stammered.

“Jacob.”

He looked to Marlie. Then looked to Janice, who could only stare sullenly upon the smooth marble floor. She watched the images in the dark cracks before her. A bearded man bellowing smoke. A dragon on a hilltop. She sighed.

“We’ll catch up later,” her father said before exiting the room, his wife marching briskly at his side.

Janice’s mind remained in a fog as she was escorted upstairs and to her room. She thought of nothing and no one. Not the well manicured man pulling her along by the hem of her sleeve. Not the colorful tapestries billowing along the hallway in their wake. Not her pre-teen half-brother pouting at his desk as she slumped helplessly into bed.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

She lay on her stomach, face buried into the soft cotton sheets. And it was there, at last, that she cried. One could even call it a sob. She cried without remorse, without control. And she did not know if it would ever stop.