The Huntsman of Adamos (Quartet)- draft

CH FEARS AND FABRICATIONS

Fleur woke in her bed, feeling rested and better than she had in weeks. She was surprised to feel Stacy asleep on the windowseat. It was almost dawn. Her muddled mind reminded her of what happened. Three men had attacked her last night as she prepared to turn on the light in her lighthouse. They had said since their boss didn’t pay them for Yuli, she was going to pay them to let her live. She shuddered and almost wept, someone was after her son and she was terrified who it might be. Closing her eyes, she let her mind reach through out her house, for a terrifying moment she panicked because Yuli wasn’t there, then she remembered he had gone with Nick to see his father. Banth and Rieth were asleep in the bottom bunks in two rooms.

Her mind puzzled over the familiar and comforting feeling of having Rieth sleeping in her home. Her pets seemed to act like he belonged there which she would have found odd if she didn’t feel the same way. Yuli adored Rieth and Fleur found herself wondering what he looked like now that he was gaining back his lost weight. She had only seen him through Yuli’s eyes when she was sewing his neck wound up so he would revive. She still didn’t know how that miracle was managed. Rieth had powerful magic, but he barely used it, almost like it was suppressed and she wondered if he knew how strong it was. He could be a huntsman if he wanted to be, but she was glad he was just a woodsmith and nothing like Lord Yurieth. Thinking about when he kissed her made her heart flutter.

Quietly, she got up and tied her robe around her before going down to the kitchen. Her mind kept going back to Rieth, and how impossible a situation it was. He was a good man, a talented artisan, honest and hardworking. She kept telling herself she shouldn’t be having feelings for him; he deserved better than a former concubine for a wife. He deserved better than her. She reached up to open the cabinet where she kept her tea and was shocked as her fingers played over the new door. It was carved.

Carefully she traced the image on it then on either side of it. Feeling the engraved scene in raised relief on all the new doors, her mind made them into a picture. The doors created a window pane effect of what was beyond them. To the north of the house was a meadow she had never seen, and to the south, the town below her home. She could see it from the detailed flowers to the sea birds above the boats. She knew it must have taken hundreds of hours.

Tears fell down her cheeks and she trembled. She had only paid for simple wooden doors, these doors were works of art... made with love. Rieth really did love her and she had lied to him, to him and everyone to protect her son, to remain hidden from the huntsman who wanted her dead. Only Shadz and Lady Asha knew the truth. There was a chime from the clock in the living room, it was time to shut off the light. She ran outside and up the inside stairs to the top. She forced herself through her morning routine as she tried to figure out what to do. She had to let Rieth go, she had to send him away to protect him. She didn’t know how he saved her last night, but she knew that he did. She knew he would die to protect her, and if the Huntsman found her, Rieth would die... and so would she. After she turned off the light and stopped the glass, she sank to her knees and wept as she made the decision to break her own heart and save Rieth’s life from the King’s uncle.

Sitting on the floor with the light of dawn shining brilliantly through the windows, she convinced herself it was the only way. She very clearly remembered the morning she had said I love you and he had said I hate you. He hated what she was, threatened to cut out her heart. Not long after that morning, at the end of a battle she barely remembered, there was a moment of clarity as she had looked down at the arrow through her heart flagged with the brown and white feathers of the Huntsman of Adamos. She rubbed over the scar that had long faded. She didn’t know how she had revived but she had, and now she feared her former lover more than any living being.

The spiritual wound of his hatred was far more painful than any physical wound. Her greatest fear was that the other Royals would find out. That High Lord Yurieth would come and take his son and leave her with nothing, if he let her live. Then Shadz and Vole and the other veterans would be punished as traitors for hiding her and her son, the King’s cousin. Resolutely, Fleur made herself stand up and go back down. She wasn’t surprised to find Rieth just opening the door just as she reached the bottom level. He could see she had been weeping.

He reached out and caught her hand, tapping on her inner wrist, ‘You’ve been crying.’

Fleur gave him a wan smile. “We need to talk, let’s go in and I’ll make some tea.” She let him lead her to the house. “Did you save me last night?”

His finger drummed, ‘Banth helped. We both got worried when the light didn’t come on. I saw one fall. I feared it was you at first.’

“What happened to them?” She murmured as she walked into the kitchen and began to fill her kettle.

Rieth rapped on the counter, ‘You killed one, I killed one, Banth had Bolton lock the wounded third up for the Guardsmen to question.’

She hummed in understanding as she reached up and touched the door for a moment before opening it to pull out her tea box. From her reaction he could tell she had already discovered the doors, but her reaction was not what he expected.

“I owe you much more for these doors than I paid, Woodsmith. How much?”

“They are yours.” Rieth whispered harshly and she felt him frown.

She swallowed hard as she turned to pour hot water in their cups. “I can’t accept. Tell me how much or take them back with you.”

“Why can’t you accept?” he rasped out, turning her to face him but her head bowed down and his heart felt her hurt as she whispered brokenly, “They are too beautiful for someone like me. It’s too much, I... I can’t accept them as a gift.”

“I don’t understand.”

Fleur pulled away from him and finished making the tea. When she put her tea box away, she pulled out another, and lifted the top out, revealing several gems and coins hidden in a false bottom. She had enough wealth in that box to support the whole of the Cove for years. Scooping out a handful, she held them out to him. “You do too understand. You know what I was, I won’t talk about it again. You need to find someone else, Rieth.”

He closed her hand over the gems instead of taking them, “And if I refuse? If I ask you to marry me instead?”

She held up her chin in the same defiant tilt that he had loved about her for almost two centuries. “Then I will have no choice but to leave. Last night proved that I have made myself too visible, even on our remote island.”

“I won’t let you leave alone.” Rieth growled at her.

She slammed her palm on the counter, scattering the gems. Rieth bent pick up the two that skittered onto the floor as she panted. “I must protect my son. You don’t understand. They came for him twice. He was the first thing they asked about. I... I can’t risk him.” She slid her fingertips over the cool stone trying to calm herself. Her hand bumped her eyedrops. Her head and eyes hurt, so she opened the bottle and pulled out the dropper.

Rieth seized her wrist painfully. “No... these are poisoned.” He took the jar from her hand and sealed it.

“What?” She backed away, hyperventilating. “Oh no... they were after Yuli, he found us.” She gasped out as she started having a panic attack. She ran up to her son’s room and Rieth followed.

“Calm down, Fleur, breathe.” Rieth tried to sooth her, he could feel her fear.

Banth sat up on the bed where he had spent the night. “What is going on?”

Rasping out his words, Rieth answered, “I don’t know. I told her the drops were poisoned and she started panicking.”

Fleur was stuffing Yuli’s clothes into a backpack. Rieth caught her arm and pulled her into his arms. “Tell us what’s wrong?”

She looked up at him and he saw the images she feared in his mind. It was the morning after they had both died when the Baalru had tried to steal her for the Xelusians. She looked up at him and said ‘I love you,’ and he had answered with ‘I hate you’ before threatening her, saying hateful things that he now regretted with his whole soul. An image of her looking down at his arrow through her heart after the battle for the Winter Castle physically hurt him. If that was all she remembered of him as the Huntsman, he was not surprised that she feared him. Suddenly, he was back in Yuli’s bedroom. He kissed her forehead as he held her trembling form against him. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

Weeping eyes looked blindly at his face, “You saw it?”

“Yes. No one will take Yuli from you. I promise,” He said it with such gruff conviction that she put her forehead on his chest and cried, “Rieth, you do work for the Royals, if you stopped suddenly, they would be suspicious. I won’t ruin your shop or let him kill you because I love you too.”

Banth stared at them, when Fleur quit crying, Rieth asked, “Tell us the truth, Fleur.”

She had a sad, hurt expression as she pushed away to look toward the man who was like a grandfather to her. “I lied to protect Yuli, to protect everyone here from him. Yuli’s father wasn’t the archer Yuriel that I met when I became a warrior. Yuriel was just a friend who tried to protect me and my children. I fabricated the story that we were more than friends with Mara’s help. Yuli’s father is one of the most powerful warriors in the kingdom. I told you once that the King’s uncle hates me because of what I was to his house. I... we fell in love before he found out. When he did, he raged, threatened me, even killed me more than once. Only Shadz and Lady Asha know the truth. High Lord Yurieth found me right before the attack on Meridian 3.”

Inhaling raggedly, Fleur forced herself continued, “I... I escaped him somehow... I don’t remember how, I got back to my village, then the attack came. I only remember being the last one alive. I was hurt, I was desperate to find my sons... but they were dead, so I buried them, I alone buried everyone. I collapsed when help came. Shadz said he didn’t know how I was still alive. Lady Asha hid me in a healing sarcophagus, we didn’t know until after I woke that I was two tendays pregnant with The Huntsman’s child. His honor is the most important thing to him, he repeatedly told me he would not betray it for me or anyone. He would be embarrassed and ashamed to have a child with a concubine. He hated me, but he didn’t want anyone else to have me.”

She chewed her fingernails. “If the rest of the Royal family found out that I was hiding one of the royal children from them, there would be no place in the Kingdom where we could hide, no place safe for us to live.”

“Do you really believe that, Fleur?” Her look answered his question, and Banth frowned. “Perhaps we can contact Lord Shadz to give you more protection.”

“More than you and the veterans, Banth? More than having two Mazoni swordwomen here on Arbor isle? Meara, Vole, and Shadz called in every favor they could to protect me. And it isn’t enough! To me, it seems obvious those brigands were hired by him to snatch Yuli, so it would make him seem innocent, then he resorted to poisoning me to get Yuli when they failed. Do you really think I can be protected from the deadliest Huntsman who ever lived?” Fleur almost shouted.

“Yes,” Stacy said firmly, she was standing in the door. “Because my grandmother Meara, your cousin’s wife, taught you and me both how to kill him. And I know the Huntsman doesn’t know you are here.”

“How can you be sure?” Rieth rasped in question.

“Because Lord Shadz has him under surveillance whenever he leaves his school, which is where he is now after visiting his niece on Jura.” She smirked, “He doesn’t know about you or about Yuli, but we’ll ask the brigand again anyway. Finn already asked him. He claims he was hired by someone from the isle and is demanded to be taken to the Royal Guardsmen in Brightwater, then to Aetheria before he says more. If you don’t believe me, come with me. Fleur, you have always been able to sense if someone was lying, we’ll go ask while you watch. If Lord Yurieth is the one trying to steal Yuli, if he sent those brigands here, you will know if the criminal is hiding it. And if it was him, I’ll petition the king in person to put him in prison or confine him to his planet. If he comes here again, I will kill him myself.” Stacy sounded so confident that Rieth had no doubt the Mazoni would attempt to do exactly that.

“I’ll go with you, Fleur,” Banth announced. “If he lies, I’ll know it and so will you. Come with us, Rieth. This affects you as much as Fleur.”

Rieth took Fleur’s hand. He was horrified by what he was told Fleur’s memories had made him into but seeing them from her, made him wonder if they could ever go back to where they were before she left through time. “Don’t be afraid, the Huntsman will never hurt you again,” he promised because he would never hurt her again, he knew he had been a fool.

She reached up and touched his face, “You don’t know what he’s like.”

Rieth held her hand tightly against his cheek. He had to be careful what he said. He cleared his throat, and whispered deeply, “I do, you forget I was forced to fight in the same war, but The Huntsman doesn’t matter. I love you, and nothing will change that. Come, let’s go find out who wishes to hurt you and steal Yuli.”