RITCH

   "Here, let me have a look at that."
   I stopped picking at my hand at Alie's light voice. "It's only blisters. They'll turn to calluses soon enough." It was hard for me to believe, but my hands had apparently become soft enough after only a couple months of not working, I actually got the blisters from wielding the axe all day.
   "Allow me to see it anyway." She insisted
   I relented with amusement and she gave me an exasperated look. "You've picked them bloody. I'll need to wrap these up now."
   "It's fine. I've had worse."
   "I don't much care." She told me even as she dug into her bag and pulled out some cloth. She nicked an edge with her blade and ripped it as she spoke. "I'm wrapping it whether you wish for me to do so or not, and you'll be keeping it on all night as well, yes?"
   I chuckled. "Is that an order, Alie?"
   Her lips twitched as she took my hand in her gentle grip. "My hands are too busy to hold the crossbow, but let us just assume it is pointing right at you." But by then she was finished and patted my arm. "There."
   "You like mothering people don't you?" Geacob asked from where he watched on the other side of the shelter.
   "I enjoy helping people." She admitted. "It feels good when the life of another is even marginally better after something that I have done. Be it a blister," she patted my arm again, "or a loss of pain." She smiled fondly at where Hark had run off to fetch Venny and Loryn to tell them the bear meat Geacob has been cooking over the fire was near-ready.
   "You are a kind person, Alie." I told her.
   "Too kind." Geacob added, taking the meat off the fire and laying them on a slap of wood to cut. "Kindness like that could get you in some real trouble."
   I frowned at him but Alie laughed. "Spoken like a true Ranger, Geac. Pray, tell me, how could kindness get me into trouble?"
   "Can't tell you off hand, but there are ways." He grumbled.
   She let out a soft chuckle and shook her head lightly. "I'll take my chances, Ranger."
   His lips twitched and mine did with him. Watching the two interact so casually as if they'd known each other for years, yet they watched one another as if awed by the other. For Alie's part, I suspected she was drawn to him with the fascination of he being a Ranger; Geacob looked at her more as if he had never imagined such a person to exist at all.
   The boys came in through the flap, furs done up tightly and with a light dusting of snow--- apparently it's started snowing again.
   "Hello, boys." Alie greeted. "Where's Loryn?"
   "Not sure." Venny said with a frown. "We couldna find her at the inn."
   I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. "What? Did she leave?"
   Geacob frowned at me. "Why would you come to that conclusion? She's probably just bathing somewhere."
   I glanced at Venny who was looking increasingly more pale. Geac noticed and sat a little straighter. "What happened?"
   Venny liked his lips nervously. "While you were gone today, Loryn and I had... some words. I wasn't very nice."
   "Loryn and I have had many words, Venny. I doubt she's left." Geacob snorted. "Trust me, I've been trying to get rid of her for weeks now."
   Alie elbowed him for that, then picked up her cloak. "Let's go have another look around. Perhaps she bought herself a separate room."
   "Why?" I asked. "I'm not there often and the room is paid up for another week."
   "Embarrassment perhaps?" Venny asked, almost hopefully.
   "Let's have a look." Alie said again and both Geacob and I stood as well. "We all will."
   So we checked the inn as well as the other in town, then searched the surrounding woods. Still there was no sign of her and after another hour of calling out in the dark, we met back at the shelter. Everyone seemed to have different reactions to Loryns apparent disappearance. Hark seemed mildly relieved while Venny guilty. I, personally, could care less either way, but Alie looked angry for some reason. Surprisingly, it was Geacob who seemed fearful. He paced the shelter, ducking his head under the low ceiling.
   "Something's happened to her."
   "I don't know, Geac." I said cautiously. "She was awful upset."
   Venny nodded. "I said some awful things to her."
   "You don't get it." Geac seemed adamant about that. "Something's happened to her. Ritch, you know by now that she wouldn't have left without her demanding one of us to take her home first."
   "That... is actually likely true." I admitted. Still, "The chances of something happening to her by chance after such an argument is slim."
   "I agree." Alie said. "I believe she left on her own. However, we should go after her."
   "Why?" Venny asked in surprise. "Let her go if she doesna want to be here."
   "The five of us were brought together for a reason. Until we know what that reason is, we should stay together." That caught the attention of many and there was a moment of silence.
   Geacob broke it. "She's not gone willingly on her own." He insisted again. "Something happened to her."
   "Doubtful." Hark said.
   "You don't get it!"
   "Than explain it to us." Alie's voice was calm and quiet and welcoming. Calm enough so that it stopped Geacob's pacing and he searched her eyes a moment, then glanced around at the rest of us and let out a slow breath.
   "Loryn is the rightful Queen of Florn."
   My jaw nearly dropped, but the moment he said it, I understood the implication and reasoning fully and spoke them. "As the only child of the High Lord Barrick, she's the rightful heir if all those of King Tarry's blood is dead."
   "She has an aunt." Geac said with a nod. "But I believe she perished in Dargolyn."
   "So whoever she marries will become the new king of Florn by rights."
   It didn't take long for Alie to say, "We have to find her quickly."
   "Why?" I asked. "If she's the queen, it's her responsibility to lead. Florn needs a leader in all this mess."
   Venny seemed insulted for some reason. "There's something clearly going on. Until we come to understand the visions and stop such an attack from happening again, Loryn's responsibility is with us."
   "And she certainly doesn't deserve to be wed and raped." Alie said sternly.
   "It isn't rape if it's your wife though." I reminded her but Alie did not agree and her kind eyes quickly turned hard --- liquid silver quickly cooling, sharpening into an axe. I shut my mouth quickly, deciding right then that Alie was far more terrifyingly then Geacob.
   "I say we find her." Venny said before Alie could skewer me. "Being forced into being wed or not, queen or not, we're together for a reason and should stay that way."
   Hark said: "I still says she be off on her own, but y'r right. We needs to find her."
   "I agree." Said Alie and looked to Geacob who nodded once and looked to me.
   "Let's find her then." I said, obviously I'd lost this argument. "But how? Start riding the roads?"
   "We'll see if anyone saw her in town first." Said Alie. "Her horse is still in the stables, so she may have been asking a ride out of town."
   "In the meantime, as I can't be seen in town," Geac went, "I'll start searching the nearest town chapels and inns."
   "If you go south, I'll take the north towns." I offered and he nodded.
   With plans made, we all set to it. We moved quickly, sup forgotten on the wood plate by the cooling fire.

GEACOB

   It was turning day when I neared Leafinton again. I'd searched six villages, both named and unnamed, off the road and deep into the woods. Being a Ranger would have stopped any from answering me but before I'd rode out, Alie had tossed me her light-grey cloak so I could go unnoticed. All my instincts told me not to accept it as I had grown up learning to love the cloak and wear it proudly, not to hide beneath another cloak... but it had worked and I was glad of it for the warmth as well; whatever warm air had come during the day had turned bitter again at nightfall and my eyes stung at the freezing temperatures. The coat, however, managed to keep my body toasty as my own black cloak could not.
   I was about to turn off into the trees when a rider turned the corner ahead and quickly came toward me. First I assumed it was a Ranger but the pale skin, dark hair and silver eyes revealed Alie wearing my black wools over her own.
   "Anything?" I asked, wondering why she was heading this way.
   She swung the horse around to walk next to me and I was surprised to notice how uncomfortable she sat on it, as if she'd barely ridden a horse before. I suppose there weren't many horses so far north as the White City.
   "A few of the men in search of those of us with the jewelry still keep an eye in the night. Ritch spoke to a few when he returned only a short time ago and one remembers her leaving the town on foot late in the afternoon, heading this way."
   "I searched the inns. There's been almost no strangers except Rangers. People have stopped traveling the road. May be that she stopped in the woods somewhere for the night." Even as I said, it, I was shaking my head, disagreeing with myself. "No. She can't even light a fire on her own and she took no supplies with her. She's either in town or she's been taken somewhere, willingly or not."
   "She's not in town." Alie said with absolute surety.
   Then we were silent and the edge of town was near. Not wanting to be seen by the townsfolk, I turned into the trees and Alie followed me.
   I was torn; I felt absolutely certain she wouldn't have left quietly, yet at the same time, I wasn't positive I even wanted her to return. The girl had been nothing but a thorned saddle since the day I met her and just as useless as one.
   Still, she was one of us. Somehow, she'd become one of the five and to have her separate from us made it feel as if we were missing a very important piece of a challenging puzzle.
   And damned it all but I'd broken two Ranger laws for the girl! She had to be important, or I'd lost a piece of my honor for nothing.
   "We have to find her." I said.
   "We will." Alie answered quietly. "We just haven't figured out how to do so yet." After a moment, she rode up next to me. "Are you absolutely certain that she did not leave on her own?"
   "I'm sure." I told her firmly with a single nod. "If she was leaving, she would leave in as dramatic fashion as possible. I'm sure of it." I yawned and a moment later, Alie did as well.
   "We should rest a bit. All of us. We'll head out again in the morn."
   So we gathered the others and built a fire in the shelter and slept sprawled around it. Though Loryn had yet to sleep in the shelter, her absence tonight was strong and noticeable. We slept, but restlessly, and woke often.

LORYN

   I shivered, though it wasn't cold here so close to the fires as I was. One side of my face even felt like it was being burnt by the nearness of the flames. It would cool down later, I knew, when the fire died, but not right now.
   No. I shivered now not of a chill, but of fear and pain.
   I'd been so foolish! After Venny had said such unkind things to me, I had run into town only to remember that I had no coin to get a separate room. If Geacob had been there, I would have gotten coin from his purse, but he, of course, was out with the perfect servant Alie and so I had no one to turn to.
   I'd had a terrible urge to go home, but then I remembered that home was gone and I'd started crying right there in the street. That was when he found me and asked if I was alright. I told him I had no place to go, no family, and no friends. I told him that no one wanted me. When he had offered me a place to stay, I had been so grateful...
   A shudder wracked through me and nausea creeped up as well, threatening to overwhelm me; who would have known that there would be a price to stay with him? That his kindness was not a gift but an unwanted exchange. I'd slapped him and tried to fight him off but he was so big and so strong, everything I did was useless. When he was done with me, I'd felt a touch of relief that it was over because I would go free. He was done, I would go free and be alright.
   But he was not done with me. He had tied me up, leaving me bare on the floor by the fire. When I tired to scream for help, he smacked me into silence and gagged me with a filthy cloth, leaving me to drop on the floor by the fire, hurt and terribly exposed.
   His heavy snoring filled the small room and each one made me sob harder. I was such a fool, telling a strange man how venerable I was. How alone. Now I was a whore --- a free whore, he'd called me.
   The cloth around my mouth became soaked in my tears so thickly that I tasted the salt of them on my tongue.

***

A/N: Shorter chapter today! How odd, yes? But I thought I'd be a real pain in your arses and be sure to leave you at a bit of a cliff hanger this time (though I admit that I myself hate those with a passion). 
Don't hate me! Even if I am doing this on purpose :-P
Another chapter soon!

Oh! And thanks for all the votes everyone! Don't forget to comment! I love hearing your opinions on my books. Tell me if I'm missing something, tell me if I'm doing something just right, tell me if something is confusing, ask me questions, I don't care just toss them at me on the book or pm me! In the meantime, happy reading everyone!

-J. Bowring