Dichotomy: Soldier
Chapter Twenty-Two: Beginnings

Isabelline
First Day of the Cycle of Aelcweald, goddess of Winter

The act of moving an entire household proved both expensive and time-consuming. Kier oversaw the expensive side of it with a quiet air of authority, somewhat surprised that McKyle Craft didn't argue with him over each purchase. "I think," Moira cheerfully conjectured two weeks in, "that he likes spending your money." Then she'd laughed, and joined her father in checking over every inch of the covered wagon Kier had bought to transport McKyle, Onora, Moira, Kyla, Reilly, and Erik Craft. Adrian's elder brothers, Lorne and Blair, would be staying behind to mind the shop. As Adrian's parents cleared out the top floor of the shop, Lorne and his wife prepared to move in. Kier knew that pulling his parents from the shop broke Adrian's heart, little by little, but he took comfort in knowing two Crafts would remain behind to continue the family tradition that had apparently begun with Onora's many-times-great grandfather.

As for the packing and planning itself, Onora oversaw every moment. She seemed to want to do all the work herself as well, but both Moira and McKyle possessed the power to remind her that she was well-pregnant, and late in years to be so, and make her sit down and sip tea for a few moments. Kier noticed with growing affection that she could be, in her calm and loving manner, almost as dictatorial as Circe at her most domineering; he hoped they'd get along.

"They'll either be kindred spirits in an instant," he told Adrian in a rare quiet moment, "or they'll have to fight it out to see who gets to rule the castle." Neither of them discussed the possibility of McKyle making friends at Helm Eodor.

They planned to leave on the first day of the cycle of Aelcweald, unwilling to wait for winter to properly settle in while they were on the road. With the combination of covered wagon, a heavier open wagon for the sum of the Crafts' family goods, and Adrian and Kier on horseback, the trip from Isabelline to Helm Eodor would take the better part of two weeks. This added the cost of a large tent to the rising bill. Kier mused to himself that half of Isabelline would be able to retire when his runner made it back with the actual gold of his transactions.

Aelcweald's season dawned bright and crisp, but dark clouds on the horizon had Kier out just before dawn, carefully stretching oiled leathers over the Crafts' things in case it rained. After weeks of recovery, first in Wynn's camp, then those half-remembered days on the road, and now in Isabelline, his shoulders protested at the work. He luxuriated in the stretch and pull; Kier had not been raised to sit about and be served for any length of time.

"Can I help?"

Kier looked over his shoulder in clear surprise. One boot was planted firmly on the brake foot, the muscles in his back taught as he pulled a thick rope through one punch. "Adrian? I'm not sure I've ever seen you up before the sun."

Adrian rolled his eyes and tugged the new coat Onora had made him tighter as he stepped off the protection of the Crafts' front porch. "Miracles do happen," he said dryly. "But if you don't want any help, I'll be happy to go back to bed."

Judging by the circles lining Adrian's dark eyes, and the dreams that bled between them all night long, Kier doubted that statement. Yet even with Adrian's obvious distress and Kier's discomfort among the Craft family, a new ease had settled between them. "If you can just hold the leathers, I can tie this down and I'll be done."

Adrian leaned across the wheel and did so, watching the intricate movement of Kier's hands as he skillfully knotted the thick rope. "Is there anything you're not an expert at?" he asked with some exasperation, but tinged now with more good humor and affection than Kier would have thought possible only two short seasons earlier.

"I'm no good at sewing," Kier offered. "I don't cook very well, and Circe claims I'm allergic to cleaning up my own dishes." He stepped down and dusted off his hands, looking the wagon over critically. "That should protect the bulk of it," he said. "Hopefully we won't have to deal with any downpours on the way home."

He turned to Adrian, painted pink and orange by the rising sun, hesitated, then leaned down to press a feather-light kiss to the smaller man's mouth. He smelled faintly of mint paste. Adrian smiled at him. "My family will be up and ready to go within the hour," he warned. "Papa had them under strict orders. Lorne and Blair are coming to see us off, and I think the twins slept with their small packs as pillows." He grinned. "Matha made them sleep in their clothes. Said it would take too long to get them dressed. She used to do that to me and Moira, on festival days. We went to . . ." he frowned a bit. "I'm not sure where we used to go, but there was a huge market, and I think there were Miltsians there."

"We do tend to get around," Kier pointed out, and stole another quick kiss. He didn't quite know what to do with this new ease he found with Adrian, but he enjoyed it. His life kept changing, taking on new thoughts, shapes, and colors, all seemingly shaped by Adrian's talented hands. He cast his mind back to a time he'd thrived on change, and felt less an old man, and more one not yet at three decades of life.

Adrian's prediction proved accurate. Within an hour, the travelling Crafts were up, fed, and milling about the wagons, going over a carefully checked-off list Onora had drawn up. Onora herself had been bustled into the covered wagon, tested here and there to see where her swollen belly and sore ankles would most like to sit. The process took several minutes, her husband, and her two eldest to complete, but they settled on a little nest of soft blankets fetched from inside the house. She bowed to their concern with consummate grace but not a little amused affection.

Erik and Reilly ran everywhere throughout the proceedings, crawling over both wagons, feeding carrots and bits of sugar to Holly and, to Kier's bemusement, an unusually tolerant Scead. Kier and Adrian had been forced to travel a bit abroad to find oxen for the wagons, but they were steady, strong beasts who could be sent out to some of the larger farms on the estate and put to good use. The twins decided they needed names, and duly settled, after a long debate held while the rest of the family worked diligently around them, on Spike (one horn being a bit broken), the rather sparkling white Snowball, the perpetually sleepy-eyed Sweetie, Missus Oxie, her (according to Reilly) large-ended husband Mr. Bottoms, Marble of the very large and dark eyes, the somewhat speckled Spot, and Daisy, whose yoke had been duly decorated with a bit of embroidered cloth. Kier's personal favorite was Mr. Bottoms, though more due to Adrian's wide-eyed blush when he heard the name than any strong personality traits from the beast in question. The oxen themselves appeared to have no opinion on the matter as long as breakfast was provided.

With the sun reaching his first position in the morning sky, Moira bustled the twins into the wagon and followed after. McKyle stood eyeing the drivers' seat; he would be driving the wagon with his family on board. Kier said nothing; though he knew he could have nearly lifted the older man into position, any help from him wouldn't be welcome despite McKyle's bad leg. Blair immediately moved to his father’s side, ready to take his elbow.

"Come along then, Kyla!" Moira called as she stuck her head out the back of the wagon, one foot perched on the feed trough. "You're next, then we'll get Matha settled in and be off." Kier stood a bit to the side, eyeing the second wagon with obvious distaste.

"You have to drive it," Adrian reminded him over the sound of Moira's orders. "You're the only one who knows how to handle it, other than Papa and Matha, and she's in no condition."

"Only until I teach you how," Kier grumped, earning an entirely unsympathetic smirk in response. He hated bumping and jerking along in wagons when two of his own horses would be trotting alongside.

"I'm not going," came a quiet, but steady voice behind them. As one, the family turned to find Kyla, her thin form shivering slightly in the morning chill but her chin lifted and her eyes resolute. Reilly and Erik's heads poked out below Moira's, their faces bright with curiosity.

Onora stepped toward her. "What do you mean, love?" she asked, one hand resting on Kyla's right shoulder.

"I'm not going," the girl repeated, but she looked at her father instead of her mother. "I'm not going to live on the Miltsian estate. I've already taken my things off the wagon." Her childish voice didn't waver any more than her gaze. "I'm going to stay here and help with the shop and the baby."

"We can't leave you here!" Fear tinged the air around Onora, and Kier's chest hurt to think of this kind woman, living in terror of having her children ripped away by a race that sometimes saw them as little better than cattle, or as living weapons and instruments of healing with no more thought in their heads than the roots and leaves used in medicines. "You're a child, Kyla, and you'll come with the family."

The girl shook her head, inky plaits shifting across her back. "No, Matha. Genna needs help with the baby, especially without Moira here to see to the birthing." Moira winced a bit at that, and Kier wished they could afford to delay. But they were heading north, and snow might be falling by the time they reached Helm Eodor. Any delay could mean proper snowfall, and an even longer journey. "And I embroider better than Lorne or Blair." She straightened her shoulders with obvious pride. "I won't let us lose our reputation for being the finest tailors in Isabelline because the boys have clumsy fingers."

Lorne chuckled a little at this, but Blair's eyes were watchful and serious. The eldest of the Craft children didn't seem surprised by the request, but it wasn't his parents he watched as Kyla stated her intentions: with ill-contained suspicion, his gaze remained on Kier. Kier inclined his head a moment, but stayed out of the conversation.

"You're too young to be making decisions like that," Onora said gently, stroking her daughter's hair with soothing hands. "You need to be with me and Papa."

Kyla reached out and gave her mother a quick embrace, but immediately stepped away and walked over to her father. She knew her ally. "I don't want to live on an estate like a servant," she told him, tilting her head back to look in his face. Kyla's resemblance to their father in both looks and temperament couldn't be denied. "I want to help with the shop, and be as free as I can be, living with my people in Isabelline."

". . . Have you already discussed this with your brothers?" McKyle asked.

"She has," Blair said. "I told her we'd keep her in her room and we'd welcome the help, as long as you approved. She has a point about the embroidery; we can do it well enough, but she has a gift for it. We'd have to hire it out, and we'd end up losing money that should go into the shop."

"McKyle!" Onora protested, and Kier wondered if McKyle had any idea the amount of panic rising in his wife's heart. "She's a child and she needs to be with her parents!"

McKyle studied his daughter for a long moment, his gaze serious. She met his eyes, never wavering, though her hands folded into a knot of supplication. "She's a young woman, Onora," he decided quietly. "Lorne and his wife have never tried to raise a baby before, and Kyla's good and patient with them. She's also the most gifted decorative sewer in the family." He looked up at his wife, and the infinite, unexpected gentleness in his voice revealed just how much he knew of his wife's pain. "She's made a choice to be free, Onora. We can't take that away from her."

"You can't let her choose to leave her family!" Adrian burst out from beside Kier, his voice tense. "The whole point of leaving Isabelline is to keep us together!" He redirected his pleading gaze to Kyla. "I was forced to lose Matha and Papa and everyone. You can't want to do that."

"Blair and Lorne will be here," she told him, with the same polite distance she'd maintained since Adrian and Kier's arrival. "They're my brothers, and I want to help them. Papa will let me stay." She looked across at her mother. "May I stay, Matha?"

Onora's pain shone bright in her eyes, but slowly, after a long moment of silence, she nodded. Only once, as if another would take more than she could bear. Kyla crossed to her and wrapped her arms around her mother's middle, resting her cheek against Onora's breast. "I'll make you and Papa proud, Matha."

Onora stroked her hair, her voice hoarse as she answered, "I am already so proud of you, my love. Of you, and your brothers for loving you and letting you stay, of Moira for trading her life here to take care of Reilly and Erik, of the twins for being so very brave, and of Adrian," her gaze flickered from child to child, "for taking us into his home, and loving us despite everything that's happened." She lowered her head and pressed a light kiss to her daughter's forehead, then turned to tug her oldest sons down for kisses as well. With this done, she turned and climbed, with impossible grace, into the waiting wagon.

Kier looked at Adrian, at the crippling guilt in his eyes, the resolution in his stubbornly lifted chin, and stood amazed at this family's intense bravery.

Palace Cadell
First Day of the Cycle of Aelcweald, goddess of Winter

A handful of days back in the dungeons, without either a change of clothes or hot water for bathing, left Wynn exhausted, testy, and sore. Sleep proved elusive, the bed empty and her mind dulled by thick earthen walls separating her from Brande. She'd spent hours trying to push through, trying to reach him. Nothing worked, and she would fall into restless dozes, dreaming of that day so many years ago when she'd held Kier Blackwatch's head in her lap and murmured soothing nonsense as he finally fell to pieces over that moment when Somerled Montgomery had disappeared from his mind.

She wondered if Brande was still angry she didn't run, or if he'd realized they'd have shot her down all the sooner. ::I miss you::she'd murmured, more than once, but heard no reply. The pain from the base of her skull, already blinding from the recent blows, dragged up the small bits of gruel and bread they'd brought her and left her shaky and slick with sweat.

Four guards came for Wynn before dawn on the fourth day, one carrying a noxious brew that still steamed faintly in a heavy cup. "No thank you," she said crisply when she caught the scent of the thickened tea: attor root, designed to dull pain, but also effective in weakening a Miltsian's power by sapping her thoughts and energy. "I'll not be needing that." She raised her chin when the guards exchanged an exasperated look. The brew could only mean she'd been placed on trial without ever being given a chance to testify. "You think I can't face a beheading," her voice caught only slightly, "without being drugged first?"

"It doesn't matter," the leader grunted. "You'll drink it either way."

Then they pinned her down, bruised her arms, held her neck, and though a good bit of the foul tasting concoction ended up in her ears, her hair, her eyes, enough went down her throat that they had to fairly lift her out of the room. They didn't offer her a bath or a final meal, nor a change of clothes. She didn't bother to ask, either.

The long hallways passed in a blur as her mind slowed down. She stumbled now and again as she walked, but forced herself to straighten her back, tighten her shoulders against the insidious root. If her guards would allow her a moment to stop, calm the spinning in her head, it would have been an easier trek, but they pushed her along at a steady pace. They saw no one, Miltsian or Cildisc, in the flickering lamplight held by the rearmost soldier. Her captors clearly knew their way, but for Wynn, it felt like walking deeper and deeper into endless black.

She'd seen nothing of Pedr, or any Cildisc servant, and had lain awake these three endless days worrying how many others would pay dearly for her bungled attempt at escape. She couldn't ask, not without placing them in even graver danger. The thought of Pedr, his unexpectedly lovely eyes wide and dead as he lay crumpled in a servant's homespun brown tunic, overlaid the harsh memory of Kaie in her mind. So much blood, and all on her hands. Even, she had no doubt, the blood of whomever had betrayed them, for daring to consider such a thing. One of the guides meant to lead them away? Someone who had overheard Pedr as Gavin whispering to Kaie in some secret corner of the Palace? Or just an innocent whose thoughts were overheard at the wrong moment?

At the end of the seemingly endless labyrinth of subterranean hallways, Wynn's guards stopped and pushed open a trap door. They stepped out, and pulled her up, into hazy pink sunlight that still made her sensitive eyes sting and water. Executions in Helmriche came at sunrise, and often enough in winter. The king himself was descended from Aelcweald, and her temple at Cadell could be seen over the high castle walls, if you knew where to stand. His power was especially revered in this quiet season, when so much of the country lie in wait for the spring. At the grounds, though, Wynn knew it would be the small shrine to Aelwic, the mother-goddess, the goddess of justice, that would be their final connection to the spiritual world in this life.

Silently, as the guards led her, dirt-stained and stumbling, from the Palace dungeons, Wynn prayed that Aelwic's wisdom could see beyond her descendants' will. Traitors were buried without honor, their names unceremoniously scratched into black stone as a sign of their fall into the Great Darkness with Faidaidh, the Betrayer, never to be reborn and blessed by the gods and goddesses again. Perhaps she deserved the Darkness, for her foolishness, but Brande deserved better for his unflinching devotion.

She felt Brande as she stepped into the cold air, his fear and concern for her. For a moment, her legs felt weaker still, and she wavered on unsteady feet. Her gaze darted as best it could around the small circle of grassless ground, but she couldn't see him. They had emerged in a small interior courtyard, closely guarded by rounded castle walls with no windows. A small riser rested in the middle, the wood stained dark red. Beside it, a thin wooden divider, sprayed with the same stains, and beyond it, she knew, Brande. She felt him, dulled by the tea and her exhaustion. ::Brande?:: Her mind felt thick, drugged.

::Wynn!:: So much fear, choking away his once eternal optimism, nearly crushing the underlying affection. Still alive she thought hazily, torn between horror and peace that they would die together out here in this hidden corner of the world. It might have taken her to her knees, were it not as distant, as drugged and heavy as her own. A paired execution was an unexpected kindness, that neither had to deal with the sudden erasure of the other from his mind. Neither would be forced to die twice. ::I didn't think they'd allow me to see you-::

::They won't. We'll be surrounded, and facing away from each other. You know they're listening to us-::

::I don't care./:: Defiant, yet somehow defeated all at once, and so very afraid. Wynn had never hated herself before this moment, as guards shoved her forward onto a small platform. The wooden slats were stained red. She didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know how to say good-bye, when so obviously the time had come to do so.

::They didn't interrogate me.:: She told him quietly as her guards led her to stand on the stained wood. The blood seemed to bloom from her dirt-encrusted shoes.

::I know.:: She knew, then, that the king had invaded Brande's mind, without her there to help him, and she swallowed something that felt like a scream. All this, for nothing.

::I love you.:: She opened her mind more to the emotion itself than the words.

::Is this all it takes to have you say it?:: he asked shakily. ::Should've arranged for an execution years ago.:: The jest hurt, stabbed at Wynn's heart, and he felt it. ::…I'm sorry.::

She couldn't find words to answer. She felt weak, and she hated it.

"Wynn Edmunda Leofwine," a rich voice rolled over them, and Wynn felt Brande's surprise along her own as she lifted her head. The king himself stood on a small balcony halfway up an otherwise blank wall, with his four Companions in attendance. His red and gold raiment could never be considered mournful, and his Companions were as gaily dressed, their ornate masks glinting in the first hints of sunlight. The smaller man stood directly to his right, the women on his left, and the taller man well behind, hidden in shadow. This last Companion's face tilted slightly off-center, as if he didn't wish to see, but the smaller man's masked face never wavered, and the women stood still and stoic at their master's side. "You have been accused and found guilty of treason against Helmriche, of consorting with her enemies, the Janvians, of lying to her king, and of attempting to escape this palace so that you could rejoin our adversaries. Do you wish to make a final statement?"

Wynn managed a small smile. "When you are speaking before a traitor, what words will-" she began, before a large hand between her shoulders shoved, knocking her to her knees. For a moment she knelt there, remembering being a weardmann, bowing before her king and all but glowing with the honor. Now she shifted, shakily, trying to stand. Another blow, and she wavered just short of slamming to her face in the dirt and dust.

"You'll bow when you speak to your king!" the guard barked.

"Then I have nothing to say," she answered evenly, though her tongue felt strangely thick in her mouth. "There is no king here to whom I would bow." The blow wasn't unexpected, but the tea dulled the pain and made it ineffectual.

"Stop touching her!" growled Brande's voice, beyond the flimsy wooden wall designed to keep them from seeing each other as they died.

::I'm fine. The root they gave us has worked in my favor.::

The king frowned paternally, shaking his head in apparent dismay at this reaction. "And you, Brande Oswald? You stand accused of the same crimes. Have you anything to say?"

Wynn felt the dull pain in her knees as Brande, too, was shoved to his. He bit his tongue, and it stung alongside her own with a metallic tang. She wondered how she had lived without him in her mind. She wondered what it would be like to die with him there. Her mind wandered. "No," he said shortly. He didn't have to repeat her reasons. The king would know, as he could know anything he wished when they were so helpless before him. Then, for Wynn: ::I love you, too. I did when I met you. When you pushed me away, I loved you, and I love you now.::

::Hopeless romances?::

::There's always the next life. Aelwic is not beholden to our king. I'm planning to find you in it, and make sure we don't waste as much time.:: This final message held a hint of his optimism, and Wynn's face hurt when she smiled.

A man, dressed in black and wearing a half mask not unlike the Swa'Cadell, but made of plain, thick cloth, stepped up beside her. The heavy sword he carried gleamed as the sun peeked over the castle wall. Wynn closed her eyes and lifted her chin, settling back on her shins. She wouldn't shame herself in this last instant of life.

The king sighed. "Very well then. As a noble and her consort, you have been afforded -"

::No!::

"-the honor of execution by sword. You will be executed as one. Your bodies-"

::NO!:: Brande's voice in her mind, strangely high pitched and strangled.

"-will be burned, and the ashes buried in the Traitors' Yard-"

"NO!" Aloud this time, and struggling, a cry of utter despair. In that moment, Wynn knew that he hadn't given in to begging, not for his life, not for hers. Horror birthed his denial, and her eyes snapped open, wondering, needing to see. "Traitor! You've killed her!" he screamed, furious, betrayed. "Why?!"

"- that you may never be born to betray Helmriche again," the king finished, ignoring this outburst. His hand rose in simple command.

Yet it wasn't the king Brande accused. It wasn't the king Wynn stared at it in a moment of drug-induced disbelief. It was at Pedr, alive, at Pedr's exquisite eyes in his plain face, downturned to see them, strangely bright and blank all at once. At the red velvet on his throat, the delicate golden stitching criss-crossing his shoulders.

At the gold mask, imbedded with chips of rubies, which dangled by its ribbon from his small, rough hand.

::Swa'Cadell!:: Brande's mind screamed, then the hiss of metal slicing through air, and all disappeared into darkness.

Thank you for reading! Please see out profile for Dichotomy: Majesty, the final book in the Dichotomy trilogy.

And if you have a moment, even a second, it would be really nice to get some comments about this book and our work. This is a work of love and produced entirely free, yet the vast majority of readers won't grant three seconds for a brief c&c. Please? We feel kind of ridiculous begging, here, but we don't want to lose heart...