No One's Chosen (78 page)

She had searched as best as she could for any mention
of something that far north among the papers she'd kept from the
other homes and there was nothing. Neither was their talk of
relatives or heirs except those that had died. From an early age he
had been in service to the Treorai and she had birthed only a
single daughter. A diary of Spárálaí's she had found was quite
bitter at the prospect. He had wanted a child of his own, the dairy
insisted, but any time the Treorai fell pregnant from any of her
Binse, she destroy the child before it came to term. He had tried
often, plying her with wine, but it had never worked. The daughter
she had kept, Rianaire, was insipid by his measure and when she
became Treorai he had hoped to impregnate her, but it was not to
be. The rest of the book turned to mad rantings about how the girl
had chosen to run the province and so Aile had burned it.

It did not surprise Aile to find that the man was
more boring and feckless than he had seemed even in Fásachbaile.
There was so little of even cursory interest among the man's
belongings that it was hard to believe he had ever sat the Binse of
any province. Even a regional council was not like to need such a
boring man. His letters all spoke of numbers and honor and
tradition and fealty. That he ever managed to rebel against
anything must have taken a perverse leap of faith. And it had ended
with him dead. He was something of an elven purist as well, often
talking about dirty this and impure that. Whores were an
abomination to his mind, so his letters professed, because the
elven sisters had spoken of love and there was no love in the heart
of a whore.

What could such a strange elf had hidden so far
north? She had been through two of the abandoned old cities. Some
of the houses still stood and the forgotten keeps acted as
waypoints along the crude map. She did her best to follow the roads
and the snow was thin enough on the ground that she could manage
it, for the moment. The cities had sat north and east from the
cabin near Ceird. The furs had cost her good coin, but she would be
near enough. By the old maps she had brought along, there was a
fair chance that the disused northern roads from Spéirbaile's
Bastion City were a faster route and more well kept than the
centuries old trails she used now.

It was midday, but the grey of the sky held back the
sun and the driving snow, sparse as it was, meant that views of the
distance were minimal at best. If the horizon held trees or
mountain views or the place she was seeking, she would not know
until the place was upon her.

Though the cold bit at her, Aile kept steady pace.
The maps did little to help now other than showing the promise of
where shelter had stood. Several of the cities had survived the
Bais season to the present day and would provide shelter if the day
got away from her, though it would require backtracking. Of course,
there was something of a wide road to concern herself with as it
was. The night was harsh in this place and the wolves were often
hungry and bold during the cold season.

When she first saw the smoke, Aile assumed it had
been a trick of the light. Shifting snow in front of grey sky, but
as she kept moving, the smoke grew from thin grey wisps to a
thicker black stream. She did not rush to the house. It would do to
watch it a bit before making a move. She considered it a few
moments, walked around the perimeter at a distance, and saw nothing
of concern. She walked to the small house. As she approached,
patches of orange and rose color in the wood told her that the
place was built from ironwood. It was an incredibly dense wood that
grew among the Blackwood, though the trees were small and were not
often use to make homes as a result. The cost of this cottage would
have been immense, but it was likely one of the few ways to survive
so far to the north. There were a pair of windows, triple thick if
the wood was any tell about the nature of the place. They had
frosted over and it would have been near impossible to see her
coming from the inside. Even in such a case, it was prudent to
ready a blade, and so Aile did.

Her thickly gloved hands made gripping the dagger
awkward, but it would serve. She lifted the other hand and knocked.
If there was movement inside she could not hope to know. The sound
of the wind was immense and the fur coverings deadened most of the
rest. It took a fair few moments, but eventually the handle sounded
and pulled free.

Behind the opening door, a woman with shimmering grey
skin like Aile's stood holding a milky grey child. Before she had
seen her visitor she began to speak. "It's been nigh on a season,
and we—" She stopped at the sight of Aile and stared for a moment.
"Who're you?" She said the words in tongue of the Blackwood.

"I am called Aile."

"Like the goddess?" the Drow asked.

"If you like." Aile stepped forward, pushing the
woman out of the way with her free hand.

The inside of the cottage was less ornate by far than
the cabin near Creid, though it was spacious enough for a woman and
her child. Aile walked to the center of the room and began to
remove her furs. The Drow woman closed the door and rocked the baby
who had began to struggle at the feel of the cold wind. Aile
removed the heavy pilings of fur entirely and stretched her arms
wide. The leather of her garb shifted softly. It was a suit as the
old one had been, a deep rich brown and now with thick plates of
steel along the arm that had been wounded. The other arm was free
of the metal.

She dropped the furs where she stood and moved to a
small dining table and sat. She placed the dagger she'd held down
upon the table. The woman watched her from the door, nervously
bouncing the baby. She approached slowly and stopped by the furs,
addressing Aile.

"What have you come for?"

"I am curious." Aile tapped the table to tell the
girl she ought to sit.

"What would curiosity have to do with me?"

Aile laughed and motioned around. "Surely you mean
the question as an insult. A Drow among the ice wastes of
Spéirbaile. Or have tastes in the Blackwood changed in my
absence?"

The woman placed the whelp into a crib in the main
room. She brushed the half-Drow child gently and then moved to sit
at the table. "Spárálaí?" She said the name sheepishly.

Aile nodded and crossed her legs.

The woman stood. "Ah! Tea. I should… warm the kettle,
at least. The cold is nothing worth underestimating." She rushed to
the kitchen and grabbed a kettle. She hung it over the cookfire and
returned to the table slowly, setting a chipped cup down in front
of Aile and moving to her seat.

"I am called Moal, though he always liked to call me
Ennoil." She smiled sweetly, looking away at the floor. "I met him
along the South Road. I'd been sent by my mother to the Bastion
City to see to a trade of some lumber. It… it ought to have been
simple enough. I did not know who he was then and he came across me
as I'd thrown a wheel on my cart. He fixed it and told me I was
beautiful. He said to meet him at an inn and so I did."

She breathed deep, taking a moment. The other Drow
was dark-haired, raven black, and her skin was lighter than Aile's
by a shade. She was thin of waist and small of breast. Waif thin
and brittle looking.

"He made love to me there. And said I would bear him
a child. He insisted that I should. That I would never want for
anything. He cried after we had made love the first time but
swatted me away when I tried to give him comfort." She laughed
pitifully. "He was odd. Always. Half mad, I suppose. At least he
seemed it at times. He kept me in a cabin near… Ceird? Some elf
town. I do not know where, truly. I hardly knew my way to the
capital. It seemed like a palace next to the woodcutting hut I had
grown up in."

"Spárálaí would visit often, at first. Every other
week, sometimes more or sometimes less. Work, he said. Though I
still do not know what he does. Do you know?"

"I do." Aile offered no more.

Moal frowned. "It's just as well. He would visit and
there would be sex and he would leave. There was never talk, not
other than pleasantries. Sometimes he would call me other names. I
do not remember them. They were complicated and I do not know the
elf words so well. I did not bleed for four weeks, and told him as
such when he came to visit. I expected he would be pleased but he
became nervous instead and left."

The kettle whistled and Moal went to grab it. She
poured hot water over dried tea and returned the kettle to the
kitchen. She did not speak again until she was back to her
seat.

"It was nearly a season before he returned and I was
fat with the child. He kept the cabin well stocked until his return
and I wanted for nothing. Perhaps he was pleased, I thought. When
he finally came for me, he had me sit at a table and draw… and draw
a map. A map to here. He described the cabin and told me that I
must go there. That it was of the utmost importance. And so I did.
It was Breithe then and the north had mostly thawed. I was thankful
for that. He brought a midwife to see to my needs shortly after I
had arrived here. He took the map when he left. I thought it
curious but he had always been somewhat strange. I gave birth to
the child and he took the midwife away immediately. He would
return, less often. When he did he never spoke to me, not a word.
He only held the girl and called her Maidin and rocked her in a
chair. It has been nearly two years since I birthed the girl."

"And that is all?"

"It is. Has he sent you? Or, perhaps, my parents?"
Her eyes lit up for a brief moment. She was younger than Aile by at
least half.

Aile did not respond to the girl's question, nor did
she move to touch the tea. The girl's face sank.

"I understand," she said.

She stood and took the cups from the table to place
them in the kitchen. Aile stood and turned as the girl passed her.
Moal placed the cups on the counter next to the kettle. Aile
dragged her blade from the table and held it at her thigh. The girl
began to cry next to the kettle.

"I thought it was a forbidden love. Like the
songs."

Aile drew closer and the girl's hand shifted on the
counter. The younger Drow pulled a knife back and swung wildly at
Aile, screaming. The slashes were slow and imprecise. The screams
set the child crying behind as Aile backed away from the blade
lazily.

The weeping girl raised a hand over her head and
swung down hard. Aile caught her by the wrist and the kitchen tool
tumbled away from her attacker. She lifted the dagger and drove it
into Moal's shoulder, twisting. She pulled it free and kicked the
girl's feet from under her, sending her to the floor. Blood shot
from the wound when she impacted the hard wood and the small Drow
let out a yelp. It was not often that Aile was in a fight with a
creature smaller than herself. It was almost a welcome feeling,
though it was no real fight.

"I had thought to let you die easy."

Aile mounted the girl and rolled her stomach onto the
floor. The larger Drow put a knee down on the wounded shoulder and
pressed. The girl screamed and the child echoed. Aile cut away the
clothes from Moal's back and smiled.

"This will not be slow."

She dug the sharp blade of the dagger in between the
girl's ribs and pushed through the meat of them before wrenching
up. The scream was crisp and high. Aile had not hit lung, nor had
she meant to. She moved the dagger down to the next rib and did the
same, this time striking hard against the shoulder blade.
Spárálaí's lover, if you could call her that, bled profusely and
writhed on the floor but Aile held her still. When she reached the
last rib, she angled the blade and sent it up into the girl's lung.
The screaming went suddenly ragged.

Aile moved to the other side but Moal's
hyperventilating caused the girl to faint before she could
continue. Aile clicked her tongue and stood. The only sounds now
were the wind and the crying child. It was slow work, but Aile set
to rewrapping the furs around her body. She breathed deep when she
was done, the heat of the furs drawing sweat from her skin.

The child had not ceased its wailing for as long as
she had spent dressing. Aile moved to the crib and looked down at
the milky grey baby.

"An awful color," she said.

The Drow tipped the crib over and the child spilled
out onto the floor, crying and wailing. It writhed there, screaming
in pain and confusion. Fat little arms grabbed out at nothing and
the skin on its face had turned red. Aile walked to the tiny
creature and stood over it. She lifted her boot and brought it down
hard. A wet pop sounded in the ironwood cottage and then the only
sound was the wind.

The storm had picked up outside and the air had grown
colder. The smoke that had guided her to the place was thicker now,
blacker.

As she walked back into the bitter cold of the north,
Aile smiled, satisfied. Her price was paid. Every last ounce.