It all ended Tuesday morning when I woke up to a tremendous explosion that shook my entire cave.
I felt a brief moment of panic before lightning illuminated the jagged outlines of my rock walls, right when a second boom erupted. That calmed me down; it was just a thunderstorm, even if it was huge and right outside my cave.
Another bolt of lightning showed my clock: six-fourteen. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep, but I saw the next lightning flash through my eyelids as thunder shook my cave a third time.
With a sigh, I stood up and stretched. I hated to break my sleeping routine, but an extra hour of low-quality sleep wouldn’t do me any favors, either. With a deep breath, I walked over to my cave’s opening.
As inconvenient as they were to us, griffins revered thunderstorms. They were more than part of nature: they were a raw, elemental force. My tribe’s legends said that, every summer, Donar reforged his hunting spear to get ready for the autumn’s Sternsjag. In order to cool the head of it, he saved most of the rain throughout spring in an enormous trough. When he finally had enough, he began forging: the thunder was the sound of his hammer falling, and the lightning was actually sparks of hot metal flying off.
I couldn’t recall if there was an explanation for why the water was spilling during the forging process, but as I felt the sound of the thunder wash over me, I didn’t find it too hard to imagine that there was a sky god up there, hammering away.
With another deep breath, the smell of rainwater on mountain stone reminded me of home. Then, I reminded myself that I was home right now, but I didn’t dwell too much on that fact. Instead, I just watched the storm unfold before me.
An hour later, it didn’t look like the storm was going to clear up anytime soon. That gave me a practical problem: flying in a thunderstorm was dangerous, but flying in a thunderstorm while wearing a metal suit would be suicide. I supposed that there was a cloth lining on the inside of my armor, but that wouldn’t make any difference to my corpse. I needed to avoid the storm.
That was simple enough, though: I donned my armor, then, between thunderbolts, I took off flying straight up. It was a cold, wet race against death, but I made it through the stormclouds.
Up there, I was amazed at how bright and sunny it was compared to the storm. The air was thinner and colder there, but I would rather be cold than electrocuted. Within minutes, I got winded, but I held my course by trying not to think of how many ways I would die if I fell.
The storm was a massive one, and it was heading northwest, so we followed one another to Farrington. When I was close enough to the city’s mountain, I waited for a moment, until lightning flashed below me.
Then, I fell.
I smiled, thinking back to all the times I imagined that a killing dive was like lightning; this time, I was trying to beat the next flash of lightning. As the ground rushed at me, I reminded myself that I was a good deal heavier; that information was crucial for pulling out of the dive.
As fast as I was, I didn’t beat the next flash of lightning; lucky for me, it must’ve hit somewhere in the Jägerwald. I landed in a crouched position, then looked up to Captain Bulwark’s booth. He was in there, staring at me, wide-eyed and fearful. He finally found his voice and, over the storm, yelled, “Where did you come from?”
I pointed upwards. “Above the storm, sir,” I yelled back. Lightning flashed again, and I realized that from his point of view, I had probably materialized in that lightning flash.
“Cool!” he responded in a slow, impressed tone. I smiled at him before I walked through the gate to report for duty.
That morning, my random patrol was in the Market District. I spent most of it with gnawing hunger, reminding myself that breakfast was an important meal, but luckily, absolutely no one was out in the rain.
The storm finally broke a little after noon, which was decent timing; I used my lunch break at my diner to dry off in the bathroom. It helped, slightly; I was only damp when I went back out for the second half of my shift.
After lunch, the Market district was a completely different place. Instead of dark, empty streets, a huge crowd of ponies had grown and given the place a feeling like it was alive. They seemed to be moving around quickly and with dedication, like they were trying to make up for lost time.
Not every pony was concerned with errands, though; my second pass through one of the busier streets, I came across a pair of pegasus foals who were splashing around in a puddle and having the time of their lives.
“Hailey! Moonshine! Get out of that puddle this instant!” That voice was familiar, somehow, so I turned just in time to see their mother rushing across the street to end their fun. I was surprised to see that she was a lime green earth pony; there weren’t a lot of pegasi in Farrington, so she must’ve hit some sort of genetic jackpot to have two as kids. Then, my guard’s training kicked in; I couldn’t even be sure that she was their biological mother: she could have just as easily been a babysitter or a stepmother. Her cutie mark even fit that bill; a pair of white wings wrapped around a pink heart, like a protector.
Regardless of her relation to them, the green mare succeeded in getting the two foals out of the puddle. Unfortunately for me, they took off running straight at me. Since I was watching, I stopped in time to avoid stepping on them, but that didn’t please their caretaker at all: “And get out of the nice guard’s way! Don’t make me get your father!”
The three of us reeled at the threat. The two foals rejoined their caretaker, and I chided myself for my stupidity. The green mare led them back over to me, saying, “I’m sorry about that, officer. They’ve been cooped up all day from the rain.”
Before I could accept her apology, she rounded on the foals, “And what do you say for almost tripping someone?”
“We’re sorry.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
In spite of how ludicrous the whole situation was quickly becoming, I smiled at them. Their voices were adorable. I figured the apology was some sort of lesson, so I responded in as authoritative a voice as I could manage, “That’s okay. Just keep an eye on where you’re headed in the future.”
I caught a strange look from their caretaker, so I winked at her. She smiled, then extended a hoof. “I’m Comet Tail, by the way, I don’t think we’ve met, Officer...”
“Gilda,” I replied, shaking her hoof. I hadn’t met any earth ponies with sky-themed names before, but I guessed that there was a first time for everything.
She smiled, but it seemed almost sad and weary. “After hearing about you for a month, it’s good to finally hear your name.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that, but she continued, “Anyway, this is Hailey...” She gestured to the older, lavender filly. “And Moonshine.” He was a navy blue colt with amber eyes and a shaggy black mane.
Then, it clicked.
Suddenly, I recognized the names of everyone in front of me. I fought to keep that realization down as I waved a weak little “Hello” to the kids, but even then, I knew it was just a matter of time until...
“Is there a problem here?” Lieutenant Starfall asked from behind me. His voice was cold, almost neutral, but I knew better than to turn around and meet his glare. He walked around to stand near his wife and asked her, “Is she giving you a problem?”
“Who, the officer?” his wife responded.
Hearing them talking reminded me of the few times I had heard my mother and father speaking to one another: their speech was cold and distant, but not emotionally invested enough to be hateful.
That made me remember how she was his second wife. I remembered what Iron told me about what had happened to his first wife, and suddenly, I felt awkward to be caught up in the middle of the lieutenant’s personal problems.
Starfall seemed happy enough to separate us, though, by telling his wife to “Go on ahead with the kids, I have some guard business to sort out with the officer.”
She shot him a distrustful gaze that bordered on a sneer, but she turned to her stepchildren and told them in a much warmer voice, “Come on, let’s go get the groceries.”
Watching them walk away filled me with a twinge of sadness for some reason, but I realized that, now I was alone with the lieutenant, I had bigger problems on my plate.
Then, I was shoved into an alleyway.
I turned to face my assailant, and Lieutenant Starfall’s armored hoof collided with my helmet with a metallic thunk. Armor or no, my vision swam after the blow. Before I could even raise an arm to defend myself, I was thrown up against a wall. My head snapped back and hit the bricks, but when I tried to bring it back forward, there was a foreleg pressed against my windpipe.
Panicking, I couldn’t breathe. Something sharp pressed into my side, between the seams of my armor, and I knew that Starfall had me dead to rights.
“If you ever go near my family again, I will kill you,” he almost spat the words at me.
I worried about his knife, but after he gave the threat, he threw me to the ground by my neck. My head hurt in about a million different places now, but I could breathe again in raspy, sore gasps. I got my feet under me, and rounded on him in a defensive stance. “Du und...” I panted. “Was genau ist dein Problem?”
His eyes narrowed as he sheathed his knife. “Apparently, some half-breed bitch who can’t understand a civilized language. What part of ‘stay away’ is so difficult?”
I snarled, then snapped, “Nothing. So what was your wife’s problem?”
Starfall gnashed his teeth, and I braced myself for a fight. Cheap shots were one thing, but if I saw him coming, I could hold my own. Luckily for him, he reconsidered, or at least, he snorted. “No more. This ends tonight, just me and you. The market square, two o’ clock.”
Without thinking, I cut back a slow nod.
After that, he turned around and walked towards the exit of the alleyway. Before he stepped out into the street, he turned and added, “Make peace with whatever primitive beast you worship,” in a dismissive tone.
“And you with your Mörder,” I shot back. If he was the one bringing religion into the mix, I figured Celestia could stand for some blasphemy.
Starfall said nothing in reply; then he was gone.
I figured it’d look suspicious if I exited the same way he did, and I was already behind on my patrol, so I cut a large stretch off the path by heading to the other end of the alley. As I walked, my anger and adrenaline left me, and I slowly realized what exactly had just happened.
My gut reaction was fear. I could lose everything from my agreement. Everything. However, I had agreed to it, so now, there wasn’t really any way to back out of it.
Worse, came the doubt: Father had taught me many things about fighting, but none of it had mattered; it took Starfall all of three seconds to subdue me, and when he had me pinned, there had been nothing I could do about it.
I only had six laps left on my patrol for the day, and I spent the whole thing planning, worrying, and afraid. I thought of telling Iron about the whole thing, but the more I thought about it, the less viable it seemed.
For starters, Starfall and Iron had been friends for years, if my dates had been any indicator. And on top of that, Iron—while he never came right out and said it—was having troubles with his friendship with Starfall because of me. I didn’t want to cause any more problems for Iron, especially because it was obvious, by now, that Starfall didn’t respect his authority as captain.
Basically, if Iron could’ve helped any, he would have, by now.
Being alone, in that regard, made things clearer, if not easier. Regardless of the monstrous headache that I had for the rest of the afternoon, I planned out everything that I would need to do to go about rising to his challenge. Specifically, he had challenged me to a fight, and knowing him, it wasn’t going to be a tutorial with rocks and blunted sticks.
This was the real thing.
My self-preservation screamed at me that it was stupid to die in a fight over a difference in race, but my romantic side was gleeful that I had a chance to die in honorable combat.
It beat falling to my death, at any rate.
After I finished my patrol, I headed to the post office to do the bulk of my preparations. There had been a moment, in the citadel, where I considered asking Sherry for help on the whole Starfall thing, but she would’ve just got Iron involved, and I’d be back at square one, with the lieutenant being self-righteously angry at me for his own stupid reasons.
I knew I had some sort of a blanket ban on the post office, but it was the only way I could take care of things in case I lost the duel. Luckily, when I entered the building, Iron’s sister wasn’t there; instead, it was the faded gray old guy. At least something about this whole process wasn’t completely ridiculous.
“‘Evenin’, officer,” he greeted me. “What can I do you for?”
“Can I set up mail on a delayed delivery?” I asked. He seemed a bit thrown off by what I was asking, so I clarified, “Like, say I’m getting some news tomorrow afternoon, and if it’s one thing, I won’t have time to come write everyone I want to before I need to leave town. Could I write the letters now, then have them put in Thursday’s outgoing mail if I don’t come in tomorrow to stop them from going out?”
After I finished, the mail clerk stood there blankly for a few moments until he shook his head and chuckled. “I’ve worked here for fifty-two years this fall, and I’ve never had someone come around asking for something like that.” A bit of suspicion rose in his face. “What’s this for, anyway?”
Sorry, Dash, I thought to myself as I lied, “My friend in Ponyville might be pregnant.”
“Might be?”
“She’ll know by tomorrow, and then another friend is going to come get me if she is. I’ll have to miss work on Thursday to go congratulate her, and then I want some of my other friends to know, too.” I was amazed at how coherently it all fit together.
The clerk smiled faintly as he put a stack of papers on the counter for me. Chuckling sadly to himself, he pondered aloud, “What’s the world like when that mess’s easier than having it all handled through the post office?”
I stared back for a moment. Here I was, lying to a postal worker to cover up something that violated my Verbannungsprüfung so that I could cover the possibility that I might die in a duel to the death with someone whose wife had been killed by barbaric members of a tribe of my own race.
I shook my head as I replied, “Complicated. Very, very, complicated.”
I took the papers over to the table that rested against the wall to start writing my letters. I figured that it would be difficult and emotional to write what might be my last farewells, but instead, it just filled me with a strong sense of impending destiny.
I probably had the most to say to them, but the letters to my older sister and my uncle were the easiest ones to write. It was cathartic to tell them how much I loved them, and how sorry I was that I couldn’t be with them anymore. Three years’ worth of emotions flowed out onto the paper as naturally as flying felt when I wasn’t wearing my armor. Also, even after three years, it was still easier for me to write in my original language than that of the ponies. Part of me wanted to find solace in that, but I was too preoccupied with the contents of my death letters to care.
As I finished writing the letters to my family—I had too many siblings to write individual letters to, so I told Gretchen to pass along my feelings—I again noted the risk of my failsafe. If either of those letters were delivered, I’d have a three-griffin death squad coming to enforce my banishment. It’d be headed by Father, but I didn’t know whether he’d bring two other adult males from the tribe or his eldest children, Gretchen and Gerard.
Either way, I knew that I wouldn’t be flying away from that confrontation.
Regardless of how dangerous it was for me to have even written it, I rolled my sister’s scroll up and wrote her name on it. A practical issue then presented itself: to my knowledge, it wasn’t possible to have a letter delivered directly to Sharfkral-Grat. I chuckled at the irony; this whole thing started because someone trespassed in griffin territory.
With a shrug, I rolled Uncle Wally’s letter around Gretchen’s. It’d be a hassle for him, but it wasn’t like the Grossfeder and Sharfkral had entirely severed contact with one another. It’d be safe to trust my uncle with delivering Gretchen’s letter.
After the two griffin letters were covered, I started on the two pony letters: Dash and Iron. Dash’s would be easier, so I started on it; when I was halfway finished, the mail clerk drummed up conversation. “So, uh, which northern griffin tribe d’you come from? Sharptalon or Braveheart?”
I stopped writing to glare at that. I didn’t like “Sharptalon,” because it seemed weird to hear my tribe’s name referred to in the ponies’ language. Even worse was the confusing linguistic hoops that they must’ve jumped through to get “Braveheart” from “Sterkergeist.”
“Sharptalon,” I answered, to try and keep things simple. Then, national pride kicked in and I continued, “But I’d call them Sharfkral if you ever meet another.”
“Sharf... kral,” he repeated slowly.
I went back to Dash’s letter, but I kept getting distracted by the sound of the mail clerk starting to say something, but then stopping himself. Around the third time, I turned and asked, “You okay?”
“Yes, it’s just... somethin’s been bugging me for a while, now. I’m not trying to offend you or anything, but... do you Sharfkrals keep, uh, trophies? Like, from hunting?”
I finished Dash’s letter and folded it up before answering. “It depends on the griffin and what they’re hunting. Some of us are completely against it, others do it for exceptional kills, or ones they’re proud of.” I thought back to Father with disgust. He had kept a pair of lime green pegasus wings from one of his kills, but it couldn’t have been that honorable or—
The realization hit me square in the stomach, but at first, all I could do was deny, “No.” But the truth was there, in little segments:
The mail clerk was asking about trophies.
Starfall’s wife had been killed.
Father had killed a pegasus.
Terrible pieces of the puzzle all fell into place, and after I shuddered a hollow breath, I tried to keep calm as I asked, “Did... did Lieutenant Starfall’s first wife work here at one point?”
“First wife?” the mail clerk asked, “Wow, I’m out of the loop. I didn’t even know that he and Comet finally got divorced.”
He continued talking, but I didn’t hear what words he was saying. With horror, I thought back to the mare I had met earlier: Comet Tail. Of course it was a weird name for an earth pony; she hadn’t been one when she got the name. She had been made one.
I almost threw up at the thought. Even when I had been eight, I had known that the pegasus whose wings my father nailed to our cave’s wall must have been dead. Now that I thought about it, they had been the same color as she was, before they faded. It all fit, and all I felt was numb.
I finished Iron’s letter, probably sounding more curt than I should have, but I could barely think straight. I rolled my letters into scrolls to send out and, shaking, I wrote the three addresses on each of them.
When I walked over to the mail clerk, he asked, “Are... y’okay, miss?” His voice sounded small and far away.
“Y-yeah,” I lied. “Remember, only send these if I don’t come back for them,” I said as neutrally as I could manage. I couldn’t stop shaking as I poured out some coins onto the counter to pay for postage.
“Will do,” he replied. “I’ll be here tomorrow, too; my usual desk help is out on a delivery.” Picking up the scrolls, he started to read the addresses on them before stopping at my family’s bundle. “I don’t know where ‘Erntving’ is,” he told me in a confused tone.
“It’s... it’s the griffin city out in the east!” I tried not to snap, but tears welled in my eyes. Stupid ponies, with their stupid names for things!
“Well, I’ll get it out there,” he replied in a tone that let me know I could trust him. A small bit of relief struck me, then I thanked him and left the post office.
Outside, I marched south, trying to keep it together. On the way there, I imagined what it would be like to lose my wings, and have to live life walking around for everything. In the air, there was a sense of freedom and openness. Losing that was a disgrace, and a fate worse than death.
Damn you, I cursed Father. That was exactly his train of thought when he did that to her. I grit the edges of my beak together in frustration, but I felt creaking, so I let up the pressure. Breaking my beak wouldn’t solve anything.
Finally, I got to Iron’s booth, and his smile evaporated before I shouted, “You knew?”
“Calm down,” he ordered, frowning. I snarled back, and he raised a hoof. “Or don’t. But tell me, at least, what—”
“Starfall’s wife is alive!” I pointed a metal finger at him. “You said she died.”
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“You said ‘attacked by griffins,’ and were all hush-hush...” I shook my head and let out an exasperated grunt. “But she’s alive. That changes things, Iron!”
He took a deep breath with closed eyes. “How?” He opened them to frown at me. “How does that change anything?”
“Because now he’s not just some grieving asshole, he’s some... guy... who’s... right,” I struggled to get the word out.
Iron blinked a few times, changing where he was focusing each time. “How... Gilda, what the hell happened today, that this is coming up?”
I took a few steps backward and flared my wings.
“No. No... don’t you...”
His words sounded on empty ground; I was in the air before he finished his command.
On the flight home, I put Iron out of my mind and instead considering the available options for my two o’ clock duel. I could just go in there ready for the kill, or come early and lie in wait for an ambush. It would be quick and dirty, but it would be a cheap shot for a cheap shot, and probably my best chance for winning.
I shoved that line of reasoning out of my head, too. He was an asshole, but he didn’t deserve to die for it. Plus, he was friends with most of my superiors in the guards, so I would have to hide what I had done from all of them. I didn’t want to think about keeping up that charade for any length of time; one day of extensive lying to Dash had caused me to have a mental breakdown.
Instead, I thought the rest of his family. I had heard that he loved his children, even if I had to take Iron’s and Sherry’s word for it. Iron’s especially—given his earlier freakout about my father, I couldn’t imagine he’d lie about that sort of thing. Then again...
I forced myself to focus on Starfall’s wife, the one who this whole thing was about. I figured that he saw her as damaged goods, and he blamed the entire griffin race for it. Since it was my father who permanently crippled her instead of giving her a clean death, I wasn’t entirely angry at Starfall—instead, I pitied him. That was a lot of emotional baggage to be carrying for ten years, and it was completely misdirected.
I thought of telling him about my father, and where to find him. But then again, he was a lone pegasus, so trespassing into Sharfkral-Grat to issue a challenge...
However much he didn’t deserve to die, he deserved what they would do to him even less.
Moving on, my next idea was an interesting one: I could tell Iron about everything. Fighting in the streets was illegal, so I’d be well within my rights to report a crime before it happened. It stank of cowardice, though, and it would just leave Starfall with an even bigger sense of injustice so that, what, he could come at me again?
One way or another, he was right: This ends tonight.
Razor-sharp resolve sharpened my mind, and for the rest of my flight home, I prepared myself for what I had to do that night.
When I neared my cave, I saw a stag running through the forest below me. After not eating for... almost an entire day, now, I realized, I was hungry enough to eat a good portion of it. I’d still have a huge amount of leftovers that I’d have to prepare, which meant I’d have to go around the Jägerwald looking for the right herbs.
Still, it’d be a good last meal, I reasoned.
My mind made up, I swooped in for the kill. The stag heard me coming and took off running, so I landed right behind it instead of on top of it. It ran. I ran after it. It was fast, but I was faster.
I swiped at its joint tendons in its leg but missed. In a last-ditch effort, the stag turned around and reared up on its hind legs to stomp me to death. I ducked low, it missed, and I pounced at its midsection.
Now we were on the ground, I undid the strap on my right hand’s gauntlet. The stag thrashed, fighting for its life, but I held its head down and covered its eye with my left hand. Deer were big enough a kill to apologize to, so I whispered, “I hope you lived well today, and forever.”
Then I sliced its jugular open with my free hand.
As the stag’s movements slowed and weakend, I remembered how fragile life was. Doubt crept into my mind about my plans for the night. Killing for food was one thing, but for honor? I had never done it before. With a twinge of fear, I wondered which role I would play tonight: the victor, standing over Starfall as he died; or the defeated, lying there and fading away to whatever awaited me after death.
Reluctantly, I went back to my first thought: going in for a fast kill. He started the fight, he was making it impossible for me to avoid, so he was to blame for the outcome of the fight. He had gotten the jump on me in the Market District when I hadn’t expected anything, which was more from surprise and cowardice than anything. In a fair fight, I’d stand a much better chance—and even better if I got the drop on him.
I remembered his foals from that morning, and his wife, and Iron... I pulled my hand up from the stag’s throat to rub my temple. The helmet got in my way, so I just shook my head. I didn’t want to kill him.
My residual cowardice flared up: I could just never go back. However, I instantly squashed it; I was in too deep with Farrington, now, to just sever ties. I had Iron, or at least, I had him until we actually had a conversation about Starfall’s wife.
But I also had my guard’s oath. I had sworn on my honor to protect the citizens of Farrington, and that meant something to me. It wasn’t even a griffin thing anymore; it was a me thing. I didn’t want to be the sort of individual that just flaked out on my own given word.
I needed to find a solution that left us both alive and resolved the issues between us. But given the terms of his duel that I had to go to and his friendship with Iron, that solution wasn’t exactly presenting itself.
The bushes to my left rustled, and I turned, hoping that it would be a simple matter to defend my dinner.
Luckily for me, it was a wolf. Her body language meant she wasn’t looking for a fight, and instantly, I knew it was the she-wolf from several weeks ago, when I had puked up fake ham.
She said nothing, but wolves couldn’t speak, so that wasn’t really surprising. Instead, she sat down on her haunches, looking at me with a somewhat starry, vacant look. I grinned back at her, thoroughly impressed with her timing. It was customary for griffins to share large kills, and wolves had been friends with griffins since before we bothered to write down our histories. They were loyal hunting partners, and even now, this one was polite enough to wait for me to offer something before she came over to try and help herself.
I tore a leg off and tossed it to her, saying, “Have that and anything I don’t finish.” She started eating, and so did I. When I was finished, the wolf came over to me instead of the stag.
Our eyes met, and I felt a cosmic sense of inner peace, as if I suddenly knew my tiny place in the universe. In that void of calm, a voice spoke in my head. Somehow, I knew it was an ancient dialect of griffins, before we called ourselves griffins. In the same way I knew how old the language was, I knew the meaning behind the words:
Fight and die. Live through peace.
My eyes opened, and the she-wolf and the stag’s corpse were gone. A dream? I asked myself, but I could still taste the stag in my mouth. I looked down at my and mentally swore; I had been careful, but my armor was absolutely coated in blood. The more I inspected, the more unnatural it felt; there was even blood under my wings and other places that it couldn’t have possibly been. Even the forest floor around me was clean, except for my right gauntlet, which was stained a dark red.
As a test, I pulled out the medallion in my chest and looked at the golden Dreikral side. Sure enough, it was the only part of my armor that was clean.
I tried to think back to what that she-wolf looked like, even though I doubted she was a normal wolf. I had read all of my tribe’s legends, and none of them hinted at wolves being able to... whatever she had done to me. Plus, wolves’ lifespans were measured in decades, not millennia, so she had spoken in a language...
I knew some of the older language that my tribe used to write in from the times I encountered it on scrolls that were around one thousand years old. The Records-Keeper had begrudgingly helped me translate some of the words, but I was by no means fluent.
The language that wolf spoke to me in was even older than that.
As insane as it was, the thought crossed my mind to return to my tribe and tell them what I had seen. I pushed it out of my head, though; they wouldn’t believe me, and for some reason, that wolf had wanted me to live. It would be stupid to throw away my life in such a wanton manner as violating my Verbannungsprüfung.
Then it hit: Verbannungsprüfung. Jäger. It was so clear; I cursed my stupidity. Of course I had just seen a Sternwolf, or, I guessed, the Sternwolf; I didn’t know how the gods’ realm worked.
Anyway, it fit perfectly, and then I realized, with a glare, that I had been cheated by fate. Jäger got his own damn constellation, and all I got was cryptic advice on how to deal with a duel?
Bullshit.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I laughed at my pride. If I had been visited by the gods, who was I to be unappreciative? My laughter turned nervous as I looked around, making sure I was still alone; out of every being in the Jägerwald, the hunting companion of Jäger was quite possibly the most dangerous one to piss off.
I looked down at my bloody armor, then headed to my pond to clean it off. On the way there, I went back to the Sternwolf’s advice. That, coupled with the sign she gave me, made me realize that I definitely shouldn’t go to Farrington, that night, while wearing my armor.
At my pond, I took off my armor and started washing it as best I could. The water was cold, which helped, but there was a lot of blood. I mused that I’d probably have to show up early, Wednesday morning, to clean it off properly; then again, I’d have to stop by the post office for my letters, too.
If I were alive on Wednesday morning.
However, the cleaner my armor got, the more I realized that showing up, unarmed and peaceably, was the best option. It let me keep my honor while letting Starfall keep his ego, and then, I’d find a way to talk to him about everything. Apologize for my father. Tell him that, out of everyone in the world, I understood what his wife had gone through more than anyone else.
When my armor was as clean as it was going to get, I put it back on and flew up to my cave. Behind me, the sun was hanging low in the sky, and my clock read that it was nearly eight o’ clock. I picked it up and set it for one o’ clock, grumbling about gods and their stupid, evening-robbing sleeping spells. When everything was ready, I fluffed up my blanket and lay down on it.
I wanted to be well-rested for my date with destiny.
* * *
I woke up in darkness, and for a panicked moment, I thought that I had slept through my alarm. On cue, a shrill ringing filled my cave, so I got up and turned it off.
Out on my landing, I looked around. The moon was a bright hunters’ moon, and it illuminated the treetops of the Jägerwald with a light, silvery glow.
My earlier resolve wavered, and I considered putting on my armor for the duel. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, a sad, mournful howl rose from the forest below. “Yeah, yeah, you win,” I muttered submissively.
With nothing else to do around my cave, I took off for Farrington. The whole flight there, I watched the treetops, but I loved the freedom that came every time I flew without my Guard armor. Aerodynamic or no, it still weighed close to a hundred pounds.
At Farrington, the south gate was closed. Mentally, I cursed and worried about how I was going to enter the city. Then, I rapped my forehead and thought, Yeah, how am I ever going to get over that obstacle?
I flew around to the northwest section of the wall and landed on the raised edge of it, much to the protest of a nearby guard. “You! Identify yourself!” he shouted over the top of his crossbow. I saw that two bolts were sticking out, pointed at me; I didn’t know how much damage they would do, but I did know it certainly wouldn’t be healthy to get shot at point-blank range.
Instead, I tried calming him down. “Relax, dude. I’m here for personal business, not starting something.”
“It’s almost two in the morning.” He didn’t lower the crossbow.
“It’s late-night business,” I replied with a glare.
“Which is?” he pressed.
“I’m meeting someone late at night, and we’re going to do something that’s my business,” I shot back defensively.
He finally lowered his weapon, muttering, “Next time you’re slutting around with the captain, stay in the city.”
I stared at him after his insult, making sure I remembered his face for later. For now, I was in a hurry, so I settled on a warning: “Next time you say something like that to me, guard or no, I’ll rip your damned throat out.”
Before he could reply and make things worse, I jumped off the wall and glided into the Market District. The Market Square wasn’t too far from where I landed, but I still hurried; I didn’t want to be late to the duel and miss my chance to parley.
I got to the square almost ten minutes early, so I sat in the middle, where I could watch the four streets leading into the square without craning my neck too much. The moon was bright in Farrington, too, so it was easy to see the main roads that were bathed in silver.
Even as bright as it was, the moonlight didn’t fully illuminate the Market Square. All of the shadows gave me a sense of unease, like I was being watched. The silence was oppressive, too, so as I sat around, waiting for Starfall, every feather bristled in the still night air.
The clock tower struck two, and I looked around harder. I didn’t like that Starfall was late to his own duel; it made me think that it was all some sort of—
Movement in the shadows. A small object flew at my head. I ducked, barely dodging it, and a fully-armored Lieutenant Starfall burst into view. He had thrown his knife, but now he was galloping at me wielding his lieutenant’s sword. He had halfway closed the distance between us, but I scorned his cowardice, striking from the shadows like that.
Anger fueled preparation, and I remembered Father’s lessons. Firm stance for defense; showing weakness would lead to my death. Let’s hope you were a competent asshole, I prayed.
Before he reached me, Starfall spun on his front hoof and kicked at me with his back hooves. I dipped backwards to dodge, and noticed the small blades strapped to his boots. Ponies’ hind legs were a serious threat in combat, but Starfall had taken that to a whole new level.
He turned his spin into a grunting sword slash. I swiped with my right hand, upwards, and caught the blade in a parry. When his slash ended, I held onto his blade with my talons; it felt like he was going to pry them off, but for a moment we stuck like that.
Before I could twist my wrist to get his sword loose, Starfall dropped it and ducked into a low, sweeping kick. I leaped over his back and turned around just in time to see that he somehow had his knife again. He was deadly quick with it, too; since I didn’t want to fight back, I lost ground at a steady rate as I dodged his flurry of stabs.
As I learned his attacks, I found a pattern. I grinned; he had power and training, but not practice. I counted his stabs, then predicted a lunge and ducked around it. Grabbing his hoof, I held it out to his right. He still pushed forward with a left-hoofed punch, but I grabbed that, too, and our faces met.
“I came here to talk, not fight,” I hissed at him.
“Good job at that,” he spat back.
I raised an eyebrow, “You want me to fight back? You’ll be dead in three hits.”
Instead of words, he flared his wings and flipped backwards, bringing his bladed back hooves up for a slash. I let go of his front hooves and flattened against the wall to dodge; then I shoved off with my wings to vault over his blades’ arc. He spun around with his knife, and I wasn’t fast enough to avoid having it leave a shallow gash along my right side.
Searing pain meant that I had had enough. I wanted diplomacy, but if he was going to be belligerent, then I was going to have to beat him into submission first.
He stabbed with his knife, but I threw out a talon slash as I dodged. He avoided it, and we danced as neither of us landed blows. I had skill, he had armor; that meant I could only aim at his face and arms. He knew that, too, and he purposefully caught a few of my swipes with his armor.
The longer we fought, the more I knew better than to fall into a pattern. With that in mind, I feigned a high swipe with my right, and he dodged right into my left uppercut.
He let out a scream of rage as my talons raked up his nose. My blow hit his helmet, causing it to fly off and land with a clatter. Before he could react, I stuck out two fingers and lunged at his eyes, stopping right before my stab landed.
Starfall blinked with a quick inhale, and I scoffed back, “Is that how you want this to end? You, blind; her, wingless? Just listen to me!”
He stared at the points of my talons, but he stayed still, so I continued. “I know why you hate us, but why did I have to learn about it from two others?”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Starfall replied through clenched teeth, then he ducked back. I swiped at empty air, then he flapped his wings in a massive backwards leap. I ran to him to keep up the fight.
His foreleg twitched, a glint of steel, and I snapped my hand up. The blade of his knife was inches from my face, and pain shot up my arm when I noticed it was sticking through my palm.
Behind my hand, Starfall was rushing at me. I spun around and threw a backhand with my injured hand. After a flash of impact, I realized the knife had lodged in his forearm, just below the lip of his shoulder’s armor. I looked at the knife, then met Starfall’s eyes.
He snarled, then used his other hoof to rip it out of us in a meaty, wet, ripping pain.
I screamed. It was a raw, hateful screech. His eyes showed weakness. I lost all sense of who I was, and instead was filled instead with bloodlust and hatred. I pounced.
Pain evaporated as I tackled him to the ground. I remembered his pathetic attempts at arming his back hooves, dodged a kick, and pinned them with my own back feet. Trapped, he twisted and flailed to try to escape, but he only succeeded in exposing his right wing to me.
Fitting, I smiled with hatred as I grabbed it with both hands and snapped the hollow bone like a twig. He screamed, so I slid the jagged, upper portion of his wing down along the lower half, finishing by stabbing it into his wing socket.
I twisted it. He went limp, and with a shudder, he gasped and spat up something thick. Leisurely, I drummed my talons on his jugular vein as I realized that I was tonight’s victor.
I was about to take my victory, but as I looked down, something black in the lower part of my vision caught my attention. Focusing on it, I saw what it was: blood, my blood, staining my chest. On top of the stripe. My stripe.
“G-go ah-head then... f-finish it,” he stammered.
A deep breath made things slow down, and suddenly, the pain in my hand was as unbearable as the cold, shuddering sting in my left shoulder. I focused on Starfall, below me, but I couldn’t block the pain out entirely.
It was a stalemate, I realized, and even then, I remembered why killing him would be a bad idea. I pulled my hand back and, with some difficulty, I hobbled down off of him. “N-no,” he winced, “I d-don’t want your p-pity.”
“Tough,” I replied mirthlessly. “If you didn’t have a family to go home to, this would have ended differently. Thank your kids, I guess.”
He struggled up to his feet, wavering as he turned to face me. “Don’t you dare...”
“Or what?” I shot back. “Or you’ll kill me?” I gestured down at myself. “You had your shot, now—”
“Gilda! Starfall! What... what the hell is going on here?”
At Iron’s burning yell, we turned; his cold, merciless glare made something in my chest crumple.
From my right, Starfall piped up with a weak chuckle. “I-Iron Bulwark. You c-couldn’t have shown up before she b-broke me, eh?”
Iron twitched a glare to him, then snapped, “As of right now, consider yourself on ‘indefinite medical leave.’” Starfall croaked in protest, so he continued, “And count yourself lucky. Go home, or to the hospital; I don’t care. Just get out of my sight!”
I flinched at his shout, and Starfall turned to leave. As he did, I remembered my hand was in pretty raw shape, so I welled up some saliva in my beak and lobbed it into my palm. It burned, but only for a second before the wound went numb. I repeated the process on the back, and was glad that it would hold until I could get some proper medical attention.
On that note, I felt myself filling up with a sense of dread; now that Starfall had gone, I was alone with one severely pissed-off Iron. He turned on me, and I fought to keep eye contact with him. Things were slightly faded and spinny, but I hadn’t been raised to let that get the better of me.
“And you! Do you know how many laws you broke tonight? I’ll overlook the fact that you lied to me about this... whatever you were hoping to prove. You entered into the city past curfew and then threatened to kill a guard? That’s not to mention the disturbance you’ve caused this evening! What do you have to say for yourself?”
I narrowed my eyes and began, “Y—”
He cut me off in a white-hot tone. “Actually, you’ve said enough, this evening. Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” I snarled. It might’ve been a lie.
His frown turned to jagged stone. “Then leave my city...”
“...And don’t come back.” Gilda flinched at my words, but having said them, they felt like they were a long time coming. Bringing her into the city had been a risk, dating her had been tumultuous, and now, she had mangled Starfall in what I could only assume was some sort of sick sense of justice.
To her credit, she didn’t say anything before she turned and began limping out of the Market Square. Her injuries would have been bad for a pony, but given her history with wounds, it seemed that griffins were made of a more resilient stuff than we were.
That was assuming, of course, that she was telling the truth about not needing a hospital.
As soon as the bitter realization crossed my mind, I had to swallow a lump in my throat. That was the worst part of it. Disregarding the assault and every way in which it affected me as Captain of the Guard, earlier this afternoon, she had lied to me. Or at least, she went out of her way to avoid telling me the truth.
Her whole two months in Farrington, I had trusted her. But in one day, she had thrown that away. She wasn’t stupid, and I even doubted if I were as quick-witted as she was when I was her age, so she had known what a duel with Starfall would cost. What she’d lose.
What we’d lose.
When she was gone, I found myself alone in the moonlight. It wasn’t even a quarter past two, which was when the next patrol was due to come through the Market Square. The timing of it all was too perfect for Gilda to be blameless in everything, which just reminded me that I had two individuals to deal with. Or three, if Officer Weatherly’s pride counted... then Sherry would have to be made aware that she was back down to four officers.
There were also the third parties to consider: Comet would be worried about Starfall, the press would be incessant with their attack on my mistaken judgement, and speaking of attack, Red Hooves would probably seize some sort of opportunity from this fiasco to try and turn the scales in favor of his sister.
And then, there was the fact that Gilda was gone. I recognized that, given her history, it had probably been a mistake to throw her out of the city like that. Given what she had done, I wasn’t certain. Even if I wanted to find her and apologize, I knew she wouldn’t accept it; plus, given how she’d probably have to fly over the wall to exit Farrington, depending on which route and direction she took, by now, she could be anywhere.
I was torn on what I needed to take care of first: preparing the Guard for the upcoming day, making sure Starfall was okay and that Comet knew that, or even, against all logic, trying to hunt down Gilda before she left to go... south. The whole situation made my head spin, but I couldn’t allow myself to be lost to distress.
My best option was to visit Sherry and see if she were still awake and sober. It felt wrong to disturb her all-too-common sleeplessness, almost as if I were taking advantage of her grief; however, she had her shift tomorrow, so there was a good chance that if she were awake, she would be coherent.
If not, she lived nearby, so not much time would be wasted.
Specifically, Sherry lived in the northeastern portion of the Residential District, only three blocks away from where the two main roads of the city intersected one another. From the Market Square, it only took about ten minutes to walk there. As I turned to head there, I started planning on what I would do after I spoke with her—or if she were unable to help.
Comet was second on my list of priorities. Starfall was her husband; she’d want to get to the hospital as soon as possible. She would be my first priority, but I reasoned that she’d either be asleep at this hour or, if she were awake, it would be because Starfall visited his home before going to Farrington General.
For the rest of my short trip, I planned out the sheer logistics of effectively firing two guards at once. Losing an officer would be difficult enough, but losing Starfall meant that I’d have to promote someone to take his place, which at least meant a few weeks’ worth of training, double shifts for those sergeants...
I shook my head vigorously before swallowing a curse. Damn him! Illegal street duels needed two members, but given his behavior over the past few months, I held him to be more responsible. He not only had Guard authority, but he was also betraying a decade’s worth of friendship by not just setting aside his problems, at least enough to not attempt murder!
The full weight of that hit me, and when it did, I felt so empty and alone that the only thing I could do was force myself to keep walking, one hoof in front of the other. It was slightly better than giving in to despair, at any rate.
When I arrived at Sherry’s, the lights were on, so I guessed she was either awake or passed out on her sofa. I tried to collect myself as much as I could, given the circumstances, and then I knocked on her door.
Something rustled inside, followed by hooffalls that approached the door. Locks clicked and the door opened to reveal a very disheveled, cold-looking Sherry. We met eyes for a moment, then she grinned weakly and looked away. “I’m not sure if you’re welcome here,” she sighed. “Last time you came to my doorstep with a look like that...”
I rubbed my right temple while I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I apologize, Sherry. But I suppose I would leave good news until morning.” She nodded, bemused, so I continued, “But tonight, there’s been an incident.”
Sherry nodded again. “Did she kill him?”
My stomach lurched. “Wait... what?”
She stepped back and opened her door. “Come on, before you let all the bugs in.” I followed her inside and closed the door behind me; she stalled at her hallway table to grab a rubber band to draw her mane into a ponytail.
A quick flash around her living room didn’t give any signs of drinking; Sherry was always a neat and orderly mare unless it came time to “unwind.” Nothing seemed out of place except for a magazine on her coffee table, and the liquor cabinet was closed. She smelled sober, too, so I continued, “What do you mean ‘Did she kill him?’ How did you know?”
The back of her head bobbed from side to side as she joked, “That’s the fun part of dating a screamer, Iron. Everyone knows when she gets stabbed.”
Her jab hit far too low, but it made sense: I had heard the eagle-like shriek that pierced the night. Still, it seemed too much for her to put together, so I pressed, “How do you know it’s a he, though?”
She turned and glared. “Who else in this city, Iron? His wife?” Sherry scoffed. “I think she’s had enough fights with a griffin to last her a lifetime.” I tried to interject, but she talked over me, “But, of course I’m referring to ex-lieutenant Starfall. Because if he’s still in your Guard after tonight—”
“He’s not,” I cut in. “Neither is she.”
Finally, I had given her some news, so she raised an eyebrow. “Okay, then. What happened to your girlfriend?”
“Don’t call her that!” I warned. I shouldn’t have.
“And what should I call her, then, Iron? You’re the one dating her, and she likes you, so if you’re just leading her on—”
“She put Starfall in the hospital, so I barred her from the city! She’s gone.” I choked on the last word, so I swallowed before whispering, “She’s gone. What have I done?”
Sherry looked at me piteously, and I tried to be strong. I tried. But the past few months, even at their best, had been shaky for me. I had hoped things would improve with time, but things culminating in this, ending like it did...
I appreciated when Sherry walked over and hugged me. My armor got in the way of things, but she was there for me, and she was a shoulder to cry on.
When I was done, I stood back up, and she patted the side of my face a few times. I wiped my eyes, then said, “Thanks.”
“It’s okay.” She took a deep breath. “But I’m guessing you came here for more than emotional support?”
I nodded. “I wanted to let you know that you’re down an officer, now.”
“And?”
“Also, I wanted to ask for your counsel on how to handle this entire situation.”
“And?” She drew the word out like she was expecting something that I was trying to hide.
I thought about it for a moment, then I thought I knew what she was after. She had entered Captain Reigner’s Guard as a highly-decorated sergeant, as part of a reward for several joint-effort tasks between the Farrington Guard and the Stalliongrad Politsiya. Between that, her service record in Manehattan, and the fact that she had twenty good years as a sergeant in Farrington, she was one of, if not the most senior sergeants I had under me.
Six years ago, she had passed on the offer to be promoted, so it had gone to then-media-hero Sergeant Starfall. Four years ago, she had passed her husband’s rank to me. And three years ago, when I became captain, she had likewise rejected the permanent rank.
Then, I had been asking out of formality. With a grim smile, I offered it again: “Would you accept a lieutenant’s rank if I offered it?”
She nodded.
My smile widened, even if in the back of my mind there was a shadow of a question of “Why?” Whatever her motives were, I was glad that she had taken the role—it was one less thing for me to worry about, and that evening, I would take what little relief I could get.
“Well, then, Lieutenant Justice—”
She scrunched her face. “Ew. No.”
With a weak chuckle, I raised a defensive hoof. “Just trying it on. But anyway, Sherry, I’m expecting this whole thing won’t blow over smoothly. Gilda’s out of the equation, Starfall’s injured, so I don’t know how to deal with that, from a pension standpoint, we’re going to need to hire some more Officers, and soon...”
“And the press is going to love you,” she added.
I scoffed. “I know.”
“Violently.”
I glared at her.
“Against your will.”
I kept glaring.
She smiled, but then changed the subject. “I think you’re overlooking part of the ‘equation.’” She raised a hoof to make quote marks. “I mean, do you really think Gilda’s gone?”
I looked over at Sherry’s grandfather clock. It read two thirty-nine, almost a half hour since I kicked her out of the city. With a nod, I responded, “You know enough about her upbringing to know how she’s going to take it. She knows I gave her a chance, she’s going to see this as either a betrayal on my part or a deep sense of shame on her own...”
“And she’ll be dead by the end of the week,” Sherry finished.
I felt like I had been slapped in the face. “W... what?”
Sherry didn’t answer at first; instead, she walked through her living room to her kitchen table. She grabbed a bundle of papers off it, came back over to me, and gave an apologetic shrug. “From her point of view, anyway, she violated her banishment thing with the long name.” She held out a stack of what I recognized as letters, though they curled as if they had been rolled up at some point. “Did she tell you she sent ‘last farewells’ out to her families?”
The fact that Sherry had obtained and opened Gilda’s mail was only mildly less disturbing than what else she was talking about. I shook my head.
Sherry continued, “If she doesn’t come back, it means she’s accepted that she’s got to be on the run from her people, but that’s not accounting for a certain Equestrian she attacked before fleeing a city...”
My heart sank. It was true; banishing her from Farrington had been a punishment for her crimes, but it wouldn’t be sufficient enough to placate the Equestrian government officials if they cared to press the matter. Given this was now a matter between Equestria and Elpithasus, they’d have to, through no fault of their own, just to avoid an apparently glaring international oversight.
Even if they settled on as passive a sentence as extradition, she would be handed over to her own government. With her banishment being what it was, there was a very good chance she wouldn’t survive the exchange.
Sherry must’ve seen the fear on my face, because she leveled with me. “And that is why you pray that she’s smart enough to come back. For her letters, to hand in her armor, to yell at you for being a jerk...”
“Hey!” I defended myself.
She shrugged aggressively. “Hey yourself. I’m not the one who kicked her out of her home for a second time. If you kept her in the Guard, we could’ve handled this in-house.” Her voice raised to a crescendo. “But don’t ‘Hey’ me just because you thought it’d be easier just to send her off to die!”
I wanted to scream back at her for how unfair a way it was to phrase it, but I shook the desire out of my mind with a deep breath. Anger gave way to remorse, and I deeply regretted having acted so rashly. I couldn’t yet grieve for that, though. There was too much left to take care of.
Even then, when I realized I might have inadvertently killed her, I realized on some level that, even if Gilda came back to the city as an upstanding, atoning guard, things would never be the same between the two of us. Things were so complicated that I didn’t even know whose fault it was.
That train of thought led me back to Starfall, and I had a similar revelation that things, between us, were severely broken. He was my friend, or at least, I still wanted to be his friend. But if there was one thing I knew about him, it was that he wasn’t one to give up a grudge easily. Part of me again wondered if I were to blame, if I should have done more to stop him.
The entire situation was a mess hidden within a disaster, and it all led to one important question:
“How do I fix this?” Iron asked quietly, staring off to his right.
Despite myself, I laughed. He turned on me, defensively, so I limited myself to a mirthful shaking of my head. “Iron. This isn’t the sort of thing you fix. This is a force of nature that you’ve got to ride out and hope it doesn’t blow you into a cliff face.”
That answer just made him even droopier, so I wracked my head for a solution. One way or another, though, he had screwed himself over in a near-perfect manner. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that this was the sort of mistake that captains could be fired over, if I didn’t have some friends on Farrington’s city council. Iron was already distraught over losing his girlfriend and friend all in one night.
It was the sort of situation that called for a moral gray area, something that was somewhat of a specialty of mine. “If you want to give her as much of a head start as possible, I can do what I can to slow down the paperwork for reporting this incident to everyone. It’ll buy her a week, maximum, during which she’ll either show up one day, or...”
I let the question dangle. I also didn’t have the heart to remind him that she was the type that “gave up” when things got too disparaging in their lives. I hoped, for Iron’s sake, that it didn’t come to that, but at the same time, hope was an idle and pointless thing.
A long, harsh silence fell over us, so I satisfied a curiosity I had when he first showed up for the evening. “Anyway, you did let Starfall’s wife know what happened to him, right?”
His hesitation said everything.
With a baleful sigh, I shook my head. “You want to fix things, Iron? Start small, build up. Right now, Starfall’s wife is going to be awake, worried sick about him.”
He nodded. “I’ll go to her.” He shuffled his hooves a little, then added, “But what about Starfall?”
I grinned sadly at how adorable his single-mindedness was. Granted, this was probably his first time staring down the barrel on something this huge, so I chalked his current state of mind to a combination of shock, fear, and—though he hated the word—inexperience.
“Iron...” I didn’t know where to start, so I reverted to Stalliongrad. “Planning a war is easy. Planning both sides of a war is complicated, but methodical. Planning peace?” I shrugged. “We didn’t do things like that for a reason back in Stalliongrad.”
He raised a dubious eyebrow. “Didn’t do what back in Stalliongrad?”
I smiled. I had left those days behind me, or so I thought, so I answered, “Iron, the things you don’t know about me and Stalliongrad could fill a few books.” He blanched, so I ended on a high note, “Nothing too severe. I usually left the dark shit to the corrupt guys.”
It seemed to be an acceptable answer for him, so I went back to his main point. “Anyway, you and Starfall, you and Gilda, you and the Guard, you and Farrington, you and Equestria, you and Elpithasus...” I gave him the most reassuring shrug I could, but it was a shrug nonetheless. The future was murky and a lot of it hinged on the whims of an emotionally unstable teenager. The only thing I could guarantee was, “I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not a miracle worker.”
He nodded, so I pointed my hoofful of letters at the door behind him. “Now, I love you, but get the hell out of my house. Comet’s waiting, and I know what that’s like.”
A quick, relieved grin crossed his face before the truth of my words sunk in and he cringed with guilt. “Right. I’ll go now.” He turned around and I walked with him to my door. Before he left, he turned and said, “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I warned. It was cold, and it was cruel, but it was true. Nonetheless, he nodded appreciatively; then, he was gone.
Now that I was alone, I bit my lip and let out an exasperated sigh. When my breath was almost gone, I blew the rest of it out in a gust; I sealed the whole thing by clicking the back of my throat.
I had never known Iron to screw up. But when he did, he did it hard.
Still, I was a mare of my word. I took Gilda’s letters with me and into my study. I tried to ignore the “decor” that lined one wall, which was really just a bunch of unused furniture and supplies from a while ago, back before everything turned to dull aching.
For now, I couldn’t focus on those relics from a happier time. I set down Gilda’s letters, then pulled out some parchment of my own. Iron came to me tonight both to warn me of an upcoming storm and to give me the tools and authority I needed to batten down the hatches.
There was hope—not enough to let Iron know about—but it was a faint and distant illusion. It was a long shot, but I thought there was a way to fix this all on my terms, unless she killed herself. If that happened, even contingency plans were liable to fall through.
In my heart, I prayed that she wasn’t that stupid. Then I grabbed a pen and started writing a few very important letters. Then after that, there would be more planning, plotting, and justice.
I sighed in the face of it all, but I didn’t let that stop me. For now, I had a lot of work to do.