Written in 65 minutes.

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Jason did not turn back before he was inside his room, stoking the fire he’d left burning in his room. But he knew that she followed. Not right away — there had been a slight hesitation. He was halfway up the stairs before he had heard the back door creaking, and at the door to his room before he heard her light footfall.

The door closed behind him, and now, finally, he turned to face her, once again marveling that he ever mistook her for a meek, docile puppet that would follow him to the capital without protest. Her cheeks were flush, her eyes still glinting with the same temper that had her chin lifted slightly as if that movement alone could put them at an equal height. The waves of chestnut hair that had been neatly tied back tumbled around her shoulders, her hands fisted at her side.

“You hide well,” he told her, and her expression flickered, confusion clouding those eyes now.

“I don’t understand.”

Jason went to sit at the square table tucked under a window, the edges rough, suggesting it had been constructed quickly by an less than skilled craftsman. He laid his sword in his lap, reached for the whetstone he kept in his bag, and began to sharpen it in long, slow strokes. “Had you looked at me like that in Shadwell, I would have known you at once as someone of noble blood line. I wouldn’t have spent so long wondering why Valentin had chosen you.”

“This is the conversation you choose to have right now?” she demanded, but the words held little heat, only bewilderment. She came a few steps closer but did not sit across from him.

Or unfurl her fists.

“It matters, doesn’t it? You say Valentin kept you captive all these years just to force you into marriage.” Jason finished the exercise, tucked the stone away, and slid the sword back into the sheath. He focused on her. “Were you planning to kill him all along or only if I managed to get you to Tonderah?”

Elizabeth hesitated at that question, perhaps not expecting it. Her brows drew together, her expression pinched. “Vengeance was a dream, but not nearly as strong as freedom. He promised me that, and so I went with him to Shadwell. He told me it would be safe there, a quiet place where I could build a life.” Her lips twitched, though there no humor in her eyes. “He excels at wrapping a lie in a truth, doesn’t he?”

“He does.” Jason waited a moment, but she added nothing. “You said you were bound. To the village or to the cottage itself?”

“The village. I was able to go maybe a few feet beyond the traditional borders, but any further and my head—” She touched the side of her head, her fingers lingering near her temple. “It would scream in agony. And if I went too much further—”

“You would fall to your feet unconscious,” Jason said.

She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “You have some experience with this?”

“Some.” But that was not a story for this night or any other. “He gave me a leather pouch with coins for your expenses on the return trip.” Jason rose to his feet, crossed the room where he’d left his cloak. She stepped away from him, almost scurrying in her haste to keep distance between them. He frowned. “I thought we’d reached an accord. I have no interest in harming you.”

“Not with my daggers, but you have weapons of your own that could do easily enough. I don’t care to learn what form your lies take.”

There was little point in defending his honor. She wouldn’t believe the words, and he couldn’t prove himself any other way at the moment. Instead, he ignored the insult, and returned to his task. From one of the folds of the cloak he drew out the pouch, and she looked at it with some curiosity.

“A charm of bondage can be broken by the person who cast it. Or—”

“Or if the oath that created the bound is fulfilled. I claimed myself as his betrothed and promised to leave with you. I suppose that was enough.”

“It was. He used this, I suppose, to pass the charm to me.” Strong magic, stronger than Valentin was thought to possess. Had he delved into something deeper and darker, or did he have someone else to perform those deeds?

Neither was a pleasing thought.

Jason held out the pouch. “Take it. The coins are meant for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said vengeance was not your goal. Freedom is. You were escaping tonight. If you’d wanted to kill Valentin, you’d have gone with me and remained the meek and mild betrothed. You chose flight. Valentin owes you at least the cost of the trip.”

Elizabeth’s eyes dropped to the pouch again, and she took an unsteady breath. “You would really allow me to leave? Without an argument?”

“You answered my questions. And you know who I am now—”

“I know you are a Quartermaine who works for Valentin Cassadin. How do I know this isn’t a trick? One last lie from Valentin to let me think I’d finally broken free? You’ll let me go, then track me down again—”

“I don’t lie. If you want to go, you can go.” He reached for one of those fists now, gently tugging the fingers loose until he could wrap them around the bag. “I still intend to finish what I started. Vengeance might not be your goal, Miss Barrett. But it is mine.”

—

Elizabeth licked her lips, raising her head from the money he’d put in her palm before lifting her gaze back to his steady, calm eyes.

“You take his coin.”

“He trusts me. He sent me to fetch you. He didn’t think I’d recognize your name or anything else about you. And I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t tried to escape.”

If she hadn’t used the daggers that screamed her heritage from the tops of the trees. Her fingers curled more tightly around the bag, the ridged edges of the coins digging into her skin. “How did Valentin come to hire a Quartermaine bastard?”

His mouth tightened, and his gaze skittered away for just a heartbeat. The word bothered him, she realized, though he’d used to it first. Perhaps he thought if he wielded the slur, it would lose its power.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that—”

Jason’s eyes returned to hers, and she closed her mouth. “You said earlier that you owed me no answers, and that was true. If you intend to take that money and go, then you have no interest or use for me. I can take you to the nearest port, help you find transportation, and we can part ways.”

No questions or answers on either side, she realized, and for a long moment, she wanted to say yes. He was offering her the freedom she’d craved for so long, the freedom she’d nearly believed was already hers.

But he’d spoken of woman with another set of daggers, hadn’t he? Could it be, was it even possible that her sister had survived?

Oh, could Brenda be out there, looking for her?

“And if I stay,” Elizabeth said, “what then?”

Jason considered her for a long moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. If you are from Nevoie, if the story you’ve told me and the one I’d already heard, if it’s even a fraction of the truth, then you have already given enough. Vengeance does not have to be your goal—”

“But the woman—the other dagger—do you know how to find her? Can you—can you take me to her?”

Jason looked away, then walked back towards the fire to build it even higher, hiding his expression. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You said you’d promised her vengeance—”

“I told her—” Jason turned, then grimaced. “I told her I intended to carry out the deed on my own, and that I had even before she’d come to find me. And the word would spread throughout the kingdom so there was no need to send further word.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes, absorbed the blow to the small sparkle of hope that begun to bloom. Lost to her again, so quickly. Anyone could have found the daggers in the wreckage that had been left behind, she thought. Anyone could have posed as her sister—

“But I could find her. I know who to ask,” Jason said, and Elizabeth looked back, their eyes meeting. “But it leaves us with a problem to resolve. Valentin is expecting you in the capital in three weeks time. I don’t know if he’s having the roads watched, but if he is and thinks I’ve betrayed him, taken you somewhere else—”

“Oh.” Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping her free hand around her middle, still looking at the coins in her hand. A wave of weariness swept over her, and suddenly it all seemed impossible. “Three weeks,” she repeated softly. “Is there a way to learn if the roads are being watched?”

“Not reliably.”

“All right. Then I ask you to give me the name of this person you would ask, and you can go ahead to the capital. Tell him that I have refused to marry him, and that he’ll have to deal with me himself.” Elizabeth nodded, firm in her plan. She rose to her feet. “You’ll have fulfilled your end of the bargain, and with any luck, by the time Valentin goes to Shadwell and learns I’ve managed to leave, I’ll have my answers.”

“And what then?” Jason challenged. “He’ll know I lied—”

“Then you tell him the truth. I escaped. I was already in the forest before you caught up with me,” she reminded him. Elizabeth set the coins back on the table. “You’ll return that to him as proof I did not travel with you. Leave out all that’s happened since we left each other at the door earlier tonight, and we’ll both be satisfied.”

“And what of you? You’ll be no better off than I found you—”

“I’ll be free. And perhaps on my way to reuniting with the last of my family. It’s an improvement,” Elizabeth told him. She lifted her chin, met his eyes head on. “You gave me a choice, remember. To stay or go. I have chosen to go. I only ask that you let me leave with the name of the person who can help me on the next step.”

——

He had no argument for her, none that he could articulate properly at the moment, so Jason retreated. He told her that he would give her the direction in the morning, after they’d had some sleep and something to eat.

And he hoped in the morning, he’d find a way to deal with the complication he’d been presented. A simple job that was meant to cement him more firmly in Valentin’s trust now threatened to destroy his carefully laid plans.

He could go around her, Jason supposed. Send word to Valentin where she was going so that he was taken out of it. He could go to the capital and tell Valentin the truth — all that Elizabeth had shared and that short of forcing her to come with him, he’d been left with no choice. Valentin hadn’t properly prepared him for the task.

But that wasn’t a real option, and Jason knew that even as the plan was formulating. If Elizabeth’s story was true, and there was no reason to doubt her, not with everything else he knew on the matter, then she deserved the freedom she’d asked for.

To be reunited with the woman who might be her sister—though—

The lady of Nevoie had perished with her daughter — and there had no mention of another girl.

That realization was his first thought upon waking the next morning, when the weak gray morning light shined through the window.

The lady of Nevoie had been a widow with one daughter, aged sixteen, when the sickness had swept through the land. But there was no mistaking the fact that Elizabeth had a set of daggers, and the training that she’d only have been given if she were a member of the family.

But perhaps she was like Jason — after all, hadn’t Alan Quartermaine educated and trained his bastard son for a time? Given him some of the privileges of the birth he hadn’t earned?

Bastard or not, if Elizabeth carried the blood line of Nevoie with ties to an ancient royal house, the same bloodline that had married into Rhigwyn’s monarchy, making Elizabeth cousin to the recently deceased king—

She’d have been a very interesting piece of leverage in Valentin’s plot to seize the throne of Rhigwyn.

Jason couldn’t let Valentin find her, take her captive again.

She was waiting in the common room the next morning, sitting impatiently at a table, her foot tapping. When he appeared, she rose to her feet expectantly. “You said you’d give me the name today—”

“I’ll do better than that,” Jason said. With a reluctant sigh, he continued, “I’ll escort you there myself.”

Elizabeth blinked. “But you said he was watching the roads—”

“Maybe. And maybe he’s not. Valentin doesn’t have nearly as many friends as he thinks he does. There are those who take his coin and lie anyway. In any case, you’ll find it easier to find your relative if I am there.”

“Why? Will your friend not help me?”

“She’ll help you. But I’ll have to stop her from getting too involved.” Jason paused, thinking of the woman who had raised him. “She has a habit of speaking truth to power, and she hates Valentin Cassadine nearly as much as I do. If you tell her about your past, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

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