Yuragwyn: Ours

---Chapter 17

‡Eglantine‡

                Sweat has drenched my body through by the time Caergwyn and I make it to the Granzian headquarters in Entel. They told me they’d be here to receive me when I found the proper news.  It is the perfect hideout, really.  Granziar took it and left no survivors, and it is so remote that the rest of the country is entirely unaware the little outpost was even attacked. 

                They’ll take this news on the fastest pegasuses to Rite and Granziar, delight over it, marvel at their good fortune, and tear Yuragwyn apart before Kaitra and the rest can get to their feet.  Then they will give me what they promised, and I will no longer have to worry about being able to care for myself out on my own. 

                I rap on the section of wall beside the gnarled gumbat tree to the right of the trail and wait, hopping from one foot to another and looking around for Hiltraud to appear and kill me, for someone to open the door and let me in to safety.  

                Long moments later feet shuffle to the latch on the other side of the wall and admit me into the sanctum.  Wordless, he leads me through the dirt compound to a small, square building in the center.  I duck my head as I enter.  Cyneric himself is sprawled in a large wooden chair in front of a desk. 

                He smirks a bit, looking me up and down, “You certainly perfected the art of deceiving.  They spared nothing in your care.  This shall not be nearly as hard as I thought.”  And then looking at me as though he were addressing me for the first time, he says, “Come now, what choice morsels slipped from their mouths?”

                I swallow against the sudden lump in my heart.  “Honorable Urien...”

                “No titles, dear,” he interrupts. 

                “Urien is rather shaken up over Briallen and will no longer heed Lord Cadfael’s instruction,” I blurt, wishing I could scoop up all my words and bury them even as I pour more out.  “I also snuck into Urien’s tent while he was out and read the letter Hulderic sent him.  The Master is near death, but no heir has been named.”

                Cyneric’s chuckle turns into a full-bellied roar, and even as he signs the papers giving me ownership of a little house in Rite, I turn hollow inside with guilt.  The three pages he gives me chaff my hand, and the meager words written across the top- DEED OF SALE- swirl around amongst my tears and become TRAITOR and THEIF and MURDERER.  I pay Cyneric, not in bills or coins or labor, but in lives, lives of the people who fed me and gave me these clothes and lives that have never heard of me who are only trying to survive this war also. 

                “Eglantine, dear,” Cyneric says offhandedly, “You came with a pegasus, did you not?”

                I nod dumbly.

                “Then go off to your new home.  You have upheld your end of the agreement.  Goodbye.” 

                The door between us closes before I can even process his words.  I move towards the opening in the wall to let myself out, but the thick, rusty handle is too hard to move with my one spindly hand, even with my full weight pressed against it. 

                I collapse against the stone wall and let my tears soak into the dust. 

₰Traugott₰

                I make my way quickly through the wind and mist to a small village just a mile away from Cordina in hopes of borrowing a sturdy pegasus.  Raindrops hit my outstretched sword with small metallic plinks, but the rustling of the grasses drowns it out and any sounds of an oncoming attacker.  Calanthe’s words slither around me and turn my stomach, but I push them aside and strain towards the single light on the watchman’s post a few yards away.