Can't get the staff

[Elyna]

24th Ymiden

It had been easy enough to find the Gazette offices, but harder to find the woman she was looking for, Sabine. Elyna had made an enquiry at what she assumed was the front desk at mid-morning, and then again at mid-day. Finally she returned and her frustration was clear. She needed to speak to the journalist and the noblewoman didn’t have all day to wait around for her to be ready. What was even more infuriating, is that she was sure that her message simply wasn’t being passed. The man behind the front desk had never even moved to go into the offices. Not once. No one had been past either, so how could she pass the message on?
Elyna pushed her hands into her breaches and reminded herself to breathe slow and deep. She wouldn’t let her temper get the better of her. However, what had started as a blissful day, had quickly deteriorated into a foul mood and she scowled at the man and his cowlick of brown hair as he sat behind the desk. Back straight, as though there was a pole down his spine.
“You’re sure,”
“I am certain, Miss?”
“I told you, can you just tell your journalist, Sabine - that Elyna would like to speak to her, urgently.”
The young man looked up from a pile of letters and gave a polite smile. One that betrayed nothing. Not even a hint of acknowledgement for Elyna’s building ire.
The Skyrider clenched her hands into fists, which stopped them being pulled out from her pockets.
“No second name?”
“No second name,” Elyna growled, aware that she was loosing any hope she’d had of being inconspicuous.
“You’re sure that Sabine will want to see you.”
“No- I mean yes. Yes. Absolutely for the fifth time! If she is there, can you tell her?”
The man, who was smaller still than Elyna herself, ran a cool eye over her scruffy attire and sniffed.
“Our journalists receive a lot of trouble from folks who want to tell their stories, who didn’t want their stories to be told.”
“This-” Ely reached up, pushing a hand through her fringe with a sigh, “this isn’t—what, what now?” She demanded as his eyes widened in shock.
“Oh my, you poor thing,” he lent forward.
Elyna was left to spin and look over her shoulder, “pardon?”
“Your forehead…did you chose that…is it a tattoo?”
It was with a groan that the Skyrider quickly flattened her fringe back down over her brow, stroking is flat with both hands in a desperate attempt to hide it. It wasn’t so noticeable, was it? Cheeks flushed with self-conscious embarrassment she turned to leave.
“Never mind…it doesn’t matter.”

[Sabine]

“Elyna?”

There weren’t many nobles with whom Sabine was familiar enough that she could recognize the back of their heads, but Lady Elyna Burhan was one of them. Sabine blamed it entirely on their past meetings, which had all been so emotionally-charged that the woman’s features were practically branded on her brain.

“What are you doing here? Have you been here long?” She stepped out of the Gazette’s main office with her leather bag in one hand and a letter in the other. Her confusion was plain – though it lessened significantly as she took in Elyna’s flustered expression. It was a look she’d seen countless times before from many of the Gazette’s visitors.

Sabine narrowed her eyes, and turned to the receptionist. “Reed, how long has she been here?”

“Hard to say, really. She’s been in and out.”

“What exactly do you mean, ‘in and out’?”

Reed shrugged and shuffled the papers on his desk into a neat pile. “She stopped by in the morning, and then a few breaks later, and now she’s back again.” He sniffed. “She’s a persistent one, I’ll give her that.”

Sabine squinched up her forehead and shot Elyna an apologetic look. “What does she need? Maybe I can help.”

“Oh, she was just looking for you.”

“Reed…” She lowered her voice warningly and enunciated each word as if she were speaking to a disobedient child. “I’ve been here since the eighth break. Why wouldn't you come get me?”

“I thought you knew.”

Her fingers twitched. She was going to kill him. Abby would just have to find another receptionist to take care of the Gazette’s office, because this one wasn’t going to be alive for much longer. “How could I possibly have known that Lady Elyna Burhan was here to see me?”

A flicker of recognition flashed in Reed’s eyes, and he looked at Elyna with renewed interest. His gaze drifted from her breeches to the now-hidden mark on her forehead, and he allowed himself a raised eyebrow and a vague look of judgment before wiping his expression clean.

“Lady Elyna Burhan is here to see you, Sabine.”

Ilaren, give me strength.

“Thank you, as always, for your diligent work,” Sabine replied dryly. She dropped her outgoing letter on Reed’s desk and turned to Elyna, shaking her head all the while. “Ely - er, Lady Elyna. I’m on my way to the Marketplace. Do you have enough time to walk with me?”

If Elyna agreed, Sabine would follow her out the door into the Ymiden heat and would take several steps before breaking the silence.

“You wanted to talk?” Sabine's face was clouded with uncertainty. The last time she had seen Elyna was in the Fighting Arena, before the chaos of the blue cloaks and the attacks and the stampede out of the stadium. The noblewoman had seemed at her wit’s end, determined to fight for the ex-Baron of Krome’s life and lose her own in the process.

A brave, but foolish, decision.

Not that Sabine was one to judge.

“Is everything okay? How’s your… trainer? Malcolm, was it?” She eyed Elyna cautiously. “I hear he’s a free man now.”

[Elyna]

Elyna turned at her name and shoulders slumped with relief. It was obvious that Sabine hadn’t been involved in the conspiracy. The noblewoman’s honey coloured gaze narrowed on the man behind the desk as his eyes turned in a casual flick over. Yes, everyone paid a lot more attention when they knew you were a noble, for better or worse. Her own gaze returned to Sabine, her frustration fading far more quickly than it had built up. She’d wanted to see Sabine, and now she could. No amount of ire or ranting would give her back the wasted breaks of time.
In response to the journalists questions the woman gave a nod and gestured to the door, holding it open for them both before they stepped out into bright sunshine. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the light and smoothed her fingers over her fringe, ensuring that it lay flat over Pre’s mark. She had no desire to offend the Immortal, but also still had no idea how to inform people of the blessing she had received. No doubt, the right time would come. The daughter of an honourable judge, Elyna was well aware the importance of truth and justice in a world that promised chaos.
The silence between them was filled with the memories of their last meetings. All of them charged with danger and emotion. Elyna swallowed, heat racing down the back of her neck and staining freckle dusted cheeks. Her gaze remained fixed on the streets ahead as they walked. Shoppers, workers, slaves, all the people of the city bustled past, and their pace seemed slower, held back in time.
“Malcolm…” she nodded, “he’s not my trainer,” she pushed hands into loose pockets and considered her words carefully. Suddenly tongue-tied, but this was the reason she’d wanted to see Sabine after all.
“He and I….we’re getting married on the thirtieth. I would be honoured if you would attend,” her gaze fell to the cobbles they walked over, the dirt that smeared the stones, “not as a journalist, but as a witness. I’m afraid for the future and how the world will see the time to come, and I think we’ll need witnesses, good, strong witnesses that if…if the worst happens will tell our story for us,” it was probably too vague or dramatic, but Elyna wasn’t one for words.

[Sabine]

The mid-afternoon sun bore down on the two women as they made their way towards the market. It was a heavy sun, the kind that crushed spirits and ruined clothing with its heat. Sabine could already feel the sweat pooling under her arms in spite of the light cotton shirt she wore to stay cool.

Still, it was hard to be annoyed when others had it far worse than her. The Iron Hand, for one. Sabine frowned sympathetically at a lone Knight who trotted by, decked out in armour, weapons, and an expression of distinct misery.

He was not a man she envied.

Speaking of people I don’t envy…

Sabine fanned herself with her right hand and glanced sideways at Elyna. The noblewoman spoke of marriage to the definitely-not-her-trainer ex-Baron as if it were a death sentence or something to be afraid of, not the happy occasion that most Ryns insisted on celebrating.

Was Elyna being forced into the marriage, then? It wasn’t unheard of, especially within the Kingdom’s noble class. The rich got richer by pairing up their sons and daughters with equal or more powerful partners, regardless of what the children themselves wanted.

But even as she thought it, Sabine recognized that her math didn’t quite add up. Elyna had shown true distress and fear at the sight of Malcolm fighting in the Arena. She had been willing to risk her life for the man. People didn’t risk their lives for others unless there was deep love or loyalty there. And besides that, Malcolm wasn’t even a noble any more. Why would her parents force a marriage to someone who had been stripped of their title?

She stopped at a sheltered fruit stand next to the road and picked up an apple, weighing it in her hand as she weighed her response. The prospect of attending a noble’s wedding, even Elyna’s, made her stomach turn. There would likely be others there – other nobles swathed in jewels and privilege, entirely oblivious to Sabine and others like her who laboured hard for the survival and happiness of their families. What would they even talk about? How exciting it was that the colour yellow was in season?

That sounded torturous.

Sabine picked up a second apple and dug six copper nels from her coin purse for the merchant. After she had exchanged money and a quick word of thanks with the seller, she led Elyna a few feet away from the stall and held out an apple for her to take.

“What makes you so afraid for the future?” she asked, in lieu of responding to the wedding invitation. When in doubt, stall with questions.

“You don’t seem like someone who scares easily.”

[Reviewer’s Note: -6cn for apple purchase.]

[Elyna]

Elyna found that she rolled her shoulders as she walked, trying to ease the linen shirt from sticking to her back. Grateful that she’d pulled her hair into a pony-tail so that the weight wasn’t left clinging to her neck. Whatever light breeze there was, felt a tiny bit cooler. Sabine, she thought was uncharacteristically quiet, until she realised that she knew the woman very little. The few times they had met had been intense, and probably memories the woman wanted to forget. But still...they Skyrider felt drawn to a sense of resolution and purpose in the journalist. She accepted the apple with thanks and examined it, eyes refusing to focus as she considered the question, distracted.

A pair of children ran past, one chasing the other with a wooden sword. She took a step back to let them go and looked up, “call it a healthy concern for the future, not just…fear?” Elyna gave a light-hearted reply and looked around. No one was listening, or even close enough to hear their quiet conversation in the middle of a busy marketplace.

The words were difficult to come out with. There was no simple way to explain everything she was giving up to marry Malcolm. As he’d said, the choice was either him or her family. Still, trying to say such things aloud felt wrong. Elyna smoothed her fingers over the skin and looked around once more, “I’ll explain,” she promise but gestured to the quieter streets where there was less chance of being overheard.

“As you can probably gather from my display at the Arena, marrying Malcolm is my choice. My family won’t know, they wanted me to marry someone else,” she lifted her shoulders in a shrug, maybe if she wasn’t a noble, Sabine would relax a bit more. Or would she always be considered an outcast, too noble for common folk, too common for nobility?

She shook herself, it was all so tangled and she had no idea what would be safe to share, “I need your help,” it was the truth, “I wanted to invite you to our wedding, but I also need your help. I need you to investigate what happened in Krome. Malcolm…was poisoned at the end of Ashan in Krome, then as soon as he returned to Andaris he was arrested for the murder of V-his wife. He survived the arena, but they wanted him dead. You saw what I saw, you know it’s true…someone is trying to kill him and I can’t…” The noblewoman bit her bottom lip, “if…Malcolm has a tendency to survive. But I’m afraid that…I…” she clenched her back teeth tight together

“I’m pregnant. If they’re trying to kill him they know they can’t succeed. But a baby is vulnerable,” Elyna forced herself to look at Sabine. She was trusting the woman with something more precious than even her own life.

“I need to know what is happening…and I can’t go myself,” she forced a faint smile, “besides…I thought you were the kind of person who just…couldn’t resist a good story," she took a triumphant bite of the apple.

[Sabine]

Sabine tossed the apple from hand to hand as she followed Elyna onto a quieter side street. The same disconcerting thought kept popping into her head, regardless of how stubbornly she tried to push it away: was she asking about Elyna’s fears to stall, or because she was genuinely concerned?

Her chest tightened, and she suspected the worst.

With her debts sufficiently repaid, at least in Sabine’s mind, she could no longer hide behind obligation as an excuse. It seemed possible - likely, even - that she was actually concerned for the noblewoman’s well-being.

Damn.

That was unfortunate.

In any case, she doesn’t act much like a noblewoman, Sabine reasoned. And that was true. In the short time they’d known each other, Elyna had never once flaunted her wealth or her connections or her surname. Not only that, but, against all odds, the noblewoman was actually kind. Kind, and brave. She seemed to despise slavery as much as Sabine and fought for those she loved without a thought for herself.

Plus, she rebelled against convention so much so that her parents didn’t even know about the marriage.

These were all strong arguments for setting aside her prejudices and accepting Elyna for who she was, but Sabine could still feel her own discomfort in the tightness of her neck and the slant of her shoulders. She couldn’t help think that she would have felt much more relaxed if only Elyna hadn’t been a noble.

Sabine’s thoughts trailed off as the conversation took a more serious turn. She stopped tossing the apple and listened closely as Elyna requested more than just her attendance at the wedding.

Nobles always have a hidden agenda, a small, self-satisfied voice sang out.

And they never ceased to surprise.

“You’re pregnant?” Sabine repeated, stunned. She immediately glanced at Elyna’s stomach, as if she had somehow missed the signs. “Shit. Elyna, I… I don’t know what to say.” But how could she say no? She could resent the noblewoman all she wanted for bringing her unwillingly into her misfortune, but she certainly couldn’t say no.

Not when Elyna was pregnant.

Not when her life, her child's life, was at stake.

“Shit.” Sabine rubbed her forehead. Gray would have so yelled at her for being reckless had he been there. At least Elyna was right about one thing: it would make a hell of a story. “Okay. You said Malcolm was poisoned and then arrested, right? I hate to ask, but did Malcolm actually murd-” she lowered her voice as a merchant passed by, “murder his wife?”

Once Elyna responded, she would move on to her next set of questions. “Is there anyone you can think of who might want him dead? Or his child? If I do this…” If. Right. As if there was any question. “If I do this, I’ll need somewhere to start looking.”

[Elyna]

It was a protective hand that smoothed down the creases of her shirt, seeing where Sabine’s gaze inevitably dropped. There was nothing to see, not yet. Nothing Elyna could detect herself anyway. She had all the experience and memory of trials of sickness and weakness though, that, along with Levinia’s confirmation was enough for her to know with certainty that yes, she was pregnant. With any good fortune, in Vhalar, her baby would come into their world. Malcolms' baby. What could she say in response to Sabine? Nothing. She simply nodded and smoothed her shirt again, self-conscious and cheeks starting to flush with embarrassed heat.

Her eyes narrowed at the question though, but she paused before answering.

“No,” Elyna confirmed, “I don’t know how things were between them, but he didn’t kill his wife. I don’t know what took her, age or poison, but it wasn’t Mal,” she hadn’t asked him and they hadn’t spoken about it. It was simply something that she knew. Few things were certain in life, but she was confident that Malcolm wouldn’t have hurt Vanessa.

It was hard to answer the following questions though. How could she tell Sabine what she needed to know, without explaining that Malcolm was the son of an Immortal? Would Sabine even believe her, if she did tell? Not that she would, but still. How could she explain the vast age difference between Vanessa and Malcolm? But then, it wasn’t something she herself had questioned…

Elyna finished her apple and dropped the core in a patch of dirt with a beam of sunshine. Maybe it would grow in this dismal place? The thought suddenly caught up, that if it did, in a hundred arcs time…would Malcolm walk beneath the tree she’d planted? Her breath caught and Elyna forced herself back to the present with a shiver.

“No one knows about the baby. Just you, Malcolm and my doctor. I didn’t even know before that day in the arena – so it’s nothing to do with that. I don’t even think it’s something to do with me,” she admitted. They hadn’t been careful after Vanessa had left, but who could have known about the affair? Who hated either of them that much to frame Malcolm for his Wife’s death?

“Malcolm has two sons, Marcus and Vaughn,” she spoke slowly, piecing together the information herself, “he had already passed his title to them, so I don’t know what they’d gain,” she coughed, the embarrassment returning, “It’s Marcus I was supposed to marry, but again - he wouldn’t know…” It was a complicated world. Messy and fraught with danger. After checking it was vaguely clean the Skyrider sank down, sitting on an empty wooden crate.

“Malcolm thinks Marcus is behind the poisoning, I think. Why? I don’t know why. I don’t know why Marcus would want to kill his father. I’ve met him and I didn’t…I find it hard to believe he was responsible. I mean, he could have done it, but I don’t understand,” hopeless she looked up at the blonde and lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“You see, it’s a mess. It’s a mystery and I can’t help but feel, uneasy…it needs solving. There’s a story in this somewhere, which needs to be told.

[Sabine]

Love was blind.

Wasn’t that what her mother had told her, in a rare moment of good health and sobriety? Love overlooked faults and wrongdoing with a stubborn insistence that was difficult to argue with. When her father had dragged their family into deeper and deeper debt, both Sabine and her mother had ignored all the warning signs until it was too late, choosing instead to believe that he was infallible.

It was for that reason that Sabine took Elyna’s insistence on Malcolm’s innocence with the tiniest grain of salt. She believed that Elyna believed she was telling the truth, of course, but filed away a note to look into the true cause of the Baroness’ death. If it turned out to have been Malcolm, Elyna deserved to know.

All of Rynmere deserved to know, for that matter.

None of that was said out loud. Instead, Sabine polished the apple against her shirt and listened as Elyna speculated about who might want Malcolm dead. His sons seemed to be the biggest red flag: Marcus and Vaughn Krome. She noted their names, and paid particular attention to the details about Marcus. If Elyna was meant to marry Marcus but chose his father instead, then maybe he was out for revenge. Perhaps unrequited love and a desire for vengeance had triumphed over his blood ties.

She shook her head.

The lives of nobility were so strange.

“A mess?” Sabine laughed, not unkindly. “That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

Her mind was beginning to race with plans and tactics. She would have to go to Krome and would somehow need to get close enough to the deceased Baroness’ family to peer behind the curtain. If she could find even one string of truth, perhaps the whole tangled mystery would unravel.

Meeting Malcolm face-to-face would also help. If he was a murderer, maybe there would be some sort of sign (ideally hung around his neck with the word murderer painted in bright red). At very least, she might be able to gather more details about his arrest and his enemies.

I guess I’m going to that wedding.

She took a bite of her apple and chewed it thoughtfully, wiping away the juice that trickled down her chin. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Okay, I’ll help you – but I have a few conditions. The first is that this will count as both your wedding gift and your ‘congratulations on being pregnant’ gift." Sabine raised an eyebrow in jest. "I’m not getting suckered into buying you fancy dishes or pretty hair ornaments or anything like that.

“Second, I’ll need to be able to publish what I find in the Gazette. There’s no way they’ll let me leave for Krome without coming back with a story. And, like you said, this is a story that needs to be told.” She looked seriously at the noblewoman. “Think carefully about saying yes to this, Lady Elyna. The ending might not turn out the way you expect, and I won’t hold back.

“Lastly, I need you to keep my involvement secret: from your friends, from your family, and most especially from Malcolm. The Kromes can’t know I’m investigating this, for both our sakes.” She didn’t want to imagine what would happen if they found out.

“Can you agree to that?”

[Elyna]

Elyna couldn’t help the smile that edged over her features at Sabine’s response. Yes it was a mess. It was a total disaster. But she had made her choice, and she chose Malcolm every time over her family and the lifetime of duty to Burhan. The Skyrider lent her hands on the box and looked up, as Sabine listed her conditions, brow creasing in confusion. Why would the woman buy her a gift? A gift in congratulations? In celebrations of the baby? A lump formed in her throat. She told herself it was just hunger because she could smell fresh bread from the nearby bakery. The woman thought that the pregnancy was worth celebrating and Elyna was touched. Caught by the emotion enough to drop her gaze.

The other conditions fell and she inhaled slow and deep, considering her reply before she looked up again, “I won’t tell anyone,” she promised, “not even Malcolm.” She had no intention of telling the Captain, suspicious that he would worry or tell her to call off the investigation. But the second condition, that was harder. This was her life. What would be the story? A scandalous affair of nobility? A Skyrider got herself knocked up, she had a certain amount of trust for the journalist before her, but no matter what Sabine wrote, what would the people think?

A shy person at heart, the thought of her life being a matter of casual gossip filled her with dread. Clearing her throat Elyna ran fingers down her nose, thoughtful, “how about if I employ your services myself, separate from the gazette?” She offered, “I could pay you three gold for each day of your journey to and from Krome and the time you spend there…”

[Sabine]

Of course.

While Elyna may not have played the part of noblewoman to the same extent as the rest of her kin, she was still noble enough to recognize the danger of her story being published in the Gazette. The hesitation on her face told Sabine all she needed to know. It was not Elyna’s fear for her life that held her back, but fear of gossip – of the dreaded ‘scandal’.

The same fear that every other noble had.

Predictable and unoriginal.

She swallowed her disappointment at Elyna’s reaction – it was, after all, the same one she saw whenever a person of some perceived or actual importance found themselves face-to-face with a Gazette journalist – and took a resigned bite of her apple.

So much for a story that needed to be told.

At least the noblewoman had agreed to keep the investigation quiet.

“Okay,” Sabine said. “We’ll do this separately from the Gazette. I’ll figure out what to tell them – a sick relative or a newfound twin or something equally mundane and believable.”

She dropped a hand to her hips. “Though paying me sort of defeats the purpose of this being a gift, doesn’t it?” Her lips twitched. “But if you insist… I probably won’t say no.” She would be a fool to turn down an offer of nel, not when her family was in such dire straits.

A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as the heat grew heavier. “If that’s all…” Sabine would wait for any further instructions about either the investigation or the wedding before hiking her bag further up her shoulder. “I better be going, Lady Elyna.” She dropped her voice as a family passed by. “If you think of anything else, send it to me at the Gazette. Maybe don’t include your name, yeah? Journalists can be a bit... well, I don’t like the word ‘nosy,’ but… that’s probably about right.”

She turned to go, thought better of it, and glanced back at the noblewoman. “Stay safe, okay?” Her eyes drifted to Elyna’s stomach before flicking back up to her face. “Both of you.”