Alone in the Dark

Audacity

She was alive.

Keana had learned that much from the healer when he had caught up to the woman as she had been leaving the inn. The healer had refused his bribe and only shook her head and saying that her patient was fixed up as best she could do and would sleep for a while. Time would tell if she had lost too much blood or spent too long out in the cold for her body to recover fully.

Keana would have liked to call the healer useless and to bring in one of his own, but they were all back in Ilumnia and the time to travel here would be the deciding factor in Vix's survival. He had decided to let the healers stay in the free-port city with the rest of his less mobile company. Though, Keana cursed himself for having not foreseen the need to have healing on a search and report contract he had initially intended to cancel. He had sent for a couple, but they would take days to arrive in this town that was clear across Aupana. If Vix was going to live, it were these first few days that mattered.

Keana had looked for the other man, the Lansend Guard who had disappeared from the tavern that night, and found both him and his mount missing. The stable boy had been cooperative but only able to say that he had barely stayed long enough to find "Lina" a healer before heading south.

His contacts in Sytheville told him that the man had only switched horses before continuing on his journey. Keana had to be satisfied that the man had made it through the forest at least, and appeared to be making his way towards the Capitol, though the remaining Lansend Guards had arrived in Sythe. Despite his best efforts, Keana could not say for sure if they had managed to meet with Vix, or Lina, or whatever her name was.

He still couldn't understand the odd twist of luck that had sent him and his team past her in the woods that night. After seeing the scene of the fight, they had picked up her trail easily enough on the way back and at some points it seemed chillingly close to where they had been riding through the dark forest. They could have been passing within meters of one another oblivious to each other's presence despite the fact that they had been looking for her. Keana shivered at the thought that she could have been dying in the snow a few feet from where they were, and may have if she had not somehow made it to her horse and the Lansend Guard.

He would have liked to know how the man had tracked her so efficiently in the woods. Though he had to admit to himself that his company was trained for cities, not wilderness. Some concepts were similar but the dark woods were a far cry from the populated streets of Ilumnia or the Capitol.

After three days of waiting for a sign from Vix, Keana's patience had reached its limit. He had given her the space he could manage and only restrained himself to wait until the day was done. As he approached around supper time, Keana watched the healers leave the inn, letting the sun continue set completely before he scaled the wall, opening the window and slipping into the room as silently as the breeze outside.

The room was large, probably the biggest in the inn, and warm with a fire blazing in the hearth, several candles flickering in the sudden breeze until he closed the window behind him. He glanced towards a low table where the lantern burned, and felt the room still, knowing she had sensed his presence.

"It's only me." He offered, smiling as he heard a curse and the movement of someone standing up out of a tub of water from behind the bathing screen in the corner of the room.

Keana glanced around the room once more, his eyes falling on the locket that was resting beside the lantern, his brows raising in curiosity. He recognized the magical signature on it, even when it wasn't creating the aura of disguise around its wearer. Whoever Vix was, she was no longer wearing the magical device that cloaked her appearance from him, and that thought made his breath catch.