The Mottled Widower

Prologue

Alyss stirred as her door was burst open. 

"Alyss!" a voice shouted. "Get outside, quickly!"

Initially perplexed as to why she was woken, Alyss sat up in her bed and met the eyes of Henry, Captain of her personal guard.

"What? What's going on?"

"The inn has caught fire! Come, you must get to safety!"

The drowsiness over Alyss was promptly shoved aside, overtaken by adrenaline. She threw her pack over her shoulder and grabbed hold of her wool winter coat, a birthday present from her husband Will.

Stepping out of the room, Alyss took in the situation. The fire appeared to have started in the main room, and was rapidly spreading outward and upward. The two of them appeared to be among the last to evacuate. "Lets go," she ordered. "I'm right behind you!"

They made for the inn's entrance and intercepted a middle-aged man who had just fled from the upper level. "Are you the last?" Alyss demanded.

"I believe... I am, miss," the man replied, coughing between words.

Alyss followed the two men outside, the growing smoke making it impossible to breathe. She scanned the crowd, counting roughly a dozen people. That seemed about right, she thought. It wasn't a massive community and it was the middle of the workweek.

"Did everyone make it out?" she shouted among the evacuees. "Is everyone accounted for?"

Among the coughing, sputtering, and general confusion, one young woman's panicked voice carried over. "Look! At the upstairs window!"

There was a young girl pounding on the glass. She couldn't have been older than 5. Alyss charged inside, ignoring her guards' protests. She forged her way through the tumbling debris, up the stairs, and into the room. She saw the girl curled up on the ground and hurried over.

"Can you hear me?" she asked the girl. "Everything is going to be alright."

She shortly realized that the girl was not cowering, but unconscious. Alyss surveyed her surroundings. Too dangerous to bring her back through that debris, she realized. She stood and unsheathed her dagger. Wedging it between the window and it's frame, she jerked on the handle. Splinters flew as the window broke open. Alyss poked her head out and yelled to her guards.

"Be ready to catch her!"

The trio was barely in place before the young girl fell from the second story. They caught the girl and escorted her away from the inn. Henry waited anxiously below the window for Alyss to exit.

Alyss poised herself, ready to climb from the window. From nowhere, the inn bellowed and the roof collapsed, trapping the courier beneath a wall of flames. Through the ringing in her ears, she could barely hear the screaming outside.

Her last thoughts before falling unconscious were of Will.
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Today's code is: (3-1, 3-3, 4-2, 4-2, 2-6, 1-5, 1-4, 4-4, 2-3, 1-4, 3-3, 4-4, 1-5, 3-6)