A/N -- Chances are this book is actually going to be LONGER than Fearless (now that I've done a bit more outlining!). We're talking probably 65-70 chapters of content to get done what all I need to get done. Anyhow, without further ado!
Zayn was in Eda again after a few days. It would have been sooner but he'd had to make some reports elsewhere after they'd saved Azabela. The general chewed on the inside of his cheek. Renna was setting the table for dinner for three, and all he could do was stare forward. He didn't know what to say or how to say it. Cricket had died... that's what Iris had told the general. That's what Iris's mentor had told Iris, and Hench would know better than anyone what had happened to the girl. All except for maybe one person.
"Who are you inviting to eat with us tonight?" Renna asked as she started moving the cooked food onto the table.
Zayn's stupor broke. "Her name is Elizabeth Or'vail," he told her. "You met her on one of the days you visited my office, if you remember. She was the one who knew your missing niece. I have to question her."
"About?" Renna looked intrigued.
"About something I heard," Zayn answered vaguely. "Something isn't adding up."
Renna opened her mouth to ask another question, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Zayn got up to answer it. When he opened it, he was face to face with the girl who had been Cricket's friend. Right on time. He stepped aside for her to move in. A waft of rose petals were left in her wake, and she walked gracefully across the kitchen floor. She carried herself just like a princess would.
"Hello again, general," she greeted him with a smile made of pearls and dimples.
"Hello, Elizabeth," he replied. "Dinner is ready. Why don't you have a seat and make yourself at home?"
She nodded curtly and was the first to have a seat at the table. Zayn served the food and let Renna sit down herself. They were all at the table, staring awkwardly and quietly at one another. Despite the silence, they didn't talk right away. First, they ate the soup and bread that Renna had made. Everyone seemed to be enjoying their meal, and Zayn made sure to thank Renna for cooking it. Elizabeth followed suit and showed gratitude as well.
Once they had settled into the dinner, Elizabeth finally asked, "So. I assume you wanted to speak with me about something. Why did you want me to have dinner with the both of you?" she asked. "Is it about Cricket?"
"It is," Zayn answered. He cleared his throat and gave Renna an apologetic look before finally saying. "Something isn't right. By your account, Cricket got free of the baron's estate. But I just met with the other woman I'm collaborating with to end this nightmare with the baron, who's claiming that Cricket died there instead." Renna's gasp at those words were audible, and Zayn hated that she had to find out this way.
Elizabeth twitched. "She's dead?" she asked after a moment. "Forgive me, general, but if that's the case, I had no idea. I only know that the last time I saw her, she was running away. I know that I never saw her again after that --no one ever saw her again after that. I assumed the best. But the baron never told us that he killed her."
"He didn't?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No." She went on. "He didn't."
"Why would he have told you?"
"Not just me --all of us. He might have told us because he wanted to keep us in line," she answered quickly. "If he had killed her, he would have showed us her corpse. Maybe he would have hung it up in our bedchambers. But even that doesn't seem right. The night Cricket and Sunny both ran, they brought Sunny back. He made an example of Sunny," she cringed. "He tortured her in front of all of us... showed us what would happen if anyone ever tried running again. But he let her live. He kept using her to make money. It seems like he would have done the same for Cricket."
"Then nothing makes sense," Zayn finally said. "My other source says she's dead."
Finally, Elizabeth said. "Forgive me, but who is your other source?"
"She was a woman also imprisoned in the baron's keep, just like you," he answered. "I know this for fact because she's described the same red room that you did. Her story about what happens at the baron's keep matches yours to a tee. She's been helping head this expedition. She's been very passionate about saving all of you." He finally said. "She's another woman that broke free of the baron."
Elizabeth looked confused for a minute, and then an abrupt, hearty laugh left her throat, leaving both Renna and Zayn confused. Elizabeth finally sobered. "What was her name?"
"Her name was..." Zayn trailed off. They'd called her Hench, but he just realized he hadn't actually gotten her real name. "...I'm not sure, actually. She never told me. Why?"
"Because," Elizabeth shook her head in amusement, like she was seeing something that he wasn't. "There wasn't a mass exodus of us, Zayn. Aside from me now, there was only one person that ever got away from the baron, and that was Cricket. Baron Riasion enhanced security after that little mishap. No one got out before Cricket... and no one's certainly gotten out since if you don't count me." Elizabeth's eyes met the general's. "If what she's telling you is true, about her escape.... well, are you sure you're not collaborating with Cricket? With Rhalla herself?"
"I'm collaborating with Iris's ment..." he trailed off. He didn't finish his sentence. Something suddenly clicked in his brain... the way Hench looked at Iris. The way that it was obvious Hench cared for his former betrothed. He remembered the way Hench had skirted out of the room when he'd brought up Cricket to Kayde that first time they'd met.
The general suddenly got up and walked out of the room and found himself in the next one over.
Zayn rummaged through a drawer in the family's main common room and pulled out a painting of Cricket. He stared at it intently. And he saw it now that Elizabeth had said something. The little Cricket certainly didn't have Hench's big muscles, and Hench certainly no longer had the long curls. But the faces. Now that he looked at it, the faces had the exact same features. It was all he could see. "Well, I'll be damned," he murmured, his heart picking up in his chest.
"Zayn?" a voice called from behind him. The general whipped around to see that both Elizabeth and Renna had followed after him.
He held up the picture for another second, and then just stared at them both with wide eyes. "Oh gods," he whispered. "That's her."
"What are you talking about?" Renna asked, trembling now.
"You're right," he said to Elizabeth, who was grinning from ear to ear. "Fucking hell, I've been looking for Cricket for months, and I've been collaborating with her all this time." He was speaking to no one in particular, and expletives flew like birds from his mouth when he realized it wasn't the first time a Gwenneth had played him the fool. "Gods' damn it. Why the hell were both of Elliot Gwenneth's daughters born with an affinity for bullshit secrets?"
"Zayn," Renna caught his attention, drawing him out of his paroxysm. Fresh tears streaked her face and her hands shook like leaves in the wind. "Zayn, are you sure?" A sort of childlike hope made her voice waver in and out.
"Yeah," Zayn said after a second. Damn it all, even he teared up. "Yeah, I'm sure, Renna. I know where Cricket is... we've found her."
----
It was over a week later when Iris finally sat back at the guardian sanctuary, leisurely eating her breakfast at dawn. Personally, she was glad she was here again. She could finally just relax. They'd managed to get Azabela to her grandmother's house for healing, and then they'd taken both the huntress and Dane back to Hench's house. They'd parted ways with Zayn and the rest of the Eldian soldiers the day after they'd saved Azabela.
Hench had spent another day cleaning up the dead in her yard and struggling to install at least five new locks on their cabin as well --of which, according to her, she didn't need any help with. A wry smile passed over Iris's face at how stubborn her mentor had been. It was almost like she'd grown bollocks somewhere along the years of her life. Long story short, Iris was tired. Not in the general sleepy sense, as she'd slept remarkably well last night, but in more of the I've been away from home for too long sense. Iris snorted and looked to see that Kayde wasn't anywhere in sight. He must have still been in bed.
He was never late.
Iris stared back down at her hands. She'd carried her sister's journal with her to the table to read again. This time around, there was nothing new to read, no new page to turn to. That didn't matter. This was all Iris had left of what had once been her big sister, and so she'd vowed to read it every day she could. It would be the closest thing she had to knowing who Cricket had been when she was alive.
"Mind if I sit, girl?" came a round voice from behind her. Iris turned to see her mentor, who was already taking her place anyway.
"I don't mind," Iris answered, and scooted a little to accommodate Hench's large form. "I'm surprised you want to sit here. Haven't you had enough of me this week?" It was a jest... one that earned a chuckle from her mentor.
"Not yet, I haven't," she replied and offered a wink. "I'm as surprised as you are."
Iris grinned and shook her head.
"What do you have there?" Hench pointed at the diary in Iris's hands.
"It's not a book or anything," Iris said. "It's actually um... it's my sister's journal. It was in my mother's old things. I've been reading it." It was an honest answer, one that sobered Iris. "I've gotten through it once already. I'm trying to read at least some of it every day. It'll be the closest I come to knowing her."
Hench took in a small breath and looked closer at the book, at the small words written on the pages. "I don't know what to say, girl."
"You don't have to say anything," Iris said, now staring blankly at her food. "It's not your fault she's gone." Sudden emotion hit her heart, leaving a melancholy taste in Iris's mouth.
"Iris..." Hench began, using her sister's name.
"I'm not sure what the worst part about all of this is," Iris interrupted without meaning to. "There's just so much. Is the worst part that my parents never told me about her? I don't care if it was for my protection... for my happiness. I had a right to know." Iris's voice grew quiet. "If I'd known sooner, maybe I could have saved her. Maybe I could have done something. I would have tried. I would have fought tooth and nail for her. "
Hench just stared at her sister, unsure of what to say.
"And if I couldn't have saved her, then..." Iris paused and changed directions. "My mother used to tell me that we never died. She told me that as long as we were remembered, we still lived on. She believed that and yet? She would have let my sister go forgotten --let her spirit die. Both her and my father met their graves without ever saying anything to me." Iris's anger reached its peak. "How could they do that to her? I will never let her die." It bottomed out. "She held me as a baby. She loved me. It says it all through this thing." Iris fingered the pages. "This journal that's never going to be finished. I look at the last page she wrote, and it was a normal day and maybe that's the worst part. She never knew her life would change, and she'd never knew she wouldn't get to write another cute little entry."
"Or maybe the worst thing is that Cricket lives on with me now, and yet, this is all I know of her. It's up to me to remember her, and yet I never got to know her or talk to her." Iris shook her head. "I would've given anything in the world to have known her --to have really known her. She seems like she would have been so much like me. Hell, she was making my father teach her how to use a sword. The world could have used another girl like that."
Iris found Hench's face, who stared back with sad eyes. The rogue took a breath and shut the journal. She composed herself and chuckled. "I'm sorry. I'm talking your ears off. You caught me at a bad time, I guess."
"No, it's fine," Rhalla said, a light smile on her lips. "Cricket's a lucky one indeed, if you're the one remembering her."
Iris softly laughed. "Thank you for that. Anyways... breakfast is about over. Time to train."
Hench thought for a minute. "We're not going to spar today."
Iris stopped moving. "What? Why?"
"Because I've got something better for us to do, that's why," Hench said with a wide grin. "You already know how to fight, girl. I've borne witness to your abilities tenfold when you helped me save my betrothed."
"What are we doing then?" Iris asked. Then, she smirked. "Are we changing more locks that you don't need help with?"
Hench let out a robust laugh. "No, girl, though I oughta smack you right out of your head for that." It was a jest. "We're going to go outside and take a walk. We're going to go to my favorite spot and stay there until evening. We're going to sit down and talk and you're going to ask your questions and get to know me better than you already do. I'm going to do the same with you."
"Huh?" Iris was blind-sided. "What brought this on?"
"Just come along with me. It'll be fun."
A/N -- Thanks for the read! Hope you enjoyed and I'd love to hear your thoughts!