AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jace was always so calm, even in life-threatening situations, which made him a wonderful doctor.
“What is going on, Jace?”
She’d given him long enough since, unlike her stoic cousin, she had no such patience.
Putting his finger to his lips as she had done with Sage only half an hour ago, Jace pushed her into the center of the room before shutting the curtains of her tiny window. As if someone would care that Bryn was in her own apartment.
A thought struck her then.
“Did something happen, and you worry they will hold me accountable?” Her voice was quiet and embarrassingly meek. The shroud of fear she hated to wear with every ounce of her being took hold and started to suffocate her.
Why would he care if anyone outside could see in? Especially since she was on the second floor where it wasn’t like someone could walk past and look inside. He was being paranoid, and that was the only logical explanation her mind could think of. Someone thought her guilty of something, and he was trying to protect her.
There were few people who would stand up on her behalf against the town if everything were to go sideways, and she did not want to know what the angry townspeople would do to those loyal to her.
She would be killed or exiled, she already knew that. The whole town probably already had plans in place to do just such a thing once they had enough evidence. Enough evidence that they felt they could go above the law, the law being Mr. Rafferty and Justin, to take things into their own hands.
Had something more substantial than a sandstorm happened in Ifreann? Did the townspeople think she was the cause of it? That Bryn had called on the beast of a storm with her unnatural witchy magic?
Bryn was about to find out.
“Out with it,” she demanded, sitting on her bed and folding her shaking arms across her chest as Jace paced her room with his hands in his blond hair. She tried to ignore the flicker of the unnatural shadow in the corner of the room. Bryn was sure it had to be her imagination. If not... well, one crisis at a time.
“There was more than sand thrown past the gate when the storm rolled through.” Jace moved to the trunk in her room where her few dresses and even fewer personal items from her past lay within. “There were two people standing at the gate.”
“So? We’ve had more people than I can count sitting, standing, or lying outside our gate. Refugees from Tanwen, for example, looking for the good Baleros lifestyle. Perhaps they were lost in the sandstorm and trying to take cover?” she asked, wondering why this was so shocking.
How many times have people come seeking refuge in Ifreann? One would think by now people were catching on that no one was allowed past the gate. Just to keep walking if they see Ifreann because there was no quarter there for outsiders. The deadly desert would be more friendly and welcoming.
Ugh. If there were bodies, there would be no sleep for her. She’d hoped to clean the pyres out tomorrow, but if there were deceased that needed to be burned, she had to do it now.
“Not at the gate, Bryn,” Jace broke into her thoughts, agitation and fear clear in his voice. She stopped her musings to look at him and saw real fear in his eyes. “They were already inside the gate.Alive.”
“Inside. . .,” she parroted as Jace nodded. “Alive? How?”
Jumping up from the bed, Bryn was the one pacing now.
“Did the storm knock down the gates?” she asked as she watched Jace shake his head no.
“Then how? I watched them secure the gate after you came back in! There is no way anyone can get them open aside from the city guards!”
That anyone could make it past the gate without prior authorization, well, it was impossible. Guards were placed all along the walls and at the gate. Messengers were never allowed inside, only given what they needed for their travels back to wherever they came from, and if someone showed up without a permit authorized by the crown for trade, they’d be turned away... without supplies.
Not to mention that the walls around the town were far too high to climb, and even if they were easy to overcome, to do so during a sandstorm was beyond anything Bryn could comprehend.
“Maybe they were here before? Snuck in while the gate was open when you and Arioch left?” she asked, but she knew the truth. The gate was monitored all day and all night. City guards held posts at both sides of the gate on the rare occasions they opened it.
“There were two people. An old lady and a young male. Them being here is why I was walking home with my bag since I was needed to check them for signs of sickness. They claimed to have come in with the storm.” Jace raised his brows at the words as he said them.
Well, that certainly changed things.
Chapter 8
“Therewasaprophecy...”
Bryn’s eyes opened as the sun set outside her window, Sage’s words carrying over into the waking world as her mind clawed its way back to consciousness.
Blinking the grit of sleep from her eyes, Bryn was happy it was sleep instead of sand. A quick scrub last night had managed to get her somewhat clean, but she still found sand in unfortunate places. Even fully clothed and no epic sandstorm, sand was still a daily nightmare for Ifreann.
