Chapter 13

- Elly -

When Elly awoke, she was still lying on the floor in front of the furnace full of gleaming coal. Her neck hurt and she was sweaty all over, way too hot below that many blankets and furs. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked around the empty room.

Old woodwork, only necessary and most simple furniture, table, chairs, a kitchen, a few doors to other rooms that were closed.

And indeed empty.

Her heart skipped a beat and instantly she was wide awake.

It was empty.

She was alone.

"Anybody there?" she carefully called out. Her heart hammered in her chest. This was what she had feared, wasn't it. He wouldn't just leave her like that, would he?

After an endless second came a rude answer. "What is it?" a woman asked.

She wasn't too tall but clearly muscular built. Her dark hair were lots of tiny braids tied to a bun at the back of her head. She wore pants and a plain, brown shirt.

"What is it?" she repeated impatiently when Elly couldn't stop herself staring.

"Forgive me. I, ah, nothing really."

The woman said a few words in a language Elly didn't know, but in a tone that made it clear it was nothing nice.

"M-Maybe, you could show me to the washing room?" Elly dared.

"Hmpf," the woman made. "This way," she said then.

Unsure Elly followed the woman, let out the air unsteadily, that she had held from fear, after the door closed shut behind her. With stoic calm Elly wiped the sweat off with a wet cloth and brushed her messy hair straight with her fingers.

Then she just stood there staring ahead into nothing for a while, sorting through her noisy thoughts. One part of her wanted to run back to the convent as fast as she could. Another part remembered the warmth against her back and the tingling in her body that had kept her awake half the night. Only the smallest part was rational, telling her how stupid, impulsive and inappropriate her behaviour was.

Eventually Elly's stomach grumbled and pulled her from her thoughts. She found the way back to that rude woman.

"I-is there food?" she asked and rubbed a hand over her rebelling, empty stomach.

"In the kitchen maybe. Help yourself."

Elly nodded and searched her way through the few crooked shelves. There wasn't much to be had, only little essentials in both ingredients and cooking tools.

Somewhat in trance Elly began to cook. After all, it was what she had always done. What she had always been good at. It calmed her hands and her mind. The sense of familiarity of it. It let her feel closer to her mother and home she missed so much.

"Oh, what is that heavenly smell?" Nathaniel burst into the front door little later. Snow fell off his shoulders.

"Something entirely unreachable for you, for certain," the Not-Count said.

What had he said his name was? Jake?

Elly hadn't wanted to believe it. Had wanted to think him insane. But this place, this people, they certainly were not appropriate company for a Count.

He pushed into the room past Nathaniel and the tall man with the scar followed. His eyes fell on Elly and his lips thinned to a line.

Nathaniel went on to dance around Elly's back, looking at the pot on the stove over her shoulder. "You truly must be an angel," he said. His eery voice so close gave Elly goosebumps.

"Then step back demon, before you get burned," Jake snapped. Fists clenched and wild eyes he looked half ready to jump the other man.

"How kind to warn me, and there I thought you meant to be rid of me."

"We both know the day we finally part ways," Jake said with a grim face. Nathaniel smirked. An odd tension settled between them.

"Hush, you two lovebirds. You are scaring the girl," the rude woman said.

Nathaniel gestured his lips locked and sat down on a chair that crooked below his weight and leaned his arms on the table, fully observing Elly all the while.

"How are you feeling?" Jake asked.

Elly blinked at him a few times, not quite sure what to answer. Overwhelmed was one word that came to her mind. Horrible or miserable also fit quite well. The slightest bit happy, but she would have never admitted that to anyone.

"Do you really want to know?" she finally said.

He looked her up and down. Seemingly quite uncertain himself. "You are not ... to be a maid, you know, you don't have to do such things as cook. You should rest," he said with a voice as soft and careful as if he expected her to break apart any given moment.

Well, she just might. But she wasn't going to let him know that.

"Don't worry. At this point, I wouldn't do anything for you, even if you begged me on your knees for it," she snapped. She was not willing to be swept along by his sudden kindness, not willing to forgive him.

Jake frowned.

Nathaniel laughed.

"But you are gonna let us have some of it, right?" the woman said and must have meant the food.

Elly looked at the pot. It was a lot. It would have been a waste. Shenodded slowly.

The group sat down to eat. Jake resumed to re-introduce everyone. "Rutger, he looks mean, but isn't. Annabelle, she looks mean and she is, and Nathaniel, you already now. He is a man faced demon. Everyone, Elizabeth Glassner."

Elly mustered Jake with a frown.

"What?" he asked.

"I wasn't sure you even knew my name."

Nathaniel gave a hearty laughter. On Jake's angry look he rose his hands, signing defeat, but his face didn't look anything like it.

***

"Where are you going?" Elly asked. She'd observed Jake and Rutger preparing the horses for a while and lost the battle against herself. She could not stand that man, but for whatever reason she could not stand not knowing where he was going either.

"As you might have already noticed, we are running out of supplies," Jake said. "We are heading to the village."

Elly pursed her lips. If it was a lie, it was a bad one. While it was true that there was nothing fancy in storage, Elly could have cooked with it for another week at least. "Can I come?" she asked.

Jake stopped his preparations to look her up and down. He frowned and Elly knew he was about to tell her off. But she had enough of him telling her what to do, enough of anyone telling her what to do.

"I can ride. And if it is about food, I should probably buy it, since I will most likely be the one to prepare it too," she said.

"You don't have to – "

"I can decide for myself what I have and don't have to do! "

Before Jake could have answered, the tall man, Rutger, patted him on the shoulder. The men shared a look full of tension, but neither spoke a word. Somehow Rutger never spoke.

"Fine," Jake said eventually. "You are the less memorable anyways."

"Come again?"

"Well, look at him," Jake grumbled with a gesture then mounted the horse.

Elly stood for a moment and wondered, he had a point, that scar was quite memorable, then climbed on the back of her horse too.

They set out eastwards along a trail into the woods behind the hut. Sun blinked through openings in the tree branches here and there, giving the yellow and red leaves a fiery glow. The sound of birds filled the crisp air.

Elly reached down to pat her horse's neck while they rode, until guilty conscience settled on her heart. She didn't want to imagine whatever might have happened to Mr. Stingley. The poor horse.

To distract herself Elly meant to think of foods which would be easy to prepare. That would last long enough in the unfit kitchen of their hide out . Ingredients necessary for cooking them, but her eyes caught the man riding next to her and suddenly that was more interesting.

Jake seemed tensed since Nathaniel and Annabelle had left in the morning to visit some Sir Evermount or so she had heard the group whisper. His face was hard, his eyes lost in thought. Like he was worried, butunwilling to show it.

Jake noticed her staring and gave her a lifeless smile. "Are you cold?" he asked.

Elly shook her head.

"Good. Ah ... How is your family doing?"

"My family?" Elly repeated, rather taken aback by the question. She couldn't imagine that he really cared to know. "Well. Last I heard rather good, but Annabelle refused my request to send them a letter."

"I'll talk to her about it."

Elly nodded. Her mother had suffered enough already with her fate, she deserved to know that her daughter was well and alive.

"Do you have family?" Elly asked.

Jake wrinkled his nose. "It's complicated."

"Do they know what you are doing?"

Did he even know himself? She had not straight out questioned him again since his bold statement in the convent that night. But from the whispered bits and pieces of conversation she had caught that strange group have they seemed to be serious.

They were planning to overthrow the King.

What insanity.

"Some." Jake's face turned grim. He brushed a hand through his hair. "We are almost there. You should put your hood up in case someone recognizes you from the convent."

Elly did as told. The last thing she needed was someone asking her questions she had noanswer to.

They unmounted the horses little outside of a village. Small houses with thick smoke rising from chimneys stood in between farms with thin cattle. Trees dead from cold surrounded them like a fence. The place rather resembled Burgate, Elly thought, and her heart ached for her lost home.

The marketplace was small but lively. Carriages and wagons stood in between colourful tents. All kinds of people strolled along or ran errands.

Jake seemed to welcome the noises and the crowd making a more private conversation almost impossible.

"You don't like to talk about yourself," Elly concluded. He had told her too, long before, he would not answer her questions if she had some. But for some reason she could not stop herself from wondering about the man.

They reached the market and Jake seemed to welcome the noises and the crowd making a more private conversation almost impossible.

Elly spotted her favourite fruits at a stall and eagerly strode towards them. She picked one up to check the goods and the merchant woman's attention immediately fell on her.

"You have a good eye, my Lady," the woman said. Elly was charmed by the assumption she was noble enough to be called that. "We have a special deal today too. Three coins a piece." The woman's dry lips formed a smile to reveal yellowish teeth.

"Three coins?" Elly said. "That is quite pricey." In Burgate she could have bought three pieces for one coin.

"You won't find a better offer in the whole town, I promise you." The merchant woman said, her smile becoming strained.

"What a scam," Elly said. She knew merchants always offered a higher price at first to start thebargaining, but this was ridiculous.

The woman turned angry. Her smile vanished entirely, instead deep wrinkles spread over herforehead.

"Everything rare is pricey," Jake cut in. He gestured Elly to stand down. "We'll take three."

The merchant woman gingerly packed the goods.

Elly snorted at the little bag with the fruits Jake handed her. "You realize she scammed you?"

Jake sighed. "You realize those fruits are imported? Roads to this village are very bad, hardly any merchants come through."

Elly didn't quite grasp his point. There were plenty merchants present at the market. Buying the necessary supplies wouldn't take too long.

"We should probably get you some clothing too," Jake said. "Unless you'd like to keep borrowing mine."

Elly stopped short to look down on herself. She regarded the loose pants and too big fur jacket with odd embarrassment.

Jake chuckled.

***

"Play chess with me?" Jake asked. He looked up hopefully from the board spread before him on the kitchentable. "Nathaniel always talks me out of concentration and Rutger is too easy to read."

"I don't suppose myself a good opponent either," Elly said. "Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Sadly not. A great deal of my life consists of waiting for other people to make a move," Jake said and picked the king piece out of the box on the table  to regard it with a distant expression. "And I am afraid time gnawed away at my patience. I found it is better to keep myself diverted while it is not my turn."

"And I am supposed to provide that to you? Diversion?" Elly said, not bothering much to hide her distaste about that assumption in her voice. She had wondered, but suddenly it became perfectly clear to her what had made him change his mind about helping her.

Jake gave her a look like he'd not been part of the same conversation. He blinked a few times, frowned.

"You are awful," she said when he said nothing.

Elly fled outside. She stormed ahead towards the forest, then vented her anger by kicking a tree stump until her toes hurt.

She wasn't a thing to be used as he pleased, how dared he even imply that. Such indecency.

Then again, Elly supposed he hadn't really, and she just might have assumed.

Overall, she had assumed too much about him that had never been true. And if she hadn't been so naïve, she would have probably noticed.

Elly sighed and turned to walking to clear her head. The wind was bristling cold and blew through her clothes straight into her bones, so soon enough, Elly returned towards the hut, her anger properly frozen along with her fingers.

Why was she even so upset about whatever that man said or did? Not like it should have mattered to her what he even thought.

She found Jake and Nathaniel outside the hut sparing each other. When they did not notice her, she decided not to disturb them.

"Have you heard?" Nathaniel said with a sword swing. "People are calling you kingmaker nowadays."

"The what now?" Jake said without much of a pause, but he could not hide a startle in his defence. His block was too stiff.

"Although the term is tremendously wrong in use in this case," Nathaniel said and gave a nasty smirk. "Oh, don't look so surprised. You keep telling people that a rightful hire to the throne will appear, but somehow you always forget to mention that person is you."

Elly's breath caught.

Jake stopped his attack and stepped back. His face turned grim. "You know as well as me, that that is not true."

"Well, then unless you somehow learned to spring a corpse, you are running out of heads to put the crown upon."

"Rutger –"

"Oh, shut up." Nathaniel cut Jake off. "You know that he has neither the wits nor the guts to make it as a king."

Nathaniel glanced directly at Elly and she froze. She was caught and embarrassed, she had not really meant to eavesdrop. Instead of revealing her presence to Jake however, Nathaniel smirked in such an odd way she shuddered and didn't dare move now upon discovery either.

"Just a question," he directed then back at Jake, cutting him off again in whatever argument he had made for his opinion. "Have you ever considered the possibility that just because you could claim the crown, it doesn't mean you should?"

Jake snorted. Before he could have answered Nathaniel continued his speech. "You have compassion. Plenty of pride and a good idea here and there, yes, but in the end all you are going to accomplish is a whole country thrown into chaos and a throne without a hire."

"That is not –"

"You are the villain in this story."

Nathaniel gave an evil smirk, an eery display of satisfaction. He dropped the sword to Jake's feet and left him standing there.

Jake's shoulders dropped. He looked up to the sky as if searching for something. Then he strode up and down a few times, cursing the demon, before sitting down on the porch with a hanging head and an expression of desolation.

Elly clenched her fists. She didn't understand half the things Nathaniel had said, but she could understand now fairly well why the group called him a demon. He delighted in his talent of making other people miserable. Somehow he always knew exactly what to say to upset someone.

Elly took a few steps back, walked a round, tried to look like she was just coming back, and carefully approached Jake.

She gave him a comforting smile when he noticed her and sat down beside him on the porch.

"You heard, didn't you," he said. It wasn't much of a question.

"I apologize," Elly said with a blush. She had tried in vain. "It is cold today, isn't it?" she said after a while of silence between them. She wanted to make him feel a bit better, but she didn't exactly know what to say.

"You are not mad at me anymore?" Jake asked. He dared look at her. There was a little suspicion and a lot of hope in his face.

"I am. Always. You ruined my life."

Jake grimaced at the accusation. His eyes drifted off again. They lost the glimmer.

"But you look so miserable right now I feel sorry for you," Elly said.

"Well, thank you," he grumbled.

"How did you ... how did you become friends with Nathaniel anyways?" Elly asked. From what she had seen the men were at odds with each other more often than not.

"We are not friends," Jake said.

"Then why are you travelling together?"

"It is complicated."

"Hmm..." Everything seemed to be complicated with him. "You know, you said before you'd be honest with me now."

"Well. Ask me something different."

"Why does Rutger never talk?"

Jake brushed a hand over his face. "Because he has no tongue," he said then with an odd tone in his voice. "Why – I mean – let's just go inside." Jake cut himself off and rose suddenly.

Elly pursed her lips and crossed the arms over her chest. She tried the pouting face she knew worked best for her when she wanted something she wasn't supposed to have. Len had always given in for whatever nonsense she had thought up, no matter how busy he had been with his work.

And indeed Jake sighed and sat back down. "I ... " he started but hesitated. "It's too dark a story to tell. I'm sure you think you want to know, but believe me, you actually don't."

"It can't be worse than mine." Elly said.

Jake gave a grim smirk. Elly waited for him to say something more, but he didn't, just shook his head. Slowly, as if that alone was the most exhausting thing in the world.

"Fine," she snapped. So much for the honesty. "Then what do you want to talk about?"

"Economics?" Jake said and chuckled when Elly rolled her eyes. "Politics? Chess?"

"Truly?"

He leaned closer, almost close enough to whisper into Elly's ear and his voice turned low. "Well. We don't have to talk, now do we?"

Elly sook the air in. Her body reacted to the implication before she could fully make sense of it. Her heart jumped a beat and she with it away from him. Heat rushed to her cheeks.

Jake laughed. "I meant some practice," he said and gestured towards the swords left on the ground from his fight with Nathaniel before. He tried to make a straight face, but the teasing smile kept tugging on the corner of his lips. "Have you ever held a sword?"

Elly eagerly shook her head.

"I'll teach you, if you promise not to turn into a second Annabelle."

Again, she shook her head. She had only ever truly hurt one person, and even if that had been a bad person and she'd had good reason for it, she had learned her lesson. She never wanted to do such things again.

"You might need to know how to defend yourself," Jake said, back to being all too serious. He picked up one sword from the ground and reached it towards Elly.

She stepped back, refusing to take it.

***