Annabelle had watched Leonard meticulously arrange the logs in the fire pit, adjusting them with a twig until they were perfectly aligned. He stalked off somewhere, without saying a word to her, leaving her with the horse. The beast’s eyes bore into her like two black holes, its mane whipping in the wind like the fingers of a malevolent spirit. Annabelle felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead as she imagined the blonde bandit coming back to finish her off, riding on the back of the horse like a demon from hell.
A twig cracked behind her, and Annabelle spun around with a start, her heart pounding in her chest. For a moment, she saw nothing but the darkness surrounding her. But as her eyes adjusted, she spotted the horse again, its eyes locked onto her with its mocking face. The sight sent a chill down her spine, and she felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead. Suddenly, the memory of her father's face flashed before her eyes - the way his body had fallen limp, blood trickling from his mouth. She shook her head, trying to push the memory away, but it lingered like a ghostly presence in her mind.
As Annabelle remembered falling out of the carriage, she felt her heart pounding in her chest. She could still feel the jarring impact of hitting the ground, her body tumbling forward as the carriage careened out of control. The sound of the horses' hooves pounding against the earth echoed in her ears, drowning out her own screams of terror.
She could remember the way her body twisted and turned as she fell, the sickening feeling of her stomach dropping out from under her. She had felt the rough, uneven ground scrape against her skin as she landed, leaving painful bruises and scratches all over her body.
Suddenly Leonard’s voice shattered through her thoughts. “Dinner is served!” He came up behind her with a rabbit in his hand. She jolted forward, her breathing shallow and rapid. Her chest felt tight, like a vise was closing in on her lungs. The sound of rushing water in the distance mixed with the hum of the blood pumping through her veins. She couldn't escape the feeling of imminent danger, like a predator was lurking just out of sight.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she stared wide eyed at Leonard, realizing who he was as her memories faded.
“You bastard! Don’t sneak up on me like that, have you any idea what I’ve been through?”
“You were attacked, I know,” he said, walking over to his bag and producing a hunting knife. "Here, let me cook us some dinner."
Sweat trickled down Annabelle's face as she breathed faster and faster.
“Are you okay?” Leonard asked, concern etched on his face.
Annabelle shook her head, feeling overwhelmed. "No, I'm not.."
Leonard nodded, then reached into his bag and pulled out a flask. "Here, drink some water and take a few deep breaths. It'll help you calm down."
Annabelle took the flask and drank deeply, feeling the cool water soothing her parched throat. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing in and out slowly, feeling the tension in her body start to ease. Her hands wrapped around the leather flask, the smooth bumps bringing her back to reality.
"I'm sorry if I scared you," Leonard said quietly, "It wasn't my intention."
Annabelle opened her eyes and looked up at him, seeing the compassion in his gaze. "It wasn't funny, you know," she said, trying to sound stern but unable to keep a smile from creeping onto her lips.
Leonard chuckled, then turned his attention to the rabbit he had caught. He cut a few chunks from it as his face contorted with concentration, his tongue stuck out slightly from the corner of his mouth. He began frying them on a small grill he had set up nearby. Annabelle watched him work for a few moments, then spoke up again.
"Why weren't you taking the road?" she asked, genuinely curious.
He looked at her. “Hmm?”
“When you found me you were traveling through the forest, but you could have simply taken the road, it would have been much safer,”
“Your carriage took the road, and it didn’t end well.” Leonard said. That comment stung at her.
“No,” She looked down. “I guess not,”
After a few moments, Leonard cleared his throat and spoke up. "You know, sometimes taking the road isn’t always the safest. It's a false sense of security that we cling to. The truth is, danger can come from anywhere, at any time."
Annabelle looked up at him, surprised by his words. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, life is unpredictable. We can't control everything that happens to us, no matter how much we plan or prepare. Sometimes we just have to embrace the uncertainty."
Annabelle nodded, pondering his words. She had never thought about life in that way before. She had always been taught to plan for the future, to anticipate every possible outcome, and calculate every sentence she spoke. She’s been taught the perfect way to attract a ‘good man’ by her father, but never once had he prepared her for the unexpected.
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If Coulver was a poor village living in the shadow of its former self, Maulet was the whore it slept with. The town was nothing to anyone. It was the last village before Orlens, so anyone worth their salt would simply live there. When you live next to the capital of culture and art, or at least what used to be the capital of culture and art, you don’t want to stay at the latrine on the way there any longer than you have to.
Leonard slowed Morris down a little and produced the letter from his pack
“What’s that?” Annabelle asked like a pestering child.
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I write you with utmost urgency,
My son has fallen ill, and I have no one to turn to, I know you’re a busy man, but I beg of you to spare me the time of day. I fear for his life. My husband has left for the gambit and I fear he may return home upset.
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I live in the northmost house in Maulet, a large manor, you can’t miss it, please hurry! I have been unable to discuss cost with Laura, but I can do anything that you deem necessary,
- Duchesse Francis von Evien
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Leonard figured the title of duchess was more of a symbolic one now given how Essudari her name sounded.
“Who’s Laura?” Annabelle breathed down his neck, he jumped at the sound of her words, half forgetting she was there.
“No one,” He folded the letter, and set it into his pack.
“Doesn’t seem like no one, is she your boss or something?”
“I guess,”
“So she is someone!”
“I don’t ask you everything about your business, please don’t do it about mine,”
“Well if you’re bringing me along I’d like to know what I’m getting into,”
“Good point, Orlens isn’t far, good luck,”
“No, no, please! My feet are still blistered to hell!” She begged, squeezing at his waist.
“Then just sit here while I go in,”
“Did we really have to skip the waterfall? I wanted to look at it longer!” Annabelle pouted.
“Yes,” Leonard rolled his eyes. “We did,”
Maulet was a desolate place with only a handful of houses alongside the dirt road. It seemed like the inn had closed down and boarded up the windows. For how much foot traffic the town got, that was surprising, but Leonard figured Orlens had grown so much Maulet hardly even needed to exist.
The sun slowly set as the evening sky crept to its inevitable embrace with the darkness.
They rode up the road a little ways until they saw the manor. It was obviously the duchess, the building loomed with a depressing visage of what the town used to be.
Its walls were made of stone, and the roof a tan slate color, with a stone chimney protruding out of the right hand side. Around it sat a fenced in yard that appeared to have been left to claim the home.
Leonard stopped Morris just outside as the horse blew raspberries. He swung his foot off the beast, and shakily dismounted the horse. “I’ll be back, just stay here,” He said to Annabelle.
“I have no intention of going in there with you, Essudari,”
“Of course you don’t,” he walked toward the door. A large piece of beautiful wooden carpentry that appeared to be chipping in some spots due to the disrepair. The family crest for the duchess appeared to be carved into the center and inlaid with some kind of metal that had ironically begun to rust.
The knocker appeared to have fallen off, so Leonard just knocked with his fist. Leonard felt a slight breeze blow at him as he noticed the sky starting to fill with clouds.
The door cracked open and Leonard saw a short set of eyes. “Yes?” She asked.
“Are you duchess von Evien?”
“Yes,”
“I am here for your son,”
“Ah yes,” She paused for a moment. Her voice was soft and airy. “Please come in,” her words shook as if she was afraid of him.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” he said as he stepped into the house, while the duchess quickly shut the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You seem like a good man, I’m so sorry,”
“What?” Leonard heard the jostle of leather to his right. He turned and saw the hilt of a sword. His ears began ringing, and his vision went blurry as he collapsed to the ground clutching at his face.
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The horse huffed and patted at the ground. Rain trickled down from the sky as Annabelle glanced around her dark surroundings, hardly able to make out anything.
Leonard had been taking his sweet time. She wondered if he decided to hell with healing and just decided to lay the woman. She sounded Essudari in that note, so she wouldn’t be surprised. They fucked like rabbits.
Rain hissed from the sky, painting her hair wet. The droplets landed onto her filthy dress with a cold sting as it passed through the thin fabric. A gust of wind engulfed her, making her shiver.
How long had it been, twenty minutes? Thirty minutes? She sighed. She wasn’t about to sit there and get soaked all day while the two Essudari flirted back and forth.
She leaned forward and grasped at the saddle horn, and slowly made her way to the ground. She patted the horse’s shoulder, “Stay here, I’ll be back,” The horse patted at the ground and swayed its head.
Annabelle got a good look at the house, she hadn’t cared how it looked when they rode up to it, but now that she was entering it the poor state of the building became obvious. She walked to the door, and knocked. There was a pause, the only hint of life being rain pattering to the ground. The scent of the wet dirt around her drifted to her nose was accentuated by nearby sage brush. “Hello?” She said, and knocked again. The hinges on the door creaked and groaned as it slowly came ajar. She peered inside as a musty scent hit her nostrils, making her nose contort in response. “Hello?” She asked again. “Leonard, are you there?”
It didn’t sound like they were fucking like rabbits, in fact the home had quite the dilapidated feeling to it, certainly not the kind of place an Essudari would decorate, especially to their gaudy standards. “C’mon Leonard, it’s cold, can we hurry up?” She said.
The door led to a small entryway that was intersected by a hallway in the format of a cross. To the right was a living room with a fireplace that popped as if it was inviting her to sit next to it and dry off. Above it sat a mirror framed by gold with ornate engravings giving the illusion it was wrapped in flowers and vines. Annabelle walked into the room and got a good look of her reflection. It was fairly dark in the room, but she could see herself well enough.
Her dress was soaked through, and she could see her corset in the white of it. Her hair was filthy and plastered to her scalp like paper mache. Her face, the worst contender by far, had fresh acne on, and her makeup was all washed away entirely. Black flakes sat on the creases of her eyelid where her eyeshadow had once been, now just a smear of its former self. Her brown and white dress had holes in it towards the bottom and had lost all of its volume. She looked scared. Perhaps she felt scared too, but the sight of herself did enough to frighten her.
A muffled thud from somewhere else in the house cut through her thoughts. “Leonard?” She asked in an airy breath.
No response, of course. She turned back toward where she came and looked down the opposite end of the hallway. It appeared to be a kitchen with a staircase in the back of it leading down into a cellar. Orange light licked up at the dark kitchen cutting a slit of light into the ceiling. Just past the archway into the kitchen was a spot of blood. How had she missed that?
Each step she took felt wrong, like every part of this scenario said to get the hell out of there, but for whatever reason her feet kept moving. She didn’t know if she cared about Leonard, or if she simply wanted to know what happened to him, but she couldn’t help herself.
Shadows crossed over the orange beam, covering it for just a moment. Annabelle did her best to creep forward down the steps, cringing as she expected each step to screech as an alarm for her presence.
The thin sole of her shoe felt cold on the stone floor of the basement. She peered through the door of the cellar, doing her best to not make a sound.
Her breath became sharp as she saw Leonard sitting on a chair, bound with rope. A ginger man with spiky hair stood in front of him pacing back and forth. In the corner of the room sat a thin blonde woman, filing her nails.
“Where is she, then? There were two of you!” The ginger said.
Leonard furrowed his eyebrows. “I told you she died,”
“Don’t lie to me, Leonard, you have no idea how long I’ve been after you.”
“Too long,” He said.
A loud clap filled the room as August’s hand battered at Leonard’s face.
This was too far. Beyond too far, this wasn’t her fight, and whatever the hell Leonard had gotten mixed up in wasn’t her business. Annabelle turned around, and slowly tried to stalk up the stairs.
She made it three steps before the old unloved staircase made a moan of agony under her weight. Her heartbeat ran rapid, feeling like it was trying to leap out of her mouth. Her breaths became short and fast as the door at the bottom opened.
“It’s her,” A man in an archie uniform stared up at her. His eyes were red, and his face sunken. Bright pale skin shone brighter than the white of his eyes.
“Oh excellent! We can take them both back, then,” The ginger said, out of sight.
“No,” Annabelle whispered under her breath as she turned to try and run up the stairs. The staircase now bit back at her as she missed and planted the nail of her big toe straight into a step. She slipped, smacked her jaw into a step and yelped from the pain. “No! Please!” She said with the taste of iron quickly entering her mouth.
Something grasped at her legs and dragged her. Her chest felt hot to the point of bursting. “No,” she mumbled as her jaw hit another step with a burst of searing pain. She reached her hands out and raised her head to avoid hitting another step, and the same for the ground. Her hands scraped onto the stone work, then her chest met with it. The albino dragged her into the room with the ginger.
“Henrieta!” He said.
“That’s not-”
“Shut up, arcanist!” The ginger hissed. “You,” he looked back to Annabelle, “What can you tell me about Laura?”
“What?!”
“You heard me!” He shouted, face turning a slight red color. “I have had enough of you two,” He pointed his finger in her face. “Did you really thing you could keep me from seeing you forever?”
“Who the fuck is Henrieta?” Annabelle shouted. “I am duchess Annabelle of Adenosse, daughter of Duke Frederick of Adenosse, and I will not-”
“Duchess Annabelle should be arriving in Orlens tomorrow, well out of Maulet at this point.” He shook his head. “Or did you forget?”
“I am her!” Annabelle’s voice squeaked. “I am Annabelle of Adenosse, if you don’t unhand me I’ll have you beheaded!”
The ginger sighed sharply. The taste of blood filled Annabelle’s mouth as she felt her tongue start to swell up. She could feel her chin sting from the now open cut on it. “Tie her up, we’ll take them to Atheham.”
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