Draka made all of the wrong turns. At least twice. Or twice that many. Once over, he’d say. He hadn’t counted on the fact that once he was in the corridor, having checked every sconce, book, and wood furniture in his room before he found the right one, that he would need a torch.

  He could see shapes within the shadows, layers of black, and felt the rough edges of the wood walls. It was no use to even try to look at the map on his palm, it was too dark, and he forgot anything to light a torch with even if he somehow found one. He did, however, bring his sword and his chainmail. If she’s luring him into an ambush of some sort, he’ll be ready.

  All of it stank of deception, Draka wanted to spit. He hated that he was needing someone to spy for him. He hated that she was someone else’s spy even more. And more than that, that he has no idea who she’s spying for. Oh, and not to mention all the secret passages this place had. There were small streams of light poking holes in the wood walls before they changed to stone. Spy holes through the walls. He had heard of such things but never seen any. In the Holy Lands, in Philip’s palaces, there were no such things. At least, he stopped short in the dark, as far as he remembers.

  No, he reassured himself, Philip wouldn’t have anything like that. A flash of memories where Philip had anticipated perfectly what the other wanted or said and Draka glared into the darkness. That little…! Draka wanted to yell, to growl, to kick as if Philip’s head were right there. His best friend, closest friend—nay—brother and he was spying on him all along! Everything is because of you! Draka yelled in his head, the silence around him only broken by the dust his shuffling feet shifted out of the way.

  First, you have me abandon my post in the siege to break into the reliquary. Then you convince me to take the blame for all of it, including Saint John’s finger I know you kept for yourself, and let me have this damned VOW OF SILENCE! Draka squeezed his fists tight enough that his fingernails nearly broke skin as he struggled to keep his vow. He gritted his teeth. And how do you make up for it? ‘It’s just a little bit of land,’ you said. ‘Just what you always wanted, a nice quiet village with no worries. You can hunt and fish to your heart’s desire. I made sure of it.’

  You sure did, Philip, you bastard. You sure did. You made sure the Diocese gave me an abbey of corpses with a mouth into Hell slowly getting bigger, a village of pagans who would kill me for a bite of rotted cheese, a title that only paints a target on my back, and a war YOU started! Thanks, pal, old buddy, old friend, I’m glad you did what you always have and duped me into fixing your problems. How you gained Isa’s love and convinced her to make you king is a miracle.

  He nearly fell down the twisting stone passage steps, but found the rail just before he would have lost balance. It wasn’t until he rounded the last corner that he finally saw the orange and red glow of torchlight ahead of him. He put a hand to his sword and quieted his steps as he approached where it came from; the cracks between a stone slab for a door and the room beyond.

  He pressed the slab door open to the tune of a blade being unsheathed. In the far end of the room, stood a hooded figure with sleeves that were long enough to hide their hands but not the long, wavy blade of the daggers they held. Draka’s sword was nearly drawn from his own sheath when Nina put the hood down.

  She gave a winking smile as she opened her cloak and belted one dagger behind her back and the other in a sheath on her belt. “Close the door, voices carry. Sorry, someone cut the vines, I guess.”

  Draka looked down the dark hall before shutting the stone door. The room was a mausoleum. Along the walls, skeletons lay in small niches dug into the wall as if they were on bunk beds three tiers high. There were a few places where two skeletons lay together, arms wrapped as if they were holding each other. In the center, at the end of the room, where Nina was lighting a cluster of candles, was a statue of a hooded woman, holding a scepter that must be copper from the green and white corrosion, atop a sarcophagus ornamented with carvings of knights and soldiers. This place looked far more ancient than he ever imagined. When was this made? Who did this room belong to?

  “I hope this is enough light for you,” Nina brushed dust from the top of the sarcophagus, where she had set a pile of paper and an inkwell. She plucked a quill from her cloak and set it down with a friendly grin. There was a stool for him to sit on. “And don’t worry, I already set stones to burn what you write after.”

  Draka hesitated. She was a little too prepared. He drew his sword, which made her shutter a little, and when he sat on the stool, he leaned it upright against the sarcophagus for easy grabbing. He didn’t think she would try anything, but he wanted her to know he didn’t fully trust her. The look she gave the blade said she understood perfectly.

  Draka wrote, ‘This is not what I meant when I asked to meet.’

  “You wanted discreet, this is discreet.”

  Draka pinched the side of his lip at that. Good point. He dipped the quill in the ink and wrote, ‘How do you know of this place? And why?’

  “You shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

  Draka nodded. Then he reached for his sword.

  “I’m not your enemy,” she lunged to stop him, her fingers brushing his arm just enough to soften him. “I just, it’s complicated.”

  Draka nodded that he understood. His fingers rounded the hilt.

  “Cardinal Olivier, Cardinal Olivier—I work for him.”

  Draka tilted his head at her.

  Nina swallowed dryly, never taking her fingers from his arm, “He hired me the day I was brought into the house staff to keep track of the Baron and Baroness’s dealings. Who they talk to, why. I do the same with Lisbeth. I report to him once a week unless it is urgent.”

  Not what I want to contend with, Draka stood to walk away, his sword in his hand.

  Nina blocked him. “Please,” she pressed against him and motioned for the stool, “Please.”

  Draka sat with a suspicious eye on her. Continue.

  Nina nodded and looked about the dimly lit room in thought. Finally, she said, “I’m forced to do it. If I don't, Cardinal Olivier said that he’ll kill me. So, I have to.”

  “She’s lying.” Draka jolted in surprise at the harsh whisper of the Holy Spirit in his head. The first time in months, which felt like a lifetime.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. She didn’t shift from looking into them. He turned to the parchment, wrote on it, and held it up for her to see in big letters, ‘The truth.’

  Her mouth gaped. “That’s what I’ve been…”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Draka set the paper down and stood with his blade ready, nodding. He drew a knife from his belt with his other hand.

  “Okay, okay,” Nina shifted back, “You don’t have to be so heavy handed. Yes, I do it for the money. He approached me, but there’s no blackmail. But I’m not lying about working for Cardinal Olivier.”

  ‘Who else?’ Draka wrote.

  “I have Lisy—Lady Lisbeth—convinced I work solely for her, doing much the same to influence who she marries. You’re her first pick as of a few months ago. Even more so now that she’s got a look at you.”

  ‘Truth,’ the voice said in his ear, ‘But only half.’

  ‘There’s more. Tell me all of it.’

  “For someone who’s been blundering through this since he got here, you sure have quite the gift of insight.”

  Draka thought of it, waited to be told not to, then wrote, ‘My first gift is True Sight. You cannot lie to God.’

  Her eyes were wide as she nodded. “Got it.” She looked above her, then back at him, “So, it’s true, then. You’re that Paladin. They're not just rumors.”

  Draka didn’t change expressions, only pointed at, ‘Tell me all of it.’

  “Cardinal and Lady Lisbeth both use me as messenger between them. They’re trying to ensure that her brother doesn’t inherit the Barony. They both want it for themselves, though Lisbeth has her eyes on your seat lately.”

  Draka had to sit back down.

  “Both do, but she started for it first. She’ll seduce you, drug you if she must, get pregnant, and marry you, then have you die in an unfortunate horsing accident.”

  By the time Draka looked up, Nina was an arm’s reach away, sitting on one of the skeleton bunks to scratch the sole of one of her feet.

  Nina gave him a sympathetic—‘What did you expect?’—kind of look. “At least with her, you get to spread your seed first. With the Cardinal, you just die. He’s been trying to figure out a way to do it without condemning his soul, but trust me, he has no love for you.”

  ‘Truth.’ The voice said.

  Draka looked up to it, thinking, Really?

  ‘Has he any plans in the works?’ Draka wrote.

  “Not really, other than keeping you hungry for supplies. If he had control of the Paladinate, he’d keep you starving for men-at-arms. And trust me, you’re going to need them.”

  Draka tilted his head again.

  Nina gave him an astonished look after pulling her shoe back on her itchy foot. “You really haven’t been paying attention, have you? Come on…really? You don’t know?”

  Draka shook his head.

  “He never sent a message to Lord Mueller for parlay. Why would the Baron do that when letting you fall during a siege wins him the opportunity to take your place. And the Cardinal will only encourage it by continuing to have me deliver false messages to tell the Baron what to do next, so that when all is done, the Principality falls to the Church without contestation. Keep up, we have a lot to go over.”

  Draka knocked his head back. Thankfully there wasn’t a wall to thump it on. He shook. No matter which side, he dies.

  “Sending your own was the best idea you’ve had yet. And you have a lot of bad ones. Like not freeing Alice…that’s a big one that will bite you back, hard.”

  Draka pursed his brow at her.

  “The Baron is a wily one. I’ve seen him maneuver courts like a snake through gutter heaps, and destroy men along the way without a second thought, to get what he wants. If you think you outwitted him, you’re very very mistaken. She’s his weapon against you and he doesn’t like leaving a weapon unused.”

  ‘Why help me?’ Draka raised a brow at her when he held up what he wrote. ‘It isn’t just for my asking.’

  “Honestly,” Nina grinned at him, “I like you. You’re not noble born. You’re not a Prince who has ‘one more notch on his belt’ for acquiring lands. You’re just a simple soldier. Albeit a holy one, but a soldier nonetheless. And soldiers have a tendency to like their homes tidy and functioning. That means: food, shelter, growth. And they know a happy wife at home means loving children when they’re there. So, you noticed the problems here. Took you longer than expected, but you don’t like crowds as much as I do. And, what I saw at the market tells me you actually care about your people. None of my employers could care less. Especially the Strasse, they’re worthless since the old Baron died and left it to Clarissa.”

  Draka wished he had known that little bit. He thought it was Christophe who inherited the Barony. He married into it. And everything she had observed was right about him, for the most part. She’s the first one not to call him a barbarian, which was nice.

  “You need help. I don’t ask for much in return. But there is a price for loyalty. It’s a high one.”

  Draka blinked. This can’t be good. He motioned for her to say it.

  “When you name your court at coronation, I’m on it with my own lands and title, to make it official. Preferably here in the city. A barony would be nice, but I’ll settle for my own cottage with dungeon access to the sewars. Give me that, and I’ll make sure you’re always two steps ahead of your rivals and enemies.”

  ‘I’m not killing someone to put you in their place,’ Draka wrote, eyeing her.

  She grinned with a shrugging, “If you insist. I’ll gladly take one you make up, too. The land is so I can keep control of my contacts. The title is so I have unrivaled access to your court. I don’t want to govern. I want to stop them from continuing to do so. You’re the better bet. And,” her grin didn’t fade, but her eyes painted a picture of regret, “Maybe this time, I should go with the right side, instead of just the winning one.”

  ‘Then you must take an oath, to God and to me. And seal it in blood before the Holy Spirit.’

  “You want me to slit my hand and swear to you that I will never deceive you or undermine you, use your confidence to feed your enemies, rip you apart with little more than a word here or there? I don’t think you understand how na?ve that sounds.”

  Draka shrugged with a knowing grin. He wrote, ‘Say it. Here and now. The Holy Spirit is listening.’

  “You pallies and your oaths,” Nina chortled. “Fine. I swear an oath that I will…” she leaned to read it again, ‘be loyal to God and to you!” The air swirled within the room, dousing them in darkness. Her breathing, rampant and shallow, was all Draka could hear through the quiet.

  A single candle flickered alight again. Draka was standing over her, watching her whip her head this way and that before looking at him, gaping and trembling.

  “Was that?”

  Draka nodded.

  “Well, shit.”