Shadows danced around her cell, not cast from the single torch flickering on the outside of her bars. Alyssa put her hands atop her head and buried her face into her knees.
“I want to be warm,” she said. “Please, my father, he’s not bad, he isn’t. I just want to be warm.”
While Alyssa peered over her knees, she saw the shadows swarm together, grow volume and mass, and then finally fill with color, becoming a woman shrouded in black with a white cloth covering her face.
“There is warmth in the abyss,” the woman said as she drew a serrated dagger. “Would you like me to send you there? Careful of what you ask, girl. Be clear with your demands, or accept the cruel gifts fools and selfish men may give.”
Alyssa forced herself to stand. She felt skinny and naked before the strange woman, and it took all her willpower to keep her hands at her sides, stop them from shaking.
“I want out of this prison,” she said. “I have done nothing to deserve its cold. Now tell me, who sent you here?”
“Who else would send us?” the woman asked. “Do not ask questions where you already know the answers. Remain quiet. We are few, and some things must be done in silence.”
She wrapped her cloak around her body, its fabric seemingly made of liquid shadow. A sudden jerk and she was gone, her body exploding into dark fragments that splashed across the walls and faded like smoke.
“You have accepted the help of the faceless,” echoed a whisper throughout her cell. “Always remember, the cost you pay is always dearer once it has left your hand.”
Alyssa sat back down, curled her knees to her chin, and began to cry. She wondered what Yoren would say if he saw her like that. He was so beautiful, and she knew she could be too, but not here, not cold and wet and crying like a pathetic street urchin. Her tears did not stop like she hoped. Instead, she cried louder.
Far away, she heard a door open, the sound thick with bolts and metal. Her eyes lifted, and with detached curiosity, she watched and waited.
A hefty man lumbered into view, his thumbs tucked into his belt. His eyes were beady and close together, and his long mustache dripped with grease. Alyssa had never met him before returning home to Veldaren, though she had quickly learned his name. Jorel Tule, master of the cold cells.
“I got dogs howling up a storm,” Jorel said. “Figure I’d make sure you’re nice and cozy.”
“A blanket,” she said. Her teeth chattered, and it was no act.
“Gemcroft says to wait until you can’t stand no more,” the man said, hoisting up his belt. “I think he means to have me wait until you’re close to dead before warming you up.”
A hard edge entered his eye. Alyssa recognized it as perverse joy in seeing one of noble birth sunken down to his level and then put at his mercy. When shadows began coalescing behind his back, she openly smiled.
“I think you can wait a bit longer,” Jorel said.
“A blanket might have saved your life,” Alyssa replied. Jorel gave her a funny look but did not respond. When he turned to leave, a serrated dagger awaited him. It sliced his throat and splattered blood across the floor. The blood slid off the faceless woman’s robes like water.
“He never would have served you,” the woman said. “But there are others that will, and we must spare them if we can. Otherwise, your rule will be disputed and last as long as a sputtering candle in a storm.”
“My rule?”
Alyssa stood, her arms no longer shaking. She waited until the faceless woman opened her cell, then grasped the door with one hand and held it firm.
“Tell me your name,” she said.
“I have no name,” the woman replied.
“You said you are faceless, not nameless, now tell me.”
Alyssa could not see the woman’s eyes through the white cloth, but she had a feeling that behind it hid an amused smile.
“A strong candle,” the woman said. “My name is Eliora.”
“Then listen to me well, Eliora,” Alyssa said. “I will not accept rule of my household over the murdered body of my father. Whatever you were paid or promised, I can match it. All I ask is that Maynard be captured, not killed.”
Eliora let go of the door and stepped back so Alyssa could exit.
“This world is chaos, but I will do what I can. Be