Chapter 3 - Masquerade

Everyone in Oclen knew about the three best ways to get rid of one’s daughter.

1. Murder.

2. A vacant cottage deep in the woods, where she can make good soup.

3. Marriage.

Since Dahrian's parents were practically skint from attempting to keep their noble home without holding a stable job, they had to resort to the third. And since the future son-in-law was known for attempting to sabotage any betrothals, she was to be locked in her house for the next few months, to prevent any form of harm from the ornery groom. A rattle of keys outside her door, and she was practically dead to the world.

No more gossiping. No more early walks in the morning. And certainly no more fencing until she was married.

No more freedom.

Dahrian threw a book at her bedroom door, promptly picked up a pillow, and screamed into it.

This. Is. Bloody. Poppycock.

She laid down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Stale golden light filtered through her barred window, gliding over her face with a warm glow. She wondered for a brief moment if this was what it was like to be insane. She turned her head towards the lazy sunlight. The window scattered diamond-shaped shadows throughout her room. One of the shadows was off slightly. It was ever so very too long on one edge. She sat up and peered at the window intensely, looking for imperfections. Near the bottom held a near-imperceptible crooked bar. She hastened to it, rattling the bar to see if it was loose. It clattered in its nook, easily able to remove. Dahrian silently cheered. She couldn’t use it yet, but at least she had an extra option. She smiled to herself, wishing how she could tell Tessa.

Her mind wandered on to how she couldn’t see her friend in the next few weeks.

Dahrian staggered suddenly, a revelation dawning on her. She had always known this, but it had finally struck her for the first time.

Tessa had a husband once.

She was married off long before they became friends. At sixteen, her mother married her off to a cruel husband. He didn't love her. Never did. It took a year before she had grown weary of her hellish life and escaped through a broken window.

Dahrian had seen the damage; the scars on Tessa’s face and arms.

Would Lord Grenwood do that to her? She began to pace her room.

From their first conversation, he seemed shy and perhaps a little awkward. As if he had never talked to a girl. Embarrassing.

Overall, he seemed to be kind.

Perhaps he would still let her roam the city as she pleased. Now that would be nice. If she didn't have to reproduce rambunctious little Dahrian's and Cyrus's, perhaps this marriage thing wouldn't be so bad. And maybe she could even grow to love him.

But that was only a first impression.

Lord Cyrus Grenwood could be the worst, most despicable man to ever exist, and Dahrian would never know until months or even years later. Then what would she do? Escape like Tessa? Murder her husband? She laid down on her bed once more

Just as Dahrian began to reminisce about different ways she could potentially kill her betrothed, there was a sudden knock at her door.

“Lady Dahrian?” Claire asked in her wavery voice that most elders had.

“Hmmmm?” she responded, her eyes half closed.

“Your parents are taking you into town today.”

A smile blossomed on her face.

“Do you jest?”

“Of course not, milady. Wear something nice. It’s a public trial. Some sort of criminal.”

Dahrian took in one last breath of fresh air before stepping into the Brown’s manor. she returned to her room, an answer to her problem formed in her mind. A real plan. Her father locked the door behind her, but the sound of the keys no longer felt as entrapping.

She had found someone crazy enough to help her flee.

And it involved the strange red-haired man she saw today in the square.

He was tall, taller than Tessa. Quite pale from blood loss, but the guards couldn’t wipe that stupid smirk off his face. In fact, they even struck him at one point. His cracked lips didn’t twitch downwards for a second. It was as if he had a mask of utter joy plastered to his face. Although, joy wasn’t the right word. No, it was the sort of feeling when you knew that you were right when everyone was wrong.

Smug. That was the word.

Alden Black was smug—and a smuggler.

This was where he could be useful.

Dahrian figured out why there was a strange uptick in commotion over a simple public trial; it wasn’t so simple after all. He apparently was responsible for the mass export of hundreds of stolen goods. From pirates to noblemen, he had partnered with all people of ill-repute. But there was a catch to what he did. He would also steal from the corrupt and give to the needy, which angered the noblemen. Which was why he was wanted in all the holds of Oclen.

He definitely had Dahrian’s respect, at least for now.

The hearing was quite lengthy due to the vast amount of crimes and the crowd was obviously bored. They threw a couple of rotten vegetables at him and jeered, but no one called for death or further violence.

He was put in the stocks that evening, and she unfortunately couldn’t sneak away from the watchful eyes of her parents to have a little chat with him, but she at least had an idea. He would be in the guards’ jail tonight, lounging in a cell.

Now the real question was how in Amoria she could possibly get him out.

“By Thumagraw! What the hell happened to you?”

Damn. He was sure she would’ve been asleep at this hour. Alden paused his stride through the forest, having been found by his friend. He peered through the brush, just making out the orange glow of a small fire through the black darkness of the night.

She approached him, her hair glowing silver in the moonlight.

“Alden, what happened?” His friend asked again, touching his face where a guard had landed a nasty punch. “Where were you?”

“It’s nothing, Perrin, I’m fine.” He gently took her hand away from his face. “I’ll just put some snow on it, and it’ll be yellow in a couple of days.”

“The bruise or the snow?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” He muttered. He didn’t have the patience to amuse her.

“What really happened, Alden? Just tell me,” Perrin said, crossing her arms. “I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

“I just,” he closed his eyes. He did not want to deal with this right now. “I just made a mistake, okay? Said the wrong thing. I’m tired. Let’s just get some rest.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, gently taking one of his clenched fists. “Let’s just sleep.”

She paused.

“I set up camp while you were gone.”

“I see.”

She gave his hand a little kiss. “I missed you.”

He smiled. “I missed you too.”

He brushed a lock of her curly hair away from her face and kissed her gently in the moonlight.

There was a strange sound that brought Alden back from his slumber.

“Perrin…?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.

“What? Who is— No, I’m not—,” an unfamiliar voice stammered.

He sat up in the cell and his head spun at the sudden movement. He stared intensely into the darkness. There wasn’t much light in his cell, just a faraway torch still lit. He just managed to make out the image of a girl in a dark cloak, which was odd, because usually girls in cloaks didn’t visit him in prison. She stood on the other side of the iron door, her small hands gripping the bars.

“Who are you?” Alden asked, completely bewildered by this whole interaction.

“Are you the smuggler that they just arrested? Alden Black?” she asked, completely avoiding the question.

“Yup,” He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “’Tis I, you found me. Now, who am I speaking to?”

“I need your help,” she said firmly, once again avoiding the question.

“I don’t know if you can tell,” Alden lifted up one of his chain shackles. “But I’m quite busy at the moment.”

The girl sighed, turning her head towards the entrance of the prison. Her hood shifted, and something glinted faintly in the torchlight—feathers? No, that made no sense.

“Do you want to get out of here or not?”

“I'm kind of dealing with something here.”

Her palm struck the side of the bar with a loud thwang that reverberated around the cobblestone walls, making Alden jump. “If you help me, I can get you out. You just have to cooperate."

“Fine,” he said, slightly taken aback. “I’m listening.” He turned to fully face her. The piercing wound in his side throbbed as he moved.

“I’m being married off against my will, and I need help escaping Warmhaven,” she said after a pause. There was a slight tremor in her voice, and she had to take a deep breath. “The wedding is tomorrow night.”

“You… You want me to smuggle you?” Alden asked incredulously.

“Yes.” The girl nodded.

He hesitated, debating whether to indulge this at all. “To where?” he questioned.

“Omil.”

The single word echoed around the cell. Alden’s stomach seized up, already imagining the wanted posters that dotted the walls and buildings of Oclen’s capital. And… Perrin. “Fie…” he mumbled.

Hell no, he wasn’t going back.

“Oooooh, turns out I do have something on my schedule. Can you contact me next week?”

“I’ll pay you," the girl said, unfazed by his facetiousness.

“Deal,” he said immediately

She nodded to herself, exhaling silently. “You’ll be out of here tomorrow, I swear by it,” she said, turning to leave.

“What’s your name?” Alden asked for what felt like the one-hundredth time.

She paused her stride.

“Dahrian," she said, her back turned to him.

“Dahr-ian?” he repeated, the word odd on his tongue. It didn't mix well with his accent.

“Dahrian,” she said again, more firmly this time.

“Huh,” Alden said. “That’s a strange name. Are you a foreigner?”

“I’ll be here tomorrow at dawn,” Dahrian said flatly, continuing down the dim corridor.

As she passed by the torch, the light revealed pale skin and unmistakable feathers.

An aetherin…?

“Oh, by Thumagraw!" A shrill voice startled Alden awake. "Joanoch! Brother!”

The guards stepped forward immediately. Alden lifted his head off the floor towards the sudden noise. From his slanted perspective on the rough wooden floor, he saw a maiden, perhaps in her early twenties, frantically waving over the guards and hysterically calling to Alden. The small gold wings on the side of her head were splayed wildly. It was the mysterious girl from the previous night, except her appearance was so strange that Alden thought he was hallucinating, which wouldn’t be too alarming in his current state. Rather than her hair being as white as her skin, it was dark like charcoal. His mind flipped back and forth between labeling her as aetherin or human.

“What the hell…?” Alden mumbled, groggily sitting up.

“What ho, Lady Dahrian?” the head guard asked, obviously taken aback by her hysterical behavior.

“General,” she gave the Warmhaven guard an awkward courtesy. “There was a mistake! This man isn’t the criminal that you are looking for. He is my brother. You must release him immediately.”

Alden looked past the guard at her black hair and wings again. He pulled his curly red ponytail in front of him and shrugged. If it worked, it worked.

“My lady,” the guard said, adjusting his helmet to lift his visor and lowering his voice. “He confessed to his crimes yesterday. The bloke cannot be yer brother.”

“Oh, Joanoch is such an idiot.” She shot a glare at Alden. He was too weak to say anything back. “My brother has a wild imagination; he is a young lad after all. You must release him! Can’t you see he’s injured?”

Alden gave a little cough to emphasise her point. It was apparent that his job was to look as pathetic as possible.

“We lost him in the forest last week. We’ve been looking for him all over—nearly planned his funeral. The Brown family is so relieved that you have found him.” The poor soldier shifted from side to side uncomfortably.

“Lady Dahrian, I’m not sure about this…” he said hesitantly, stealing glances at Alden. “He matches our description perfectly.”

“You really think, I couldn’t recognise my own blood?”

He sighed. “If you say so, milady.”

The guard opened his cell with the turn of a key and Dahrian ran forward, helping him sit up. “I’m so glad you’re safe, brother,” she said, and then mouthed, “Play along.” Closer now, he could also see that her eyes were blue. Also strange for an apparent aetherin.

Who is this girl and how did she get to Oclen?

“Oh sister,” Alden wheezed. “You found me…”

She threw her arms around his neck and Alden internally squirmed. This was by car the worst escape coup he had ever participated in. He gave her a stiff, awkward pat on the back.

“Mother always said you would be arrested someday,” she said, finally letting go of him.

Alden forced a laugh.

“Sir Joanoch, we deeply apologise for your wrongful arrest,” the guard said, picking up the wanted poster to look at the drawing once more. A look of puzzlement crossed his face, but he shrugged and put the parchment down. He stepped forward with a different key and unlocked the shackle on his wrists.

Alden gingerly moved his wrists around. They were bloodied, but nothing a little time couldn’t fix, unlike the angry wound in his side.

The guard lifted him up to his feet and gave him a rough smack on the back, as if to apologize for his harsh attitude, sending Alden reeling. Dahrian took his hand and led him out of the cell. A couple of the men inside shot him and the bird-girl weird looks and Alden couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. She opened the door and he stepped outside into glorious freedom, snow crunching beneath his boots once more. He took a long, slow breath, cherishing the cold air in his lungs. Now out of the sight of the guards, he leaned against a nearby pine, once more pressing on the wound on his side.

Dahrian rushed forward. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“I’m pretty buggered,” he said between his teeth, willing himself to remain upright. She reached forward for his jacket but paused. “Yea, you can look.” He said, too tired to care.

He tried not to flinch at the icy fingers that lifted up the layers of his undershirt and jacket. She went silent and Alden assumed she found the wound. “Are you an apothecary, or something?” he asked, attempting to distract himself. She didn’t respond. Alden tried not to feel unsettled.

“It looks deep, and there’s an infection…” she mused.

“So you’re telling me I’m buggered.”

She shrugged. “I’m not an apothecary.”

“Bloody hell,” Alden said, laughing.

She let go of his shirt. “Come, let me take you to a spot where you can hide. I’ll be able to treat you there. And we can discuss the plan.” She said the last two words conspiratorially, even dropping her voice to a whisper.

“Yeah, sure,” Alden whispered back.

They took a road behind the main trail that led to the square. Alden managed to keep up, but there were a couple of times where he fell and Dahrian had to help him up. They remained quiet, mostly to not attract any unwanted travelers—but finally, Alden just had to ask her a question.

“Really? Joanoch?”