It was midday, and the sun was torture as it beamed down from above.
Without water to temper the sun's anger, waves of heat could be seen distorting the air just over the ground. Jim lazily watched as one's eyes would absent-mindedly follow a river as tides of heat flowed most visibly through the patches of ground without grass, thickening at the bits of black ground.
The whispering elms swayed in mild winds, teasing shadows, but none quite reached where Jim was forced to squat in his too-small cage. The sun directly overhead had shortened their shadows, and now Jim only had his cage's thin bars as protection.
However, with the way the sun warmed the metal, it was more like his frying pan instead.
He could already feel its effects. His once pale skin is now lobster red and sizzling as it cooked, and his sweat-making ruining the would-be meal rancid.
Jim was a dehydrated man who was withheld but the smallest swigs of water from the canteen. Soon, he could be looking at the small patch of lush grass and, in his desperation, reach out like he had seen many others do, hoping to snag a few blades to slake his thirst.
Jim wasn't quite that desperate yet, but he was close, and boredom drew him closer still.
Looking to his left and right, he saw almost half a dozen men slumped in their cages on either side. Some had gotten luckier than others. Three or four cells to his right were men who had the good fortune of imprisonment in the shade.
Those lucky bastards knew how good they'd gotten it and liked to flaunt it, too. Perhaps there was something in human nature that made one goad others with the good one had and compelled them to point out what others lacked. A few of them he could see even now smiling and fanning themselves in the shade as they noticed his gaze.
Bastards, all of them. Not that he hadn't done the same before. Occasionally, he'd be the one to get the shade when they changed camp.
Jim sighed and looked away, not having the strength to be angry. All he could do was sit and commiserate with the others stuck in the heat. They were his comrades against the sun. Lazy, though they were.
Occasionally, flies would land on some exhausted soul, perhaps even take their bite of blood, but most seemed content to let it happen or lazily swat them away.
It wasn't a talkative lot he found himself with.
Then came a set of four padded footsteps. Jim's legs curled in front of him, his butt sat on his heel, arms wrapped around his legs, and head rested on his knees. He looked up at the noonday sun to measure precisely what time it was. He quickly recognized that the sun stood at its zenith, which meant lunchtime, time for their only meal for the entire day.
Jim felt his belly give a hungry growl to affirm his assertion.
Which meant the time for the four stooges' round of torture had come.
"Have you heard about the recruits?"
Jim heard a rhythmic banging and then the slop of something moist, slapping metal, and the slight sizzling of meat.
"Yeah, I heard they were even worse than the last batch. I wonder where they get those little shits."
Again, there was a moist squelching as soft slop slapped metal and the subtle smell of sizzling meat.
"I heard this batch is younger. They're collecting farm boys and merchants' sons now. Soft boys not meant for war."
That got a round of dirty chuckles from the group of hyenas.
"Wait till they see the first battle. I tell you, that's where those cowards come from. Can't trust none of them to watch your backs."
There was quiet after that, likely because all of them agreed, and what was said had uncomfortable implications. With the mass deaths at the battle of the burning plains, it was now their turn to join the front lines. It was their turn to run from the Varden's army and be branded traitors. They stopped rumor-mongering; now, there was just the slow and steady banging, moist squelch, and sizzling of meat.
Eventually, one man of the group of four soldiers came banging on Jim's cage.
It was a pale-skinned, thin-haired bastard by the name of Wester. "How are we doing today, squad leader master, sir?"
That old bit of banter was made for torture instead, and somehow, the lout managed to tease genuine respect, too. The man had done fuck all during the battle of the burning planes because the man never had the honor of going. The empire leadership had judged the man to be too incompetent to be used as fodder for battle, and yet somehow, the man had drudge up the audacity to mock him.
Jim gave him a grim smile that hurt his overly tan skin as wrinkles formed. He half wished the man had been there, but he knew soon everyone would know the terror of the Varden's unnatural army.
The most extraordinary collection of warriors the Empire had to offer had fought them, and they lost. What chance did incompetents like Wester have?
He could imagine a thin hide snake barely rated to clean barrels and feed prisoners impaled on a silver pike like the one that slaughtered his men.
Jim's smile grew to unsettle Wester, but the man's bully confidence rose quickly in his defense as he remembered which side of the cage he was on.
The man took a ladle and, with practiced ease, slopped another spoonful of mystery meat on the metal cage's edge. The meat soon sizzled as it cooked on top of the sun-baked metal.
When Jim and Marlan ran, the two of them did it out of survival, not cowardice. Jim looked at Wester's retreating back and knew that he wasn't nearly as bad a coward as that man. Men like Wester would run out of fear and nothing else. They would take one look at that blue dragon and its rider and not even think of fighting like Jim did.
Now, just because the two of them were caught running away a few minutes faster than the rest of the army, they were seen as deserters. They had to eat sunbaked mystery slop.
Well, at least he did.
Marlan had been separated from Jim. The soldier wondered how the man was, but of course, no one bothered telling prisoners anything.
That was hardly fair, but war wasn't fair. Jim had quite some time to accept his lot in life.
Jim struggled to lift the slop into his mouth without frying his already sunburned skin against the sun-beaten metal. Jim was glad the Wester had left, happy he wasn't close enough to hear the slight yelp he let out when he failed to snatch his slop unscathed.
Another patch of skin filled with a bundle of dead nerves was his reward for the effort—another patch to join the other at the soles of his feet.
Jim only found himself bursting with tears of joy that the four stooges didn't dine to stay as he ate his slop.
At least he didn't have to deal with the embarrassment of playing a game of messy hot potato as he shoveled meat into his mouth like a caged animal half mad from rabies, along with all the other indignities he had to endure.
It was only the other prisoners that would see that degradation, and Jim watched them do the same, or at least most of them.
The prisoners in the shade were the most lively, immediately grabbing at their slop and slinging it down their gullets. The men in the sun were different. Some had lost hope or were nearly dead from sun sickness. Jim, though more substantial than the average man, felt a burst of dizziness himself at times.
Jim finished his slop more quickly than he would have liked and turned sharp eyes to the other deserters. Two men left of him he saw a man with redskin and with sun-bleached hair and pale blue eyes that sat open as he stared at his scoop of slop. He looked at it as if it was some alien thing. He looked at it as if it might grow legs and crawl at him, snapping its gelatinous claws.
He had his legs outstretched, his knees forced out of the cage so that his feet stuck out between the bars. That was likely some bid for freedom from his cramped cell. The underside of his legs touched the pan of the metal cage with only the thin tan pants given to them as prisoners for protection.
Jim knew that this meant the man's skin likely had blisters that ran down the entire length of his legs, but Jim hadn't heard him scream even once today. If sun sickness didn't take him, he would hear his wimpers later, and when he tried to move again, his skin would inevitably start cracking.
The Empire had always been harsh with prisoners and cared for them only so far as to ensure they were still alive. Soldiers on the march didn't care what color of life their prisoners took—just that they could walk, be obedient, and sit quietly while they drank and bantered over the firelight.
Jim knew this because he had been the same. He had been like the four stooges. He'd Mocked deserters and bullied those who could do nothing in return.
That, too, was part of human nature.
Either way, it would be the walking part that did that man in. Jim could see that even if the man survived the sun sickness and the pain, he would be executed tomorrow when he was unable to walk. Blistered feet were one thing. There was pain as one walked on sore heels, but burned feet were also numb to the twigs and rocks. Blistered legs would cause pain with every bend, break, and step.
Jim looked into other cages and saw a couple of similarly despondent individuals. Still, most, even in the sun, had enough strength to sit on their heels, letting the sun bake only the worn soles of their feet instead of letting everything fry.
Jim's eyes traced back to the man sitting on his spread legs. Something in him that hadn't entirely given up on reaching out into the world to care about things other than here, now, pain, food, thirst, and hunger made him speak up.
"Hey you." his voice came out in a croak from disuse.
The man didn't respond or look up; he kept staring senselessly at the meat as it began to charr slowly.
The reflection of something in that man's cell seemed to focus the light into contracted beams, and the meat indeed began to burn, but the man was motionless.
"Hey, you have to move your legs, or you'll be useless tomorrow." Jim pressed his face against his metal bars, searching for a reaction on the man's face.
His awkward position made it hard to notice any change in the man's cage. He looked through a tangle of bars, as well as his neighbors, and though the carousels of metal surrounding them made it difficult, he managed to catch what was happening in the man's cell.
His angry neighbor's face quickly blocked Jim's view. The man by the name of Usef pressed against the bars, glaring annoyance at Jim. His eyebrows were scrunched in a fit of anger so tight and knotted that even Jim, who cared little for the emotions of others, could tell the man was ready to lash out with misplaced anger.
Jim met his glare evenly, and something of his immense frame and experience killing must have become evident because the man quieted and, with a frustrated wave of his hand, moved out of the way.
With him out of the way, Jim's view was clear. He could finally see the slightest twitch of movement from his fellow prisoner, boiled red.
The man turned his head, his pale blue eyes meeting Jim's own. They looked haunted, hollow in a way that said the man was small inside.
A weak soul dragged through the press of violence often made itself small and hard for its own protection. This man's soul had been smothered into a pea-sized ball.
Jim sat back on his heels but couldn't quite bring himself to give up on the man.
"You've given up, haven't you? Your eyes betray you, friend. You should know that makes you weak. We all may be deserters, but look around you, friend. Most of us haven't given up yet, but you have." Jim's throat felt sore from talking. He had barely gotten out those few words without coughing, but somehow, he managed.
Jim gave up on talking and settled in his cage. He was about to settle into his holdfast against discomfort nestled in deep in his mind, that place where he still saw and heard things but was numb to them. The creaking of metal two cages over made him stop. The sunsick man had shifted.
The tired soldier looked over and saw the sun-sick man huddled on his heel, copying Jim's sitting position. The man licked and bit at the burned slop like a man desperate for life.
Jim's lips cracked into a quiet grin and he was about to turn his head when he heard a voice as sore from disuse as his own had been.
It was that man from before, Usef, his neighbor with the misplaced anger. His face was open now as if he were a child bereft of the world's affection.
"Do you really believe that?"
Jim's brows tightened with confusion.
"Believe what?"
"That we shouldn't give up yet?" The man was slight, and his face gaunt, his pupils so dark as to be black, and the whites of his eyes sickly yellow. The man asked his question in a matter-of-fact tone without a hint of emotion.
"Hope. Hope is all we have, friend." Jim said so quietly it might have been a whisper, but his words managed to touch the sick man's ear. The man settled back in his cage, satisfied as if it was a simple question he'd sought, and he was glad to receive his answer.
The day slowly passed to night, with the blazing sun exchanging itself for an ice-cool moon. It was when the crickets started chirping and stars began popping out bright into the sky like a framed fireworks display that the sounds of fighting made their way to Jim's ear.
The cages were a little ways from camp, so it was impossible to see what was happening, but he could hear a ton of commotion.
There was the clattering of men in armor running about. The clashing of steel on steel was short-lived. There were flames dragged along supply carriages. Then, the stomping of steel grieves drew closer to the cages.
Some, less dazed from squatting all day in the sun, began reaching out arms from the cages and holding out hands in supplication. There was shouting and banging on the cages.
All that noise and clatter must have been noticed because men in red steel armor came into view.
The men began to pool before the line of cages, and Jim found he didn't like how coldly the men looked at them.
One of the men, short and stout, less heavily armored than the rest, was sent off by a man wearing a winged helmet of fine make. Jim guessed that that man was a lieutenant of some kind.
"Please let us out." Jim's bellow, which had been louder than the average man, caught a few soldiers' eyes, making them turn to him, and they must have heard something of his desperation because one of them, likely out of pity more than anything else, bothered to make a response.
A copper voice with a playful lilt hidden beneath the grim tones of a warrior spoke. His tone was righteous and stuffy.
"What is your crime? Murderer, Thief, Rapist?"
It was the lieutenant with the winged helmet that spoke. Jim could see his handsome face through his half-helm. The man had serpent-blue eyes, a well-defined chin, and a sharp, angular nose that fit his face.
Jim instantly felt he'd like to punch the smug, pretty boy.
The deserter thought for a second, considering what to say. On the one hand, telling what was obviously a Varden raiding party he was a deserter might help his case if he managed to phrase it correctly. On the other hand, cowards were looked upon poorly by both sides in a war.
Jim realized he didn't have much choice. Thieves, murderers, and rapists were not seen as better.
"Deserter, we are all deserters. We could not bear to stand for the Empire's cause," Jim said, letting the guilt he felt show on his face to add legitimacy to his words. However, that guilt came because he now defamed the Empire he'd stood for rather than the fact that he despised fighting for the Empire's cause.
"So just as bad, if not worse." The lieutenant shook his head but didn't walk away. "You know … er, what's your name, prisoner?"
"Jim. your name, sir?" Jim asked gruffly but was ignored
"Jim. Do you know what's worse than murders, rapists, and thieves?" the lieutenant continued, not bothering to answer him.
The question was rhetorical. Jim could tell what the man wanted him to say next. The man wanted to mock him, and answering him would give him that opportunity for ridicule, but with a bout of internal conflict, he allowed himself to spring the trap.
"What would that be?" Jim asked, feeling his voice rasp, his vocal cords hoarse from getting more exercise than they were used to.
"Coward." The man chewed the word and spit it with such speed and venom it gave Jim whiplash, and it stung him deeply in a bloody gaping wound he'd let fester after his imprisonment. Jim was a coward. He had run when others died. He had fled instead of being slaughtered with the rest of his men. Perhaps he should have died on a silver pike, just like everyone else. Why did he get to survive?
Jim let his head hang low, and he found he was quite done with the conversation.
Silence fell between them, and the lieutenant turned away from him without a second glance. For him, it was as if Jim had dropped out of existence.
In seconds, the man began to talk happily with his troops.
The men made easy banter about how quickly their swords had found the Empire soldiers' backs, and the prisoners lay sullen and silent in their cells until the messenger returned with the captain.
The captain, outfitted head to toe in gleaming red steel armor and with an Amber blade by his side, barked some orders, and the cages were ripped open. The prisoners once again clapped in iron and were dragged along.
Jim was walked along by his chains in line with two dozen other prisoners, all linked together and made to stumble through the Surda wilderness in the dark. Jim, who had no torch beside the one held by the soldier far in front of the line, couldn't see and found himself with many more scrapes and bruises as he stumbled on moist rocks and slippery moss.
Jim's healed arm couldn't take all the constant swinging and jostling.
The dull aching that had started to fade after the battle of the burning planes became a new well of pain. As Jim caught himself from another fall, it grew into a headache-inducing throb. It felt like someone was taking a hammer to his arm and battering bones until they splintered, then starting again and again.
The only good thing about the pain was that time passed in a haze.
It wasn't long trekking through the dark before they reached camp. A camp that held even more of the Varden's men standing to greet them, all of them covered in red steel armor, many embossed with a lighting mark.
The captain took off his helm and revealed an aged, wrinkled face. He was a bald, stout man with a large bushy beard.
In a second, he began booming orders, and the well-trained men quickly got to work setting a fire and corralling the prisoners Jim included to a large tree where their chains were wrapped.
The man at the front of the line and the person at the very back were chained together to form a circle that straddled the centennial oak, and they were made to sit amongst the trees' tangle of aerial roots.
The kindle was gathered, and the logs for sitting were chopped and sat on. The Varden soldiers settled for a midnight meal and drinks as the fire began to crackle comfortably.
It was as the Varden soldiers grew enraptured with tales of conquest that the captain, his lieutenant, and four more identically armored soldiers came to check on them. The old bald man took his time inspecting each of their faces, sticking out his neck to force the deserters' eyes to meet his. Occasionally, he'd hum some song Jim couldn't identify for the life of him, though it unsettled the empire soldiers.
The lieutenant and the other troops stood with their backs to the fire, stoic outlines against the firelight. Their eyes followed each prisoner's movements like hawks. Their hands at their hilts, ready to protect their captain with the zeal of rabid dogs.
Eventually, the bald captain made his way to Jim. His aged face shoved before Jim's own like the rest. Jim felt the edge of the man's beard inches from his mouth, close enough for him to jut out his neck and bite at the hairs. Jim, looking up, met the captain's hard eyes and held his gaze. The man gave him a grim smile before turning from him.
With a gesture, the captain, his lieutenant, and the rest of the Varden's hangers-on walked back to the fire to grab a drink.
"Should we still have hope?" That angry man from before, Usef, asked beside him.
"Yes, Usef, hope is all we have," Jim said as he rested his head against the rough tree bark.
Usef seemed to grunt consideringly and, with only a moment's pause, gave a blood-chilling assessment, "Even though the general man plans to kill some of us."
Jim looked at him and could dimly make out his face from the edges of the firelight that reached them, "how do you know that ?"
The man's face scrunched up in concentration as if he was trying to remember something, "He had this look about him. I think I've seen it before. I had this one officer who made it right before he split open bandits. Nasty man, he liked playing with people's insides and didn't try to hide it either… I remember how the pain made him so happy, and he had the same grin. You saw it, too, right?"
Jim thought about it and nodded before remembering the man couldn't see him and grunting his affirmation. The former empire soldier had known people just like Usef spoke of, people who liked not just killing but also pain.
Surprisingly, the man next to Usef, the man from before who had sat in his cage in a daze, was the next to speak up.
"Don't.. Give.. up." The man said with a voice that was even more hoarse than Jim's from disuse.
There was the jingle of moving chains. With more effort than it should take a healthy man, the battle-shocked soldier lifted his hand. Jim saw the smallest of fires dance between his fingers.
—-~-
Among the Varden, Tensions were high. Theodore had been gone for weeks at this point, and now, under Trianna's leadership, Du Vrangr Gata was finally ready for the order.
The magicians who had been bereft of knowledge for so long had torn through their grimoires.
Rubies, sapphires, and diamonds had been bought by the dozens and filled to the brim with power. They had gems enough now for each member of their now prestigious order—sufficient for every magician to pack power.
It was because of that preparedness that Trianna walked with Frida, following just two steps behind.
The two crept through the moonlit night. The one-armed assassin and begrudging companion is watching Trianna's back, still searching for weakness.
"Stop that," Trianna whispered without turning around to meet the blonde's cold eyes.
The order wasn't met with a reply; Trianna's previous orders ensured the assassin's silence, though Trianna felt the assassin's eyes leave the back of her head. Her oath-bound obedience forced her to look ahead, and the two fell into a familiar, coarse silence, one that gave the sorceress goosebumps as she thought of the violence it thinly veiled.
Despite that discomfort, Trianna let the silence continue as they crept through the forest of tents.
Trianna remembered when she had first met Frida. When they talked, she recalled how courteous they had both been. That time had long gone. Something about one person being nearly assassinated and another having their arm torn off seemed to do that to a relationship.
There was the occasional lantern and guard, which the two religiously avoided. They needn't have bothered.
Du Vrangr Gata had made themselves so useful that the guards who would normally be keyed up looking for assassins were now surrounded by wards and had grown lax because of it.
The guards finding themselves obsolete had lent itself to their lack of vigilance.
Nasuada had tried her best to curb their debauchery, but what happened late at night was for the men to know and the commanders to ferret out.
Good luck or a lack of care from their commanders had allowed many soldiers to lumber around camp carrying spirits that would shrivel even dwarven taste buds and make urgal kulls sing.
This lack of vigilance was for the best; Trianna wasn't in the least bit sneaky.
Trianna was unlike Frida, whose footsteps were silent even to Trianna's ear despite listening for her footfalls beside her. She should be glad she wasn't a rogue who used the cloak and dagger as a painter, might use a brush.
Trianna just couldn't seem to find it in her to be happy for her foot to find every twig and patch of dry ground to snap and crunch beneath her feet.
It was only her mastery of words of power that muffled all the noise she made to a manageable radius. Even then, She'd turned a few drug-addled eyes their way.
They hadn't been caught only because men were easily reassured that the wards were working and would slink away, assuming perhaps it was another guard patrolling, some small animal creeping through the night to collect nuts, or something else equally benign.
It didn't take them long to reach a spot of tents that held essential individuals—a place set apart with far numerous wards and fewer guards.
Though this cordon of tents had far more personal soldiers, men employed by the personal wealth of generals.
Blades of grass danced in the wind, seeming to enjoy the night's cool air. The ground was lusher and more comely, a break from the brittle ground before. Of course, the general had the privilege of the first pick of camping spots.
The guard stationed at the door let her in with a nod, and the soft fabric whispered through Trianna's fingers as she opened a flap holding Theodore's iconic lightning mark next to a hawk emblem that clutched wheat in its right talons and a sword in its left flying a cross a field of blue.
Trianna and Frida, walking just behind her, slid into the tent's entrance to be eaten up by its shadowy interior.
A candle was lit to greet them, and the man who held it stood watching them with expectation. His eyes roamed over Trianna, briefly taking her in head to toe, and then flickered to Frida with a cautious glance to the dagger she had sheathed at her hip.
Before them was a balding man in his late fifties clad in luxurious purple robes striped black by the dark shadows the candle threw over his clothing's many folds.
The man had this hawkish look about him with a prominent nose that was ready to spear fish like a stork. It contrasted heavily with his humble posture that generals learned to cultivate, but Trianna could see a gleam of superiority beaming from his emerald eyes. His arrogance shone in the way his brows wrinkled at you. The way his smug eyes watched you, saying he saw the game you played and that he might know your next move.
"General Bodil," Trianna said in greeting.
The man nodded and led her further into the bowels of the tent, where he fell into one of his plush chairs.
The candle wick, still burning hot in his hand, was set on a table before him. A servant by the name of Sevilla, a small woman with already silver hair, snatched the candle using its already lit wick to light more candles until the four of them no longer sat in darkness.
Then, the woman became as busy as a bee, stoking the campfire just outside the tent that had nearly fallen to embers and beginning to set more logs into the fire for fuel, all while tending to a spot of tea with expert care.
Looking around her, the sorceress noticed the General's plush bed, upholstered footstool, and a thousand other conveniences.
Trianna pitied the hauling crew that would drag all of these items to the next camp, though she was sure they were well paid.
Trianna watched Sevilla bumbling around to prepare cups for tea and pitied Bodil's servant as well, as a hauling crew couldn't possibly trusted to set the furniture in just the right places.
The sorceress seriously doubted that Bodil arranged the furniture every time the Varden set up camp, which left the old woman to shove around all that heavy furniture into position.
Settling into her proffered plush seat beside the general, Trianna absently thumbed her snake bracelet as she waited for Bodil to speak first. The man looked expectantly at her as if waiting for her to report, but it wouldn't do for the general to think that he was in charge.
There was a silence only filled by Sevilla's bumbling and Frida, who was unwilling to sit, quiet shuffling beside her before the general dined to speak.
He had a powerful, velvety voice that beat out words rhythmically like a drum. Each word was measured before he spoke.
"Is everything prepared?" He asked not one to waste words or beat around the bush.
"We are as prepared as we'll ever be. I've gathered five of Nasuada's nine generals, two of which have the largest armies under them, and they have all agreed to support Theodore's bid for leadership."
Trianna could see a glint of fear in the general's eyes at Theodore's name. However, the look disappeared almost as soon as it appeared on his face, leaving her unsure whether she had actually seen it.
"So how is it going to be done?" The general's rhythmic voice beat out, followed by his pointed stare. His emerald green eyes watched her closely as Sevilla set full tea cups before both of them.
The general took a sip, not bothering to move his eyes from her face. Trianna, meeting his eyes, took a sip of her own. The tea, still scalding hot, had a sweet spiciness to it that seemed to dance on her taste buds.
"We've decided not to go the armed rebellion route. We are still the Varden; we still support what it stands for. We want a change of leadership."
"We," Bodil said as if tasting the word before he nodded. Trianna took it as the general confirming in his mind that the word fit, "when do 'We' start."
"Tomorrow, when Nasuada makes her assembly meeting. I do hope you've prepared your troops. 'We' are not taking no for an answer."
Bodil began to hum noncommittally, but it wasn't enough for the sorceress. Trianna drew her dagger and slammed it down into the table hard enough that a third of the blade implanted itself into the wood.
The suddenness of the action was enough to unsettle the general, but Bodil sent her a look of absolute disdain, one that made Trianna want to curl away or rebel and slap him. He looked at her as if someone might look at some thug attempting to mug him at the side of the road.
"Really, Trianna, must we be so crude."
The general shot Trianna with a look meant to kill. Perhaps he would have attacked if he had been in a warrior's mindset. As it was, he held onto his political cloth.
"Don't do that again." the man said.
"Or what?" Trianna asked playfully, fighting her instinct to back down or lash out and instead ripping her dagger from its shapely hole with a predatory smile.
"Or it won't be 'we' anymore?" The general gave a half-hearted shrug as if he meant it more in jest than anything serious.
Trianna sensed the man had an edge to him.
Trianna let her own dagger's edge catch the candlelight so the Bodil could see the knife that would come for him if he reneged on their deal before sheathing the blade.
"Very well. Where were we?"
"I think you were going to explain how exactly 'we' are going to confront Nasuada in front of all her generals."
The two talked for a time before Bodil was satisfied with the plan, and then without even the slightest bit of small talk Trianna departed for her tent.
Trianna had just finished bathing and dressing herself in a nightgown when she heard a courtier's step.
Frida let the man into her tent, and the man handed the assassin a letter before running off.
"Open it," Trianna muttered sleepily. She felt tired but wasn't willing to sleep near the assassin.
Frida made a grunt and used her trusty knife to cut the envelope. Inside was a black note.
Frida unfolded the sheet of paper. In neat white ink were written two words, 'You're Free.'
Those words, their oddity, gave the assassin pause.
At first glance, it seemed to be a simple black note with a simple phrase written on it. At a second glance, there was more to it. The note's black was obsidian, implacable like the fabric of reality itself, so black Frida couldn't even see where it wrinkled. The white, on the other hand, gave a sense of purity, of something divine.
"What does the note say?" Trianna asked, her hand out to take the note. Frida, in a second, said Brisingr, and the black paper caught on the edge and quickly began to burn.
"Nothing much," Frida said with a sadistic smile plastered on her face.
Trianna watched the paper burn and frowned.
"Why did you burn the note?" Trianna asked anxiously as the last bits of it turned to ash.
"I wasn't ordered not to," Frida replied, and there was a gleam of amusement and delight dancing in her eyes.
Trianna's frown deepened. It was true Trianna had only raised her hand in expectation she hadn't asked for it. Unfortunately, some orders had to be explicit, or they could be ignored.
"Don't burn anything of mine again."
Frida nodded, but as she was dismissed from Trianna's tent, she subtly snatched a bit of parchment from Trianna's table side. It wasn't a full sheet, just the paper's edge torn with a single movement.
The assassin paused, consideringly, knowing that what happened now had a good chance of causing soul-wrenching bouts of pain.
"Brisingr." Whispered the assassin and the paper burned, and Frida felt no pain.