Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 6)

Ky felt uneasy at the implication about Aleth, but felt a stab of absolute panic at him turning the conversation to Lyra. She still couldn’t lie to a Lord. Besides, noble blood or not, she couldn’t lie to Gaius because of who he was as a human. She melted under his gaze 100% of the time. Still. She had to at least attempt to deflect the question. It wasn’t her place to tell.

“Um… what about her?” she asked lamely, not looking at him. Would he be able to see straight through her without eye contact? Probably. “… she doesn’t talk to me a ton.”

"You saw her at Wolf Keep." Gaius kept walking. "Tomhas told me a little, and why he took her home. What was Tarr like with her in front of you? What happened?"

There it was. A direct question. She folded in an instant.

“Um… he was… pretty terrible. Worse before Tomhas showed up.” Ky very carefully kept her gaze anywhere but Gaius. “It seemed like he treated her like Aleth treated me. We were both scared of both of them, I think. He didn’t do anything in front of me but he threatened her a lot and she seemed scared and I think he followed through. She spent quite a bit of time in the infirmary before we went home with Tomhas… I don’t really know what he did to her, though. Didn’t seem like any of my business.”

Gaius exhaled, fingers tightening around his cane. Tarr was definitely going to die, then. "It probably wasn't," he replied. "Thank you for seeing, at least. I tried to get more out of Tomhas but he didn't want to say. Lyra seems upset with him, understandably."

Ky saw his body language change, and wondered if she made the right move by telling him. And then remembered the way Lyra quaked under Tarr. Watched the brutality the bastard was capable of. He deserved to die, and she didn’t think Tomhas would follow through with it… maybe he would. And maybe it’d be quick. She didn’t savor the thought of a drawn out torturing. Still.

Besides, they both knew fully well Gaius would have dragged it out of her eventually, so there was no point in making it a drawn out process fraught with anxiety.

“I’m sure.” She nodded, keeping to herself that she couldn’t understand why Tomhas had allowed the marriage in the first place. Surely he knew what sort of terror Tarr was? Still. It wasn’t her place to question it. “… I’m glad he took both of us home with him.”

"As am I." Gaius shook his head slightly. "But let's talk about what we have on this floor. The trophy room is through this door." He gestured to a set of double doors. "The giant doors towards the middle of the hallway are the library. And at the very end of the hall is the infirmary."

Ky nodded, glad he was changing the topic well away from Aleth and Tarr.

Gaius came to the door of the trophy room, gave the handle a long look, then opened it.
Inside was essentially a menagerie, but all of the animals were dead. There were full skeletons, skulls, stuffed beasts, all posed to look as if they were alive. A white bear reared up at the very end of the room beside a mountain cat that was poised to pounce. The cat was pure white with shockingly blue eyes and long teeth, and its tail had the classic purplish bit of exposed bone that was shaped uncannily like a mace. There were other exotic animals as well, but those were the two that stood out most.

(Mountain cats are basically big white pumas with poisonous spiky mace tails; not sure if I ever clarified)

(Thanks! You mentioned the mace tails but I definitely had envisioned them black for some reason lol it does not make sense since they live in the snow and need camouflage but my brain still did that haha)


Ky stared at the mountain cat for a long, long moment, imagining it coming straight for her throat if Aleth had fed her to one like Michael wanted to. “…that’s the one he brought here alive?”

"Excellent memory," Gaius said grimly. "Yes, that's the one." It was a female, larger than average and even here you could see it was thin, half-starved. "My father killed it himself and stuffed it at Michael's behest." He didn't know why he kept it here. He'd purged most of the Keep of Michael's belongings or piled them in Michael's bedroom, but he rarely ever went into the trophy room so perhaps it slipped his mind. He resolved to have it taken out and burned later.

Ky nodded. Yes. She had an unfortunately good memory.

And she wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“I suppose that’s better than…” She looked at the bear instead, deciding she didn’t need to finish that thought.

Gaius glanced at her. "Keeping it as a pet? I think the entire Keep agrees with you." Servants never cleaned it, so its coat had gathered dust and gotten yellowish with age. "Do you suppose your friend could go up against it?"

“…I imagine so,” she said after a moment, eyeing the bear. “He took it down.” Now she nodded towards the bear, reveling in how absolutely massive it was. “And he can’t die regardless, so…”

"You're probably right." Gaius glanced around at the other animals. "Let's move on." This room was sickening him. Maybe he'd torch it all.

She barely bit off a ‘please’ before she said it. But he could probably tell how uneasy this room made her.