Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 15)

"Has he done something to offend you in the past?"

"Perhaps he has a brother," Septimus suggested. "He spoke at length with my son, and again just now with Tomhas present."

“Yeah… I mean no… I mean… I want nothing to do with someone who is a shitty father.”


“No.” Ky shook her head, brow furrowed. “Papa only had one other brother besides Zander and he looked like Papa not Zander.” Or so she was told. She’d never met the asshole and she didn’t want to. “And Papa and Zander looked nothing alike. It couldn’t be anyone related to me.”

Rickard blinked in surprise. "Lord Loquitur seems like an excellent father. He's supportive of his children, from what I've seen."

"Well, take this as you will. He arrived with a girl and two boys, and Gaius seemed concerned. He spoke with him in his office, which I failed to enter in time. I was only aware of the discussion with Tomhas because one of my brothers told me."

“He sold his oldest off to the highest bidder,” Jerica scoffed. “I know that Tarr is a son-of-a-bitch, you can’t convince me that Loquitur — someone who’s met Tarr and actually lives up here — didn’t know the kind of man he was selling his daughter to for his own personal gain. Just like a noble.”


Ky furrowed her brow even further. Narfi? “Which brother?” She wasn’t so sure she could trust him anymore. In fact, she was pretty sure she couldn’t. But she needed to know if he was still around. And she needed to figure out who this man was.

Rickard thought for a moment. "I think he lay have been naive to the seriousness of the situation. Or he had run out of options."

"Severus. He's the only one who'll talk to me."

“There are always options,” Jerica argued with a shake of her head. “Be a big boy and talk your problems out. Take a thrashing, maybe. Pay reparations, if you must. Don’t drag a little girl — your little girl — into the middle of a war you started. And if he really and truly thought there was no other way to win the war and Ash would have been cruel to his family if he won — which I doubt, given they’re all buddy-buddy again so soon — then flee. Take some of your enormous wealth and run to the South or off continent or something. Don’t offer your first born up to a monster.”


Gods. That meant others were around, if he phrased it like that. She rubbed her face. “Well… it has to be a coincidence, then. I don’t have any other family.”

He nodded, looking down at the ground. "Lord Ash was very upset with him. So is Sera."

"I wouldn't leave it up to chance if I were you. Whatever they spoke about in there, they were serious."

“Good.” Jerica nodded. They went up in her estimation immediately. “They’re sensible, then.”


Ky furrowed her brow. “Did…. Severus say what?” Was she really trusting an Ash? Two Ashes.

"It's hard not to be upset about something like that," he said. "The girl is here, now. Lyra, I mean. He took her home. And he adopted the other girl, Ky, around the same time. She was...in a situation like mine."

"What was going on in the room? No. He told me that Gaius took Tomhas aside almost the moment he went inside and told him they needed to talk about you. He knew I'd taken an interest in you so he thought he'd notify me."

Jerica hesitated. For half a moment, she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt of having redeemable qualities. But she pushed them down. “What, he need another daughter to sell off to someone? Who’s she engaged to?”


“Talk about me?” Well now she was concerned. It felt more like her business now than it had before.

"Nobody. She's just a child--he's learned his lesson, m-Jerica."

He nodded. "That's what he said. He also said this Derik fellow was brought in as well."

“Mm…” Jerica nodded slowly. “…Well I still don’t like him.”


“Derik who?” Ky asked, brow furrowed.

(I vote he knows Ainsley because that’ll make it worse lol)

"Fair enough." He dipped his head.

"Ainsley. Of Rhaebaki."

Jerica nodded, picking at the hem of her tunic. “I’ll warn Derik.”

“Derik Ainsley?” Ky paled immediately, feeling faint. She put a hand against the wall to steady herself. “Is here for me?”

"Good idea."

"You know the name, I take it?"