Here's the ninth chapter, which I'm sure all who read the cliffhanger chapter eight ended on are awaiting eagerly.
I'm going to try to post in smaller installments, which I can for this one because it's short, but as soon as the chapters get massive again (sixteen plus pages, for example), I'm back to doing about 5000 words each post.
The End of Time
Part One: The City
Chapter Nine: Secrets and Trust
Nendo remained in stony silence as he rode back to the other nobles and their servants, who had begun blowing their horns to announce the hunt was over. The announcement couldn’t have come any sooner, he thought grimly.
In front of Nendo, Lord—no, Lady?—Darian rode Luso, as silent as Nendo and pale-faced, his—her—expression strained. They had not spoken since Nendo had voiced his horrified realization; now Nendo had removed the arrow and crudely patched up Darian’s injury using pieces of his own shirt. Neither needed to speak; Nendo didn’t even know where to begin.
He kept replaying the incident over in his head—specifically the moment when he’d torn Darian’s shirt open and seen the truth. And he couldn’t deny what he’d seen: a woman’s curves beneath the heavy bandaging. There was no mistake about it.
It was enough to make him want to retch. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like a heavy cold hand had tightened around his insides and was twisting. All along, he’d been working for a liar and never known it. Masudo had been lying to him. Cura, too. Maybe even the other servants. This was “Lord” Darian’s secret, the one that Cura had been so desperate to protect. She’d been relieved, Nendo remembered, when he hadn’t guessed the answer all those weeks ago.
Then again, he couldn’t even conceive of it. A woman dressing as a man, acting like a man, performing battle magic and running her own estate? He wondered how long this farce had been going on, how long this young woman had been pretending to be Lord Darian, Count of Miria. And he wondered who she really was.
They reached the gathering of nobles, who were laughing boisterously and showing off their kills to one another as if nothing had happened. Then again, for them, nothing had. Nendo wondered, as he studied their faces, whether they knew. But the way they easily conversed with Darian and patted “him” on the shoulder and spoke about women suggested they were unaware that their fellow peer wasn’t anything less than “he” appeared.
“Lord Darian! There you are,” said the redheaded noble, waving. “Where’s your kills—what, you’ve got none?”
“Shut up,” said Darian, riding straight through the middle of the gathering. Their burdenbeasts lowed nervously and the nobles backed off, parting around Darian like the river around a boat. “Come, Nendo!”
Nendo, despite himself, still responded to that sharp tone of command. He brought Tonall to a trot and followed Darian, heedless of the others’ stares at him and his departing, grim-faced lord.
“Lord Darian,” called Lord Kigo after them, his red face even more flushed than usual. “I swear I didn’t mean to injure you—I shall assert to my dying day that it was an accident and I offer the fullest of full condolences—”
“Shut up, you brainless castrated pig,” hissed Darian, shooting Kigo a murderous glare.
“Whoa—whoa—all right, I get the picture,” said Lord Kigo, holding his hands in front of him for peace. “I apologize for any churlishness that might have induced you to hurl such grave insults at me—”
Darian told Kigo to do something very inappropriate with himself, before turning around and riding out of the park gates, ignoring his—her—fellow nobles’ shocked reactions.
Nendo and Darian spent the rest of the ride back to Miria Manor in silence, save for the regular padding of the burdenbeasts’ footfalls. Then again, even if he wanted to speak, Nendo couldn’t think of anything to say. Where could he start? Asking who Darian really was? How long he—she—had been pretending? There were too many questions and he sensed that Darian wouldn’t answer any of them.
When they reached the gate, the sentry greeted Darian with a joyous, “Happy birthday, my lord!” He (she!) ignored the sentry and rode inside without a word. Nor did she speak when the two headed to the stables to relieve the burdenbeasts. Trevas greeted both Nendo and Darian cheerfully, but made himself scarce when they greeted him with stormy silence. Nendo managed to find the will to pat Tonall’s feathered flank before turning around and following Darian on foot to the mansion entrance.
The door swung open an instant after Darian knocked on it, revealing a smiling Cura. Nendo stepped back when he saw her, thinking about that time when she had hit him and then urged him not to inquire further into Darian’s secrets. Now, quite by accident, he’d discovered the secret…
“Welcome home, Lord Darian!” said Cura, incongruously cheery. “We made all of your favorite foods; I know you’ll be hungry after the hunt…ahh…”
She trailed off when she saw the dark expressions on Darian and Nendo’s faces—and her gaze landed on Darian’s bloodstained shirt and the crude bandage over her collarbone. Cura’s eyes widened and her face turned several shades paler.
“Lord Darian…?” she said.
Darian didn’t speak. Nendo found himself saying, his voice weak and cracked, stumbling over the syllables: “He…he was injured. While hunting…”
Cura let out a sharp intake of breath. “I—I see.”
There was something else to her words, though. Something deeper: An understanding. Cura knew.
“Lord Darian…” Cura stepped forward and took her lord’s arm, gently, in her own. Darian glanced up to meet Cura’s eyes. “Come with me…we’ve got to get that injury tended to…”
“Of course,” said Darian, her voice so quiet Nendo had to strain to hear it. As Cura led her inside, she turned to cast Nendo a brief, inscrutable, glance. When she spoke, her words were still quiet but carried an undercurrent of authority.
“Go to your room, and wait for a summons. Do not do anything else until you’re called.”
Nendo knew the right words to say in response were, “Yes, my lord.” But he couldn’t force them out. Not to this woman. Not to this person who wasn’t even a lord. All he could do was nod.
This must have been enough for Darian, because she turned away from him and let Cura take her deeper into the mansion. Nendo stood still on the doorstep for a moment before stepping inside and wending his way to the servants’ quarters.
When he reached his own quarters, he crossed the room in three strides and threw himself on the bed, lying with his hands behind his head and staring at the bottom of the bunk above his. He felt grateful that the other two servants who shared his room—the two kitchen boys—weren’t there. He wouldn’t be able to handle their inevitable questions about what was bothering him.
With a sudden incongruous urge to laugh, Nendo remembered Merol, one of his roommates, calling Darian a eunuch when Nendo had first met him. Not a eunuch. A woman.
He suppressed a snort and rolled over, closing his eyes in the hopes that some sleep would drive away the dark thoughts spinning through his mind. But his head was pounding too hard for sleep and he didn’t feel tired, anyway.
~*~
Nendo must have fallen asleep anyway, because it seemed only seconds later that someone was pounding on his door—matching the pounding in his skull—and he was pulling himself out of bed, throwing off the tangling sheets.
“What is it?” he grumbled when he reached the door.
“Er—Nendo—” Nendo was surprised to hear Cura’s voice. So Darian must be summoning me… “His Lordship requests your presence…”
Something dark and furious bubbled within Nendo. “‘His Lordship’?” he said acidly. “Don’t you mean, Her Ladyship?”
Cura sighed and pushed the door open. She stood in the hallway, not meeting his eyes. “Just…just follow me, Nendo,” she said.
Nendo balanced several harsh retorts in his mind but let them slip away. Something about the way Cura was standing, with her small shoulders slumped, her eyes turned away, raised a tremor of pity within him. He shouldn’t get snappish with her. She hadn’t been the one deceiving him—even though she’d helped facilitate the deception.
Cura turned and headed down the hall. Nendo quickly caught up to her. When she noticed that he was beside her, she began to speak, her words coming quiet and hesitant.
“Listen…I know you must be angry, Nendo, but…but Lord Darian has his reasons…”
“Why do you keep doing that?” shot back Nendo, his anger rising again.
“Doing what?”
“You keep calling her a him. Why? There’s no reason, I know now,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended. Again, he felt a pang of pity when Cura flinched at the harshness in his words.
She didn’t reply, and remained silent for the rest of their journey. They seemed to be heading to the second floor towards the same suite of rooms in which Darian and Masudo had been holding their clandestine conversation earlier. Instead of leading Nendo to that bedroom, though, Cura opened a door set in a side wall. She motioned for Nendo to enter.
Nendo did, glancing at her and wondering if she wasn’t going to follow. Cura, however, shook her head slightly and shut the door behind her, leaving Nendo on his own. He glanced around and took in his surroundings.
The room was easily the smallest and most intimate he’d seen in Miria Manor. islander-style scroll paintings hung on the walls, while a richly woven rug covered the polished floorboards. A full-body mirror edged in silver stood on the opposite wall. In the center of the room were two comfortable, richly-upholstered armchairs in front of a small wooden table. And slouching in one armchair, dressed in clean shirt and pants, chin resting on one hand, was Lord Darian.
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Not the end of a scene, but a suitable cliffhanger mid-scene. The next part will finally explain Darian's reasons for the masquerade.
I'd especially like comments on Nendo's reaction to the whole deal, as that's integral to this chapter. So shred especially for that, and do the usual shredding for word economy.
A random tidbit happens to be that Lord Kigo is based on someone I know in real life. The first and last character who I'll directly make as a "homage" to a real life person, but I doubt that person will like this homage very much.
One last thing: I'm not sure where to progress after I've posted part B. It'd feel like cheating to deprive you all of Darian's backstory (which is chapter ten), and the main plot showing up, and I know I've said I'll stop after part one, but the thing is, I've already rewritten the first two chapters and am wondering about putting them up, because they're more representative of the way the novel actually will be. So...yeah. In a bit of a dilemma here. XD
As usual, the more in depth you can make your reviews, the happier I'll be. ^^
