The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 24: Chapter 23 — The Rumor of the Lady of Green

Read chapter 24 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Chapter 23 — The Rumor of the Lady of Green The rumor moved faster than fire. By dawn, the upper wards whispered it through cracked shutters: The witch in the ruins. The woman who walks with monsters. The Lady in Green. No one agreed on what she looked like. To the beggars, she was a saint barefooted, crowned in ash. To the soldiers, she was a nightmare stitched from their dead. To the merchants who still clutched ledgers in trembling hands, she was the tax they hadn’t paid yet. Every story began with a color. Every story ended with silence. From his carved dais, the Regent watched the city as if inspecting a painting he dared not touch. The great hall faintly smelled of scrubbed, bottled smoke. Tapestries had been stuffed into sacks to plug barracks drafts. Gold had fled the room, melted, hidden, counted into ledgers that never left the inner vault. Still, the throne shone too clean, too new. Malrec sat sideways on the dais, one boot tapping. He held a goblet of watered wine. He looked younger than the poems suggested. His handsomeness was statue-like, marble-smooth, lacking the character of life. Light haunted the planes of his face, leaving him carved hollow. A captain knelt at the base of the steps. His armor had been scorched and spit-dulled; his eyes were red-rimmed from smoke and sleepless nights. “The lower city won’t send tribute,” he reported. “Gates are blocked. The market… they built a wall.” “A fortress?” Malrec said, as if amusement were a diagnosis. “They have people who can bend stone,” the captain said. “And there’s a woman. She’s taking anchors from folk and making them into… into something that keeps the rest alive.” Malrec's mouth narrowed into a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Beggars who want kingdoms." He turned the goblet in slow circles. "I've seen miracles in this city before. They burn like the rest." The court priest, wrapped in borrowed silk, cleared his throat with the sound of church bells in bad weather. "Highness, the reports from the lower districts continue. People being... changed. Healed, they say. Enhanced." "Enhanced." Malrec let the word sit between them like a dead thing. "Alchemy, madness, superstition. Not divinity." He set the goblet down. "Do you imagine the gods crawl out of gutters to bless thieves?" "They might bless survival," the priest whispered. Malrec smiled thinly. "Then they picked the wrong house." He rose and crossed to the window. From this height, the city lay like a wound refusing to close. The new wall sliced the ruin into different geometric lines—lines that made no sense to him. It offended him. He watched its thin thread cut through smoke and thought of his own neat rooms and his cellared grain. “You called in men,” the captain reminded him. “Shall we send a company?” "Fifty heavy guard, twenty archers," he said at last. "Priests who remember how to aim. Bring me her head—or burn the district and seal the approaches." "And if she has... what the reports say?" the captain asked carefully. Malrec's smile thinned. "Then you'll know to bring more men next time." “Shall we burn the district after?” the captain dared to ask. “No.” Malrec’s voice was soft as the honey his cooks bottled. “No. Leave witnesses. Let the rest remember who owns the city.” The captain bowed and left. When the double doors shut, Malrec turned the goblet and found himself alone in a hall that smelled of safety. He did not look toward the lower city. Easier not to see what he'd chosen to ignore. He sipped wine while servants carried crates of salted meat and barley into the cellars. The castle storerooms were full. While the lower districts stretched rations thin and counted every breath, Malrec's kitchens still had bread. Fresh bread. Hot meals. His soldiers ate first and ate well. He'd hoarded grain before the blast. Kept his men close to the castle walls. When the monsters came, he'd pulled back to defensible positions and let the outer districts fend for themselves. Better that than waste