Category: Journal Entry

The frigid night air felt like needles on Reason’s cheeks, though their shivering was hardly from the cold.

The distant clamor of voices and steel made Reason’s hair stand on end in a way it hadn’t. Even at a safe distance from the fighting, a primal fear arose within them.

Still, they walked, trusting the night to cloak them and Eden’s uncanny intuition to steer them along a safe path. It didn’t help that she seemed to reappear on Reason’s other side between sentences, though perhaps that was just part of her assessment.

Her words landed upon the carpenter heavily, even if they knew she was right.

“Shed your name. Separate yourself. Completely.”

The stars blinked coldly down, as piercing as the frost itself. At one point, Reason knew their names, but no matter how hard they tried could not recall what they were.

***

Reason muddled over the plans, drafting and re-drafting the verbiage of their proposal. They fretted over every detail, flipping unhelpfully through some of the dense books Rhyme had without avail. A half-drunk tankard of ale sat abandoned by the candle burned almost all the way down.

Felix would have good feedback, as would Graham. They sighed, letting out a breath they hadn’t realized they were holding. Even though the thought of Court instilled a sense of dread, they had nothing to fear.

Resolving to settle matters in the morning, Reason set their papers aside, took a final swig of ale, and curled up in their bed. The weariness of their body and mind quickly overtook them.

They had just shut their eyes for a moment when the curtain haphazardly covering the bed was parted. Steel glinted, affectless words reaching their ears but hardly registering. It was only when the intruder vanished that the pain hit. No words could form, and with how deep the cut was they quickly felt faint from the loss of blood.

Minutes ticked as they felt themselves slowly slipping out of consciousness.

They heard Sygrun yell, then the searing pressure of hands and cloth over their neck, soothed shortly by the nervous but determined gaze of Sister Liora at their side. Her warm demeanor steadied them in their shock as they slowly came to. She fretted, but the care was enough. Two strangers, helpless in unique ways, comforted by the other’s gentility and understanding.

Through their delirium, they managed to rasp out what happened to the passerby attempting to interrogate them.

Rhyme ran into the room in a whirlwind, panic in their eyes as they clutched onto Reason, the threat of a fiery death on their lips to anyone who would dare hurt their other half, seething that they weren’t called over quicker.

Sir Jacquelin, having sprinted to their quarters, offered to sleep at the foot of their bed, but Reason hoarsely shooed them back to their House. Reason already knew Rhyme wouldn’t abide sleep that night, and they were unwilling to let any more of Runeheim’s best defenders lose sleep over them.

They shut their eyes.

Nothing to fear.

***

Their sleep was restless and fractured.

Everything seemed to close in, an inescapable swirl of dread that threatened to consume them. They woke up frequently, chest heaving as they reached to find Rhyme’s hand, gripping it weakly until they drifted back to fraught unconsciousness.

Darkness loomed in a way that made them feel small and helpless. Shadows crept taller than the trees, slithering out from every corner and threatening to take Reason with it.

Until it didn’t.

When Reason awoke, they felt strangely serene, more worried about Rhyme’s lack of sleep than the burning sensation of the raw wound every time they shifted.

They were alive, by miracle or by design. Either way, a show of fear was a show of weakness, and Reason had no interest in that. The last time there was a threat over their life, it was because they had done something right, and perhaps that was the case this time as well.

***

Even in the daylight, the threat of violence was no less frightening.

There was a fearlessness in the Dunnick culture that felt innate, yet it was something Reason had always struggled with. To fear was to be flawed in a way that was incompatible with who they thought they should be.

Yet Reason watched Blair put herself between nearly every threat and her companions so many times the night prior, and still they were surprised when they, frankly a stranger, suddenly found themselves behind the protection of her blade.

“Stick to Friar Ciaran, and run if you have to,” was later said with an understanding Reason thought they’d never hear.

Yet Callum, who seemed to share at least some of Reason’s reservations about fighting, was never once remarked on for their lack of skill on the field. Callum cared and provided for his people in other ways, and never once did he have to prove himself through means unrelated to his skillset or shows of physical strength. Bravery was not the solution to every problem, nor was its most banal, physical form what defined the culture.

There was no fear in the face of unconditional care.

***

“We need to do this — *I* need to do this,” Reason corrected, their voice gentle. “I think it’s the right decision.”

Rhyme’s brows bunched, perhaps uncertain, perhaps sad. There was hesitation, not the first time this market, in the mage’s demeanor. They kept their gaze down as they haplessly tied a clump of straw together.

“I know it’s terrifying. I’m scared too. I want to assure you that you don’t have to do this if you’re not ready, as it needs to be on your terms. You have enough on your plate,” Reason reached out to hold Rhyme’s hands, meeting the other’s exhausted gaze. “And when you’re ready, I’ll be there. It won’t change how much I care about you, now or later. It just means I get a chance to love the version of you that you were meant to be.”

The tavern was loud, yet Reason felt deaf to the noise, focused only on Rhyme.

The mage’s voice was soft when they spoke, “I want to. It’s time.”

Whatever fear remained in Reason’s heart was gone.

***

The fire burned strong as the Hearthwise tended to it, care taken in every turn of the logs.

The jesters spoke together, though remained separate in their intentions. Their little effigies were so different, in shape and design. Rhyme’s was mostly straw, dry kindling that threatened to catch fire from the stray embers caught in the wind, with orange peel and dried moss. Reason’s was of lichen and pine, the needles still green and spry, as well as sheltered by a rounded, cloak-like maple leaf.

Yet at each effigy’s core there was a prickly blackberry branch, an acknowledgement of their shared root and shared soul. O’shea was a man driven so crazed by his pursuits, so haunted by his mistakes, and so fundamentally *alone* that it drove him to split his very soul in half.

No longer would they be beholden to a dead man’s fears. Two shattered pieces could heal, each in their own way.

Reason and Rhyme — O’shea — was carefully placed by the tender hands of the Hearthwise into the flames.

There was no sadness as the effigies turned to ash, but a hope that a new leaf could be turned. So as ash fed the farmland, so too can their past be a gentle guide on their journey forward.

Cenn and Aodhán watched the hearth as they stood, embracing who they would become.

Friar Godfrey waved goodbye to the last wagon as it left the market grounds, shouting a blessing, “MELANDIEL GUIDE YOU HOME!” he watched as the wagon turned the corner on the muddy road. Godfrey then started feeling the aches and pains of market weekends. The soles of his feet felt like they had been pounded on a blacksmiths hammer. His hands sore from dishes and carrying others’ loads. His legs like a newborn deers from his many trips to help people. His back was screaming at him from carrying the Brody The Bold to his grave, and giving Good Sister Liora a piggy back ride up to the cursed chapel. His side slashed open from a bandit’s blade, his chest pierced from when a creature of darkness struck him, His shoulder looking like ground beef from where the vampire spawn chewed on him while the town was working on the pillars. He made it to a tree and collapsed, the weight of the weekend driving him into the ground.

he felt his chest and realized that it wasn’t sweat and rain making his chest moist it was the stitching burst open from his helping with the wagons. It must have been that very large and heavy chest. He had had worse injuries in the past and they had always healed up ok and would feel bad to bother people about it. He dabbed at it and drew his fingers into the light, his blood a deep red, the smell of the rain, the fresh mud, the smoke on the air

A memory flooded him.

His long axe on his back, a sack of stolen silver around his waist, and his hands drenched in the blood of the innocent, running away from a burning village laughing and singing with the rest of his band.

A wave of sorrow and sickness hit his mind and soul as a massive wave strikes a small ship

there he laid in the rain and mud completely alone and whispered the only thing he could think of when he suffered

“I walk the Penitent Path”
“I walk the Penitent Path”
“I walk the Penitent Path”

I have walked a tightrope before.

On the deck of a ship, with salt in my lungs and wind in my teeth, it was almost a comfort. The sea teaches you balance. It tells you plainly when you lean too far. The ropes creak. The mast groans. The world sways and you sway with it. I have always trusted that kind of uncertainty.

But on land, the rope does not move. It stretches taut between people and promises and pride. It is strung between ledgers and loyalties, between silver and gold, between what is right and what is survivable. And instead of waves beneath me, there are eyes.

I find myself hanging things. Weighing things. Measuring words before I let them leave my mouth. Deciding when silence is strength and when it is surrender. Parsing politics that feel more suffocating than any storm. Trying to understand a life built without freedom.

My blood burns at the sound of certain words.

“Slavery.”
“Dredges.”
“Forced.”
“Taxes.”

Each one tastes bitter. Each one a chain dressed up as necessity.

To sit at a table and consider them calmly, to calculate which injustice must be swallowed first so that another might be undone later, feels like betrayal of something sacred inside me. And yet I must. Because there are people who follow me. People I love. People who trust that when I step forward, I will not step blindly. My community needs me just as much as I need them. I need to protect them.

It is in moments like these I remember why recklessness should be a sin.

I needed to think quickly. I needed to speak with certainty. But all I could hear in my mind was a number.

Ninety silver is not twenty gold.

How could anyone call it close? Why ninety? Why not half? Were the tools, the labor, the planning, the risk not worth more? Did they see only the grain I laid at their feet and none of the hands that harvested it? Did they think the food appeared from air and goodwill alone? Did they want the yield but not the roots? I decided to just ask her, after everything was said and done.

And then, my contract. Someone save me from my own ignorance. What did it truly say beyond “tax exempt”? What promises were inked that I cannot read with my own eyes? In these moments I curse myself for never learning more than the single vulgar word Santiago once grinned and pressed into my vocabulary. Bless him. One word is better than none, I suppose.

It has been a year.

I watched it signed. I remember the scratch of pen. Her mark. Ragnar’s mark. I remember it spoke of work, of answering when called. Of serving when summoned. But no summons has come. No call to labor. We were to act as point of contact for trade from the Reich, to move excess goods outward.

The Reich has barely enough to sustain itself, let alone surplus to send across waters. And yet we have built. We have planned. The shipyards are not some indulgent dream. They are survival. They are promise. They are the means to fulfill what we agreed to do. Tomaso sees them not as vanity, but as lifeblood. With them, we reach distant shores. With them, distant shores reach us. Trade flows. Safety grows. Futures widen.

How dare anyone call that self-serving.

And then, salt in the wound. After brokering my deal with Lady Dragomir, after standing as shield and speaker for myself and my crew, whispers reached me. All I had hoped to do was release my crew to show that everyone else could soon follow. It was meant to be a stepping stone in providing an example to the city of what happens when your love, your aid, your time and more are freely given. Yet, the Valerians are plotting to kill me.

After I extended an olive branch with steady hands. After I paid them more than most merchants would have dared for their aid. After I surrendered coin and materials my weary hands bled to gather, because I believed in sharing burden and reward alike. It feels like betrayal carved with deliberate care.

Their resentment sears through me. I thought we would stand shoulder to shoulder. I thought we would divide the labor, the risk, the triumph. Instead I find myself alone on this unmoving rope, the ground very far below.

I am devastated.
I am afraid.
I do not want to die.

And for the first time in a long while, I do not feel like death would be a fair price for my choices. Of all the moments, this time I was not reckless. I was not cruel. I did not act for greed.

All I did was try to help.

And somehow, that feels like the most dangerous thing of all.

“Did you love him?”

The night was stilled, the spaces around her filled by the sounds of her frantically beating heart. Blair fumbled through cabinets that were once so familiar and warm. Her skin burned and ached, ruined beyond repair. The only bandage holding her deep set wounds together was the idea of freedom itself.

Her hands shaked as she searched, a nervousness of being found and retrieved chilled her. She didn’t want to be a part of their games anymore, she didn’t want him to see her like this and didn’t want to be tricked into staying. Fooled into a sensation of pretend protection, this could happen again and she just wanted to go home and have him believe her dead.

Only a small bag of supplies was truly needed to return to her own folks. A light bag and her familial right, which decorated the mantle of this false ‘home’. It was the final thing to grab and the gleam of the blade reflected her ugly self, causing her to lose herself in the shame that she had become. The sting of tears rolling down into her injuries only deepened the sensation of a growing eternal numbness.

Her hands wrapped around the hilt, and a budded seedling of spite sprouted.

“You will admit to everyone here what you did.”

The sound of blood from the blade and the spilled ink pooling off the table both dripped in an eerie unison. The note in his handwriting, legible and clear in its message. Accidents of life and death happened frequently in Roglia. Bastion Drake, now a ghost, will carry her shame into death and he wrote it clear as day, proving his ‘guilt’.

She had freed herself, the feeling of shame and horror felt foreign. Distant even. The Blade of Woes rightfully in her hands brought her to her senses. The person she was before tonight was who she was before she married and dragged down into weakness.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

19 days. 5 days to lose hope. 9 days to lose faith. 12 days to lose your sense of self. 15 days to completely break- Who shall Conquer us?

He didn’t even bother to look for her. “Drakes don’t keep prisoners, Blair.”, he assumed they were the same.

There was no sorrow for what she had endured, and if there was she would not have needed to make a deal with the whispering wind to escape. She believed Bastion would have- should have saved her from the Rennetts, yet he was only sorry at the end when he himself dealt with the punishment of those 19 days by her hands.

“Look at us, Blair and Liam back at it! Fighting together again.”

I missed him, my brother. I missed my people. I missed fighting for the passion that burned deeply in me but was repressed by a Rogalian binding. I missed being me, Blair MacCraig.

So what if I killed my husband?

When heaven’s vault unbars its iron gate,
And rain descends with neither plea nor pause,
The road once known submits itself to fate,
Unmade by water’s unrelenting laws.

The ruts grow deep where wheels had traveled true,
The markers fade beneath a shifting skin;
What once was simple passage to pursue
Becomes a test of nerve and discipline.

The stream, now swollen past its modest claim,
Spreads wide to dare the measured step to fail;
It asks of man more judgment than of aim,
More steadied hand than favoring wind or sail.

No kindly veil, this curtain cast from sky—
But trial laid where comfort used to lie.

Yet in its surge a harder lesson stands:
The ground is earned by thought, not given land.

This rain though, a bit more than I expected. Not really the trek I wanted to break in my boots with. In my head it wasn’t going to be much walking so it was the right choice, but the woods seem unprepared for what has come. Happy to have Red Spade leading the cart for this one, calmly we ride “their hooves like metronomes on ancient ground”.

Just ahead I see where the rain has done its worst, turned the familiar road into a suggestion, then erased even that. We slow to a stop where the water moves fast enough to lie about its depth, and we sit there listening to it, letting Red Spade breathe and the moment settles. I take a long exaggerated breath as I begin to take off my boots, only so much breaking in I am willing to do today. Roll the pants and jump down into the mud. Feet in the cold, I walk the edge of the stream first, tracing a path where the water hesitates instead of lunges. The flood wants to rush; I want to finish my delivery.
Red Spade already knows what I’m thinking and disapproves. I walk up to him, hand on his neck, steady and familiar. I tell him we’ll be quick, that I wouldn’t ask if I did not think it would work, that he is stronger than the noise and the water and remind him it is Felix’s fault we are out in the rain not mine. Then I have a better thought and I pull an apple from my bag as I promise him a snack if he powers through for me. I bite off a piece of apple and give it to him as a teaser. He chews, considers, flicks an ear like he might forgive me later. That’s enough. I jump back in, dry off my feet and put my boots back on. A confident grip on the reins and point us at the line I found with my own feet.

He goes when I ask, not eagerly, but honestly, which is better. Water climbs his legs, pushes at the wheels, shoves the cart sideways just enough to race my heart. I stay quiet. Red Spade does the work. Then suddenly the ground is solid again, the flood behind us, the road pretending it never tried to kill us. A fist pump and an exclamation as I hop down to give Red Spade the rest of the apple. Landing squarely in a puddle… Up to the knee…

Billy Bob reached the site of the newly established sheep ranch, in a village down in the foothills of the mountain of the fort. Cold, but green pastures. Winterdún Pearroc, “A fenced area of land which is a hill used for keeping sheep in the winter,” Madam Leonora had told him. Seemed as good a place as any for some sheep.

He set to work, built a low hut of turf and pine to shelter the sheep. Took his time to learn the lie of the meadow, setting stone markers and a rough fence – helping the small village live up to its name. He knew that sheep would arrive for him, but not when they would.

Eventually, a small group of the porters arrived with one of the first herds of the village – expecting to find more of the local sheep – small and coarse – he was surprised to find they had brought good Rogalian sheep. Farthington Longwools! He thanked his lady for this chance at breeding such fine stock. They had a hearty appetite but the foothills were vast and verdant.

Watching the sheep explore their new home, he grinned. This was his chance to show his lady what he could really do for her