#i kept worrying at the sharp edges until they got worn to a nice polished finish

[racingmiku2018]

hrgrhrge i shouldve gone to sleep hours ago

[rasekstories]

The Will of Actus Ebonforte

Autumn in Eliroy was cool without being cold, damp without being too wet, and in years past it was a flurry of activity as the harvest was in full swing. It was quieter since the war and tense, like the air itself was wound too tight, and the golden fields that stretched from the eastern river to the western shore were tended to by grey skies and hungry eyes.

Our farm, however, wasn’t tended to by anything. The fields surrounding Ebonforte Estate had fallen into disrepair and decay, chipped away by the ruin of the civilized world it once thrived in. Thieves and buskerhounds were rampant now, and the stretch between here and the city were too far for the king’s guard to patrol with any real significance. Our help was gone, our tools rusted, and the only thing left that produced any food was a personal garden gated at the very back of the kitchen, where our darling chef (that’s me) grew tomatoes and squash, mostly.

That was pretty normal. We rarely had visitors who didn’t beg for shelter. Our stable was bare except for a pair of older mares the lady of the house admired, and a good horse belonging to the guard. Our houndsman had left with his dogs several years ago. Quiet days stretched into weeks, stretched into months, and I kept my post as steward of the house with minimal complaint. That was fine. Everything was fine.

Except Lord Ebonforte. He was dead. Fantastic.

I studied him for a moment, two fingers still pressed against his neck, and cursed under my breath. It’s not that I didn’t expect it; the old man had been dying for what seemed like an eternity. And it’s not that I didn’t have things prepared. His will was signed, the more discreet parts of the house kept under lock in case people started poking around, his funeral arrangements already in writing. All that was taken care of.

It was his son, good natured and young, that set me on edge. I could already feel a headache coming on between my eyes.

Just try not to think about it too much. I set Ebonforte’s hand down by his side and grabbed the stack of papers I needed from his nightstand. His will, for one, which he liked to keep beside him in case he wanted to make changes (he did, frequently), a few final letters to distant relatives, and a leather-bound book of the family’s finances for the past five years. I’d been tempted to write the most recent entries with red ink, trust me.

I buttoned my jacket up to the neck and tucked the papers under my arm, offering my lord one last look before stepping out of his room and into the hall.

I was greeted almost immediately by our captain of the guard, a Tonnish woman several years younger than myself, who saluted me with an easy smile further down.

“Captain Ferris.” I spared her a tight smile and a nod.

“Schief! Where are you headed so quickly?” She fell in step with me, her boots heavy on the wooden floors. We rounded the corner together and I quickened my pace, fully aware that I couldn’t speed past her but hoping to whatever gods existed that today would be the day. Ferris got on my nerves.

“I have important business with the lady of the house.”

“Well you’re not going to find her in her chambers, if that’s where you’re going.”

I paused mid-stride and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath through my nose. I turned to her and looked up, my eyes barely meeting her chin, clutching the stack of papers to my chest.

“And why is that?”

“She’s gone to Baramie farm for the day. Something about butchering one of the steer, I think.”

Of course. Lady Ebonforte, nearly as sick as her former husband (gods take him, or whatever), was determined to prove otherwise, and I’m positive she took special pleasure in running off against her doctor’s orders to do stupid, inane things.

“Very well.” A twitch was beginning to tug at the corner of my mouth. Perfect. “If you could direct me to Lord Aleksander—“

“Aleks went with his mother today. Riding the horses and everything. They’ve been gone all day.”

Cooped up in Ebonforte’s room as I tended to be lately, a lot of the everyday fluff slipped by me. No one had said a word about leaving the estate. Probably on purpose. Lady Ebonforte, while clever enough to recognize the importance of a steward as pleasant and wonderful as myself, could never find it in her heart to appreciate my shining personality. She took as much pleasure in my company as she did in the company of a corpse.

Well actually, I shouldn’t say that. I’m almost entirely positive she liked the corpses more.

I ducked away from Ferris, rounding the main stairs and taking them two at a time. I’d head to Baramie farm myself if I had to. Best to find Ebonforte’s son and start the process before the rest of the family got wind of what happened. There were cousins to be considered. My lord’s sisters hadn’t married higher up, and their houses were nearly as worn and dying as this one. They’d push Aleksander and his mother off a cliff to get what remained of their brother’s fortune, and it’s not like I could keep the corpse a secret forever.

I mean, I probably could. Not like there wasn’t enough embalming fluid in the basement to keep all of Westfall. But you know what I mean.

“Something’s worrying you.” Ferris shot a glance over her shoulder in the direction of our lord’s room. She’d followed me down the stairs without missing a beat. “What happened?”

“Actus Ebonforte is dead.”

She barely paused, muttering a curse under her breath.

“I’d like to go through things with Lady Ebonforte and Lord Aleksander as soon as possible. Everything is set aside. We had the arrangements made a few months ago, when he decided he wasn’t getting any better. But the will…”

“It needs to be read by someone from the [capitol city of rosea] office, doesn’t it? Because he’s nobility.”

I nodded. “Barely, but enough that it matters. I can’t do it myself, and the rest of his family will be here. The harpies and all their little eggs.”

Ferris shrugged. “Maybe they’ll be in mourning long enough to behave, yes? Lord Ebonforte lived a long life for an in-tonn, I think.”

“He did, but I doubt it. His will is very clear on who’s getting what, but you know how it is with Lady Ebonforte.”

Ferris’ eyes widened. I caught it with a quick look and watched her think as we closed in on the main doors.

“Lady Ebonforte was married once before.” She muttered, my concerns dawning on her. “Lord Aleksander--”

“—Isn’t Lord Ebonforte’s natural son.” I finished for her, opening the doors to a chilly autumn dusk. “And you bet your ass his sisters are going to contest his inheritance, no matter what the will says.”

We stared at each other for a long moment. Ferris hadn’t been with the house for very long. She was hired on after the last man in her position went down fighting some would-be burglars. He was old and out of shape when it happened. The woman was a head taller than me and sturdy, beautiful and built with curves in all the right places and a mind for the more romantic side of war. Chivalry, duty, honor. Honesty.

I didn’t know Ferris well, but I trusted her with my life, and more importantly, with Lord Aleksander’s. Hopefully she trusted me. Not that she SHOULD trust me (I’m a liar, and an awful person), but it would be nice.

I opened my mouth to speak and she held up her hand, turning to the iron wrought gate that guarded the entrance of Ebonforte Estate. I followed her gaze, trying to open my ears against the wind. Hooves.

The captain rushed forward and I followed close on her heels, running at a full sprint across the crumbling courtyard. We made it in time to see a lone rider crest the nearest hill, head down, spittle flying from his horse’s mouth.

Ferris and I pulled the gate open and he slowed just barely, sliding off his horse before it came to a full stop.

He was dressed in riding leathers, well worn but polished, with a short sword strapped to his hip and a round shield still tied to the horse. Thick, golden hair brushed across his forehead, over salt-streaked skin and sharp eyes. It was hard not to notice the dark stain that crept across the front of his vest, or the flecks of red dotting his chin and nose. Blood.

“It’s mother.” He said, his voice choked and hoarse. “She’s dead.” Aleksander Ebonforte collapsed.

Ferris was quicker than me, rushing to his side before he even hit the ground; helpful as always. I was, admittedly, a little surprised, and it wasn’t until she shot me a withering look that I jerked into motion.

“He’s alive.” I said it more for my own benefit than hers, my fingers pressed against the side of his neck. “No blood, no wounds that I can see, but we should get him inside.”

The two of us picked our lord up from both ends, I at his feet and Ferris under his shoulders, and carried him out of the courtyard. She could probably have done it on her own pretty easily, honestly. Aleksander stood just shy of 6’ and kept himself in good shape, but the captain was a solid few inches taller than him, and I’d seen her wrestle men bigger than the two of us to the ground without a second thought.

But, you know, I was a little preoccupied. Didn’t even think of it until I had to go back out to get the horse.

Ferris was stripping away the riding leathers when I returned, checking for anything out of place, anything missing, anything strange. If her instincts were anything like mine, which is to say, not fucking awful, she’d be looking for more than just physical wounds. You don’t spend a few years working for a family of necromancers without picking up a few extra precautions here and there.

She had Aleks laid out on his bed in the far wing of the manor, head and chest supported by an absolute mountain of pillows. The only blood I could see was on his clothes, and his only bruises were old and fading. Whatever killed his mother hadn’t touched him at all.

Not that we could tell, anyway. I’m not a doctor and neither is Ferris, but our combined expertise on treating boo-boos and what a person looks like when they’re NOT being stabbed would have to do. Besides, I couldn’t exactly invite strangers into the estate at the moment, even if they were doctors. There was too much here, too much I needed to clean and lock away and hide before that could happen. The creeping realization of what had to come next set an uneasy cold in the pit of my stomach, and for a hot second I was glad Aleks wasn’t awake.

“Captain.” I licked my lips. “There’s something very important I need you to do for me.”

She looked at me with big, honey-colored eyes, still bent over the unconscious lump on the bed. “If it isn’t getting Aleks comfortable and waiting for him to wake up, I probably don’t want to do it.”

“Well I mean it’s… it’s RELATED to that, in a way. Sort of.”

No response. She just looked at me, didn’t move, didn’t blink. I smiled.

The thing about working for nobility is that you have to be good at keeping secrets. Like, crazy good. Any little thing could unravel decades or centuries of a meticulously tended legacy, even for a dying house like Ebonforte. And when your secrets involve practicing forbidden magic on the corpses of citizens of the crown? Come on. Aleks might escape be stripped of whatever titles and lands he was due to inherit, but fat chance I’d end up anywhere but thrown against the walls of Haraven and killed by the very people I’d studied under.

The last thing I wanted was for this to look messy to prying eyes. Gods, this was gonna be such a pain in the ass.

“We need to get Lady Titania’s body before someone else does.”

Her mouth formed a thin line. “What about the kingsmen?”

“All the way out here?” I leaned forward, both hands on the end of Alek’s bed. “They won’t get to her before the body starts to stink. We have enough materials here to preserve her body long enough for the funeral and you know that. I’d rather she look presentable than be half eaten by buskerhounds next to her husband. Now go, take your horse, and collect her.”

The captain sighed, giving Aleks a pitiable look. She knew she didn’t have to take orders from me, but I WAS right, and we both knew she could move a body better and faster than I could. Or fight off interlopers if it came to it. Ferris had never seen me in a fight before, and I planned on keeping it that way.

“Fine.” She held her palms up to me in surrender. “But if I get back and you guys are dead too, I’m gonna be super mad.”

“Oh no worries there, captain.” I gave her my friendliest smile as she stepped past me. “If I die right today, no one will be super-er mad than me.”