Despite the horror of the significance behind our journey across Phaedra, despite the terrible close calls I’d already had with the world’s less civilised creatures, and despite the turmoil my entire body was undergoing being near Wolfe, I actually looked forward to venturing into the coal mining district of Daeronia. I’d heard the people were close knit and friendly. So as we trotted into the first village on the main trade road, I was more than a little surprised by the chill in the eyes of the villagers as we passed through. It was dusk, and people strode quickly to their homes, covered in soot and grime. Others, clean and rugged, headed in the opposite direction towards the mine. But all of them stared up at us with hard eyes and bristling bodies. I gaped at them in confusion, my eyes drinking in their squalid little homes and their grey little world. No one stopped to greet us, and Wolfe, who rode a few metres in front, made no attempt to stop to speak with them. The lines of his own body were stiff and I noted his hand sat on the hilt of his sword. Swallowing nervously now, I kept my eyes front, my mind whirring with bewilderment. We were in the southern most village in Daeronia. It was more than possible that the evocation was gone from here. Shuddering, and sharing a glance with the Lieutenant, we shifted the horses forward at a faster trot. Wolfe crossed a little wooden bridge on the other side of the town and stopped in the clearing beyond it. He turned and the Lieutenant and I did the same. None of us said a word. We just waited for the entire Guard to make it through the village. When the last two men trotted over the bridge and joined us, I finally let go of my breath.

“That was chilly,” I said quietly to Chaeron.

He answered with a brittle nod and looked over at Wolfe questioningly.

Wolfe sighed. “It’s nearly dark. We should camp here. I think we’ll be fine as long as we don’t ask them for a place to sleep.” He flicked a glance at me before staring straight ahead again. “I’m afraid it’ll have to be a campfire bed for you, my Lady. I hope that doesn’t distress you too much.”

Oooh, I wanted to nip back at him. He had said it loudly to needle me in front of his men. I looked at him, sensing the anticipation about him. He wanted me to nip back. He wanted something, anything from me. Trembling a little, I turned away from him. “I think I can manage well enough, Captain.”

Feeling his questioning gaze on my face, I slid off my horse, letting my hair fall and cover my burning cheeks.

“Tyler, Szorst!” Wolfe called out to two of the men. He slid from his horse and approached them, holding out a bag of coins. “Go back into the village and procure us some coal. It should keep us warm at camp and perhaps soften the locals to us.” He nodded in the direction of the bridge to some of the villagers who had come out of the village to peer at us making camp. Their entire bodies radiated with hostility. As the two men started off on foot I worried my lip between my teeth, watching them. Remembering the looks on the coal miners faces I decided that sending the men in alone was a bad idea. But I couldn’t very well say that to Wolfe and I couldn’t rush off alone – that had not worked out well in the past.

“Lieutenant.” I approached Chaeron quietly as he settled the horses with some water.

“Yes, Miss Rogan?”

Telling Chaeron I thought his men were in danger wouldn’t work. The Royal Guard were somewhat arrogant about their prowess and didn’t take lightly to having it called into question. I’d have to go about this a different way. “We’ve been riding all day and I really would like to stretch my legs. Would you walk with me into the village?”

He frowned at me, suspicion in his eyes. “Miss Rogan, you saw how unfriendly the people were.”

“Then perhaps a few of the other men would like to stretch their legs with us,” I used my take no prisoners tone that Haydyn hated. She could never defy me when I used that tone. I usually brandished it on her when she was daydreaming during her tutorials or refusing to get out of bed.

I blanched at that last thought. Shaking off the familiar growing panic that thrummed continuously beneath my skin, I raised my eyebrow at Chaeron as he just stood there. As my look intensified he finally drew himself up. “Of course, Miss Rogan.”

As we passed two men, Chaeron called to them to come with us, and then informed Wolfe that he was escorting me into the village. Discerning the coming argument by the look on Wolfe’s face, I drew out my heaviest artillery and stilled him with a look so cold it made him pale.

I gulped down my guilt and hurried on, my skin prickling and muscles twitching at the feel of his eyes on my departing figure.

As soon as we crossed the bridge I felt the charge in the air, a sense of violence and anticipation. Chaeron and his men must have felt it too because suddenly we were hurrying back into the town and through the narrow streets, to get to the main village courtyard we’d come through. Sure enough, Tyler and Szorst stood with their hands on the hilt of their swords, surrounded by a group of angry coal miners, spitting and shouting at them. Just one spark, I thought. That’s all it would take.

“Halt!” Lieutenant Chaeron bellowed and I flinched in surprise. He sounded terrifying and intimidating, and looked it too, as he strode forward with the two guards at his back. The villagers stumbled a little but did not move away from Tyler and Szorst who looked relieved to see us. “An attack on the Royal Guard is a high offence and will result in imprisonment!”

Some of the villagers seemed to deflate, their faces drawn and wary. Others grumbled but slumped away. Others grew even more aggressive. One man, a tall stout man with a round face hardened with hatred, stood forward from the group to face Chaeron.

“Who gives a damn about the Guard?! We’re left to stew in this forsaken place, working our fingers to the bone in 18 hour shifts in the mines under order from management! Three months ago we worked good hours, decent hours, until management started adding an hour here and there until eventually we exist on no sleep, bad food and broken bodies. Our children grow sick! Our wives grow weary! Where is the Royal Guard in that, I ask you?!”

Chaeron was as shocked as I at the explosion, and the rebel rousing yells of agreement. What on Phaedra was going on here? What this man said, it couldn’t be true? But as I looked around at the desperate faces, I found the truth in their eyes.

Impulsively, I strode forward past Chaeron, who tried to reach for me and missed. “There must be some mistake,” I implored to the man. “We didn’t know.”

He looked at me with such revulsion I flinched. And then he made a groggy noise in the back of his throat and spat in my face. Chaeron’s blade was against his neck before I even could comprehend what had happened. Humiliated and ashamed, I wiped at the phlegm dripping down my cheek and glowered at the man who now stood stiff against Chaeron’s sword.

“Your name?” Chaeron growled in his face.

“Den. Den Hewitt.”

“Den Hewitt, you just committed a crime. Do you know who this lady is before you?”

The rebel-rouser paled somewhat as he really looked at me, his eyes showing a little of his panic as he wondered who he had just offended. “No,” he replied hoarsely.

“You just assaulted the Lady Rogan of Silvera. The Princezna’s Handmaiden.”

The gasps of the people around us made me want to curl inside myself. Den blanched, fear turning his mouth white. Still shocked at his treatment of me, a woman, a lady, I let him stew on it a while. They thought his punishment would be grave indeed. However, although stunned by his offence, I was more concerned by his accusations.

“I didn’t know.” He wilted a little.

“No. I imagine you did not.” Chaeron shifted the sword from his throat. “Den Hewitt, I charge you with assault against the Lady Rogan of Silvera. You will be placed in my custody and taken back to Silvera for trial.”

“Lieutenant.” I shook my head, not wanting this man punished severely for an act of stupidity born out of frustration.

“But Lady Rogan?” Chaeron frowned.

“All I want is an apology.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

Hewitt looked between the two of us, his expression filling with hope as he waited for Chaeron’s decision. The Lieutenant finally nodded, although his eyes blazed against the decision, and Hewitt breathed a sigh of relief before turning to me. “I am so sorry, my Lady. I am so sorry.”

I nodded. “If you had merely told us your grievance we would have dealt with it, Mr Hewitt. I assure you that none of us were aware of these conditions you speak of. Let us return to our camp quietly and I will speak with the Captain of the Guard. He will investigate the matter.” It was perhaps obnoxious and forward of me to assume Wolfe would take care of this situation, but I couldn’t leave these people as they were. They were so volatile. Just one spark…

After thanking me and apologising some more, relieved at escaping a close call, the men and I withdrew from Hewitt and turned back for camp. I could feel Chaeron’s disapproval simmering beside me, but I shrugged it off. I was the one who had been spat on. I should be the one to mete out the punishment.

Before I could approach Wolfe, Chaeron was charging ahead. He cornered the Captain and began speaking to him frantically. At any other time I would have been annoyed, but I was trying to keep my distance from Wolfe.

By the time Chaeron was done, Wolfe’s face was hard as stone. With an efficiency and lethal determination that demonstrated just why he was Captain, Wolfe rounded up a group of ten men and they mounted their horses. As they cantered towards me, I stood to the side and kept my eyes on the grass. I saw Wolfe’s horses’ hooves come into view and then stop.

“Next time, ask me before you offer my services,” his harsh voice caught me by the back of the neck and tipped my head upwards.

I scowled at him. “Are you saying you would leave them this way?”

He frowned back at me. “You know I wouldn’t. But I don’t appreciate taking orders from you, Lady Rogan.”

My apologetic smile was brittle. “Apologies. It won’t happen again.”

Again, seeming startled and disappointed by my compliance, Wolfe nodded and began to pull away. Just as I was relaxing, sure Wolfe would take care of the issues the villagers had put forth, he threw over his shoulder, “I’m fining Den Hewitt for assaulting you.”

“But I don’t want that!” I cried, rushing to catch up with him. I could see the other men trying to look uninterested in our exchange. “You can’t do that!”

Wolfe drew to an abrupt halt and glared down at me. “I can do anything I want, Lady Rogan. I am the Captain of the Guard.” He seethed, his face mottled red with anger. “He assaulted you, Rogan, and that I will not stand for.” Abruptly he turned and jerked his reins, galloping over the bridge and into the village, unmindful of his surprised Guard who took off after him. Surprised by the abrupt departure? No.

Surprised that in front of them, Wolfe had betrayed his feelings… and used my given name.

***

It was with a mixture of relief and pain I realised Wolfe had had enough and was no longer speaking to me. He returned to camp some few hours later and told Chaeron what had happened. I tried to eavesdrop, but the collective snoring of the Guard drowned out their voices.

The next morning Wolfe refused to look at me, let alone speak to me, and as we moved off away from the village, I had to ask Chaeron for the details of Wolfe’s venture into the village.

Apparently Den Hewitt had not exaggerated. After investigation, Wolfe discovered the Manager of the mine, a wealthy Baron no less, was working the villagers to the bone to keep up with the competition from the local mining communities surrounding them. Discovering sick children and ill workers, worn out and hopeless, Wolfe was furious. The village had had two deaths in the last month. Exhaustion and dehydration. He fined the Manager (and Den Hewitt) and threatened him with criminal charges if he did not return to the normal working procedures. To ensure his obeisance, Wolfe left two of his men to guard the workers and sent a messenger to Vojvodkyna Winter Rada explaining the situation, and asking her to send some of her men to relieve the Royal Guardsmen and to order a replacement Manager for the mine.

I rested easier knowing Wolfe had taken care of it. I had known he would. I sighed wearily and stared straight ahead, worrying about what we would find in the next village we passed through. I had so much to tell Haydyn once she was awake and well. Our problem wasn’t just the evocation. Our problem was that outside the cities governed by the Rada, the people were ignored and left to go about their business ungoverned. That had to change. I straightened my spine with determination. When this journey was over and my task complete, Phaedra was in for some changes. For the better.

Chapter Twenty One

To my utter relief, the next few days through Daeronia passed uneventfully. We stopped in two other mining communities, and neither of them was suffering under the conditions of the first. From their disposition to the state of their homes, to their fervent hospitality, they were fire to the southern coal mining village’s ice. And I? I was confused. Perhaps I had merely wanted to put the Manager of the coal mining village attitude down to Haydyn’s evocation, but the northern coal miners had great attitudes, and surely if the evocation waning was the problem then they would be the ones to feel the affects more so than the south.

My forehead spent a lot of time in a perpetual state of wrinkles.

The situation with Wolfe hadn’t changed. If anything it had worsened. Anything he had to say to me he had Lieutenant Chaeron pass on to me, and the night we dined in the home of the Manager of a large coal mining town called East Winds, Wolfe flirted with their twenty-year old daughter as he ignored my existence. I ignored the fist of agony in my chest. His attitude was of my own making and I had no right to feel anything toward him.