CW: The next chapter contains reference to self-directed assassination.

In the Tavern, In the Witch's Town

Grey eyes flashed as silver as the crest that pinned his cape. He hadn't taken it off, he realized, and it was too warm, his scabbard sitting awkwardly and painfully against his back, angled behind the bench as he leaned over the table. An odd thought to have when faced with an unknown threat, but that was the way of it.

The musician smiled warmly, and leaned forward, even as Doren leaned back and glanced at the door. He knew no one was there without looking. No one normal could approach without some noise. But she had, and now he couldn't help but doubt his senses. As apathetic as he had felt in his self-pity before, his blood rushed in his ears now. He had guessed this musician - for whatever else she might be, she was a musician - was powerful enough to cause him trouble. But she might be worse than that, smiling so warmly as though she hadn't walked up to a disgraced warrior capable of killing ten men in an instant. It had been a very long time since he had been faced with someone so ambiguous and yet so threatening. 

"You hate Carram," she said, as though it were a simple salutation, not the highest treason. As though what she said would prompt him to smile, not ice his heart.

Doren met her eyes now. He did not want to fight, that was true, especially not with a dragon in the guise of a fish. But while he might be Shamed, he could not ignore this affront to his heritage and honor. He knew he would die to defend it, even as a voice deep within him whispered that what she said was true, that he did hate the Empire and all it had done to him. That she had seen at a glance that he was unworthy, his doubt and weakness laid bare, shook him to his core. 

For a while, neither said anything, assessing each other. Valla - he could no longer let himself honor her with the title of musician or bard - Valla waved a hand, somehow conjuring Orlo, who bowed awkwardly as though to a queen and not a tavern bard. Without speaking, Valla nodded, prompting them to bring her a flagon of what seemed to be mead, and Doren another ale. Neither drank as they faced each other, eyes too still, prompting whispers from the other patrons slowly. Doren knew they feared him, and likely feared for their bard, perhaps thinking her naive and overly friendly. 

Suddenly, Valla broke away and laughed, a clear and carrying sound that eased the whispers and shook Doren to the core. Had he always been so unsteady? Then again, this was his seventh ale, and she was not normal.

"I'd like to hire you to kill someone," she said, still chuckling, speaking as casually as she had to every other patron that night as she'd asked after their spouses and joked at their drunken antics.

At her easy laugh, the stares of the others in the hall had faded into surreptitious glances and the occasional craned neck, leaving them in a small bubble of privacy by the perch. Valla leaned forward, placing her chin in her hand in a careless invasion of Doren's space. Slowly, as though faced with a snake on a narrow path, he leaned back and away, Valla's smile widening with every fraction he moved. Her eyes, intense and focused before, flashed with what might have been joy as she scanned over the bemusement on his face and the tension in his shoulders. 

She was like a cat toying with a field mouse, looking at him without bloodlust beneath her playfulness even as he saw the threat of oblivion in her regard. If Doren was good at discerning anything, it was the daggers people hid behind their smiles, and she had none as she looked at him. But - and he clenched his jaw at the thought - Valla might be something worse than bloodthirsty. He knew there were worse things, beings without common morality, who showed no lust for blood but also had no respect for life or disgust at atrocity, their consciences not just twisted but nonexistent. He hadn't met many such creatures, and most of them had been strange and ancient beings too old to remember what it felt like to be truly alive. Some had been human. His mind flinched from the memory, and he realized he had been sitting in silence for what might have been minutes, unfocused in the face of what might be a monster.

Seeing his eyes sharpen again, Valla laughed softly, as though in understanding. "I'd like to hire you, assassin." She spoke more gently than before, but still in a tone both casual and amiable. This time, though, instead of just alarm and confusion, Doren felt indignation rise again, reminded of her earlier accusation of treason with her use of the insulting address. 

"You know what I am," he said at last, resentment of all things the main thing driving him to speak. "And I am not an assasin."

Her eyes flashed again, this time with something like wrath, but it was gone before he could read it. "Idealist, then, if you prefer." She was smiling again now, indulgent.

Doren opened his mouth, and then closed it. He could not say what he wanted to say. That he was neither, that he was a Promised. Because wasn't she right? A Shamed was truly no better than an assassin. And perhaps his Shame, his weakness, his habit of hoping and failing to act with proper honor could be called idealism, or at least something very like it. In his self-recrimination, he did not notice that she had never actually called him Shamed.

"Oh, honey," Valla's voice cut through a fog of ale and self-loathing, and then her hand was somehow on his wrist, grasping him gently but firmly with narrow fingers. He looked down, shocked again that she had moved - even touched him - without him perceiving her intent. The blue wraps on her palms looked almost orange in the dimming light from the hearth. Her slightly pulled-back sleeve showed the wrap extending up her forearm. "I am complimenting you, you know." 

Pulling his hand back more slowly than he should have, he tried to glare at her. But he still had nothing to say. Wasn't her asking him to kill someone exactly kind of job he had been looking for? This was his life now. He could not claim honor he no longer had.

Valla's demeanor was still gentle. Leaning back, she ran her finger around the mouth of her tankard of mead, looking past Doren through the window he knew was behind him. Sighing softly, looking almost at peace, she refocused on him, and without her former glee she said it again. "I would like to hire you to kill someone."

Finally, he nodded. Be practical, he thought. Don't think. He couldn't feel and do this too. But it was hard right now when he had just been so happy to hear some music and was still so tired and had been so relieved to find an inn. When he was drunker than any Promised ever should be and his demons were so very loud. "I won't kill anyone you ask without cause. You need to tell me who, and explain. And you will need to pay." As he set the terms, the storm of confusion fell away, leaving emptiness. 

Nodding thoughtfully, Valla tapped her fingers on the table. The same rhythm as her twelfth song, Doren noted dispassionately. "Well then. That's fair enough, isn't it?" She looked at him intently then, as though asking him. Nonplussed, he nodded once. It was hard to stay emotionless when this stranger kept throwing buckets of cold water on his soul.

She drank her mead. And then drank more. And finished it, waving her hand again to Orlo before she had put the flagon back down on the table. As Orlo walked up, she shook her head and laughed again, joyous and delighted. She kept laughing, nodding happily for another at Orlo, who again bowed strangely at her as she took the empty cup away - the bow was even stranger this second time, less an awkward gesture and more a calculated choice, and she had ignored Doren entirely.

"What was your favorite?" This time Doren tried to ignore the feeling of cold water her words left him with. She was talking about the music. But he couldn't talk about music and the job. He needed to make this a job, as foolish as it was to make any sort of deal with someone who might well be an elemental or dragon in disguise. So he just looked at her, keeping his face impassive, finally finding some control over his reactions to her.

Signing dramatically, she flung out an arm, then dropped it suddenly as though stung. Strange, and Doren focused on her stance, noting how she sat somewhat stiffly despite her generally careless demeanor. Scan for information and weaknesses, look for openings, look at this threat before him as a target. Her right shoulder was oddly still, and there were lines of tension in her jaw, what might be pain around her eyes. Those eyes sharpened as he met them. A crack rang out, breaking his focus - she had slammed her left hand on the table, hard enough and loud enough that the entire tavern ground to a halt. Orlo, three steps away, dropped the mead and ale - so she had brought Doren another too - the wooden tankards crashing dully on the stone floor. Doren looked at where her hand had hit and saw the thick wooden plank had tilted slightly away from the others, where before they had been even. In the center of the twisted plank, a new fissure cracked its center.

Valla could have let her magic flare instead, something subtler and more private a standoff than this. She was angry, Doren realized. And he again remembered what he had intended to do, to pass her by without threatening her, to show he meant no harm. Accepting a job was foolish. But he could hardly run now, as much as he did not want to fight. All that was left for him to do was show her he respected her boundaries and be more careful in how he gathered his information. And so he leaned back and looked away from her to Orlo.

"Oh Orlo, dear, I'm sorry! We were arguing about the words to 'Fiddler's Folly'. Settle it for us, would you? Is it 'she went down and he rose up' or 'she bent down and he froze up'?" Valla spoke smoothly, with a jolly affectation, but her pretense was thin at best, and the atmosphere in the tavern was shell-shocked. 

First, their musician had sat and chatted with someone who was clearly dangerous and might even be one of the legendary legions, and now she broke a table and told a bald lie to explain it? It was dawning on the more sober and discerning villagers there that as long as they'd known this bard, she'd always been a bit odd, and perhaps was dangerous herself. Orlo looked terrified but notably unsurprised. Her blue eyes were clear and wary as she nodded eagerly, agreeing overenthusiastically with Valla, then gathered up the tankards clumsily. "I think it's the former, la-, V-Valla," she answered haltingly, backing away. She had some Sight, Doren realized, and had likely found Valla unnerving from the beginning. Poor soul.

"Fine, then. Forget your favorite. How much will it cost?" She spoke as easily as she had before, no sign of the threat from a moment ago. Her smile was back, lit with genuine happiness.

Don't show weakness, thought Doren. "More than I think you have, Lady." 

Giggling, Valla shook her head. "I have a safe in Lombard. I can give you the key."

That was certainly enough. The limit for deposits to the Lombard Bank was more than most baronies. Even if it was a relatively empty safe, the money would be enough. He could end the wandering for jobs and incremental gains to his savings and act. A hollow sort of excitement filled his chest, and he kept his expression steady, finding the impassivity coming easier even in the face of every shock Valla dealt him. Until she spoke again.

"And the one I need you to kill is me," she continued, leaning back, still smiling contentedly.

CW: The next chapter contains reference to self-directed assassination.