There was a flaw, though, something off in the bridge of her delicate nose. There, in the middle of the ceiling, was an uneven part of stone, and it took over his focus. Lorin stood, walked under it, and reached up. Fixed in the exact center of the room was a metal ring rusted over and firmly planted in the ceiling. The tips of Lorin's fingers could touch it if he hopped. Jessica's eyes shifted along with Lorin's to the corner of the cell, where his half full bucket sat entertaining a business of flies. He tipped over the bucket and stood atop it in the middle of the cell.
Why the ring was there and what its original purpose was didn't matter. When Lorin touched it, the metal felt warm and inviting. The ring was large enough for three of his fingers to fit through, and he let his weight gradually hang by them. Jessica's nose twitched before she mimed a delighted laugh, and somewhere far back in his mind Lorin could hear it. The ring held his weight without any sign of strain, though his fingers went red and numb after only a few seconds. He looked to the wall and there he saw his family hugging and smiling at each other. They turned their heads, and their mouths moved. In the back corner of his mind, Lorin heard their voices move closer until they were clear in his head. "Join us."
What was he thinking? Killing Varron at the trial? That would never happen. Why did he let himself hope? He should've left Arthur and walked into the woods when he’d had the chance. Being alive, remembering everything—it wasn't worth the anguish. That moment, before the branch snapped, that was beautiful. He was so close to leaving all his misery behind, it was everything he wanted. There was nothing left for him, nothing had changed since then.
Lorin stepped down from his bucket onto the now sticky floor and grabbed his blanket. Back on the bucket, he tied the itchy wool around the ring. A few test pulls later and he swung from the blanket. Then he jumped and held on, trying with everything he could to pull the blanket free. He could not. Satisfied, Lorin stood again on his bucket as tall as possible and tied the blanket around his neck. In one movement, he jumped, kicking away the bucket, and let his hands fall to his sides.
The room flashed white when his head hit the ceiling, then it sparkled when the blanket snapped taut. Lorin's legs kicked their protest, and he was surprised to feel his hands clawing at the blanket. This felt different. Each moment lasted an eternity like the last time he’d hung himself, but now the moments were filled with fear, not relief. He spun while his legs kicked, and he searched for his family on the walls—they were gone and the walls remained blank. Full panic took over. This didn't feel right, death didn't feel like the warm embrace it had been before.
He didn't want to die?
Each heartbeat pounded in his head, his skin felt taut and about to burst, and his vision closed in. He felt the air shake with movement and hot breath on his face before darkness took his mind.
***
"I was trying to sleep, you ass," said a voice beside Lorin. It sounded like it had to pass through multiple doors to reach his ear. Lorin opened his eyes to see the ceiling of the cell getting brighter.
"Are you going to speak, or did you crush your windpipe?" It was Ashmere's voice. "I knew you were awake before your eyes opened. Don't give me that look. Say something."
"How are you in my cell?" Lorin said, his voice horse and quiet.
"I let myself in." Ashmere said with such nonchalance that Lorin felt he’d asked if things fell when you dropped them. "I thought you might try to hang yourself at some point, but I didn't expect it so soon. I needed some sleep."
"I'm… sorry?"
"You should be. Why did you do it?"
"My family. I… wanted to be with them."
Ashmere sat beside Lorin, putting her arm around him—it felt familiar. "They are gone. Dying won't let them be with you."
Lorin opened his mouth to say something, but didn't. They sat in silence together. Lorin felt Ashmere pull away to stand, but he stopped her and said, "It didn't feel right this time."
Ashmere returned to her place and with a look told him to elaborate.
"The first time it felt right; I knew there was no other option and it was the best choice." Lorin stared off to the empty cell across from him. "This time I felt it was right, until I couldn't stop it. Then it felt wrong, but I don't understand why."
Time passed, and the window lightened from the dawn's blues to yellow sunlight before Ashmere got up without a word. She walked to the cell door, did something with the lock, opened it, and did the same with her cell. She set her bowl out in its place and tapped her spoon against the bowl, looking right at Lorin. It was enough to pull him from his state of bewilderment and set his bowl out as well. The groan of the door filled the cells, and a few moments later oatmeal was steaming in both of their bowls. They watched each other in silence as it cooled. Then they ate in silence till their bowls were empty.
Ashmere licked her spoon clean and set it back in its place. "Are you going to try and kill yourself again?" she asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. No."
"Sorry if I was harsh before… I didn't know everything."
Lorin looked at her. "I don't remember what you need to apologize for."
She shrugged. "Then I don't have to feel guilty. Do you remember I said I would help you?"
"I remember. How?"
Ashmere walked up to bars and pulled herself close. "Varron and his crew need to die, it's a fact. I'll do it if you can't."
Lorin shifted his weight.
"You impressed me, Lorin. It's possible you could be lying or embellishing, but I truly don't think so. You fought off a banshee Queen, which is incredibly dangerous, even more so in a confined space. After that you lived through a horrific torture—I watched when you changed clothes. Cutting boards have fewer scars than you. Yet you're alive and here even against your own attempts."
Lorin felt himself blush, but wasn't entirely sure why.
"What I am saying is you have the potential to be something more than a bag of meat strung-up by his own doing. If you are willing," her posture straightened, "I will train you."
"Train me?"
"To fight, if that's what you need to do. I can also show you knowledge and give you the wisdom to use that knowledge." She gestured around them. "This isn't the greatest situation to teach you, but I'll make do with what I can."
"Who…"
"I am one of the Venators."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"I don't know what that is," Lorin said.
"You shouldn't." Ashmere walked to the window. "We will start tomorrow morning."
"Why not now? Start what?"
"I need time and darkness to prepare. Besides that, you need rest." She turned to Lorin. "What do you know?"
"Less and less by the day, it seems."
"Funny." She didn't look amused. "What other languages can you speak?"
Lorin scrunched his face up. "There are other languages?"
"Can you read?"
Lorin shifted from foot to foot.
Ashmere sighed. "Lorin, don't be ashamed. Be honest and we can move quickly."
Lorin moved his eyes from the ground and looked at her. "Then be honest with me, what are you volunteering me for? This is all a little fast."
"To be my apprentice, at least a basic one. A Venator needs to be trained and tested across the Abyss. With a year for me to train you, you will only know just enough to make it to the school."
"What is a Venator?"
Ashmere smiled. "A hunter, a guardian, and a judge. Above common law, but also its shield. We hunt dangers to civilization."
"Seems a little far-fetched; this is the first time I have heard of anything like that."
"To be blunt, you don't know much." Ashmere shrugged. "Sorry. It is a big world: there are plenty of dangers no one knows about, and we work hard to keep it that way." Her expression was suddenly serious. "When you cross the Abyss you will see our necessity."
Lorin took a moment to let her words sink in, then said, "I don't want to be a part of that.
I want my family avenged maybe… I don't know for sure, but I don't want be a Venator."
"You won't be one—we don't have the time. I can teach you about so many different things the Venators need to know, but we will focus on avenging your family. You’ll do it with a flare as well or I’ll be a disappointed teacher." She winked.
"I would kill them."
Ashmere raised her eyebrows. "I assumed more than just death."
"So murder is fine?"
"No, of course not. However, justice is, and as I said Venators are above the law."
"But I won't be one."
"Huh, you are learning. I'll teach you how to dodge prison time or execution, and you'll be pardoned after you are initiated."
Lorin tilted his head. "You don't seem to be skilled at dodging prison."
"Don’t I? Get rest. The night is our time, and I need you awake for it."
"I have more questions."
Ashmere sat on her cot. "Ponder them, never stop questioning, but always expect to answer questions important to yourself, by yourself." She laid on her side and closed her eyes. "Once we begin, I'll be your teacher, not your cellmate."
Lorin opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, then sat on his bed and looked up to the ring in his ceiling. He could feel a chill from the now-shiny metal.
What have I got to lose?
Dreamless sleep took him before he realized, and it was restful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He awoke with the cell dark. Ashmere, when he looked, was gone, the cell empty with her bowl neatly in its place. Lorin stood in a rush and looked for where she might've hid in the cell. She had escaped. Lorin turned his back to the bars and stared at a wall of his cell, with a frost of solitude creeping into his extremities. She had left him. He wasn't even worth the effort of one lesson.
A tap on his shoulder made him spin around with a frustrated punch and his knuckles cracked with a dull ring, the iron bar indifferent to the impact. Ashmere faced him on the other side of his bars with a smile curling the sides of her lips.
"Looked like that hurt," she said. Lorin held his rattled knuckles, shaking them while he hopped around the cell. It really did hurt. Ashmere let herself into the cell and placed a few dusty leather books on the bed.
"Suck it up and come here."
"I think I broke my hand," Lorin said, then blew on the now reddening skin.
"Stretch out your fingers."
He did at a snail's pace like the blow had aged his hand forty years.
"You're fine," Ashmere said, then turned back to the books. "We will start with these."
"What are they?"
"Books. One is a fairy tale, another is a history of our commonwealth, and this one is a children's book about a wolf in wool. We will start with that one."
"Alright, but I have a few questions still," Lorin said, rubbing his hand.
"Ask, but now that I'm your teacher there is a rule: you have three questions a day and that's it. Understand?"
"Why?"
"That's one," she said as she held up a finger. "It's good to ask questions on things you don't understand. But if I tell you everything, what do you learn? With only three questions you can't afford to waste any on things you can work through yourself."
"That's… It's a little strange."
Ashmere shrugged. "It's how I was taught, and it worked for me."
"I’d like to ask your teacher how he thought that rule up."
"If she is still alive, then sure, but last time we spoke she implied her next job would be her last."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know."
"Don't be. Death isn't bad for the dead, it's bad for the living. She, at least, lived her life." Ashmere gave Lorin a pointed look, a mix of heartfelt empathy and reproach.
She held up another finger. "Well, we will read it because it's easy to. It's a gauge of your ability."
"How? There isn't enough light in here."
She held a third finger up. "We won't be reading now, we will find a place to hide these and you will read them during the day." Ashmere let her hand drop to her side. "I'll give you a tip I learned—save your last question for the end of the day. You won't have wasted any then."
She lifted the books and tucked them under the cot, then scanned the room. "Find a loose stone, if there is one. If not, make one loose. Always make sure you have a backup plan and a stash. In the worst case scenario, you will at least always have something stored away." She pointed to Lorin's bucket in the corner of the cell. "Look for a loose brick there. No one aims well enough to get every drop in the bucket, so the mortar is probably worn some."
Lorin gave a puzzled look and knelt down where she pointed, feeling around on the sticky stones. One wobbled to his touch and he wiggled it from its setting. The wet mold at its edges sealed in the fresh smell of urine and rot below, that is, until he removed it. Lorin gagged once and spit, composed himself, and forced a look at the slot he’d uncovered. He gagged again and had to swallow back bile, but he saw an eroded crevice about the size of his fist.
"Dig it out a bit, or see if you can," Ashmere said, standing over him.
"You can't be serious."
She gave him a light kick. It was playful, but that didn't mean it was painless. "If it's not big enough to fit one book you will have to claw out another hole. Be happy this is probably soft."
Lorin hesitated with his hand just above the hole. He took a deep breath, let his hand go down to the mushy bottom, and pulled out a handful of wretched-smelling rot. Over the next few minutes, he filled his bucket, and the hole bottomed out to more cobbled stone. He felt around to scoop out some finer material and noticed a lower stone shift in its setting. He lifted it and saw a light peek through. Leaning low, as his eyes watered from the smell, he could see a servant with a handheld candle in a room below. He was filling a small cask from a barrel nestled among crates, bags, and other barrels. Lorin set the stone back and whispered to Ashmere, "There is a cellar below us."
"Good to know. We will have to stay quieter than I thought."
Lorin reached for a book, and once he was handed it, he hid it in the cubbyhole with plenty of room to spare. He pulled the book back out, replaced the floor stone, then stood.
"Now," Ashmere said, "we will start with the exercises and stretches you will need to know. These must be done every night and at the end of our sessions no matter how tired you are. Winter is coming soon, and it coincides well for us. We will train the basics inside, and out of the cold when the snows come. In spring we will be far along enough to make use of the Baron's estate. Ready?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lorin kept a tally of the days in the cubbyhole. Each day he awoke and marked its passing in the lose material. When a month passed, he would wipe the previous marks and add a pebble to a pile. The first days were painful, and soreness lasted until his body grew tired of pain, accepting it as normal. Every morning he would set his bowl out for breakfast; once the meal—which usually was oatmeal or a mush of scrambled eggs—arrived, Lorin would do his exercises and stretch. A bell would toll mid-workout, and for every shivering echo, Lorin would attempt a pull-up from the steel ring in his cell. Most of the time he had to settle for lowering himself slowly after a jump because he couldn't fully lift himself, but every attempt was a good challenge that focused him on a goal.
Afterward, the food—however bland—was still a warm reprieve and a welcome end he worked for. Once the meal was done, he would grab a book and promptly fail to read a word before exhaustion took him. Sometime after noon he would awake, answer any calls of nature, and actually begin to read. Ashmere made him focus on the letters and their cooperation to make sounds. It took time, but each discovery of a correct pronunciation for a new word was accompanied by a warm rush of accomplishment. That was how his days went with little change other than the books, which were small, fict
itious texts that Ashmere would show up with before Lorin awoke.
The nights, though, were rarely the same. After the initial lessons of proper falling, stretches, and mobility exercises, Ashmere showed him a different subject every other night. Hand-to-hand combat was a consistent lesson that made the time fly once he’d learned the basics. He also learned human anatomy—the places where a hit or pinch could cause pain or numbness—picking a lock, making a fire quietly and without a tinderbox, personal hygiene, and courtly manners, including proper bows, dancing, walking, accents, and basic words of other languages. Often, the night's lesson seemed to be based on Ashmere's random whims, but every subject was explained in detail and practiced until Lorin perfected the skill, or Ashmere had to flee to set her bowl out for breakfast.
One morning after eight pull-ups were completed, Lorin sat on his bed eating and looked over to Ashmere. She laid on her back under the covers of her cot. Her arms were stretched above her head, holding the book she was currently reading. The rising sun made the sheet of ice frosting her window sparkle. Before the window had been sealed by ice, the cells were unbearably cold.
"Hey, Ash."
Ashmere replied by lifting her foot under the covers, then letting it drop back to the cot.
"I still have my last question."
"Cutting it close," she said and turned a page.
"Why are you in here? Why stay when escaping is so easy for you?"
Ashmere held still for a brief moment—it was what she always did when she thought hard on something. The book she had been holding fell from her hands and landed on her face.
"Idiot…" she hissed, throwing the book across the cell with an embarrassed humph. "Not you." She sighed and propped herself up on one elbow. "I wondered if you would ask, though I wanted you to figure it out if you could. More fun and all that."
"I thought it better to just get the answer from you than make guesses."
Ash smiled. "See, where's the fun in that? Oh well. I am still here because you are my apprentice and I like teaching you. True, I can leave, but you keep me here and it is my pleasure to stay."