anwhile...
The late-afternoon shadows lengthened across the rural valley.
Vincent had tracked the rumors to a nearby hamlet, where several local crofters claid to have seen an opulent, unmarked carriage cresting the ridge earlier that day.
While Vincent kept watch from horseback, Elias moved through the muddy square village, questioning the tavern-keeps and blacksmiths before finally making his way back to the worried Vincent.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, bruising the sky in shades of deep indigo and violet. It was already getting dark.
"Where the hell are you, Penelope?" Vincent muttered under his breath, his knuckles whitening against his horse’s leather reins as he scanned the unfamiliar faces of the peasants.
He had ridden hard to the Viremont estate the mont he realized she was gone, only for the commanding captain at the gates to inform him that her ladyship had departed hours ago.
Since then, the trail had grown cold.
"Perhaps she has already returned to the estate using a different route, My Lord?" Elias suggested, wiping the dust of the road from his brows. "The locals confirm a carriage of noble bearing passed through, but none here seem to have witnessed anything untoward."
"We’re not going back until I am certain she is not here," was Vincent’s unwavering response.
He had to find her.
He needed to see for himself that she was unhard, to witness the steady rise and fall of her breath before the frantic hamring in his own chest could finally subside.
A bitter wave of remorse washed over him.
He had driven her to this flight. If she sohow ended up in harm’s way due to his folly, he knew he would never be able to forgive himself.
"You there," Vincent called out, pulling on his reins to guide his mount toward a small group of farrs trudging back from the fields.
"A mont of your ti. Have you by chance seen an unfamiliar carriage passing through these parts within the hour?"
The farrs halted, exchanging wary, sidelong glances before looking up at the imposing nobleman on a horseback. One of the elder laborers, a man with a sun-weathered face and a patchwork tunic, stepped forward and scratched his stubbled chin. A shrewd, greedy glint flickered in his eyes.
"We might have, Your Lordship," the peasant said, his voice laced with rural cunning. "But mory is a fickle thing after a grueling day in the fields. Perhaps a silver or two might do wonders for clearing a man’s mind, if you take my aning into humble consideration."
"You rogue–" Elias stepped forward, unable to credit the audacity of these n. Did they have the slightest conception of whom they were addressing?
Before Elias could deliver a thrashing, Vincent raised a hand, gesturing for his captain to hold. He had absolutely no patience for peasants bartering while his wife’s whereabouts remained unknown.
Reaching into his velvet pouch, Vincent pulled out a heavy, glittering silver crown. "Tell where the carriage rests, and it is yours."
The farr’s eyes lit up at the sight of the coin. The elder instantly pointed a calloused finger toward a dirt path cutting through the low hills.
"Your Lordship, a fine black coach went past the crossroads not long ago. Left its maid at the pottery barn to buy a whole mountain of misfired clay ware."
Vincent’s brows furrowed in sheer bewildernt. "Misfired clay?"
"Aye," the elder nodded eagerly. "If you’re looking for the lady inside it, you’ll find her just past the tree line near the old boundary wall. Though, if I were you, Your Lordship, I’d mind my step. Last we saw, she was wielding a thick oak club, screaming and smashing those pots to splinters like a mad, possessed banshee."
"A possessed banshee?"
Vincent’s hand paused mid-air, the silver crown dangling just an inch out of the peasant’s desperate reach.
The elder farr blinked, his sycophantic smile faltering. "M-My Lord?"
With a swift, fluid motion, Vincent snapped his fingers shut, pocketing the silver coin back into his pouch.
"Hey! But you promised—" the farr protested, reaching out.
"I promised silver to a helpful subject, not a slanderer who insults my wife," Vincent snapped back, his voice dropping to a dangerously smooth purr.
He wheeled his destrier around with an arrogant toss of the reins. "Elias, let us go. And should these scoundrels voice a single complaint, have them arrested for high treason against the peerage."
Leaving the spluttering, empty-handed farrs in the dust, Vincent spurred his horse toward the tree line, his mind a chaotic whirl of confusion.
An oak branch? What on earth is she doing?
****
Penelope sat perched upon a moss-covered boulder, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Having thoroughly spent every ounce of her remaining energy obliterating the deford clay, she felt utterly exhausted. Yet, for the first ti in mory, a profound lightness settled into her bones.
"How did you even think of this absurd redy?" Penelope asked, turning a weary but genuine smile toward Martha.
"Well, whenever my father sensed I was deeply vexed, he would take out to old stone quarries to smash discarded slate," Martha recalled softly. "The habit simply stayed with ."
Penelope nodded, absorbing the simple, grounded comfort of the tale.
She cast her gaze upward. The violet hues of dusk had bled entirely into a deep, velvet indigo: night had fallen while they were busy in their destruction. "I suppose it’s best we start moving."
Deep within the tangled shadows of the overgrown thicket, a figure shifted silently.
The cold iron tip of a hunting arrow was leveled directly at Penelope’s exposed breast, the taut string humd with lethal tension. Yet, the unseen assassin hesitated in letting go, the bowstring trembling slightly.
"His Lordship must be worried," Martha murmured, only just realizing precisely how many hours they had squandered away from the estate. She bent down to pick up the empty wicker baskets. "We must hurry, My lady, before the roads beco treacherous."
Penelope let out a long, grounding sigh and rose from the moss-covered boulder, brushing the dust of pulverized clay from her skirts.
Erging from the tree line, Vincent and Elias broke into the clearing just in ti to spot the two won standing near the ancient boundary wall.
The sight of Penelope and Martha, safe and whole, caused a profound wave of relief to wash over both n.
Without a second thought, Vincent dismounted his destrier before the beast had even co to a complete halt.
He opened his mouth to call out to her, but before the first syllable could leave his lips, his military instincts flared.
His eyes locked onto a strange, unnatural shadow within the overgrown thicket. What he saw turned his blood to ice, his relief instantly morphing into blind panic.
The glint of a steel arrowhead was trained directly on Penelope.
"No."
Elias, who had not yet detected the threat, looked at his lord in sheer bewildernt as Vincent suddenly bolted forward, abandoning his horse and sprinting toward Penelope with terrifying speed.
In the brush, the bowstring was pulled to its absolute limit. Whoever held the weapon had abandoned their hesitation and was ready to let loose.
"Penelope!" Vincent’s roar shattered the quiet of the evening.
Hearing her na, Penelope snapped her head toward the familiar, desperate sound. Both she and Martha froze, watching in stunned confusion as Vincent ca charging across the clearing toward them.
"Huh?" Martha blinked, tilting her head. "His Lordship is here?"
"Get out of the way!" he shouted, his voice cracking with an agony she had never heard from him before.
But the warning ca too late. Deep in the thicket, the fingers slipped, the tension snapped, and the arrow was released into the dark.
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