Tempered by the Will

27 - Silenced

It was so easy to forget that Felix Aventine was a skilled healer. After the initial hostile outburst upon seeing Lady Cicera with her, it wasn't long before he begrudgingly set it aside at Vica's insistence so that he could extract the arrow out of her thigh. It was by no means painless, but surprisingly, despite his noble privilege, he was a deft hand at the task. It didn't stop her from biting down on her fist and moaning into it when she felt the arrowhead pull out of her flesh, but at least the numbing charms had spared her the worst of it. The hex ropes that had been squeezing around her ribs and waist were long gone as well, and she made a mental note to ask exactly how it was that he could do that.

"This is poisoned," he murmured, and his words were so quiet and swift that she nearly missed them. She rolled over onto her back with a wince, mostly because of the pain but also partly because of the cold seeping into the tear that the back of her thin wool pants now sported. There had only been one way to get the arrow out of her leg, after all.

"Poisoned how - ouch."

"I don't know. It's not a hex; it's a physical toxin I don't recognize. It was slathered onto the arrowhead."

And that was as much as he would say with Cicera present, and he promptly clammed up. It was just as well, anyway - if this poison was as dangerous as he seemed to think it was, then Bren needed to be treated immediately. The half-elf was still breathing and carried a steady pulse, thankfully, which allayed most of her worries.

But how strange, thought Vica, that the enemy would choose such a weak toxin that it would fail to finish off two victims. One after the other, too. And considering how frail Bren was, she could only wonder if this was also part of Cicera's plan. Introduce the danger, then come save them in the nick of time...?

Felix had similar concerns, obviously:

"She's dangerous," he insisted, and he shot furtive glances over his shoulder as he continued to coax his magic into Bren's wound. "House Murena is no friend of ours -"

"Except I've kept your secret for more than four years now, so I suggest you reconsider your stance. While I share no loyalty to your cause, I've still protected it, haven't I? And I don't come representing House Murena, as I've already said -"

"You've always represented House Murena, enough with the two-faced talk. Everyone knows your husband is as good as a hand puppet -"

"Perhaps you should concentrate your efforts on healing your friend instead of wasting your time antagonizing me. I'm sure your loyal friend Constantine the assassin will be returning any moment now, and you'll be as helpless as a newborn -"

"So will you, and whatever scheme you have up your lace sleeves will fall apart regardless -"

Vica hadn't known aristocrats could squabble like this. With her arms crossed and brow furrowed, she pretended not to hear Felix and Cicera go at it like angry snakes, electing instead to watch the duke's life magic at work. As expected, he was skilled: even while diverting some of his attention to the heated argument, his magic streamed out in precise rivulets to enter Bren's wound and cycle back out, carrying droplets of some murky substance that were then deposited onto the grass.

Constantine had faded from sight a while ago so that Felix could get to work, moving off in the direction of where she had had to leave behind her unconscious attackers. In the darkness, it had been hard to tell what he was thinking when she took the plunge and vouched for Cicera when he and Felix finally arrived - but to be fair, it was hard to know for sure what he was thinking even under the best of circumstances.

Still, it was a remarkable thing that he hadn't immediately insulted then ignored her. Gods knew he had no qualms about doing that...normally. This time, he had only given her a silent, brief stare, then looked down at Bren on the ground. He hadn't gone so far as to ask after his health, but this was still progress. Before tonight, she suspected Constantine would have tried to finish the elfling off himself while he was down.

"You said you knew who attacked me," she said loudly, interrupting the argument since it seemed that two fully grown adults were incapable of doing it themselves. "If it wasn't you, then who sent them?"

Cicera lifted her chin. "I expect it was my husband."

There was a moment of tense silence that followed. Felix, Vica noticed, looked both utterly self-satisfied and confused at the same time, which didn't bode well for her. She was supposed to be the lost one, not him.

"...You...want to explain that a little more?" she asked, voice growing testier with each syllable. "Because that doesn't really do much to convince me we're supposed to be on the same side."

"I never said we would be, only working toward similar ends. But the simplest explanation is that my husband has unexpectedly rescinded my authority over House Murena following the incident this morning. I assumed he would be sympathetic to my motivations. He was not. I was unaware that he had already made...conflicting arrangements."

What in actual hellfire did that even mean? Vica glanced at Felix to try to steal some clue as to how to respond to that, and when she found him wearing a dark, surprised frown, she had a feeling that she was missing even more than she realized.

"So if I asked for an explanation in simple Common," she said, "what would you say?"

"Lady Murena is saying that she no longer has proxy control of her House, and that Duke Murena is staunchly against you. What's his aim, then, Cicera? Does he want to kill Vica outright?"

"He does. Once he found out that I not only had an idea of where she was but also sent our men to retrieve her, he became - very animated. By the time I realized something was wrong, he had already stripped my Mark so that I lost all ability to communicate with anyone else in our Charter. He also had me thrown into the cellar, but of course, I had a contingency measure in place."

Vica stared as the woman patted her dress down with a hint of a smug expression. She seemed sincere, but then again, Vica had never been very good at reading people. The Capital was teeming with talented liars, she was sure...There was nothing to do but rely on Felix's judgment for now.

"Stripped your Mark? Let me see."

She didn't hesitate. With a graceful motion, she pulled up the sleeve of her robe and exposed the pale skin of her inner forearm. Vica watched with narrowed eyes as a faded, pale lavender sigil just under the bend of her elbow came into view.

"Go on," Cicera challenged. "You're done treating the elf, aren't you? Or have you spent the last few years idling in such comfort that you've become incompetent? Touch it, go on.

"You could be lying. This could be a trap, and the moment I make contact with your Mark, it could alert your husband to my presence -"

"If I could do that, don't you think that would have happened already? There would have been far easier ways to send a signal - if, that is, I weren't excommunicated from the rest of the entire Charter at the moment. It's been silenced, so don't be ridiculous. The whole purpose of stripping my Mark is to make it so that I'm unable to exploit it. So you should at least pretend to be a little brave in front of everyone else. Always the nervous one, Felix."

...Interesting. Their interaction was so peculiar - the tone of their voices, the guarded look in their eyes that seemed to be about other matters entirely, the way they frowned at each other with unspoken things hiding under their tongues.

"Can we just get on with it," Vica asked patiently. She pointed in the other direction. "If paying a visit to House Murena's estate is out of the question, which I'm guessing it is, I want to get Bren out of here and somewhere comfortable, and the same for me. My leg is killing me. Also, Constantine's on his way back now. He should be somewhere past those far trees along the bend."

Both mages looked up at her, and while Felix regained his composure with obvious effort, Cicera's frown only deepened.

"How do you know that?" she asked, and there was a simultaneously curious and suspicious tone in her question.

Vica sighed. It was too easy to forget that other mages couldn't detect Resistant auras. "Don't worry about it. Just...let's be ready. If he's coming back, that means he's found something. Could be good or bad."

"I expect he's found some proof as to Cicera's deception -"

"Or perhaps your hardheadedness," the duchess shot back. "I've had quite enough of -"

Vica sighed again. She'd never admit it, but she found herself hoping Constantine would pick up the pace and get here faster if only to shut these two up. Never had she thought that she would see such an irritating side from the elegant Duke Aventine, and her initial admiration of Lady Murena had all but evaporated by now as well.

"Hurry up," she mumbled under her breath as they continued to argue. And - strangely enough, she thought she could feel Constantine pick up speed.

Just her imagination, of course. She wasn't so ridiculous as to think he could actually read her mind that way. With a grumble, she kneeled back down on the grass next to Bren with a pained limp.