Free Entreat Me by Grace Draven

repulsive roses on fire before she left.
    With the pistol loaded and a candle in hand, she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and poked her head into the empty, torch-lit corridor.  Cinnia’s door was shut.  Surely she didn’t dream the dreadful howling?  Another cry split the silence; she was most definitely awake.  She tried Cinnia’s door.  It opened under her touch.  Louvaen growled.  Did the girl trust so easily that she wouldn’t use a lock or bar?
    Cinnia huddled under a stack of blankets in a grand bed, partially concealed by heavy drapes attached to the bed’s canopy.  She murmured in her sleep, and Louvaen breathed a small sigh of relief.  Their family joked about Cinnia’s ability to sleep through a barrage of cannon fire.  Considering the racket drifting up from beneath the castle, she thanked every god within earshot that her sister slept so deeply.
    She had a quandary before her.  Awaken Cinnia to have her bar the door and spend the next hour arguing with her or leave her be and make her way downstairs alone.  Neither option was palatable.  In the end she let Cinnia sleep, reasoning that a sorcerer lived here.  No simple lock or barred door ever withstood a powerful spell cast by a skilled hand.
    She closed the door behind her and tiptoed down the narrow stairwell leading to the great hall.  The hall itself lay in darkness, the hearth gone cold.  A flicker of light danced beneath the screens separating hall from kitchen.  Louvaen entered the heart of the fortress, following the groans and howls drifting up from another short stairwell situated in one corner.  The stairs descended into a buttery leading to a corridor that hooked sharply left.  More light flickered at one end, accompanied by voices speaking instead of screaming.  She recognized Gavin’s first.
    “It’s much worse this time.  I’ve never known him to suffer like this.”  Though Louvaen couldn’t see him, she heard the fear and worry in the son’s voice for his father.  One of the knots inside her loosened.  At least someone else in this sad jumble of stone besides her wanted to retch at the hideous noises.
    Ambrose answered him.  “The flux is stronger.  Can you tell?”
    “Aye.  I feel like a mangled rag with the strength wrung out of me.  He’s tougher than all of us combined to survive this kind of torture.”
    “He always has been.”
    Louvaen remained still, shamelessly eavesdropping.  She jumped and almost dropped her candle when Ambrose’s voice snapped out of the dark.  “Show yourself!”
    She gripped her shawl and strode through the low archway separating her from the men.  The arch led to a circular chamber protecting a deep well.  Storerooms lined the curved walls, some empty, others filled with barrels or sacks of grain.  Two were closed off by wooden doors heavily fortified with iron strap hinges and heavy bars across small cutouts.  Locks shimmering with blue light held them shut.  Gavin and Ambrose stood in front of one, the breath steaming from their noses and mouths in the chilly air.  Gavin wore a startled look.  “Mistress Duenda.”
    Ambrose glared—or so she first thought.  He was without his spectacles, and Louvaen wondered if maybe it was more of a squint.  “I might have known,” he said.  “And armed of course.”  The acidic bite of his words assured her it was a glare.
    She lifted her chin.  “What did you expect?  Not even dawn and the poor man is shouting your towers down around your ears.”  Cinnia had said Gavin’s father was disfigured.  Louvaen wouldn’t have been in the least surprised to learn he was also completely mad.  No one lived through this kind of horror with their mind still intact.  She raised the candle higher and caught her breath as the flame reflected in Gavin’s yellow eyes.  “My gods...”
    Ambrose knocked her hand aside as Gavin turned his face from her.  “You shouldn’t be here, Mistress Duenda.”
    “You’ll