For Your Sacrifice

Writers: Estelle
Date Posted: 3rd October 2020

Characters: Alyena, Gil
Description: After the news of Grevan's death, Alyena's mysterious visitor returns with an offer
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 4, day 2 of Turn 10
Notes: Mentioned: Corowal

Three days after the letter came, Alyena rose from her bed before dawn.
Slowly, wearily, she slipped her feet into her shoes, wrapping a shawl
around her shoulders. Then she went out of the well and drew up the
bucket. The reflection of her face swam before her in the clear water,
gaunt and thin, deep shadows beneath the eyes.

She dipped her hands into the bucket and splashed water over her face,
gasping at the chill as she washed. The fire she'd light in the kitchen,
to make the children's breakfast, would warm her up. She tried not to
think about how much food was left. The crops had been better than she'd
expected since the bronze dragon had helped till the soil, but without a
grown man, they were struggling with the harvest.

**Don't think about it. One day at a time.**

But she couldn't help it. Furayl would have to go to the Weaver Hall,
she was lucky to have that offer and he'd have shelter and enough to eat
there. Perhaps there'd be work for Evalya with the neighbouring cothold,
though the girl laboured hard enough already in the fields.

And for her?

The grief was with her, an ever-present weight that dragged at her heart
and sapped her strength from the moment she opened her eyes in the
morning till she sank into exhausted sleep at night. When Cronfur had
passed she'd been anxious and fearful for her children's future, but
she'd known it to be an end to his suffering. But Grevan...she hadn't
lost hope of seeing him again one day. Until the letter came.

Her thoughts returned, helplessly, to the moment when the roof had come
down in the mine, collapsing into rubble and darkness and the choking
dust. The letter had said he'd died instantly, but what if that wasn't true?

She closed her eyes and made herself remember the first time she'd seen
him, when the healer had placed him in her arms, small and damp and
red-faced. Her first child, strong and healthy, after so much pain and
loss. Her perfect boy. Times back at the Hold, Grevan spending hours
watching the guards, imitating their drills with a child-sized wooden
sword. How proud he'd been of protecting his little sister and brother
when they'd come along.

Sometimes she imagined that any moment she'd see him coming down the
path from the fields, or back from the Hold laden with supplies. That if
she found the mental trick of it, she might slip into a world where her
son was still alive.

**Stop it.** Alyena emptied the rest of the water over her hair, then
squeezed out the cold droplets from the dark brown mass and tied it
back. Time to start preparing breakfast. The children would be waking...

Her heart gave a sudden, painful jolt.

There was someone coming down the path, the sun rising behind him,
casting a long shadow.

She was sure she knew that figure, that walk. Could it all have been a
mistake? Perhaps he survived, escaped...

As he approached, though, she knew that it was not Grevan. The man was
leaner, older. The spark of recognition came from way he moved, like the
fighters she'd known, and then she remembered. It was the man who'd come
to their farm before, when her son had been a prisoner at the Weyr.

If you have need, he'd told her, someone will come for you. You'll be
taken care of.

The man - Gil, he'd said his name was - was leading a runnerbeast. He
brought it up to the hitching post and tied the reins there, then
approached her. There was compassion in his eyes, the first Alyena had
seen since the runner had brought the letter.

"Holder Alyena." He took off his hat, in respect. "You've heard, then.
I'm sorry for your loss."

Alyena found she couldn't speak. She pulled the shawl around her, her
throat tight. These last days when she'd been alone with the children,
she'd had to be strong for them, because there had been no-one else. Now
he was here, she had to fight to keep the sudden wave of grief from
overwhelming her entirely.

"I know nothing I could say would ever..." He cut himself off. "I'm
sorry. I've come very early. It was necessary, I'm travelling quietly,
on my Holder's orders."

You don't want anyone to know you were here, Alyena thought, and the
sudden knot of fear inside her pushed aside the pain.

She'd thought it was over. But it wasn't.

"The last time I was here, I brought you my Holder's promise that you
and your family would be taken care of if the need arose," Gil said. His
voice was flat, as if he were repeating a message by rote. "He wants you
to know that you haven't been forgotten. There's a place for you, where
you'd be honoured for your sacrifice."

"I didn't - _sacrifice_ - anything!"

Suddenly Alyena found her voice, and she didn't care whether he was an
agent of his Holder, or a spy of Lord Corowal's, or following some
obscure scheme of his own. "If I'd known what Grevan was going to do,
I'd have stopped him. I'd have made him promise on the grave of his
father, never, never to go to the Weyr." Like she'd made the children
promise, sobbing, clinging to each other, huddled on the kitchen floor.
Evalya hadn't wanted to. Anger still burned hot in her daughter and she
didn't know how to help it, or even if she wanted to. "No good has come
to our family from that place, and none ever will."

He bowed his head. "For your suffering, then."

She wanted to tell him to leave them alone to mourn, but something held
her back. The empty larder, the crops left in the fields. The days
growing shorter as winter approached. You'll be taken care of, he'd
said. Suddenly she was so tired she thought her legs might buckle under
her. "What do you want, Gil?"

"I want to help." He took out a pouch, came closer and placed it on the
stone lip of the well. "You don't have to do anything for now. Only to
say nothing about me, or what we've said, to anyone from the Hold."

"I can do that." She'd no love for the Lord Holder, not after the part
he'd had in sending her son to his death, nor did she wish to be caught
up in whatever this was.

"And..." Gil hesitated. "There are men who need a quiet spot to discuss
matters, where they can trust what they say won't be overheard. It won't
be often. Nor for very long." When she didn't respond, he pushed the
pouch towards her. It rattled lightly, the soft click of coin inside.
"Sometimes we find ourselves in a place where there are no good choices.
You have to do what you can to survive with what remains. You could hire
a hand to bring in the harvest with this. Or buy stores for the winter.
It's your decision."

Alyena looked up at him. She didn't take the marks, but nor could she
make herself throw them back in his face.

"I'd best be on my way, then." He glanced over his shoulder at the
lightening sky behind them. "I am truly sorry."

Once he was gone, leading his runnerbeast away down the path to the
road, she slowly reached out a hand and rested it on the bag of marks. A
part of her wanted to push them over the edge, down into the darkness of
the well.

Then she heard sounds from the hold. The children, waking, needing to be
fed. Alyena closed her fingers tightly around the bag, tucked it under
her shawl and hurried back to her room, where she slipped it under the
mattress at the head of the bed. They didn't need the marks yet, but
when the supplies ran out, they'd be there, waiting.

Last updated on the October 27th 2020

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For Your Sacrifice