[i]Three days.[/i] 

Head hanging low, her gloved fingers peeled and picked at the chipped, rotting wood of the bar’s countertop; a barely touched plate of food that resembled gruel and tasted like sawdust sat next to the growing pile of flecks of wood. It was a mix of nerves and impatience that drove Tanis to slowly dismantle the dilapidating bar chip-by-chip. The woman was tucked away in the furthest seat from the door, her shawl draped over her head as if it were a barrier shielding her from the rest of the tavern. On the first day she had sat as close to the door as possible so that she could discreetly inspect any of the greedy miscreants that walked through the creaky doors of  [i]The Lovely Maiden[/i] and perhaps even engage in some pleasant small talk. On the second day she busied herself at a table with her mortar and pestle as she eavesdropped on the conversations and the concerns of the treasure hunters around her. 

The third day, however, she kept to herself. There was something about this town that was weighing down on the Fae woman that just exhausted her, as if she spent her hours lugging around a heavy pack full of herbs instead of sitting around a dumpy tavern or taking long walks through a sad, little village. The atmosphere in Roses was peculiarly heavy, largely from the shadow of the manor looming on the hilltop above like a guillotine’s blade. However, the rest of the backwater added to her unease as well, from the humid air to the shifty peasants. She almost felt ill, although perhaps that was just a minor case of food poisoning—three days in a row she had dined in the tavern, although only because she was certain the fat, greedy owner would rent her room to another (perhaps one that’d buy two or twelve of his overpriced drinks like the rest of the riff raff that seemed to be drawn to this place) if she did not spend any extra coin. 

Tanis knew what the real problem was, however, or at least she convinced herself that it was the source of her discomfort. It wasn’t the dark and dreary hamlet, nor the unfriendly and suspicious hayseeds, nor was it even the throngs of cutthroats and cutpurses that surrounded the elven apothecary in that rundown, hodunk little town. It was because Tanis believed that she, the little Fae kitchen girl from a foreign empire with a nasty habit of biting the hand that feeds, was the most, if not the only, educated person in the area. There was a disturbing sense of loneliness that came with that arrogant thought, and it was a sadly common feeling she had while travelling in the countryside. Roses was uncivilized; Tanis decided once she was done here she’d go to more civilized cities, and then she chuckled under her breath at the ridiculous idea—as if the “intellectual” people in cities were civil to the Fae. She was just as likely to hang swinging from a beam in the ritziest of hotels as she was in a dump like this, with the only difference being the quality of the rope. 

No, there had only been one place, or rather in a place with one person, that she felt both equal to and at ease with, and that person was now gone thanks to the same damned cretins that filled this shithole. Her yellow eyes glanced up at the mirror behind the bar to cast a spiteful, judgemental glance at what she assumed to be a room full of mercenaries. One of them, certainly, possibly, hopefully knew who were responsible for the slaughter of the Ashworth Company and the murder of her, her—Tanis felt her chest ache as her throat tightened. It hurt as much to think about it as it did to try and forget it. Taking her shawl, she dabbed her eyes clear and picked up the wooden spoon that was desperately trying to escape from the gruel before reluctantly shoving it into her mouth. It was disgusting and cold and strangely sour, but the nasty taste was distracting and she needed to eat to settle the acid bubbling in her stomach.

A mug clanked down in front of Tanis, startling her with a jump. She looked up at the grimy, overweight man as he fixed on her a frown. Quickly her eyes darted back down to the countertop.

“Sorry, sir,” she said, unsure of why she was apologizing outside of the fact that it was a force of habit nowadays. “But I didn’t order this. I don’t drink,” she clarified, as if it would somehow matter in resolving the bartender’s error. 

Yet clearly the man did not think he made a mistake or he just did not care; already he was dropping mugs off at other tables. Tanis sighed and sunk into her seat, gazing into her own reflection in the dark mug of ale before her. She had only ever drank once before, and that was only because a human lordling that had wandered down into the halls of the kitchen in a pathetic attempt to seem caring had insisted that the staff join him in a beverage. It had made her sick, and years later when she was studying for her trade and read more about alcohol she became convinced that it was absolutely idiotic, no, suicidal to ever imbibe in such a thing. What sort of lunatic would fill their body with a weak poison that lowers motor skills and impairs judgment? When she left her sheltered world from the Roth’s Estate and saw the effects of booze on men in full force, Tanis was absolutely certain that she had made the correct choice in never touching the swill to her lips again—although ale did serve as a good agent for masking the flavor of other, more instantaneously lethal ingredients. 

And [i]they[/i] had all been drunk the night of the attack. 

All of them but her, of course. She pushed the drink away in disgust only to slosh some of the liquid over the lip of the mug and cause it to splash down on her wrist. Grumbling and quickly grabbing off her glove so that the ale did not seep into the material, Tanis lifted the mug up and pulled out the napkin beneath it. A rose petal fell free from the cloth and beer dripped from her wrist as she looked at the message scrawled upon the napkin: [i]Stable[/i]. She smiled and shook her head, but wasted little time in dropping a few coins onto the table, drying her hand and gloving up, brushing her pile of woodchips unto the floor where they mingled with the rest of the garbage, and standing up with a stretch. The sooner this was all down with the better; she had already wasted three days in Roses and at the rate the innkeeper charged for the dives that he called rooms she would not be able to justify three more. If this all proved to be a kind of hoax, a dead end, then at least she’d already be in the stables: her saddlebags were already packed.

Tanis took a look around the room before she headed towards the door, curious to see who else had been chosen by the innkeeper. It was a fast, unhelpful glance because almost instantly her yellow eyes met with the stare of a haggard, pale man and quickly her view returned towards the floor in front of her. Quickening her pace, the Fae pushed through the door and stepped out into the nearly abandoned hamlet of Roses. The dying light of the sun hit her directly in the eyes. The added warmth forced her to pull the shawl down from her head as she shielded her eyes with her palm, her hand unintentionally brushing her hair to the side allowing for her scars to peak through. Her boots stomped through muddy excuses for streets as she made her way to the stables, passing by a few silent households and a bucketless well that had seen better days.  

It wasn’t shortly after the stables came into view that the uneasy feeling inside of Tanis arose again and forced her dead in her tracks. There wasn’t anything particularly unnerving about the stables themselves, really. It was no more rundown than the rest of the village, and she had been there days ago to drop off her donkey and secure her supplies, yet the sight of it now filled her with an inexplicable dread. Taking a deep breath, Tanis tried to pretend that the feeling wasn’t there and pushed forward until she was upon the darkened entrance. She couldn’t hear the sounds of her donkey braying or chewing on hay and that struck her as odd, for usually the animal was anything but quiet. Apprehensively, with every bone in her body screaming and straining to force her muscles to turn and go the other way, she set one foot inside the doorframe, followed by her hands gripping the edge, a curtain of brown hair, the tips of her ears, and her golden, shaking eyes.

“Hello?” she called out into the dimly lit stables. A sudden concern gripped her: she hadn’t actually been invited. True, the letter was vague, but the letter sender might have sent it only to certain people. Quickly, she spewed out her cover story into the air: “I’m sorry if I’m intruding, but I overheard some mumblings and thought that perhaps I could maybe offer some small assistance. I know a thing or two about medicine and, uh, I...” 

She clammed up and there was an unnerving silence. A chill ran through her spine and the woman stepped backwards away from the entrance, shaken by her mind playing tricks on her. This pathetic, oppressive town was getting to her. She smiled at her own childlike behavior and took a start towards the entrance only to reconsider before her boot even pulled fully out of the mud. Embarrassed at herself even though she was certain nobody was watching, Tanis pretended to be distracted by digging through the contents of her bag. Surely one of the others from the tavern would arrive shortly and then she would follow after them into the stables, but there was no way that she would go in alone. Absolutely not. Call it a sixth sense. Call it a woman’s intuition. Call it whatever you like, Tanis knew what it was. It had been creeping around her these past few days, and now it had finally made itself apparent.

She was afraid.