The night had gone somewhat better than she had expected. As Randi prowled the deserted street, she thrust her gloved hands deep in the cloaks pockets. The wind whispered of a respite from her aching restlessness, but for Randi it was a haunting refrain. She couldn't even still her thoughts long enough to hear the night's music calling to her. The only thing more elusive was sleep.
The tenacious echo of cruel words had been enough to jolt her from her sleep. Tonight the mocking echo had driven her stumbling and groaning from her bed to seek the brighter darkness of night.
She paused, rocking back and forth on her heels, and stared blindly out to sea. Cool spray misted her skin as she reluctantly remembered the past. It had been eleven years since he had whispered words of love to her and swept her from her home into a whirlwind romance that ended in a wedding fit for a princess. Eight years more had passed before she had learned the bitter truth of why he had chosen her for his bride.
But when Randi closed her eyes, time melted like the snow beneath her boots.
Recalling with clarity the path she had chosen, a smile curled her full lips with satisfaction at another job well done. She hadn't actually killed Reese. But the rumors said otherwise.?
After hours of aimless walking, she finally found the place which she was temporarily calling home. Dropping the various tools and sundry items she'd collected along the way to the sidebar, she was shrugging off the cloak and studying her face in the dented and scratched plate of tin she'd hung on the wall simply for vanity's sake. To reassure herself just how different she looked as she was heading out the door. She wouldn't be found here. Not easily.
"All right, so that wasn't so bad. You didn't lose a tooth, a limb. You still have your dignity in tact." Her reflection answered with a harmpf. Tossing the cloak to the peg, she continued on down the hall with a rumble of laughter. "Oh right, ye got your dignity. That be fer sure. Ye big dope. Your first night out and about to find a familiar face and you managed to get a picnic date with a Crab. A huge crab named Geophrey!"
Saying it aloud had her laughing all over again. It had to have been the bad mulled wine she'd gotten hold of at the Red Dragon. It had been years since she'd been there. Returning to Rhydin brought back many a haunted memory. Some not so bad as others.
Peeling off the gloves, her silent steps brought her to the grime covered window where she looked down over the market square, now coated in silence and shadows.
Lady Randina Lorrena Bryne, her own title merely Honorable, was the only daughter and youngest child to Aldrich and Emma Bryne, granddaughter to an earl, great-granddaughter to a duke, and had been married once in her twenty-eight years. The union had been short-lived but had provided the people of Myerslock with endless grist for the gossip mill. She regretted the experience in the same way a woman might regret finding her first gray hairs. There was some anger, some bitterness, some fear. Then it was all covered over. Out of sight, out of mind. A woman didn't intend to go gray any more than a woman intended to be abandoned once she'd said "till death do us part." But things happened.
The tenacious echo of cruel words had been enough to jolt her from her sleep. Tonight the mocking echo had driven her stumbling and groaning from her bed to seek the brighter darkness of night.
She paused, rocking back and forth on her heels, and stared blindly out to sea. Cool spray misted her skin as she reluctantly remembered the past. It had been eleven years since he had whispered words of love to her and swept her from her home into a whirlwind romance that ended in a wedding fit for a princess. Eight years more had passed before she had learned the bitter truth of why he had chosen her for his bride.
But when Randi closed her eyes, time melted like the snow beneath her boots.
Recalling with clarity the path she had chosen, a smile curled her full lips with satisfaction at another job well done. She hadn't actually killed Reese. But the rumors said otherwise.?
After hours of aimless walking, she finally found the place which she was temporarily calling home. Dropping the various tools and sundry items she'd collected along the way to the sidebar, she was shrugging off the cloak and studying her face in the dented and scratched plate of tin she'd hung on the wall simply for vanity's sake. To reassure herself just how different she looked as she was heading out the door. She wouldn't be found here. Not easily.
"All right, so that wasn't so bad. You didn't lose a tooth, a limb. You still have your dignity in tact." Her reflection answered with a harmpf. Tossing the cloak to the peg, she continued on down the hall with a rumble of laughter. "Oh right, ye got your dignity. That be fer sure. Ye big dope. Your first night out and about to find a familiar face and you managed to get a picnic date with a Crab. A huge crab named Geophrey!"
Saying it aloud had her laughing all over again. It had to have been the bad mulled wine she'd gotten hold of at the Red Dragon. It had been years since she'd been there. Returning to Rhydin brought back many a haunted memory. Some not so bad as others.
Peeling off the gloves, her silent steps brought her to the grime covered window where she looked down over the market square, now coated in silence and shadows.
Lady Randina Lorrena Bryne, her own title merely Honorable, was the only daughter and youngest child to Aldrich and Emma Bryne, granddaughter to an earl, great-granddaughter to a duke, and had been married once in her twenty-eight years. The union had been short-lived but had provided the people of Myerslock with endless grist for the gossip mill. She regretted the experience in the same way a woman might regret finding her first gray hairs. There was some anger, some bitterness, some fear. Then it was all covered over. Out of sight, out of mind. A woman didn't intend to go gray any more than a woman intended to be abandoned once she'd said "till death do us part." But things happened.