Flora Read online

  Flora

  Kendal M Lyon

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. Overlord

  2. Split Lips

  3. Mission Impossible

  4. Gearing Up

  5. Through the Pain

  6. Crazy Knives

  7. A Long Night in Caris

  8. Curiosity Killed Me

  9. Snatched

  10. Yes Lord

  11. Shattered Hopes

  12. Wagon Trail

  13. Waiting Games

  14. Reasons

  15. The Jist of Trust

  16. Love Letters

  17. Fingers

  18. Expectations

  19. Faodail

  20. Revelry

  21. The Folk

  22. Fairy Tale Moments

  23. One of The Bad Guys

  24. Preening

  25. Tea Time

  26. Dragon Tales

  27. Spilt Milk

  28. Talons

  29. Progress

  30. Like a Magpie

  31. Sheep's Clothing

  32. Goodbye Old Friend

  33. Second Chances

  34. Still Breathing

  35. Stiffening Spines

  36. Paintings

  37. Greetings

  38. Lush Comforts

  39. Games We Play

  40. Sit Still, Look Pretty

  41. Betrayal

  42. Dinner

  43. Crushed

  44. Who Are You

  45. Scrolls

  46. Garden Parties

  47. Dragon

  48. The Wolf

  49. My Side

  50. Dragon Tails

  51. Thin Walls

  52. Prison

  53. The Last Brother

  54. Riddles Remembered

  55. This Centuries Elemental

  56. What is Family

  57. Epilogue

  58. Acknowledgements

  59. To Learn More

  Dedication

  To My Husband

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your own personal use.

  Copyright © 2019 Kendal M Lyon

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-9991455-0-7

  Created with Vellum

  Overlord

  Flora tossed the knife at the door opposite her as she sat on the mud speckled floor, leaning broken against the wall. The thud was unnoticeable as the blade sank into the aged wood among the other knives already there. The noise swallowed amongst the drunken yammering of the dwellers below drifting up to her rooms with the stale smell of ale.

  She watched another chip fall from the door meagre feet from her, barely noticeable in the faint lighting of her room as the sun set through the skinny window beside her, reflecting in the dust. Flora breathed through the protest of her muscles as she moved her right arm back again. She brought it down across her body, massaging the tight muscles of her bicep underneath her roughly cracked brown leather jacket.

  Her one red-brown eye begged her for a few hours sleep, her other eye black and swollen shut, but she needed to get up. She bit her lip as she moved to stand and it stung as she licked the cut marking it. Blood dripped down her pointed chin as she cracked the clot over the wound and flinched. The activities of last night were catching up with her as the edges of the room grew fuzzy and dim, turning black as she swayed along the wall. Her tousled long brown hair brushed her cheek as she moved, and she wondered just how terrible she looked as the blood finally came back to her head, clearing what little vision she had.

  A loud rapping from the hallway met her ears. The same sinister knock that came every night as her overlord woke her and the other five residents up for another spell of work.

  Flora rolled her neck along her shoulders and picked up another knife from along her thigh in her bandaged hand. She pulled her arm back, ready to heave before a crack of light lit the room as the door swung open. She had her arm dropped and the knife hidden behind her back before a wrinkled women's face appeared, glowering at her from around the doors edge.

  Flora caught the women's eyes. "Morning Harriet," she said to the hag in front of her, forcing her closed lips into a slight grin, her tongue gagging on the stale taste in her mouth. Her one good eye narrowed as it dealt with the new light now shining directly on her.

  There was a pause of silence as Harriet took her face in. "You don't make me enough money to be calling a healer," Harriet said, leaning her frail body casually against the door, tapping her fingers, their sharp fingernails ringing along the metal doorknob, threatening to dig into skin.

  Flora knew the feel of those nails, she still had the scars. It was why she carried so many knives on her. Harriet learned the hard way that if she was going to poke, Flora was going to poke her back. After all these years, the message had finally sunk in.

  Flora cocked her eyebrow and kept her chin high, staring back. "I wouldn't dream of asking for one," she said back, squeezing her lips tightly together. "You know I only dream of clear skies and walking free outside."

  Harriet broke the gaze first, looking Flora up and down, a smirk blossoming below her white hair as she took in the dirt along Flora's lean frame, unwashed from the events the night before. A light sparking in her dull eyes as she took in the blood and cleared her raspy throat. "Clean yourself up," Harriet said with a wave of disregard as she fingered a gap in her broken smile with her tongue before shutting the door behind her.

  The ground started to tremble below her, another earthquake this season. Flora let out a breath as she lifted her knife, her vision blurring but her target staying the same. She threw it at the back of the door, using all her strength as her muscles screamed. With a whoosh, the knife settled into the wood, right where Harriet's head had been a moment before. Flora smiled for real this time as she braced herself while another small rumble shook her world.

  Split Lips

  Flora was pulling out the knives along the door when it opened without notice. Flora stopped her hand with her fingers tickling the long handle of her favorite blade, stepping back from the door as a grin peered around at her.

  "Well, don't you look like a sack of gravel," said Lorcel who leaned back against the door frame. Flora heaved a breath and continued to pull out yet another knife. "Our dear queen didn't see these sticking out of her glorious establishment I bet," fingering one of the knives in the wood with a smile, "I'm sure I would've heard the old witch screaming if she had," he said.

  "I wouldn't exactly be standing here if she had would I?" Flora said back with a condescending smile while taking the last knife out of the wood and gently nudging him out of the way. She let her door swing shut onto the only room she had ever known, turning away from the open room with every possession she owned attached to her body. She strapped the last knife to her belt and moved the evergreen cloak she wore around her shoulders to hide it while moving to where Lorcel continued to lounge against the walls.

  Lorcel slipped his hands into his pockets as he watched her. "No, you'd be standing with a knife to her throat probably," he said. "Haven't you gotten in enough trouble this week?" He asked.

  Flora looked sidelong at him. He had a bruise matching hers along his dusted jaw. For all that he looked relaxed, his hands in pockets of well-patched pants, ankles crossed as he leaned against the hallway without a care, Flora saw his jaw clench beneath his half smile and was surprised that she heard no teeth cracking under all the strain. His short brown hair stood up in all directions, showing where he had run his hands through it many times as he waited for her to come alive, as he always did.

  "I'm okay Lorcel," she said taking a step down the hallway.

  "Are you?" Lorcel huffed, moving on behind her. "Oh, I am so glad you are. Cause las
t night you were only a little more alive than the dead body we found beside you,"

  "I wasn't dead though was I?" Flora said over her shoulder.

  "Barely," Lorcel said. "So close to dead," his throat bobbing as he talked. "I almost could not tell the difference."

  Flora placed her hand on his arm and looked him in the eye. "I am fine Lorcel," she said, standing up on her toes to kiss his grizzly cheek.

  He broke eye contact with her, looking down the shadowy hallways as he took his hand from his pocket to run it through his hair. The bruises on his knuckles stood out against his pale skin as he let out a sigh.

  "So, are you going to buy me a gift tonight for saving your sorry self," he said pushing himself off the wall to stand a head taller than her and wrapping an arm over her shoulder.

  "Ha! You don't deserve anything Lorcel, you were the silly fool who left me unsupervised on the bottom terrace!" Flora threw back with a relaxed smile, dropping her arm to wrap it around his waist in a hug. She made to drop her arm and walk past him down the hallway, but he quickly matched her step and stayed beside her.

  "Ya, unfortunately after all these years you're finally rubbing off on me," Lorcel replied, his eyes roaming her body, noting all her injuries. His eyes soon turning blank at the blood still caked on her. Flora started to dust off the grime she could see along her front. Harriet would be all over her if she did nothing to fix herself up. Harriet liked them broken, but there was a line. Lorcel helped, taking his arm from her shoulders and swiping at some of the dirt on her back as they moved.

  "I am actually just relieved to see you standing," he said as his voice shook. "I wasn't joking when I said you might as well have been a dead body last night. Well—sort of joking. You were pretty out of it when we picked you up from that prison wagon," Lorcel said with a hard pat to Flora's back that pushed her forwards. She had to stutter step so she could stay on her feet.

  Flora kept her eyes roaming from the shadows along the wall to the dust on her body. When she could find no more she moved onto finger combing her hair to keep her hands busy. She could feel chunks of clotted muck holding together the strands like bricks. "I would have made it out, the city prison barely holds anything for long," Flora said as they moved down the narrow stairs to the main level. She was thankful as the staircase narrowed enough to force Lorcel behind her. It was easier to block out what Lorcel was saying to her when the pained expressions on his face were hidden.

  "Especially if you guys would have had anything to say about it. Let's move on, shall we? I'm sure there are more interesting things that happened last night. Did you get the main job done?" Asked Flora. She could hear his footstep stop dead behind her on the stairs as he pulled a harsh breath into his lungs.

  "Ohhhh, of course we did. No one even saw us. But you don't get to change the subject," he said, his voice cracking in contained anger as his steps picked back up. Flora kept walking as she tried to hide the cringe that crawled up her spine in response to his fury. "How exactly were you going to escape?" Lorcel continued. " You had tried to rob some up and puff Noble! Without us, I might add, and you left when you were supposed to be helping us steal that damn letter!" Flora rolled her eyes at this and continued down the hallway's stairs with Lorcel on her heels. "You were locked up in more chains then I nearly had picks for," Lorcel said to her with a flourish of his hand that made her hair move along her back as it barely missed connecting with her skull.

  Flora turned to look at him to see only his narrowed wild eyes scanning as they stepped into the crowded tavern room.

  "I didn't think Harriet kept idiots around, boy is the old lady in for it when she finds out," Lorcel said again

  "Then don't tell her," Flora said, standing beside him, but staring around the room instead. It was packed with people from all walks of life, though the smoky haze hanging in the air made it hard to see many details, with only occasional candles and fireplaces helping the people to mingle inside.

  Men, arm-in-arm with women whose breasts threatened to pop from their shirts, flirted around the edges. Filthy laborers hunched over food after a day of back breaking work, barely saying a word as they sat around tables in the middle of the room. Some hooded solo travelers were up eyeing the exits from their private shadowed booths crammed against the walls, their arms never far from their weapons as they watched the tavern folk. Even the occasional Noble came into sight, gleaming in jewels as they moved throughout the room. That made Flora smile. They would lose those jewels by the end of the night if she had anything to say about it, or even if she didn't. Others would not let them leave without a lesson, whether she took it on as her problem or not. The idiots should know better.

  Hare's Tavern of the ninth terrace in Caris had something that brought people from all over through its doors. Though it certainly wasn't the food. Flora's eyes finally caught the group she was looking for and adrenaline filled her body. She felt awake for the first time that day as she saw them.

  A band of four young men, all close to her in age, though it was impossible to tell for sure, rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they sat at one of tables in the middle of the room. Looking nearly as tired as she had felt, though thankfully much less broken. Lorcel looked the worst out of all of them when she glanced over at him.

  She felt breathless from the amount of tension that left her shoulders as she saw them, she hadn't been sure if they all made it back last night, though she had thought Lorcel might have said something to her between his ramblings if one of them had been seriously injured.

  They were the other Hare's Tavern residents, her family. It has been just the six of them since they had all been bought and tossed into the attic by Harriet when they were children, though Flora had little memory of those days. She had been so young, and she had no idea what would have happened to her if the boys had not taken her under their care. Whenever she smelt cut grass or saw green leaves, it brought her back to that moment when she first looked up at them, though she had no idea why.

  She owed them everything and would give them anything, within reason at least. They were her brothers after all, and she, their annoying and favorite little sister. She made to move to them before a heavy hand dropped on her shoulder, fingertips digging in and holding her back.

  "Let's make a deal that you come back in one piece tonight," Lorcel said so quietly Flora struggled to hear him over the jubilation in the room, looking sharply at her face. "You could call it my birthday present if you wish," he finished, giving her shoulder a squeeze before he weaved through the crowd, headed to the same table.

  Flora stayed back until he settled himself on the far side, between the hulking mass of Roanan and her oldest brother, Thren. As she watched them greet Lorcel, Flora had to bite down on her cheeks to stop the tide of tears that were building up in her eyes at the sight of them all alive, while a knotted ball of regret built in her stomach.

  She had forgotten that the day Lorcel had picked for his birthday when they were younger was coming soon. She would have to get him some sort of gift. If she had been a better sister she would have—.

  "Hey pretty thing," said a dirty man that slid up to her, cutting off her train of thought. His eyes roaming up and down her body. She rolled her eyes and went to walk away. The man thought she was one of the many whores Harriet liked to employ.This man, however, made the mistake of grabbing her wrist.

  Flora stared over the head of the man as she cracked his finger back, releasing his grip, and stomped on his foot. She debated giving him a kick to the groin for good measure but she knew from experience the satisfaction would not cool off Harriet's rage when she caught up to her.

  So she left him to moan standing up as she continued to cross the room towards her brothers. Flora took a hairpin from her pockets and popped it into her locks to hold them back. Careful not to cut her fingers on the side of the intricate blade, she felt more stable to finally have it holding at least the front of her thick hair out of her face, as the rest draped down her
back.

  Flora moved to the table and sat at the closest available seat beside Dawson, who glared at her with weary blue eyes; his own long red hair tied back above his pale face, and across from Perry; whose dark skin and clothing made him seem to blend into the shadows around the room. He only nodded in recognition. Roanan was the only one who grinned at her, waving a spoon in her direction as chunks flew off it, though he was the only one that had any sort of food around him. She grinned back, glad to see a perfectly pristine face on Roanan, with not a bruise in sight.

  "So," piped up Dawson, who perched his head onto his hands, holding back a yawn. "I hope you got some piece of treasure for our troubles last night. You owe me an hourly wage based on sleep lost."

  Flora cringed. "Unfortunately—" started Flora as she drummed her fingers on the table," the keepers of the peace thought I was undeserving of it," She shrugged her shoulders. "What sort of entertainment do we have here tonight?" she asked as she rolled her shoulders back.

  "My word," Dawson said putting a hand on his chest, shaking his head as if the shock woke him up. "A sweet damsel like you, undeserving? Just who do they think they are?"