Stolen Summer

Story notes: While writing More Than One Way To Kill a King I realized that a story set in the Galdran Merindar era – even one that's mildly AU – is also a victim of his miserable influence. There's a lot more restraint, everyone is more subdued, and it can get pretty angsty. I promise it will get lighter and more romantic along the way, but to satisfy my own needs for fluff I started a companion story about Mel and Vidanric's summer in Renselaeus, which is alluded to in the main fic. This takes place when Vidanric comes back from Marloven Hess and begins training the Blues. Here, Mel can be her usual badass scrappy self, Vidanric is more open and forthright (aka less emotionally scarred by predatory Colendi women), Russav can take off his clothes, and other good fun things can happen. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Crown Duel and all associated material are the property of Sherwood Smith. That which is not mine, is not mine.

Chapter 1

"An outlaw, you say?"

The Marquis of Shevraeth raised his eyebrow at the newly promoted captain who hovered nervously around the tapestry into his study.

"Yes, sir." Captain Ervic Aldaran said, swallowing hard. It was a little hard to concentrate with that gray stare fixed so intensely upon him. "At least, we believe he is an outlaw. Yora Nessaren spotted him first during a break in practice runs. He was scooping up water down the far side of the river, but he fled before we could catch up. We've been hunting him since morning."

The young marquis tapped on his writing desk thoughtfully. "The Blues ought to be so familiar with Renselaeus that they could navigate it blindfolded. This is not the same as stumbling in the dark, which - if our suspect still remains free - appears to be the regrettable scenario at hand. By this time, he could have made it into the castle and carried out - oh, all sorts of nefarious intentions."

Ervic fought the urge to hang his head in shame. He was a captain now, and he had to go about things the proper way! But how were you supposed to respond when it was unclear if you were being reprimanded, lectured, warned, or subdued into fear? While Lord Vidanric's — no, he was Commander when it came to Blues business — tone had been ruminative, Ervic couldn't shake the feeling that he had done a bad thing, a very bad thing indeed.

No one really knew what to make of Vidanric Renselaeus, the prodigal son who had spent the last three years touring the world as only a rich young lordling could. He'd gone away a reedy, diminutive boy who (as the castle servants once whispered) wrote often to his mother of the many fascinating ways to harvest yeath fur. Then he returned, taller, leaner, and stronger, with hair cut short like a barbarian and a way with horses that some of the more superstitious townsfolk considered unnatural. Ervic's best friend Leron muttered that had he known raising yeath would lead to such a transformation, he would have run off to the nearest farm years ago.

Aside from being cuddly sources of warm fur, the yeath were also apparently skilled weapons masters. Rumor had it that Shevraeth had killed twelve men on the way home using a single knife, but none of the family spoke of it and so neither did anyone else. He had assumed command of the Renselaeus Blues just three days after his return, and changed everything up completely. For the past month the Blues followed a simple yet grueling routine: wake early, train, eat lunch, train some more, eat dinner, finish with drills. It was exhausting! But Evric liked it. He liked getting better each day, and he could tell that whatever the marquis was doing was working.

Well. Except for this one thing.

"Have you at least narrowed down the area in which our fugitive could be?" the marquis asked.

Relieved to be asked a direct question, Ervic pulled a crumpled map from his pocket. "Yes, sir. We've been working from the outside in, and marked out this patch of land - the woods in the east of the castle - as the only area unchecked. Well, it's been checked, but — " and here Ervic's ears turned red again " — We really can't find him at all, sir. It's like he disappeared into thin air!"

At this, Vidanric's head lifted. "Interesting," he murmured. "When is the last time the area was checked?"

"Roughly a candle ago, sir. We have two troops bordering the area - no one goes in and out without us knowing."

"Then let's go through it again." Without warning, Vidanric's eyes crinkled into a smile. "Brace up, Ervic. I refuse to be slain by an unknown intruder before dinner, as my mother would hunt me down and finish me off herself for ruining the evening. We will find our mysterious outlaw before dark. Then, we shall see how he matches up to the Blues face to face."

Vidanric was glad his suspicions had been correct.

As the woods grew thicker and the sky above them turned a mottled green from the thickening leaves, Vidanric heard the slight, barely controlled breathing somewhere over his head. He gave no indication of having heard it, but he tracked the sound carefully as he let his horse inch forward. The breathing stayed put - as did, obviously, the person to whom the breath belonged.

"Change in plans," he called back to the cluster of Blues. "I want us moving towards that clearing over there. Make as much noise as possible to seem more intimidating. We'll try and scare him out and hopefully towards the surrounding troops."

The Blues obeyed, and the group surged forward in a mass of stomping hooves, clattering weaponry, and grumblings - not many of which had to be faked.

Vidanric contributed just as much until he reached the clearing, when he knew he was out of sight. Then he said coldly, "Our fugitive has been making a mockery of our efforts. Is this the best I can expect? I confess, if we are unable to get ourselves in enough order to capture someone on our own ground, they deserve to escape at the cost of our honor. Someone give me an alternative search plan now."

He thoroughly regretted the dismayed reactions his words garnered from the Blues (and made a mental note to add "maintain mask of neutrality no matter what" to their regular lessons). But then those reactions quickly lightened when Vidanric gave the rest of his orders in silence.

Leron Margreth enthusiastically began throwing out ideas just barely on this side of plausible, which Captain Aldaran shut down with equally enthusiastic abruptness. Yora Nessaren chimed in, which caused both men to belittle her ideas using as many creative metaphors as posibble, which led to Yora raising her voice. Which resulted in Captain Aldran warning her of contempt to her superiors, which caused everyone else to pick an arbitrary side until a full-on shouting match rang through the forest.

In the midst of all that, someone had figured out a way to tickle the horses, thus adding loud whinnying and the sound of soldiers being quickly unseated to the cacophony.

While this happened, Vidanric slipped off his boots and disappeared into the woods.

He circled back towards the breathing tree, this time approaching it from the opposite direction. He climbed nimbly up the thick bark and onto the first branch, crouching down to avoid being seen.

All the while he couldn't help a smile playing on his lips. When he had proposed hiding from Norsunder in the vast network of trees that formed the tapestry of the Marloven forests, everyone had scoffed at him. Until, of course, Norsunder had come for the Marlovens, and all the boys vanished into the trees. The thought of Senrid, Stad, Marec, Evrec, and all of them still fighting a timeless enemy was sobering…but he couldn't help finding the amusement in someone else on the other side of the world, in his own territory, using the same idea against him.

Unfortunately, Vidanric had thought of trees first.

On the third branch up Vidanric spotted him.

The fugitive in question was smaller than he expected, though Vidanric acknowledged that someone that fast and nimble would have to be fairly light. And…younger? It was hard to tell from this angle, as the man's face was turned towards the activity down below, much of it shielded by a hat.

Vidanric crept towards the fugitive, hoping his Blues were creating enough of a diversion to thoroughly entertain their captive audience. And from the sounds of it (particularly one sound, which sounded like someone locked in a sword fight with some very unlucky shrubbery), they were.

Vidanric flexed his wrist, popping a knife silently free from his sheath.

He crouched down behind the other man, blade held at the ready.

Then murmured, "One sudden move, and you will sheath the blade in my hand."

The fugitive screamed, leapt to his feet, and promptly toppled off the branch.

Instinctively Vidanric threw out his other arm to catch the fugitive as he fell. His fingers gripped the other man's wrist, though Vidanric very nearly let go in surprise when he caught the fugitive's startled expression in full and realized he was no man, but a mere boy.

No, not a boy, as the sudden movement caused the fugitive's hat to blow away, causing long auburn hair to tumble free. A girl.

Not a girl - a young woman, though certainly younger than he.

"Who are you?" he asked, as the girl struggled and thrashed against his grip.

"Let…me…go!" she snarled, and bit down on his hand.

Ah! Pain! Pain is but an invention of the mind, Vidanric thought desperately as his brain screamed at his body to let go. He forced himself to endure with gritted teeth as her own sank closer and closer to the bone, then did the first thing he could think of to end it, which was to shake her ferociously as though she were a bell that would not ring.

"Aaaaagh!"

The girl stopped biting to cling onto the arm she'd so carelessly mangled seconds before.

"You try that again," Vidanric said once he could trust his voice to utter more than a pitiful mewl, "And I will drop you. We are far enough off the ground for it to hurt. Very much, if I can do it from even higher."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" the girl spat. "Monster!"

"Permit me to remind you that you are an intruder in my own home," Vidanric said in his heaviest court drawl, as though his arms weren't trembling from the weakening efforts to support her. "I am sure you are aware that Renselaeus maintains sovereign right over its lands. You do not answer to the Remalnan king for transgressions here."

And you're far better off for it, he added mentally. But now was not the time to extend mercy.

However, the girl had stopped listening long before the politics. "You're Renselaeus?" she whispered. The instant change from anger to a sort of wistful confusion - and perhaps a bit of fear? - across her features was utterly transformative.

For one second, Vidanric was enthralled.

Then his straining arm brought him back to reality, and he spoke quickly, racing against his declining strength. "Two choices here, and you don't have much time to decide. You agree to cooperate, we escort you back to the castle for further questioning. You refuse, and…well…we shall escort you back to the castle in whatever condition you're in after a rather regrettable fall."

That brief slice of apprehension vanished as the anger returned. The girl glanced down at the ground well beneath her dangling feet. Lightning flashed in her eyes as she struggled with the decision.

"Help me up," she growled.

Vidanric obliged, guiding her towards the branch. She swatted his hands away once she had a grip on the branch, and hoisted herself up.

He whistled loudly for the troops to cease their playacting and to join him at the tree, bringing along his dappled gray. While waiting, he stole another glance at the girl, who was sullenly adjusting the loose tunic and trousers that engulfed her small form.

She looked perhaps fifteen or sixteen, though it was hard to tell under all that clothing. She gave off the sensation of the slightly familiar, but altogether strange. It was as though he'd seen the pattern of her features before, but the storminess in her wide, light-filled eyes, and the determined curve of her upper lip were new and different and wild.

And exciting.

She caught his glance and glared at him, though Vidanric noted that it was she who turned away first. What a perverse embarrassment in being the observed, rather than the exposed observer!

"Will you tell me your name?" he asked softly.

She sniffed. "It's nothing to you."

"On the contrary. It is an essential part of my impressive self-preservation to know the identities of my most formidable foes."

The girl narrowed her eyes. "You're mocking me," she muttered. "My mother was right about you all."

This pricked his interest. "Who is your mother?"

Perhaps she hadn't meant to speak that thought aloud. The girl tilted her head, for a moment looking lost.

"My mother is a memory," she whispered.

Vidanric remained quiet, hoping she would divulge more, but she kept silent as the rest of the Blues gathered around. She climbed expertly down the tree but cautiously onto Vidanric's gray, looking much smaller on the ground surrounded by his soldiers.

Vidanric hopped down behind her and, holding the reins at his thighs, led the troops back to the castle.

It was only when the castle came into sight that the girl said, "If you let me go, no questions asked, I'll leave and promise to never come back."

The way she said it made Vidanric believe her. And for a moment he considered it: the presence of a strange girl at Renselaeus; her evasiveness highlighting his failures as a commander; the rumors of spies embedded in the Renselaeus household; the fledgling doubts in the principality (and beyond) about his own whereabouts in the last three years…he couldn't afford to let any of these sparks take to the wind and grow into wildfire. Allowing her to disappear into obscurity would save the pride of his soldiers - and the need for any more lies.

But he remembered that one second when she'd forgotten to be angry. And he couldn't let her go.

So it was partly to follow due processes in handling trespasses, but mostly for selfish reasons that he acknowledged as his own, unmentionable weakness, that he said, "I'm afraid the time for negotiations has ended, my lady."

The girl stiffened. Though she said nothing more on the way up to the castle, Vidanric realized that though he had successfully captured his fugitive, the battle had yet to begin.