Chapter 12

“I was wondering if you would like to visit the night market in town tonight.” Brendan askes.

Alcina stares.

Brendan shifts minutely. “It is an outdoor market, open twice a week at night. They have an interesting selection of stalls and crystal wares if you’d like to go.”

Alcina's, eyes widening, nods her head so furiously, that Brendan mildly worries her neck might snap.

“Yes, please,” she says, sounding painfully earnest. “That sounds magnificent, I’d love to-” Abruptly, Alcina's cheeks color, and she folds her hands carefully in her lap.

“Yes,” she coughs, clearly embarrassed at her eager display.

“Thank you for your kind invitation, Lord Brendan."

* * * * * * * * * *

The two of them take a small, compact carriage into town, manned only by their driver.

A typical protocol would command at least a few guards, but Brendan had said that having more guards with them would only alert their presence even more, and so the two of them would enter largely unattended.

Upon their arrival, Lord Brendan flips the large hood on his heavy cloak, such that it nearly conceals the entirety of his face.

Alcina, startled, cannot help but inquire, “Why are you wearing a hood, Lord Brendan?”

Alcina can see the line of Lord Brendan's lips, quirking into an unamused smile from underneath the hood’s edge.

“My face is quite well known around these parts,” is all the explanation he gives, before exiting the carriage.

He pauses, however, to help Alcina down with surprising gentleness, and Alcina can’t stop staring at the massive hood that conceals most of his face.

What does it mean, that he must wear a hood because his face is well known?

Because the people fear him?

Once again, Alcina cannot help but wonder at the way Lord Brendan seems to willingly hide himself away, from the people who fear him.

She wonders, if the reason he seemed so scarce around his own castle, was for the same reason.

Alcina can’t help but wonder if that’s what she looked like, all these years.

If she, too, had carefully and quietly and willingly snipped and folded away from the parts of herself that others looked down on, and if that’s why Alfred and Nordin had looked most heartbroken of all.

That’s when she sees the night market.

It’s like a vibrant, magical circus of colors and noise and life, abounding and overflowing with effusive energy over the full of the enormous open-air space.

Stalls of every color, aglow with the bright strings of lanterns and bulbs strung criss-cross overhead, were bursting with all manners of goods and wares and people, bargaining and gossiping and shouting with laughter and good cheer.

Alcina's never seen anything like it.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, she finds herself walking closer as if subconsciously pulled forward, her eyes wide and reflecting the dancing lights in front of her.

“Wow,” she breathes, eyes darting this way and that, trying dizzily to take in every inch of the wonderful display in front of her.

“Is it always like this?” she asks, looking to Brendan - who, though Alcina can no longer see his eyes, seems infinitely amused, somehow, in the small line of his lips.

“I’ve only been myself a few times, but generally, yes, it would seem so.”

Alcina's eyes flicker back to the market, transfixed.

Alcina doesn’t know why it shocks her so - why she’d imagined a gloomy and dull place, of the Western Plains when it’s so vibrant and colorful and lively.

But she thinks, then, that perhaps this is why someone like Brendan - who comes from the shadows and those things dark - is feared and excluded even more.

“Go on,” Brendan says quietly. “I’ll follow behind.”

Alcina goes.

* * * * * * * * * * 

For hours, Alcina loses herself to the splendor of the market.

She marvels over the beautiful glass displays and jeweled pieces offered to her by craftsmen, and gasps at the mouthwatering food stalls selling the most delicious treats she’s ever tasted.

Even the castle chefs couldn’t come close to the taste, here, in the open night air and surrounded by the bluster of an entire village of people, come to life.

It’s a manic, uncontrolled sort of energy, the kind of life that makes Alcina feel like she’s truly among people.

Here she is not judged, she is not stared at as a Pierrot. Nobody cares if she has a gift or not.

She loves it.

And though she’s never really ventured out into a city like this, not without attendants or guards, Brendan's looming presence at her back provides not fear, but comfort, this time around, like an assured weight that Alcina finds each time she turns around.

She gets so caught up in the rush of it all, that at some point, when she discovers a stall filled with rare books and manuscripts, she whirls around, stars glittering in her eyes, to pull excitedly at Brendan's draped sleeve.

“Lord Brendan, look-” she urges, pulling the man in beside her to show him the store.

And then, all at once, she remembers where - and with whom - she is, and drops the sleeve with embarrassment burning at her cheeks. “Oh, I- I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

But Brendan merely leans over her shoulder for a closer look at said books, and Alcina's embarrassment reduces in favor of showing to him the particular book she’d had her eyes on.

Written, she’d noticed, by the same author as the well-worn astronomy book she’d found in her room.

It doesn’t go unnoticed, either, that Brendan purchases that very book before they leave the stall.

* * * * * * * * * *

All in all, Alcina grows nearly drunk with all the excitement of the market. 

By the time the two of them head back to their waiting carriage, Alcina's arms are loaded with too many packages to count.

She’d even purchased things for her two brothers, and Mary and her purse is considerably lighter.

Brendan even has to graciously carry a heavy portion of her bags, as they are too numerable for any one person to carry.

Alcina is so delighted, still poaching with rampant energy, that she chatters happily away about all the charms she’d purchased and stalls she’d enjoyed, at Brendan, who merely listens with that half-smile on his lips.

Until, suddenly, there’s a thunderous roar of hooves clopping on the floor from all sides.

In seconds, their carriage comes to a screeching halt.

Immediately after, there’s a muffled groan and a thump from the front, where their coachmen ought to be.

Alcina freezes, eyes wide. 

Brendan's expression has grown dark and sharp. 

“Come out with your hands up!” comes a rough, gravelly shout from outside.

Alcina's heart leaps in her throat.

Are they being robbed?

Her heart thunders painfully in her chest, horrified as she is where she sits, shuddering with fear.

Brendan, from the seat across from her, has grown a grave - almost murderous - expression.

“Come out, now!”

Brother Nordin, Brother Alfred, Alcina think fearfully. It is not by the hands of the Shadowed Beast that I was to die, but common road bandits--

“The second we get outside,” Brendan hisses to her, low and smooth and for Alcina's ears only. “You are to get on the horse, and ride.”

Alcina stares at him, stock-still and eyes wide. “But-” her voice will not come out louder than a hoarse whisper. “But you-”

Brendan leans in, close enough that Alcina can see the storm brewing in his dark eyes. “And don’t look back,” is all he says, firmly, before he curls a cold hand firmly around Alcina's arm.

The two of them exit the carriage, immediately surrounded on all sides by at least ten masked bandits, each one wielding a shining, silver sword towards their throats.

Alcina finds herself so startled and terrified, that she stumbles down the last step, only kept from collapsing to the ground altogether by Brendan's steady hold.

And then, all of a sudden, in a series of movements too quick for Alcina to track, let alone register in her mind, Brendan has, with surprising strength, bodily lifted her by her waist up onto the horse.

Alcina's hands slip automatically onto the reigns, too shocked to react, her body moving instinctively to slide her feet into the stirrups. 

Dimly, she registers the growls and shouts of the bandits around them as they lunge and close ranks.

She catches the steely glint of Brendan's eyes for one brief second, before Brendan, using a dagger Alcina only then realizes Brendan has in his hand, cuts the straps restraining the horse to the carriage.

Just as the first bandit reaches Brendan, Brendan reaches out and smacks sharply on the horse’s side, sending it flying forward.

Alcina's, eyes wide and terrified, gasps, looking backward just as Brendan had instructed her not to do, as the horse pitches her forward and farther away from the growing battle by the second.

The last thing she manages to see before the carriage and Brendan grow too small for her to see with much clarity is the ring of bandits descending upon Brendan.