Gayle Eden by Illara's Champion

that the deaths would be there.
    She sighed and saw them, the dates entered likely by Pagan, even his own and Randulf’s. But the children… they were so very young. She ran her finger over the names, not able to imagine what that young man felt like, torn between fighting, saving his nephews and nieces, only to have them die horribly—likely blaming himself for going back and leaving them.
    Illara saw other names: Bailiff: chambermaid, servants, and more kin. Some thirty cousins, more of the brother in law’s kin. There were three pages of dwellers in Dunnewicke. The sheer number of people dying on the same day, or within one week, was stark.
    Turning other pages, she found entries in a hand that must have been his fathers. A seal mark was stamped at the end of the page. These were personal entries, the sadness at the stillbirths; joy in each child who lived, and when sons were born, a feast that lasted seven days.
    There were many lines saying simply, we depart for York, or leaving for London, and the fairs were marked, apparently, the entire family went along. Milestones, the accounts entered of his son’s first hunt, how Faith had an affinity for hawking, and when Ronan fell from a horse and was ill for days.
    It was remarked that his children were tutored, and apparent that Eadwyn had learned much from his time in Syria and other lands, and believed strongly in centers of learning. He was not just a man of war.
    She found three blank pages before the bold scrip on the next came. Written in French, it was as if she could hear Pagan’s raspy voice when she read it…
    We emerge from hell having the reminder of its flames burned into us. No longer a believer in hope and certain that justice and truth are empty, Ronan and I on that journey out of he abyss—looked at each other—our eyes having seen no other mirror, and from the pain, could only guess what would be reflected back.
    Only we, had witnessed the transformation from our old selves, over the course of the ordeals. I saw him. And, he saw me. Nevertheless, we would not let each other die. We dreamed it, and have never stopped, and before our freedom, I know, we each privately summoned death, yet it never came.
    One can exist in torment, in purgatory, and live despite the mind being crazed with pain.
    God did not deliver, thus I bargained with a devil named Bretel. I did not feel any human emotions as I walked to that prosperous abode and slipped into the merchant’s chambers. I delivered his heart to he who wanted it, feeling it beat against my palm. Lylie was left with him—Bretel—and I have no mind to think upon what was visited upon her until my return. However, he took her gold, the silver chains, and enough jewels to live happily, with his merchant’s widow. We thought of nothing, felt nothing of our pitiful state, but later gained our freedom amid the dung of a manure cart.
    Lylie had somehow made the acquaintance of a merchant named Le Maistre, who held the deeds and useless charter to Dunnewicke. She found him a shrewd but silly man who drank and whored to excess, and who was aged enough to not enjoy life much longer. She, though her own private means, had him deed the properties to Pagan de Chevel, knowing that few would link the de Chevel name from my mother’s side.
    Happily supplying him with drink and whores, she found him dead in the winter and arranged transport of his body back to a son in France.
    Thus we, Ronan, now Randulf, and I, could reside in the castle and heal, plan our rise from the ashes. There was no question but that we would visit those who robbed us of life and family. We have oathed this, vowed it in our own blood, and over the graves of our kin. Murder is too swift and too painless. We have a better way.
    “What are you doing here!”
    Illara jumped and closed the book, her gaze swinging to the door where he stood. Pagan was masked, filthy and so long at his training that she smelled his sweat amid the dirt.
    “I wished