A Brother's Price

her eyes and sighed again. “And now you’re here.”
    “Him? I’m frightened for your life, and you’re ogling farmers’ husbands?”
    “Oh, he was too young to be a husband.” Odelia sat up in bed—then looked concerned. Clasping her hand over her mouth, she fought a battle to keep from vomiting, then—carefully—lay back on the pillows Ren propped up behind her. “Okay. I wasn’t totally playing,” Odelia admitted quietly. “But he was very, very handsome.”
    “Lieutenant Bounder said the Whistlers had handsome menfolk, but I assumed that was compared to the farming standard.”
    “Look at the sisters, Ren. Then think of a man along those lines with hair all down his back instead of a military crop.”
    Ren recalled the oldest sister. The girl had been striking enough to remember despite the day’s flood of stressful events: clear pale skin, black hair, large blue eyes, and a full mouth. Ren snorted at the woolgathering, dismayed that Odelia managed to lead her so astray from important issues. For the sake of the country, it was good that Odelia was not the oldest. Her charmed life left her seeing things slightly skewed.
    “Odelia, I can’t believe you were beaten half to death, left to drown, and all you’re concerned about is the handsome son of poor landed gentry.”
    “I’m still alive. The bruises will heal. Why dwell on the past? The future holds the chance to steal a kiss or two from the prettiest man I’ve seen my whole life.”
    “Because whoever tried to kill you is still out there, you’re weak as a kitten, it’s an hour’s ride to the garrison protected by the Queens Justice, and the cannons are still missing.”
    “So I stay here, while you look for the cannons.” Odelia’s face went soft with apparently dreamy thoughts. “Maybe he’ll come check on the poor unconscious princess.” She slipped back down in the bed, pushing away the pillows. “Don’t tell them I woke up.”
    “You’re hopeless.” Ren had been stifling the urge to take up a pillow and hit her sister. In moving about, though, the sleeves of Odelia’s nightshirt slipped up past her elbows. Ren found herself staring at the large black bruises marking Odelia’s forearms where she had apparently fended off killing blows.
    Odelia’s attackers almost killed her, would have surely if they had not thought the water would finish their work. If they had stopped to administer a sounder beating, used a sword instead of a truncheon, used a pistol—
    Ren shuddered at the thought. To owe her sister’s life to the sloppiness of cruel strangers and the lucky clear thinking of the daughters of farmers! So instead of hitting Odelia with pillows, Ren tucked her sister into the borrowed bed.
    Raven leaned against the wall in the hall. “I heard you two talking. She’s awake? How is she?”
    Ren shut the door quietly. “Scheming to steal kisses from the farmers’ beautiful son.”
    Raven shook her head. “That sounds like Odelia. 1 ‘
    “She won’t be able to ride to the garrison. It would make her happy to stay here. It would allow her to continue her schemes.”
    “It would make me happy to stay here,” Raven stated. “With the Queens Justice looking for the cannons and Odelia’s attackers, this place is safer than the local garrison. Apparently the lieutenant’s predecessor allowed the town to grow up to the walls of the garrison, replaced a stone wall with a wood one—to cut cost—and so forth. All in all, it would be like guarding lambs in a brush lot.”
    “And the famous, infamous Whistlers? Are they safe?”
    “They seem to have smoothed around the edges from the last I’d heard of them.”
    “And what have you heard of them?”
    Raven smiled at Ren’s impatient tone. “The grandmother Elder, or maybe the great-grandmother Elder of this lot, did something that got herself executed, her sisters cashiered, and their daughters blacklisted. To keep the family alive, the Eldest bullied the Sisterhood of the Night to take her and her sisters in.”
    “The thieves’ guild? Bullied?”
    “Aye, had the family switched into training as thieves. They were better than most, being already trained to work together under fire and fight well enough to break free if caught. Well, the War of the False Eldest started, and things were going badly. The False Eldest knew our defenses and we knew nothing of Tastledae. We sent in scouts, but they were all caught and executed. Then, somehow, Wellsbury picked