Alissa could only wonder which of her actions had given away her intentions. “I’m not planninganything,” she emphasized, but her eyes shot upward like she couldn’t look her friend in the eyes when she lied.
Alissa watched her dubious friend lean against the door frame, her arms crossed over her chest. Alissa knew she wouldn’t be able to fool Freyah, not her best friend, the only true friend she’d ever had. The palms of her hands dampened in sweat. She didn’t want to tell her she needed to escape the walls because she knew what her friend would think; still, she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out as soon as given the chance. Keeping this secret to herself was physically impossible.
“I’m crossing the wall,” she stated, her apprehensive glance waiting for Freyah’s reaction.
Freyah closed her eyes, holding the bridge of her nose and drawing a deep breath. “Not this again, Alissa. Please.”
She knew her friend was going to say that, and not without reason. When they were children, Alissa was fascinated by what lay on the other side of the circular walls that held Bryniard in its center. Every day, she would come up with miraculous plans trying to cross the great stone walls, even though sheknew the consequences for attempting to leave the city could be fatal. Plans that would often get them both into trouble, plans that were created by a curious, adventurous little girl who never thought of what she would do if she succeeded. Like crossing the wall was the only challenge she needed to accomplish to satisfy her curiosity.
Luckily, they never managed to cross the walls.
“You can’t be serious, Alissa. I thought you had finally let that go after what happened.”
Freyah’s words brought instant tears to Alissa’s eyes. She blinked to fight them back and regain her focus, but her mind went back to that day. The emotions rushed back, strong as a river’s stream. She remembered it all so vividly. The light of the candles illuminating the cabin’s living room, her father gently kneeling in front of her so their eyes were level, the scent of coconut and berries wafting from the dessert they had prepared together, and the full moon gracing the sky.
“I’ll be back soon,” he’d said in his rough voice.
Alissa wasn’t worried about that at first, not until she glanced at her mother and saw her tears. She was crying, but she didn’t look sad; she looked furious.
“You don’t have to do this. It’s too dangerous,” her mother had whispered, her hands on her waist, waiting for her husband to change his mind.
Alissa saw her father hold her mother by the hand while they moved to the bedroom to speak in private. She tried to peek through the keyhole, but they were both whispering. From the seriousness in her father’s voice and her mother’s bloodshot eyes, she realized whatever it was they were hiding from her, it was serious. Her father kissed both her and her mother on the forehead and left their home carrying nothing but a dagger, his bow, and a quiver of arrows.
Alissa, reckless and stubborn as she was, waited for her mother to surrender to sleep on their small, uncomfortable couch and secretly escaped the cabin to follow her father. She knew how to be stealthy. Keeping her footsteps light but quick, she kept a trail of Mr. Kriegen’s movements, hiding behind every tree and construction as they walked west to the edges of Bryniard, where the darkest end of the wall was located. She could barely see her father through the shadows of the night, but she noticed two other people accompanied him on his journey: a middle-aged man and a teenage boy.
Alissa watched, confused, her eyes narrowed to discern the images better. A gasp escaped her lips when, a couple of minutes later, she saw her father start climbing the wall, his companions right behind him. Their hands gripped the rock’s dents and fissures, while their legs supported the weight as they climbed up. Her mind raced, and her heart almost came out of her chest at every stumble her father made on his way up the wall. She wanted to scream, beg him to come back, to come home with her. But she couldn’t. No one had ever left the walls of Bryniard, not because there was a rule against that but because it was known that crossing them would certainly kill the fools who dared try.
Minutes felt like hours, but the three of them crossed to the other side. Alissa rushed closer to the wall, her ear against the cool rock, craving any sign of a safe landing. Neither Mr. Kriegen nor those accompanying him could have known that the stone on the other side of the wall was smoother, polished in a way that made it impossible to climb. The sound of their abrupt landing startled the girl in a way most could only dream of. The height at which they lost their grip had to be tremendous; the chances of them surviving the fall were already slim. Imagine her relief when Alissa heard her father’s swearing and groans of pain muffled behind inches of thick stone.
Sadly for the young girl, her relief lasted but a breath because a moment later came the screams, the sound of steel against steel, and then steel against flesh. Rushed steps, rapid breaths, bodies falling to the ground, and then… complete silence. Her heart raced, and her lungs struggled to breathe. Still, she waited in that same spot against the huge wall for hours, her legs trembling, hoping her father would come back to her.
When dawn finally came, she accepted he was gone.
Forever.
Alissa was mad at him at first, believing he would leave the city and never come back, abandoning her and her mother behind. It was only years later that Alissa understood her father never intended to leave Bryniard without his family. He, as a huntsman, was merely accompanying that man and his boy across the wall safely, to protect them from the monsters on the outskirts of Bryniard. That was the reason they believed the wall was built in the first place: to keep the people safe from the beasts on the other side.
Of course, her father, always so brave and benevolent, would agree to help two poor souls escape. Alissa never learned the reasons those two had to risk leaving; maybe they were seeking desperate measures as Alissa was right now, while she, too, considered escaping Bryniard. All she knew was that whatever their motivations were, they took an extraordinary man’s life away. They took a father from a daughter, and that was a terrible waste.
Some people believed the monsters outside Bryniard were two-headed, furred beasts with talons the size of a human, and poisonous tails. Others swore their skin was made of scales and that the multiple eyes on the beast’s body had the power to drain life just by resting upon someone. There were even those who claimed the monsters to be the size of a rat but blessed with a mouth that could stretch open to hold an adult living inside theirbody for days until the acid of their organs slowly deteriorated the body into mush. All the stories had one thing in common: the belief that when anyone had enough courage to cross those walls for the first time, the beasts would celebrate the feast with a growling strong enough to tear down the walls of Bryniard.
But that night, Alissa didn’t hear the snarling or the growling that would be expected from the monsters. She only heard sounds that resembled a battlefield, not exaggerated, big-fanged teeth tearing human bodies apart. Against all the rumors, men had reached the other side, but the walls were still standing. Whatever surprised them on the other side of that wall was not an animal.
Alissa was never the same after the events that unfolded that night.
She lost her father. Only days later, it was her mother who left this world, not bearing to live a life without him.
Alissa was left behind. Alone. For years.
Despite her community’s support, Freyah and her parents were her only family for those eight years until Dhalia was born. She informed everyone in Bryniard that her parents had drowned in the lake and conducted a sham service to prevent suspicion about the true events. She kept what she had witnessed that night a secret from everyone except her closest friend. This was why Freyah would never endorse her friend’s attempt to leave and risk ending up like her father and the other fools who had willingly walked to their deaths alongside him.
After what happened, she was no longer the little girl who dreamed of adventuring beyond the wall. She had buried that part of herself deep inside when she realized the dangers she had put herself and her friend into—those same dangers that led her father to his death. While she still had the determination to discover whatever had awaited her father on the other side, thevery thing that had claimed his life, she eventually accepted that she would never attempt to leave again.
That is, until that moment.
“This is different, Freyah.” Her voice was low, and she stared at the ground, avoiding her friend’s gaze.
“How is this different, Alissa? I will not let you go on with this madness again.” Freyah spoke for minutes nonstop, accusing Alissa’s recklessness of being the potential cause of their deaths.