“Are you okay, Van Myr? You are not making any sense,” Alissa intervened.
“The beasts inside Bryniard.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “What are they like?”
Alissa’s eyes squinted as she watched the weird interaction develop. “Who told you there were monsters in Bryniard?”
“Everyone knows it. It is in every textbook of this kingdom. They teach it in every school. It is of common knowledge thatthe wall protects us from the monsters within,” Eldric explained, shrugging as if it were obvious.
The women exchanged glances. This confirmed Alissa’s first suspicion from when she saw the guards by the walls. They were protecting the outside world from Bryniard, not the other way around, as everyone in her hometown seemed to believe.
She took a deep breath, turning to Eldric. “There are no beasts in Bryniard. We were also told that monsters lived on this side of the walls. It’s the reason no one ever dares cross it.”
“I see there are no monsters out here either, are there?” Freyah asked, finally coming to the same conclusion Alissa had before. Her voice was no more than a whisper when she realized all she had known was confirmed to be a lie.
Eldric shook his head in denial. Nothing made sense. What could have led an entire kingdom to create such a despicable rumor about a small forsaken town in the middle of nowhere?
Alissa narrowed her eyes. “Did you not find it weird that you were picking up a shipment of ale from a place where monsters supposedly reigned?”
“Honestly, I hadn’t stopped to think about that. I didn’t even know we imported goods from Bryniard until they randomly assigned me to pick up this one shipment. This was my first time anywhere near the walls of your hometown.”
Alissa nodded in understanding.
“Didn’t you think the same about us on the other side of the wall?”
“Well, yes, but I was born and raised within those walls without any glimpse of what society was like out here. For all I knew, Bryniard could be the only place where humans still lived.”
“What about you?” he asked, looking at Freyah.
“My father told me about the tunnels when I was younger. I helped him prepare the shipment to send out of the walls foryears. He never explained what the shipment was for, no matter how many times I would ask him.” Freyah sighed. “He always insisted the monsters would kill me if I ever crossed the walls. I wonder now if he actually knew the truth all along.” She looked away to hide the tears.
Eldric didn’t want to let them see the real effect of their words on him, the shame of not realizing before how difficult it must have been for them to grow up trapped in a small town, blind to the truths of the world. It made sense now, how their eyes glimmered at every ounce of land they passed by.
They all fell quiet for a long while. Eldric was still adjusting to the new idea that a whole city lived in a place he had always believed to be the home of darkness and evil.
“If there are no monsters in Bryniard, then what is the wall for?” he asked, hoping Alissa and Freyah would know the answer to that question.
They didn’t.
A deep, heavy silence settled, hanging between the three of them. It filled the atmosphere, full of meaning, becausethatwas the fundamental question.
They sat there long after, lost in their own thoughts, trying to grasp what this all meant, quietly speculating on the reasons why they had been lied to their whole lives, and most importantly… what was that damn wall even for?
170 DAYS UNTIL DHALIA’S DEATH DATE.
“Will you please stop?” Eldric asked in annoyance.
Alissa arched her brows. “Don’t you think you might be overreacting a little?”
“Overreacting?” Eldric said, blinking repeatedly while Alissa tried to take the reins off his hands. “You make me take you across the country in this wretched carriage and still won’t let me do my job, which is taking you there?”
“I wanted to see if I could drive the carriage.”
He huffed. “Have you ever done this before, Kriegen?”
“Of course not. We don’t have carriages in Bryniard. Have you forgotten I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by walls?” Her voice was full of sarcasm.
Eldric rolled his eyes. “If you can tell me the name of our country, I’ll let you take the reins for the day.”
Alissa snarled, realizing she wasn’t capable of answering even the simplest of questions about this new world she had just emerged into.