“Yes!”
“Well, your mother is on a mission to kill all the monsters on the other side of the wall and save the princess from danger.”
“Mommy said maybe the princess controls the monsters.”
Improvising on her story, Mrs. Weller said, “She does! But she needed Alissa’s help for a while. You know your mother is the best huntress in this entire world. She is the only one who can help her.”
“What about Auntie Freyah?”
“You know those two are always together. My daughter wouldn’t let your mother go alone.”
Lorena did not want Dhalia to feel the weight of being the reason Alissa and Freyah had left or why they were risking their lives. The only thing worse than losing a loved one would be being the cause of their departure. She couldn’t bear the thought of the child spending the rest of her days worrying about whether she would ever see her mother again, not when her well-being would soon be at stake if Alissa didn’t succeed.
Dhalia nodded, and for the first time in weeks, a wide smile graced her lips. She quickly stood up to fetch a blank sheet of paper, excited for this new sketch she was just about to start.
An hour later, Mr. Weller approached the window seat to find the girl sleeping peacefully. He gently lifted her into his arms to carry her to her room. As he did, her new artwork slid to the floor. Mrs. Weller, noticing the drawing, crouched to retrieve it.
She saw, then, the messy, irregular lines she imagined made up the forms of the two young women she loved the most in the world. Their bodies were painted in silver, representing armor, and straight lines extended from their hands, likely meant to be swords. A third figure stood by their side. Something resembling a crown rested atop her hair, her eyes formed by two blue dots.
Wiping away the tears sliding down her cheeks, Lorena kissed the girl’s forehead. All she could do now was wish that the depiction of Alissa and Freyah saving the world would somehow become a prophecy, hoping they could become the heroes Dhalia so desperately needed.
Chapter 15
Made a Man Way Too Soon
152 DAYS UNTIL DHALIA’S DEATH DATE.
Four weeks had been and gone since Eldric first picked up a shipment in the tunnels of Bryniard, when he never suspected he was transporting two women among the barrels of ale. Traveling with Alissa and Freyah wasn’t easy. They spoke too much, had no self-awareness whatsoever, and no knowledge of Heldraine’s history, traditions, or ways of living. It was like they had come from a different world.
He remembered the first time he laid eyes on them, Alissa with one leg crawling out of the barrel, the lid in one hand and her friend’s hand in the other, her brown eyes wide like a child caught red-handed, her hair completely tousled. He remembered how they froze at the sight of him. Freyah looked like she was about to faint, her mouth agape in shock, as ifhewere the intruder in that carriage, not them.
For the entirety of those first days in their company, Eldric’s temper got the better of him. While he had been tied to ropes and Alissa and Freyah watched his every movement, he kept quiet. But his mind was actively plotting ways he could escape without harming them. The poor man couldn’t even takea piss without a shadow surveying his every movement, for Heldraine’s sake!
Even at the beginning, when there was nothing in Alissa and Freyah’s favor, Eldric hadn’t hated them. There was something about these women crawling out of ale barrels that lit a spark of curiosity within him. The feeling that he had met them before throbbed in his mind like a dream come true or an encounter from a previous life. He did not know how that was possible. All he knew was that a part of himself begged him to let go of reason and help them. The fact that they never posed a significant threat to him was a bonus in his decision to take them to the canyons.
When the offer to drive them to the capital came up, he decided to help them again. Not because he was desperate for money but because he had nothing to lose. At first, he had imagined that if he gave them any control, they would take advantage of him; that was what most people would have done. As the days passed and the sun rose and set time and again, all he saw was ingenuity. He started noticing little things about them that made him feel they were becoming pleasant companions for a long trip.
Freyah with the way she cared so much about everything and everyone—especially her friend. For the way she was always in a good mood, no matter the circumstances. For the nonsensical poetry she made sure to share with them… Every. Single. Day.
Alissa, for how fierce and determined she was. A bit arrogant, sure, but also skilled with a bow and arrow in hand, enough to have made Eldric’s chin drop the first time he had seen her hunt along their way. Alissa held a power over him that no one ever had. At times, she could make him lose his temper. She was like a little spider crawling under his skin, weaving its web into his very flesh, and he didn’t know how to get rid of it. Although hehad the feeling she used that hard temper as a shield to hide whatever caused her so much pain on the inside.
In the past month, they have camped and stopped by a few small villages and cities to refill. They walked mountains and plain fields under bright skies, blessed with no bad weather to this day. They had traveled days on end with only a couple of hours to rest, yet he had never seen the women’s will to keep going fade. No, he had only ever seen resilience. He could only believe their motivations to be there were too strong to allow them to be beaten down by exhaustion. And although he had only tolerated them before, he had come to grow a sense of admiration.
As he sat in the carriage waiting for them to come back from a hunt they had insisted on going by themselves, he unfolded the little note Alissa had tucked in his hand while he slept the other night. The paper was already tearing up a little on the side—so many times had he unfolded it. He reread her words for the hundredth time.“I’m sorry. I can be an idiot sometimes. Maybe someday you’ll understand my reasons.”
Eldric didn’t know why every time he was alone, he would take this little note from his pocket and read it again. Alissa didn’t write much on it, nor did she write anything relevant, yet it was important to him for some unexpected reason. He had appreciated her and her gesture, how she apologized after waking him up and storming away that night, especially because Alissa seemed stubborn and too proud to admit when she’d made a mistake. He knew whatever had brought them to leave Bryniard had hurt her through all the layers of her being.
He wondered if one day he would finally “understand her reasons.” He wished to know what claimed her thoughts when her eyes were distant, filling them with tears when she thought no one was looking. She tried to hide it and act tough, but he could see it all, as if her skin were made of glass.
Eldric had always been observant, calm, and responsible. He was the oldest of seven children. His mother had raised them by herself since his father left when his youngest sister was born. Eldric was only ten years old, but he felt it was his responsibility to assume that role. The role of the father they had lost.
His mother did everything in her power, but there was only so much a woman was capable of doing while raising seven children on her own. Eldric helped his mother in every way he could; he worked as a shoe polisher, a blacksmith’s assistant, and even cleaned the streets of the capital and washed the shop windows in exchange for a few coins. He took all the burden on himself, even though he was only a little boy. A boy who used to like racing with his friends on the streets of Golheim and throwing little pebbles on the river to watch them bounce before drowning. A little boy who was made a man way too soon and had no time to be a child, to be reckless and foolish, to be loved as every child should be by their parents.
And despite all that, he never stopped studying because it was at school that he could go back to being himself, escape from his reality for a second, and be allowed to learn and dream of the future. And he took that chance, grabbed any opportunity he had to dream, and he held on to it as tight as he could.
Eldric dreamed of becoming a magical researcher, developing potions that could be the cure for all illnesses and help people in need. A magical researcher: a person who did not have the power of magic running through their veins but would still learn the science of it to develop products such as potions. A person who, although would never be able to cast spells and control elements like mages once did, would have the power to do some good in this world, in the way they knew how, at least.
He treasured the memories of his favorite teacher, Mrs. Ilden, who taught him that exact subject, and how he swore she carried the genes of magic under her skin, even though shefiercely denied it. Not that he had ever seen a mage before in his life now that pure, raw magic was extinct in Heldraine. All people known to have been gifted with such power had died in the ancient Battle of the Mundane centuries ago. Still, he cherished the memories of watching, mesmerized, as Mrs. Ilden created potions capable of all sorts of things.