Orphan.
Faery.
Halfling.
Fugitive.
Point.
In some ways, it will be a relief. To finally rest after all these months on the run. Since they executed Eli, since they burned the Starlight Wood to ash along with our cottage, there is no refuge left for me on this earth. No strong, protective arms to rush toward when my hair snags on the brambles or my ankle twists on a rock in the riverbed. No warm bed to crawl into at the end of a crisp autumn day.
I have no idea where I am. Before they hunted me down, I’dbeen lost for weeks, wandering in search of solace that no longer exists, surviving on rubbery mushrooms dug from the packed earth and cold trout fished from icy streams. When I came across a village five days ago, the smell of fresh bread sitting on a stone windowsill proved too tempting to ignore.
I could curse my own stupidity. I know what Eli would say if he were here.The heart makes you soft. The stomach makes you weak. Ignore their fleeting impulses. It is your mind you must mind.
But in a moment of weakness, I abandoned his teachings. Gnawing hunger made me careless, dulled the sharpness of my senses beyond reason. I’m quick by nature, but that day I was not quick enough. As I darted from the tree line to the dilapidated house at the edge of the wood, I did not hear the click of a bootheel on the stone floor inside, nor the nocking of an arrow in the bow, until it whizzed a whisper above my head. And by then, it was too late.
Far too late.
From that moment on, life was headlong flight. Running until the breath was gone from my lungs, until the strength was stripped from my bones, until my bare feet left a trail of bloody footprints on rocks and riverbanks alike. They tracked me—first the villagers themselves, later the soldiers they had summoned. Through a forest, across a field, and finally into a boggy marshland. I nearly lost them there in that hissing, burping mire, where the air was thick as syrup and swarms of insects blacked out the midday sun.
Nearly.
I had no way of knowing I was being herded toward a deep ravine. The Red Chasm, the soldiers call it, so named for the rusty color of its plunging depths. For there, the stone runs thick with iron deposits. Thick enough to drain me on a good day—and a good day this was not.
I felt the ore sapping my strength with each step as the menclosed in. My legs buckled, threatening to give out beneath me. Even if they hadn’t, there was nowhere left to run once I reached the cliff side. Not unless I fancied hurling myself over the edge, plummeting to my death in the void.
In hindsight, tied to a tree with the fiery grip of iron shackling my wrists, a thick noose looped around my neck, and a pyre in my immediate future…I might prefer that sharp fall. At least then, my death would be at my own hands. My own choice.
My last choice.
Gods, I’m tired. The noose is so heavy I can no longer hold my head upright. I sag limply against my bindings, glad Eli is not here to see me. He raised me to fight. To be fierce. Steady of will, strong of mind, sound of heart.
I’ve failed him.
I’ve failed myself.
The thought makes me want to cry, but I have no strength left for tears. I can’t recall the last time I had a bite of food, a sip of water. My tongue is dry as sand, the memory of a warm meal as foreign to me as the land in which I’ve been captured.
I try to focus through the pain and exhaustion crippling my body.
What did the soldier say?
King Eld.
The Avian Strait.
Bloodiest battle in a hundred years.
In my pain-hazed mind, there is a map, full of many kingdoms. Ever-shifting feudal lands with ever-changing paper kings.Paper kings.That’s what Eli always calls them—calledthem. Their dominion not a divine right, but self-appointed by ink and quill; their hold on their titles as thin as the parchment upon which they are scrawled, one sovereign easily scratched out and exchanged for another.
Hardly worth memorizing, Eli grumbled once, his wizened hands splayed on his vast collection of unfurled charts.The bloody boundaries shift with every major battle…
I must’ve studied those maps a hundred times, but in this moment my memories feel gossamer thin, impossible to bring into focus. Kingdoms, fractured like pieces from a shattered shield, fall away before I can cobble them properly back together.
Carvage.
Eastwood.