Lia nodded. “I’ll grab you a pillow and some blankets after I—”
“You don’t hafta sleep here,” Marin protested suddenly. “Just sleep with me!”
Elise’s lips curled into a slow smile. “Thank you, dear, but I think you’ll be more comfortable by yourself, in your own bed.”
She shook her head. “No, I’d be more comfy if you—”
Her counter offer was cut off as Lia scooped her out of Elise’s lap. “Time for bed, Marin,” she said as she turned and carried the inebriated girl away.
“Nooo,” Marin moaned helplessly as they rounded the corner, “nooo, take me back.” Her lamentations faded as I heard her bedroom door open and shut.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Elise said softly as we watched them go. “Marten did good finding her.”
“Yeah, I think they’ll work well together,” I agreed, moving to the nearby hall closet to grab an extra pillow and blankets. “You know, she admires you quite a bit.”
“That’s one word for it,” she grinned, accepting the sleeping accoutrements. “I’m sure her, erm, fixation, will move on soon enough.” She slumped over onto the couch and unfolded the blankets just enough to cover down to her knees. “I can’t say I mind too much, though. The way she looks at me, it’s...different, than the way most men do. It makes me feel young again.”
I smiled awkwardly, taken completely off guard by the sudden rush of personal information. “Do you need anything else? Another pillow, some water maybe?”
“No, I’m quite alright. Thank you, dear.” She let out a loud yawn before settling into her spot on the couch. “Now, if I’m to have any chance of meeting Bella at sunrise, I need to get to sleep.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I nodded, grateful for the excuse to make my exit.
“Lux, wait,” she asked suddenly, grabbing unsuccessfully at my sleeve. “I need to thank you, properly.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. No need to wait for Lia to get back for your blankets; she might be a while in there.”
“No, not that.”
I furrowed my brow for a moment, then snapped my fingers as the recognition came. “I can’t promise what we’ll find on the road, but I can say that we’ll get to the bottom of whatever—”
“No, no,” she laughed, “not that either. For Marly.”
My eyes squinted as I puzzled over what she could mean, then shrugged as I came up empty. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Ellie.”
“I was always so afraid that Marly would end up alone, living with her parents forever. Thank you for making sure that didn’t happen.”
“That’s not fair, Elise,” I said firmly. “Lia is a wonderful girl. Anybody would be lucky to have her. I just got lucky, is all.”
She smiled. “That’s just it, dear. Marly was far too good for the men back in Yoria, and she knew it. Given the choice, she would have stayed alone forever rather than settle for anything less than she deserved.” She took my hand and gave it a soft pat. “So thank you for making sure that didn’t happen.”
My cheeks burned as I looked away. “I, uh, I’m not sure what to say.”
“Say ‘you’re welcome, Elise.’”
“You’re welcome, Elise.”
“Good,” she said with satisfaction, slumping back down onto the couch. “Now, put out that lamp and let me sleep.”
Still flustered, I stood and did as I was told without question, turning out the lamp that hung in the corner of the room. The door to Marin’s room opened as I passed by, and Lia exited before closing the door behind her. “She’s about as settled as she can be in her state,” she quipped softly.
I chuckled as I was reminded of Lia’s similar experience during our stay at the Council Chambers. “I helped Elise get situated as well. I don’t imagine either of them will be pleased to wake up at sunrise.” I put out the final hallway lamp as we walked to our room and quickly prepared for bed ourselves.
“I’m not sure I’ll get any sleep tonight,” Lia remarked as we slid beneath the sheets.
“Well, you’d better try; we’ll be sleeping on the road again starting tomorrow,” I teased.
She groaned and took a moment to readjust herself into a more comfortable position. “At least we don’t have to watch our backs the whole time.” I turned out the lamp and put an arm around her waist. “Our first adventure on our own terms,” she sighed dreamily.
“The first of many,” I reminded her. She gave my hand a light squeeze of acknowledgement, and we both drifted off to sleep.
---
Hana roused us just before dawn. I was surprised to find both Marin and Elise awake as well, though the former looked much worse off than the latter; Elise was smiling and composed as she ate breakfast with Marten, while Marin leaned heavily against the kitchen wall, her hair particularly frizzy and disheveled. Lia moved to her side and quietly attempted to teach her how to lessen her nausea through meditation while I fetched our breakfast. After the light meal was finished, we all filed outside to find Bella and her carriage already waiting.
We said our quick and well-practiced goodbyes to Lia’s parents and Marin, then joined Elise in the back of her carriage. She had insisted we join her on her trip back into town, and we soon found out why; after producing a paper and quill from below her seat and folding down a large wooden desk across her lap, she wrote down a comprehensive list of every man and woman that had gone missing since her bandit troubles had started. I was impressed by how detailed each missing persons report was, down to skin, hair, and eye color, approximate height and weight, and any distinguishing features.
I stashed the reports in my pocket once we arrived at Three Barrels, parting ways after a final, sincere thank you from Elise. When Bella disappeared around the corner with the carriage, Lia and I were left alone at the entrance to the headquarters. We stood quietly for a moment, both staring off into the distance down the southern road. “We made it,” I said eventually, taking Lia’s hand.
“We made it,” she echoed.
“It’s time for me to keep my promise,” I proclaimed, taking a step forward. “It’s time to go on an adventure.”
***
12. FRIENDS
Our trip south began quite differently than I had expected. All of my time spent traveling in Kaldan had been on nearly empty roads through relatively undeveloped countryside, and I had started to forget that those experiences were abnormal. The southern road out of Mayaan was packed with foot traffic, passenger carriages, and produce carts, all bustling in both directions. The closeness of the crowd set me on edge, and I had to consistently remind myself that I wasn’t a wanted man in Lybesa.
While our promise of investigating Elise’s missing caravans waited somewhere ahead of us, Lia and I were both perfectly content to travel at a far more leisurely pace than our previous journeys. Lia found the crowd much more enjoyable than I did, and she did her best to make casual conversation with some of the passersby. Most people replied to her amicably, and although it all sounded the same to me, I could tell by Lia’s reaction that the responses were in Lybesian rather than Kaldanic, which put an end to any further dialogue.
It was late afternoon on our first day of traveling when she found a response she understood. We had finally caught up with a group of four people moving approximately the same speed as us after a few hours of walking behind them; their pace seemed slightly slowed by the lead man, who pushed a wheelchair that held an elderly woman in a heavy cloak. Lia greeted them warmly, and her face lit up when she understood their reply in kind. “You speak Kaldanic!” she exclaimed as we walked up beside them.
“Sounds like you do, too,” laughed the stranger pushing the wheelchair. He was a tall man, most likely my height when not hunched over the chair grips, with a shining bald head, deep brown skin, and a close-cropped black beard. “What brings a Kaldanic speaker out this way?” he asked with a friendly smile.
“Vacation!” Lia answered excitedly. “We’re on our way to visi
t the capital for a few days.”
The man chuckled and looked at the woman on his right, who bobbed her head forward to catch our eyes. “We’re on our way to Ellawyn ourselves, Primes willing,” she said cheerfully, circling around the group to walk next to Lia. She looked to be about our age, with copper skin, bouncy chestnut hair, and kind blue eyes. “You’re free to join us on the road, if you’d like the company; we’ve got a chartered wagon waiting for us in Leinna to take us through the Midlands, but we’re on foot until then.”
The cloaked figure in the wheelchair turned her head towards us. “We don’t need a couple of foreign strangers traveling with us! Especially not some road vagabonds like them!” the woman complained in a shrill, deliberate voice. I was able to see a face beneath the hood for a brief moment; she had pale, translucent skin that seemed to hang from her small frame, with sunken eyes and a long, crooked nose. She looked over Lia and me for a brief moment, then turned away with a huff of disgust.
“Gran, please!” cried the last member of their group. He looked to be the youngest of their party and walked with a slight limp as he hurried up to the side of the wheelchair. His dirty blonde hair hung down into his nervous, shifty eyes, and he constantly pushed it out of his face, to no avail. “You can’t talk to people like that, even if they can’t understand you!”
The youth looked up to us with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, she doesn’t speak Kaldanic. She was just asking if we knew each other,” he lied. “Which, as far as I can remember, we don’t. I’m Miles,” he said, moving to the back of the group and holding out a hand, “and this is my grandmother, Josephine.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miles!” Lia chirped, shaking his hand. “And you as well, Josephine,” she added, giving the woman a respectful bow of her head. “My name is Marlia, but you can just call me Lia.” She gave my arm a hard tug and pulled me closer to the group insistently as I heard her voice inside my head. Introduce yourself. And be nice.
“Pardon my rudeness; speaking in groups has never been my forte,” I said with a small, forced smile. “My name is Lux. It’s nice to meet you all.”
“Lux, Lia,” repeated the young woman, briefly looking us over as she committed the names to memory. “I’m Evelyn, but you can call me Lyn, if you’d like. This is my husband Layne,” she said, placing her hand on the crook of her husband’s arm.
“Miles, Josephine, Lyn, Layne,” Lia said, nodding to each person in turn. “Got it! So, what brings the four of you out this way? Are you vacationing, too?”
Josephine snorted derisively, but Lyn ignored her. “Not quite. Miles is a good friend of ours and needs a place to stay while he visits the capital with his grandmother, so we came up to collect them. We have a house outside of the city where Layne sells his smithing wares, and traveling in large groups is safer this time of year.” She paused for a moment and tipped her face up towards the sun, inhaling deeply. “Plus, I can never say no to a week outdoors.”
My interest was suddenly piqued by her explanation. “Smithing wares? You’re a blacksmith?” I asked, quickly weaving my way through the group to stand beside Layne.
“Yup!” he answered brightly. “I don’t claim to be the best, but I’ve had steady work out of my own forge for a few years now.”
“What sort of work do you do?” I asked, completely abandoning my initial reservations about joining their group.
“Mostly industrial supply: nails, hinges, supports, that sort of stuff,” he said, grinning at my obvious enthusiasm. “Are you a blacksmith, too?”
“I was! Well, technically, I was an apprentice, but by the end of my tenure I was practically running half the shop,” I babbled. “We were mainly weaponsmiths, but we took on any work that came in if we had time.”
“Oh, to be a weaponsmith,” he sighed longingly. “That’s the dream of every kid who sees a man swing the hammer, isn’t it? Unfortunately for me, there isn’t much demand for weapons at the moment in Lybesa, so I’ve made do with what’s needed.” He chuckled after a short pause. “That’s probably a good thing, come to think of it.”
“That’s true,” I agreed, “though I have to admit, it really was the dream job. Forging weapons all day, then training with them in my downtime…” I trailed off, smiling as I thought back to my days at Ashedown’s forge.
“I’ve never had much reason to hold a sword, let alone train with one,” Layne admitted. “My dreams of becoming a knight died when a threat to the country decided it didn’t want to go to war with anyone. A damn shame.”
As we both laughed, I remembered for the first time since our conversation started that we weren’t walking alone, and I turned to find Lyn and Lia watching us with wide grins. “Please, don’t stop on our account,” Lyn giggled, holding up her hands. “I’m glad to see you’ve found a common interest.”
“I guess it’s been a while since I’ve found someone to talk to about smithing work,” I chuckled as my cheeks grew warm. I turned to Miles and gave him a small nod. “How about you, Miles? What do you do for work?”
“Me?” he asked timidly. “I’m an artist. A painter, specifically.”
“Oh, a painter!” Lia said delightedly. “What do you like to paint?”
“Portraits,” he answered quickly. “People commission me to paint their portrait, and I travel to wherever they are and, erm, paint them.”
“Is that why you’re heading to the capital? Are you going to paint some important nobles?”
“No. Well, yes, and no,” he said, shrugging. “I do have plans to do some portraits while I’m there, but it isn’t the reason for our trip. Gran has been in a great deal of pain lately due to her hip, and I’ve heard there’s a healer in the capital that specializes in—”
“Don’t talk to them about my problems!” shouted his grandmother, swatting at him with a frail hand. “You don’t even know these people! Stop telling them so much about us.” Each halting word she spoke carried an unusual amount of emphasis, as if it were physically difficult for her to speak them.
“Gran, you know it’s safer to travel in groups,” Miles responded quietly, leaning in close to her ear. “Besides, you can see how they’re dressed; if we get ambushed by bandits, don’t you want them with us?”
“They could be the bandits!” she shot back. “Do you make friends with every armored thug you meet?”
“Stop it, Gran!” he hissed. He straightened up from his hunched position and pushed the hair out of his eyes as he laughed nervously, no doubt concocting his next false translation. “Gran is wondering how long you’ll be traveling with us. We certainly appreciate the company, but the wagon waiting for us in Lienna only has room for the four of us, plus one guard.”
“We would never think to impose ourselves on you like that,” I said, waving away the notion. “Besides, we have some business in the Midlands that needs looking into before we make our way to the capital.”
“But we’ll walk with you to Lienna!” Lia added. “If you’ll have us, of course.”
“We’d love to have you walk with us. Not that we could stop you otherwise,” Lyn laughed, flashing a quick grin in Josephine's direction. “There are still plenty of miles of walking between us and that wagon.”
With her blessing, Lia and I continued to travel with their group for the remainder of the day, passing the time by sharing stories of our respective places of origin. Lyn, Miles, and Layne had all grown up together in a small town just outside of Ellawynn and had been an inseparable, adventurous trio of friends. The tall tales of their youth seemed a bit exaggerated to my ear, but they were enjoyable to listen to nonetheless; whether they were sneaking into the royal gardens or stowing away in an Elta’sahn Company caravan, they always seemed to escape from their endeavors without a scratch.
Layne had found a blacksmith willing to take him on as an apprentice in the small town of Olum on Kaldan’s southern coast, and he had moved away soon after his fifteenth birthday. Their stories grew less exciting from that point, with Lay
ne focusing on his apprenticeship, Miles on his art, and Lyn on running her family’s inn. After six years apart, Layne returned to Lybesa, and he and Lyn were married within the month. Miles moved to the northern coast a few years later to help care for his grandmother, and the group had been broken up ever since, apart from their continued correspondence through letters.
Once their stories were finished, Lia provided a quick, less embellished version of her own upbringing. She mainly focused on her father’s trading business and the exciting trips it enabled her to take as a child. When she was finished, I followed up with my crafted backstory: Born in a small Doramese town, I moved from place to place too frequently to put down roots, staying in the north just long enough to apprentice at a blacksmith’s shop before I traveled to Kaldan in search of better work. Between the maps I had studied and multiple conversations with Marten, I was able to reference enough real locations to give the story reasonable substance.
Though I should have anticipated the question from the moment we began sharing stories, I was taken off guard when Layne asked how Lia and I had first met. Luckily, Lia came to my rescue before I finished my nervous chuckling; she told a lovely story of love at first sight, beginning the day I had tried to convince her father to trade my wares in the Yorian market. Our initial introductions had gone so well that we planned to meet again that night, and I arrived at our predetermined meeting place just in time to find her being accosted by a particularly unsavory town guard. After repelling the man and returning safely to her family, her father had become so distressed from the news that he decided to relocate his family to Lybesa. The plans took a month to finalize, during which time I stayed with the family as a guard and welcome guest.
The remainder of her story was an abbreviated version of the truth. We had made the trip across Kaldan just as winter arrived and passed through the Mountain Gate just before “some incident” seemingly closed it for the foreseeable future. Marten had made contact with an old business associate who helped him reestablish his trading business and build our new home, and our lives had returned to the perfectly normal routines we had before, with no thoughts of dangerous adventures, corrupt kings, or monsters.
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 25
