by Candy Crum
"Do you have any idea what happened or what they were after?" Arryn asked.
Celine stood, extending her hand to Arryn to help her do the same. "I was about to ask you the same thing. The only information I was given was that my sister was a traitor, and her husband was taken for questioning. I was way too terrified to press the issue, but I got myself into a situation once and was told that he was executed."
"What happened? What kind of situation? And executed? Did you believe them?" Arryn was frantic as she asked question after question.
"I went to a bar and got drunk. I’ve always looked older than what I am, and noble bars don't really pay much attention anyway. I got way too drunk, and I stumbled up and began yelling at a guard. I told him I’d just buried my sister, and I needed to know what happened to her husband and her daughter. I just needed to know, no matter how bad it was."
Arryn's eyes widened. "And you didn't die? How the hell did you pull that off?"
Celine snorted. "I got lucky. He happened to be one of the few good guards in the city. Later, he ended up switching sides in the battle after he realized just how big of a piece of shit Adrien was, but he was killed. But he told me Christopher had been executed for treason, and my niece was dead. I knew that he believed that, but I never did. So, what the hell did happen?"
Arryn went into the story, telling her all about the couple of weeks that led up to them running, and the events of that night. Though Arryn had seen it all in her head a thousand times, Celine was seeing it for the very first time. Years of questions finally being answered.
Celine was clearly shocked by it all, and why wouldn’t she be? It was an overwhelming story to Arryn whenever she told it, and she lived through it.
"It took a few weeks before I felt safe enough to come back to the house. The Arcadian Guard went through everything. This place had been completely destroyed. I cleaned it up and put it back the way I remembered it in hopes you guys would return. For a long time, I replaced the flowers in all the vases. Every week. But after the first full year, I realized you guys weren’t coming back."
Arryn was moved by her aunt’s actions when she still feared the worst. As sad as it was, it was nothing compared to the happiness that Arryn felt simply by having family around again. It had been an emotional day, but it had shown her much more hope.
"So, tell me, who’s your very quiet friend?" Celine asked.
Arryn laughed.
And laughed.
And then she laughed some more.
She looked over to Cathillian, who was giving her a confused look.
"Why is that funny?" Celine asked.
Cathillian being seen as quiet was laughable at best. She calmed her hysterical laughing and wiped away the resulting tears from her face.
"Oh, damn. That was way funnier than it should've been. This is Cathillian, and he is in no way shape or form quiet. Ever. I mean, ever. Which is why I laughed so hard. He's only being quiet now out of respect. Because while I do give him a hard time, he’s a good guy."
"I'm not exactly sure if I should be offended, flattered, or moved. Somehow, I feel a mixture of all three. Also, I hate you," Cathillian said. He turned to Celine. "I'm the one her mother saved in the Dark Forest all those years ago. Arryn and I grew up together, which is why she’s so comfortable being cruel to such a gentle soul like me."
Celine smiled and nodded. "I'm happy you were able to find a family, one that clearly cared a lot for you. While I spent my days wishing that you were back here with me, I knew if you were still alive, then you were probably safe. You were certainly safer wherever you were than here."
"Where do you live now?" Arryn asked.
"I used to live at the end of the street, but these homes were abandoned after Adrien ordered all of them searched repeatedly for any evidence of treachery along with Christopher. We came back briefly, but after losing my mom, I couldn't stay there anymore.”
Arryn's brows furrowed as she reached out to give Celine’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I'm sorry. I don't remember much about my grandmother, which totally sucks.”
Celine nodded. “You'd have loved her. Feisty as hell, just like your mom. After that, I went to go live with some friends. Seems that's what a lot of people are doing now, though I’m not sure why. There are more than enough houses to go around. Hell, the Boulevard families could live in the noble houses now. No one’s around to tell them otherwise."
"I agree, but I don’t think that’s the problem. Amelia doesn’t seem like the kind of person to just forget there are vacant homes—nice ones at that. If I had to guess, I’d have to say they’re probably too proud, and I can’t say I blame them. Change is hard for some people. We've been staying in Lord Girard's old house. You remember that huge bitch?"
"Seriously? I always wanted to go in there. Hmm. We won't be alone where I'm staying. How about I walk you home? We can hang out and catch up, and you can show me the house," Celine said.
Arryn nodded and smiled. "I'd love that. But first, I need to get that family portrait from over the fireplace. I wanna take it with me. There are family portraits all over, but that one is important.”
“I’ll grab it,” Cathillian said with a smile. “You’re too short.”
Arryn rolled her eyes. “I’d punch you, but you’re about to go and make yourself useful for once.”
Even with the amusing insults, Arryn took the time to appreciate the moment. The moment that her life became even fuller, igniting an even bigger excitement for her new journey.
***
The group spent the whole evening catching up, or in Cathillian’s case, getting to know the newcomer. Seeing Arryn so happy left a perpetual grin on his face. The next morning, he was up earlier than she was; he had things to do.
Because most of the loggers were out of commission with wounds, Cathillian thought it would be a perfect time to teach the men a little bit about replenishing what they take. Respecting the nature around them.
Over the last couple of days, Cathillian had visited the medical building and healed some of their wounds. Because so many were injured very badly, he couldn't use his full ability on any single person, so he performed small healings every day, doing what he could manage.
Still, it had gone a long way. The men with broken legs were up on makeshift crutches, and the ones with severe, deep wounds that had begun to fester were now up and walking around fever-free, though they still had a lot of residual pain.
Cathillian had a bag full of acorns. Many of which he had gathered from home and always had with him, but the rest he had taken from the base of the very few trees in the city. Cathillian explained how taking from the forest and not giving anything in return would eventually result in an imbalance, the forest thinning, and the loggers unable to do their work.
That was concerning for them, but their biggest fear—of course—was of another remnant attack.
They were too afraid to head back toward the forest bordering the Madlands.
It was too close, and too many of them had nearly died for the wood. The pay wasn't even that good, certainly not good enough to risk death for.
This was yet another reason why Cathillian asked them to meet him just outside the city walls that morning. He planned to find at least one person in the group that had an affinity for nature magic and teach them the most basic skills—how to harvest plants.
Cathillian heard voices, and he looked up to see several men heading in his direction. The men that were unable to walk longer distances were on the backs of horses, no doubt helped up by their friends.
"Hey!" Cathillian shouted. "Glad to see you could make it."
It was Samuel that led the pack, hammer at his belt and a smile on his heavily bearded face. "Yer all right, lad. The way we figure it, if yer willin’ ta teach, some of these rat bastards better be willin’ ta learn."
"Besides, I think the men’re finished with the borders. I doubt I can get any of ‘em out there again if I tried," Ren said.
&nb
sp; Cathillian laughed. "Well, no matter the reason, I plan to teach somebody something here today."
Cathillian reached into his pack and grabbed a handful of acorns. He handed one to each of the men and instructed them to go stand fifteen feet apart.
"Now, acorns are easy. We need to take the ground up a little—it should still be soft from the recent rain—and put the acorn in about two inches deep. As you do, do your best to completely clear mind. Focus on nothing except for the task in front of you."
Cathillian watched as the group did exactly as he asked. Each man planted his own acorn, taking their time and following each direction carefully. More than anything, he hoped that even one of them would show some kind of spark with nature. When it happened, Cathillian was quite a bit more than surprised to see who it was.
"Samuel," Cathillian said, an amused smile on his lips. "I have no idea how you're going to handle this, but would you come back here for a minute? I'd like to have a word with you."
There were a lot of amused “ohs” and groaning from the other guys, everyone making amusing snide comments about him getting in trouble with the teacher. Samuel mumbled scheisse and something about all of them being dicks as he made his way over to Cathillian.
"What is it, lad?" he asked.
Cathillian did his best not to laugh, knowing what the rearick was about to say. "Well, I have some good news. It seems that I’ve found my potential nature magic user."
Samuel's brows furrowed, his eyes narrowing as he stared up at Cathillian. "I'm gonna need ye ta think real hard about the next words about come outta yer mouth, lad."
Cathillian did laugh this time. "I'm sorry, Samuel, but it's true. Couldn’t you feel it? I told everyone to clear their minds and focus because I wanted to see who naturally connected with the earth around them. There were a couple, but you were the strongest.”
“Of course, I was because I'm good at anything I set out ta do. Doesn’t mean I want any part of it,” the shorter man said. “Magic’s fer those who can’t get along without it. Not fer me.”
“If you look, where you planted your acorn, there are a few blades of grass trying to sprout through the dirt that you just planted."
Samuel rolled his eyes. "Boy, yer blind. I had ta tear up grass ta dig the hole. I put the same dirt back in. That's all that is."
Cathillian shook his head. "I thought so, too, at first, but I was wrong. Look for yourself. Yes, you’ll see fully formed blades of grass that were already there, but you’ll also see tiny, thin pieces growing from the bare spaces of dirt. In fact, I would have to say that if you pulled that acorn back out, you’d find a crack in it—maybe even a sprout."
Samuel looked back to the spot where he had been kneeling on the ground before looking back to Cathillian. "I ain’t no magic user. Never have been; never will be. No interest in learnin’ either. So, ye can find yerself a different one."
Cathillian nodded. "OK, OK. Just remember what I said. If you ever do want to learn, find me, and I'll teach you. It sure as hell isn't gonna hurt you to learn. In fact, you might save your own life or the life of others. Remember, you can heal people and animals."
Samuel waved a hand in the air, shaking his head. "Yeah, yeah. Still ain’t carin’, kid."
Samuel walked away, and Cathillian stayed quiet, allowing the man to return back to his station. It was time for Cathillian to put his little test in action.
"OK everyone, now I want you to lay your hands flat on the ground. Push everything out of your mind. As you well know, magic has its limits. Even for me, a druid. If you hope to give back to the forest everything you take from it—and you should—and you plan to have job security, then you need to learn to harvest and grow things for yourselves."
Cathillian watched, studying each of them as they laid their hands on the ground. Samuel waited until everyone closed their eyes before he backed away. It seemed to Cathillian that he was more afraid of learning magic than he was of fighting remnant.
But it didn't come as a surprise to him.
Samuel’s people were naturally phobic of magic. It was thought that they had no magical abilities whatsoever, but he believed that it was more so that they had no desire.
Only one of the men other than Samuel showed any kind of real promise, while one other had at least some kind of connection, but that didn’t stop Cathillian from trying.
"Next, I want you to feel the energy surrounding your hands. Part of that energy is yours. Feel for it, then, I want you to push it forward. Imagine that power is being channeled directly from your hands into the acorn itself."
Since Samuel had no plans on using his acorn, Cathillian decided to make his way over and commandeer it. He knelt, placing his hands on the ground around the loose dirt. He felt for his own energy and pushed forward, immediately feeling the acorn respond.
Within moments, the plant broke through the ground and began to grow even taller and thicker. In less than a minute it had grown to three feet tall and two and a half inches across at the base.
"Whoa," Andrew said from his left. "That's impressive."
"It is. And if each and every one of you take the time to learn this type of magic, you'll never run out of work. The forest will never run out of trees. We're gonna continue working on this, especially while most of you still can’t work. In about three or four days all of you should be back to normal, and your trees should be sprouting nicely."
Cathillian realized he was being a hard teacher, but he had no idea how long he and Arryn would be in Arcadia, and he didn't want to leave them without knowing how to do these things.
If he did, it wouldn't take long before they came to the Dark Forest and tried to cut down trees. That, of course, would end up very bad for those men. He needed them to know how to harvest things safely. Like Arryn, he wanted to make a difference.
***
Amelia sat at home, sipping some of the aged mystics’ brew that Julianne had brought her during her last visit. It had been quite a rough day, and there was a lot of forgetting to do—even if she was still supposed to be at work.
She called it an early day after another failed Doyle attempt. The only lead they had after this one was that he was overheard talking in private with a woman that was now traveling with him. Doyle was building a group of nobles to bring back to the city. She'd never let him get that far. He needed to be found.
Immediately.
Doyle hadn't been the only hard part of the day. She'd had to talk to Amos’ mother. She had to break the news that her only son had been killed.
It felt like she’d failed Amos and his mother. She thought back to the moment when she informed Amos’ mother what had happened. Tears welled in her eyes as she recalled the pained look on the woman's face as she told Amelia that it was all her fault.
After the battle, Amelia had paid many visits to many families, having to tell them their child, their sibling, or their parent had died protecting them—had died valiantly protecting the city and reclaiming what was theirs. That had been an honor—even if it was met with sadness. There'd been tears then, too, but they weren’t senseless. Those tears had been shed for a good reason.
This was something different. There was no war. No battle. There was only a senseless tragedy.
Murder.
Some of the noble students had remained after the battle, a lot of them, in fact. It was possible that one of them had been guilty. She hadn't nosed into their minds quite like she had the teachers.
In the interview process, Amelia had been diligent in keeping an eye out for anything that she felt was off. She hadn't done that quite so harshly with the students. Perhaps if she had, Amos would still be alive.
She shook her head, blinking her eyes as she did. "Get yourself together, Amelia," she said. "There are other people who still need you."
Before she could officially call it a night, she still had at least one more thing to do.
She decided to take a quick shower and clean herself up, hoping the hot wa
ter would relax and sober her back into her normal self. Talia had sent word the day before that she had returned, and Amelia needed to go and greet her and tell her the news about Amos.
It seemed every time she visited Talia, she had both good and bad news. She hoped for once the visit could be pleasant, but problems would be a constant for a while.
It wasn't anything she couldn't handle, and she refused to let it get her down any more than what it already had. Besides, there was good news to be had. There would be a new nature magic teacher starting tomorrow, and that meant excitement, hope.
As Amelia made her way down the street from the Capitol building, she saw experienced Guard out training the new recruits. She’d hired another fifty men in hopes that nothing like what happened with Amos would happen again, but it would still take a while before they were fully trained. It seemed that it was easier to hire guards than to get help rebuilding the city.
Though, the Boulevard seemed to be coming along quite nicely.
She couldn't blame them for feeling selfish and seeking work outside the city after everything that happened to them, but if those feelings didn't change and people didn't start having more of a community mindset, then the city would never get back on its feet. All in all, she hoped it was only time they needed.
As Amelia made her way into the Academy, she couldn't help but notice how quiet it was. Most everyone was gone for the day, only a few—like the Dean herself—were left. She knocked on the office door, and Talia called for her to enter from the other side.
Talia had a broad smile on her face. "Amelia! It's so good to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t go to you yesterday, but I was exhausted after the long trip. That being said, I come bearing big news. The trip was a success!"
