I saddled Lacuna, and we set off, Eris in front as usual. She didn’t say anything for a little while, and she hadn’t answered the question I’d asked her. I was beyond curious, so I nudged her a bit.
“Got an answer?”
“Well, yes, I do…it’s because you’re my husband and bond-mate. You’re the person I’ve pledged myself to, and bearing this scar is proof of that. I am yours, as you are mine. Until eternity,” she said, smiling.
I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re weird, y’know that?”
She laughed, her whole body shaking as we rode. “You’re not the first person to tell me that, and you can blame my parents.”
Oh, right. I really need to talk to her about that. “Hey, so, we need to talk,” I said with hesitation.
Eris tilted her head to stare at me with one eye. “What about?”
“After what happened last night, when I woke up, I had your blood in my mouth. I passed out, and I think I experienced your memories.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. “What?”
I didn’t really know what to say, and I really didn’t want to bring up what I’d seen. I wanted nothing more than for Eris to wipe those feelings, every one of those awful memories away. I had too many of them myself to carry any more.
But I can’t do that, not to her.
I could never let myself forget the torment and misery that she’d gone through. If she could go through that and still have the strength to smile, then the very least I could do was help to shoulder some of her pain.
Fear and apprehension drifted from Eris, along with curiosity. She wanted to know what I’d seen but was a little afraid of the answers.
“I saw your childhood. How your father treated you...and I saw your mother’s coronation.”
Eris winced at that, knowing exactly what I’d seen. She sighed and nodded. “Was that all you saw?”
“No,” I said, refusing to elaborate.
“What else?” she prompted.
I didn’t want to answer her; the sights in the Mnemosyne were too vivid. It lingered still in my eyes. Eris suffering as she watched her mother die was one of the worse sights I’d seen. At least Micah hadn’t suffered. It’d been quick.
“Sam?” she asked, her voice stretched tight with worry. I let go of the reins for a moment, and Lacuna slowed to a stop. I held Eris and rested my chin on her shoulder and whispered, “I…saw the price you had to pay.”
I left the rest alone, and she didn’t need the details. I just held her closer, trying to push away both of our pain. She relaxed at my touch, melting into me. There was an unvoiced fear spiking through her that needed an answer.
“You don’t have to be afraid. Nothing I saw could ever scare me away.”
“So, you can feel my emotions too,” she said, not asking, just confirming.
“If I concentrate hard enough, yeah. Why? Is that a problem?”
Eris threw back her head and laughed at that, leaning on me as she shook. It was a laugh filled with warmth. The sound was addicting, and I’d have paid every gold I owned to hear it again.
“Problem? No, of course not. It’s just surprising. You shouldn’t be able to. I’d have said it was impossible. And you definitely shouldn’t be able to access the Mnemosyne since you’re not an entomancer. I don’t see how, but I like it,” she said, giving me a radiant smile.
Eris started humming softly as I pushed Lacuna to a walk. Having a deeper connection through our bond made her incredibly happy.
As we rode, Lacuna's hooves plodding through the dirt joined Eris’s humming and formed an offbeat song as we passed endless trees and green fields. We both enjoyed the presence of each other and didn’t ruin the moment with our words.
When we entered the outskirts of Grange, we passed an Alliance patrol. The first of many.
They patrolled on a frequent, infrequent schedule, never making the same loop twice. It, more than anything else, deterred banditry and thuggery in the area. You could never predict when the next patrol would pass by, and one shout would have the whole territory alert in seconds.
A rash of cattle mutilations and arson several years ago cost the Merchants Guild some serious coin, enough that they strong-armed the Alliance to devise new routes and schedules.
As it was, this area was as safe as we were likely to find. It wasn’t quite midday, and thousands of farmers were toiling away in their fields under the harsh light of the sun. In under an hour, they would flock by the hundreds to the dozen or so taverns that cropped up every quarter mile.
If farming was king in the East Kingdom, then alehouses were their mistress. Not outright acknowledged, but ever-present and somewhat necessary. You couldn’t have one without the other, after all.
By my estimate, it would be full dark before we would reach the Central Kingdom, so I made plans to stop at an inn when night fell. As we approached the first gate, I quickly put Eris’s hood up. The guards should let us pass without trouble, but it was better to be safe than stupid.
Four men guarded the first gate, a giant black wrought iron monster, thick, heavy bars latticed over one another. It stood out sharply in comparison to the whitewashed limestone walls that encompassed the whole of the Compass Kingdom.
One of the guards commanded us to halt. From his lapel, he was the sergeant in charge of the others. He wore a striking blue and gold tunic and matching pants over his sparse armaments, along with a short-brimmed hat with a long plume atop his head.
A statement that suggested a superiority complex, if I’d ever seen one. The Alliance didn’t enforce a strict uniform with their soldiers, as they didn’t like spending the coin to outfit the many dozens of thousands of men under their command. The only piece of the uniform they did issue was a chest plate with the Alliance crest embossed across the majority of the metal.
A sword inside a clenched fist, surrounded by five stars, representing each of the kingdoms.
“Afternoon, sir. May I inquire about your business inside the East Kingdom?”
I nodded my head at him, discreetly reached inside my purse and withdrew a single gold coin, slipping the guard the money. “Just a little business and pleasure is all, sir.”
He returned my nod and offered a sly grin. “Of course, sir. Head on in.”
He turned and barked a sharp command that wasn’t so much a word as a whistle. After a second or two, the gate started to rise slowly. Within half a minute, we were inside a stretch of white tunnel lined with torches that burned steadily even during the day, as light could never make its way deep enough to keep the place lit.
The two-gate process was an admittedly smart system of defense. Two different gates with separate opening mechanisms and two different sets of guards to open them. Who were assigned at complete random, making it much harder to bribe and coerce the men who were stationed there.
We made our way through the dark tunnel. Lacuna's hooves clacked loudly against the stone, only to echo throughout the tunnel. Before we’d even made it halfway through, the opposite gate had already started to rise. By the time we reached it, we had just enough room to squeeze through without ducking our heads.
As soon as we had passed through, the gate began to shut. Paranoia much?
The streets were awash with hundreds of people going about their day. Grain merchants were everywhere, buying and selling wheat and barley by the bushel. A few produce vendors here and there, but as most of what was harvested here went to the other kingdoms, there wasn't as much of a need for it here where it was grown in excess.
Wheat and grain had a nearly universal appeal even here in the East Kingdom. And even if you didn't need it wholesale, wheat and wheat by-products were still in high demand. Bread, flour, and even ale were staples everywhere and required a steady amount of grain.
You'd think with how well this kingdom’s exports sold; they could afford better roads. The stone streets were rough, uneven, and even missing tiles. All topped with caked over with dirt and mud that
the workers tracked with every step.
Eris was having a blast. I don’t think she’d ever seen so many humans at once; she kept darting her head back and forth, as we wove through traffic and proceeded to the main road. It was adorable to watch, and I left her to her own devices while I steered Lacuna toward the Central Kingdom gate. About twenty minutes later, she seemed lost in thought, before turning around to ask me a question.
“There are thousands of men and women, but I’ve seen very few children?”
“Oh, that's because it's not that easy for NPCs to have kids. Well, human NPCs at any rate.”
“Why?”
Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure of the answer myself—all us players have are theories. But I didn’t want to spout off some of the more “out there” conspiracy theories, and so I settled for the one I put the most stock in, and by far the most common theory.
“Well, I personally think it has to do with how rapidly humans reproduced back on Earth. We spread like a disease, and it quickly became a huge problem that led to shortages in almost every major resource. So here, on Nexus, the theory is that Ouroboros restricts how many humans can have children.”
“That’s a little sad to hear, but it makes sense. Compared to the elves or dwarves, humans far outnumber either race, and the demi-humans are bordering on extinction. I wonder if an entomancer and a human can have children? What do you think our children will be like?”
“That’s something I don’t have to consider, because players can’t have kids at all.”
Eris whirled around with a shocked expression. “You can’t have children?”
I shook my head. “None of us can. The AI can simulate life, but actually creating it is an entirely different story.”
Eris didn’t say another word, just turned around. Her shoulders slumped over while we rode, so to cheer her up, I put my arm around her and pulled her into my chest, kissing the top of her head.
“Don’t think about it so much, nothing you or I can do to change it, so there's no point in dwelling on it.”
“Right,” she said but was quiet for a long time after that.
My nonchalance toward her stung, but not being able to have children was something I was grateful for. This world is too dark for children. And us players aren’t fit to be parents anyway.
We stopped for lunch at a quaint restaurant about fifteen minutes later when the sun was highest overhead. Eris was still in her head and didn’t touch her food, but I savored the spicy sausages I ordered and half a loaf of fresh bread with butter. I drank my fill of their local ale and paid a gold for our food to the ecstatic owner.
We lingered for an hour or so until the lunchtime rush abated, and the roads cleared as the populace went back to work. We climbed back on Lacuna, and I pushed her a little faster to make up for the lost time. As the hours went by, Eris still hadn’t come back to her usual self. I knew what troubled her, but there was nothing I could do, nothing she could either, that would fix it.
“I know it sucks, and I’m sorry. I wish I could do something to cheer you up.”
“Thank you, but it’s not like even if we could conceive that it would change anything. My race was doomed the moment we raised our hands in war. I’m the last one left, maybe the last of the entire Hive. Nothing I can do will ever restore us to what we were. I’m the queen of a dead kingdom.”
After that, we didn’t speak for a long time, but she perked up a little as it got twilight. The streetlights were lit, and Eris marveled at the many flickering flames as we rode past.
The traffic thinned to almost nothing as darkness crept in. Except for the occasional guard or drunkard, the streets were barren. Most career thieves and criminals wouldn’t dare let themselves be caught on the main roads. I started to look for a place to stop and rest, and before we’d gone a hundred feet, we passed by an inn.
It was a large white building, built in the half-timbered style so common in the Compass Kingdom, the wooden support beams flush to fresh white plaster and freshly stained bay windows. A gray shingled roof that looked easy to climb, and the makeshift ladder bolted to the side only confirmed it. If you needed a quick escape route, there were several options here. From the quick glance, it looked like a Trapped Lodge, an establishment built and operated with the sole purpose of relieving their patrons of their coin…by any means necessary.
These places thrived on the tourist traffic that came and went like wildfires. The people who lived in the city or frequented enough times knew to avoid these places like the plague. They paid hefty dues to the Merchants Guild to keep their operations running, which is the only reason the Alliance let them continue.
No way in the nine Hells am I risking Eris or myself by tempting fate that hard. I guided Lacuna through the dead streets, keeping a low profile as much as I could, though more than one pair of eyes peered at us from the rooftops or out from darkened alleyways. Thieves Guild oculars. That didn’t take long.
I withdrew and dropped three gold coins in purposeful succession—one after the other. The coins pinged off the stone like the cracks of a whip and destroyed the thin silence. A message and a toll rolled into one payment.
“Phineas Carn, Crescent Rose, noon.”
The absence was like a vacuum when they departed, and when I turned back, the coins had vanished—three taps on a nearby windowpane. Message received.
No further trouble followed us as we made our way deeper into the East Kingdom, past the sleeping houses and places of business. After maybe another ten minutes of riding through the sleepy streets, we came across another inn.
It was a rather boisterous place, as through the large bay window, I could see many a patron drinking and dancing, and the muffled sounds of music crept through the glass.
A glance at the vaulted, dark, wooden roof told me this place was as free of danger as I was likely to find inside the kingdom. I made my way around the small barn by the side of the stone building and stabled Lacuna. It wasn’t my ideal location to house her for the evening, but she was smarter than the average criminal, so I wasn’t worried about horse thieves.
I gingerly climbed off her and helped Eris down. She held my hand tightly as I opened the door. The first thing that hit me was the loud music. It was audible from outside, but I wasn’t prepared for how noisy it would be once we stepped inside. A mixture of drums and a lute with the soft vocals of a woman.
She was thin, with long golden blonde hair and sharp eyes. Her face held delicate features, high cheeks, and a round chin. She wasn’t beautiful, but I’d call her cute.
What stood out was her voice. It was soft, yet clear enough to resonate through the tavern, and it lent itself well to singing. The lute player and the drummer were both handsome men with similar features as the woman. All blond with slight looks and wearing matching blue and white clothes. A family of musicians?
I ignored them and focused on maneuvering my way through the bustling tavern, not so easy when I was dragging Eris through the crowd and kept having to stop or collide with drunken or dancing fools. I finally reached the check in station.
A stocky, handsome woman operated the counter. She was built large, not with fat but with a decent amount of muscle on her. She wasn’t a former adventurer, no. Her build came from everyday hard work. The muscles were too unrefined to be from combat training.
She had thick features, both in her face and elsewhere. She was quite busty; her tight tunic and apron showcased that all too well. Her long, brunette hair was tied back out of her face, and her light brown eyes lit up at the sight of me weaving and bobbing my way through the crowd of sloshed customers. I couldn’t help but laugh right back. I must have looked quite the character.
She kept up her laugh as I reached the counter, it devolved into several snorts before she could regain her composure enough to ask. “How are you tonight, sir? What can I do for you?”
“A room for the evening would be lovely, with a bath if you have it,” I said.
She
nodded and a sly grin graced her lips. “One room for just the two of you, eh? With a bath. That'll be ten copper.”
I pulled out a gold and handed it to her. Her eyes lit up at the sight of it. Gold must be uncommon here if that reaction is any indication. She bit into the metal, satisfied by the authenticity of the coin. “Let me run to the back and get your change, good sir.”
I shook my head. “No need for that. Consider it a tip. Though if you could have a meal brought for the two of us up to my room, I would be forever grateful.”
The innkeeper was a little flustered as she nodded enthusiastically. I’d probably just made her month. Her smile was as wide as it could be while she brushed her long hair to the side. “Of course, my lord, right away!” She handed me a silver key with the number one stamped on the bow.
“Please, none of that lord business, I’m the furthest thing from a noble.”
“Master, then?”
“Oh, gods, that might be worse. How about you call me Duran?” I asked. “And this is Eris.”
Eris smiled out from under her hood. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet ya both. My name is Sylvia, but you can call me Syl,” she replied with a smile.
“Lovely to meet you, Syl,” I said.
She merely nodded and added, “I’ll be by with your dinner as soon as it finishes.”
I let go of Eris as we headed up the stairs to the left of us. They were well made and didn’t so much as creak as we made my way up to the second floor. As I unlocked the door to our room, it opened into a rather spacious area. The wooden floor and walls were well maintained, and the bed was large and fluffy, with freshly laundered sheeting and what looked like feather pillows.
The nightstand held a small oil lantern. Eris crawled on the bed while I lit the lamp. The darkened room filled with soft lambent light. In the far corner of the room was our washtub. It was in the same room as the bed in this inn. I didn’t mind that fact. We both needed a bath, and the tub was just large enough to accommodate the two of us. I quickly heated the large jug of water on the small fire stone and poured the steaming water into the tub.
Hive Knight: A Dark Fantasy LitRPG (Trinity of the Hive Book 1) Page 32
