Chapter 15

Spring emerged from the freezing days of winter and with each new day bringing warmer weather, so too, did it seem the tensions in Fiell heated up. The assassination attempt on Emperor Evrain had changed the climate of Vealand.

The Emperor had been unreachable. The fact that the rebels had come so close to killing their beloved leader awoke a fear that most hadn’t known they had had. What would they do without Evrain? He had been the one who had saved their nation from death when the Coast had been destroyed.

That a tiny group of rebels could come so close to killing their leader shook Fiell and the rest of Vealand. Tensions rose.

The Emperor, who seemed so untouchable, so infallible, had nearly been killed.

Fiell’s spirit had been unsettled by the attempt on Emperor Evrain’s life. Nothing like this had happened in over forty years. The peace that they had thought the Emperor had built from the ashes of their destruction had been broken.

Rumors of Aris Ravenscroft’s fall only served to fuel the fire. It was said that the assassins had used some strange magic on the man and had possessed his body and overtaken him.

He was still comatose.

Nothing the imperial physicians tried had worked.

The Fiell that summer arrived in was different. Though the sun shone brightly, the nation felt as if it were in the throws of the darkest days of their harsh winters.

Where the Emperor had once been a force of nature, he now seemed vulnerable. The rebels had made it into the palace, a feat never done before, and had nearly killed Vealand’s sovereign ruler.

A whole unit of forty elite palace guards had been killed in the clash.

Fiell didn’t feel safe anymore.

*****

The outside world came back like a puzzle to Aris. He flirted with clarity and would have moments of lucidity, but just as quick as it came, it would leave.

Aris had been brought to his family after his collapse. The best palace doctors had seen to him, but they couldn’t find any explanation for what had happened to him.

Aris hadn’t sustained any injuries in the battle and there was no explanation for what had befallen him. He had been fine one second and then collapsed under severe mental strain the next. The physicians were baffled. They had never seen anything like it before. The best they could figure was that he’d had a sudden onslaught of brain fever. They told Corrine that there was nothing to be done.

They brought him home to be under the palliative care of his heartbroken family.

They said he would die soon.

The physicians had told Corrine her husband was beyond help but something in her soul told Corrine that her husband would be fine if just given time. She didn’t know why, but she was convinced of it.

Some small part of her knew what had happened. She didn’t know why, but whatever had happened to her husband felt familiar.

Why couldn’t she remember? Why was there a hole every time she came close to a recollection?

What terrified Corrine the most was her husband’s fevered mumblings. It was as if he were experiencing someone else’s life. Someone who seemed so familiar, but someone she had never known.

Her husband’s fever dream utterings deeply unsettled her, but Corrine didn’t let it show. She couldn’t let herself look weak in front of her family. Not now. Not when they needed strength.

The twins were afraid for the first times in their lives, and Sephira had withdrawn further into herself. She seemed to think that she was somehow responsible for her uncle’s condition.

Corrine had rejoiced when Aris showed his first signs of lucidity. She had known the physicians were wrong.

He wasn’t beyond hope.

His eyes had cleared and he smiled at her. The same smile that had made her fall in love with him in the first place. He had fallen back into his stupor shortly afterwards, but her heart lifted. His smile had given Corrine the strength to continue.

Three days later he Aris woke. The first thing he saw was Corrine scrunched up next to him on their large bed, hair falling in drapes ungracefully all over her face. She looked exhausted. She never seemed more beautiful to him than in that moment.

She awoke with a start when he took her hand and planted a loving kiss on it. Corrine let out a whoop of surprise and dove on him with a hug that nearly squeezed the breath out of his lungs.

“I love you too,” he laughed when she released him from her death grip.

“You’re back?!” tears streamed from her eyes.

He nodded. Whatever had happened to Aris had passed. He felt it in his soul. Something had changed, but whatever had happened, the worst had passed.

“What happened?” He asked.

“I don’t know what happened, but if whatever it was happens again, I’ll kill you myself! I don’t ever want to see you like that again,” Corrine pulled away and glared at him.

He smiled back at Corrine. Her glare broke. She burrowed into his arms again.

“Everyone was so worried about you! They said there was nothing we could do! But I knew they were wrong. I knew you’d return. I just knew it!”

“Of course I’d return. I’d be an idiot to leave a woman like you on your own,” Aris grinned.

A tear trickled down Corrine’s cheek. “Well, you ARE the biggest doofus I know. It’s a good thing that I love fools though,” she said as she kissed her husband.

They snuggled like that for nearly an hour before before she pulled away from Aris

“Kids! Your father is awake!” she shouted.

Little Elan and Elise both appeared in the room seconds later. They rushed at Aris with supernatural speed and dove into his embrace. Their words rushed out at such an intensity that Aris felt himself getting a headache as they relayed everything that had happened since he’d fallen comatose.

Aris nodded in gratitude towards Corrine when she ushered the two young children out of the room saying; “I think your father’s heard enough. If you talk too much more, you’ll probably send him into another coma. You wouldn’t want that right?”

They laughed as they were escorted out of the room.

“We love you daddy! We’re gonna go play now! Don’t sleep so long next time!”

“I’ll try not to!” he shouted after them.

*****

Sephira smiled as she heard the shout from her uncle. A dark unease had gripped her from the moment she had heard what had happened to him during the attempt on the life of the Emperor.

Sephira couldn’t help but feel she was somehow responsible for what had happened to her uncle. She knew that it was foolish to blame herself for it, but that nagging feeling wouldn’t leave her. It was always there, tugging at her soul.

She had lost her parents and had nearly lost her uncle. It ate at her insides. Was her presence poison to those whom she loved?

Did death follow her? Did violence trail behind her like a sick stalker?

The very same day that she learned of what had befallen her uncle, she had witnessed a violent fight between some city guards and two young vagabonds.

Sephira had noticed the guards stalking a young girl. It bothered her. Something was wrong. She’d been ready to stop them in the name of her uncle when they had attacked the young red-headed girl.

She’d screamed then, but her voice had been drowned out by the animal fury of the young girl’s protector.

He had charged at the guards and attacked them with blind rage. His onslaught had surprised them and the vagabond had crushed the eye socket of the man that had struck the young girl.

Sephira almost thrown up then, but she swallowed it. Something compelled her to keep watching. She couldn’t turn her eyes from the scene unfolding before her.

The fight was over nearly as quickly as it’d started. The young man —who felt so familiar— dealt damage to the two guards but had fallen after taking unexpected blow to the back of his skull.

Even with all the shouting and noise, she could still remember the loud crack. She’d been sure that he had died then.

His head had to have cracked from the blow.

It was so violent.

Still the guard with the blinded eye had kept on wailing on him.

Sephira had been among the crowd that surged forward to protect the young vagabonds. The abuse of power by the guards had riled the crowd to a frenzy and she could tell from the electric tinge in the air that had it continued any further a riot would have erupted on the spot.

Their threats of reprisal had stopped the maddened guard from his attack on the man’s prone body, but they hadn’t been able to keep the men from taking the fallen young girl.

The crowd, their thirst for reprisal suddenly slated, had dispersed immediately afterwards. They were content to leave the dead vagabond in the streets.

They were such hypocrites. How dare they act outraged when they wouldn’t bother to even touch the body of the fallen man?

Sephira screamed when the young man’s body had convulsed when she touched it.

He wasn’t dead.

She rolled the body over and began to clean his wounds with a kerchief she produced from a hidden pocket in her petticoat.

His face was familiar. She had seen him before.

He was the beggar that had protected the young girl she’d given her loaf of bread to those few weeks back.

Sephira’s heart fell.

They hadn’t deserved this.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to his unmoving body.

If he survived his wounds he would be devastated at the loss of the child. She remembered the care and pride in his eyes when he’d watched the young red head.

That look from him had stayed in the back of her mind.

There was something that felt like home in that look. Had her parents had that look in their eyes before they’d been taken from her?

Sephira scanned the dusty alleyway. How was it, even so close to the mighty Lao river, everything could be so dusty? There was ample water to clean the streets. The spring rains should have washed the dirt of the winter away, but they had only seemed to drive the dust deeper into the wood and stone of the buildings.

Sephira noticed an older man watching her curiously. “Please help me,” she begged him, not knowing why she said what she did.

He nodded came beside her and kneeled down to inspect the young vagabond’s wounds. The man looked to be in his mid fifties, with a fully grey beard that bristled like the hair on an angry cat, a sharp nose, and a bald head.

His eyes had widened when she spoke to him.

Why?

After a thorough check of the fallen man, the old man delicately lifted the battered vagabond and began to walk.

Sephira followed the older man for a full five minutes before the he spoke. She flushed when she realized that she had tailed him without question. Uncle Aris would be ashamed of her foolishness.

“Do you know this young man?” he’d asked in a deep baritone voice that reminded her of the mountains towering over their sprawling city.

“Uhhmm,” she hesitated.

The old man let out a loud unexpected laugh that boomed and echoed through the riverside shanties.

“You must have a heart of gold child. You’re following some old man through dark alleyways to care for some street rat you don’t even know. What’s more, he’ll most likely find himself hunted by that old dog Aris’s guards."

The way the old man spoke so carelessly of her uncle rankled Sephira.

“No he isnt!” Sephira hissed.

“Hmm?” the old man stopped walking.

He turned to look at her.

“I said no he isn’t a dog! I know for a fact that Aris Ravenscroft would never allow such a thing. I’m sure that he’ll strictly punish those monsters who abused his name!”

The old man smiled in response. There was something infuriating in that grin.

He turned and began walking again.

Sephira followed. She couldn’t explain why she did so, but she still she followed.

“We’re here,” the grizzly man said as he opened the door then gently placed the injured young man on the bed in the corner of his small cabin.

The old man’s dwellings were sparse. They reminded Sephira of the small barracks her uncle’s estate housed.

“Go,” the gruff old man commanded Sephira. “Take one of the pots and fill it with water then boil it. When it’s well heated, put some of those rags into it,” he pointed to a pile of cloth on a shelf, “and leave them in the water for a minute. Then give them to me. I need to clean his wounds to see what we’re dealing with.”

Sephira obeyed without a second thought. The old man had an air of command about him. She grabbed the nearest of the three pots that hung from a peg above the small doorway then snatched some of the linens that were militarily folded and stacked neatly on a rough wooden shelf.

She finished and turned to the old man offering him the linens. He nodded, grabbed them, then began to clean the vagabond’s wounds.

“You know how to cook?” he asked, not bothering to turn around.

“Yes.”

“Good, go to my pantry and grab a couple of sheep bones and some leeks. This boy’s going to need some broth.”

She had already halfway opened the door to the modest pantry and had started grabbing ingredients by the time he’d finished his command.

Half an hour later, Sephira was satisfied with the bone marrow broth and searched until she found one of the two rough wooden bowls the old man owned and filled it with the steaming broth. She then turned to truly gaze on the young man for the first time as she slowly dripped the brew into his mouth.

He looked entirely different than he had a mere hour before. His face, devoid of grime, was strong. It was surprisingly handsome despite the bruises discoloring it and the bent angle of his broken nose.

He had a strong brow and a short scruffy beard that hugged a square jawline. His hair, though still dirty, was long and the color of ponderosa bark.

Seeing the boy now, she realized that he wasn’t nearly as old as she had first thought. Though he had the beginnings of worry lines, and a brow that even then furrowed, he couldn’t have been any older than her.

Sephira looked closer, her ladle of broth hovering in her hand. Just how old was he?

“He cleans up well, doesn’t he?” the question startled her, and her face reddened from embarrassment.

How long had she been looking at him?

“Why are you asking me that?” Sephira replied with a huff.

“I’m not the one who was staring at him.”

Sephira’s face turned an even deeper shade of crimson and the salty old mountain man laughed at her embarrassment.

“No. His face seemed familiar. I was trying to place it,” Sephira blurted out, embarrassed and trying to change the subject.

It wasn’t a lie. Not really.

The old man caught her half truth and opened his mouth to crack another joke, but she shot him an icy look that suppressed his voice, but not his sardonic smile.

How was it she could know someone for an hour and already hate something about them?

“You better go now, it’ll be getting dark soon and it’ll be much safer for you to leave while there’s still light.”

Sephira looked out the window and to her surprise, the sun was cresting over the western peaks. The clouds were already beginning to flare with brilliant shades of oranges and pinks but she knew they wouldn’t last long. Night fell quickly at the foot of the mountains.

“I trust you remember how to make it home from here?” the gruff old man asked.

Sephira nodded.

“I would usually accompany one such as you, but I have a young man to care for who may not make it through the night if I leave his side,” the older man said with a tinge of concern in his voice. “Here take this, I’m sure you know the basic uses for self defense,” he leaned over the young man and retrieved a metalvine from the bedside. “Make sure to visit again now that you know where I am. I’ll be wanting my metalvine back.”

Sephira nodded and grabbed the weapon without a second thought.

With one last glance over her shoulder at the mysterious old man and the injured beggar, Sephira stepped out of the door and began her trek home.

She had made it halfway back to her family’s estate before she ever thought to question why the old man had a metalvine, and why he had correctly assumed that she would know how to use it.

Did he know who she was?

That wasn’t possible. She’d only met him barely more than an hour ago.

Sephira twisted the metalvine in her hand as she thought it over.

She had indeed been trained in basic self defense by her uncle ever since she’d had her first bleeding at the age of thirteen. He had insisted she learn enough to defend herself on the streets. Seeing the darkness of the city had made him paranoid and he wouldn’t let his niece walk the streets unable to protect herself so from that day forward, he’d drilled her in Falis at least once a week and had made sure she was competent in fighting. He told her he planned to do the same with the twins after their first bleeding too.

Had the old man known that somehow? Why not hand her a knife? Why hand her a metalvine, an expensive military weapon?

Her questions had fled from her mind the moment she’d arrived home to see her aunt and nieces sobbing. She had fallen to her knees upon hearing the news of what had happened to her uncle.

That had been three weeks ago.

Whatever darkness that had been in Sephira’s heart melted away as she heard her uncle tell a bawdy joke that elicited a scandalized giggle from his wife.

Everything was back to normal.