[Stella]
Before Stella lay the corpse of a man, stretched across a slab of white marble.
She stared down at the corpse for the umpteenth time, willing it to speak.
It wouldn’t, of course. Dead men tell no tales, after all. But for a coroner like her, the dead’s bodies spoke of what their tongues couldn’t.
The story this corpse told was a mismatched puzzle.
The few days since it last had a soul moving it, the peculiar discoloration overlying its yellowed pallor, the signs it showed of severe liver poisoning, and then its status as the third corpse of such state found in this week. The twelfth overall since the past month.
Stella liked a good puzzle, but not when the solution betrayed the premise.
The village head urged her for a report, an answer—anything to calm the villagers’ distress, but Stella couldn’t find it in herself to write down the half-baked theories buzzing in her mind.
The sound of the door opening cut into her musings, finding the arrival to be her apprentice upon turning. She raised an eyebrow. “You’re early today.”
Her apprentice Avon usually came in the afternoon, having finished with his household chores. But his early arrival wasn’t the oddest thing about Avon today. He seemed… unsettled, downtrodden.
“Sit,” she ordered, feeling the boy had something to say. Once he did as told, she asked in the same tone she used in her lectures, “What’s the matter?”
“I won’t be able to continue my lessons, Miss Kale…” he began, “I have to leave the village soon.”
“Your family’s settling elsewhere?” It was the only possibility she could think of, and even then it still didn’t make sense. Avon was still too early in his studies to try enrolling in the Royal Academy. Not to mention how dangerous of a venture it would be to travel with the Kingdom’s current state of disorder.
Avon shook his head. “You probably didn’t hear about this yet, but the village head gathered everyone yesterday at sunfall.”
Stella knew whatever that man plotted would anger her. “What did Gustav want?”
“He enlisted four villagers for the Kingdom. I’m among them.”
For the Kingdom. That could only mean one thing.
The Kingdom of Ashmore’s years-long conflict against a traitorous subject. A conflict that had the Kingdom urging its people to join its throes. A quest. One that few fortunate abandoned, while the remaining most were left to rot.
She was right. Of course, she was. Since when did Gustav have anything decent to say? “He picked you?” she asked, nearly commanding Avon to change his answer.
But Avon only nodded, gaze deadened.
Stella raised a hand to massage her temples, feeling the headache induced by lack of sleep intensifying.
It disgusted her to immediately discern why Gustav chose Avon.
Avon had a future he aspired towards, a dream to enroll in the Royal Academy of Capital City. Abandoning the quest he seemingly enlisted himself into would put a blemish on his reputation and prospects.
It would lead his dreams to ruin.
No.
Not if she had anything to say about it. “You’ll stay.”
Avon blinked. That hollow look in his eyes receded, making way for pure puzzlement. “Here?” he asked, gesturing at her office.
“The village, Avon.”
“But I can’t stay,” Avon said, slow and unsure, as if he believed Stella didn’t listen to a word he said.
“You can if someone takes your place.”
“Who would ever do that?” He frowned, only for his eyes to widen upon meeting Stella’s unimpressed look. “You…?”
Many of the decisions Stella made were out of sheer spite and stubbornness. She had yet to regret any of them, even if their consequences burnt her bridges. This one wouldn’t be any different.
“Yes, me.”
“Miss Kale, are you really sure about this?” Avon asked her the following morning, pausing from packing the books cluttering the desk. It was the fourth time he asked this since he arrived to help with tidying up the office. With each time, he sounded more and more urgent—more and more guilty.
Stella sighed, replying, “Do you know how to counter a poison’s effects with another’s?”
“You… you can do that?”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m going and you’re not.” Avon was bright, yes. He showed immense potential, but he was too young, too inexperienced to be of significant use. He’d only cause his family unnecessary grief.
Avon seemed to accept that answer, working silently for a while before holding the last item remaining on the desk to her: an incomplete report regarding the unknown corpse. “What about this?”
With her mind set on leaving, Stella tried to produce an explanation for the corpse’s demise. It was only late at night that she finally gave up, letting Gustav’s men bury it in the village cemetery. It was a fate that those of the corpse’s ilk fell into, all with incomplete reports.
She could let go of the report, too, just like its corpse. She could but didn’t; instead she told Avon, “Keep it with you until I come back. Maybe then I’ll manage to complete it.”
“Miss Kale…” Avon said, trailing off.
She knew what he wanted to say but wasn’t interested in hearing it.
Perhaps she’d be one of the many falling to the quest, or perhaps she’d be one of the few abandoning it.
It would be nicer, of course, if she somehow became one of those ending it.
But Stella always preferred the probable to wishful thinking.
Frankly, working as a coroner was a waste of her expertise.
Then again, it was that expertise that had her willingly isolate herself in this part of the Kingdom, her main source of news being Avon.
Outside of teaching, Stella didn’t think her old field would come of use. She hadn't anticipated it would be used in this way, either—a way to defend herself.
With her work and office sorted out, Stella spent the night before departure making preparations in her private laboratory, combing through concoctions and compounds she had long since forgotten about. She packed the most effective of the collection, hoping they would help her survive for a time.
When Stella arrived at Gustav’s residence early in the morning, she found him standing with his son at its gates, casting looks of pure confusion at an unfamiliar young man with a peculiar-looking staff in hand.
Stella might’ve been a recluse, but even she knew this young man wasn’t a local to the village. She couldn't link him to any of the candidates Gustav selected in his false claims. Not Avon, not the village butcher’s son, not the innkeeper, and not the retired Royal Diplomat’s stepson.
In response to her inquiring looks, the young man merely smiled, his dark eyes glinting in mischief.
They were soon joined by another. The butcher, not his son.
The butcher’s blue eyes burned in anger. Stella only met him when Avon was too occupied with his studies to bring her necessities from the market, but she thought him to be a mild-mannered and patient fellow. Now? He looked ready to put vital pieces of Gustav on sale.
Trust Gustav to bring out the worst in anyone.
Then came the last arrival, yet another that wasn’t among the selected: a young woman Stella recognized by face but not by name. She came across her as well in one or two occasions, and those were accompanied by gossipy villagers either enviously or reverently remarking on her looks.
The young woman carried an assortment of items, admirably unbothered by their weight. In a hand, she held a bow. On her back, she had arrows in a quiver. From her waist dangled a small pouch. Over a shoulder, she hung a wide strap tied to a large bag—one holding what appeared to be a lute among its contents. A measure against boredom, perhaps?
At any rate, it seemed Stella wasn’t the only one that took another’s place.
With every appearance, Gustav’s confused gaze dissipated, until it finally morphed into outrage. “What is the meaning of this?!”
“What other meaning is there?” Stella returned, not bothering to hide her disgust. “You wanted people to represent the village and you have them.”
“People I’ve selected, not you!”
“And what difference does that make?
“Father, we don’t have much time,” Gustav’s son reminded, interrupting his father’s retort. “You already sent word to Cora Town. Don’t you think it’s easier to rewrite the names than starting anew?”
It was amazing how dutifully the son followed the father’s footsteps.
Gustav appeared to think about it for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh. He ordered his son to bring him a booklet and a pen. Once he got them, he started with the butcher, “Name, age, and occupation?”
“William Bernard. I’m forty-two years of age. I work as a butcher.”
“Alright, now…” Gustav looked at her.
Stella raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know your age,” Gustav argued.
“Thirty-one.”
With an almost palpable relief, Gustav went on scribbling, locking onto the next target once he finished: the unfamiliar young man. “And you?”
“Just call me Yonten. I’m allegedly twenty-four.”
Allegedly?
It seemed Gustav shared the confusion but decided against questioning in that line further. “And what do you do, Yonten?”
“Oh, I travel from place to place, witnessing the start of a new era here, the end of another there…”
What a beautifully useless answer.
Gustav snapped his attention to the next person so quickly it was impressive. He asked the young woman standing next to Stella, expression for once expectant, “Are you as good as your brother?”
The young woman completely ignored his inquiry, answering, “Jehona Spyros. Twenty. I’m unemployed as well.”
Yonten looked in Jehona’s way, perhaps detecting the jab at his expense. It amused Stella a little.
But wait. Spyros? Wasn’t that the family the retired Royal Diplomat married into?
Gustav closed the booklet after a final scribble, bringing out an emblem from his pocket. “This is Cinder Village’s emblem. Give it to the Royal Knights stationed at Cora Town along with my letter. That’ll be enough for you and your families to receive funds.”
And for some to enter his coffers, of course.
Ever since the Kingdom descended into chaos after the Elemental Smith Aldric betrayed the King, the situation in Cinder Village slowly changed. While Cinder was far from the heart of the crisis, its economy was still affected.
The King ordered funds to those volunteering in the fight to restore peace to the Kingdom. Their families and hometowns were included, too. It was those funds that Gustav salivated after, so much that he manipulated his way into getting them.
Stella didn’t step close to take the emblem and the letter from Gustav. Instead, she remained rooted in her spot, hoping to convey her utter contempt for him in her gaze. William seemed to hold his own grudge, while Jehona just didn’t seem to care.
With no one to take the items, the task fell on Yonten.
They spared no farewells to the bastard and his spawn, turning their backs on them and setting off on a quest of unknown outcomes.
