I learned how to read at some point in my life. I can’t remember when. It must’ve been at some point in that haze of my life before my master. But I’m grateful for it; whenever and however it happened.
That memory, like everything else before I met my master, is locked behind an opaque wall. I wonder if I’m under the effect of a spell because it doesn’t make sense for my memory to fail me this way.
I see that glassy eye again. A woman I struggle to remember. But I also see golden hair. It's beautiful in a way I can't describe. It shimmers like liquid metal and flows behind someone I can't make out. The figure is running. Away from me? Ahead of me? I don't know.
What are these memories? Why would they be locked away?
The only person who could’ve done it would’ve been my master. Why would he, though? I know he killed all of those people. It didn’t matter to me, and I remember that fact clearly. Why is everything else a haze?
While Olexandrya, Pepper, and Rakel work to get all the bodies buried; I’ve been exploring a destroyed library I found near the center of the village.
It’s a multiple day project, similar to their mass burial. I had to excavate the main room, clearing out rubble bit by bit. By the time carved a path to an open area, I had a pile of rubble by the door.
For some reason, the room was partially flooded. I sloshed around, plucking through soggy books and crumbled shelves.
I salvaged as many books as I could and started a stack by the door, hoping the sun would dry them out. Some are salvageable, some aren't.
I end up with four books that are legible enough and take them back to the shack.
The first one is a book that discusses the biology of ‘Henne Drakes.’ Apparently they’re native to the area. I skim through most of the details. When I’m done, I chuck the book out the window.
Next is a love story about a princess who abandoned her family to marry a peasant. Once finished, it goes out the window.
Day and night, I read. At night, I create a ball of burning mana that hovers above my head. Its light is dim, but it’s enough.
Sometimes Olexandrya stays up late as well. She picks through my selection of books, commenting on which ones she’s read.
One night, I speak without thinking. I’m barely into the third book; a story about a frog attempting revenge on a fisherman that used his children as bait.
The fisherman left the pond and the frog is planning a crusade to annihilate all people like him out in the world.
It's the longest one by far, despite being a similar size. The pages are thinner than the other books. Luckily, it was higher up and was hardly touched by the water. Otherwise it would've been ruined for sure.
The narrator can't stop ranting about what the frog pictures the greater world as. He wonders what people like the fisherman are and why they kill so carelessly for pages upon pages.
“Why do you keep sleeping on the floor?” I ask, peeling my attention from the book.
Olexandrya is midway through a book of her own, the fourth book. She looks up at me.
“Would you rather I sleep with you?”
“Surely there are other rooms,” I reply, returning my attention to the book.
Olexandrya laughs quietly.
“I’d rather stay.”
I fall asleep reading. I know this because when I wake, my mana is still floating in the air and the book is lying on my chest. I fold the page to preserve my place and sit up with a groan.
Olexandrya is on the floor, face hidden under a book. Rakel is dangling off the other bed. Pepper is tucked under the covers.
I hardly register the man sitting in the window. When I do, I don’t hesitate.
I thrust my hand towards the window, and my floating mana spins into a flare. The flare shoots towards him, exploding on impact.
The window, the wall, and presumably the man are consumed in a ball of golden flames.
“Wake up!” I yell at the three snoring women. “We’re under attack!”
Olexandrya is up first. The book falls to the floor while she jumps to her feet.
I charge to the destroyed wall and look down.
The man is standing on the street below, surrounded by rubble. He’s wearing a pointy hat and his mouth and chin are buried in gray facial hair. He’s wearing loose brown robes.
“That was uncalled for,” he calls up to me. “You could’ve hurt me.”
Olexandrya jumps past me, broadsword in hand. She kicks off the wall and drops into a spin, swinging the broadsword overhead with both hands.
The man dodged at the last second, and the sword connects with the ground. The blade sinks into the brick, and Olexandrya adjusts her grip, using the handle as leverage to swing her body. She plants both feet in the man’s side, launching him up the street.
The man lands on his back with a grunt.
“What’s going on?” Rakel groans, sitting up.
“We were attacked,” I say without turning.
Olexandrya rips the broadsword from the ground and levels it at the man.
“Who are you?” She demands.
“Envoy!” The man spits, getting up slowly. “I’m here to—”
Rakel jumps past me, yelling as she lands next to Olexandrya.
“Who is that?” She shouts.
“I just asked!” Olexandrya snaps. “He won’t tell me.”
“We’ll have to beat it out of him, then.”
“I think he's an envoy,” I say. But neither of them hear me. I don't bother repeating myself.
The man gets to his feet, grumbling to himself.
I’d feel bad for him if he hadn’t startled me. How could I have been caught so off guard? How long had he been in the window?
“My name is—”
“Guys!” Pepper pushes past me next, all but dangling herself out the hole in the wall. “Who’s that guy? Is he an enemy?”
“He's an envoy,” I say.
“Oh,” Pepper says. “Really?”
“We don’t know!” Rakel yells.
“If you would listen to me!” the man barks. “You would know!”
“Then tell us!” Olexandrya calls, waving her sword.
“I’m here on behalf of the Queen,” the man says, adjusting his robes. “The Demon Lord fled Grumelle. The war is over. The only resistance left in the Dead Lands is the three remaining generals. The coalitions existence is no longer justified.”
The Queen? Of what?
“Who’s this queen he's talking about?” I ask under my breath, feeling a bit stupid.
Pepper leans back, fixing a flat look at me.
“You don’t know who the Queen is?” She asks. “The Queen of the Free Lands?”
I suppose it makes sense that there’s a ruler of the Freelands. I’d never given it much thought.
“Where did he run to?” Rakel asks.
“East,” the man says. “Likely taking shelter in Verteiga. That place is a lawless void. Either way, the coalition is being disbanded. If you plan on finishing off the Demon Lord, your only course of action is to receive council from the Queen…”
He keeps talking but I stop paying attention. I decide to abandon my ego.
“Pepper,” I say. “What's going on?”
“We've lost our jobs twice over,” she says. “Your master isn't in the country anymore. So now we have to basically beg the Queen to grant us permission to hunt him down in Verteiga.”
“Grumelle is…”
“That's the country you're currently standing in, yes.” She gives me a flat look in the corner of her eye, as if awaiting another stupid question.
I've never heard the name Grumelle before. I've only heard of the ‘Free Lands' and the ‘Dead Lands'. The land to be conquered and the land that belonged to my master.
Why would my master flee the country altogether? What's he planning to do? Rally power in this Verteiga place?
What's my role in this plan?
When I look back down at the street, I find Olexandrya and Rakel standing over the man. They're both pelting him with kicks.
“Stop! You can't just—get off of me!”
“If this Queen is so important,” I say. “Shouldn't you stop them?”
“Yeah,” Pepper drawls. “Probably.” She steps forward and drops through the hole.
I return to my bed and pick up my book. I'm nearly halfway through the frogs quest for revenge and he still hasn't left the pond. He isn't even doing anything, just drinking at pubs and arguing with his wife.
I don't know how he plans on annihilating all humans if he doesn't start training or something. I wonder if he'll learn to use magic.
Not long later, Olexandrya lands in our newly formed window.
“Well,” she says. “We'll be leaving soon.”
“You're giving in to this Queen person, Olexandrya?”
She saunters to the bed and collapses across the foot.
I withdraw my legs slightly and stare at her.
“I must say.” I fold my page and close the book. “The more I learn about you, the less impressed I am.”
Olexandrya turns onto her side, eyeing me.
“You were impressed before?”
“I believed you to be the sole leader of your people. Are you even the most powerful of them?”
Olexandrya laughs.
“I don't know the first thing about leadership. I'm at my best when I have an enemy in front of me. And someone giving me orders.
I consider that.
“What happens when you run out of enemies and people to take responsibility for you?”
She smiles.
“If I'm lucky, I'll be dead by then.” Her face sinks as she says it.
I find myself annoyed with the almost heartbroken look on her face.
“You're lucky, then,” I blurt. “I'll be here for exactly as long as you will due to our predicament. And I have no problem barking orders at you if that's what you want.”
Olexandrya's eyes widen slightly.
“Is that right?” She asks, her voice heavy and low.
I won't meet her eyes. I'm not sure why, but I just can't make myself do it.
“I don't have much option,” I say. “We're bound.”
“I suppose you're right.” She lays her head back with a groan. “Anyway, are you hungry? We're having breakfast with the bearer of bad news down there.”
“No. I'm not inclined to spend anymore time with humans than I have to. Enjoy your bad news.”
Olexandrya scoffs and sits up. A moment later, she vanishes out the window.
An hour has hardly passed when the envoy appears, landing in the window before my eyes.
The frog still hasn't left the pond. In fact, he's at his dying wife's bedside. And I've only got ten odd pages left. Is this book a part of a series? Is it incomplete?
I crane my neck, glimpsing the others heading up the street.
“What is a demon doing traveling with women of the coalition?” The envoy asks. He folds his legs as if he were sitting in an invisible chair. He has a lot of poise for someone who'd been getting stepped on a moment ago.
I fold my page and shut the book.
“They are no longer women of the coalition,” I say. “They've been exiled. Perhaps they've chosen a more… promising side.”
The envoy pales.
“You speak of treason,” he hisses. Then he stands and draws a rapier from thin air. “Drya has given me express permission to execute you if you spoke out against me.
That's a damn lie. Unless Olexandrya has suddenly grown suicidal.
But they have left him alone with me. Either, they're blind to this man's intentions or Olexandrya trusts me to handle myself.
I also note that he refers to her as Drya. Is there some relationship there? Or is he presumptuous?
And this man may be stronger than what he's displayed so far. I know my initial attack hit him head on and his clothes aren't even burned.
I stand.
“How do you plan to do that?” I ask.
The envoy levels the rapier.
“I will drive this blade into your very heart.”
I take a step and he does the same. Is the rapier trembling in his hands? No, the air is moving.
I focus on the air around him, watching it ripple like translucent water. There's some kind of shield on him.
Do the others know of this? Is that why they attacked him so carelessly, because he's protected?
“What is that shield,” I ask. “A magical barrier?”
The rapier falls to the floor.
“You…” the man gasps. “Can see her majesty's magic?”
I look him up and down. If Olexandrya really wanted him dead, she would've used her sword to sap the mana of that shield.
“I suppose I can.”
His mouth stretches into a smile.
“Tell me,” he says. “What do you see?”
I don't want to talk to this man anymore. I liked him better when I thought he would try and kill me.
I decide to put an end to this.
“I'm well aware that Olexandrya doesn't want me killed,” I say. “If you keep pestering me, I'll have her kill you.”
The man stammers and snatches up his rapier.
“Fine!” He barks. Then he turns and stomps out the window, plummeting down below.
I sit back down. What a strange man. I decide to finish the long frog book, instead of mulling over it.
The frog doesn't leave the pond. In fact, he buries his wife and remains there.
One of the last lines laments about his focus on revenge blinding him to his wife's despair.
The frog rants about his weakness and his inability to fight. Then, he says something that sticks out to me. The very last line of the book.
“I regret opening my eyes to the world beyond this pond. I regret burning the fuel of my being contemplating that worlds destruction… I am not a killer. I am a frog. Ribbit.”
I close the book.
“Poor frog,” I say. Then I go to throw the book through the hole in the wall. Instead, I set it down the bed.
I'm not sure why, but I like the ending. Something about that realization; that the entire story had been a frog wasting the little life he had, satisfies me. Obviously, the frog should've killed the fisherman before he escaped the pond. That would've solved everything.
I decide that the book is mine. I'll keep it. I like stories that have lessons in them.
I consider the fourth book, the one Olexandrya has been reading. It's sitting face down on the floor, presumably opened to the page she's on.
I'll leave it for her. I get up and head back to the library. I come across Olexandrya, Rakel, and Pepper on the way.
“We’ve cleared all the bodies,” Olexandrya says. “Will you join us for the rites?”
“The what?”
“Just come on,” Pepper says. “Maybe you’ll see something new.”
I consider ignoring them, but ultimately give in to my curiosity. The envoy is nowhere to be found, maybe he left.
I follow them up the street and through the open gates of the main entrance. Beyond the walls is the dense forest.
We follow a path lined with thorny brush. On one side, I catch glimpses of a river through the cracks.
“After this,” Olexandrya says, keeping pace with me. “We'll have to leave by nightfall.”
“How will we travel?” I ask, watching Rakel and Pepper's backs.
“Rakel has a few horses in her pack.”
“Pardon?”
“You'll see,” she says with a shrug. “I wanted to ask you something before we start… reentering the civilised world.”
I scoff.
“You want to know if I'll be able to perform humanity?”
Olexandrya shakes her head.
“Aside from the horns,” she says. “You're plenty human.”
Sure.
But my sarcasm is drained when I see what's ahead.
The side opposite the river opens up. Trees have been taken down and stumps have been uprooted. They're gathered in a massive pile near the middle of a clearing.
That isn't what holds my attention, though. There are gravestones lined up throughout. Hundreds, in rows of twenty.
“You…” I'm not sure what to say. Would it be disrespectful to be impressed? “Did this in a week?”
“I cleared as much of the dirt out of the stumps as I could,” Pepper says, stopping at a gap in the rows of graves that leads to the pile of wood.
“It’s you, Rakel,” Olexandrya says, stopping next to Pepper.
I linger a few steps back.
Rakel’s shoulders wobble.
I glance between Pepper and Olexandrya’s stern faces.
“Drya… will you…”
“No. Do it, Rakel.”
Rakel nods, running a hand along her tied-up hair. Then she walks past them, approaching the pyre.
Olexandrya waves me forward and we follow a few steps behind Rakel.
The air is thickening. Am I nervous, or is something moving around us?
I watch the trees. Their leaves are still. There’s no breeze. No noise. But the gray sky shifts, clouds drifting.
Rakel claimed that she saw the faces I saw when she dealt the final blow to that snake demon. She claimed to watch them disappear into the wind. Where would the remains of a soul go? If the body had been killed? Would it just hover on the wind for eternity?
Ahead, Rakel stops just shy of the pyre.
“When I was a girl,” she says. “I wanted to be a hero.” She produces some folded parchment from her pocket. “It wasn’t until here. Until Wettes. Until we fought those Tikinoughts off at those very walls...”
Pepper wrings her hands, watching the ground. Olexandrya stares at Rakel’s back.
I’m not sure where to look. Wettes? Is that was this village is called?
“It wasn’t until I fought side by side with these people that I truly felt worthy of that word.” Rakel unfolds the parchment. Words are written all over it.
“Albo. Rupert. Harriet. Jo. The man with the strange hat. Michael…”
She goes on and on, listing names or significant identifiers. I find myself watching the parchment tremble in her hands. How could she possibly have remembered so many? From what, their faces?
The sun is buried behind the clouds by the time Rakel reaches the end of her third bit of parchment.
She lowers it and raises her head.
“I used to think that it was enough that I fought. That I was here, standing between those at risk and those that would harm them.” She closes her fist around the parchment. “But you’re all dead. And I wasn’t here.”
I start to speak, almost instinctively. For some reason, I want to correct her. There was likely nothing she could’ve done. There was no way she could’ve known what was happening here.
But Olexandrya’s hand snaps up. She reaches back and takes my arm. I stare at her hand for a moment, remaining silent.
Is this what Olexandrya wants? Is this important to Rakel? To sit in this lament and tear herself open?
“I wish…” Rakel’s lips quiver. Her knuckles are white. “I wish that I’d never had the nerve to call myself a hero. Because a hero would’ve been there when it mattered most. I’m sorry.”
I’ve had enough. I push past Olexandrya and Pepper and join Rakel in front of the pyre.
She lowers her head slightly, her watery eyes meeting mine.
“They’re dead,” I say. “They can’t hear you.”
Rakel stares at me.
Olexandrya makes a choked noise.
“Aerida!” she snaps.
“You can’t beg the dead for forgiveness,” I go on. “All you can do is keep doing whatever it is you’re doing and don’t allow it to happen again, right?”
Rakel nods slowly, wiping her face. She leans forward, tugs a branch free of the pyre and levels it in front of me.
“Will you?” She asks.
I stare at the branch, unsure what she’s asking of me.
“She wants you to light it,” Pepper supplies.
I don’t think I’m anything like the frog in that book. For starters, I’m not after any sort of revenge. I’ve always lived my life in pursuit of love.
But nonetheless, I feel as though my pond has been emptied. I’ve been forced out into this strange world with little guidance and an excessive amount of risk. I don’t like admitting that these people are starting to grow on me with their strange anxieties and amusing personalities.
I take the end of the branch.
“Moonlight Tranquility.” Fire spreads from my hand, blooming along the branch.
Rakel raises the branch, guiding the flames to the pyre itself.
If this is to be my role, I’ll play it and perhaps I’ll even find a way to enjoy it. No matter what becomes of it.