THE NEXT MORNING...

I had the first full night since I’ve been alive, but it went by too fast. We’ve been heading eastbound since morning. I’ve been silently watching the sky as Ameline listens to Charlotte read her book. As we pass through the countryside, the daylight protects us from the Fiends, but come nightfall, they will return.

“We’ll need to cross the bridge known as the Peddler’s Reach,” Duncan says while looking at his map. "The bridge will lead us to the Akhran region, then we'll head north to Theoton. We’ll be passing a few small villages on the way.”

Ameline has been shaking with excitement ever since she woke up. Duncan had filled her head with images of the city before she fell asleep the previous night. He described Theoton as a luxurious place filled with entertainment and good food, with layers of beautiful architecture. Ameline seemed most interested in Theoton’s ‘famous’ library of infinite wisdom, where supposedly every book ever written is waiting on tall shelves to be read. Duncan’s stories were enough to make even me giddy, but ever since reading that letter, everything mentioned feels much more drab and menacing now that I imagine the city filled with Shadowhearts.

“Yuck,” Charlotte says. “My hair is damaged from the long journey. I could really use a good wash.”

“Me too,” Ameline squeaks.

“Whoo… I agree. You smell rancid,” I say with a smile.

“Well, you need a dozen baths!” Ameline snarks.

Charlotte spends a bit of time using her comb to wring out Ameline’s long, blue mane. However, when she touches the girl’s braid, Ameline almost instantly jerks her head back and shouts ‘DON’T TOUCH!’ so loud that it causes the horses to whinny in fright. Neither of us question her. By the look on her face, I can tell how important that braid is to her.

Charlotte speaks with enough courtesy not to be graphic for Ameline's sake but also without vagueness for me. She tells us of her childhood in a bustling village called Galeia, resting at the foot of one of the great mountains to the north. She describes it as a mining town, with its only resources related to rocks or crystals burrowed within the mountains, which were hand-carved and bleeded dry of every ore it contained. Some crystals were useless as material, but they sparkled and made people’s eyes melt with desire. Some crystals were special, like the Echo Shard, the same little gem that she and Duncan used to speak at long distances. Even their food was grown near a mountain, like turnips and potatoes, and a vegetable called a Dendrite, which Charlotte describes the taste as ‘a badly rotten carrot even when they were ripe’.

Charlotte was born the only daughter to a large family of seven sons that all grew into ale-spewing degenerates, only living to mine and drink through the day, then sleep through the night. Just like her father. Constantly drunk, but never a man she couldn’t call her father, the man worked daily since childhood to provide for his family, and even harder once he was married to Charlotte's mother, a simple milk maid. Things were heavenly for Charlotte as a child. She got everything her heart desired, from the smallest trinket to the largest of keepsakes, which did not sit well with her brothers. Even now, she couldn’t even remember all their names from how much she was ostracized.

Suddenly, Duncan calls back. “We’re approaching the bridge!”

The chariot slowly rolls to a stop, and I peer out the window to see down the path. A whole caravan of merchants are parked before us, all leading to the side of a small booth and a large gate blocking the entrance of a long, foggy bridge. The carriages roll forward as soon as the gates swing open, then stop immediately when the gate slams shut again. 

“What is this?” Charlotte asks. “Some kind of checkpoint?”

Duncan follows the line to the booth for what seemed like an eternity. The whole time, I hear a gruff voice repeating the same questions and receiving the same answers, followed by squeaking gates opening and closing again. It’s monotonous, like hearing the coo of a morning dove.

Finally, we reach the booth.

“Your papers, please.”

“What papers?” Duncan asks.

“If you want to cross into Akrah, you require either a merchant’s permit from your village head, or a residential title.”

“Uh…” Duncan drawls. “And if we have neither?”

“Then you can’t enter. I’m sorry.”

“But…” Duncan says as he looks back at me. “What if I told you I was a royal escort? Psst, Triton, come out here!”

Charlotte practically pushes me out, and I’m instantly given strange looks from the different people around me. The officer at the booth also gives me an awkward look when I show my emblem. The guard looks like an honest man. He’s dressed in guard’s armor, the top half of his helmet raised to show his drab-looking eyes. Thankfully, they’re green and not Fiendish. And yet, despite his purity, he looks miserable, like he has not been out of that little wooden box in years. 

Only a small flag decorates the wall at his back, and it has a certain insignia; a bright orange orb, embraced by a red garland. The same mark on Bridgette’s letter.

“Please, sir. We need to get to the city of Theoton quickly. Can you let us through?”

“Well, your party doesn’t have the required paperwork, I’m afraid. So I can’t legally let you in, king or not.”

“But this is urgent! Make an exception for us, please.”

“Sire,” the guard says with a frown. “As much as I’m sure you desperately need to get across, there are people in this line with serious urges. I’ve seen, just today, people with children who are starving or dying men riding alone to receive proper care. But they follow the law, and none of them are royalty. So please, be courteous and allow these people to go through.”

“Move it! I’ve got chickens to sell back here!” a merchant shouts.

“You do your job well. Come on, Duncan, turn the cart around,” I tell him.

Duncan lets out a sigh, but he obeys and steers the horses away. While I walk alongside the carriage, I notice people staring at me and muttering to each other. One man throws his bread roll at my head.

“That symbol doesn’t mean anything anymore,” the old man spits. “We all work for the Shadowhearts now, and that’s all your fault!”

I watch the bitter old man drive forward, his wine bottle almost empty. 

“Old drunk,” Duncan says with a shake of his head. “But hey, I heard news that the border closes at dusk. We’re getting over that bridge tonight, papers or not. Come on, let’s see if any of these merchants have any good drink.”

Charlotte climbs out the carriage and pulls out a small leather pouch filled with Dali beads. Small and easily misplaced, the beads are an assortment of colors, with different sizes and colors representing different values. Red beads are the smallest and worth the least, and white beads are as large as marbles and worth the most. 

Charlotte spends twenty-one Dali beads on two bottles of Rosedew wine, two purple ten Dali beads on four sweetcakes, and one blue five Dali bead on a bottle of pink Jule.

Parking far beyond the checkpoint, we gorge ourselves on Elkin jerky and drink. Ameline keeps her bottle of Jule all to herself. Watching the carriages slowly roll and hearing the sound of the gate opening and closing is making me drowsy, but I stay awake until the sun begins to set.

Soon, Ameline started to sways her head. Charlotte takes a moment to count her Dali beads. She counts seventy-one left over; eleven red, three purple, six blue, and not one white Dali.

Duncan scooched next to me, sharing his wine with me.

“You wanna know why I'm wanted in Theoton?”

After I give a silent nod, Duncan begins to tell his story. 

“Must’ve been ten years or so. My mother couldn’t afford to put me through the academy, so instead, she found a tutor. His name was Jorgen and he was a professor at that academy. We didn’t have much money, but he got his payment. I found my mother smothered under him, her mouth clamped shut and his member deep inside of her. I was just a boy of about twelve, but I knew what was sharp and pointed. So I jammed the fire poker for the furnace so far into his back, it came out his chest.”

And then he chuckles. He actually finds that image to be humorous.

“I had to hammer it in a few times before he stopped moving. But he never hurt another woman again.”

“Was he a Shadowheart?”

“I don’t know. Shadowheart or not, bastards don’t deserve to be happy.”

“Duncan,” Charlotte says with a scolding glare. “We have a child here. Speak more optimistically, please.”

Ameline just stares at the man, making Duncan have to clear his throat. 

“Sorry, kid. Not everyone’s a bad person,” Duncan said. “There are good people out there, right?”

“I think so,” Ameline says. 

Suddenly, a loud horn blares from the gate. An assortment of groans and shouts come from some of the aggravated merchants. Some toss their bottles to the ground like toddlers, while most just stay quiet and begin to turn around. 

But one burly-looking man, near the end of the line, is not pleased at all. He jumps straight from his horse and marches all the way to the booth, and he barks so loud that his voice carries through the land. He starts reaching for that poor guard, and that’s enough to get me to my feet.

I sprint all the way down to the booth, passing the carriages and nearly getting run over several times. The man’s voice keeps getting louder. I’m able to catch the man just as he was trying to reach the lever that activated the gate. 

“He’s just doing his job!” I say. “You can wait one more day!”

But suddenly, my Auryn pulses and the man lets out the ugliest laugh before he spins his head to meet my face. 

Fiendish eyes.