“Absolutely. Staying cautious. What now?” I didn’t know if I expected an answer. She looked as much at loss as I felt, only, more determined to move on quickly.
“I guess we keep on walking to Galandea. With luck, Taramon’s knights don’t get to hear the news about where we were heading.”
“You said Galandea is not far?”
“We might get there before sundown or, at the very least, during the night.”
The night? That meant a long day ahead, then. But again, I felt guilty even thinking that. We’d been spared even a scratch at the incident with the fae just there. We’d been lucky so far. Not so much Alesso, there. “Lyria, I can’t help wondering, what do you think will happen to Alesso?”
Lyria turned to look at me closer, as if curious I cared about the soldier that much. I didn’t, exactly, not so much, but I’d hated to see him get hurt, especially as he had been fighting with us.
“Fae bites are tricky,” Lyria said. “It’s hard to know,”
“Do you think the wizard will actually try to treat him? What was that, anyway?”
“I don’t know of any grudge the man should have against Alesso. Let’s hope there is none. Then it’s only a matter of common decency. Most wizards would think it’s a question of honor to try to heal those in need of medicines, so really, it’s likely he will help Alesso.”
“I hope he will,” I muttered.
“I hope so too.”
Lyria seemed to come to some conclusion in her mind, as she turned her head again, abruptly, to look straight at me. “I feel bad that we couldn’t do more for him, but there was no way we could have helped him ourselves. That wizard was his best bet, and still is. We would have had to leave him there, no matter what.”
She sounded defensive, but I nodded. I knew hardly anything about these matters. I knew different kinds of magic, not healing from fae bites...I hadn’t thought I’d ever come across fae in my small life. The castle was safe. The fae groups that harassed human folk only struck in the villages outside the castle walls.
Lyria’s look seemed to beg for my understanding. “We mustn’t let this stop us, Milla. If we don’t go on and get to Galandea, many more will die, women and children too. Many more lost lives than one mercenary soldier.”
I nodded again. She swallowed hard, as she turned to gather her things, her sword, her head scarf that she had taken off and folded on the ground.
Chapter 9
I pulled my cape’s hood better over my eyes to shield me from the sun. Everywhere, the sand-floor plains stretched out to form endless yellow horizons. They were only framed in the far distance by scattered mounds and hills and, finally, the mountains, which were already visible, yes, but still diminished by the smaller hills closer to us.
Those mountain peaks were where we were heading, at this point. Our first goal.
We had been walking for hours, the day getting warmer and warmer. We hadn’t had breakfast, but I hadn’t said anything about it. I assumed a princess, correction, a queen, would know when hunger got too bad to manage.
Suddenly I halted, instinctively raising my hands to shield me, as Lyria jumped beside me, and landed on top of something small and elongated — a slithering, glistening, dark snake. Her painted sky-blue leather shoe had it pinned by the throat against the sandy earth, with its tongue squished out or sticking out. Then, to my shock, Lyria knelt down, balancing herself so she didn’t loose her her foothold, and before I could follow, she had the snake by the throat, strangling it with two hands. She raised it in the air, its tail powerfully curling and swaying behind it. She looked rejoiced, excited.
“You keep surprising me,” I said with a smile. I couldn’t tell her everything to her face, could I? That I had sometimes thought her harsh, unreasonable, demanding? Un-ladylike, even? But always totally inspiring. She was a storm that breached the slow, idle clouds of my summer days and invigorated me, made me come to life. I hadn’t known I’d craved for this, an adventure. I’d liked my life, I’d felt at peace, I loved my peace and quiet. But suddenly, there was a door to another kind of world in front of me. I hadn’t known all this even existed, these feelings, this way to look at life.
“My father sent me off to the Fae Kingdom from time to time, when I was small,” Lyria said. “I spent my summers there. It was part of a deal, an agreement my father had with certain rebel fae.” She carefully put the snake down, facing away from us, and when she quickly let go, it began slithering away.
“You don’t need to tell me, if you feel uneasy…?”
“No. It’s just hard to talk about. I’ve never had real freedom to choose what to do with my life. My birth stars defined a life for me, the wizards say, that should bring peace and prestige for the kingdom, but it also means I don’t get to have a say in any of the things I do. I’ll likely marry a prince or king, not out of love, but to secure peace, or some such reason…and I’ll likely stay put at the castle all my life, while honestly, I’d love to travel and go on adventures every now and then…You know?”
I nodded, though I’d never felt the need to go on adventures, exactly, and the whole thought was strange and intriguing. Lyria was such a refreshing person to talk to. I knew what it was to go hungry, and I loved the peace and quiet and the little luxuries my small life offered. But I loved listening to Lyria when she was like this.
“Then, there’s this fae side to me,” Lyria said, “meaning still less freedom to live as I please. I’m under the eyes of the fae world. Did you know I’ve been trained in fae magics? By these three men of the fae court, who were never fans of the Queen. They were fae rebel leaders, not quite inner circle in the Fae court, but still, one of them rather influential. They first started negotiating with my father about war endeavours years ago, but things have dragged along. I guess there’s so much to plan, plot, negotiate, prepare, troops to gather and train…Apparently, that was not an issue to the fae. They live for several centuries, you are aware? But they wanted to train me. I have my eyes,” Lyria said, shockingly casually, and gestured up at her face, “and they were aware of it. So they put in the deal that I was to spend some weeks every summer and certain winters with them, these fae rebels. Cantillion…was the leader’s name. He was my tutor and taught me to handle my magic, what I could do with it and what I couldn’t. And, at the same time…I even know it myself…at the same time, they helped mold what I thought about the matters of human and fae life and our possible cooperation, harmony between our people. I still believe they were genuinely and truly planning this coup. It wasn’t all sweet and benevolent, however. What they really wanted was our armies to help overthrow their government as well. Then they’d get to the throne — the fae throne. What better position in the world is there? Cantillion wants that position. He claims that after that, none of this would involve humans. What we would get out of that would be that they’d stop tormenting us. No more fae attacks. There would be a new fae government, new rules, and a truce between humans and fae.”
“That sounds almost too good to be true.”