CHAPTER 9: SVEN AND AVAH

It was dark. His rotting skull could tell, as if it alone remembered a time when his eyes were more than empty pits. It remembered the thick smell of death too, that stench that came when both tears and blood had had the time to dry and decay.

Then there were the screams, resounding from within. Gorken hated those, but not more than what he knew would come next. The inescapable walk was the worst part of all. He dreaded the familiar end. He always hoped something would change, but invariably, the horror prevailed. Aldous and Bayard were lying on the floor, slaughtered. All around him, he could see nothing but the corpses of his companions; his comrades from the rebellion, even Rose, and Konrad, and the members of the Council, lifeless on the cold floor.

This time, at last, there was something different. Someone new was among the dead. This time he could see Malia’s body. He looked at his hands, as he always did, and they were soaked with blood. Their blood. Her blood.

He couldn’t move. He stared at his own palms, dripping gore. Now he wanted to scream, but the shrieks reverberating inside him refused to come out. They wouldn’t even grant him the relief of howling in pain. He stood, in voiceless despair, pitifully yearning for a respite that wouldn’t come.

Then he woke up.

His breathing was uneven, his skin cold. Gradually, through the dimness, he recognized the place they had chosen to spend the night. Malia was sleeping, leaning on a tree in front of him, and so was Bayard, resting on the ground along with the twins. It was Aldous’ turn to keep watch, and Gorken could discern his silhouette sitting on a rock near them. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but he couldn’t go back into slumber.

The following morning their journey had been noisier than the day before, with Hedera asking questions about who they were, why they were looking for Kadem, and why Malia had joined them. The little demon was halfway through a sentence when she stopped to declare, “I smell humans.”

Aldous sniffed his armpit, “Well, we are humans. Most of us, anyway.”

“I don’t mean you! I smell other humans nearby.”

They kept walking until they spotted a young couple in the cramped horizon of the forest. A pregnant woman was kneeling on the ground, and a man was fretting over her, sweating profusely, distress warping his face.

“What’s wrong?” Malia approached them.

The young man was so eager to receive help, he answered immediately and without gauging any potential danger, “It’s my partner. We lost our way and we’re out of food and water. She’s too tired to keep going.”

“You can have some of our provisions,” Gorken crouched, “we’ll find more in the woods, and there’s a river nearby.”

“Yes, yes, please…!” The young man urged him gratefully.

The woman’s semblance improved as soon as she ate her fill, and both she and her companion regained the composure they had entirely lacked moments prior, “I thank you deeply for your generosity. My name is Avah, and this is my man, Sven.”

Aldous waved a dismissive hand, “Don’t worry about it. But what are you doing in the middle of nowhere? There are no villages around here.”

“We were…” Avah hesitated, conscious of the fact that Aldous and his friends were certainly part of the rebellion, “…We were planning on going south, to the lands that belong to the Eirian Clan. I don’t want this little one to become a child soldier,” she rubbed her stomach, “so we can’t join the rebellion. We decided we would rather live under the benevolent rule of the Eirian than stay in a phantom village fearing the Daimonlance... But we got lost, and we couldn’t find the main road…”

Malia averted her gaze, “Gorken, do you guys know how to get to the main road?”

“Of course we do. We can escort you, but once we reach it you’ll be on your own. The journey south is a long one.”

Sven’s eyes sparkled with tearful joy, “Do you speak the truth? You must be a blessing sent from the heavens! …But we don’t have any way to pay you back.” He opened his bag, “We have a piece of copper from-”

“We don’t need any payment.” Gorken cut him off.

Hedera and Licorice had been standing behind Aldous and Bayard. They didn’t want to startle the couple with their demonic features, and with their heads hooded they looked like two human girls. Hedera whispered into Licorice’s ear, “Aren’t these guys too soft for their own good? If we stop to help every troubled creature we come across we’ll never make it to the Gray Forest.”

“It’s thanks to that benevolence that our search for Kadem might not end up being fruitless.”

“You’re not wrong but… Never mind.”

They travelled together at a steady pace, taking breaks every once in a while for Avah to recover. During one of their stops Malia sat next to her. It was her first time seeing a pregnancy from up close; her mother had firmly refused to create conflict in the succession by granting Amos a legitimate heir other than Malia. Not that her uncle had ever intended to allow her to ascend the throne, but Clarissa had been adamant in her efforts to keep Malia as an only child. The princess wasn’t on friendly terms with any other noblewoman… or with anyone other than Lyra and her master for that matter, so her chances of witnessing the birth of a new life had been extremely limited.

When Avah responded to her furtive glances with a gentle smile, Malia felt encouraged to finally ask, “…Can I touch your belly?”

Avah’s slight surprise at her question made Malia feel incredibly childish, “I’m sorry, that was such a weird thing to say, please forget it!”

Avah shook her head, “It’s not weird. Go ahead.”

Malia was still ashamed, but she didn’t want to dismiss Avah’s approval, so she slowly put her hands on her round belly. She could sense Avah’s warmth and the small life growing inside her, as if it was a soft, delicate flame. How she was able to sense that left her perplexed, “I never thought it would feel this way.” Why can I perceive a tiny human life like this? Almost as if it was…

“It’s your first time touching a baby bump?” Avah was confused, “Which phantom village are you from? Oh, is it because you’re from the rebellion? I thought girls couldn’t keep up but,” Avah glimpsed awkwardly at Malia’s strong arms, “I see why you would be able to join them.”

“Well, you see, I’m…” Malia was grateful when Bayard and Aldous came closer to divert attention from her nonexistent reply. She made a mental note to come up with a plausible tale should they encounter more humans in the future; she couldn’t go around openly revealing she was an immortal. I’ve never been a good liar though...

“Can I touch it too?” Bayard addressed Avah quietly, surprising Malia with his request. She hadn’t expected him to be interested in such a thing, but she was glad he was. The dark haired young man didn’t show any of the bashfulness that had invaded Malia, and she couldn’t tell if that made her feel more or less juvenile.

From her spot far from Avah, Hedera was clearly displeased by feeling left out, “Humans are so immature, still marveling at something as fundamental as gestation.”

“Sister, your current behavior is significantly more immature.”

“No one asked you, Lico!”

Gorken wordlessly told the twins to keep it down with a strict glare, but inwardly he too was marveling, but at how undeniably human Hedera’s and Licorice’s emotions seemed to be.

Despite their constant stops, in half a day they had reached the main road. Once there, Gorken explained to Sven and Avah that if they followed it for a few hours they would encounter the nearest village. He advised the couple to replenish their provisions at every human settlement, imparting tips and recommendations as he talked. If they stayed on the road, they would eventually reach Eirian territories. Before parting ways Sven held Gorken’s hands, “We will not forget this debt!”

“Take care!” Malia waved at them.

The group continued on their path towards the Gray Forest by retracing their steps, aiming to return to where their detour had begun.

 “It seems the rumors about the Eirian Clan being charitable are true.” Aldous commented.

“My uncle didn’t like that one bit,” Malia recalled, “he always ended up yelling at my mother.”

“Your mother?” Gorken inquired.

“Queen Clarissa is from the Eirian Clan. She came to the North when she married my father, as a sort of treaty between the two clans.”

Gorken raised an eyebrow, “Then why is she married to your uncle now?”

“When my father died I was too young to take the throne, so my uncle became provisionary regent along with my mother. She married him to maintain the treaty between the Eirian and the Daimonlance.”

“Wait,” Aldous said, “Won’t he become the real king now that you ran away?”

“I’m not sure how they will handle that.” Malia looked up to the sky, “But doing him any favors is the last thing I want. The succession is always a complicated matter anyway. I don’t think the Eirian will allow him to stay on the northern throne, he clashes with them too much. Not to mention other branches of the Daimonlance clan who may have their eyes on the crown now.”

They kept marching forward for a while, but before long both Hedera and Licorice stopped.

“Are you tired?” Aldous asked them, “Do you want a piggyback ride?”

The small demons wore bleak expressions. Licorice was the one to reply, “We can smell human blood coming from the main road.”