“Kiln!” Asura gasped, dropping her side of the boy and pulling her dagger out.
Shrff!
The boots of the man scraped in a lunge, and he punched her in the face, cracking her nose. Blood gushed from her face in rivulets, and she struggled not to inhale it. It felt like she was drowning.
“Asura!” Quinny yelled as the whole corridor spun around in a blur. She tried her best to face her opponent, hearing Kiln leap over the children to get to her, but the point of a dagger was already sailing through the air.
A flash of a shadow streaked across her vision, fluffy and matted, gluing itself to the face of the man.
“
A cat, fluffy with a smashed nose and crooked whiskers, perched on the dead man and focused its flashing green eyes on Asura. It blinked its eyes at her, then limped away, its tail high as it took its leave.
Asura lay there, choking on her blood, trying not to pass out after being saved by a cat.
Kiln picked her up, cradling her in his arms gently. Quinny set Elise down, leading her to Barry’s hand as he placed the young boy on his back, whispering to hold on tight. She then picked up the side of the feverish boy that Asura could no longer carry, grunting with the weight.
Asura’s vision wobbled and she struggled to hold her head upright, even in Kiln’s arms. Everything was discombobulated. The blood continued to drip down her face, in her mouth and her breaths grew wet even though she tried to wipe it away.
“Breathe. Slow is best.” Kiln murmured with uncharacteristic softness as he treaded further along the torches lighting their path. They were all breathing heavily, spurred on by the taste of freedom on their tongues.
They stopped less frequently, eager to be out, and worked their malnourished bodies to their limit.
The jangling of chain mail and reinforced boots echoed loudly in front of them, and Kiln laid her down. Asura hissed in pain. He brought his fingers to his lips in a shushing motion and stepped low over Asura, putting his body in the line of attack.
When the approaching man spotted Kiln, he charged.
“Your head will make seven!”
Something about the rage in his voice made Asura frown, and as the man brought his sword down, it met with Kiln’s twin blades.
Chank!
Kiln’s heels dug into the floor, easily gripped by the jagged stone and stood his ground.
The torch light reflected against his hair, as dark as night, with a matching beard.
“Chrystoph… wait.” She managed to say, her eyes unable to focus completely, but she recognized that hair and the broad shape of his sword without a doubt.
Chrystoph met her gaze, surprised that a body was speaking.
“Asura? Dove, is that you?” He sheathed his sword immediately, and Kiln did the same, stepping back to carry the fevered child instead.
Chrystoph cradled her head, turning her head side to side gently to get a good look at her. Her eyes felt tight with swelling and the pounding in her head was unbearable.
“Goddess, what happened to you? You look like a horse stamped your face.”
She spit blood on the craggy floor to the side of her face, nauseous from all the blood she’d swallowed draining down the back of her throat.
“The path is clear, follow me.” Chrystoph moved his eyes over the company Asura was with, and took up guiding them without hesitation.
He picked Asura up, but the sudden movement jolted her and she vomited the blood she had swallowed before her vision turned to black.
Waking up to the flickering light of sunshine through sheer curtains, Asura slowly blinked her eyes open. It looked to be mid morning, and the only sound heard was the small rustling of the wind jostling trees outside.
“Darling?” A soft voice spoke, squeezing her hand.
Her mother reached out her other hand and cupped her cheek, brushing her thumb across Asura’s eyelashes affectionately.
A relieved sigh was followed with a quivering smile as tears squeezed out of the corners of Leila’s closed eyes.
Feeling like she got punched in the face, which technically she had been, she lay in the bed and quietly accepted her mother’s fawning.
“How do you feel?” A sniffle.
“Like I got stomped on by a horse.” Her voice was nasally, clogged with many gauzes. She had tape, white as stone across her nose and cheeks. It hurt to make expressions, and when she turned her head it felt like there was spaghetti sliding around inside it.
She looked around only with her eyes; it was a room slightly different than the one she was given, and when she saw her father’s books stacked on a desk, she knew that this was her parent’s room.
She looked upon her mother’s face still fighting tears and noticed shadows under her eyes. Her face ached in the act of frowning..
“How long have I been asleep, Mama?” She hadn’t meant to use the same word she’d used when she was truly a young girl., but her drowsiness spoke it for her.
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.
“T- Two-hoo
“My poor baby was out for two days with a broken nose and a concussion in a cave under a temple run by traffickers! I couldn’t get here fast enough when Chrystoph used the emergency summons and teleported you
Leila spoke in quick succession, wailing at the same time. Her vowels were punctuated with sobs or breaths so she could sob some more. Watching her cry and fuss over her made Asura’s eyes water, and as her nose stung like crazy at the welling tears, she was relieved to be alive.
Asura sat up slowly and encircled her arms around her mother, comforting her. She immediately returned the embrace, one hand gripping her small body closer, the other smoothing her hair affectionately.
Her loud cries prompted Nan to burst in. When she saw Asura and Leila, she ran right back out yelling loudly.
Crash! Thud!
“Oof! Orson! Chrystoph! She’s awake!”
The equivalent of two bears ran through the door. Orson reached the bed first, dropping his cane and gripping them both in a hug.
“Papa…” Asura murmured, laying her head on her mother’s hair, safe within her father’s arms. Her eyes stung once more, and she allowed herself to cry.
“What happened?”
She took a sip of warm milk with a little sugar in it that Nan had brought her.
Chrystoph sat in a chair he pulled up to the bed. His ankle was perched on his thigh in a leisurely fashion. Leila had cried until she had fallen asleep, so Orson carried her to another room. Seeing the strength return to her father made Asura exhale a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. All was right in the world.
Almost.
Chrystoph brushed some invisible dust off his boots, thinking about what to say.
The reality of their experience was grim. No child should have gone through what they did. And through Chrystoph’s eyes, who was supposed to be in charge of Asura’s well being, she was a child that was subjected to such horrors because he had failed to uphold his promise.
“I carried you out of that… place. The king gave me a special device, along with his other trusted retainers, to use when there’s an emergency. It will teleport us home.”
He cleared his throat, still not meeting her eyes. He pulled out what looked like a brass pocket watch, unadorned and plain. He flipped it open to reveal a circle with a rune, which had a thumbprint of blood on it.
“I used it to teleport us all to my estate. The children are currently in the care of the king’s physician. Except that fellow you had with you. He must have been wearing some sort of anti-magic device.”
He uncrossed his leg and crossed the other, restless.
“You were treated by Doctor Sam, and here we are.”
He sighed heavily through his nose.
A pang of guilt rang hollow against her chest. She had run away on purpose and had put herself in a dangerous situation she was under-prepared for, all while under his protection.
“How did you know where I was?”
She was glad she took the hood off her head while traveling through the town.
“Some crone with a basket of onions.” He said irritably.
“Had to… persuade the priest to tell me there was an underground hold, let alone open the door. Tricky, that door was.”
A scowl was plastered on his face, no doubt reminiscing about that discovery.
Asura didn’t say anything, but it lay heavy between them. Chrystoph laced his fingers together, and a sense of dread fell upon her, like the impending doom of a lecture.
“I have many questions for you, dove. But the one question that has been weighing on my mind the most is the only one I’ll ask for now.”
He leaned forward, a grave expression on his face. His voice came out hoarse, as if it was eating him up inside and made holes in his throat.
“Why did you feel you had to do this alone?”
Asura was at a loss for words.
“I didn’t have the time, I was-”
“No, no. Even before that. You think I didn’t know you were leaving in the middle of the night? Coming back filthy and tattered? Sneaking around, making excuses. Why didn’t you come to… well, anyone?”
His eyes looked a little glassy, and she saw her reflection in them. A young girl with long raven hair cascading and messy with bedhead. A large bandage over her face, and two black eyes. More bandages covered her hands and arms, and one covered the side of her face where she had hit her head when she was tossed. She looked awful.
But a little girl. Not a warrior, not a knight or a swordsman, or even an adult.
A child.
“I didn’t think you would believe me.” Asura whispered. Her eyes were wide, weighing the risk of telling the truth.
Who would have?
Hi, a goddess sent me back to the past on a whim and now I’m trying to save the woman I love and prevent the war that took her life?
Or even better-
Because I’ve already lived once, I know things that will come to pass, follow me!
While oracles were a Talent, time travel was not, and she would have been institutionalized. But Chrystoph’s reaction made her doubt herself. She pinched her forearm discreetly, reminding herself that she was not the child that he saw and she did not know this man. He had died before she ever got the chance to meet him in her past life.
He took in her answer, nodding his head slowly. His eyebrows dropped in a sullen manner.
“I see. I hope to prove you wrong in the future, if you’d give me the chance.”
WIth that, he got up and walked out the door, leaving a small seed in her chest. It nestled next to the thistle of doubt that had catapulted itself there since before she lost consciousness. The concussion made it hard to remember the details.
Alone in the room, she lay back down on her side and pulled up the sheet to her chin. She fell asleep tracing the lines of the soft fruit she’d never seen before, in a decorative basket on the bedside table.
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