Chapter 71

Sep 05, 2023

It was the season of mercilessness. A season of relentless wind and mountain-like snowdrifts. The night which had seemed as though it would never end, slowly began to give way to the dawn. The approaching morning seemed to stretch out over both the destruction and all who were leaving the ravaged land behind.

The entire carriage shook as if it had hit a bump for the first time during an otherwise smooth journey. Roxana managed to part her eyelids ever so slightly as they were still heavy with the memory of her deep slumber. With her eyes still hazy, she mistook the dimness of the carriage interior for the darkness of night. However, after a few slow blinks, she realized there was a thin sliver of light seeping through a gap in the curtains.

Another bump caused the light to scatter into small rays. In that moment, the realization that she wasn’t in her room anymore hit her rather abruptly.

“I see you’re up.”

A low voice fell onto her ears from above. After a quick intake of breath, she sat up.

The enclosed space shook even more violently than it had before with the new bump in the road. In an attempt to maintain her balance, she reflexively reached out her hand, but failed to find anything to hold. She would have undoubtedly toppled onto the carriage floor had it not been for a swift embrace that caught her from behind.

“Careful now. The carriage we’re in is moving,” a man said.

Roxana noted that the deep timber of the voice was familiar. Forgetting to try to break free of the embrace, she pivoted to confirm who the voice belonged to. Her eyes took in the golden gaze of her former captive.

“Cassis…?”

His name somehow escaped her lips before she had even taken a proper look at the young Pedelian. She first recognized the golden glimmer in his eyes, but she still couldn’t make any sense of what was going on. Despite forcing her weary brain to get back to work, she was rewarded with a headache while nothing useful came to mind. All she could surmise was that she was in the middle of traveling with Cassis to an unknown destination, but that only succeeded in casting her into an even greater whirlwind of confusion.

The Turning Point

Upon opening my eyes, I found Cassis sitting next to me. Considering what I had expected to become of me, nothing at all was adding up.

For starters, why had I been unconscious in the first place? How had I come to be in a carriage with Cassis? It was as if my memory had been poked full of mysterious holes.

“I recommend lying down a bit longer.” Cassis’ deep voice gently offered advice from above me.

Perhaps it was the whisper-like quality of his voice, or perhaps the fact that the surrounding shadows were preventing me from properly making out his face, but for a moment I had considered that he might be a stranger.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was get out of that awkward embrace. Sensing my movement to break away, Cassis loosened his hold on me, but not before clutching me a bit tighter for a fleeting moment.

Once free from his arms I could finally relax and think. I noticed almost immediately that my head must have been resting on his thigh.

“What’s going on here?” It was more of a croak than my voice that came out of my mouth. My throat stung as if I hadn’t used it in days. I made yet another attempt to remember the events of the previous night, but to no avail. “What am I doing here? And why am I with y—?”

In that moment a sliver of my memory appeared in my mind like ink spilling onto a white sheet of parchment.

“Sis, are you... abandoning me now, too?”

My head began to ache again. As I placed my hand against my temple I shut my eyes. That was a memory I didn’t really want to recall.

All the while, Cassis was watching me silently. The inside of the carriage was fairly dark, but my eyes had adjusted enough so that I no longer had trouble seeing. Even his face was clearer. It was my first time seeing him since our brief encounter outside the banquet hall.

Of course, by then I had put together that we must have met again at the Agrece compound since I was riding with him in that carriage, but I really couldn’t understand why or how. I stared at him in hopes of picking up on any clues, but it was like looking at a sealed envelope.

However, there was definitely concern in his voice as he spoke. “Stop worrying about what was for now, and concentrate on getting better.”

Then he said something I could hardly believe.

“It’s been three days since you blacked out. It’s going to take a while for you to fully recover.”

* * *

Out for three days?! I knew I had gone too far overworking myself like that. There had been a million little things to see to leading up to that fateful day. Even fleeing the compound had entailed so much.

I parted the curtain a bit to the side to peek outside. The carriage had stopped for some reason, and Cassis had left me alone inside of it. As the sunlight hit my eyes I squinted reflexively.

Suddenly a streak of gray and white flew by the window from out of nowhere. It was a falcon that had flown down to rest on the arm of its master. Cassis stood tall as the blue sky stretching into the horizon behind him seemed to outline his figure. Oddly enough, it almost felt as if I was looking at someone I hardly knew.

Those three years must have been longer than I first thought. It had evidently been long enough for a youth to become an adult, and for what was once familiar to become strange. He was at least a head taller than I remembered, had much broader shoulders, and the strength in his arms was as clear as day. I had only noticed how strong when he held me from behind in the carriage, but it was astonishing to see in the light. His face was as cool and calm as the morning frost, which added to its unfamiliar feeling.

The memory I had of him was that of an almost pretty youth, not a robust and handsome young man. But in truth, such descriptors seemed completely beside the point given the circumstances. Yes, he was still striking to look at, but in an entirely different way. I had already taken notice when I first saw him at the goodwill gathering that he had grown to look much more like his father Roussel. Seeing the way he carried himself only supported my observation. Even standing against the wind with the falcon on his arm gave off a vibe akin to a lone boulder standing in a vast plain.

I felt a flood of emotion as I beheld what a not-dead Cassis had developed into. As I was deep in thought, someone approached him. It was the same brown-haired man who wore an eyepatch on one side whom I had seen three years ago near the Agrece clan’s northern border. He had become a familiar sight back when I had employed my butterflies to guide him and his team through the Black Forest, so recognizing him again had been easy enough. However, try as I might, I couldn’t remember his name.

Cassis untied a string that was knotted around one of the falcon’s legs, which released a scrap of fabric. After opening and reading it, he said something to the brown-haired man. I realized that the falcon was in fact a messenger bird. I finally pulled my hand away from the curtain and allowed it to fall back into its closed position.

I opened the carriage door only to be greeted with a gust of cold air that seemed to have been waiting for its chance to assail me. Due to the warmth of the carriage, I had forgotten that it was the coldest time of the year. Still, that didn’t stop me from venturing outside.

There were more people around than I had expected. Some were tending to their weapons, some to their horses, while others were inspecting the carriages. There were also a few who seemed to be patrolling an invisible perimeter.

To my surprise, there was no sign of lower individuals like servants. It became apparent rather quickly that everyone around was a battle-hardened knight. The moment I had stepped out, however, those same various groups of people that had been absorbed with their tasks, suddenly stopped dead in their tracks to look at me.

The stillness was that much more emphasized by the hush that fell over the plain upon my escape from my carriage. It was as if time had stopped the moment I stepped out and into the daylight. All that overt attention was a bit awkward, sure, but I didn’t let it get to me all that much.

Instead, I ignored their stares and marched straight toward my target.