Tristant woke up in an unfamiliar bed. He blinked against the morning light pouring in through a window beside the bed.

A bed? He hadn’t slept in a proper bed for months. Out in war camp, he was lucky to be able to sleep on something other than the hard ground. Most soldiers weren’t lucky.

Where was he? Did he die? The last thing he remembered was being swept away by the mudslide and falling into the river… No, that wasn’t right. He remembered waking up some time later to see a goddess standing over him, ready to take his soul to the afterlife. 

Wait, that wasn’t right either. If she had taken his soul at that time, he wouldn’t be waking up with so much worldly pains and aches all over his body.

He noticed that he wasn’t wearing armor anymore, but a clean shirt and pants. Did someone change his clothes?

“Are you finally awake?” A feminine voice broke through his muddy thoughts.

Tristan’s mind snapped back to perfect clarity. “Where am I? Who are you?”

To the side of his bed seated a young woman leaning against the wall and wearing a cloth covering the bottom half of her face. She had rich brown hair that was bound up in a bun, but the most striking thing was her hazel eyes, which sparkled like a perfectly cut gem. 

She was also peeling potatoes with a small knife. There was a bowl half-filled with peeled potatoes and some unpeeled potatoes on the table beside her, and a bowl of potato skin scraps on her lap. The way she held her knife gives Tristan the impression that she was ready to stab him if he made any threatening move toward her.

“My name is Ella, and I’m a war nurse. I found you on the banks of the river yesterday, where you saved me from a water snake. Do you remember?”

Tristan tried to remember, but was only rewarded with brief flashes of memories. “I think so? What happened after that?”

“Well, the water snake still managed to bite you, so you passed out. I administered the antivenom and took you to my cottage so you can recover.”

She did? She was clearly an Etherian, belonging to an enemy kingdom of Terravale. Why did she help him?

“Why did you save me?” he asked. 

Her hands stilled. She tilted her head at him, one of her eyebrows raised. “That’s my question. The first thing you did when you woke up and saw me was to save me from a venomous water snake. Why did you risk your life for me?”

Tristan didn’t know the answer to that either. “I just moved without thinking. Come to think of it, I scared you back then, didn’t I?”

He dimly remembered her stumbling away when he lunged at the snake with his dagger. She must have thought he was trying to kill her.

“I was only startled!” Ella denied it, but she clutched her knife tighter. “But if you try anything funny, I will poison you with this paralyzing herb, so don’t try me. Understand?”

Tristan nodded, suppressing a smile of amusement. Then, before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “You have jeweled eyes.”

Ella paused at his words. “So do you.”

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment, their eyes locked.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that— I have never met another person with jeweled eyes before.” Tristan finally spoke again. He omitted the part that the only other person with jeweled eyes that he knew of are the oracle and his sister.

Jeweled eyes were a big deal in any kingdom in Mythina. They were proof of being blessed by a god or goddess. It was said that only women with jeweled eyes were eligible to become candidates as the next oracle. Aside from himself, Tristan never knew another person with jeweled eyes before.

“Do you happen to know who I am?” Tristan asked warily. 

Ella might have heard of him. Golden hair and jeweled eyes, there was only one person in Terravale who fit that description.

However, Ella only tilted her head with a look of confusion shown on the upper half of her face. “No, you haven’t introduced yourself yet. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your memory!”

Tristan felt both elated and disappointed at the same time. If she didn’t know his true identity, then she wasn’t helping him as a way of ingratiating herself to him with an expectation of something in return. She wasn’t doing this with an ulterior motive. 

She was helping him out of sincerity and compassion, and maybe to repay her debt of being saved by him, although he knew that she was never in any danger in the first place as she had been carrying antivenom.

“My name is Evan.” he lied. “Sorry, I thought you might have heard of me, since having jeweled eyes is rare.”

Better to use a fake name than to risk her finding out his real identity. He had no idea what she would do if she were to find out. Would she ask for a huge compensation in return for saving the life of a prince? Or would she turn him over to her leaders so they can hold him hostage or kill him?

“What’s your blessing?” Ella asked as she finished peeling one potato and picked up another.

Another sign of a god’s blessing besides the jeweled eyes was the ability to use magic. Just a tiny bit of their patron god’s power.

“I’m not sure. It could be fighting? Or surviving? Or maybe it’s faster healing. What’s yours?”

“I can sense the emotions of others.” Ella said. “Like an extra sense.”

Tristan blinked. “That’s amazing.”

“Is it?” Ella seemed surprised at his compliment. “I thought you might find it invasive.”

“It’s still better than my blessing, which is so subtle that I’m not even sure I even have one. Is that why you saved me? Because you sensed that I wasn’t a hostile person?”

Ella shrugged. “Not really. Your emotions were too turbulent when I found you, so I wasn’t sure back then. I only saved you because you helped me first. But now that you’re awake and fully lucid, I can tell that you don’t mean any harm to me.”

“Of course not. You saved my life.”

Ella finally gave him a faint smile, one he could barely see through the face covering. “I can’t believe you’re so at ease in enemy territory.”

So his suspicions were right. He was in Etheria. 

“I can’t believe you would save an enemy soldier and take him to your home.” Tristan countered.

Ella snorted, then quickly hid it with a cough as if she was ashamed to be laughing at something her enemy said. “You’re a new recruit, aren’t you?”

She was wrong. Tristan was the general of the Northern army, but he couldn’t tell her that.

“What makes you say that?” Tristan asked. 

“You don’t have a lot of scars. Don’t seasoned soldiers have a lot of scars to show off? You probably haven’t been in many fights.”

Suddenly, he realized another meaning to her words. 

“You looked at my bare body?” he exclaimed in indignation as he clutched the collar of his shirt. She must have changed his clothes, he realized. There was no one else currently living in this cottage, according to the evidence.

Ella flushed red, and for a moment, Tristan wondered if she was going to throw her half-peeled potato at him in indignation. “Can you stop treating me like I’m a pervert? First of all, I was only trying to take account of your injuries, not to take advantage of you! Second, I’m a war nurse! I’ve treated a lot of men, so you’re not special! Third, no one really cares about a man’s chastity!”

“I care!” Tristan grumbled. He had grown up used to the experience of women throwing themselves at him. And while Ella was right and no one really cares about a man’s chastity, he felt determined to preserve it for his future wife.

Anyway, Ella was wrong again about him not being in many fights. As Tristan had mentioned earlier, it was possible for his blessing to be faster healing. He had sustained many wounds over the years fighting, but for some reason, no wounds left a permanent mark. They all fade out without leaving a single scar, something that annoyed him as scars were considered badges of honor among soldiers.

At the thought of his comrades, he suddenly realized a different priority. What happened to his men? Are they looking for him? Did they think he was dead? 

“Are you worried about your comrades?” Ella asked. She must have felt the fluctuation in his mood just then.

There was no point in lying as she could sense everything, so he simply admitted it. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, it must have been hard on you.” Her pity seemed sincere, despite the fact that each of their respective kingdoms have been one of the main culprits in killing the lives of the other.

He was also still marveling at the fact that he was still alive. He had fully expected to die, not once but twice. Once by earth and water, the other by succumbing to his injuries out in the wild. Yet, by a miraculous twist of fate, he survived because he was saved by a benevolent stranger.

“You can stay here until you’re fully recovered.” Ella added in a warmer tone. “And during that time, can we pretend we’re friendly neighbors and not two people from opposing sides of the war?”

Tristan cracked a grin. “Yes, I would like that too.”