Chapter 3 #2
The wink in his direction told Lory there was something more going on between those two—the long-lasting, more-than-just-friends type of relationship that survived hardship but also came with a sort of bitterness because it wasn’t the type of fated love that had been written in fairytale books.
Not that she’d had access to such books as a child, but her mother would recount stories to Evven and her to distract from their hunger with stories she’d once read when they found a place to rest for the night.
With a shudder, Lory shook off the memories—all except for that of her mother’s face.
“Bread?”
Lory nearly jumped out of her skin when Hadrick offered her a fist-sized loaf from the side, tearing her out of her thoughts. “Thanks.”
Hadrick dropped the bread in her open palm and bustled off toward the cave mouth, busying himself with a pile of rocks, which he shifted half a foot for reasons Lory couldn’t fathom.
While Lory tore a piece off the loaf and put it into her mouth, Olive wandered to the fire, scooping a few slices of meat onto a wooden plate and sitting down against the wall.
If they’d been living here long enough to have a ‘kitchen’, this cave couldn’t be a temporary home. “How many Flame-born live here?”
It should have been the first thing Lory asked, but she’d been too occupied with her own fear and getting back to the outpost to consider that these people here might be as trapped in this place as Lory was.
Another rumble sounded from the shadows, but this time, the leonthor remained hidden in the dark seams of the cave. Lory cocked her head, straining to spy the creature. If he was holding them all captive here, she’d have a word to—
“Not trapped those people we have,” the leonthor’s voice popped into her mind.
Of course—of course it had trapped only her. Pointedly ignoring the creature, Lory followed Olive to the fire and sat down across from her, chewing on her bread as she observed the flames. A small, steady fire crackled in front of her, not wavering with the breeze.
“Hadrick and I arrived here a year ago.” At Enya’s remark, Lory almost choked on her bread. A year. “Olive joined half a year ago, but some of us have been here for over a decade, lived with the seasons of the mountains, and survived on what they provide.”
This time, Lory’s breath did get stuck in her throat. “A decade?” The ‘why?’ hung in the air, a heavy cloud filled with hail and thunder.
Enya merely shrugged. “Ulder’s decree to kill all magic wielders has quickly turned man against man on the streets of Criulias.
The right price gets people to do despicable things.
Neighbors are ratting on their neighbors if there’s as much as the suspicion of magic, eager for a handful of coins.
And if it’s fire magic, Ulder’s soldiers hunt us down and drag us back to the duke’s estate for questioning.
Living in a cave for a decade is less painful than any encounter with the tools they use for their interrogations, believe me. ”
On the other side of the fire, Olive squirmed slightly at the mention of said tools, but she hid it well, her face emotionless and her fingers clenching hard on the edge of the plate as she glanced at Lory.
“So you’re refugees from Criulias?”
“From all over the kingdom,” Hadrick answered, putting down the last rock and nodding at his handiwork.
With a sigh, he pushed up from his half-kneeling position on the dusty floor and rolled his shoulders.
“Enya and I are Criu; Olive here is from Sen Dunai, but we have plenty of Naolapians around here, too.”
“And when he says plenty,” Enya amended, “he means about a quarter of us.”
Lory’s stomach did an ugly roll at the image of people fleeing their homes in hopes of a better life elsewhere in the Brestolyan provinces and finding the mountain range separating the north and south of the kingdom the only safe place—the mountains, where guerrilla warfare was happening and soldiers were patrolling at all times.
If this was the safest location in the kingdom, perhaps this kingdom had more problems than Lory had dared to believe.
“What about the Criu rebels?”
Enya raised her brows, shaking her head at Hadrick, who had opened his mouth, ready to release either a curse or a really offensive statement that Enya preferred Lory not hear, judging by both of their expressions.
“What about the rebels?” The woman gave Lory a stern look, rogue waves falling from her bun as she shrugged as if the armed Criulian units roaming the mountains were none of her concern.
By the fire, Olive studied the meats on her plate with the intensity of the sun while Hadrick cleared his throat, sitting down next to the young woman and helping himself to some breakfast.
When Lory didn’t speak, Enya continued. “The Criu rebels fight for a free Criulias, not for the freedom of magic wielders. Most of them would deliver any of us to the duke’s doorstep in exchange for the pardon of one of their friends locked in the dungeons beneath the estate.
The Flames are on their own in this war. ”
War—
Not only that between provinces, but a war for the existence of magic.
“Our people have caused too many problems for Ulder’s line. As long as he is in power, he’ll do whatever it takes to extinguish us.”
Because of the prophecy, Lory thought to herself. Because Khayrivven’s father had foretold that one Flame-born woman would be the downfall of the Brestolyan king.
With her free hand, Lory plucked a slice of meat from the grate, dropping it onto the bread to let it cool before eating it.
It was greasy but tasty, spiced with something sharp and sweet that Lory had no name for.
Chewing in silence gave her time to think while Enya was eyeing her from a few feet away, a hint of skepticism slipping through the kind facade Lory so desperately hoped she could trust.
“Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, Lory?
” This clearly was more of an order than a question, and Lory would have gotten up and left under normal circumstances, just because getting between the Flame-born and the Criu rebels was something an ashling under the Triad’s scrutiny could certainly not afford.
But the leonthor growled into her mind, grumpier even than most of Lu’Shen’s patrons if they couldn’t get their preferred woman for the night, “Your allies they are, Elory.” So Lory swallowed her next bite and sighed through her nose.
“I grew up on the streets of the capital, and I would have died there, had one of the—”