22 Eira
Eira
The next day, Eira and Hugo rode out of town as the sun rose, the city barely awake as they galloped away from Fallstead.
The night before, they’d decided over their second drink that they’d head south in the hopes that they’d find another town
where Eira had been seen with Evangeline, and then, if they still found nothing . . . well, Hugo hadn’t divulged yet what
his plan was in that case.
But right now, Eira was groggy. A nightmare had woken her up in the middle of the night, shadows in the shapes of people running
through a town, screaming. It felt like a memory, but one she couldn’t hold on to, the colors and faces slipping back behind
the locked door in her mind.
She’d had nightmares like this before, shadowed silhouettes of people leaving her in the dark about what she was seeing, literally,
but she’d always just assumed that was how her fractured mind dreamed. Now, though, she wondered if it was her mind fighting
to resurface the memories that had been stolen from her.
Eira still wasn’t sure what their next steps were, but she was increasingly convinced that it needed to be finding the witch who had cast this spell on her, or finding someone else who had seen her in Astra.
She had half a mind to head back to Cilirien despite the danger, simply because the people of Cilirien might be able to help her retrace her steps.
Or at least help her understand how long she’d been in town before her memories were wiped.
The guards in Cilirien most likely wanted to talk to the two of them as well, which was a reason to stay far, far away .
. . but what if she’d left something there?
What if she’d hidden something important there before she lost her memories, something that might help them figure things out now?
Arthur’s hoofbeats pounded on the ground as they galloped out of Fallstead and into the increasingly gold-and-orange autumnal
forests of Astra. More than anything, Eira missed her home.
“Is this what your life has been like?” Eira asked, her arms wrapped around Hugo’s waist as they headed down the dirt road,
her body pressed against his. Eira could feel Hugo’s heart pick up its pace whenever she shifted, and it brought her a moment
of joy to know how she was affecting him each time.
“Yes,” Hugo answered.
“Since the uprising?” she asked a second question. She’d realized late the night before, as she struggled to fall asleep watching
Hugo’s form on the ground in the dark, that she didn’t really know anything about what his life had been like after the Iron
Empire rose to power.
“No,” he grunted.
“You woke up in a great mood,” Eira retorted, letting the silence gather in the space between them in the hopes that he would
say something more.
“I only left the capital a few months ago,” he finally relented and broke the silence.
“That’s . . . relatively recent,” Eira said, dread pooling in her stomach.
“I know,” Hugo answered.
“What did you . . . do in Astrad? You know, after my family didn’t need protection anymore?” Eira asked, afraid of what the answer would be.
“There are still noble guards.” Hugo said sharply, but his answer didn’t add up to Eira.
“But . . . I don’t think you were guarding my family anymore. Otherwise you’d have been looking for me for years . . . right?”
“You’re right, I didn’t guard your family after the uprising.” Hugo physically grew tenser with each answer he gave to Eira.
“What did you do, then?” An increasing feeling of sickness was creeping up her throat.
“I think you already know the answer to that question,” Hugo growled.
“I need you to say it.” Eira’s fear settled in her chest.
“I was in the Iron Retinue,” he answered, even more gruffly than before.
Eira almost vomited. “Arthur, stop,” she said, reaching for the reins and, once she realized she couldn’t reach them, trying
to scramble off of the horse. Before Hugo could stop her she jumped, screaming in pain as she landed, rolling her ankle. She
watched Hugo wheel Arthur around and jump off, running to her side as the horse made a concerned whinny.
“Why would you do that?” Hugo’s hands hovered over Eira, trying to figure out why she’d screamed in pain.
Eira painstakingly stood, pushing his hands away when he tried to steady her. “Hugo Venton, you tell me right now what role
you played in the uprising,” she said, gasping through the pain in her ankle. She could put weight on it, which meant it wasn’t
broken.
“Are you okay?” He stood in front of her, the concern in his eyes mixed with anger and frustration.
Eira balked—as if Hugo had any right to be frustrated with her in this moment. “Tell me right now!” Eira shoved Hugo away
from her.
“This is not the place for this conversation,” he answered.
“Did you kill my family? Was that your job?” Eira asked, frantic.
“What?” he exclaimed on a laugh, incredulous. “I didn’t kill anyone in the Westcotte family. Why would you even say that?
I was sworn to protect you—that was my highest calling!”
“Higher than rebelling against the very nobility you protected?” Eira may not have had memories of life before the uprising,
but she knew that swaths of the nobility were culled during the uprising. Only those who immediately bowed down to the Iron
Empire kept their titles—and their heads.
“Yes.” He placed a hand on her arm and Eira shook it off.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Okay.” He put his hands up. “I’ve left some things out, and I can understand why that would scare you. But this is not the
place to—”
Hugo was interrupted by an arrow as it shot past them, burying itself in a nearby tree and narrowly missing his head.
They turned to see three soldiers approaching them from the woods, Iron Retinue sigils on their armor.
“Run,” Hugo whispered.
“And go where?” Eira hissed back. They were nearly an hour’s ride outside of Fallstead, and who knew how far outside of another
town.
“How do they keep finding me?” Hugo said to himself as he unsheathed his sword and another arrow flew over his shoulder, narrowly missing Eira this
time.
As soon as Hugo unsheathed his sword, the two archers fell back. Eira watched them put away their bows, swapping them for
dark iron daggers.
Hugo strode to the big one in the armor, and Eira hoped that it was just a normal human—not whatever the horrible specter
had been that they’d fought before.
“Sir Patrick,” he said, somehow knowing the soldier without him ever speaking. “I’d recognize those slumped shoulders anywhere.”
“Hugo Venton,” a deep voice boomed out of the helmeted head. “You are a traitor to the Iron Empire, and an enemy of the lord
general. You have been sentenced to death—your iron is rusted.”
Eira had still been staring at the large knight until she noticed the other two soldiers, these two smaller and leather-clad,
creeping forward. One of them was moving directly toward her.
She felt around her pockets quickly for the dagger she always kept on her person, the dagger that had dispatched the other
monstrous knight, pulling it out of the pocket in her skirt and holding it out in front of her. She silently thanked Hugo
for picking it up off the ground that night; she’d been so focused on his wound that she’d have forgotten it . . . and been
left without anything to fight with at all right now.
“Don’t come any closer,” Eira warned the woman slinking toward her.
The archer wore her hair cropped close to her head, her features angular and her lithe body resembling nothing so much as
a snake. “Don’t come any closer,” the woman mocked as she circled in.
“I am not afraid to hurt you,” Eira stuttered, lying. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hugo collide with the knight he’d
called Patrick, the clang of their swords meeting leaving her ears ringing. Her ankle throbbed sickeningly, and she could
hear her pulse in her ears; she was panicking. She glanced at Arthur, and her bag that she’d tied to his saddlebags—the bag
with Pennyroyal in it.
“I think you are,” the woman hissed, smiling unpleasantly, crooked teeth bared.
Eira held out her dagger, taking tiny steps to her left, the woman matching her with each step.
“You’re far too pretty to be traveling with a traitor like Venton.” She lunged forward.
Eira managed to step out of the way, but barely, a piece of her sleeve catching on the soldier’s dagger and slicing open. Her ankle radiated pain with each step she took. This woman was trying to kill her.
Another clashing of swords, and another. Eira couldn’t focus on Hugo right now, or she’d die.
“Sir Patrick told me we’re supposed to kill whoever is working with Venton,” the snakelike woman said, tilting her head. “Are
you working with Venton, pretty lady?”
“Why are you trying to kill him?” Eira asked, desperately hoping that if she kept the woman talking, she’d be less likely
to actually kill her. Eira couldn’t run with her ankle like this, and she couldn’t get on Arthur before the woman got to her—she
was stuck.
“Your pretty mouth can’t distract me.” The woman lunged again.
Eira tried to parry, knocking the attacker’s aim slightly askew and leaving Eira’s arm only nicked instead of slashed bloody.
She looked down to see a thin line of red seeping into the edges of the cut cloth on her blouse. She swung again, watching
the attacker’s grin grow wider as she realized Eira was going to fight back.
Swords rang in the distance again, and Eira heard a grunt. She quickly looked over to see Hugo in active battle with both
the smaller soldier and the extremely large one, the grunt coming from the smaller soldier as Hugo knocked him backward with
a vicious kick.
The woman in front of her took advantage of the moment to lunge forward again, this time nicking the top of Eira’s back—another
shallow wound. This woman was playing with Eira like she was prey, like this was fun. Eira realized suddenly that she didn’t have a chance against this person, whoever she was. She thought back to last night,
to Hugo telling her she could have other magical capabilities. How could she calm down enough to clear her head for magic
in a moment like this?
The woman lunged again and Eira stepped back onto uneven ground. Her weak ankle buckled, and within a split second she fell, her dagger thankfully still in her hand as she landed on her back.
Her attacker slowly approached, looming over Eira, a deadly grin on her face and a dagger in her hand as she looked down.
“I thought this would be more fun,” she whined. “You’re boring.”
Eira closed her eyes, thinking of only the outcome she wanted. Just for her to stop—for them all to stop.
All at once, it was like a floodgate had opened, and she felt the magic flow through her. It was unfamiliar, and yet something
about it felt like home to her.
The sounds of fighting stopped in a heartbeat, turned to panicked yelling. Eira opened her eyes.
The woman in front of her was caged in writhing vines. Eira turned her head to see the other two soldiers also caged in the
same vines, trailing onto the road from the trees they’d ambushed Eira and Hugo from.
Time stood still as Eira’s eyes locked with Hugo’s, shock and fear etched into his features before his face hardened and he
looked away. The soldiers screamed about Eira being a witch as Eira stood with her dagger drawn and brushed off her skirts
absently, her ears still ringing. She looked back over at Hugo, who had turned away from her and was unceremoniously executing
the two knights near him, slitting their throats with his bloodied blade. Eira flinched as she watched the soldiers die. It
felt like overkill, and yet, it also felt necessary after what she had just done. Eira had cast elemental magic. Illegal magic.
No one could know.
Hugo was methodical, slicing just as much of their necks as necessary to make sure they lost their lives, hardly looking at
them as he did. If Eira hadn’t been afraid of Hugo before, she certainly understood how dangerous he was now.
Eira gingerly stepped toward the woman who had tried to kill her. Panic filled her attacker’s eyes as vines started to trail
over her face. They were still moving, still writhing and trying to stop her from breaking free.
“I understand why you’re traveling with Venton,” the soldier finally grunted, a green tendril hooking into her cheek as she spoke, the tip of the vine piercing through her mouth and out the other side.
Eira tried not to gag—what had she done? “You shouldn’t have tried to kill me,” Eira managed, barely a whisper.
“I may not succeed, but someone will—witch,” she said, spitting at Eira, the glob of saliva landing on Eira’s face.
Hugo was there only seconds later as Eira wiped the spit off her cheek. She watched the woman fall as Hugo slit her throat,
slicing through the vines closing around it. He turned to her, wiping the blood from the blade on the fallen soldier’s cloak
before putting the knife away in his belt.
“Get on Arthur and wait,” Hugo ordered, placing his hands on her arms and trying to look her square in the eyes, but Eira
kept avoiding his gaze.
Eira felt like everything he said had an echo, like she was existing outside of herself—she could feel the magic in her veins
still, foreign and a homecoming, all at once.
“You need to breathe,” he said as he got closer to her face, his hand cupping her cheek as he forced her to look into his
hazel eyes and hear what he was saying to her.
Eira inhaled sharply, the tunnels and dark spots swimming in her vision fading.
“Get on Arthur,” he repeated, gently this time.
So Eira did—she pulled herself onto the horse, mindful of her ankle, and pulled Pennyroyal out of the bag, holding the rabbit
close. She licked the wound on her arm as Eira scratched her head. A few minutes later the ringing in her ears subsided, but
then the shivering started, her whole body quaking from the shock of what she’d just seen. What she’d just done.
Eira Eckhart wasn’t just a potions witch. She was something else.