24 Eira
Eira
Hugo and Eira hadn’t stayed in the previous town for long, opting to ride hard for the two days it took to get back to Cilirien.
They had arrived at the outskirts of Eira’s home and hid in the forest for a few hours, waiting until sundown.
Hugo had disappeared from their camp for nearly an hour before coming back on foot and letting Eira know that the guards stationed
around town looked to be the standard city guard. He seemed hopeful that the ones who had barreled into the Honeyed Horn had
left town in their search for him. Maybe they were the ones they’d killed on the road just a few days ago . . . but Eira worried
that there were too many people looking for Hugo for them to have gotten that lucky.
Eira stepped out from behind the dense trees where she’d changed into the riding pants Hugo had insisted she put on, feeling
naked and nervous.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said as she patted Pennyroyal’s head. “You had better stay right here, or I’ll never forgive you.”
The rabbit tittered and stomped her back legs. Eira felt fairly confident that that was a “Sure, I’ll stay here” from the
creature.
Hugo turned to her as he tied Arthur to a nearby tree and Eira watched as his eyes raked down her entire body before returning to her eyes, a predator watching his prey. “You look wonderful,” he said, voice thick.
“I look like a boy,” she retorted, hip cocked and her eyebrow raised.
“You could not look like a boy if you tried, and trust me, I thought about trying that this evening so you weren’t recognized.”
Her face flushed, and Eira glanced down to try to hide it as they headed out on their mission. She supposed he was right;
there wasn’t much that could disguise her ample, and undoubtedly womanly, curves in most outfits. They’d have to put her in
a potato sack, and even that probably wouldn’t work very well.
A while later they found themselves at the edge of the city limits, the sun completely gone from the sky. Hugo directed them
around the farmhouses and onto the more densely packed roads, grabbing Eira’s hand as they got into the town proper. They
walked past people going about their evening and kept their heads down, Eira’s auburn hair hidden in the cape of Hugo’s cloak,
which smelled like pepper and freshly chopped wood and something undoubtedly masculine that made her pulse jump a little.
They wove through alleyways for what felt like forever, Eira passing storefronts and houses she’d been to before, a pang of
sadness rippling through her as she realized she’d probably never be coming back here.
Finally, they arrived at the Potions Patisserie, the door hanging off its hinges.
“Oh no,” Eira gasped, hand flying to her mouth.
Hugo pushed the door open, the lights spilling from the homes outside illuminating the interior of the store just enough that
she could see. The entire shop had been ransacked. Her spells had been smashed; her herbs had been crushed and scattered.
Every drawer had been opened and emptied.
“I was worried about this.” Hugo shook his head.
“It’s fine, there wasn’t anything here anyway. Nothing but my magic,” Eira said, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, before
turning around and running across the street to her house. It was not fine, but it had to be fine.
The door was ajar. Her home was in an even worse state; her furniture had all been broken, her kitchen destroyed.
“Eira,” Hugo said as he placed a hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Ignoring Hugo and shaking his hand off, Eira walked up the flight of stairs to the bedroom, trying to think of somewhere the
previous version of her would have hidden something that could help them. She needed to pull the emotion out of this; this
wasn’t her home. It had never truly been her home. It had felt like it, though, at least for a while.
They’d even shredded her mattress. Feathers flew around her room, encouraged by wind from the window she’d left cracked slightly
open the night she’d had to flee with Hugo.
“They were looking for something in here,” Eira said, picking up a few pieces of undamaged clothing they’d thrown on the floor
and stuffing them into her bag.
“I suspect it was to determine if you’d left any sign of where we were going to go,” Hugo responded, leaning against the room’s
doorframe behind her.
Eira closed her eyes, trying to turn her brain off. Where would Eira have hidden things before she lost her memory? Her eyes
snapped open as she realized what she had that the Iron Retinue didn’t. Beatrice.
She felt the familiar rush of the Flow, of her magic, as she conjured the spectral hand for the first time since she’d last
been in this house. As the hand appeared, Eira looked to Hugo, who was watching her with what looked like a mixture of horror
and awe.
Eira couldn’t blame him; magic was scary and unexplainable and beautiful. Eira never, never, felt more like herself than when she was using her magic. Now, she realized, it was probably because she’d been suppressing
her abilities all this time. All the magic that she could wield being funneled through potions alone for years had left her
body craving to use it for something more powerful. “Beatrice,” she said to the hand. “Please take me to the location where
I stored my most secret documents years ago.”
“Oh,” Hugo whispered on an inhale, standing up straight as he realized what Eira was trying to do.
The hand paused, Eira’s heart racing in panic, worried that there was no hiding spot—that she’d put herself and Hugo at risk
for nothing. Then, Beatrice zipped out of the room, Eira and Hugo chased after her as she flew down the stairs and into a
now-empty kitchen cabinet. Eira watched the hand pry open one of the side walls of the inside of the cabinet to reveal a slim
row of hidden shelving.
Oh. Viscountess Eira had hidden something here.
“Thank you, Beatrice,” Eira said before dismissing the hand and leaning into the open cabinet, fishing out what was on the
shelves.
There wasn’t much in the space: a leather-bound journal, a pearl necklace, and a bag of gold and silver pieces were all she
came away with. Eira backed out of the cupboard and into Hugo’s warm, solid chest, spinning to face him. He was so, so close
to her, their lips just inches apart. Pressed against his firm chest, Eira could feel his heartbeat pick up as he looked at
her. A thought flitted into her mind—all she needed to do was lean forward, and she’d be kissing him.
“You used to wear that necklace every day,” Hugo rumbled, causing Eira to snap out of her reverie and start mindlessly flipping
through the journal as a distraction as she stepped away. It appeared to be written in code, or at least in a language she
didn’t recognize. His voice was thick as he continued. “The princess gave it to you. It’s made of Osnian pearls.”
Eira closed the notebook, vowing to decode it later when they were in a safer place. “Why do you think I hid it?” she asked.
Hugo gently took the necklace from Eira and held the pearls to the dim light shining through the windows, showcasing the multicolored
light that refracted off of them. Eira had never seen anything like it before. “Osnian pearls are something special,” he said.
“They reflect light like nothing from our seas do. You probably hid them because no simple potions witch in Cilirien would
have a full necklace of them.”
“Right,” Eira said, taking them from him and holding up the bag of coin. “This would have also been useful at literally any
point in the last three years.”
“What’s in the notebook?” Hugo asked, indicating the journal she’d put in the bag with her clothing.
“I figured we could read it once we were back at camp,” she said, just as the sound of voices outside of the front door drew
closer, growing louder.
Hugo grabbed Eira and pulled her around the corner, pressing her against the wall where anyone peering into the ajar door
or open window wouldn’t be able to see them, his hand on her mouth to keep her quiet. He removed his hand from her lips and
placed a finger to his, their faces so close Eira could feel his breath and their bodies pressed against each other, Hugo’s
hard lines pressing into her soft curves for the second time in as many minutes.
His hand rested on Eira’s neck and the contact set her skin alight where they touched.
“Sir Jason, we’ve had this argument before,” one male voice said from outside of the doorway. “Suffering even a potions witch
to live in this town was always a bad idea.”
“Her sleep potion was pretty good,” answered what Eira assumed was Jason’s voice.
“All magic is bad magic, in my opinion,” the other voice said, and a shroud of sadness fell over Eira.
How many people in town had been lying about their acceptance of her?
The two men both stood at the doorway, and Eira desperately hoped they would stay there, or just leave.
Don’t come in, she willed in their direction.
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
“She was colluding with that commander—or ex-commander, I guess, according to those big guys from the capital. Plus, the two
of them murdered all those people in the Honeyed Horn that night, so if she was stupid enough to come back, she’d be asking
to be thrown in jail . . . or executed.”
Eira’s mouth opened and she started to gasp before Hugo quickly put his hand over her mouth again, his other hand straying
to the hilt of his sword. Worry filled his gaze as he stared toward the door, wound tight as a coiled spring with tension.
Eira hadn’t killed anyone that night, and neither had Hugo . . . the commander. Eira began to sweat as she realized that Hugo hadn’t just been a knight of the Iron Empire; he’d been one of their leaders.
Eira knew there was only a handful of Iron Retinue commanders, and they’d been awarded the honor for being the most vicious
during the uprising—and during the witch hunts that had followed.
Hugo’s eyes dragged from the front door to Eira. She could see that he knew she’d figured it out—that she knew what he was.