Chapter 11 The Caravan
THE CARAVAN
For an instant, when Lark took him in a second time, she was reminded of her recurring memory.
For a blip, she wondered if this could be the striking half-elf from that vision.
Though handsome, Hardin’s presence felt quite different from the man she repeatedly saw in that snippet of memory.
That stranger was green-eyed like her, dark-haired, muscular and armored.
His ears came to short points that protruded from his shaggy hair.
He was lying flat on his back, staring up from the ground, unmoving as Lark stood over him with a Hyalite in one hand and a brismil sword in the other.
But Hardin was not that man. For one thing, he was not half elf.
As he stated his name, Lark’s fingers brushed unconsciously against her pendant.
She assessed this Hardin Morningstar. He’d been in a fight, clearly, but why?
All he had was a lute and burlap sack full of clothing.
He didn’t even have a knife on his belt.
He was lean, tan-skinned, dark-eyed, and had a wispy mustache over his upper lip.
He was shorter than Lark by two inches and had the look of a young man who wasn’t looking for trouble, but trouble found him anyway.
The empty lobby grew awkwardly silent. Hardin cleared his throat.
“Is someone after you? It was, Hardin, right?” Lark asked.
“That’s right, and not anymore. It was just a bit of bad luck. I’ll be fine. Lark, right?”
“Like the bird,” she nodded. “You said you wanted a room?” Her fingers found the iron keys in the drawer.
“Yep. I’ll settle up with the owner in the morning.”
“At sunrise,” she said, gesturing toward the wagon outside. “His name’s Ezra.”
“I thought it was Cheyanne?” Hardin said.
“They’re partners. Ezra’s taking a caravan to Astral City in the morning,” Lark said.
“To the Vermillion Keep?” he asked, his eyes growing wider, reflecting an inner light.
“You’re heading there, too?” she asked.
Without answering, Hardin’s gaze fell to the key she’d placed on the wooden counter.
As his fingers closed around it, something surged through Lark like a struck bell, bringing with it the ghost-image of another man, another lute, another time.
The memory burned bright as a falling star before fading to dust.
“Thanks,” he said, turning toward the hallway door.
“Have we met before?” Lark called after him, trying to grasp the memory that danced just beyond her reach.
Hardin paused in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder. The lanternlight caught his profile, casting half his face in shadow. “Not unless you’ve ever been west of Dagger’s Landing.”
As he disappeared down the hall, warmth bloomed in her necklace. Lark looked down to find Nix had materialized, her presence a comfort against the growing mysteries of her past. Lark took a key and climbed the creaking stairs to her own room.
The chamber was small but sufficient, with a sturdy bed and a window that faced the darkened rural sprawl.
She closed the wooden shutters against the night and placed her bag on the bed with reverent care.
Her fingers found the Hyalite within. Touching it sent shivers of recognition through her bones.
In the darkness of her satchel, it glowed with a blue light that seemed to breathe, each gentle wave of illumination matching the rhythm of her heartbeat.
She stared into its depths, hoping for answers.
“Did you feel that something was off about that man?” Nix’s voice chimed like crystals in the wind.
“He seemed vaguely familiar. I could’ve sworn that I knew him from somewhere, but I can’t be sure. He didn’t recognize me, though,” Lark said.
“He wasn’t like the others,” Nix said, her form flickering slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“There was something about his aura that didn’t feel like the people from the village. He was human right?”
“People’s auras feel different to you?” Lark asked, gaining the sense that Nix had picked up on this when first assessing Hardin. The reason why she disappeared as soon as she heard him speak.
“They’re different for each race. Humans’ auras usually feel very passionate .
Dwarves are grounded and firm. Elves are faint, and hard to sense.
But his was, like something from before, but I’m having difficulty remembering,” the fae trailed off as though her memories were shrouded in mist as well.
“He seemed human enough to me.”
“Yes, I think he is, but his aura.... It was different,” Nix said.
“You’re confusing me; how was his aura different?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like looking at a painting where someone used all the wrong colors. The shapes were familiar, but they didn’t look quite right,” she responded.
The necklace trickled with warmth against Lark’s throat as she asked, “He avoided answering when I asked him about the Vermillion Keep. Do you think he knows about the Hyalite?”
Nix’s form dimmed. “Anyone who knows you have a Hyalite will try to take it from you or kill you. Especially the people you took it from.”
“Do you know who I took it from?” Lark asked, feeling foolish for not having thought to ask the fae earlier.
“Yes, I think so… or. No, that’s not right,” she said struggling, her form weaving like a candle about to blow out. With an effort, she gasped, and said, “I can’t remember. I’m sorry Lark.”
“You can’t remember either? You knew me from before, didn’t you?”
Nix’s contemplative silence filled the room before she nodded, her movement leaving trails of firelight. “Yes. I have known you a long time, I think.”
“Can you remember who I am?” The question hung suspended between them for a moment.
Nix twisted in uncomfortable patters as she fought with the answer. “You are Lark, I am Nix.”
“Those aren’t our real names, are they?” Lark stated.
Her headshake sent orange light reflecting across the bed sheets.
“Do you know why you led me here instead of to Astral City like you led me to believe?” Lark said, her anger starting to rise.
Instead of answering, Nix drifted across the bed’s surface.
She was fixated on the Hyalite, its inner light seemed to reach out to her like tendrils of blue flame.
Lark found a grip on her emotions, realizing if Nix had been with her from before, perhaps whatever had caused Lark’s amnesia may have somehow influenced Nix, too.
“What about the dragon?” Lark asked.
“I don’t know him,” the fae answered dreamily, still staring at the Hyalite.
“Do you know why the dragon showed itself to me?”
“It wanted to get a better look at you, of course,” Nix giggled.
“But it ran away.”
“It was spooked by the dwarf.”
“What was it doing out there alone?” Lark asked, now considering the dragon she’d heard had gone missing several weeks ago.
“Dragons live in the wild. They’re more common where there aren’t a lot of people. At least that’s how it is in my realm,” Nix said, shifting to face Lark again.
“There are dragons where you come from, too?”
“Of course. Where do you think your dragons migrated from, silly? Only, our dragons don’t seek out Hyalites and expand their power by bonding with riders,” Nix clarified.
“Is that what the dragon was doing, trying to bond with me because of the Hyalite?” Lark asked.
Nix shrugged, sending ripples through her flaming form.
“Ezra doesn’t seem to see or hear you like I can. Is that normal?” Lark asked.
“He should be able to, I think. People like you see and hear me,” she said.
“What does that mean, someone like me?”
“I can’t remember,” Nix said, flying within a hand’s width from Lark’s chest and staring at the gold necklace.
The pendant shared a connection to Nix, its warmth growing as Nix glared at the golden lark. The metal felt alive against Lark’s skin, responding to the fae’s proximity. Yet when Lark’s fingers searched for its clasp to give her some relief, she found only seamless metal.
“What are you doing that for?” Nix asked.
“You can read my mind, can’t you?” Lark quipped.
“Only when you’re shouting your thoughts at me. When you keep them to yourself it’s harder.” Her eyes closed in concentration. A moment later, they snapped open with the sharp clarity of revelation. “You can’t take the necklace off. It doesn’t come off.”
“What?” Panic fluttered in Lark’s chest like trapped birds as she pulled at the chain, but it remained immovable. The metal thumped like something trapped inside, responding to her distress, and sending waves of warmth through her body that she knew she should recognize.
“Stop it. Why are you doing that?” Nix said, fear in her voice.
“I want to take it off,” Lark said, with mounting anxiety.
“You can’t,” Nix said almost harshly.
“Why not?”
Nix’s fiery face wrinkled in her effort to remember.
“If you know what happened to me, why I can’t remember anything from before the village, you must tell me,” Lark demanded.
“Stop asking or he will—”
Nix’s form erupted into a shower of sparks. Her disappearance left the air feeling hollow, incomplete, as if a crucial thread had been pulled from the tapestry of Lark’s understanding about the world.
“Nix? Where’d you go?” Lark’s voice fell flat in the suddenly empty room.
Only the fading pulse of the necklace against her throat answered, its touch a reminder that she wasn’t gone forever, just hiding in another plane of existence.
Exhausted, Lark fell back onto the bed, holding the Hyalite above her. Countless lights danced within its depths. The longer she gazed into it, the more the boundaries between herself and the orb seemed to blur, as if they shared the same pulse, the same breath, the same essence.
When she slept, a dream rose up to meet her like an old friend. The forest in her vision was alive with magic, each fern and tree held centuries of knowledge in its very fiber. The air tasted of pine sap and dew drops.
Tastes in a dream, she thought, how interesting.