Chapter 14 Fletcher’s Passage #2
The waitress gave her a knowing glance that flickered between them, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I better let him know he owes us a handful more songs then.” She vanished through the swinging doors, her voice rising above the kitchen’s orchestral chaos.
Lark found a chair at an empty table. The worn wood creaked as she settled in. A few moments later Hardin joined her. “I thought you might not show,” he said, setting his lute in the chair next to him, his faithful companion.
“I was going to stay back, but then I imagined this place and a room full of people judging you, and thought, heck, it might be fun to see how you perform for an audience that isn’t forced to listen to your voice every single day. Always playing the same old so—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nobody’s forcing you to listen.”
A rare smile cracked through Lark’s normally stoic expression. “Hardin, I’m joking.”
“Oh,” he said, leaning back with theatrical suspicion, his chair protesting beneath him.
“I don’t know if you should make jokes. That one wasn’t very good.
” His hand rose to catch a passing waiter’s attention.
Within moments, a frothy mug materialized before him, its contents releasing tendrils of rich, hoppy aroma.
The waitress followed next, setting Lark’s water down in front of her before returning to the stream of people moving through the tavern.
“Not a good joke? Give me a break, it’s my first try,” Lark said with an innocent shrug. “I guess I’ll figure it out as I get more experience.”
“You’ve never told a joke before?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“That’s right, the whole memory-loss thing,” he said. Then he broke their eye contact as if losing interest and searched the room. He raised his mug to his lips.
“You’d have trouble, too, if you couldn’t remember anything. At least I don’t repeat the same verses over and over, like some bards I know,” Lark said with a slight rolling of her eyes.
Hardin choked on his drink and grinned. “That was much better. Still room for improvement, but your sarcasm is coming along.”
“Sarcasm,” she repeated. “Now that, I do remember. Never was a huge fan.”
“Where did you say you were from again?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re intriguing, and a little mysterious.
The night we met you looked like you’d just fallen off the turnip wagon.
Then the next day, you come out looking like that,” he said gesturing to her.
“Looking all cleaned up and wearing tailored clothes. Sometimes I think you’re pulling my leg when you say you can’t remember things.
But you’re so serious all the time... Also, there’s this layer where Ezra trusts you to be his rear guard for the caravan, which is no small task.
And at the same time, it’s like you are clueless about so many things that people consider common knowledge. For example, you say things like…”
“Like what?” she prompted, annoyed at his comfort in pointing out her flaws and then holding back.
“Like how you didn’t know fire fae are bad luck.”
Tell him why you don’t know these things, Nix’s voice sounded in her mind.
Lark’s emerald eyes cast out across the tavern. With so many lanterns glowing, she couldn’t spot the fire fae right away but finally found her hovering in a windowsill across the boisterous room.
“I guess it doesn’t matter too much since we’ll be going our separate ways in a few days,” he said, taking a long sip from his mug. “What kind of answers are you hoping to find in Astral City?”
“I, ahh…” she stared. A chair skidded on the polished wooden floor right behind Lark, distracting her for a moment and creaking as it accepted someone’s weight. She started to turn her head to see who it might be, but Hardin’s question lulled her back in.
“I don’t really know,” she said, her hand drifting to the pack nestled between her feet, ensuring that the mystic orb was still in her care. As her hand drew close, a comforting pulsing passed through to her. The Hyalite was still safe.
“What makes you think you’ll find the answers you’re looking for there?” Hardin insisted.
“I have my reasons.”
“You claimed you were a fire wheat harvester,” he began, speaking his thoughts aloud, searching for answers of his own.
“Given the competition in harvesting, that might explain why you have a grudge against Nordraven, but not why Ezra trusts you as his security detail. You are always armed with those daggers…”
“Hardin, stop digging,” Lark warned.
“And you keep that backpack suspiciously close to you. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve seen you leave it anywhere.”
“Hardin,” Lark’s tone darkened.
“You bring it with you everywhere. At the start of the trip, you hinted that you were going to the Vermillion Keep as well. I think—”
The waitress slipped in and placed the plate of chicken, rice and vegetables on the table in front of Lark. “Careful dear, the plate’s hot. Enjoy.” She twisted, taking the order of the person who had sat down behind Lark.
“I said I have my reasons, so leave it at that,” Lark responded. She grabbed her plate, hands singing with pain from the heat, but she wasn’t going to let pain stop her. She stood, saying, “Thanks for the meal, bard.”
“Ashes, you don’t have to be so standoffish. I thought we were becoming friends?”
“Now you know that we’re not. We’re just acquaintances who happen to be stuck on the same wagon.”
He frowned. “Are you leaving?”
“I want to be alone,” she said, not sure if she believed what she was saying, but she had already stood up to make her point. She gathered her pack and moved to an empty seat near the glowing window where Nix perched.
Why did I do that? she wondered, the savory food falling second to the questioning of her reaction.
She glanced at the pack, feeling the Hyalite’s energy within.
It was as though the energy there was harmonized with her.
If she was being honest with herself, bringing the Hyalite to the Vermillion Keep and handing it off like she thought she should do was starting to feel wrong.
That’s nonsense. I told myself I’d take it to them.
They know what to do with it. Nix didn’t want me to let it fall into Nordraven hands, so I need to keep going.
The Keep may know who I am. They could tell me who I was before.
She found herself looking toward Hardin again. Across the room, Hardin’s hands wrapped around his mug as he met her eyes. Confusion crossed his face. Lark averted her attention, focusing on the contents of her plate as if they held answers.
I should trust him more. He’s done nothing to harm me. Should I apologize? The thoughts tangled in her mind as she scraped the last morsels into her mouth.
When she risked another peek at Hardin, her breath caught in her throat. A young man sat beside him. The sight of his face sent a jolt of recognition through her body.
It’s him, she thought, her pulse racing.
Who? Nix’s voice whispered in her mind.
The elf from my vision, Lark replied.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away. In the flesh, he was arresting and very much alive, not like the hollow shell she’d witnessed in her vision. The flickering tavern light played across his handsome features, bringing warmth to what she had only seen through her dreams.
He’s not dead, she thought, her relief mingling with rising apprehension.
He cut an imposing figure next to Hardin.
His presence demanded attention. His dark gray cloak, finely woven and travel-worn, parted to reveal form-fitting light armor.
A sword hilt protruded from the wool fabric.
On its worn smooth pommel, there was a blue sapphire alite with magical energy.
Every line of him spoke of lethal grace: broad shoulders tapering to a warrior’s build, a strong jawline and hard-edged features that gave him an air of stern nobility.
His thick brown hair, less wild than Lark’s own locks, fell in waves around his face.
It hung slightly longer than military tradition dictated.
With his hood drawn back, the distinctive tips of his slightly pointed ears emerged.
But it was his eyes that held her captive.
They were like emerald pools flecked with gold, seeming to pierce through to her soul, just as they had in her vision.
Horror crashed over her. This was the stranger tailing her.
The hooded figure who had stalked her through the streets after that bone-chilling encounter with the Morsythian.
Her hand unconsciously moved to her throat, to finger the lark pendant that hung there.
Around his own neck glinted a gold chain of familiar craftsmanship, the pendant tucked away unseen beneath his layers.
He was the one who was following me here. He had been the presence that had sat down directly behind her. He’d overheard what Hardin nearly guessed at.
Does he know what’s hidden in my pack?
Deep in her chest, warmth bloomed; not the magical heat of her necklace, but something more primal. It was instinct mixed with adrenaline, the fighting instinct that had kept her breathing when Nordraven soldiers and grizzled bandits had tried to claim the Hyalite for their own.
She strained to catch their words through the noise of the tavern, but distance and crowd chatter rendered their conversation to meaningless murmurs.
Still, she watched their lips move, trying to decode their exchange through gesture and expression alone.
Did he know who Lark was? Her vision suggested their paths had crossed, though the memory of it was lost. That vision though, of her with the Hyalite, brismil sword in hand, and him on the ground, eyes wide open but not stirring.
Clearly, he had something to do with the prize hidden in her pack.
Her heart nearly stopped when Hardin’s finger jabbed in her direction, and his next word needed no sound to comprehend. “Her?”
Their eyes locked across the room again, and the intensity of his gaze struck her.
His expression gave nothing away, it was calculating and devoid of emotion.
She felt pinned, like a moth drawn to a flame, unable to look away from those forest-deep eyes.
When she finally wrenched herself free from their hold, she stood with such haste that her chair scraped against the wooden floor and nearly tipped over.
The cool night air hit her face as she burst outside, but she found herself frozen once more. Her necklace flared with heat, much warmer than Nix’s presence had ever triggered. She’d come to trust these sensations as a warning.
Nix materialized beside her, trailing whisps of flame. “I can feel it, too.”
“Do you know what’s causing it? Is it him?”
“I’ll try to find out,” Nix promised before vanishing into the darkness.
Lark knew this energy coming through the necklace.
It mirrored the pull she’d felt while watching the firestorm, but this was slightly different.
This time, the call came from the depths of the forest. It settled in her heart like a stone dropping through a mountain lake.
The dragon was reaching out, beckoning her to pierce the mysteries fogging her mind and come to him.