Chapter 14
Eldric
D awn was breaking over the rolling hills as night still clung to the dew-shadowed grass. Eldric and Lorali walked in companionable silence, morning brews in hand as they relished the morning birds’ song. The stars twinkled out, the sun’s light sending them to bed until the next evening when they could play once more. It was a balance, a peace inherent in nature that was in constant motion while they passed through underfoot.
“How far did you have to go for those starberries?” Lorali asked, eyeing the pack he shouldered, skeptical as the sun rose higher in the sky and the formidable heat returned. Her green cotton skirt swooshed at her calves, the short sleeves of her blouse puffed out from being tucked beneath dark stays. Seeing her away from the house in anything but her robes was a rare sight that Eldric drank in.
“That patch was near the city gate, but this one is my favourite and well worth the trip. I haven’t been in years. ”
“This is more than just a quick, half-day trip, isn’t it?” she asked, hesitant.
“Yep.”
“What about my plants! Someone has to water them, probably at least twice a day in this heat—”
“Already took care of it, Lor,” he assured her.
“You said you haven’t been in years. What if there’s nothing there now?” Her mind was already at work, always needing a plan. He didn’t stop as he looked at her with raised eyebrows and a half smirk.
“Well, that’s why they call it an adventure, Lorali. We’ll just have to find out.”
***
The sound of wooden wheels on gravel crested the hill behind them and they moved to the edge of the trodden path, giving a halfhearted wave as the merchant cart pulled by a lone mule took the road. Its owner nodded his acknowledgement as he moved past. Eldric watched as the older man turned around to look at them and he couldn’t help but keep his hand on his sword’s pommel as it slowed in speed and they began to catch up to it .
“Headed toward Juelton?” shouted the cart driver, the brim of his straw hat casting stark shadows against his bearded face when he turned around.
“Yes, are you?” Eldric questioned, shielding his eyes from the sun as they slowed their approach. The man seemed harmless, but then again, most people did.
“Yes sir, sure am. I’d be more than willing to let you ride on the back for a copper. I’m sure your lady there ain’t happy about walking all the way there.” The man’s sun-leathered face was wrinkled with fine lines, long grey beard blowing in the soft hillside breeze.
He met Lorali’s smokey eyes with a raised brow. Her freckles stood dark against her pinked cheeks and a thin sheen of sweat had already formed across her brow. While the scenery was breathtaking on foot, the thought of her overworking herself going along with his half-baked schemes made him reconsider. Taking a coin from his pouch in offering, he handed it to the man before guiding Lorali to the back of the uncovered cart.
“You want to trust a random man on the road?” Lorali whispered, looking between him and the cart driver as he came around the back. “What if he tries to attack us?”
“You married a random man at the foot of the gallows, Lorali, I don’t think you have much room to talk,” he whispered back with a smirk.
She opened her mouth to retort, but must have thought better of it. Lips pressing together, she said nothing. His hands went to her waist on instinct and lifted her into the cart, her stubborn protests mingling with the sound of his laughter.
***
Within an hour they were deeper into the foothills of the mountain range, exploring the packed dirt street lined by the same buildings owned by the same families they had been for the last fifty years, the once vibrant painted exteriors now washed out by years in the sun. While he had grown in his thirty-two years, Juelton still had the same unchanging charm as when he was a boy. A town, frozen in time. It made coming back easy, his favourite haunts as a child the same as ever. Meandering through the heart of Juelton, he took her hand so they wouldn’t be separated in the summertime tourist crowd bustling about. Eldric and Lorali looked through the open windows of stores as they passed by, slipping in and out of their doors as they perused. When the smell of warm sourdough wafted through the air making his mouth water, Eldric tugged Lorali to the counter of his favourite cafe in the hillside town .
“Why, Eddie Lorecaster, is that you?” a woman’s voice crooned, looking up with a wide smile as the front door chimed. “I’d recognize those clover eyes anywhere. Where’ve you been, hun?” Her words were slanted, the edges rounded with a mountain accent he had lost to time. He couldn’t help but smile at the tall woman who stood behind the counter, her light brown skin tanned from the summer sun and new silver strands woven into her familiar, dark braids. She was older than he remembered, but that kindness crinkling the corners of her eyes was timeless.
“Hi, Miss Marta. It’s been a while.” He smiled as she reached over the counter and scooped him into a hug, pressing a kiss to each cheek. He couldn’t help but laugh at her unchanging personality. Always big, always loud, always warm.
“Well I’ll be, Eddie, it’s been years since you’ve been home! I thought you’d gone and died on me. Don’t you know how the post works—?” Her questioning came to a halt as she realized he was not alone. Her eyes dipped to their hands, noting the same swirling tattoos that ended in a band around their third finger. “Ah, who do we have here! Did you run off and get married without me and Lou knowing? She’ll be mad as a hornet when she finds out!”
“This is Lorali,” Eldric laughed, dodging her questions with practiced ease. “We’re going to the starberry patch down by the jewel, I figured you and Lou might like some fresh berries in exchange for a bite of lunch?”
“Now Eldric, if your mama heard you trying to bargain with me for food, she’d have my head. What’ll you be having?”
“I’ll—” he started before Marta promptly cut him off with a raised hand.
“Not you, I know what you’re getting. Your friend here, Miss Lorali, was it? What can I get for ya?”
Lorali blinked, looking between the two who only stared at her, waiting.
“Uhh—whatever he’s having will be fine. I’ll pay for our food—” Her voice was quiet, her hands already moving toward her coin pouch.
“Nonsense, any friend of Eldric’s eats here free. It’s the least you deserve for putting up with this troublemaker.” Marta grinned before waving them to a table and turning to make their food. The cafe was slow in the late morning, those searching for breakfast already gone and those searching for lunch yet to arrive. The perfect time.
“So, you’re from here?” Lorali asked as they took the corner table surrounded by windows. Her gaze was pulled to the outside, watching people and carts pass. Though she didn’t look directly at him, he knew she was still listening .
“We moved to Athera when I was ten; people in Juelton didn’t pay enough for my mother to raise a boy who outgrew his shoes every season and ate his weight in food,” he said with a shrug, leaning back to watch the sun gild her pale hair. Her brows scrunched together as she studied him, the slightest hint of a frown playing at the corner of her lips.
“What’s with the scowl, Lor?”
“I’m just wondering how much there is to you I’ve yet to learn.”
“Quite a bit, but for you, I’m an open book.”
“Really?” she snorted, elbows on the table with raised brows.
“I think we’re close enough for that, don’t you?” he replied with a soft smile.
He meant it—if she asked, he’d tell her. Despite the fear that she could see him for how little he was worth and flee, he was still willing to take the chance. He would bare his soul to her, and pray that she would keep him at her side when their time was up. He realized these last few days that, already, he didn’t know how he would live in a world without her constant warmth he’d grown accustomed to, that glow of goodness that made him feel like he may be worth redeeming, if he could just make her smile. That he had been worth saving at all.
“Then I have to know, Eddie ,” her expression turned mischievous at the use of his old nickname. “What are we having for lunch?”
***
Sunlight glinted off the small lake’s surface behind them, a jewel nestled at the foothills of the mountain towering overhead. Though the basket was heavy in Eldric’s arms, the thought of meats, cheese, and marinated vegetables between a fresh sourdough loaf was enough of a reward for his efforts. Marta had never made a sandwich he hadn’t devoured, and he knew this would be no different. Fit for a picnic, she said, passing the basket and giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. With a soft, knowing smile, she sent them off with an offer for dinner on their return and a place to sleep. A grin spread across his face when he peeked into the basket and saw a bottle of cider for them both and small jars filled with enough oils, vinegar, and spreads to dress their sandwiches however they pleased.
They were almost there. South of the jewel hid an untamed patch of starberry brambles that crept through the forest clearings, feeding both wildlife and adventurous children alike for years. He could still remember the sweet taste of fresh-picked starberries on his fingers beneath the summer sun, the feel of his sweaty hair curling in the humid summer heat, and the sound of his mother’s laughter as she watched over him, waiting for his energy to run dry. It never did. Only after her passing did he realize how much he would yearn for those days, when the promise of returning together was no longer there.
“There they are!” Lorali exclaimed, spotting the clearing filled with bright yellow berries nestled within green leaves, warm beneath the sun. Gathering her emerald skirt, she sprinted ahead with an astonished laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many in one place!”
“Athera’s a bit too warm for them to grow well, but closer to the mountains they’re like weeds. Delicious, savory little weeds.” He chuckled, settling into the grass beside a stacked stone pile at the edge of the clearing, just within the shade’s reach. Watching Lorali kneel in the grass, using the fabric of her skirt as a basket to collect starberries for their feast, it was hard to reconcile the sight of her unseeing eyes as she channeled the gods. Something so divine, he feared he might ruin it. But here, in the trees and the wild with the scent of rosemary soap on her skin, she was merely a woman. Something he was beginning to think she never had the chance to be before.
Unpacking their basket, Eldric glanced at the stones beside him, and his throat tightened. Twelve years. He couldn’t believe it had been that long since he was last here. There had been so many things to do, a life to live, that he just…hadn’t been back. Sometimes it felt like his life here, in Juelton, was nothing but a dream—or that his life in Athera was a nightmare. He wasn’t sure which. He had never stopped long enough to figure it out. To merge those parts of himself, the then and the now. Because perhaps, if he didn’t, being here wouldn’t hurt as much. With a shaky hand, he took a small rock from his pocket, placing it atop a stack that had grown in his absence.
“Hey, mom,” he whispered. Eldric rested his chin on his knees, eyes tracing the dark veins within the thick granite stone at the stack’s base that marked where she rested.
“I’m sorry I haven’t visited.” He swallowed, blinking up at the bright sky and willing the sun to dry his tears before they fell. “It’s hurt too much until now. To think about you. To be happy. I was so tangled up in my hurt and pain, I couldn’t bear the thought. But that’s changing. It’s a little late, but I think I found someone. I wish you could have met her, mom. You’d have loved her. She reminds me it’s okay to keep living. She makes me want to.”
His breath shuddered through him and he tucked his head into his crossed arms, focusing on keeping an even in and out as the soft sound of Lorali’s shoes neared, stopping in front of him .
“El?” Her name for him was full of worry, the fabric of her dress holding a bountiful harvest of berries for them to share. “Everything okay?”
He nodded, wiping his hands across the grass. She sat down and scooped handfuls of starberries into the now empty basket, studying him as if he were someone worthy of concern. As if she could see every part of him, and still wished to be at his side.
“Being sentimental,” he said with a sad smile, divvying up their food. He could see the war play across her face, deciding if she should reach out. To touch. He would not keep it from her; he’d expose his grief to her healing hands if she’d allow it. And she did.
He told her of his mother’s death, how at fourteen he had used the last of their money to bring her to Juelton and mourned her as she’d have wanted. Set upon a pyre on the jewel at dusk, he’d watched her ashes scatter to the wind and those that didn’t, he collected and brought to the starberry patch started by her grandmother and buried beneath the soil. Honoring all six of the gods in that ancient way of giving oneself to their care for eternity. He gave her final rite himself, bumbling through the prayers she had taught him as a small child and hoping they were heard. She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way .
“May I?” Lorali asked after a few long, quiet moments with a gesture to the stones. Her voice was soft, an offering not as a high cleric, but as a friend.
With his nod, she took the dagger sheathed at her side and carved into the soil six interconnected rings enclosed within a double circle. The sigil of the divine in its simplest form, inscribed within the loam. A symbol of nature and balance; of where all things came from and returned to. Ancient as the foothill towns and mountain range villages that connected the continent, where they still worshiped all gods as equals rather than placing one above all others. The wild lands the Order had left untouched.
Her palms touched the dirt as prayer dripped from her lips, soft yet filled with power. He had never listened to the words of the mourner’s prayer before, had never heard them as clearly as he did now. They were not words meant for the dead, he realized, but for the living. A prayer of blessing, of peace. The promise for reunion and healing. Not a prayer for his mother, but a prayer for him. To feel his anguish and let it pass.
Silent tears spilled down the planes of his face, that grief raw and untouched after all this time. Pushed down by anger and rage, by an infinite number of distractions to keep the pain away. But with her words, he felt he might begin to heal .
And as Lorali’s prayer ended, she looked to him with caring eyes full of hope, arms outstretched in the sticky summer heat of the starberry patch. An offering for touch not needed for their bond. Comfort and connection that Eldric embraced as he began to weep.