Chapter 32 Rhianelle
I’m hungry.
My stomach growls, loud and angry. I press my small hands against it to make it stop. But it doesn’t work. The emptiness stays.
I sit on the mossy ground near our little camp, a hollow under a massive oak tree where Blaire and I sleep. This is where we hide from the things that hunt in the dark. We’re safe here.
Nowhere in Astefar is truly safe, but this oak has kept us alive so far.
I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. What’s left of my dress is more holes than fabric. It’s ragged, torn, and stained with mud.
The dress used to be pretty. The white linen has little embroidered flowers on the hem. Lady Deirdre made it for me. She spent hours stitching those tiny blossoms in pale pink thread. I remember watching her work by candlelight while she hummed.
Now my gown is gray-brown.
The hem is gone, torn away on some branch. The sleeves hang in shredded ribbons. Tears run across the bodice where I tried to sew them closed with twisted plant fibers. But my repairs just make it look worse.
I look like a beggar, not a princess. No one would believe I’m the daughter of Reinhart and Rhianelle Wiolant.
Blaire is out right now. She left before dawn, slipping away while I was still asleep. I woke when the warmth beside me was already gone and found a message scratched into the dirt with a stick.
Village. Food. Stay hidden.
Blaire can read only a few words, so she always keeps her messages simple.
Sometimes we trade herbs for food with the people. Well, sometimes. When they don’t look at us with those calculating eyes and try to trap us.
The last time we went together, a woman offered us bread while two men crept around the back of the hut. Blaire saw their shadows beneath the door and pulled me through the window before they could block the way.
We ran until my lungs hurt and the village bells stopped ringing behind us.
I worry about her.
But Blaire is older than me. I think she said she was seven or eight. I can’t remember. I am too hungry. She knows how to be clever and how to run fast when things go wrong.
“Please come back,” I whisper to the empty forest. “Please be safe, Blaire. Please.”
The forest doesn’t answer. Just the sound of crickets singing their endless song.
My stomach growls again. Louder this time.
I need to find food. I can’t just sit here waiting for Blaire to do everything. I push myself to my feet. My legs are skinny with knobby knees poking through the tears in my dress. My arms look the same. All bones and pale skin.
I start walking. Quiet steps like Blight taught me.
I’ve been here long enough to know which berries are safe to eat and which ones will make me sick. I find a patch of wild onions. They’re small and bitter, but edible. I pull up three or four and stuff them in the little pouch I made from a scrap of my old dress.
I wish Rainer would visit again. He came last month, or was it two months ago? I try to remember, but I’ve lost track. Time doesn’t work the same way anymore when every day is just about surviving until the next one.
He brought bread. It was soft, warm, and perfect. We ate so well that day. There was cheese and dried meat. Blaire and I stuffed ourselves until our bellies hurt.
Then my uncle went back to the frontier. And we went back to being hungry. I should have saved some of the food and hidden it somewhere safe for later. I’m so stupid sometimes.
My stomach growls again and I press my hand harder against it.
“Shh, I know,” I tell it. “I’m working on it.”
I keep walking, searching for anything edible. Mushrooms. Roots. Berries.
I try not to think about the other option. The one I think about every day but never say out loud.
I could tell Rainer the truth.
I could tell him that the villagers of Fewildra are trying to sell us. They’re going to give us away to the slavers of Tiamat to become servants or worse.
I could tell him.
He would fix it. But my uncle would also tell my mom.
She is from the old bloodlines of Kashran, the coast dwellers with fire in their veins and rage in their hearts.
The Kashrans don’t show mercy to people who hurt their family.
If they knew what the villagers tried to do, they’d torch the entire village.
They wouldn’t care that some of the villagers are innocent.
They’d just burn it all.
I can’t let that happen. I won’t have all those deaths on my hands. It’s not right. So I stay quiet and hidden.
And I stay hungry.
I need to keep surviving. One day at a time. My feet carry me toward the river. That’s where I set my fish trap yesterday. Hopefully, there’s something in it.
Please let there be something in it.
My stomach grumbles again and I walk faster.
The river isn’t far. It’s just through the thick brush and down a small slope where the trees thin out. Here, the light actually reaches the ground.
I love the river. It’s one of the few places in Astefar that feels almost normal. The rushing water sounds like music when it flows over the rocks. Sometimes it reminds me of the ocean back home.
I approach carefully. Because you never know what might be watching. But today the riverbank is empty. It’s only me, the water and the fish trap I set yesterday.
I scramble down to the water’s edge, my bare feet slipping on the wet stones. I don’t slow down because I can see it. The round basket trap sitting in the shallow water where I left it.
It’s woven from river reeds with a narrow opening at the top that fish can swim into but can’t swim out of. Blaire taught me how to make it. She showed me how to weave the reeds tight enough to hold fish but loose enough to let water flow through.
I’m not very good at it yet. My trap is lumpy, uneven, and ugly.
But sometimes it works.
Please let it work today. Please, please, please.
I grab the trap and lift it out of the water. Flopping around inside… is a fish!
It’s only the length of my hand, small. But it’s food.
“Yes!” I scream. “Yes, yes, yes!”
I jump up and down, splashing in the shallow water, not caring that I’m getting my dress wet. I don’t care about anything except the fish.
The beautiful, perfect, amazing fish.
I hug the trap to my chest, fish and all.
My stomach is already anticipating. I can already imagine the taste.
If I can find dry wood, I can make a fire and I can cook it properly.
If I can’t wait, maybe I’ll just eat it raw.
I’ve done that before. River fish is not great to eat raw like the ocean fish, but it’s—
Something moves in my peripheral vision.
Fast. Green. Large.
I turn my head just in time to see it.
A frog.
It’s the size of Judge, Rainer’s large dog. Maybe bigger, with bulging yellow eyes and slimy green skin and a mouth that opens wide.
“Hello…?” I mutter quietly.
A tongue shoots out as fast as lightning. It wraps around my fish and yanks it right out of the trap.
“NO!” I scream.
But it’s too late.
The tongue vanishes between the frog’s wide jaws. I see the fish’s tail still sticking out. Then the frog gulps, and a lump travels slowly down its throat.
I stare at the frog. The frog stares back at me.
Then it croaks, proud and satisfied.
“You…” I can barely breathe through the rage and despair. “You ate my fish!”
The frog blinks slowly, unconcerned.
“That was my fish!” I’m screaming now. “I caught it! I was going to eat it! You can’t just—”
The frog turns around and starts hopping away like it didn’t just steal my dinner.
“No!” I drop the empty fish trap and grab the first thing I can find. A long, thin branch that fell from one of the trees. “No, you don’t! Come back here!”
I charge after the frog and raise the stick like a sword.
The frog hops faster, bounding across the riverbank with those powerful back legs.
“Give it back!” I shout, chasing. “Spit it out! Vomit it up! Give me back my fish!”
The frog croaks again. It sounds like laughter.
“Don’t you laugh at me!” I swing the stick and miss. The frog is faster than it looks. “I’m hungry! I need that fish! You probably have lots of fish! You’re a frog! You can catch fish whenever you want! But I—”
My voice cracks. Tears are streaming down my face now. Hot, angry, desperate tears.
“I’m just hungry,” I whisper. “Please. Please give it back.”
The frog doesn’t care. It just keeps hopping away from the river and into the forest.
I follow it because I can’t just let my fish disappear into the frog’s belly. I will chase this frog to the end of Astefar if I have to. I will make it give back my fish.
“Please,” I beg as I run after it. “Please, Sir Frog. I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry I tried to hit you. I’m so hungry. Please.”
The frog hops and hops and hops. I follow it through the trees, over fallen logs, and around bushes until finally—
The frog stops.
It sits down perfectly still on the mossy ground.
I stop too. I’m breathing hard with tears still wet on my cheeks.
“Please,” I say one more time. “Please give it back.”
The frog doesn’t respond and that’s when I notice where we are.
There’s a massive fallen log covered in moss and mushrooms, and sitting on that log is an elf. His hair is long, silver-white, streaked with darker gray.
I can tell he is one of the High Elves. His clothes are beautiful and pristine.
He wears a deep forest-green tunic with intricate embroidery along the collar and cuffs, and leather armor covers his chest and shoulders.
It’s the kind my uncle wears, well-made and clearly expensive.
He looks like he just stepped out of a palace instead of walking through a forbidden forest.
Nothing about him belongs in Astefar. Everything looks untouched and perfect.
Except his eyes.
Those deep brown eyes seem weary. He looks tired.
The frog hops over to the log and sits right next to the High Elf’s boot.
Is it his pet?
I stand there for a moment, stick still in my hand, not sure what to do. Should I run or stay or ask about my fish or—
“Hello, little one,” the stranger says. His voice is gentle and kind. I haven’t heard a voice like that in so long.
“Hello,” I whisper back.