CHAPTER XXIII #2
Her eyes catch mine as she gives a barely-there smile, a smile that has its own polite quirkiness to it and reminds me that she is not known to entertain social interactions.
I give Elena a friendly smile before the two of us set off towards the stables.
We walk past the building and towards the dirt path that leads along the Bell Grove.
I turn when I hear another set of footsteps behind us and spot a Discerni soldier following the Princess at a small distance. She doesn’t seem to care. Everything about her is light and airy, as if she’s present in the moment right now but her mind and thoughts are elsewhere.
“It was not our intention to cause your mother grief,” I tell the Princess after a few moments of walking in silence, “we just needed the time alone.”
Elena glances at me with a soft, knowing smile. “I know it.”
I take a deep breath, reminding myself just how much Elena actually does know.
She’s the reason I became a ward under the King and Queen, the reason I grew up in Bardot.
She’s the reason I’ve been set on this path, why I traveled for her father on behalf of Hirovale, and perhaps even on behalf of Sianoa, the Ancient she studies for.
Her actions, no, her visions, are what set everything in motion, and I realize now that I have so many questions for her, so many open-ended trails of thought that have yet to be answered.
But will she even be open to answering them for me?
“I can only assist in the areas that I am a part of,” Elena replies, keeping her gaze on the path ahead of us.
My eyes go wide. “Are you a mind reader as well?”
“Barely,” she smiles in amusement, “but I do hear little thoughts, here and there. Mostly thoughts that are resonating strong enough from the other person. They make their way into my mind unannounced. I do not ask for them.”
Ancients.
“Can you tell me what happened to me in Woodlands?” I ask her softly, yearning for the unknown piece of my life.
It was a line of thought that I never dwelt on in the past thanks to Troy’s summoning, but whatever Golem did to help me combat the magic recently definitely seems to be working.
My interest has piqued, and every part of me wants to know whatever details she can give me.
“Do you know how I came to be at Bardot? I don’t even remember what my parents looked like and remember next to nothing of my life there.”
“I do,” Elena nods, “and I’m sorry we haven’t had this conversation before. The timing was never right.”
The Princess sighs to herself and then turns to look not at me, but at Stormfall sleeping on my shoulder. She gives the Bird of Ash a small smile as I wait in anticipation.
“You graced my visions about a year before your fourteenth birthday,” she states softly, “a young human girl with the biggest smile on her face who was always seen running through the forest. You were a happy girl, Alexis, so curious and filled with a sense of adventure that not many still had at that age. You lit the smiles on everyone you met, a rare sight to see in the lands that you hailed from…”
“But you were also a sheltered girl,” she shakes her head solemnly, “ignorant to the maliciousness that was around you. When I took to the task of finding out who you were and where you lived…”
She shakes her head again, not looking at me.
“Your parents did a good job at shielding you from the horror around you.”
I take a deep breath, needing the answer. “And where was that horror?”
“Etter,” she replies quietly.
My inhale is sharp as I try to still my beating heart…
I come from Etter.
My family lived and raised me in the small Woodlands village of Etter.
“I considered bringing you back with me to Alston once I found you. Considered offering your parents an explanation and offer of ward under my protection. I didn’t know of your significance then, but I did know that Sianoa would not let you grace my visions if not for a needed purpose.”
“But you were so happy with your parents, despite everything around you. I couldn’t take you away from that. Not from the only family you knew…”
Elena looks out to the Bell Grove, “so I watched you from afar for a few months, curious about the young girl who caught Sianoa’s attention. I kept my distance and traveled between Alston and Etter, never announcing myself on my visits and just watching. Until fate decided to intervene…”
I stop in my walk, somehow knowing I needed to stand still for whatever she had to say next.
“I took you on the night of the attack…” she pauses as well, her voice quiet.
Attack?
“The Discerni of your village raided the homes of all the human men and women they suspected of harboring dissent to their rule. The force could not be stopped. It was something that culminated after years of brewing.”
Elena watches me carefully in the next moment, her gaze turning sad.
“Your parents were at the forefront of that dissent, Alexis. Something that I found out too late in my months of spying. They had been rallying the humans of your small village to step out of Discerni rule and live their lives free and unburdened for years. They aimed to govern themselves, to live in their home without fear.”
He words bring a surprising smile to my face.
My parents were fighters.
They stood up for what was right.
Elena shakes her head, “they stood no chance, Alexis.”
My heart drops.
“I snuck into your home that night during the attack, hearing the screams on my ride in. The village was ablaze, homes burnt to the bare wood floors as humans were slaughtered and children pulled from their families without mercy.”
She looks away in disgust, “I didn’t know if you would be alive when I entered your home. The place that you were living,” she shakes her head slowly, “when I tell you that home was not fit for a family of three…”
“Alexis, even through all the flames burning down the walls, your home was little more than a hovel. I found you hiding under the only bed in the only room, your body shaking from the horror around you. Your mother lay slain on the floor not feet away, blood pooling from her gut and onto the ground. I don’t know how you kept quiet during the attack or how you stayed under the bed even as the flames took over everything around you, and I probably would have missed you had I not heard the small whimper you gave at the sound of my feet.
The moment I reached down to grab you, you set your eyes on me and screamed.
I can only suspect that you saw too many familiar features on my face that resembled the men who destroyed your home… ”
“I pulled you out from under the bed kicking and screaming,” she continues, lips tipping up in a small smile, “you immediately attacked me with a butter knife. You were so scared and angry that I couldn’t blame your actions, but I did know that I had to get you out of the village undetected.”
A single tear drops down my cheek as Elena resumes our walk, the Princess having the grace to pretend she didn’t notice.
“The sounds of the screams that filled the village that night will haunt me forever, Alexis. I know they haunted you. As did the continual sight of me pulling you through your family’s home...”
“I had to force a sleeping draught down your throat,” she whispers, almost as if ashamed of herself, “you were fighting against me so violently. You tried with all your might to get out of my hold and looked at me with such hate in your eyes that I knew the once vibrant girl I watched from afar was completely and utterly gone.”
“I held you in my arms…” she murmurs, “held you tight as the draught took over… but then your eyes fluttered open with a determination that should not have been there!”
“The look in your eyes, Alexis,” she brings her gaze to mine in astonishment, “I see it sometimes in my dreams. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the flames from the burning home were reflecting within them. You pushed away from me and ran out of the room, your hand gripped on the knife as if you would deliver justice to the terrorizing Discerni yourself. I ran after you, ran through the flames until I found you stopped just before the front door. There were tears flowing from your eyes as you looked over your dead father, his body brutally slain defending your home.”
Ancients.
“I don’t know if it was the sight of him that caused you to pass out or if it was the sleeping draught finally taking its effects, but your whole body suddenly buckled in place.
You fell hard to the ground a moment later and landed on the sword he used for his own defense, the weapon slicing across your forehead in a large gash as the two of you laid in your own blood. ”
My fingers are trembling when I reach up to Stormfall, genuinely needing his comfort from Elena’s too detailed account. The Bird of Ash grips my shoulder hard and rubs his head against my neck in a calming caress.
“The rest of the story I believe you know. I hid you under cover and rode immediately to Bardot and my father, not daring to let you live in another Woodlands city where too many of the Discerni there would hold a bleak reminder of what happened to you.”
“But why can’t I remember any of it?” I ask quietly, “does your brother’s summoning erase memories as well?”
Elena looks at me and considers the question for a long moment before finally shaking her head.
“Troy’s summoning does not work like that to my knowledge. Perhaps the shock of everything that happened caused your mind to forget. You could barely look at a me after that night and hated anyone who reminded you of the man, or men, who murdered your parents.”
My mind flashes to Zander’s visions of me in Castle Bardot when I arrived. I was tattered and torn, holding a look of pure animosity towards every Discerni in the room.
Elena nods her head in sadness.