19. The Echo #2
“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, bean,” Davy replied before she could even begin, wrapping a warm arm around her shoulders. His grin, confident and carefree, brought her a small measure of comfort. “Besides, you’ve got your bodyguard with you today.”
“I don’t even know what they want from me,” she said, looking out as the trees gave way to open air. “I’m still just... me.”
“You’re not just you.” Heron let out a long, heavy sigh before adding, “You’re the Sleepwalker.”
“Why does that suddenly mean something?”
“It always meant something,” Heron said.
“Everyone just seems to have a different idea of what.” For a beat, he hesitated.
“Listen, Florabelle…” he continued, “beyond the blackened trees, deep in the Forest, there’s a place called the Sorrow—an ancient pool, a well said to brim with the tears of Lunara. ”
“The… Sorrow?”
Heron nodded. “Or, as some call it, the Well of Eternity. From there, the goddess’s healing water spills out into every vein and river from here to the eastern sea.
We believe…” He trailed off, then rephrased.
“Some believe that the Sleepwalker exists to protect the well. Our last Sleepwalker once thought of herself as its keeper.” With her interest peaked, Flora remained intentionally silent.
“Sona once told me,” Heron added, “that the Sleepwalker could reach beyond the Well’s surface—into the space between their world and ours. ”
“Wait.” Indignant, Flora bit her teeth. “Why didn’t Sona tell me… any of this?”
Heron kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Because I advised her not to.”
Flora’s tone sharpened. “Heron, why would you?—”
“Out of fear,” he interrupted, his tone quiet but firm. “Fear that your curiosity would drive you into the depths of Night Sky Forest. And fear that if it did, our Florabelle would never return.”
Flora sat back, stunned. After a moment, she calmed herself, her voice softer but no less determined. “I see. But I need to know who I am, Heron. I’m not a child anymore.”
Heron paused, his expression shifting. He glanced back at Flora, looking again as though he were seeing her for the first time. “I…” His voice faltered, and he breathed deeply before conceding, “I suppose you’re right.”
Flora exhaled. “I deserve the truth,” she said to him. “Don’t I?”
Heron tied down the reins slowly. “You deserve everything I have to give,” he muttered. “But you don’t deserve the truth.”
Flora furrowed her brow and looked off, trying not to let the frustration spill out from her eyes.
Heron looked down at his hand, debating as he clenched his fingers in and out. “You deserve so much better than the truth,” he continued, almost to himself.
Flora glanced back at him, confused.
“The truth is that this world despises its Sleepwalkers.” Heron sighed.
“When I met you as a child, I worried for your safety. But it wasn’t the Scytherax that worried me, not until now.
It was people,” he said sorely. “So, I made sure the village would be a safe place for you, isolated from Asilia’s past. I couldn’t let you live the way Elizabeth did. ”
“Elizabeth?”
“Elizabeth…” Heron swallowed hard. “She was the last Sleepwalker.”
He let the words linger, a breath of relief escaping his lungs as he did.
“Years ago,” he started again, “a plague of unknown origin swept through the Asilian Realm. And, who better to blame than the young Sleepwalker—a strange orphan rumored to have been wandering the wilderness at the shores of Lunara’s water?
Elizabeth came to the city, hoping to find shelter—hoping to find help.
But what she found instead was a kingdom of vultures, hungry for the distraction of a new pariah. ”
Heron sighed. “For years, Elizabeth was forced to remain in exile. But her real crime was no plague—it was, at most, bringing her world into ours. Knowledge, objects, ideas that frightened those who didn’t understand.
Those trinkets hanging in Sona’s hut, the music box, the thing in your bag…
to some, all of that looks like heresy.”
“I’m not here trying to change anybody’s way of life,” Flora murmured.
“It never mattered what your intentions were,” Heron replied.
“Fear doesn’t need a reason to spiral into hate.
But... more than twenty years have passed since the war, and the dust has since settled after Azura’s death.
Now, we have a greater enemy, a common enemy.
” After a pause, he added, “And with Nia’s help, I have since ensured that the royal family has your best interests at heart.
They don’t see you as another Elizabeth. Not anymore.”
“Why…” Flora murmured. “Why have you kept me in the dark for so long?”
Heron bit his tongue, thinking. “I wanted you to have a childhood,” he said at last. “I… didn’t want you to feel shame, knowing how cityfolk lined up with pitchforks the day they caught wind of a new Sleepwalker.
” He rubbed his chin, his tone thick with memory.
“I didn’t want you to feel fear, knowing that the merchants going door-to-door were, in truth, either slavers or zealots, hunting for a young girl with blue eyes. ”