32 Eira
Eira
Nearly a week later Eira’s jaw still ached off and on from the wrenching grab the bounty hunter had given it when he’d attacked
her. She remembered feeling the intense rush of magic go through her as she realized she was being attacked, but they’d bound
and gagged her so quickly, and she didn’t know, didn’t remember, how to cast her magic without her hands. Eira watched the back of Hugo’s head as they rode. He’d saved her and then held
her so gently she’d almost kissed him right there in the middle of the clearing where she’d nearly been killed.
“Ugh, it’s so cold here,” Evangeline interrupted Eira’s train of thought as they both looked into the distance at an eagle that was circling high over the lake in the distance.
The princess rode the horse they’d bought in some small town the day before, after Eira insisted that Evangeline couldn’t keep turning into a rabbit anymore.
It was creepy and inhumane, and it made Eira feel weird every time Evangeline cracked each of her bones and became a tiny bunny.
On the flip side, Evangeline had been complaining about the increasing cold all day, which left Eira wondering if they should just have let her stay a rabbit, despite the abject creepiness of the whole process.
“We are quite literally heading into the mountains,” Eira chided. “The coldest region in Astra . . . and you proposed it.”
“Yes, and I’m still allowed to complain about it,” the princess grumbled.
“You’ll be glad to hear that we’re almost there, then,” Eira retorted. “Right, Hugo?”
“Yeah,” he answered gruffly. “We’re nearly to Lichton.”
The three fell into a strained silence as the small lakeside town came into view in the fading late-afternoon light, the mountains
of Astra’s northeastern corner looming in the distance. Through those mountains were Luwha and Giant’s Gate, the former hopefully
housing the witch that could give Eira her memories back.
As Eira, Evangeline, and Hugo rounded the corner to the town center’s lakeside tavern, Eira noticed the amount of attention
their arrival had brought . . . and the murmurs half the townsfolk weren’t even trying to hide. A flash of panic ran through
her as she wondered if they recognized the princess, but all too quickly she realized they were whispering at the sight of
Hugo, their eyes trained on him en masse.
“What’s going on?” She leaned over to him as they walked toward the tavern door.
“I spent a lot of time here early on in the Iron Empire’s reign,” was all he said, brusque and firm.
The color drained from Eira’s face as she realized exactly what that meant. Hugo had been sent here to purge witches, and
as the commander had likely performed the majority of the early executions. These people recognized Hugo because he was the
first iron fist to slam down on their town, to kill the witches they knew and loved—even if it was by legal decree.
They stepped into the tavern and the barmaid immediately scowled. Five men from the crowd outside filed in, barricading the exit with their bodies as they clenched their fists at their sides. Eira’s heart picked up pace, nervous that this would escalate into violence if they weren’t careful.
“Bold of you to step foot in Lichton again, Commander,” the barmaid spit at him, the glob landing on Hugo’s shoe.
“This is the last outpost before Luwha. We had no choice in the matter,” he answered evenly.
Evangeline watched Hugo, her eyebrow cocked and her body tense. Eira half expected her to make a snarky comment about Hugo
being a terrible person, but she stayed mercifully quiet.
“We’re simply looking for two rooms for the night,” Eira interrupted, stepping up to the counter and placing her hands near
the cleaned empty glasses the barmaid had been meticulously wiping when they’d walked in the door. “Two rooms, one night,
and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“I should make you leave and sleep on the ground.” The barmaid barked a humorless laugh. “We should slaughter your horses
and exile you to the mountain so you die screaming, like our loved ones did.”
The antimagic rhetoric had been quickly embraced in the heartland of Astra, and Eira hadn’t seen the cities that hadn’t wanted
to embrace it. Giant’s Gate—the north in general—it was wilder, harsh and untamed. She couldn’t say she was surprised that
they clung to their beliefs about magic more than somewhere like Cilirien. Perhaps, and it was risky, but just maybe a show
of magic could help them understand that Hugo had changed.
Eira closed her eyes, envisioning the empty glass the barmaid had just put down filling with liquid. If she could conjure
vines, she had to be able to conjure water as well . . . right?
“Eira, don’t,” Hugo warned, but she was already casting.
She felt the Flow respond to her ask, and moments later she felt cool liquid on her hands as she opened her eyes to a full glass on the table in front of her, overflowing with water as the barmaid stared at her unflinchingly.
“He’s changed,” Eira said.
“You mean to tell me the witch hunter travels with a witch now?” the barmaid spoke, throwing the towel over her shoulder and
dipping her fingers into the cup of water, rubbing them together as she looked back at the men still guarding the door behind
them. Eira turned to see the anger on their faces now tinged with confusion and uncertainty.
“He protects me,” Eira corrected. “He’s not in the Iron Retinue anymore. It doesn’t fix what he did but . . . I can personally attest
to the fact that he’s done nothing but protect an illegal witch since he left the empire.”
A tiny white lie. The barmaid didn’t need to know that Hugo had only found Eira recently, only that he’d changed.
The woman looked past Eira to where Evangeline and Hugo still stood before she motioned the men at the door away with her
hand. Relief washed through Eira, but she knew this wasn’t the last of the danger here. Five men and a barmaid, no matter
how clearly influential the woman was, did not make a town. They would need to be careful.
“This girl just saved you,” she said directly to Hugo, and Eira had never seen him look so small. He towered over her, was
physically stronger than her, but there was something about this town that had him feeling like he was lower than dirt, and
Eira could see it in the way his shoulders hung. “Boys, you can go.”
The barmaid handed Eira a set of keys, closing Eira’s fingers around them gently. “I’m Catrina. You let me know if you need anything, okay? You and your friend can come down for dinner tonight but . . . the hunter shouldn’t. Not if he wants
to keep his head,” she said, before tapping Eira’s hand and letting go.
“Understood.” Eira nodded.
Eira turned to the other two, handing one key to Evangeline for her to give to Hugo.
The woman wouldn’t touch him, and Eira understood.
They didn’t know that Hugo wasn’t that person anymore.
Tension followed them as they walked up the steps to their rooms, Evangeline silently opening the door and holding it for Eira.
“I’ll be there in a second,” Eira said, Evangeline tilting her head curiously in response.
Eira turned to Hugo, who had his back turned to her, unlocking his room, which sat directly across from Evangeline and Eira’s.
“Are you okay?” she asked, knowing the answer but wanting, desperately, for Hugo to trust her enough to tell her.
He paused, and Eira watched his mouth. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him, to make him feel like he truly was the protector
he’d shown himself to be.
“Not really,” he said gruffly, his voice thick with some unnamed emotion.
“Were—” Eira was interrupted by a man walking out of his room and down the hallway, and she watched as Hugo turned his head
toward the door, obscuring his face, his hair falling across it to obscure it even more. Eira smiled briefly at the man as
he passed, wondering if he’d lost someone to the Iron Empire’s hand.
“Were there a lot of witches here?” she finally asked, once the man was out of earshot.
“It’s a small town, so nothing like the numbers in the capital,” Hugo said, twisting the doorknob and inching the door open.
“But there were enough to leave a scar.”
“I just . . . I wanted to remind you that you are allowed to grow. And I’m glad that you have grown,” Eira said.
He turned to her, an unknowable, almost haunted look in his eyes as he digested what Eira had said to him. Hugo placed his
hand on Eira’s cheek and her skin lit up, the heat of his touch and the emotion behind his eyes making her heart swell.
“Thank you, Eira,” he said before stepping into his room and shutting the door behind him.
A while later, Evangeline and Eira found themselves tucked into a corner table in the now-bustling tavern, eating some sort
of deliciously buttery roast bird without Hugo.
“This is still weird for you,” Evangeline asked. “Isn’t it?”
Eira laughed. “Of course it is. You both have basically unlimited memories of me that are just gone, and it’s my own fault
that they’re gone.”
“I’d actually endeavor to say that it’s actually my fault that your memories are still gone,” Evangeline retorted.
“I wanted to protect us, and I did the magic wrong. That’s not your fault,” Eira countered, shrugging slightly before looking
down at her meal.
“I saw how you do magic once we fled the capital, Eira. If you made a mistake, it was a fluke.” Evangeline leaned forward.
“Although, I had no idea you could do any magic before we had to run.”
“What?” Eira blinked, remembering that Hugo had told her he didn’t know about her magic . . . but had Eira kept her magic
a secret from her best friend too?
Evangeline nodded. “I never once saw you do any magic. I didn’t even know you were a witch. You kept it completely separate from your role as viscountess. I guess . . . I
guess, when I think about it, you probably didn’t need to do magic because it wasn’t relevant to what you did with me, what
you were training to do to aid me when I took the throne. Then we fled in the middle of the night on the night of the uprising,