39 Eira
Eira
Eira had no idea just how quickly it became dangerously cold once you headed into Astra’s mountains, but she was swiftly learning
that it became frigid fast. She shivered on Arthur’s back, her hands going numb through her leather gloves as they rode as hard as they could along
the snowy path toward Luwha. The mountains were more than beautiful; they were imposing and breathtaking, and she had never
expected to see them in her life. Except . . . had she already?
“Evangeline,” she called forward, teeth chattering through her words. “Did I ever come to the mountains before?”
“I could also have answered that,” Hugo said, his horse in stride with her, concern in his eyes.
Eira had started to wonder if getting involved with Hugo was going to make him more protective of her . . . until she remembered
that had, quite literally, been his job for nearly a decade, so there probably wasn’t much she could do to deter those instincts.
He wasn’t going to be more protective; he already was as protective as Eira thought might be humanly possible.
“I wanted Evangeline to answer,” Eira shivered.
Evangeline turned her black horse as she waited for Eira. If Eira had learned anything already about her forgotten friend, it was that Evangeline didn’t yell.
“I actually brought you up to Iceport when my family had a meeting with the Osnians once,” Evangeline said, falling into a
trot on the other side of Eira.
“So, I have seen the mountains?” Eira asked, crinkling her nose in frustration. “I was hoping I hadn’t. I didn’t feel any
sort of familiarity, so I was hoping there was just nothing behind the locked memory door.”
“I mean,” Evangeline exhaled, her breath visible in the winter air, “I don’t think you’ve ever seen them this close?”
Eira pondered whether or not that made her feel better; she decided it did.
After another hour of riding, the sun fell below the mountains and Hugo directed them to a small cave where they would be
protected from the wintery winds to camp for the night.
Eira flicked her fingers at the kindling in the firepit they’d made, her eyes closed. Ever since that little girl had summoned
fire, there had been an almost all-consuming thought in Eira’s head—could she summon fire too? She snapped and snapped and
snapped and felt no warmth on her fingers, no fire jumping from her hand into the firepit.
“Maybe I’m not meant for fire magic,” she said, opening her eyes and leaning back as Hugo lit a match and set the tinder on
fire the traditional way. Perhaps there was a limit to what the Flow would allow her to do.
“Or maybe it’s a complex spell that your fractured memory can’t put together yet,” Evangeline said, placing her feet on the
stack of logs beside the fire and crossing her ankles as she leaned against the tiny cave’s wall.
“And whose fault is that?” Eira sniped jokingly, but a trace of bitterness bled through.
Eira kept wondering what would have happened if Evangeline hadn’t been recognized on their way to Archport like she’d said .
. . if Eira had been able to cast the memory magic without the external pressures of the Iron Retinue bearing down on her.
How much easier would all of this would be if the spell hadn’t backfired?
Eira wouldn’t know how much easier until they did get her memories
back . . . if the witch in Luwha even existed.
“Don’t give me attitude, we were both trying to figure out a way to not get caught!” Evangeline flung her hands in the air.
“I’m innocent of any crimes here.”
“I have something I want to tell you two,” Hugo blurted out, staring into the fire, which had finally begun to grow into something
that could keep them warm through the night.
Eira looked at him, her heart beginning to race. What else had he been keeping hidden? Was this finally the moment he gave
them whatever information he’d been hiding?
“Please, do tell,” Evangeline said sarcastically, motioning to him. “Since it’s so urgent that you’re interrupting important
friend bonding.”
“I took something from Lord General Kerrigan when I left the capital.”
The silence that followed lingered, only the crackle of the burgeoning fire filling the hollow space.
“What did you take?” Eira and Evangeline asked in unison. Each moment they spent together Eira questioned less and less how
close she’d been with the princess.
“Battle plans, and a map of Astra,” Hugo answered. “The first for an invasion of Corisia, but both have a lot of notes. The
only problem is . . . I can’t make sense of the writing.”
“Like,” Evangeline said, narrowing her eyes, “you can’t read, or something? I wouldn’t be surprised.” She chuckled before
Eira jammed her elbow into Evangeline’s side, causing the princess’s smug snarking to devolve into a coughing fit.
“Can I see them?” Eira asked sweetly, her hand reaching toward Hugo. She was desperate to see what he’d been hiding, but trying to keep her cool.
Hugo looked at her for a moment, his eyes briefly dipping to her lips before he grabbed the rolled-up pages and handed them
to her.
Eira unrolled them with shaking fingers and turned toward the firelight to see them clearly. One was an obvious battle map
of Lord General Kerrigan’s plan to invade Corisia, but the drawings were flanked by sentences that had no discernible logic
to them, words in the wrong places, phrases that were utter gibberish. The second was a map of Astra, townships crossed out
and the same cryptic writing scribbled throughout. It reminded her of something . . . something she couldn’t quite put her
finger on.
“What’s with the crinkled brow?” Evangeline asked as Hugo started rubbing small circles on Eira’s back, warmth curling through
her body at his touch.
“I think I’ve seen code like this somewhere before . . .” Eira stopped abruptly before rummaging through her bag and pulling
out her journal. She flipped it open to the pages that she’d been trying to read before the highwaymen took her, similar code
in the sentences she’d written before her memory was erased.
“Is this something that nobility learns when they go to school?” Eira asked as she held the ciphered notebook up to show the
princess. “Do you know this code, Evangeline?”
Evangeline peeked over the pages, looking at Eira and then Hugo. “The De Clares didn’t do code. Everything was secure, we
didn’t worry about people betraying us. It was foolish, but it was what it was. It was a time of peace.”
“Have you seen anything like this?” Eira asked, turning to Hugo.
“Before this? No, and I can’t decipher it.” He shook his head.
“I wonder if I can try to work it out with what I have in front of me and what the lord general had written down. If I can figure out one word, I can probably decipher more based on the letters around them,” Eira said, opening both pieces of paper in front of her and leaning over them, the warm firelight keeping her from freezing as the winds howled outside their cave.
“I can make dinner, then,” Hugo said, pulling out one of the packs of rations they’d liberated from the bodies of the Iron
Retinue knights.
Eira pored over the documents, trying to figure out what the lord general was trying to say. It felt like the notes were more
than just battle plans based on how long they were, so there had to be something of importance to decipher. But battle plans
would also prove to be valuable to the Corisians once they got to their allies. The map, though . . . Eira wondered what the
purpose of that could be.
What word could she have written that the lord general would have also written? Simple ones like the would probably do the trick, but might not have enough letters to decipher anything worthwhile. It was a start, though. Eira
looked on the map for a three-letter word beside a longer one, hoping it would be the and then Corisians. She found one on the lower left of the document, a small three-letter word that also matched a three-letter word written
in her journal.
Eira started to match the symbols associated with each of those three letters, matching dozens through her journal and on
the battle map. She looked for two-letter words that started with the same symbol that meant T, a handful filling out in front of her eyes as the word to.
“Eira?” Hugo’s hand touched the small of her back and she jumped slightly as he placed his chin on her shoulder.
“You startled me,” she said, a light chuckle escaping her lips as she furrowed her brow, trying to figure out what else she
could decipher with nothing but four letters and a hunch.
“You have four letters.” Hugo pointed to one of the translated words. “That’s a good start.”
“It’s not enough,” Eira responded.
“We have a lot of time before we get to Corisia,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on Eira’s temple. “And you need to eat.”
“Mmm, fine,” Eira sighed as she leaned into the kiss, folding the map gently into her journal and brushing her skirts off
as she stood, walking the few steps over to where Evangeline had already dug into the mystery rations Hugo had made. The evening
gave way to the easiest conversation Eira had had in years as Hugo rubbed her arm and Evangeline made snarky comments. For
a moment, it felt like something she remembered, a shadowy recollection in the recesses of her mind reminding her of everything
she still needed to get back. It wasn’t until Eira started dozing off that she realized she’d been having such a nice time
she’d forgotten to open the ciphered pages again.