48 Hugo
Hugo
“No!” the familiar voice yelled.
Hugo painstakingly stood, turning himself toward the man yelling as he came face-to-face with Carth.
Hugo’s muscles screamed; his head hurt and his left eye was blurry and weeping from the spot where Lord General Kerrigan had
punched him. Nevertheless, he picked up his sword.
“We don’t have to do this, kid,” Hugo sighed, exhausted.
The tavern keeper picked up a wayward sword from beside the decimated corpse of a knight and swung at Hugo clumsily.
Even with his aching body, it didn’t take much to block the man’s swing. “Carth, you can’t fight me and expect to win,” Hugo
said, blocking another swing. He wasn’t going to attack this broken man.
“You destroyed my life,” Carth said, swinging over and over again. Clumsy strikes that may not have landed even if Hugo hadn’t
blocked them.
“And I’m sorry for it,” Hugo said, meeting his sword with Carth’s again. “But I cannot turn back time and change what I did.”
“I know you’re not sorry,” Carth said.
Rage ripped through Hugo and he felt inclined to swing back for the briefest of moments. “You have no idea how sorry I am,”
he answered instead, deflecting another blow.
Carth slowed his strikes, breathing labored as he realized it took stamina to fight with an iron sword.
“Carth,” Hugo said, grabbing the arm that held the sword as the young man dropped it, tears filling his eyes. “I will never
forgive myself for what I did. Killing me would end my suffering. Believe me when I say that I will suffer more left alive.”
Hugo knew Carth could hear the truth in what he was saying; he couldn’t lie, not about this.
“I hope you dream of the people you killed every night,” Carth said, a hitch in his voice as tears spilled from his eyes.
“The memories haunt me every minute of every day,” Hugo answered truthfully.
The man cried, racking sobs leaving him as he ripped his arm away from Hugo’s. “That witch, though.” He pointed to Eira as
he wiped his eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
The stones littered the ground around them. Hugo had never seen anything like it before, either. “That’s why we need her memory
back,” Hugo said, sheathing his sword.
This man wasn’t a threat anymore; he was just hurting. Hugo could understand that more than anyone else. Hugo could see the
conflict in the man’s eyes; tell them where the memory witch truly was, or leave Eira without her memories?
“The memory witch isn’t here. She’s in Giant’s Gate,” Carth said finally as he watched Eira. “I’m telling you for her, not for you. I hope you rot.”
“Shit,” Hugo said. It was treacherous to get there.
If they went around the mountains they would extend their trip by at least a week, and if they went through the mountain pass they risked so much more: storms that could descend and freeze them before they could get their bearings, wild animals .
. . or even angry Giant’s Gate hunters who recognized him.
That was if the mountain pass hadn’t frozen over completely yet, at this point in the year.
“The mountain path will still be traversable for another week—it’ll get you there in a day if you ride hard. Ask for the Old
Witch when you get there, they’ll know you were sent,” Carth said, as if he could sense what Hugo was worried about. “There
aren’t any storms coming either.”
Hugo nodded, not sure what to say.
“Get your things and get the fuck out of Luwha,” Carth said before turning and stepping away from Hugo.
“Yeah—” Hugo started before Carth turned around quickly and punched him in the face. The tavern keeper shook his hand and
winced.
“That was for my mother,” he said, turning around and actually leaving this time.
Hugo rubbed his jaw as he headed over to Eira, picking her up and embracing her tightly before whispering to her. “We need
to get Evangeline back to the room.”
Eira nodded as she wiped her tears.
Half an hour later Hugo laid Evangeline onto the bed in her room as Eira propped up her body in a semisitting position. He
watched as Eira ran around the room mixing herbs and making poultices and potions.
“Drink this,” she said to Evangeline, who had been groaning in pain the whole time. But groaning meant she was alive, and
he was grateful for it.
Hugo watched Eira feed Evangeline the drink, feeling a tension between them that hadn’t been there before.
He knew they should have told her about Lord General Kerrigan, and he had planned to .
. . he’d just never expected the lord general to come all the way to Luwha to chase him down.
Eira had asked to only know what she wanted to know .
. . and it had felt like it would be pointless emotional turmoil to open that vein when Eira was about to get her memory back anyways.
Hugo should have known that he would face the lord general again, though; Kerrigan Westcotte’s vengeance knew no bounds.
To this day, Hugo didn’t know why the man had harbored so much rage toward King Arthel, but he knew that it was what had led him to overthrowing the monarchy.
Eira applied the poultice to Evangeline’s wounds as the princess fell asleep, the potion working almost instantly.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to break it to her that half of her arm is just . . . gone, when she wakes up,” Eira
said as she tied the remaining part of Evangeline’s arm to her torso, wrapping it tightly as the princess slept. Eira finished
and stood, her hair a mess and her cloak on the ground as she looked at him.
“How could you not tell me?” was all she said, ice laced into every syllable.
The hurt in her eyes stung; he’d only ever seen her look at him like that once, on the fateful night of the uprising. He didn’t
know if he could ever tell her the other things he hadn’t yet, and it wouldn’t stop her from learning them when she got her
memory back. He was a coward.
“Eira, you specifically asked me to not tell you things you didn’t ask about. I was respecting your wishes,” Hugo explained.
Eira watched him. “You should have told me . . . Either of you could have told me.”
“How would it have helped?” Hugo justified. “I knew you were getting your memories back, and if you didn’t then I would have
reassessed. I did not expect Lord General Kerrigan to show up in Luwha . . . I thought you’d learn about it when you got your
memories back, when you finally had the context and memories to process everything, in your own time. It didn’t feel important
to push it . . . I was clearly wrong.”
“I can see what you’re saying, but that still doesn’t make it okay,” she finally said, looking over at Evangeline. “It didn’t
make it okay for either of you.”
“I know,” Hugo admitted. “I could have told you . . . should have told you.” He couldn’t speak for the princess, and Hugo was sure Eira would duke it out with her once Evangeline was well again.
“Yes. You should have, and I am . . . so mad at you,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Hugo embraced her, his hands around her ample waist as she pressed herself against him, burying her face in his chest. “I’m
sorry.”
“I thought I was going to lose you both,” she sobbed.
“You didn’t,” Hugo answered, untangling her hair as he held her. “Your magic saved us—you saved us.”
“I also almost killed Evangeline . . . I scared myself,” Eira whispered, eyes glazed over and lost in thought.
“Anything with true power is a little scary at times, I think,” Hugo said, holding Eira at arm’s length.
“I’m mad at you,” she said. “But I’m so glad we made it.”
“Me too.” He kissed her, his heart pounding . . . joyful that they’d all somehow survived, but afraid of what was still to
come. This was just the beginning of what they’d need to go through to pry Astra from Kerrigan’s hands.
Eira went digging for rations in their packs a half hour later and gently shook Evangeline awake.
The princess’s eyes groggily opened. “Oh, I feel like I was beaten to a pulp . . .”
“You were,” Eira said, feeding a piece of the crumbling oat patty into the princess’s mouth.
Evangeline paused mid-chew. “What happened to my arm? Why is it strapped to my chest?”
Eira put the rations down and took Evangeline’s remaining hand and looked in her eyes, biting her lip in trepidation before speaking.
“The rocks I used to kill the Iron Retinue . . . the knights that were going to kill you . . .” She took a deep breath.
“Those same stones also took your arm off, just below your elbow.”
“What a weird joke,” Evangeline said. “Making a joke right after I almost die isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking,” Eira said softly.
Evangeline blinked back tears, confusion in her eyes and her voice thick. “You’re telling me my left hand is . . . gone?”
“Yes.” Eira nodded somberly. “I’m so sorry.”
Hugo watched as Evangeline tried to move the remainder of her left arm that Eira had expertly bandaged to her chest.
“Untie this so I can see it,” Evangeline said, her voice raising up an octave.
“That’s not a good idea right no—” Eira started.
“Untie it, Eira!” Evangeline screamed as loudly as she could in her fragile state.
“Okay,” Eira whispered, unwrapping the bandage just enough for Evangeline to see what was left of her arm.
The stump itself was bandaged, though blood had seeped through the wrappings. Evangeline looked at it, eyes unblinking and
pupils still dilated from whatever was in the potion Eira had given her.
“I think, um, I think I need some time to myself,” Evangeline said, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she looked out
the window. Eira instantly started rewrapping her arm, understanding that she had nothing to say right now to her that could
make this better, that this was a journey that Evangeline had to take by herself.
Hugo stepped forward; it didn’t change what they needed to do. “I don’t think we have that time,” he said. “Carth said we
need to get out of here, and I don’t want to risk the man doing anything else to us. I say we leave for the mountain pass
now . . . we might be able to make it to Giant’s Gate by midday tomorrow if we do.”
“Evangeline is in no condition to ride,” Eira said, protective over her patient, her friend.
“She’ll ride with me,” Hugo answered. “You’ll ride alone on Arthur.”
Eira and Hugo both looked to Evangeline, fragile and sallow, her rich olive skin taking on a taupe hue.
“I can do it,” she croaked. “Plus, Hugo won’t talk to me. It’ll feel like I’m alone anyways.”
“I thought we were over our hate for each other,” Hugo said, a smirk on his lips but concern resting in his chest. Evangeline
had no reason to be joking right now, and he worried about her constant deflection of the trauma she’d been through. That
woman was going to have a reckoning someday, and he worried that the longer it took, the more devastating it would be when
it finally hit her.
“Oh,” Evangeline coughed. “This is actually how I treat people I spend time with. It’s a fun game, people never know if I
hate them or think they’re great.”
“So fun,” Hugo said dryly, turning and packing up their things.
They were on their way before midnight, the bright moonlight reflecting off the snow and lighting their way up the winding
mountain pass. As they reached the peak, Evangeline slumped over Hugo’s back and Eira riding beside him, he looked down at
Luwha.
Hugo hadn’t expected to come back here; he’d expected to spend the rest of his life fighting for the Iron Empire. He felt
no guilt about leaving them, leaving Lord General Kerrigan, to find Evangeline and Eira. He turned his head to the winding,
long path down the mountain to Giant’s Gate. It was only going to get more difficult from here.