Chapter 5 The Red-haired Miracle
The Red-haired Miracle
Freyah Weller had always been the type of girl who thought it was best to be safe than sorry. “Come cross the wall with me, Freyah?” Alissa would say all those years ago. In Freyah’s mind, the instant and only acceptable answer to that question was “No.”
When she was a child, Freyah believed that beyond the walls of Bryniard lay an endless abyss, as if those walls protected them from falling into an infinite void.
Even when the image of falling into the precipice of the outside world crept into her mind, Freyah did whatever Alissa asked without resistance, secretly hoping they would never actually cross the enormous wall into what she believed would be her end.
It was ironic how something as simple as saying “no” could bring this young woman so much anxiety.
The guilt of disappointing others crushed her.
As a result, Freyah had more insecurities than she could count, and although no one came as close to the ideal of perfection as Freyah, the constant feeling of not meeting her own unrealistic expectations brought her down more often than she realized.
Dane and Lorena Weller were strict about raising their only child, but that didn’t change the fact that they were also good people who had come from poverty and, through sweat and tears, had made a reasonably comfortable life for their family.
Because of that, the pressure to keep the family tavern running smoothly had been weighing on Freyah’s shoulders since she was too young to see it; even her parents never noticed what poor Freyah had to endure in those days of her youth.
Days when her body made her look like a woman, but her mind still belonged to a child.
Days she couldn’t see how the gazes of men carried such malice and the evil intentions hidden there as she worked serving at the tavern.
Only when she grew older did she make sense of why some customers suddenly seemed to want to sit closer when a spilled drink made the white fabric of her dress seem a little see-through.
Only when she matured to the young woman she was now had she acknowledged how many times she had been harassed working behind that counter.
So many times, she had to learn to ignore them without losing the smile on her face.
Fed up with the relentless, aggressive approaches, Freyah didn’t run when she saw the wild boar come after her.
Instead, she stood there, admiring the scene, watching the animal come closer, its teeth bare, drool spilling on the floor, tracing the path it walked.
She wondered if it crossed the animal’s mind how she was the easiest, most stupid prey it had ever chased.
Freyah wasn’t hoping to be killed at that moment; she just didn’t have enough strength or willpower to run away.
Surviving the attack had been a miracle in itself.
Her bright red hair and hazel eyes, flawless skin, and slender frame had once made her the most beautiful woman Bryniard had ever seen. This woman… she was all beauty, inside and out. After the incident, people believed she became self-conscious of how much she had changed.
“She used to be so beautiful.”
“Poor girl will never marry looking like this.”
She had heard the gossip on several occasions, one comment more grotesque than the other, but honestly, she preferred it that way.
Freyah never told anyone she was grateful that the animal had almost torn her face in half, despite all the pain that followed.
Grateful that with the huge scar it imprinted on her, she had finally gotten the peace she had craved for so long—the peace of working at the tavern and no longer being stared at like a piece of meat.
The only thing she truly mourned from the attack was losing sight in her left eye, yet she found a way to get over that misfortune by creating a collection of fun eye patches to wear.
They had become, with time, the thing she looked forward to wearing most.
The look on Alissa’s face when she first laid eyes on her friend that day was unforgettable: the dead animal on top of her, her pale skin covered in blood.
Freyah had never seen her friend as shaken since.
Not until the moment Alissa came in minutes before ranting about the inevitability of her child’s death.
That moment right there had been the first time since Freyah could remember that she hadn’t agreed to Alissa’s crazy, mostly undoable quests because she felt she needed to.
This time, she had said yes because of the terrified look in her best friend’s eyes and the image of Dhalia lying dead and aged inside a coffin only months from then.
An image that frightened her more than anything ever had before.
And so, even when her deepest thoughts whispered she wouldn’t come out of this alive and her anxious mind fed her insecurities, she made a plan.
Unexpectedly, though, for a moment, Freyah didn’t feel the ground-shattering panic she used to feel when they were little. Braveness was usually a sentiment exclusively reserved for Alissa, but at this particular moment, she summoned it for herself to ease her friend’s burden.
If there were anything in this world worth dying for, it would be saving the life of those she loved.