Chapter 32 Is it Worthy?
Is it Worthy?
Rushing through the streets of the capital, with a mind clouded by anger, a sight blurred by tears, and a shattered soul, Alissa was guided by the hands of fate.
These powerful hands, which had so often ignored her pleas, now moved with compassion, guiding her desolate soul to the only refuge she could find in the city.
She collided with several soldiers running in the opposite direction, reinforcements heading to the place where her heart had been ripped from her chest—the very place where two of her friends were murdered, and the other two were left to the whims of savages.
She thought it could be the darkness of the night that stood in her favor.
Or maybe it was the curator’s uniform, the handkerchief concealing most of her face, and her light blonde hair—so different from that fateful day in Porjea—that made her unrecognizable to most of the guards she passed.
But what truly hid her from their notice was the mournful spirit that clung to her, erasing her presence from those who did not pay attention to the suffering of others.
For the few who did recognize her, she managed to escape, wielding the dagger she always kept hidden in her boots.
It was the only one of her possessions that she was able to take with her after what happened.
She sprinted through passageways, alleys, and closed properties, following a route she had never taken in all her days in the capital.
Her feet and legs seemed to move on their own, as if driven by a force beyond her control.
Despite the unfamiliar path, she found herself standing before a familiar navy door.
Her knuckles rapped against the wood before her mind could command her arms to act.
A gentle, elderly face appeared as soon as the door opened.
A smile rested on her lips, unaware of all the terrible things that happened since they had seen each other earlier that day.
Given Alissa’s state was the personification of desperation and solitude, Mrs. Ilden moved to the side, welcoming the woman into her home for the second time that day, except this time in such appalling circumstances.
Wrinkled fingers squeezed Alissa’s shoulders, pulling her mind back from the foggy mess that had led her there. “They… They killed her,” Alissa whispered, her gaze fixed on a beverage stain on the wooden floor. “Eldric.”
The old lady’s forehead creased in concern, “What about him, dear?”
“They took him.” Alissa’s voice cracked, echoing the fractures within.
The woman’s eyes glared with alarm, Alissa’s words sinking heavily in her stomach. “Did anyone follow you here, dear?” she asked, but Alissa didn’t hear it. Her attention was in a different world, a world she wished were the true one.
Mrs. Ilden shook her shoulders harder. “I need to know if anyone is coming our way.”
“No. They didn’t follow me.”
Alissa’s gaze lifted to meet Mrs. Ilden’s horrified one; the expression resembled so much of Olga’s reaction to her husband’s life being taken.
A life that was lost because Alissa had brought danger into her friend’s home.
If it hadn’t been for her, Breno would still be alive.
Guilt swept up her senses when she realized what she had done.
“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have come.” Her words were barely audible as she walked toward the door. “I’ll leave. I don’t want to put you in danger, too.”
The teacher quickly stepped to stand between Alissa and the door. She took Alissa’s hands in hers and squeezed them tight. Even when Alissa felt as if the floor beneath her would give way underfoot, Mrs. Ilden’s soothing presence seemed to keep her standing.
“I have spent all sixty-eight years of my life waiting for the day I would meet someone like you, Miss Kriegen. Having the gift of magic and being incapable of saving your hometown from that terrible curse has weighed on my family’s conscience for generations.
If helping you will somehow repair all the destruction and genocide of our kings, I will gladly spend my life in this effort. ”
Alissa’s lips trembled. She struggled to contain the wave of emotions welling up in her throat. After a night filled with so much bloodshed, the reminder that there were still good people in Heldraine brought relief to her heart.
“Follow me, dear.”
The teacher placed hooded dark tunics over both their heads and entwined her soft fingers with Alissa’s.
Alissa was gladly being pulled by this person she had no choice but to trust with her life.
Having misjudged others’ characters before and lost everything for it, Alissa prayed that trusting Mrs. Ilden would not be a risk to her life.
Being honest with herself, it was a comfort not to have to waste any more energy on her surroundings or the path ahead, not to be forced to shift her focus from her deceased sister and trapped lover to surviving.
Alissa longed to collapse and cry until she could no longer stand, until her tears left her on the brink of dehydration.
As her mind replayed each moment of the last hour, she realized she hadn’t spared a single thought to memorizing her path.
All she could recall was crawling through bushes, sprinting down a muddy trail, and dragging a small boat that had been strategically placed under massive trees toward the river.
She remembered climbing into the boat with the teacher, rowing in the direction Mrs. Ilden had silently indicated, leading them to a small piece of land in the middle of the river, filled with large trees and a cold, dark cave.
As she entered, Alissa thought it was the perfect place to drown in her misery and solitude.
“The Unclaimed River marks the edge of Heldraine’s borders.
It separates Heldraine from the realm of Trent, making this technically foreign land,” Mrs. Ilden explained.
“Navigating this area is forbidden, but the Crown has no authority to conduct searches here without risking war with the neighboring realm. You’ll be safe here. ”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ilden.”
“I’ll come by every day to bring you food,” she stated, already placing a bag filled with fruit, scones, and canteens of water on the hard ground where the young woman stood.
Alissa had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed the teacher had carried the bag all the way.
“I’ll keep an eye on their investigation. The next few days will be difficult. They’ll tear everything apart searching for you. You need to stay quiet and be patient. We’ll find a way to get you back to Bryniard when the situation improves.”
“You do not need to go through all this trouble for me, Mrs. Ilden.”
“I know I don’t. But I want to, and if Eldric is still alive, we will get him out, even if it means we’ll have to rely on our magic to do so.”
“You said no one should know we are bearers of magic.”
Mrs. Ilden nodded. “I don’t know about you, my dear, but I’m tired of standing still and watching people die. It will be over my dead body that I will let that brilliant man be another one of their victims.”
Jaw dropped, Alissa watched the teacher light a fire with her bare hands, a gift from the Ksaren magic.
Mrs. Ilden stepped closer to where Alissa stood frozen, then wrapped her arms around her.
“I have to go back now, Miss Kriegen.” Her hands cradled Alissa’s cheeks, and their eyes met.
“Stay here. Stay strong. You are not alone, and you will win this battle.”
In an instant, Eldric’s teacher disappeared into the darkness in her small boat, her dark cloak blending seamlessly with the night.
The vastness of the river ahead and the abandoned cave became Alissa’s only companions.
In deep utter solitude, the loss of the one person who had been there for her through all her life crashed over her with the intensity of a hurricane.
Freyah was gone.
Her sister was dead, and she couldn’t even say goodbye.
She didn’t have the chance to close Freyah’s eyes when they were stuck open and lifeless.
She didn’t have the chance to bury her body or pray for her soul a peaceful passing.
All she could do was stand there, frozen, watching as her friend’s body was drained of blood.
Embarrassment surged, and she punished herself for failing to act, for not defending her friend, not saving her life.
How will I tell her mother her daughter died because of me?
The memory of the general’s threats and his mention of Dane Weller’s death sucked her even deeper into guilt, to think that if the man spoke the truth, Lorena would have lost her entire family.
Suddenly, another life seemed to be added to the list of deaths she brought onto the people she cared about.
It’s all my fault.
It’s all because of me.
Because of her. Because Freyah followed her outside that wall as she had offered countless times when they were kids.
Because Freyah would always follow her, and she should have known better before dragging her out of Bryniard.
Because of her naivety in trusting Desi when she was nothing but a stranger.
Because of her stubbornness in listening to Eldric’s intuition.
Alissa sat on the cold, hard ground of the hidden cave, her knees held close to her chest. Nothing would make losing Freyah easier. Alissa fathomed it then: why Thayan brought Karine back to life, even when he knew the implications.
She understood it because she wished she had the power to do the same for Freyah, to allow her the decades she still had left to live that had been taken from her so abruptly.
To give her the time she had left to fall in love and discover the world.
She wished they could find out together how their journey would end and what Bryniard would look like once it was free from this damn curse.
She wished they could become old ladies together, reminiscing over cups of tea and squinting their eyes at the pages of books. She aspired for them to save the world side by side, but apparently, happily ever afters were only made for fairy tales.
In a life marked by loss, Alissa had never been fortunate enough to call her existence easy.
Yet despite all the hardships, she had always prayed to the higher powers for a long life.
She wanted to live, to experience everything the world had to offer.
Her spirit was too free to be confined within walls, so she aspired to see and do everything before her permission to walk this world was revoked.
For the first time, Alissa found herself wishing for a short life.
The thought of living another fifty or sixty years filled her with sheer panic.
The idea of outliving her friend by so many decades terrified her, knowing that by then, she would have forgotten so much about Freyah.
The details of her face, height, the thickness of her hair, or how bright it once was.
She would no longer remember the things that made her who she was: her dimples, her scar, her poetic sense of humor, and her love for all things alive.
And what a crime it would be to let the memory of Freyah Weller—who was half of her soul—fade from her mind.
To have a flawed human brain be the sole keeper of all that remained of her, vulnerable to the erosion of time, seemed a cruel injustice.
Memories that could so easily be stolen or forgotten, leaving behind only a shadow of the person she once was.
The unfairness of such a precious creature vanishing along with all traces of her felt unbearable.
Any proof of Freyah’s life would rely on those who had loved her, those who refused to let her memory fade.
Those who would carry the burden of keeping the flame of her story alive in their hearts, never allowing it to be extinguished, even when her body had long been swallowed by the soil of Heldraine.
Alissa would have given her life in her stead in a heartbeat.
As the world around her blurred into a chaotic whirlwind, Alissa sobbed. Her heart was racing, threatening to burst through her chest. Each breath she took felt suffocating, as if the air itself had turned against her. A cold sweat drenched her trembling hands. Her legs were numb.
Waves of terror crashed over her, each one more suffocating than the last. Her mind spun with a thousand panicked thoughts, a cacophony of fears and insecurities swallowing her spirit.
She clutched desperately at her chest, as if trying to contain the storm within her.
Tears welled up in her eyes, blurring the world into a hazy, indistinct mess.
All she wanted was to escape, to flee from the overwhelming onslaught threatening to swallow her being, but nothing would make this right again because there were no second chances in death, there was no do-over, there was nothing she could do now that her friend was gone.
She was helpless, heartbroken, shattered.
Alissa made a promise to herself to avenge her friend. She could even hear Freyah say, “Revenge is for the weak, Lissa. Forgiveness is the art of liberating ourselves from the resentment of the past.”
Freyah and her stupid poetic wisdom. Forgiveness was definitely not in Alissa’s plans. Desi had taken too much from her. She envisioned her hands clasping the healer’s neck, breaking it with her bare hands to see her body rot.
She should be feeling hopeful and relieved that she finally had the answers she came all this way for, but Desi also took that from her.
The image of Eldric came next. His severed arm falling on the ground, the Iron Claws striking him viciously before he lost consciousness.
He looked so different from the loving man who had held her tight at the beach earlier that day.
She thought of the kiss they had shared the night before and how, in his arms, she felt shielded from any harm.
Alissa was undeniably in love with him, and that was why it hurt so deeply to imagine Eldric being tortured somewhere out there, in pain, in fear, alone.
If this had been in the past, Alissa would have turned away and run to Bryniard to save her daughter.
She would have left everything behind before she was caught in the searches of the Iron Claws as they swept the town after her, especially when she was reminded every day of the clock ticking against her efforts.
But she couldn’t do that now, not if it meant leaving Eldric in the hands of those men.
Not after everything he had done for her and everything he had become to her.
She had lost too much, so the decision to fight for his life wasn’t one Alissa had second-guessed or hesitated over. She would fight for him because she loved him deeply. She would fight for him because she hadn’t been given the chance to fight for Freyah.