“I got you these while I was out.”
She smiled as she took them, and began to look over them, her smile growing wider.
“Rosemary and Turtleweed?” She asked, meeting my eyes again. “You must have paid a small fortune for these. You should have saved the money for information.”
I smiled back, reassuringly. “It wasn’t that much, really. And we have plenty of coin for information, don’t worry.”
I’d arrived back at The Slumbering Drake a few moments before. The crowd inside the inn was mostly calm, though a few had been chattering about the burning building and the dragon’s appearance. Nobody mentioned the fact that a riot had almost broken out in the street.
After I had entered the kitchen and Irinda noticed the cut on my cheek, she had shooed the other girls away, telling them to take a break and relax a moment. All three had hurried outside as she directed me to a table and chairs near the back of the room.
Irinda set the three vials down and returned her gaze to the split skin on my cheek. “Don’t suppose you’ll tell me how that happened, will you?”
I shrugged. “Stumbled trying to get away from the city guard’s display.” I explained to her everything that had happened that morning—from my run-in with the guards, to their appearance at Ovali’s, and even mine and Draxi's jaunt through the city sewers. She’d wrinkled her nose up at the last part, but had remained mostly silent throughout, her hands busy cleaning the blood from my face.
When she was finished cleaning it, she took a small needle and some thread and began to weave it through the split, knitting the skin back together.
I grimaced as she worked, continuing my story until I reached the part where the dragon appeared.
Her eyes grew wide as I told her about the way the fear had washed over me, all encompassing.
“It was like the idea of running for my life replaced my need to breathe,” I said softly as she finished stitching up my cheek and cut the thread. I didn’t mention the System’s message in the street. I was still trying to figure that one out myself.
She placed the needle and thread on the table next to me and leaned down to look at her handiwork. She made a contended noise and then sunk into the chair opposite of mine.
“And that’s something new?” She asked. “The fear, I mean.”
I nodded and spoke gently so I wouldn’t stretch the stitches out. “Apparently it has something to do with the class that the dragon has. The System called it a Nightmare Weaver. It’s some sort of mage subclass.”
Listening, Irinda nodded slowly. She knew most of how the System worked—at least most of the same stuff that I did, as I’d had to explain it to her after the offer I made Will. The offer he hadn’t taken. She hadn’t seemed inclined to take it, either. I hadn’t pressed her on why.
“You should have seen the crowd,” I murmured. “They were trampling each other to get away from the place. If they find a way to spread that fear out across greater distances… It would give them a terrifying amount of control over large groups of people. I can’t imagine what would have happened if a dragon like that had been at the prison where they took Sil, Ophelia, and me. I don’t think we would have made it out.”
The door to the front of the inn opened and Sil walked in carrying a tray with a bowl and a cup on it. He and Irinda met eyes and he shook his head.
“What’s going on?” I asked, noting the hesitant look in Irinda’s eyes.
“It’s Ophelia,” she started, “She hasn’t been eating her meals when Sil takes them up.”
I pushed to my feet. “Are you serious? And nobody thought to tell me?”
“And what are you going to do about it, exactly?” Sil retorted as he set the tray down. “Force it down her throat?”
I deflated. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Sinking back into my chair I let out a heavy breath.
Several moments passed, the three of us in silence, before I spoke again.
“I’m just tired of never having the answers.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Sil erupted in laughter. “Answers?” He laughed harder. “You’ve received more answers in the past six weeks than I have in my entire life.”
Frowning, I watched the man. I wasn’t sure why my want for answers was so humorous to him, but I also tried not to take offense at it. I knew he couldn’t help when he got like this. That didn’t stop Irinda from glancing at me, concern and suspicion in her eyes. I looked away.
We wait until his laughter died down and he had a chance to wipe the tears away from his eyes.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered, turning away from us. “I think it’s getting worse.”
We still didn’t say anything. What could we say? That it would be okay? Empty promises weren’t going to help him. Not really.
Instead, I pushed to my feet and crossed to where he stood, placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me as I did.
“It’s alright,” I told him. “Laughter is supposed to be good for the soul or something, right? Just means your soul is in good shape.”
The words felt like slime on my tongue, but I said them anyway. That was a lesson I had learned long ago. One my mother had been forced to teach me.
Her words echoed across my thoughts. “Sometimes you have to lie to those you love the most. But even a lie can be a truth with the right amount of convincing.”
Nodding in return, Sil stood up straighter. “Of course. I’m, uhh, I’m going to see if I can get Ophelia to drink some more.” He took the cup from the tray and refilled it before heading out of the room.
I met Irinda’s gaze, that troubled look still present. “Don’t say it,” I muttered. “Just… don’t say it.”
She said nothing as I crossed the room to the master suite and opened the door.
*** *** ***
I let out another heavy breath as the door closed behind me, shutting me away from the world.
I had come to rely on both Sil and Irinda’s companionship in the past few weeks, but there was still nothing like the moments of silence and contemplation that being alone brought.
Rolling my shoulders and rubbing the bottom of my cheek—careful not to disturb the stitches—I slipped over to the desk and sat down with a grunt. My body was still tense from the run-in with the dragon fear magic, and I had to actively focus on relaxing to get my muscles to loosen.
Several thoughts ran through my mind as I looked over the stacks of paper that littered the top of the desk. Earlier in the day, I’d looked at the piles and thought I was making progress. But after the fire… The truth was a far heavier weight. There was still so much to go through.
Sil’s laughter echoed in my head, too, his remarks about answers bouncing between my thoughts. He wasn’t wrong. I had discovered some answers, like how Brin had kept the inn open despite almost running it into the ground.
But I was still missing the most important ones. Like what the false empress hoped to achieve by taking my place. Why the System was locking me out of new quests and how I was supposed to continue growing stronger so I could complete the quests I did have if I couldn’t earn more experience.
I shook my head and pulled up the message that the System had presented before in the street.
It was unlike anything the mental construct had ever provided in the past. It was also immensely confusing.
System access restricted.
Access will be restored in…
34 hours and 29 minutes.
I looked over the message several times, just as I had in the street.
How could access to the System be restricted when I was still receiving responses from it? I could still pull up past messages, and clearly my [Insight] ability had worked on the dragon.
So how was I restricted? And what in the seven hells would happen when access was restored?
Dismissing the message with a mental wave, I rested my head in my hands, covering my ears and closing my eyes for a time. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, drowning out the rest of the world with the drumming of my heartbeat through the palms of my hands.
I let myself get lost in my imagination.
Air rushed past my head as I flew across the sky, the world a miniature version of itself below. I could almost hear the wuft wuft of my wings as I pushed myself higher, my golden dragon body glimmering in the sunlight as I pierced the clouds. The bellowing sound of my roar as I spread my maw.
The roar of an empress. A god.
When I opened my eyes again, a bright blue sky was not what greeted me. Instead, it was the dark embrace of the inn’s master suite. I squeezed my eyes shut again, willing the fantasy to return, but it wouldn't.
I slammed my hands on the desk and pushed back in the chair. Stalking from the room, I slammed the door behind me, earning myself several looks from the two girls that were working the kitchen.
Brushing off their looks, I passed through the back door and into the street that ran between The Slumbering Drake and the city’s wall. The sun was already starting its descent toward the horizon, and the first moon had risen halfway to its peak. Several hours had passed, then.
I didn’t have full System access, whatever that meant, for at least another day. But I was tired of wandering around blindly.
I still didn’t know who this “A” person was, or why they had given Woldroff any kind of information about me. It could be Aurelion, it could be someone I’d never met before.
“Too many godsdamn questions,” I murmured to the empty back street. I checked my belt, which had two daggers attached to it and a longsword in a sheath hanging from one side.
The weight of the weapons had become a constant in my life, one of the few that I could count on, and I often forgot they were there. I placed a hand on the hilt of the sword and squeezed my fingers into a fist around it.
The grip bit into my palm.
I didn’t have most of the answers. That was true. But I could find them. I didn’t need to wait on the System to push me in the right direction. I had spent thousands of years figuring things out myself. And yet, for some reason I had leaned into the System's prompts so easily when I'd reawakened that night in the alley, six weeks ago.
I could get the answer to part of one of my questions tonight, perhaps even before the sun went down completely.
Not allowing myself time to think too hard about it—or time for anyone else to realize what I was planning to do—I turned my feet toward the western edge of the Eastern Quarter.
Toward Machem Street. Toward Aurelion.