The rest of that day’s journey passed uneventfully and we ended up stopping in a small village called Summerglen, just south of where the forest ended and the Great Plains of Inverbreck began. The village only had one inn which only had four rooms available, two of which were clearly meant for servants. My parents rented the biggest room for themselves and the other rather humble room for me. The servant’s room nearest mine went to Mary and the fourth room went to one of the guards. The rest of our entourage, took the carriages to the outskirts of the village and made camp.

  The innkeeper, an excitable older gentleman, treated my parents and I as if we were royalty which I honestly found a bit uncomfortable. His wife, the cook, clearly pulled out the stops when making our dinner because the food was delicious and cooked to perfection. While we ate, the innkeeper stood by nervously, as if he felt he needed to wait on us hand and foot despite my father assuring him that it wasn’t necessary. When we finished eating, we all retired to our rooms so that we could get an early start the next morning.

  My room was small, roughly the same size as the one my grandparents had given me in Korea. There was just enough room for a narrow bed, side table, and dresser, all of which made the room fill overly cramped. With how small my room was, I could only imagine how tiny the rooms that Mary and Charles, the guard, had. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable, as was the accompanying pillow, and I had a hard time sleeping on it. I’m not sure what time I finally managed to get to sleep, but it seemed as if as soon as I drifted off, Mary was waking me back up.

  All of this leads us to now. Having been awakened so early by Mary, I am a bit bleary eyed and feel as if I could collapse at any second, sleep fighting to reclaim me as my head pounds from being deprived of a good night’s rest. She helps me get dressed in the clean clothes she had brought in with her. In these tight quarters it takes some creative maneuvering, but somehow Mary manages to get me properly dressed and finishes tying off the laces on the back of my dress. For my hair she put it in a simple braid at my request, tying the end off with a ribbon that matches the cheery yellow of my dress.

  We head downstairs only to find my parents already waiting for us. My dad’s face is full of energy, as if he is rearing to go and get the day started. My mom, on the other hand looks how I feel. The bed in their room was likely as lumpy and uncomfortable as mine was. My dad, considering his position in the King’s Army, is likely used to sleeping on worse surfaces, which is probably why out of the three of us, he is the only one who looks as if they had a good night’s sleep. At least, that is what I am telling myself so that I don’t end up potentially resenting him.

  After a quick breakfast, my father thanks our gracious hosts and pays the older man five times the actual rate for the rooms. When the man tries to argue, dad just insists adds more coins to the pile. The older man looks like he is going to faint, but luckily, this also means he stops arguing and we make out way out of the inn before he can recover.

  The caravan of carriages are already lined up outside waiting on us and once we load ourselves into them, we take off. The sun is just starting to peak over the horizon as we pull out of the village, turning the sky a lovely blend of pinks and oranges. We follow the small river that the village was built beside and I look out the window, hoping to see something interesting. Despite my hopes, all I can see is flat farmland as far as my eyes can perceive in the early dawn light. As the day progresses, the scene outside of the window only gets flatter, if it does anything. Around ten, I saw a lone tree which managed to break up the monotony a bit, but that could hardly be called anything overly interesting.

  I wonder if trees like that get lonely. I could ask my dad, but that would probably end up in a lecture from him about different plants and their personalities, something I don’t have to energy to think about right now.

  I yawn and pick up my book to continue reading about Sasha and Scorsha, but I find my eyes loosing focus after just a few sentences so I put my book back down and close my eyes instead. Right as I’m finally about to drift off and get a little nap in, the carriage comes to a sudden halt, spilling me onto the floor. Wide awake, I get back into my seat while rubbing my now tender knees that will likely bruise from the impact with the floor. My father hangs his head out the window and asks the coachman what the issue is, annoyance in his voice.

  “There seems to be a trench across the road, Your Grace.” The driver replies.

  “Then go off the road and around it.” The duke says, irritation in his voice.

  “That will be a problem, My Lord. The trench appears to go for some distance in either direction. We have no way of knowing how far due to crops obscuring it on the sides.” The driver explains.

  A second later, there are several thunks against the side of the carriage and my mother shoves me back to the floor, covering me with her body. There is a grunt and I hear the sound of something heavy hit the ground outside of the carriage. My father springs over me and my mother, rushing out the door to where the sounds of combat can now be heard as metal clashes against metal.

  My left arm begins to itch and I absentmindedly start to scratch at it. The inching gets more persistent, centering on the back of my hand and I look down. The tattoo given to me by Ygg is fully visible, the vines and flowers writhing as if agitated. Remembering Ygg’s explanation about how the tattoo works, I create walls of ice to either side of the carriage, trapping my mother and I inside, but preventing anything from getting inside that isn’t already.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  My mother stands back up since we aren’t in immediate danger and helps me to my feet. Looking at the wall of the carriage, the door is still standing open, though it is now blocked off by ice. Embedded in the wall next to the window by where I had been sitting, is a stone headed arrow that is dripping with a sticky yellow substance. Suddenly, the carriage shakes and shudders. I am hit with a sense of weightlessness as it takes my brain a moment to realize we are falling, and second later, the carriage hits bottom causing my mother and I to fall backward to the floor, leaving my head reeling.

  “Beira!” My mother screams and dives over me as I recover. I hear the sound of cloth tearing and her weight collapses on top of me, a warm wetness starts to spread over my waist. The smell of freshly turned earth and copper fills the air in a nauseating scent.

  “Mother?” I cry out, nudging her still form. “Mom!” She doesn’t respond.

  I am trying to get out from under her when an ugly face with a vicious grin springs into my line of sight. It is akin the what I remember the goblins in in the movie Labyrinth looking like. Its wrinkled skin is a greyish brown and its large eyes are completely black. The wispy hair on its head, its bushy eyebrows, and the thin stubble on it’s face, are all a deep shade of crimson. A sharp knife appears next to the head, held in a twisted and knotted hand.

  I don’t think, I just react and a concentrated beam of light shoots out and drills a hole through the creature’s head, causing it to drop the knife which lands right beside my head, impaling the floor. The creature itself collapses; its weight added to my mother’s weight on me. Its face hangs centimeters above mine, the hole in its forehead still smoking as a blackish liquid oozes out of the hole and starts to dribble on my face, making me want to vomit.

  Using my right arm, which is free, I try to push the heavy body of creature off of my mother and once I cause it to shift enough, it tumbles to the side. With that done, I work on extracting myself from under my mother who still isn’t moving and, more concerning is still bleeding on me. Without being able to see her wound, I’m not sure I can do anything to help her. The one time I healed Lord Zellen, it didn’t even know what I was doing and I haven’t been able to replicate that healing ability since. At best, if I can get out from under her, I can attempt to stop the bleeding before I need to worry about trying to actually heal her.

  It takes some work, but soon I manage to wiggle out and I flip my mother over. Her complexion is pale from blood loss and her breathing is shallow. Using the knife that is still stuck in the floor, I cut a section off of the hem of my dress, and press it to her wound in an attempt to stymie the flow of blood. The first section of cloth soaks through quickly and, remembering a first aid lesson from my previous life, I add another wad cut from the hem of my dress.

  Tears fill my eyes as the second bit cloth gets soaked through.

  I cut another segment of cloth and add it to the wound, my vision growing blurry as the tears sting my eyes. My breath is coming shorter as I feel a panic attack creeping up on me. I shake my head in an effort to clear it, but it doesn’t help. Right as I feel myself slipping fully into the panic attack, a bright golden glow fills the air then dissipates and darkness claims me.

  ******************************************************************

  I wake to someone stroking my hair and I open my eyes, seeing my mother whose lap my head is apparently resting in. Seeing her awake and apparently well, tears spring to my eyes and sit up before pouncing her with a tight hug.

  “Momma! You’re ok. Thank the gods!” I cry as I hug her.

  “Your mother is fine, sweety. Thanks to you, I’m fine.” She hugs me back briefly before pushing me away so that she can look in me in the eye. “We need to figure out how to get out of here.”

  Above us, we can still hear the sound of fighting filtering down to the hole we are in.

  Looking to either side, the windows and doors are filled with earth, preventing us from getting out that way. On the ceiling there is a hole that sunlight is streaming in from, likely from when I killed the creature, and it makes me think that the roof is likely still slightly above ground level.

  My mother looks at the creature that had attacked us with disgust.

  “Knockers.” She says, the venom in that one word practically dripping.

  “Knockers?” I ask, my mind not going to the creature lying dead beside us.

  “A type of fae, known for burrowing through the earth, which explains the trenches blocking the road. They covet shiny things like gems, but tend to only stay in mountainous regions. They are actually a cousin to Redcaps. The fact that there is one or more down here in the plains doesn’t bode well,” she explains to me. “Both Knockers and Redcaps belong to the Autumn Court, but this isn’t the right time of year for them to be hunting for participants in the Great Hunt…”

  She pauses for a second then continues.

  “The fact that there are Knockers this far away from the hills and mountains suggest that they are searching for something particular, though what, I don’t know. I’ll have to examine the scene whenever we can get out of here.”

  While my mother is talking, I look around the interior and notice my book sticking out from underneath the corpse of the Knocker. I pull it out and notice that portion of the book has been soaked in blood, presumably my mother’s. I frown at it and crack the pages open to discover that the blood is only staining the page edges without penetrating to where the text is printed. Relief floods me at the discovery that the contents of the book appear to be ok.

  The Dutchess takes the book from my hands and, with a flick of her wrist, a small stream of water shoots out and rinses the thickest parts of the blood off of the page edges. I start to protest her actions, thinking she is going to further ruin my book, but before any words can come out, she flicks her wrist again and all the water separates from the pages. She hands the book back to me with a smile.

  “That should prevent further damage that copy of my novel.” She says casually and I give her an incredulous look before looking down at the name of the author, ‘Ilsa MacBain’.

  That is when I notice the sound of fighting above us had grown quiet.