Maxwell

  “I met with The Baron today. A daemon of sheer hatred and ruthlessness, he told me he would be willing to fund my expedition, in return for a simple favor. I told him I would need some time to consider his proposal, for a favor is never simple with him.

  I do not wish to work with a creature like that. Yet, I find myself without much choice, as I have exhausted all other options. The High Court will never aid me, that much has become obvious by now. Nor will the City Board of Carthal, not after all I have done against them and their home.

  Is this the cost of living a life bereft of luxury? One in which I have not sought affluence or treasure? Perhaps if I spent some time chasing gold rather than justice, I could amass a fortune big enough to finance my journey. That way, I would not have to rely upon the whims of a cruel fiend who lives for naught but misery.” - Writings of the Sword-Saint, 2148 Post-Separation (PS).

  I woke with a start.

  My eyes snapped open, perceiving nothing but bleary colors and obscure shapes. I felt disorientated and muddled, like someone had sent an electromagnetic pulse through my mind, scrambling my thoughts. Blinding sunlight seared at my unfocused gaze, accompanied by a sharp pounding in the back of my head.

  “Ugh…” I groaned, feeling my body reawaken from its slumber. It was like coming out of a coma. I could not for the life of me decide if yesterday's events had been some kind of fever dream, or an actual happening. Perhaps there had been no Merchant Town of Galwen. No Husks. No deadly chase through the woods.

  “Oh,” a feminine voice said. “You are awake.”

  … Of course not.

  “Barely,” I sighed, rubbing at my eyes to clear my vision. My head was spinning, and my back hurt in more places than I thought possible, but I was alive. That was something, at least.

  “You have been out for six hours, give or take,” Amelie’s voice continued. “Once you have your bearings, we should head out. We are wasting daylight.”

  I twisted around to face my travel companion, her pale features coming into view next to the campfire. A soft flame burned at its core, atop a bed of ash. Above us, the sun stood proud amidst cerulean skies, casting rays of light upon our little clearing.

  “Do you want breakfast?” Amelie asked, gesturing to the flames. “I have some freshly-cooked squirrel meat if you are interested.”

  “Squirrel meat?” I blinked, pushing away the wool blanket to stretch out my legs. “There was something like that in the pack?”

  “No, I caught one just now,” she explained. “Little rascal was unlucky enough to be in the vicinity when I woke up.”

  “A-Ahh,” I said, not terribly surprised at the revelation that Amelie knew how to hunt. It made sense with what little I had seen of her skillset up until now. “Is it tasty?”

  She gave me an odd look.

  “Okay, firstly… you have never had squirrel before? And second, that is a terrible question. You are starving, are you not?”

  My stomach gave a well-timed growl at her words, to which she raised an astute eyebrow.

  “Maybe…” I murmured, my face growing hot with embarrassment.

  “Here. Take this,” she said, grabbing hold of something near the rim of the campfire and holding it up for me. It was a stick containing the roasted carcass of a squirrel, its flesh golden-brown and sizzling. At once, I felt my mouth water and my stomach churn. I had never seen anything more appetizing in my life.

  “Thank you,” I nodded, accepting the meal with gratitude.

  We sat in silence as I dug into the soft meat with my teeth, tearing it from the bones with ease. It tasted delicious. Like a subtler version of rabbit, with a hint of chicken. It was a bit gamey, but that was perhaps to be expected from wild animal meat cooked over an open flame.

  As I ate, Amelie fiddled around with something she had procured from one of the many pouches on her waist. At a glance, it looked to be some sort of wooden star, with a round ball at its center. Eight spires split off from the middle, pointing in all inter-cardinal and cardinal directions. Strange markings had been carved into the wood, and the ball in particular seemed entirely covered, tiny symbols engraved upon every inch.

  “What’s that?” I asked between mouthfuls, staring at the strange object in fascination.

  Amelie did not respond. Instead, she retrieved her hunting knife from its sheathe, and pricked the tip of her finger with it. A tiny drop of blood welled to the surface, which she gently flicked onto the ball in the middle of the wooden star with a twist of her hand.

  At once, the round sphere began spinning, going faster and faster until the blood lay evenly spread out across its surface. Then, it came to a sudden and abrupt halt, causing the blood to go flying off again, straight onto one of the eight spires. By the time it was over, not a single spec of crimson remained on the sphere itself. It had all been flung onto the rightmost spire.

  “Ahh… Makes sense...” I heard Amelie mutter to herself, which was ironic, given that it made no sense at all to me.

  “Does it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she nodded, wiping the star with her sleeve. “We must continue going east.”

  “… That thing is a compass?” I blinked.

  “Of a sort,” she said. “Except it only leads to one thing.”

  Sensing that she was not in the mood to explain, I promptly let the matter drop whilst ruminating upon her answer in silence. A compass that only led to one thing, presumably not north? What use could that be?

  “Are you finished eating?” Amelie asked, rising from her seat next to the fire. “We must be away sooner rather than later.”

  “Uhh, yeah,” I coughed, throwing away the pilfered remains of the squirrel. I was still hungry, but it would have to suffice for now. “We can go.”

  We began making ready to leave. Amelie went to fetch Waylan as I doused our fire with water from the stream, and tied the bedroll to the wooden support of my pack. I even found some dried meat amongst our meager belongings in the process, which I happily gulped down despite its stringy texture. By the time Amelie returned, I was good to go, with naught but a smoky pile of sticks remaining of our campsite.

  The journey was significantly less mortifying this time around, as we struck a relaxed pace atop the back of Waylan. Amelie guided him with the deft hand of someone who had done it a thousand times before, and I admired her proficiency in silence as we followed a winding path through the trees, taking us past the stream and deeper into the valley.

  It was not before then that I truly noticed how serene and peaceful it was in this place. It had been difficult to appreciate the day before, but now, with the sun in our face and the wind at our backs, I could not help but relish in the tranquil atmosphere and beauteous environment. It was a welcome respite from all the fear and chaos, and a powerful reminder that not all things were bad and scary in this world.

  The ride continued in blissful quietude for some time, before a question given form the night prior bubbled to the forefront of my mind, one that nagged at me until I could take it no more.

  “Uhh… Amelie?” I asked, breaking the stillness with some hesitation.

  “Yes?” she said, still keeping her eyes on the road.

  “I have a question,” I said. “One regarding… last night.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Do you remember back in Galwen? When we met outside the gate?”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “W-Well, right before that, I… I ran into this guy… Long brown hair, lilac eyes…”

  “Julien,” Amelie said, cutting me off. “His name is Julien.”

  “Oh,” I blinked. “So you know him, then?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I told him to lead you to me, should he happen to cross paths with you before I did.”

  “Right…” I said. “And he’s also the one who prepared this pack of supplies for us?”

  “Correct,” she said, offering no further explanation. I allowed the silence to linger for a while longer, before my curiosity finally got the better of me.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “… Someone from my past,” she sighed. “A friend, or a… confidant, I suppose.”

  “So you two were close?”

  “Yes, we were,” she said, her voice taking on a hint of melancholy. “More than close, in fact.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “L-Lovers, then?”

  I hated how unsure the word sounded as it left my lips. Like a young schoolboy asking about a risqué topic he found interesting yet embarrassing. The deathly quiet that followed did little to help soothe my apprehension.

  “It was a long time ago,” Amelie said at last. “I was-… I mean, we were different people back then.”

  “Oh.”

  It was about the only thing I could think of in response.

  “It was a child’s love,” she continued, entirely unbidden. “The innocent, pure kind. The kind that could never survive the weight of reality.”

  “… I see.”

  “Either way, it is… it is in the past now,” she finished, yet something about the way she said it made me hesitate. “We have both moved on.”

  “Okay…” I breathed. “I won’t pry. But, if you guys are… you know, in the past, then… why did he choose to help us?”

  “Because he is a good person,” Amelie sighed. “And… because I suspect he is still in love with me.”

  That statement marked the end of the conversation. I had no desire to stick my nose any further into their personal business, and it was quite apparent that this was a topic that lay close to the heart. I did not want to risk upsetting her when she was already doing so much for me.

  We rode on in silence, the sounds of the forest coming alive around us. My thoughts were a raging tempest inside my skull, howling for answers. It would be a while still before I got any.

  /-0-\

  That night, as I lay sleeping, I wandered the labyrinth of my mind. Echoes of the distant past came to me like flashes of light, battering me in a relentless barrage of reminiscence and painful memory. It was a surreal carnival of horrors, each depiction drawing on a different shade of longing and regret.

  I tried to flee, but the landscape defied all common sense — forests of contorted trees whispered unspeakable secrets, and oceans of inky blackness hid unseen terrors. I struggled to discern the boundary between dream and wakefulness, trapped in the perpetual limbo that separated the land of the living from the land of dreams.

  As the nightmare reached its crescendo, I saw my mother, sitting alone next to an old fireplace. She was clutching a photo to her chest, hugging it as if it held the power to undo the evil that had been wrought upon her. In a moment of clarity, I recognized the person it depicted - me, standing next to Jason on our first day of school. I had been five years old at the time. My dad had been the one taking the photo.

  In the dream, I tried to approach her as she sat there weeping. Tried to put my arms around her, to comfort her in the darkness. But it was to no avail. My body felt like a leaden weight, my feet trudging through molasses. When I attempted to call her name, no sound escaped my frozen lips.

  Suddenly, her body tensed up. She let go of the photo, its wooden frame dropping to the floor with a muted thud. And then… she turned around.

  Pools of ink filled empty eye sockets. An elongated face stretched beyond human limits, framed by streaks of blood running from her ears and nose. A vacant mouth opened to condemn me for all that I was, and all I had done to her. As if she had not suffered enough without me leaving her. As if I had not been enough of a disappointment from before.

  As if it was not my fault that she was going to kill herself, now that she had no one left to live for.

  With a gasp, I jolted awake, my body drenched in cold sweat. Around me, the veil of night lay thick and impenetrable, save for the rainbow stars above which shone with a dull radiance.

  For a moment, I could not breathe. My chest was seizing up, my throat constricting. It felt as if I lay on the brink of death. But then…

  “Hey,” Amelie whispered, her breath hot against my ear. “Settle down, Maxwell. You had a nightmare.”

  Forcing my head to the side, I found a pair of flame-orange eyes gleaming at me from the darkness, their hue soft and bewitching. At once, I was reminded of the reality of my situation. This was not my world, my home. It was Alwaar, and I was sharing a bedroll with Amelie. The distance between us was so minuscule, I could feel her warmth on my skin.

  “… A-Amelie?” I tried, still heaving for air.

  “I am here,” she said, grasping my arm with her hand. “Go back to sleep.”

  “W-Why are… Why are you-” I said.

  “I have them too,” she interjected, her gaze growing wistful and sad. “The nightmares.”

  I felt my heart begin to slow again, its incessant beating dropping to a moderate cadence. I was still not fully aware of my surroundings yet, but at least the fear of death had abated to a controllable level.

  “Nightmares?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around her words.

  “Yes. Nightmares,” she said. “I have… seen things. Things that leave a mark. Things that are difficult to forget.”

  I focused on my breathing, on the rhythm of my chest rising and falling.

  “I know what it is like to wake up screaming,” she continued, looking away for just a moment. “So do not trouble your mind with it. Just go to sleep.”

  It took me a long time to calm down properly, and longer still to feel sleepy again. But throughout it all, Amelie remained by my side, her presence a soothing reminder of the compassion of others. Simply comforting.

  Simply… human.

  /-0-\

  The following morning passed in silence, as we made ready to set out once more. The landscape had hardly changed since yesterday. We were still following the same dirt road through the same forest. In the beginning, the idea of such a journey had seemed novel, and even somewhat exciting. Now, it was quickly starting to lose its luster.

  I did not speak a word of what had transpired that night as we got seated atop Waylan, and set off into the unknown. It was too embarrassing for me, too disgraceful. To suffer a breakdown like that in front of someone I barely even knew… I could scarce believe it had happened.

  Amelie, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the whole ordeal. She rode with much the same confidence and aplomb as the day before, her eyes ever fixed on the road ahead. In fact, very little seemed to shake her resolve in general, her concentration unyielding as a rod of iron. The only thing I could think of was the questions I had asked about Julien during yesterday’s trek, and even that had only made a tiny dent in her demeanor.

  It must be exhausting, to go through life like that, I thought to myself, regarding my traveling companion with newfound interest. With your mental shields raised and your heart closed off.

  I knew it was not my place to question her way of life, but still… I was allowed my thoughts, even if I would never share them.

  We crossed great distances over the coming hours, most of which passed in silence. Occasionally, Amelie would speak up to point something out to me, like the fact that the heartwillow bird was beginning to wake from its hibernation, now that summer was transitioning into fall. I had never known a bird to hibernate before, much less hibernate during summer of all seasons, but… as I had been shown on numerous occasions already, things worked differently here than they did in my world.

  She also talked a bit about her home, and her family. I learned that she was first in line to the Harthway throne, currently held by her father, Escanor Harthway. They ruled the city of Benadiel, situated on the southern shore of Alwaar, and its surrounding lands. The reason Rachel treated her with such deference, was because her family, the Baelfords, were vassals of the Harthways. So in a sense, Amelie was Rachel’s superior, despite their childhood friendship.

  What she did not mention, however, was why the future leader of a Great Noble House was traveling around the countryside, without an escort or a formal leave of absence. That part, I was left to ponder on myself, mostly in vain.

  The forest came to an end as the afternoon sun touched the horizon, opening up to reveal a wide stretch of grassland terrain, complete with golden fields and serene meadows. In the distance, I could just about make out the sight of a small settlement, bereft of any walls or defenses. A simple collection of houses built upon the shoulders of a mound, with pastures and wheat-fields clothing the perimeter.

  “Where are we?” I asked, squinting my eyes at the distant hamlet.

  “We are east of Galwen, near the village of Taft,” Amelie said, guiding Waylan towards a stream of water running past a grouping of trees. “That is where we shall be spending our next Husknight.”

  The word brought back painful memories of my first night in Alwaar, and I tried my best to suppress the shiver that threatened to break out across my body.

  “But… the village doesn’t seem to have any walls,” I said. “How will it protect us from the Husks?”

  “This particular place does not need any walls,” Amelie said. “Because the Husks are afraid of it.”

  I had to do a double take to make certain I had just heard her correctly.

  “Uhh… Excuse me? Did you just say that… the Husks are afraid of it?”

  She nodded.

  “Aren’t the Husks, like… undead nightmare creatures? What could they possibly be scared of?”

  “Well, it is not a what, really… it is a who. And he lives in that village,” she said, pointing at the settlement.

  “What?!” A person strong enough to scare off even the Husks? Now that just sounded like a bad joke. “Are you sure?”

  “I have never met him myself,” Amelie continued, giving Waylan a loving pat on the neck as he slaked his thirst in the stream. “But my father told me he lives there. And my father does not make light of such matters.”

  “I-Is that so?”

  “Either way, it is in our best interests to take advantage of that protection,” she finished. “Lest you fancy spending another Husknight out in the woods?”

  I very much did not fancy that, and so once Waylan was finished drinking, we set off yet again, towards the village of Taft. Amelie told me we were unlikely to make it all the way there before dark, and so I had just begun to prepare myself for yet another night in the bedroll when I spotted a thin stream of smoke rising from behind some bushes further up the road.

  “What’s that?” I said, pointing it out to Amelie.

  “Likely just some villagers gathered around a campfire,” she said, shrugging it off. “Not many bandits or highwaymen around these parts, due to… well, much the same reason there are no Husks around here either.”

  We continued down the path, eventually rounding a bend past a sizeable boulder. My eyes immediately went to the source of the smoke, which had now been made visible. A campfire, just as Amelie had predicted. Except there were not multiple villagers gathered around it. Just an older fellow, sitting crosslegged and hunched over.

  The man was old, likely in his sixties or seventies, with short gray hair hidden beneath a linen coif. His clothes were simple, the kind a farmer might wear, and his leather boots looked like they had seen better days. He had a gaunt, sunken-in look to him, and his physique seemed thin and fragile. An overstuffed pack lay next to him in the grass, and a delicious fragrance wafted from a pot suspended above the flames, assaulting my nostrils and reminding me of just how hungry I was.

  The most conspicuous thing about him, however, was the fact that he was wearing a simple blindfold in front of his eyes, obscuring his vision.

  Is he blind? I frowned, studying the man closely as we approached.

  “Well, radiant days to you, travelers!” the old man suddenly said, waving an arm at us to catch our attention. “I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone this far from the village!”

  “Heard us coming, did you?” Amelie asked as we brought Waylan to a halt on the road, next to where the man had set up his campfire. There was a subtle edge of hostility to her tone.

  “Sure did,” the man smiled. “And I’d be glad of the company, too, if you’d have me. A meal always tastes better when shared with others.”

  I could sense the hesitation radiating from Amelie at his words. A difficult life had no doubt taught her to be wary of strangers, no matter how harmless they might appear. Food freely offered, twice so.

  “You would share your meal with us?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “Of course! I’ve made too much for one person either way, so you’d honestly be doing me a favor.”

  “That is very kind of you,” Amelie said. “But sadly, I am afraid we must be on our way. Taft is still some distance from here, and daylight is waning on the horizon.”

  “Oh, you’ll be safe with me, don’t you worry about that!” the man replied, scratching at his nonexistent beard. “And besides, I’d hate for you to leave before trying my pork stew! You don’t know this yet, but it’s got quite the reputation.”

  “Again, we appreciate the offer, but we really must be off,” Amelie said, more insistent this time.

  “Ahh, a crying shame that. Not every day you get the chance to talk to the Flame Princess herself,” the man shrugged, giving a theatrical sigh in the process. As soon as the words had left his mouth, I felt Amelie’s entire body tense up.

  “… What did you just say?” she choked, eyes wide with shock.

  “What? The Flame Princess?” he said, cocking his head to the right. “That’s who you are, correct? Amelie Harthway, Daughter of Lord Escanor Harthway. And that there behind you with his arms around your waist is the bearer of the Universal Sigil.”

  My mind drew blank as I stared at the old man in front of us, his expression entirely neutral. Even Amelie seemed at a loss for words, her mouth opening and closing again with no sound produced.

  “You seem mighty shocked,” the man continued with a smile, patting the grass next to him. “So why don’t you come on down from that horse, and share this meal with me? Something tells me we’re going to have quite the conversation indeed.”

  Check out the Patreon in order to gain access to 8 advance chapters (4 weeks of extra content!)

  We also have a Discord server. More than just a place for fans of the story, we hope to provide a safe haven for ardent readers and aspiring creators to come together to discuss (fan)fiction, writing, music, art and everything in-between. No man is an island, and here, we hope you'll be able to find like-minded individuals to share your interests with.