After their train departed from Emberly, Gideon’s exhaustion combined with the relaxing vibrations of the moving carriage, and he soon fell asleep.
He awoke a few hours later, jostled by the train braking to a stop at the next station. As he looked out the window, he realized the train had passed through the foothills at the base of the Frostpeak Mountains, and they were now entering the plains of central Acretan. The land outside the window was flat, brown with splashes of green, shimmering under the midday sun.
The train would take two days to reach Prospera, with frequent stops. He’d brought his books with him, hoping to get some studying done along the way.
According to the sign above the train station, they’d arrived at the town of Valeforge. At Emberly, the train station was a stretch of track with a small wooden building next to it. Here, at least, the train station appeared to have a proper platform and a shelter from the elements. A few people, all human, were slowly filing onto the train.
As he stretched his arms, Gideon saw that Berenyn had fallen asleep too, and still appeared to be slumbering.
Shylvena, who was sitting across from Gideon in their four-seat group, was awake. She seemed pensive, staring out the window with a distant look in her eye. On the metal table between them, she had the Elvish-Gleurican dictionary open in front of her, next to a pen and a pad of paper.
She glanced over at him and smiled, then pushed the pad towards him. Gideon looked down and saw she’d written a message. She’d written it in Elvish first at the top of the page, then carefully translated it to Gleurican on the second line of the paper.
“Man with a cart came by. You missed sandwiches.”
Gideon took the pen and wrote, “Thank you. Did you get anything? Are you hungry?” Turning the dictionary towards him, he slowly went through and copied down the Elvish runes for each translated word, then turned the pad back towards Shylvena.
After a moment, she wrote another message, translated it, and turned the pad back towards him.
“Can’t eat. Too nervous. Thank you.”
Gideon wrote back, “We won’t reach Prospera until tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want something?” Then, remembering something his best friend back in Prospera had often told him, he wrote out a set of Dwarvish runes which meant, roughly, “One who neglects their anvil shall wield a weakened hammer.” Gideon began to write the Gleurican translation underneath it, but Shylvena grabbed the pad from underneath his pen before he could finish.
“You speak Dwarvish?” she said, in perfect Dwarvish.
Gideon’s mouth hung open. When he replied, his words were not as confident as Shylvena’s, with a thick accent. “Not very well, but enough to order a good brew when I need one.” He chuckled. “There are plenty of dwarves in Prospera. Though the Elvish lands are far from us, there are Dwarvish Holds underneath many places in Acretan. I feel foolish we didn’t try this earlier.”
“There is a Hold near Lorindel, also. In my former life, I was trained in Dwarvish language and protocol.” Shylvena averted her eyes from his. “I assumed you were a foolish human who only spoke with one tongue.”
“I was until I met Flinn. He’s been my roommate for years.” Gideon shook his head, feeling a bit embarrassed. Though a few of the words Shylvena had used sounded somewhat strange to him—no doubt a different Dwarvish dialect than the one he was familiar with—she was still perfectly understandable.
Shylvena tapped the pad with her finger. “I know this saying. I feel foolish, being admonished by a child, but you’re not wrong.”
“I’m not a child,” Gideon said, exasperated.
Shylvena looked down at her hands, giving the sign for peace. “I did not mean to insult you. Forgive me.”
Gideon sighed. “If I was an elf, I’d still be considered a child, wouldn’t I?”
She nodded.
“I suppose I’m still trying to grow up if I’m being honest. I don’t think it happens all at once.” He smiled at her, then patted his stomach. “Well, how about I get us some food?”
Shylvena frantically reached for her purse. “Please, let me pay—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gideon said, waving his hand. “You can get me back the next time. We’ll have to eat more than once on this journey.” Gideon stood up, sighing contentedly as he stretched his legs. “You know, I may be young, but I’ve had to fend for myself for a long time now.”
Shylvena nodded. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Your people—humans, I mean—they expect their children to grow up very quickly, don’t they?”
“Some more than others. But me? I suppose so.”
Shylvena bowed forward slightly. “You more than many, I think. Thank you, Gideon.”
He moved into the aisle and walked towards the front of the train. Shouldering past a couple of people who were finding their seats, he noticed that many more passengers had boarded the train at Valeforge than at Emberly, though the train was still less than half full. As they got close to Prospera, he knew that would change. At the end of the line, each carriage would be packed.
Gideon passed through a few more cars until he found the food cart, where he ordered three turkey and cheese sandwiches from the attendant. He paid for them with a small handful of coins. He still hadn’t dipped into the money he’d received from Berenyn and Shylvena and was hoping to exchange the Elvish currency for Acretan coinage once he reached the city.
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As he returned to their carriage, he overheard shouting and raced back to his seat, only to find Berenyn and Shylvena arguing with a man in a blue train attendant’s uniform. The train attendant, a portly man whose tunic was decorated with a symbol of a lightning bolt superimposed with a train car, looked annoyed as Berenyn pointed a finger at him.
“We are not thieves,” Berenyn was saying. “You have done us a grave insult, questioning our honor like this.”
Gideon cleared his throat, looking at the man’s uniform. It was the logo for Acretan Arcane Railways, the company that owned and operated the train.
“What’s the problem?” Gideon said. “I’m traveling with them.”
The attendant whirled towards Gideon, saying, “They refuse to show their tickets. This elf got angry at me for even asking!”
“As if we would ever board passage without paying,” Berenyn said, rolling his eyes. “The very idea insults us.”
“It’s okay,” Gideon said. “He checks everyone’s ticket. It’s just protocol. It doesn’t mean he’s accusing you of anything.”
Berenyn shook his head, scowling at the man. “That’s not true. He didn’t check anyone until he reached us.”
The attendant turned three shades redder and stammered, “It’s random. I check every third—”
“You can check mine,” Gideon said, placing the sandwiches on the table, reaching into the pocket of his robes, and digging out the mana-infused card. “Since I’m one-third of this group, that should be random enough, shouldn’t it?”
The attendant took the ticket and ran it through a small scanning device which hung from his belt. A light flashed green as he passed the ticket through the slot, then he handed the ticket back to Gideon. The attendant looked at Berenyn for a long moment as if he wished to force the issue, then shook his head and turned away, muttering under his breath.
After he was gone, Shylvena said something to Berenyn, who sighed. He spoke in Elvish back to her, then turned to Gideon and said, “I know I should have just shown him the ticket, but he really hadn’t checked anyone else.”
Sure enough, the attendant didn’t seem interested in checking any other tickets in the rest of their carriage, instead passing to the next car without another word.
“I believe you,” Gideon said as he took his seat. “I’m sorry about that. Now that I think about it, I don’t think anyone checked my ticket when I rode to Emberly in the first place.”
“As if a Brightened One would try to swindle anyone. Blasted trains,” Berenyn muttered. “In Lorindel, we travel by portal or griffin, as nature intended.”
Gideon would have loved to travel by portal or griffin, but such methods were prohibitively expensive in Acretan. Though portals did link some major cities, there were certainly no portals to a small settlement like Emberly. Due to the mana required to power them, only the wealthy used them, anyway. As for griffins, only a trained rider could hope to mount one, and they did not take passengers.
“I’m afraid my brother can be a bit prideful and stubborn,” Shylvena said in Dwarvish, and Berenyn looked at her in confusion. “He can’t understand this,” she added, smirking. “He never paid attention in those classes.”
“Now I know how it feels,” Berenyn said and sighed.
“‘The forger becomes the forged,’” Gideon replied, reciting another Dwarvish saying, and Shylvena began to laugh as Berenyn shook his head.
Gideon passed sandwiches to both elves, and they soon began to eat. Though the sandwich was nothing special, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the castle early that morning. He already missed Grimsby’s cooking.
The train horn sounded—a long, high-pitched blast—and they began to move forward. He was happy to once again be on their way.
After finishing his sandwich, Gideon dug through his backpack, grabbed the [Appraise] skill book, and prepared to study. But he stopped when Berenyn cleared his throat and said, “Gideon. The other day, you asked me why we had decided to leave Lorindel.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to pry into your business.”
“Not at all,” Berenyn said. “You mentioned that we would travel as friends, and if you are to be our friend, it only seems reasonable to tell you our story. It is a simple and boring one, I am afraid.”
“I doubt that,” Gideon said, “if it made you flee your home.”
Berenyn shook his head. “I had mentioned that Shylvena and I were descendants of the High Conclave—Brightened Ones, what you might call nobility. But I’m afraid, though elves pretend we are wise and evolved beyond our baser instincts, the world of Elvish politics is still cutthroat. Alliances between families are formed with marriage pacts. They are arranged by the leaders of each House, without necessarily the consent of the ones to be wed.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Gideon said. He looked at Shylvena, gazing out the window, the world scrolling past her emerald eyes. He wondered who she had been betrothed to for both of them to run like this.
“No,” Berenyn said, chuckling. “I can tell you’re not. It was my marriage which had been arranged.”
Gideon’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said.
“A young bride from the most powerful family in Lorindel, a scion descended from the High Conclave’s First Elder herself. Skilled in sorcery, she was a shrewd diplomat and a talented harpist. We were a perfect match, or so my parents told me.” Berenyn sighed. “I did not intend to run away. Not at first. But I realized that she was cruel. She kept exotic animals, including dragonlings, as pets and treated them horribly for her amusement. She looked down upon her servants, on anyone who was not a Brightened One. She had been raised by the most powerful, raised to rule—and she knew it. I tried to explain to her that I didn’t think we were a good match, but she wouldn’t listen. My parents, similarly, insisted that I follow through with my ‘commitment,’ even if it was one I’d never agreed to. It was for the good of Lorindel, or at least, that’s what they claimed. But every time I looked at her… I couldn’t stand the sight of her. When she touched me, I recoiled.”
“I see,” Gideon said, nodding.
“So I left.” He sighed and looked at Shylvena. “I intended to run away by myself. I did not wish to doom anyone else. But Shylvena caught me on the night I tried to flee our family’s compound. She had known I was discontent. My sister told me that if I planned to run, she would either join me or foil my attempt. Those were my choices.”
Berenyn said something in Elvish.
She smiled at him, then turned to Gideon. “I suppose I can be stubborn, too,” she said in Dwarvish, and laughed.
“So you plan to stay in Prospera indefinitely,” Gideon said after a moment of reflection. He hadn’t been sure, until now, if they planned to return to Lorindel at some point or if their journey had its final destination here in Acretan.
Berenyn nodded. “We had prestige, power, wealth. And we gave it all up to move here, where we have nothing. You must think me a fool to drag my sister with me. I do feel shame at what I have done to her. I have brought her down with me.”
“You shouldn’t,” Gideon said. “You haven’t. You just wanted to be free.”
“Thank you for saying that, Gideon. You are a kind soul.”
“It’s just the truth,” Gideon said. “I didn’t have the status or the power you did—quite the opposite. But believe me. I know how much it hurts to not be in control of your own life. So I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Berenyn bowed his head. “Thank you. I hope you do, too.”
“Thanks.” With that, Gideon returned the bow, then flipped open the [Appraise] skill book. He supposed it was time to get to work. If he had learned one thing from his short life, it was this—if he wanted to be free, and stay that way, he would have to work for it.
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