As the sky lightened, she gave up trying to sleep and slipped out of bed, tiptoeing to Niko’s room, where he lay sprawled inelegantly half under the covers, half draped off the bed.
“Niko!” she whispered, poking him in the ribs.
“As usual,” Grau muttered, flipping over. “Go outside.”
Niko sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“I knew you’d do this.” He said, putting on his slippers and padding quietly through the house, sitting at the patio table facing the sunrise. “What’s up? Raye bother you?”
“No... Last time we spoke, I think I bothered her.” Xellie said hesitantly. “Niko how much do you talk to her?”
“Not much,” Niko answered. “She’s involved with the church or something and something. They monitor demon invasions and potential new portals from the demon realm... Then she tells us where to go... I go there and kill the demons, deal with the summoner, and Grau seals up the portals and we get paid by the church. I never see her outside of that.”
“Do you trust her?” Xellie kicked her feet against the wall.
“Yes....” Niko stared up at the sky thoughtfully. “She makes time for us so we can make a difference and slow down invasions, even though she seems so busy. Her bosses are hard on her. She always talks about how she has to attend to her duties and stuff.”
“I don’t know about joining her.” Xellie cast her eyes downwards. “She tempts me with her powers, but I have this feeling. I can’t explain it very well, that she’s not telling me everything. Like would I have to answer to her bosses?”
“As I understand it... Only after you die. I think you get all the power and stuff before you die and keep human free will until then. At least, that’s what she seems to have hinted at.” Niko sighed. “You know, I’m kind of jealous, really. I would give anything to have access to that kind of power, but it’s only you she seems to want.”
“Yeah but, it’s only you that she trusted with this knowledge,” Xellie answered in a bitter tone.
“Hey now.” Niko held his hands up peacefully. “This hasn’t been some great conspiracy against you. She has been protecting you because nobody knew if you would really inherit Raye’s powers.”
“Well, it seems like I have. I hear things, I see things.”
“Oh well. You need to make the most of your gifts then. Don’t let that old goat capture you.” Niko said with a smile. “Besides, I think you’d make a great Valkyrie.”
“You’re kidding right?” She giggled back. “Look, I can’t even decide what to eat, let alone decide someone’s destiny.”
“You’ll learn!”
The two siblings sat silently, watching the sun rising. Xellie found herself happy to be in the presence of her brother.
“Soo....” Niko broke the silence as he climbed off the wall. “When are you heading to Anshara?”
“I’ll leave after breakfast, I guess,” Xellie answered with a casual shrug.
“Smack Ash for me.”
“Will do. Although that will cost you...”
“Cheeky...” Niko playfully swiped at his sister.
Breakfast was a messy, free-for-all affair, with bread and fruit spread over the table. Grau punctuated his eating with dirty looks toward Niko, who seemed oblivious to the fact. After eating, Niko helped Xellie pack her rucksack with food and gave her enough money to “get by”.
“Hold up!” Grau called, as Xellie pushed the door open. “I have something you’ll find helpful.”
Grau handed her a copy of a map he had drawn, the ink still wet and smudged in one corner.
“What is...?” Xellie turned the map upside down to check what she was seeing.
“That,” Grau replied indignantly, putting it the correct way up in her hands. “Is the easiest and fastest way to cross the Demon Desert.”
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“But... okay.” She exhaled upwards through her bangs. “Thanks for finally letting me know this exists.”
“Don’t let anyone get a hold of that, anyway. Or err... let anyone know it exists. Take the Mattos guy with you but you really need to see this place.”
Grau glanced over at Niko, then took the map and shoved it in Xellie’s waistband. In a low whisper, he told her, “Even Niko doesn’t know everything.”
Tilting her head quizzically, Xellie hoped to glean more information from Grau, who had nothing more to say other than to usher her out of the door.
“Safe trip!” Grau called as Niko jostled in the doorway for space to wave.
As she looked back from the stone bridge crossing the canal, back toward her brother, Niko’s cheerful face sent a chill through her. At this moment, she could be saying goodbye to him for the last time. That was a fact that she was becoming more and more convinced of by the second.
The journey to Anshara involved a river ferry from below the foothills of Nordausa, to the outskirts of Jota, the capital city of the restricted zone nation of Taode. From there, they would follow a well-travelled path through woodland and scrub, until the greenery gave way to sand. A journey that would take a day between each city, until arriving at Mozakkan, a small town that comprised little more than an inn, a small market selling dried and salted meats, and a tailor that sold various clothing for dealing with the desert weather. It was obvious that people here lived off the profits they made from people travelling to Anshara, a much bigger city.
Mattos was well-travelled in the northwest area, between Nordausa, Jota and the valley where his home city, Alpinheim had once stood. He had, however, never travelled south.
Conversely, Xellie had lived her childhood in Anshara and shared gushing opinions of how beautiful the desert city was. Although she had only visited sparingly in the last few years.
“Tell me,” Mattos asked over an early supper under a parasol sheltering from the desert sun in Mozakkan. “If you love Anshara so much, why did you not go back?”
“Travelling the actual desert is a pain.” Xellie pointed out in the distance, toward the scrub wavering in the hot air. “Even the sand is possessed. You travel during the day, it's hot, and you tire. You travel at night, you deal with monsters. I guess so normally you take a barrier expert to create rest havens, sleep at night and just cope with the heat.”
“You’d only have to travel it once, to stay there though?”
“Well...” Xellie closed her eyes and sipped her water, savouring it under the sun beating down on her. “The academy is in Jota, but, we didn’t know who killed papa. So Niko and I claimed new identities to hide our family ties and, uh, he enrolled me as a boy in the academy. We never knew if they would come back for us if we went back and... Niko wouldn’t allow it until we were both strong enough to fight whoever tried to destroy our family.”
“Yeesh. Tough life, huh? You gonna do that whole thing where you avenge your father’s death if you find out who did it?”
“I’d have to become a detective.” Xellie allowed herself a small laugh, despite the heavy topic. “Don’t feel awkward... it was a long time ago, and demons infiltrate Ansharan families constantly to kill the defenders.”
“I’ve heard stories. Well, I’m sorry that happened to your family.”
“They’re gonna regret what they created.”
“I’d put money on that.” Mattos sipped from his soup bowl. “So you enrolled as a male in the Demon Hunter Academy? Did you get found out?”
Xellie laughed at the question and nodded her head gleefully.
“Yeah... It became impossible to hide as a teenage girl. And we had open locker rooms for changing, so... One day this troll of a boy, Talynn, he was making fun of me for being a bit umm dumpy shaped in the chest. I knocked him clean out on the floor!” Xellie punctuated her story with a punch into the air. “Instead of suspending me, it turns out our mentor for that lesson was Vanis and he figured me out.”
“Haha... you didn’t get kicked out for enrolling in a false name or anything?”
“No, he was mindful of Niko’s situation and how I could be a target. But since I was under the protection of the academy and the church attached to it, he said it was safe to come clean. And I guess, you know, I couldn’t hide that from a bunch of teenage boys forever.”
“You know that makes me think, why are there so few women in demon hunting, anyway?”
“Body management. They made me take extra classes, then Vanis tutored me on the side.” Xellie stood up and slammed her hands on the table. “And no matter what anyone thought about that guy, he was an asshole.”
“He has produced some of the finest demon hunters out there, though.” Mattos pointed out.
“Eh.” Xellie sat back down and rolled her eyes. “I think he liked to torture his students. He made me study gymnastic moves, over and over and over. Forcing me to make the same jump over and over onto a tiny target. He did this thing he called mental fortitude training. To uh.... learn to overcome miasma by staying focused and logical in times of distress. He’d wake me in the middle of the night to stand in a puddle of ice water, in the snow and complete verbal logic tasks or memorise long things. And expect a bright and awake student for regular class the next day... Days and weeks without sleep, or even proper meals. He made me eat poison!”
“So that’s his secret? Being a sadist?” Mattos asked.
“I don’t think I even saw the worst of it. Someone killed him before I could reach the third level of his training.” Xellie shook her head and sighed.
“Angry ex-student?” Mattos suggested.
“Probably!” Xellie laughed, scooting the remains of her fish dinner around the plate with her fork.
“You gonna eat that?” Mattos pointed at the fish debris that had been shuffled around the plate countless times by now.
“No, it’s mine!” Xellie exclaimed defensively, scooping up the remains of the fish and swallowing it quickly. Despite this nonchalant appearance, Xellie was mentally planning to get away from Mattos so that she could talk to Raye. She couldn’t think of a good excuse, no matter how hard she tried. “I’m going for a walk,” she eventually announced, getting up from the table and walking away from the inn, throwing a glance over her shoulder on the way.
“Should I...?” Mattos asked, standing up.
“No, no.” Xellie waved him back. “I just need to think... I guess the conversation just brought some stuff up...”
“Understandable,” Mattos said with a nod. “I’ll be here.”