Abine rowed the dinghy further out into Placid Bay. Taking to the water again set her nerves on a sharp edge. The waters were outside the watchful beams of light from the torchhouses. Only a distant orange glow guided her course through the dark waters. Trekking south towards the bay cut into her free time, but it was worth it to avoid all possible witnesses.
She craned her neck to check her heading. The orange lights came from little brass lanterns on every corner of a wooden raft. A single rope anchored the raft to the sea floor. The bow of her little boat cut through the water. Someone had scattered red flower petals into the ocean. They spun wildly as they bounced off her hull. Abine shook her head and kept rowing. Strings came to life and music beckoned her closer to her rendezvous.
He didn’t sing, but he kept playing until her dinghy graced the raft. Knoll gently stopped her momentum and lent a hand to his guest. No other boat was attached to the raft, but Knoll smoothly ran a knot through a cleat on the dinghy. Now, she was anchored to his floating oasis.
“Welcome aboard,” Knoll smiled and pulled Abine up onto the float. The wooden platform was only just big enough for the two of them and it rocked with the added weight. They silently rebalanced themselves to keep from flipping into the saltwater. Knoll had gathered cushions and a thick woven blanket to keep them warm against the coastal winds. A straw basket promised fresh fruits and fancy cheeses. The two hooked arms and sat down at the same time, still careful to keep balance with one another and the tide.
They lounged against the cushions atop the blanket. Knoll put the food between them and returned to his instrument. The lute was of a strange design, with frets along the neck, round shape and sound holes punched into the glossy wood. He carelessly ran his fingers along the strings as he talked. The instrument underscored their conversation. Abine used to be unable to stand his addiction to the toy.
“Learn anything new for me?” Abine asked. She cut a slice from one of the peaches and chewed it slowly.
“For you? No. But, there was this blonde I met the other night who was simply-” Abine punched him in the shoulder and the float rocked them. “Inspirational.” Knoll started strumming a light and introspective rhythm. “I know it’s not easy for you to come out on the water,” Knoll said. “I can take you back when you want.”
Abine reclined more deeply into the softness. She cut another slice of fruit and stuffed the man’s mouth with it. “Okay.”
Knoll played for them both for a while. He sometimes hummed what sounded like a lyric, but never said enough to make a full song. Abine sunk into the sound and the pillows, relaxing into the tide under their float. Her eyes opened and she didn’t remember closing them. Knoll had stopped playing. He just held the lute and watched her closely. Abine didn’t turn away from his attention. The man’s focus made her shy.
“Tired?” Knoll asked. Abine didn’t answer. “You can sleep.”
“We never get to be together,” she complained. “I don’t wanna waste it staring at my eyelids.”
Knoll grinned and put his fingers under his chin. “Something else catch your eye, kitty cat?” He was being stupid for her. Abine would have normally laughed. “No time together is wasted.”
“It’s all the time apart,” Abine growled. “I just want this whole thing to end.”
Knoll started playing a different tune. He separated a bit from Abine, just enough to make her nervous.
“How… do you see this ending?” Knoll asked.
“Us?”
“Not us,” Knoll said. “This business with the abbey. With Pratima.”
“Exactly as she wants it to,” Abine said. She shrugged. “Why?”
Knoll rolled her question over in his head. He’d worked for Migtrolio Marine ever since he first arrived in Lyrique. Before that, he was a freelancer, traveling the world on ships that paid for his protection. Knoll missed the wandering, but he never regretted the choice to join his guild. Not until recently.
“I don’t like the ending she has in mind. Before… it was different.”
“You don’t ‘like’ it?” Abine asked. She sat up. Knoll stopped strumming. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly that,” Knoll said. “I don’t like how she wants to do things.”
“No one is going to get hurt,” Abine said. “One bad guy. Maybe. And even then, you’ve said yourself you think Cyril deserves it. After what he did in Loucester”
“You were on board with this well before we found that out,” Knoll said.
Abine still hadn’t spoken to Cyril since Xin’s report. The truth of his expulsion was far darker than Abine’s estimations. Cyril betrayed the legacy of every warden, from their inception to his own students. He deserved only the highest contempt. There was no forgiveness in her heart for him. Abine’s only protest was letting those kids accompany him alone. But stopping their mission wasn’t in the role Pratima had given to her. They still hadn’t returned from their mission that morning.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“This is my job. It’s been hard for me to work as a real warden after… all that. Pratima is the one giving me a chance to still work for the guild.”
Knoll felt their boss had taken advantage of Abine. The fact of it depressed him. Pratima Migtrolio twisted Abine’s guilt and rage into something useful for her own ends. She wasn’t trying to help. Saying any of that would only send Abine into a rage. He held his tongue. A nice night between them could still be salvaged.
“We could do anything,” Knoll said. “We could be farmers. Or minstrels!” He strummed his lute loudly. “We don’t need to be wardens.”
“I do,” Abine said. “You wanna milk cows or collect coins in a tavern for the rest of your life, that’s fine. I’ll love you no matter what you do.”
“I’ll love you too!” Knoll grabbed her hand.
“But, I don’t know if I could love myself,” Abine admitted. “I need to do more. To make up for it all. To make up for being the one to make it back.”
“You don’t owe them anything,” Knoll said. It was not the first time he’d said it.
Abine remained unconvinced. Her face was stoic. The night grew colder. The waves under her did not change, but began to feel more haphazard and dangerous. Overhead clouds didn’t seem inclined to dump a storm upon them, but their threat loomed much larger in her mind. The warden closed her eyes and tried to ground herself. She would not let the water return her to the tragedy in her past. When the anxiety ebbed, Abine opened her eyes again.
Knoll still looked nervous. Abine tried to relax into the pillows again. She rummaged through his picnic basket for something else to eat and settled on a white-blue cheese wrapped in brown paper. Abine started cutting little bits of it for them.
“Here. Everything is going to go exactly as Pratima told us.”
Knoll wanted to tell her that this was exactly what he feared. Knoll said nothing at all. He laid down with her, but never got comfortable.
----------------------------------------
Thick undergrowth made moving through the western wilds difficult. Cyril thought they might be able to leap between the trees to make their journey a little faster, but the kids’ stamina couldn’t quite keep up with those constant acrobatics. Instead, the four of them spent the day walking in a wide line formation. They trudged through tangly bushes and scoured the woods for any sign of a monster.
No evidence appeared. Cyril taught them to look for oversized animal tracks that veered off the normal game trails. Monsters only interacted with other animals in order to feed. When injured, their instincts were to isolate and recuperate until they could hunt humans at their fullest strength. When the walking became easy from the paths made by other animals and humans, the group veered into more untamed grounds.
Cyril stopped them every so often to mark their progress on a map, keeping sure they were adhering to a realistic search grid. The four of them had covered the most suspect areas he’d identified, but still found no trace of the monster. When night fell, he called off the search and assigned the initiates jobs to set up a camp. The group hadn’t talked much while on the hunt, so the day’s frustrations seemed to be coming out all at once.
“I simply mean we should all be working in concert,” Wakahn argued.
“I already did my part,” Piper said. She’d unrolled her soft mat and kicked off her boots, warming her feet at the fire. Wakahn struggled to erect a tent that didn’t collapse in on itself within moments. Soraya dumped the last of the freshwater she’d collected into an iron pot.
“Food…” she mumbled. “It’s been so long...”
“It’s been a few hours,” Cyril said. He hung the pot over the fire and started dumping the vegetables he’d brought and chopping into the warming water. “If you need help with the tent, Wakahn, then you can ask. Piper’s job was to start a fire and she did it.”
The tent collapsed again and Piper snorted while laughing.
“She just cast a spell!” Wakahn raged.
“Food…” Cyril gently slapped Soraya’s hand away from the rest of the ingredients to the brewing soup.
“And when we need a bunch of bubbles, we’ll ask you to help,” Piper said.
The four had found a clearing around an older birch tree. Smoke filtered through its thin branches towards the early evening sky. The fading orange sunlight paled in comparison to the campfire between them all. Even with the bickering, Cyril felt like he could relax into the atmosphere. He searched his pack for the spices he’d swiped from the guild kitchen and generously added them to the soup. Soraya looked over his shoulder for any snacks he might have stashed.
Cyril had employed his transformation for nearly their entire search, hoping his enhanced senses might help to reveal this injured monster which they pursued. It only brought him exhaustion. Even for his trained reservoir of mana, manifesting his denizen like that exacted a toll on his mind and body.
Their tent collapsed again. They had brought one for the boys and one for the girls, and Cyril hoped they’d be raised by the time they lost the light.
“Soraya, go on and help him,” Cyril told her. She was all but drooling from the scent of the bubbling water.
“That’s it, throw another princess at the problem,” Piper still relaxed on her back and threw her thumb up to endorse the decision.
“Keep throwing cracks and it’ll be your turn to help next,” Cyril warned. Piper reversed the position of her thumb and jeered mockingly.
The fire crackled. It crackled again. Cyril watched it, but the sound had seemed wrong, somehow. He transformed his ears to listen more closely. Soraya and Wakahn were quietly debating on how to go about their simple task. Something pushed through a nest of brambles and its sharp thorns ripped a tear in someone’s trousers.
“Piper,” Cyril whispered. He pressed a finger to his lips and kept his gaze on the boiling soup. “Put your boots on.”
“Aw, come on I don’t wanna-”
“No questions. No protests,” Cyril reminded her of the ironclad rules of their trip. The girl groaned and started pulling her boots back on her feet.
Cyril kept listening, but he could hear no trace of what had made that noise. Trying to sniff out their discrete visitor was difficult next to the food. He rose to warn Wakahn and Soraya, but it was already too late. The wardens were under siege.