I put everything away and nodded, following her lead while suppressing the giddy excitement. “Where is this dungeon anyway?”

I'd never looked into the geography of Nexus. Dawncrest was in the far corner of the continent, surrounded on nearly all sides by the ocean. That's as far as my knowledge went on the matter.

She turned, flicking a hand over her shoulder for me to follow as she spoke. “It's not far. Truthfully, I considered going there when I noticed the storm approaching, but I didn't want to risk getting trapped inside when that one was guaranteed to have stronger monsters.”

I hummed, keeping stride with her as we left the main road, moving through knee-high grass.

“That was probably for the best. I didn't even realize there was another cave nearby. Though, considering how close I came to getting cooked by lighting, maybe it's a good thing I hadn't known.”

She laughed and nodded, throwing a long look over me as she did. “Yes, that would have been quite the waste.”

Heat crawled up my neck at the clear double meaning behind her words, and I looked away before she could notice.

“Anyway, how far is the cave?”

My attempt to change the topic didn't work this time––if anything, it only amused her more.

Her lips curled up at the edges, and she raised a brow. “You don't take compliments well, do you?”

I shrugged, wishing desperately for the ground to open up and swallow me. “Not really. My sisters tease me about it a lot.”

Collin, Samson and James would too if they didn't have the same problem.

Clover tipped her head back and laughed. “Something tells me I would get along just fine with them.”

I considered that for a moment, then immediately shuddered. “You and Beatrice would conquer the world by dinnertime. No one would see it coming.”

She turned to walk backwards through the grass and flowers, her teasing smile firmly in place. “Well, now I have to meet her. You said sisters, as in plural though?”

I nodded, more than happy to talk about them instead of my inability to handle compliments or any other decidedly more embarrassing topic.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Yeah, Beatrice is sixteen winters old, and Daedra is just over ten. Convincing her to unlatch from my waist so I could leave Dawncrest was not an easy task.”

I pressed an arm around my waist, where the echo of her grip lingered. It'd only been a few days, yet I already itched to run home to them…

Clover's eyes softened and she tipped her head. “Sounds like she adores you.”

There was an unspoken question beneath her words, and I answered it easily.

“She loves all of us, but she tends to cling to me especially. It isn't all that surprising, though, given that I'm the one who adopted her after her parents abandoned her in Dawncrest.”

Clover's steps faltered, and white-hot anger flashed behind her eyes like a bolt of lightning. “They left her?”

Something lethal bubbled in her tone, and I nodded, happy to vent about those wastes of human space.

“Yeah, I found Daedra wandering alone in town, crying her little eyes out. After I got the story out of her, I left her with my siblings and tracked her parents.”

It didn't matter how much time passed––the old rage burst to the surface with the same force it had back then.

“They tried to say there wasn't another choice, but I knew better. Daedra can be…a handful sometimes. She's curious and loves learning about everything, but she gets herself into trouble because of that. Her parents didn't want to deal with it anymore and left her.”

Clover hissed under her breath. “They'd better be happy it was you that found them and not me.”

I couldn't help it; I snorted. “Oh, I'm not too sure about that. They didn't walk away from that unscathed.”

She raised a brow and stopped walking. “What exactly did you do to them?”

I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug and smiled. “Something that would probably give me a hefty bounty and definitely nothing I'll be sharing.”

She grinned with vicious satisfaction. “Well, look at you, handing out justice for the weak and innocent. I underestimated you, and for that, you have my humble apologies.” Then she got serious again. “All joking aside, I hope whatever you did hurt. No child should ever be left alone like that.”

There was an undercurrent of empathy to her words that only came from someone who lived that same pain. Looking at Clover now, I couldn't help but wonder…

Had anyone helped her as I'd done for Daedra?

A sinking feeling in my gut would have me believe not.

Shaking aside thoughts of a much younger Clover running lost and scared through strange streets, I nodded.

“They shouldn't. That's actually why I've adopted all five of my siblings. In one way or another, we were all abandoned. Why not band together?”

Beatrice always got a kick out of my ‘see a kid, adopt a kid’ philosophy. I'd never bothered disputing it because, honestly, she wasn't wrong. I couldn't see someone suffering and not help––especially a child.

Clover’s whistle pulled me back to the present. “You adopted five siblings? That's impressive. Most people can barely handle one kid, let alone five.”

I shrugged. “Aside from Daedra, they're not all that young. Plus, we all take care of each other. It's not a hardship.”

She smiled, nodded as if she understood. “Sounds like paradise.”

There was a longing in her voice that made me pause, but before I could dwell on it, she smiled again, pushing whatever sadness she had felt aside.

“Anyway, we're just about there now. See?”

She pointed ahead, drawing my attention to the opening carved into a nearby hill. Twin metal doors stood tall, their presence imposing. As we stopped in front of them, a wave of nerves washed over me.

This was it––my first dungeon.