The streets of Redhaven went still at the sight of her. Her white hair swelled in Winter’s brisk gale, barely contained by the coat that was wrapped around her. Those wandering the town’s streets stopped their routines to look at her, eyes wide with confusion as they watched her walk down the street. It was easy to ignore her before, easy to forget her inconvenient existence.
But that was when she was alone.
Jahora walked next to her, the small woman only coming up to the girl’s chest, but her presence almost smothering as she pressed against the girl, keeping the oversized coat secure against her. The red orb that the woman produced was gone, but the girl could still feel the warmth of it in her hands, the warmth that she felt under the coat that hung over her shoulders. Out of instinct she nuzzled against it, pressing against Jahora more. Fear stabbed at her heart then she felt her cheek grow hot, the phantom of her father’s hand flaring as she flinched. Her eyes were closed, bracing herself for the slap.
Yet it never came.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Jahora staring up at her. The woman’s brow was furrowed, eyes glossy, but her expression quickly shifted. She flared her teeth at the girl with a grin and patted her on the back gently, pushing her forwards as they continued their walk. The girl did not know what to think, what to say in that moment, and let herself be swept away by Jahora, but amidst all of the turbulent thoughts in her head, the stares of the townsfolk pressing down upon her, she was aware of one thing.
She wasn’t scared anymore.
In the absence of fear came curiosity, the urge to look upon the group that surrounded her. She knew them from the tavern, knew their names from conversation, but to see them amidst people revealed more to her. Helbram, his frame large and imposing, gave the people in the street further pause as he looked towards them, his eyes searching, expression unreadable. He would glance back at the girl every now and then, betraying his concern with slightly raised eyebrows. Her eyes met his once, and the small smile he gave her then only pushed the fear from before further away.
Leaf, who walked next to the large man, was more expressive in the grin that he flashed her way, and though he was head shorter than Helbram the scowl he openly gave the townsfolk only gave them further pause. In the two men’s presence, it was starting to feel as if the townsfolk themselves were the abnormal ones, and gradually when they started to move again they granted the group a wide berth.
On the girl’s other side was Elly, and while the taller woman was not pressed against her like Jahora was, she kept close, her golden eyes scanning the small book in her hands as she scribbled into it with her pencil, muttering unintelligible words to herself. She appeared to be oblivious to the townsfolk, but whenever one of them stared at the girl for too long Elly would always find a way to place herself in their line of sight, shooting them a quick, but biting stare that turned their eyes away. As they walked further into town, Elly placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, giving her a small smile when she looked up at the woman with curiosity.
After what appeared to be both an eternity and an instant, the girl found herself at the front of The Wandering Fowl. She stopped at the sight of the front door, the beat of her heart growing louder in her ears as uncertainty reared its head in her thoughts once more. Before her thoughts could race, however, Jahora wrapped an arm around her waist and gave the girl a small squeeze.
“Don’t you worry,” she said, “You’re safe with us.”
The thump in her chest lessened as she spoke, and the girl could only return a slight nod to the smaller woman. Jahora flashed her another grin and, with a gentle push, ushered her inside the building.
___
Helbram sat opposite from the girl as she ate, shoveling spoonfuls of soup into her mouth as she held her spoon in an awkward grip. She was voracious, not caring of the specks of food that dotted her face as she continued to eat as if she had not eaten in days. Considering her state… it was very possible that she hadn’t. There was a hollowness to her cheeks, a boniness to her frame that only confirmed that, and though she was supposed to be the age of twelve her size made her appear at least a few years younger. Helbram’s fist shook as he clenched it, but he betrayed no other emotions. He could only imagine what Jahora must have been feeling.
The Mage sat next to the girl, managing to stop her occasionally to wipe her mouth in a futile attempt to keep her clean. Her eyes were fixated on the girl, oblivious to the empty tavern around them, its patrons having funneled out at the sight of the girl, their steps hastened from a particularly nasty look from Leaf, who examined the girl from afar as he sat at the bar. Elly sat with him, not wanting to crowd the girl as she ate, though that did not stop Cora from taking a seat next to her after she gave her the bowl of soup.
“You poor thing…” the woman said in a sorrowful tone. She ran a hand through the girl’s hair, though she was too fixated on her food to notice.
“I’m surprised that she came with you,” Erik said as he emerged from the kitchen, carrying with him a small plate of freshly sliced bread, “It took me two weeks before she let me touch her.”
“Then you are most likely the reason,” Helbram said, “had you not shown her kindness before she no doubt would have kept running from us.”
The tavernkeep set down the bread in front of the girl, rubbing his upper lip with a hint of pride as he watched the girl eat.
“Just doing what had to be done,” Erik said, but his smile shifted to a frown as he looked towards the ground, “if only I had done something sooner.”
“What matters is that you took action now,” Jahora said, “For that, I am sure she is grateful.”
The girl reached for the bread and stuffed it into her mouth, her bites large and hungry as she remained unaware of their conversation.
“The two men that were here before,” Elly began, “do you know where they went?”
“They paid for rooms, but before they could settle in they left all of the sudden, I’m not sure where they went.”
Leaf rubbed his chin, “Perhaps they may have found a trace of the Shade they were looking for.”
Helbram shrugged, “That is the most likely case, we will just have to wait for them to get back.”
Cora continued to run a hand through the girl’s hair, “She’ll find plenty of warmth at our hearth, that I can assure you,” she sniffed, “though a bath is in order…”
Jahora nodded, “I can help with that,” she said eagerly.
“Let us leave it to Cora,” Helbram said. Jahora looked at him, her eyes almost pleading. He shook his head, “There are things that we must discuss,” his tone was heavy, and Jahora’s sigh told him that she understood.
“I’ll get the water ready then,” Erik said as he rolled up his sleeves.
“And I’ll get the little one prepared,” Cora said. She waited for the girl to finish the last of her meal before getting up and holding her hand out. The girl looked at the hand, then back at Jahora and Erik. The two of them nodded, and with a cautious touch the girl took Cora’s hand. The woman guided her away, taking her back to her and Erik’s room. Jahora’s gaze followed them until they disappeared behind the door. When she looked back to Helbram, he regarded her with a neutral expression.
“I know what you are thinking,” Helbram said.
Jahora said nothing.
Helbram shook his head, “We cannot take her with us.”
“Why not?!” she exclaimed, stopping herself from slamming her hands against the table.
“Jahora,” Helbram said in an even tone, “of all of us, your heart is the largest,” he motioned to both Elly and Leaf, who nodded in agreement, “but we know you to not to be wholly driven by emotion. Do you honestly believe that our lifestyle is one that suits one of her age, in her state?” he crossed his hands on the table, “we are not her best option, you know that.”
“So you will just leave her to the Black Cloaks?” she said through grit teeth, “We don’t know what they will do with her.”
Helbram quirked an eyebrow, “I believe we know full well what they will do. They were quite thorough in their explanation.”
“How do you know they will do what they say?” Jahora said, a desperate look in her eyes, “How do you know we can trust them?”
“How do you know we cannot?” Helbram asked.
Jahora bit her lip, but did not say anything.
“I know I said to take your time, but I am afraid I must urge you in this case,” he looked into his companion’s eyes. She did not look away, “What happened?”
Jahora sighed and rested her hands on the table, drumming her fingers against it as she looked at the grain, “Before we settled in Helios, my family spent some time wandering the Six Kingdoms,” she traced a circle on the table absentmindedly, “as developed as they are, the villages of the kingdoms were always looking for the service of Artificers. Whether it was to make their tools studier, to tune enchantments that were worn far beyond their intended use, all were eager to accept my family’s help in exchange for coin. It raked quite the tidy profit for my family until we had the means for more stable ventures, and as an added bonus exposed us to different villages, different cultures depending on where we were. There was one village that we stopped in, one that was only slightly larger than this one that goes by the name of Eldhollow.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Jahora paused for a moment, closing her eyes. Helbram sat back, letting her gather herself.
“We stayed there long enough that my parents thought it would be best that my sisters and I attend school there. A mostly social affair, but one that we accepted with glee. We would walk to and from school every day, the same path that wound through the outside of the village, and there would be a particular landmark that we would always use to make sure we were going the right way. An abandoned house that lay at the very edge of the village, not too far from where we had set up camp. The villagers never talked about it much, always acted like it wasn’t there unless someone mentioned it.”
She snorted, “Imagine our surprise when we found out it was not so abandoned after all.”
Jahora sighed and crossed her hands, “One day, on our way home, we heard some suspicious noises from the house. Me, being the most adventurous- heh, foolish - of all us siblings, decided to investigate against the wishes of my sisters. I pressed against the door and, without meaning too, fell right through it and on top of the person that was watching us.”
She smiled a sad smile, “A boy, around my age with black hair and red eyes. His skin was so pale that I thought him to be a ghost… let us just say that my scream scared him far more than he scared me,” she clenched a fist, “he didn’t have a name, and had been surviving on the scraps from the villagers, all of whom ignored his presence. Sounds familiar, does it not?”
Helbram nodded.
“My sisters ran, and I was about to follow them, but curiosity forced me to look back at the boy, at the child who cowered in a corner…” her hands trembled, “how could anyone be scared of that?,” she took another long breath, “My parents arrived soon after, and I meant to tell them of who I found, but I saw his terrified expression… the fear in his eyes as so many people were close, and I acted as any naive child would. I lied, told them that I had thought I had seen a ghost, thinking all the while I was protecting him. My parents looked around, but the boy had somehow eluded their search, and they were none the wiser. We went home soon after, but when I looked back, I saw the boy, saw the curiosity in his gaze, the loneliness that lay in his eyes…. how could I leave him alone?”
Helbram held his hands together, allowing his companion to take a moment to herself.
“The next day, I lied to my parents again, told them I was going to meet with a few friends from school. I took some bread with me then - for a snack, I told them - and went over to that abandoned house again. I could feel the boy’s gaze, but he didn’t reveal himself, so I left the bread there and left. I did the same the following day, and the day after that, repeating until finally, he poked his head out from that door. I held my hand out to him then, and, after he stared at it for what seemed like ages, he took it.”
She leaned back in her seat.
“It was hard communicating with him at first,” she said, “he knew only a scant amount of Common, and what he did know only concerned the essentials such as food or water. Still, he would be present every time I came, his fearful eyes eventually growing brighter, that frown of his slowly turning to a smile the more I showed up. I’d like to say that I was clever, that my meetings with him were done with the utmost of secrecy, but a child always overestimates what they are capable of, and my sisters eventually discovered what I had been doing when I wandered off on my own. Of course, when they saw that the boy was harmless, they decided to participate in the secret, for there is little more tempting to children than secrets. We gave him the name of Roy, and much of our time after school was spent playing with him, just enough to avoid suspicion from our parents.”
She smiled.
“Roy was quite the curious boy, always curious of the toys we brought, the games we played. His Common did improve the more that we spoke, and when it did his questions grew. He would ask of the world outside Eldhollow, and we would regale him with stories that we’d both seen and read, with the usual exaggerations that children are prone to. His eyes would light up then, filled with such innocent joy, such wonder, and soon he began to speak of the things that he would do when he left the village, how he would see all that we had seen, do all that we had done and more,” Her hands started to tremble,”Upon hearing of such things, how could we not want to help him? So my sisters and I made plans. We would tell our parents of Roy, plead with them to take him with us, to grant him his wish of seeing the world just as we had. How could they resist? It was the right thing to do… the just thing to do.”
There was a hollowness to her voice, and Helbram could feel a sense of dread forming at the pit of his stomach. He knew where this story was going to go.
“The day that we planned to tell them, we went to the house. We would clean Roy up, bring him to our parents, and that would be that. Yet, it wasn’t only Roy that was at the house that day. A group of men were outside, one of whom was pulling Roy from the house as the boy struggled. We ran up to them, yelling at them to stop, to leave him alone, and we were stopped by the leader of the men. I never got his name, but he had a kindly face with a smile to match. To a child, he appeared as innocent as could be,” her voice trembled, “He told us that he was here to help, to take Roy away from the village, to a place where he could have a better life. My sisters and I, thinking we knew best like all children did, told him that we were the ones who were going to take Roy to a better life, one with us, but the man spoke with something that children have little experience in dealing with. He spoke in rationality, in logic, and explained to us that our family could not hope to support another child with them, could not hope to give him the life that we promised him.”
She clenched her jaw.
“I, as the oldest, thought myself capable of following the man’s logic, thought I could come up with arguments of my own against him. So I listened, I thought, and I fell for every word he said. Everything made sense, and though I wished to be stubborn in my purpose, I was not ignorant of my family’s finances at the time,” she looked back down at the table, “How I wished I was. I looked at Roy, saw him struggling in the man’s grasp, his eyes looking to me for help. I walked up to him, embraced him when he managed to finally break free from his captor. I looked into his eyes, at this boy who clamored to me for salvation and,” her voice cracked, “and I told him to go with them.”
“It was the sensible choice,” she said, “the adult choice, and adults always knew better, right? I repeated the man’s logic to Roy, the boy barely able to follow my words. I told him he would have a better life with them, that he could go on all those adventures he wanted, see all the sights that we’d seen, more than we had ever dreamed of. I saw the trust in his eyes, the slow, accepting nod that he gave me, and he struggled against them no longer. My sisters, of course, did not know what was happening, and before they could panic I soothed them just the same as I had with Roy,” she scoffed, “I felt proud, felt that I was taking my first steps into adulthood, that I was growing up.”
Jahora went silent. Helbram said nothing, but met her eyes when she looked up, and she gave him a small nod.
“I asked them where they were taking him, and they gave me the name of The Hatchling’s Nest, an orphanage in Helios where he would most likely find a family to take him in. As fortune would have it, that was to be our next destination, and my sisters and I promised that we would meet him there, him and his new family. He smiled at that, carrying that joy with him as he walked away with the men, until we could no longer see him over the horizon… We stayed in Eldhollow a few weeks after, wrapping up the last bits of work my parents were contracted for. To our joy they told us that Helios was not as temporary as we thought, and that the city was to be our new home, and it was then that we told them all about Roy, all about the friend who was waiting for us there. We settled in the city as fast as we could, and when all had calmed down my sisters and I set off to The Hatchling’s Nest.”
Jahora started to blink rapidly, but that could not hide the tears that were forming in her eyes.
“Imagine our surprise when we found that no such orphanage existed, that none of the ones that were in the city had even heard of a boy with red eyes and black hair. We searched the city for hours, hoping, praying that maybe its residents were mistaken, that maybe they were just not familiar with the name, that we would see our friend again… prayers that were never answered. My sisters did not know what was happening, why no one knew who Roy was. My Parents tried to hide it, to conceal the concern in their eyes when the truth dawned on them, but I saw it, I knew what I had done.”
She let her tears flow freely then. Helbram opened his mouth, but Jahora spoke first.
“Do not try to tell me that it was not my fault, that I could not have possibly known better because I was but a child at the time. I doomed him Helbram, sent him to fate that I dare not even fathom lest it break my spirit further. I told him to go, I gave him cause to smile as he marched to a false hope,” her voice trembled further as her tears streaked down her cheeks, “It was my fault, and I will never forgive myself for it,” she looked into Helbram’s eyes, “I will not fail is such a way again.”
There was a fire in her gaze, one that Helbram met without flinching. He wanted to console her, but he knew such words would hold no effect. Not now.
“I understand, Jahora,” he said, “and I wish nothing more than to relieve you of the weight that you feel, but my point still stands. We cannot take her with us.”
Her gaze shifted to a glare, “After all I have said you still wish to entrust her to men that we don’t even know?”
Helbram leaned against the table, “Tell me, Jahora, with all that we have been through, with our tendency to run into danger, do you believe our lifestyle is one a girl, one who has been locked away from the world for all of her life, is suited for?”
Jahora didn’t say a word.
“Above all else she deserves to be someplace where she can grow, be allowed to embrace what little childhood she has left. Traveling with us will not give her that. She will be in constant danger and we-” he grit his teeth, “I cannot keep her safe. And unless we can guarantee that we should not be exposing her to danger.”
Her mouth moved, but no words left Jahora’s lips. Helbram could tell that she was searching for an argument, but it showed no signs of manifesting.
He sighed, “But, you are right that we cannot blindly accept the words of men that we do not know. The Black Cloaks will most likely remain in town for a few days, and during that time we can keep a close eye on them, and you still believe that they are untrustworthy… then we will consider other options. Does that sound fair?”
Jahora wiped her eyes, “Yes, yes it does. I apologize, it has been some time since I have spoken of those events and… it appears that I never have gotten over them.”
Helbram got up from his chair and sat next to Jahora. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into a hug, “You have nothing to apologize for,” he looked to Leaf and Elly, both of whom had already left their chairs and were approaching the table, “We are with you, always.”
Jahora returned the hug and smiled, “Thank you, truly.”
He released her and she stood up, but it was not long before Leaf and Elly both gave her a hug, one that made her laugh as she was sandwiched between them.
“It’s alright,” she said, “I’ve not fallen apart just yet.”
“Well if you do we’ll put you back together,” Leaf said with a grin.
“I’ll handle that,” Elly said with a wry smile, “Such things require a much more deft touch.”
She kept a hand on Jahora’s shoulder, which the Mage grabbed and gave a brief squeeze.
Their moment was interrupted as the tavern’s doors swung open. Leon and Ren entered, their steps urgent, brows furrowed, but they stopped as their eyes fell upon the party.
Helbram looked at them. “Is something the matter?”
Leon’s eyes narrowed.
“Another Shade.”