Chapter 9 - Journey

Winrow, Vanstead Dukedom of Augustein, Year 995

“Are you sure you don’t want to wake Colm up?”

Amara glanced back at Joan, who stood leaning against her cane by the hospital’s doorway. The first rays of morning were just beginning to peak out from below the horizon, outlining the buildings and trees in a golden glow. A soft breeze sent leaves scattering across the clear, cloudless sky. Joan shivered slightly and tugged her cloak closer.

“It’s fine,” Amara said. She stared at Joan’s thin cloak and her slightly shaking cane. “You didn’t have to come outside, you know,” she said lightly.

Her attempt at cheer fell flat. Joan’s expression remained serious.

“Amara, I’ll ask you this one last time. Are you sure you want to do this?” She gestured at the village—the quiet dirt streets and the squat wooden buildings dwarfed by the neighboring trees. “You could settle down here. It’s small, but the villagers love you. You’d never have to worry about anything. You could live in peace.”

Amara took a step closer to the woman and carefully placed a hand atop hers.

“Joan,” she said, voice firm. “I really am grateful, you know? If it weren’t for you, I would’ve died in that wreck with everyone else. But you know I can’t stay here.”

The woman closed her eyes. “Can you blame an old woman for trying?”

Amara smiled. “You’re not that old.” She straightened and pulled her bag closer. It was rather light, all things considered, and only contained the bare essentials. Amara hadn’t had much to pack to begin with, and her only real personal item—her small journal—was tucked away in a bag attached to her belt. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

Joan smiled thinly. “You won’t have to bury me any time soon, don’t worry,” she said. She stepped closer, her cane thumping against the ground with the movement.

“Be careful,” she said. “Remember to write.”

Amara grinned. “I will.”

With a final wave, she spun around and strode down the streets of Winrow. She could feel Joan’s gaze lingering on her back as she stepped forward, but she didn’t dare turn around.

In the early hours of morning, the village felt like a different place. The faint light shifted the colors of the buildings into cooler tones, making them feel more mysterious. Only a few people were up, setting up shops and dusting doorways, and Amara waved at them as she passed by. She didn’t stop and check if they saw her.

It wasn’t until she reached the edge of the town that she finally glanced back. The home and Joan were far out of sight, and by then, the sun had finally risen over the sea of trees. Amara squinted in the glaring sunlight, holding up a hand to shield her eyes.

She stayed like that for a while longer, staring into the light, before she finally turned away.

—

The road leading outside of Winrow was a familiar one, and it was quiet in the early hours of morning. Amara glanced north towards her planned destination, but instead of heading that way, she made a turn west. She had another stop to make first.

The ruins had become overgrown with greenery in the past few years. It was almost alarming how quickly the neighboring plants took to the grey rubble and blackened planks of wood. Certainly, the facility looked more beautiful now than it ever had in the past.

Amara strode forward without hesitation, her shoes trampling over the flowers growing around the ruins that had quickly multiplied and now covered the landscape in their bright colors. She didn’t stop until she was right in front of the building proper, or at least the singular part of its lower foundation that remained somewhat standing.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

If one were to look at it from a distance, they might mistake them for tree trunks and the rubble for grey stones. Amara stared at the broken structure, taking in every inch and detail that she could.

She closed her eyes, allowing flashes of her memories to rise from where she usually kept them carefully buried beneath the surface to bubble and drift. She tried to picture Susie’s bright ginger hair between the new array of green. She imagined Lily and Tom playing tag across the wide fields. Ben drawing pictures in the soft dirt. James staring up at the sky.

Edith with the wind in her hair.

Amara opened her eyes and found that she couldn’t reconcile the images with the landscape surrounding her. The moment they appeared, they were swept away, buried beneath grey and crackling flames. Lily’s face turned fearful, her wide eyes reflecting the surrounding blaze. Ben and Tom’s forms hunched over and merged into one charred silhouette, jerking and twisting with flailing limbs.

Amara took a step forward.

The facility, like this, looked practically mundane. Still, unmoving, harmless, and covered in life. Forgettable and wrong.

She took another step forward and carefully undid the bandages around her hands, looping them around one of the pieces of rubble. The skin beneath felt a bit tender, more soft and malleable than normal as was typical for wounds healed by form magic, but the injuries themselves were completely gone. Joan, as always, was incredible. Amara left her bare skin exposed to the wind.

Next, she walked up to a vine growing over a chunk of the facility’s base, eyed it, then gripped it in her hands and tore it away. She continued yanking at the vines, and they made a satisfying ripping noise as she did so. Once she was done and that section was cleared, she moved on to the rest of the area, pushing aside leaves and scraping moss off rubble until, by the time she was done, the sun was high in the sky, dirt was caked beneath her fingernails, and the ruins of the facility were once again left out in the open, foreign and stark against the soft nature surrounding it.

Amara stared at it again, her eyes roaming over the revealed grey until she was satisfied. Nodding to herself and finally moving to pat some of the dirt off of her hands, she was about to turn away and continue down the road, but paused at the last second.

Reaching into her pouch, she pulled out her journal. It was small and could easily fit in her palm, the worn leather well loved. Opening it and flipping past torn pages, she pulled out an equally drilled down pencil and scribbled down a few words. Once she was done, she dropped the pencil back into her bag and ripped the page out. The next time a gust of wind blew past, she tossed the paper into the air, watching as it drifted away in the open sky.

Stretching her limbs, rows of scars easily visible, Amara enjoyed the feeling of the breeze pressing against her back. She dropped her arms, and with one final glance behind her, she turned away and left Winrow village and the ruins of the facility behind.

—

Edith,

I’m leaving now. I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I’m going to see the world. All the places we used to talk about. I know Joan and Colm will worry, but I can’t spend the rest of my life sitting around. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I don’t want to disappear and be forgotten.

If I go out, I’m going out like an explosion. So bright that no one can look away.

Nothing can take that away from me.

—

AMARA

Magic Reserves: 62,644 / 110,876

Maximum Output: 21

Variability: 1

AFFINITIES

Energy: 100% Major

Motion: 50% Minor

Form: 25% Basic

Perception: 25% Basic

Emotions: 0% None

Mind: 100% Major

Time: 0% None

Probability: 0% None