“Jess, look, it’s the city!” Aleida said, shaking Jessabelle’s shoulder excitedly. Jessabelle smiled back at her, the woman's excitement infectious.

When Lord Reud had shown up to collect her in the carriages, accompanied by five new passengers, Jessabelle had been dubious. The woman was just too… upbeat, for someone who had been locked up in some Seeker stronghold. Yet, that exuberance was hard to dislike. Over the course of the journey, they had become good friends, Aleida excitedly chatting about anything and everything.

Honestly, she just seemed happy to have another woman to talk to.

Turning, Jessabelle followed her gaze, joining Hamo and the twins in squinting out into the mid-afternoon sunlight. The trees that had surrounded them for the last few days were gone. Stretching out to either side was a field of roughly hewn tree stumps, creating a strip of open ground around a tall wooden wall. Off in the distance, a number of thin figures laboured around one of the stumps, levering it out of the earth. A band of men performing such work would normally be accompanied by shouts or grunts of exertion, but this group was eerily silent, all whilst moving in jerky unison.

As the carriages rolled closer, the figures revealed themselves as skeletons. Filthy, mud-encrusted skeletons, with leaves and twigs stuck between their bones and coating their skulls. With a groan, the stump came free of the ground, tearing up the surrounding earth. Two of the group heaved it onto their shoulders, the rest picking up crude shovels from the ground and filling in the hole left behind.

“Wow… they’re so cool!” Exclaimed Vorlo.

Jessabelle turned to him, taking in the excitement on his young face. Over the course of the journey, the twins had slowly regained some of the life she remembered them to have in the village, back before they were taken. Vorlo especially was fascinated by Lord Reud’s minions, loving everything gruesome. He’d badgered the lord for stories the whole way, only falling quiet when Lord Reud or Jessabelle recounted the tale of the battle in Littlestream or their first night in Srinaber. They must have told the same stories over a dozen times, but the boy never seemed to grow bored.

Lord Reud smiled at Vorlo. “They are, aren’t they. Fantastically diligent workers.”

Vorlo looked confused. “Dili..gent? What’s that?”

“Diligent means they work hard.” Lord Reud responded, ruffling the boy’s hair. “We really need to get you back into some schooling when we arrive.”

Hamo perked up at that, looking over at Lord Reud and Vorlo. “Do you mean we can learn to use our magic?”

“Of course you-” Lord Reud started.

Leo interrupted him. “No! Why would you ever want to learn about your curse! It’s evil!”

“Leo! Stop it!” Aleida admonished him, looking mortified.

Leo grunted and turned away from them, hunching down into the corner of the carriage again. Jessabelle looked over at him in concern. In stark contrast to the rest of the group, he hadn’t improved over the course of the journey. The more Hamo, Marla, and Vorlo showed an interest in magic, the darker Leo’s mood seemed to become.

Jessabelle sympathized a little with his concerns. For her entire life, the Seekers had been claiming that magic was evil, a curse that only they could lift. A statement that was repeated by so many others that she’d encountered over the years. That kind of constant reiteration of the same message had a way of convincing a person of its correctness, no matter their personal beliefs.

Jessabelle too had believed it for many years, until she’d seen the horrible reality of a mother's children being taken from her. That had caused her to reevaluate what she’d taken as fact, and suddenly seen them for the lies they had always been. Nothing more than thinly veiled excuses to capture children. If magic truly was such a curse, why were nobles allowed to practise whilst those of more common birth were kidnapped, never to be seen again?

Hopefully, Leo would get over his prejudices too. In Srinaber, magic was unavoidable, Lord Reud’s minions were everywhere.

Finally, the carriages shuddered to a halt, just at the edge of the shadow cast by the city walls. Lord Reud flashed Jessabelle a smile, then pushed past her, opening the carriage door and stepping out.

“Welcome to Srinaber.” Lord Reud said, gesturing over at the city stretching to either side. Turning away from the carriage, he walked off towards the gates.

Holding her cloak tight around her, Jessabelle clambered out of the cart behind Aleida and the twins. It felt good to finally move her legs around properly again. There had been little opportunity to do so over the past week, especially given how cramped the carriage was on the return trip.

Aleida walked over to her, shivering slightly. None of the group except Jessabelle were dressed for the mid-autumn weather, though Lord Reud never showed any sign of being affected by any chill. When they were all huddled together in the carriage, they’d kept each other warm, but now that they were outside it seemed they were starting to feel the cold wind.

“Where is everyone?” Aleida asked Jessabelle. “Shouldn’t there be people all around?”

Jessabelle pointed to the top of a head, just barely visible over the wall. “Well, there’s the watch on the wall, up there. Everyone else will be inside the city. Srinaber is special, you see, Lord Reud’s skeletons do all the hard work. You’ll see when we get inside.”

Almost as if responding to her words, the gates ground open, and out from within dashed a woman clad in armour. She ran with the easy gait of someone at the height of fitness, eating up the ground as she dashed towards the group. Lord Reud turned towards her, his face lighting up with a bright smile.

“Lilia! I’m-” The rest of his sentence was lost as Lady Lilia slammed into him, gathering him up in a tight embrace and spinning around. His feet left the floor as he was hoisted into the air by the woman, a yelp of surprise bursting from his mouth. Jessabelle barely stifled a laugh at the sight of the composed, imposing man being swung around like a child.

Aleida gasped in shock. “Who is that?”

“That’s Lady Lilia, Lord Reud’s wife. You’ll like her, she’s a no-nonsense kind of woman.”

Jessabelle looked back to where Lord Reud and his wife stood, deep in one another's arms. An unpleasant feeling of jealousy swelled up within her. She wanted something like that. To be needed by someone, like that. To be embraced, like that. To be loved, like that.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

During the weeks of their journey, she’d been the one to hold Lord Reud’s attention, and that had felt so very good. Like she had a companion that was there just for her and no one else. She knew she couldn’t have Lord Reud, in her head, but that knowledge did little to suppress the desire that had blossomed in her heart.

Sighing inwardly, she shook her head. She’d have to crush that feeling before it became something dangerous.

Turning to Aleida, she smiled at the woman. Raising her voice so that the children could hear too, she called to them. “Come on, I’ll show you around the city.”

She went to walk off but stopped when she heard Aleida’s voice.

“Leo, come on. You can’t just stay in the carriage.”

Jessabelle frowned back at him, taking in the young man’s gloomy face and obvious reluctance in his steps. Something was really going to need to be done about him, and soon.

—

The city had really improved in the few weeks since Jessabelle had left. Gone were the ramshackle buildings of jaunty wood. In their place stood buildings that could almost be mistaken for ones you’d find in any city around Rudase. The old stonework had generally been kept for the ground floor of the buildings, but with a wooden second storey constructed on top. Personalized touches adorned the sides of the buildings facing the street, from painted signs to small plants growing from planters attached to the windows.

The children huddled close to her as a group of skeletons clattered down the road, carrying a number of long planks between them.

“A-are they everywhere?” Hamo asked in a shaky voice, his eyes fixed on the backs of the undead.

Jessabelle nodded. “They are Lord Reud’s servants, and they help all around the city. Don’t worry, they’re completely harmless.”

“It’s unholy.” Leo spat.

“Leo!” Aleida said.

Jessabelle held up a hand. “It’s okay, if you don’t like them, you don’t need to interact with them.”

“Well, I think they’re cool.” Vorlo said, crossing his arms and glowering at Leo. Turning to his sister, he nudged her. “They’re cool, aren’t they?”

Marla nodded, before hiding her face behind her hair shyly. She’d barely spoken over the journey, just nodding along with her twin brother's words.

“You’re too young to know what is unholy and what is not.” Leo said, waving his hand dismissively.

“Shut up, Leo, you don’t know nothing.” Hamo said.

A flash of anger darkened Leo’s face. “You’d better be careful what you say, boy. The way you’ve been playing with your cursed affinity, you’ll become a demon if you aren’t careful!”

“Will you give it a rest with that!” Hamo said, his voice rising. “You keep going on about cursed this and demon that. I bet you’d be happier if we were still back with the Seekers!”

“Well, at least there our curses were in control!” Leo growled back, his face red.

“Enough!” Aleida shouted, stepping up between them, much to Jessabelle’s relief. “What is with you two! We’ve just arrived in a new place, to start a new life, and all you want to do is fight!”

“He was-” Leo started.

Aleida span, jabbing her finger into Leo’s chest. “Stop. It.” Anger coloured her face, for the first time since Jessabelle had met the woman.

A shout came from further up the road, drawing the group’s attention away from the mounting tension. A woman was running towards them, her brown hair streaming out behind her, revealing gaunt yellow skin. Her eyes were wide, frantic, bordering on mad. Jessabelle tensed, squinting at her. The woman was familiar, but she just couldn’t quite put a name to the face.

“My babies! You’ve come back to me!” The woman shouted, her voice cracking.

“M-mummy?” Vorlo said, his voice quiet.

Jessabelle relaxed as she finally realized who she was. The twin’s mother. Though, she really did look like a terrible shadow of her former self…

The woman, Cecily, stopped just before them, dropping to her knees and throwing her arms wide. “It’s me. Come here!”

“Mummy!” Vorlo shouted. Pulling Marla’s arm, the twins ran over to Cecily and threw themselves into her arms. Cecily pulled them in close, squeezing them fiercely.

Desperately.

For a while, they just stood there in silence. Finally, Cecily looked up at Jessabelle. “Thank you, thank you so much for bringing my babies back to me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this gift.”

“Don’t thank me, it was Lord Reud’s doing. He’s the one who deserves your gratitude.” Jessabelle said, feeling uncomfortable with the sheer intensity of the woman’s gaze.

Cecily nodded, then turned back to holding her twins.

A soft tug on her sleeve drew Jessabelle’s attention. She turned to find Hamo standing beside her, looking down timidly, gently kicking at the ground.

“I was wondering… My parents… Are they here too?” He asked.

“I don’t…” Jessabelle said with a sinking feeling. She hadn’t realized that the boy didn’t know about his parent’s deaths. “I’m really sorry. They aren’t with us any more.”

“Oh, where are they then?” Hamo asked, looking up at her face in excitement. Slowly, the hope on his face died as he took in her expression.

And understood her meaning.

“Oh…” He said, the emotion draining from his voice. “I see.”

He turned away from Jessabelle and walked over to Aleida, before burying his face in her shirt. Aleida wrapped her arms around him, stroking his hair.

Jessabelle looked from the twins who had just regained their parent to the boy that had lost his, a new determination within her. When they had first left Avonford, she’d expected them all to find their own way in the city. Over the course of the journey, however, she had grown fond of the rag-tag little group. She didn’t actually want to see them go.

No, she wanted to do more.

“Hey, what do you say about staying with me?” She asked.

The happiness that lit up Aleida’s face was payment enough.