I did not do anything wrong.
I did not do anything wrong.
Rivka was sulking in a corner of a covered wagon. She paid a silver coin to purchase the spot. Whether she overpaid for it, she didn’t care because she had plenty of more coins. The wagon jolted frequently as it traveled over an uneven dirt road, making it pretty uncomfortable. In fact, her butt was already feeling sore.
“......Tch.” She clicked her tongue in displeasure.
She could still see Lux from the back of the wagon. The wagon was driven by a pair of horses and it was guarded by four men. The merchant himself was driving the wagon in its driver’s seat.
After she was kicked out by Ewald, she had no intention of staying put. The mere thoughts of living in the same city as a spoiled boy like him disgusted her. She felt he had no right to drive her out the way he did, for she had done nothing wrong. Therefore, she felt that she had to get away from the city no matter what the cost, and so she did. She actually didn’t know where she was going. She simply paid a merchant who was loading his wagon and begged him to take her away. He did look awkwardly confused, but money was money. A silver coin was not a small amount to just turn down.
The earliest memories she had was when she was about five years old. Her father, Edmund Fenchel, treated her very well at that time. Her room was spacious. Meals were excellent. And her dad would come by once a few days to check up on her. Most importantly, she was happy.
She wore fancy dresses and those women in maid uniforms obeyed her like clockwork. She felt as if she was a princess. She dreamt of marrying a prince frequently. Alas, her happy days did not last long.
At one point, she had noticed that her dad’s attitude toward her was becoming progressively colder toward her. She didn’t know why. He was visiting her less frequently as well. Then she was moved to a slightly smaller room which she did not mind because she did feel her previous room was just too large. It was still large enough that she could run around freely. Still, it was a bit unsettling for her.
About a year had gone by, and the amount of service she was receiving was progressively decreasing. Once she had four maids tending her. She now had just two. Her dad would also visit her only once in a while.
Why, she wondered, for she had done nothing wrong. She racked her young brain, trying to find a reason as to why this was happening to her. She simply could not come up with an answer. Her mother had rarely visited her, and Esther didn’t care for her mother. She knew instinctively that it was her father that mattered. He had the powers. Men had the powers.
When she was around seven years old, she started to hear whispers from maids. They were whispering that a boy was coming to the Fenchel manor or something. She didn’t pay any attention to their words because it had nothing to do with her.
Or she thought.
At this point, she was moved to a far smaller room and she no longer had a dedicated maid attending her. A maid did look after her, but her face changed pretty much every single morning. Then, even a maid stopped coming entirely.
She became scared at this point.
Fancy dresses, she no longer wore. Her room was now so small that her single bed covered almost half of the room. The furniture was bland. Everything in the room was brown bar the bed sheet.
Cradling her head, she screamed on her bed.
“Why is this happening to me?! Why?!”
She would soon learn that the boy she had been hearing about was going to be adopted and would become the heir of the house. This was when she realized why she was being cast away.
I wish I were born a boy…
Princess? No, she wanted to be a prince, a boy to be exact. Alas, gender change wasn’t something that was possible in any shape or form.
Her lingering questions would finally be answered when she was summoned by Elias Hunt whom she was somewhat acquainted with because she had seen him with her father from time to time although she didn't know his name.
“My name is Elias Hunt. I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself,” was his first words when she entered his study which looked eerily similar to her own room albeit somewhat bigger.
She had a file of questions to ask. In fact, she had so many questions that her brain was sort of scrambled. In the end, she was unable to ask any questions and instead began to sub.
“Why…,” was all she could say.
“I am sure that you have a lot of questions. I will try to answer what I can. First of all, calm down.”
After calming down, she took a deep breath and asked her first question of many.
“What is happening to me?”
“You are basically being demoted. I realize it has be-”
She interjected, “Why?”
He grimaced, looking clearly not pleased by being interrupted.
“Your father has many children. He has now chosen to prioritize.”
“What does that have to do with me? I am his favorite child.”
“Perhaps,” He replied wryly. “Either way, I need you to train yourself as a maid.”
“Absolutely not!” She declined profusely. “I am not a maid!”
“You are now.”
“I am not! Never was! Never will be!”
Sighing deeply, he fired a stern gaze at her which caused her to take a step back.
“You either undergo training or you will be expelled from the manor. It is your choice. I don’t care either way.” His voice was cold.
“What… have I done to deserve this?” She uttered, looking appalled.
“It is no fault of your own. Let’s say it's the circumstances.”
At this point, he opened a drawer and took out a small leather pouch.
“While you are here, I might as well test your elemental affinity.”
She had no idea what he meant because she didn’t even know magic existed. Her whole world had been the manor after all. Noticing that she looked clueless, Elias probed whether she knew what he was talking about.
“No,” She replied, “Should I care?”
Sighing, he gave her a brief explanation of what he was about to do and what elemental affinity was about. She seemed largely uninterested.
“Touch each of these crystals one by one,” He explained as he rolled out four differently colored crystals on the desk; they were sizes of about a whole thumb.
Although looking skeptical, she eventually touched one after another, and a red crystal reacted to her touch. Its illumination wasn’t profound however.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“What does this mean?”
“You have an affinity for elemental fire…” He trailed off.
“What does that mean?”
There was a short pause before he replied.
“It means you could perhaps become a fire mage.”
“Should I care?”
“Up to you. Talking to you tires me. Find a maid named Emily. She will be your mentor.”
“Good, I hope I will never see you again.”
He shrugged in return.
In Esther’s mind, whoever she disliked, she discarded them at once, even going as far as erasing them in her mind. Elias became one of such people.
As soon as she walked out of his study, she said to herself.
“Where is this ‘Emily’ to begin with?”
Turning around, she was about to touch the knob of the door but she didn’t quite manage to grab it.
“He’s a useless man. I have no need for him,” She whispered to herself.
Elias was Edmund’s, her father’s, most trusted advisor. She was unaware of that of course.
“....Lass.”
………….
“...... Lass?”
……………..
“Hey!”
Rivka opened her eyes at once and looked up to the voice.
“What…?” Where am I?”
“Lass, it’s night. We are camping in the wilderness. You should eat something.”
It was the merchant whose feature she couldn’t see clearly due to darkness. Just as he mentioned something to eat, her stomach growled loudly in response. She recalled that she hadn’t eaten anything since the eviction.
“Y, yes, I shall.”
Just as she tried to stand up, she couldn’t. Her whole lower body was numb and started to tingle. As a direct result of not staying still for hours, she was experiencing paresthesia. It wasn’t fatal except that her whole lower body was experiencing it, resulting in a quite painful experience.
“Awww! OUCH!”
The merchant was utterly confused by her sudden yelling.
“Aw, aw, aw! I can’t … move?! The pain…!” She cried.
It took her about five minutes for her pain to subside.
“Lass, you have to move around a bit. You cannot just sit still in the same exact position for hours,” he explained as he assisted her to get off the wagon.
The vicinity was pitch black as in she couldn’t see anything other than the lone campfire prepared by the guards. She was immediately scared. This was her first time out in the wilderness. In fact, pretty much everything had been a new experience to her.
“What is this?” Rivka asked upon being given a bowl of something.
“Huh? It’s veggie soup,” One of the guards replied.
It was similar to what she had been eating back at the decoy house, but she could tell the quality was far worse. She could hardly call it “soup”. It was just hot water with some veggie scraps in it. She was also given a few hardtacks which she couldn’t eat. It was as hard as a rock.
“Soak them in the soup,” one of the men told her.
Oh, I see.
“Where are we going?” She figured she’d ask.
“We are heading toward Fadin,” The merchant answered while taking his bowl of soup.
She had never heard of the city obviously. Fadin was located directly north of Lux. It was a smaller city under the king’s control.
[https://twoclusters.com/novel_img/LM/vol1_ch8_pic.jpg]
Holding the warm bowl of soup, she could feel warmth slowly returning to her body after having eaten something. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing at all.
As she listened to the casual chatter from the merchant and his guards, she felt drowsy and slowly fell asleep.
…………………
……………
……….
“Werewolves!”
She was awoken by the loud shout.
“What? What?” Uttering, she scanned her vicinity. She had no idea what the werewolves were at this point. The merchant grabbed a sword out of his wagon while the four guards formed a formation around a lone horse in front of the wagon. Their priority was to protect the horse.
“What’s going on?!”
“Lass, are you good at combat?” Glancing behind, one of the guards asked her.
Was she? She didn’t know. All she knew was -
“I am a fire mage!” She declared, which surprised the guards.
“Perfect!” One of them replied with excitement, “Werewolves are weak to fire. Do your thing, lass!”
Taking out her staff from the back of the wagon, she pointed her staff at approaching whatever: She could hardly see its shape. All she could see was its glowing red eyes, which scared the shit out of her.
“Elementals of fire, heed my call. Summon a bolt of fire at my foe: Firebolt!”
Again, like before, the firebolt was weak. It did hit a werewolf but didn’t seem to do any meaningful damage.
“The hell?” A guard blurted. “Come on! Quit joking around! It’s our lives at stake here!”
The guards soon engaged approaching werewolves while the merchant stayed back by the wagon with Rivka.
Why isn’t my magic working?! She cried internally.
Well, there were two reasons.
One, her affinity with fire wasn’t five. Elias lied to Edmund. It was four. The reason he lied to Edmund was to save her life. She would have been “removed” by Edmund otherwise once her role as Ewald’s potential woman was over.
Two, Rivka did not believe in elementals. She was educated in magic, but that wasn’t enough to make someone a mage. One had to believe in the existence of spirits and elementals. After all, one was borrowing powers from them to cast magic. Because she didn’t believe in elementals, they didn’t really let her cast magic to its full potential in return.
Now, this was the primary reason that Greta’s magic improved. Upon seeing the elementals in its butterfly form with her own eyes, she started believing in them. Prior, she was skeptical about their existence.
This was also why Ewald’s wind magic was at its full potential from getgo. He knew, for certain, that they existed because of his encounter with the Gods. If Gods existed for real, so would elementals was his line of thoughts. Besides, Tom was granted a miracle in exchange for his life. That event proved for him that spirits and elementals did exist.
The fight was brutal. The four guards, who were actually Lux guild members, were skilled at combat. Even so, they were struggling against about 15 werewolves. All four of them were swordsmen. A proper magic user would have been mighty useful.
The merchant, seeing the four men struggling to take control of the fight, dashed in to join them. Fleeing was not an option here; they wouldn’t survive.
As the battle went on, one of the guards started to falter. He was losing his ground and was being pushed back. The merchant assisted him to regain his footing. He didn’t look to be a good swordsman but he was really good at reading the flow of the fight. He assisted those in need of an extra hand here and there, basically reinforcing the front line as a backup fighter.
“Fucking damn!” A guard shouted as he struck down a werewolf, slicing it in half. They had managed to kill about eight of them, and the rest of the werewolves were starting to withdraw slowly. There was no casualty but this was a close call.
Once it was over, one of the guards walked toward Rivka aggressively and grabbed her by the collar.
“What the fuck was that?! Kiddo, this is not a game. Don’t lie if you aren’t a mage!” He barked at her.
“But I AM a fire mage!” She retorted only to be thrown down at the ground violently. She shrieked at the pain.
Others rushed in to stop him from harming her.
“I won’t go that far,” He responded while waving off others. “I know she’s just a child. She shouldn’t have lied tho.”
I did not do anything wrong.
I did not do anything wrong.
She repeatedly told herself while tears filled her eyes. It was in fact true that she didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t know that her affinity to elemental fire was four. She also didn’t know why her magic wasn’t working.
Sadly for the rest of the journey, the four Lux guild members were cold toward her. Having been paid more than enough, the merchant cared for her still, giving her two meals a day.
The next night was peaceful, which Rivka was actually thankful for. Then they encountered more packs of werewolves along the way. She no longer participated in any battles.
“Thank you for your service.”
The merchant bowed toward the four men sincerely. They were at the south gate of Fadin. Her first impression of the city was that it looked far inferior to Lux. The walls were lower, and its people looked poorer.
“We did our job,” They told him candidly. “Just give us a good rating at the guild.”
“I shall.”
Meanwhile, Rivka grabbed her bag and staff. She prepared to leave.
“Where will you go?”
She was startled by the question. The merchant was there.
“You don’t have a home, do you?”
As she got off the wagon, she nodded weakly.
“Where did you get the silver coin? You didn’t steal, did you?”
“I DID NOT,” She denied firmly.
“Okay, fine. Again, where will you go?”
She couldn’t answer since she didn’t know.
“If you want, you can come with me. I am a merchant, so I travel around a lot but it won’t be boring at least.”
What?
“What?” She looked at him. This was the first time she actually cared to look at him. He looked to be in the 30s. He had somewhat long hair for a man which reached all the way down to his chin level. His face needed a shave meanwhile.
“My name is Julian by the way. Yours? I don’t think you’ve told me.”
“My name is …”
………….
“My name is Esther.”
Yes, that was her name given by her father. Rivka was a name she was forced to come up with. She hated it. It wasn’t her name.
“I am Esther,” She repeated and told him, “I will go with you.”
She had nowhere else to be anyway. Therefore, she figured why not. She’d get to see the world at least.
Esther’s journey began.