They stayed at an inn that night, but left early the next morning, and after a day of rather leisurely traveling, spent the next night camped out on the side of the road. Sir Estil built a fire and cooked them a stew with ingredients he had purchased in town; the smell of it, simmering in the big pot the knight always carried around, was enough to make Arai's mouth water.

It was another nice night, under the stars. Something about the tableau made Arai nostalgic. "This reminds me of the night I met Maya," he said.

"Maya?" Sir Estil inquired. "Ah, the young woman who accompanied you on your adventures. She was a priestess of some kind, wasn't she?"

"Not exactly. She belonged to the Selestrian Order -- healers who travel from village to village, caring for the sick and infirm. Her parents belonged to the nobility, but they lost everything after they crossed Lord Pierce. He had both of them killed, and Maya was raised in an orphanage run by the Selestrians. She eventually became a Selestrian herself."

Lillandra said nothing in reply to this; she kept her eyes firmly fixed on her stew. Shell spoke up, however: "So how did you meet her?"

"It was a few days after I burned down my father's house. We met on the road, on a night like this; she was on her way to some village that had just been attacked by the Al'mud. When I told her about my plan to find Silus and overthrow the Night Queen, she told me about her parents, and she agreed to accompany me." He allowed himself a little smile. "I don't think either of us expected to make it as far as we did."

"What about the others?" Shell asked. "Odo and...Vex, wasn't it? How did you meet them?"

"We ran into Odo a few months later. He was a riverman -- he made his living hauling barges up the Tuv. Everyone was afraid of him -- not only was he incredibly strong, he had a terrible temper. I offended him somehow when we first met, and we got into a fight. After I beat him, he insisted on coming with me."

"If he was so big and strong, how did you manage to beat him up?" Shell wondered.

"He was a little drunk," Arai admitted.

"And Vex?"

"Vex joined us later," he said, "after we found Silus and crossed the mountains on the back of the Ice Wyrm. Lord Pierce had set up a trap for us in Harbor Town, but Vex warned us about it. He helped us fight off the Lord Protector's sorcerers on our way to Hammersvik."

"Was he powerful?"

"Very powerful," he said. "No match for Lillandra or the Aeromancer, of course, but he was an excellent battlefield mage. He was a quiet kid, though, kind of shy. His parents had pushed him to join Lord Pierce's sorcerer corps, but he didn't want anything to do with them; all he really wanted to do was study. He always had a book in his hands."

"Good people," Sir Estil opined.

"Good people," Arai repeated. He glanced at Lillandra, who was still quietly eating her stew, not taking part in the conversation. "Is this discussion making you uncomfortable?" he asked.

"Why would it make me uncomfortable?" she said, still refusing to make eye contact.

"I just thought--"

"Because it's all my fault? Because, if not for me, your father, and Maya's parents, and countless other people, would still be alive? Because I ruined Velon, turned your friends to stone? Why should that make me uncomfortable?"

Arai sighed. "You never meant for any of those things to happen. You didn't know what Lord Pierce was doing, and you were only defending yourself when we fought at the Nightfall."

"I can only say I'm sorry so many times," she muttered.

"Would you like some more stew?" Sir Estil asked her, following a few seconds of awkward silence.

She nodded, and he dipped his ladle into the pot. Just as he was about to pour it into her bowl, however, a grasshopper jumped on her shoulder, startling her, and causing her jerk to one side. As a result, a spoonful of the boiling-hot stew missed the bowl and splashed onto her hand, scalding her.

"Ow!" She dropped the bowl, clutching her hand.

"Are you all right?" Arai asked, jumping up immediately to see how badly she had burned herself.

"I think so," she said, wincing.

"Shell, give me the Chalice."

Shell handed Arai the Everlasting Chalice. He activated the spell by touching his lips to the cup, which caused it to fill with cold water; he then doused her hand with it. Fortunately the burn didn't look too bad, or too serious; the back of her hand was just a little red.

"It's my fault," Sir Estil said. "The stew was too hot."

"No, it was my fault," she said, shaking her head. "It's always my fault."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Arai sat back down, surprised by the bitterness in her voice. "Do we have any bandages?"

"Not really," Shell said, digging through their supplies. "Oh, but I have this potion!"

"The potion that heals injuries?"

She nodded, holding up the bottle with the pink liquid inside. "It should be able to heal that burn, right?"

"I don't want you to waste your birthday gift on me," Lillandra said. "It's just a little burn; it'll heal in a few days."

"I want to see whether it works," Shell insisted. "You don't have to drink all of it. Just a spoonful."

"I feel like we should save that stuff for a real emergency," Arai said. But Lillandra was in a bad mood, and he felt as though he was responsible for it, so he added, "But I guess it's up to Shell. What do you think, Lill?"

"Well...if Shell's okay with it..."

"Great!" The elf girl pulled the stopper off the bottle and handed it to Lillandra, who gave it an experimental sniff. "Smells sweet."

"Don't drink it all, now," Shell warned. "Just a spoonful."

Lillandra nodded, put the potion to her lips, and drew a small amount of it into her mouth. She swished it around for a moment, then swallowed it. "What does it taste like?" Shell asked

"Sweet," she said. "Like strawberries."

"How quickly does it work?" Sir Estil asked. "Will she be healed instantly?"

"I'm not sure," Shell said. "Let me see your hand, Lill."

Lillandra started to put her hand out for them to see...but then she suddenly looked as though she were about to faint; her eyelids drooped and she swayed drunkenly in her seat.

Arai was alarmed. "Lillandra? Lillandra!" And he jumped again, this time to catch her, because she had just fallen backwards.

"What's going on?" Sir Estil asked urgently. "Was that supposed to happen?"

"I don't think so," Shell said worriedly. "Emi didn't mention anything like this."

Arai laid Lillandra down on the grass. She was passed out; her eyes were closed, and her body was limp. "What the hell was in that potion?" he shouted. "Lillandra! Wake up! Speak to me!" He tapped her cheek a few times, then leaned down, close to her face, to try to determine whether she was breathing.

To his great relief, her eyes slowly began to open. Their faces were mere inches apart at this point, with Arai hovering over her. "Are you all right?" he asked her again.

Her eyes suddenly focused on him. "Arai!" she exclaimed, and to his astonishment, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close. "Oh, Arai!"

"What's the matter?" he asked. He tried to disengage from her, but she wouldn't let go of him. "Are you all right? How are you feeling?"

"Wonderful," she said dreamily.

"Good," he said uneasily. "That's good." But she was still hanging on to him, and it was starting to make him uncomfortable. "Could you let go of me?" he asked.

"No," she whispered. "I'll never let you go."

"What? What are you talking about?" He finally managed to extricate himself from her arms, and look her in the eye. What he found there was startling: she was gazing at him adoringly.

"I love you," she said.

He blinked. "You love me?"

"Do you want to hear it again? I'll shout from the rooftops if you want. I love you, Arai."

He threw a nervous glance at Shell and Sir Estil, who were staring at Lillandra, equally perplexed. "There's something wrong with her," he said.

"Obviously," Shell said.

"Did she hit her head when she fell? Or was there something in that potion?" He found her hand, the hand that she had burned, and turned it over. The red mark was still there; the potion hadn't healed it.

"I love you," she repeated, looking longingly into his eyes as he held her hand.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

She looked stricken. "A joke? Of course not. How could you even think that? I love you. I want to be with you forever."

"You weren't in love with me a minute ago."

"My eyes were closed," she said, without hesitation. "Now they're open. You're the only one for me, Arai." Her dark eyes were smoldering.

"Right," he muttered. "Are you sure that was a healing potion you gave her, Shell?"

"It was supposed to be," she said, examining the bottle. She handed it to Sir Estil, the only one of them who could read Gallean. "Isn't that what it says on the label?"

He looked it over, nodding. "Emi's Marvelous Restorative."

"She may have gotten her bottles mixed up," Arai said. "That potion she sold you must have been some kind of love philtre."

Shell frowned. "Uh-oh."

Lillandra was now trying to snuggle up to him, which was very disconcerting. She had always had a rather icy personality, and she treated him coolly even when they were getting along; seeing her acting all lovey-dovey like this was very strange. And, although he would never admit it, not entirely unwelcome.

He pulled away from her, as politely as he could. "Well, what are we going to do about this?"

"Potions usually wear off after a few days," Shell said doubtfully. "We could just let it run its course."

Arai glanced at Lillandra, who looked like she was about ready to tackle him and smother him with kisses. Although a part of him found it amusing, and maybe even a little arousing, he didn't like the idea of having to spend the next few days fending her off, and he didn't like seeing her ensorcelled, either, and out of her right mind. He also wasn't sure he could resist her advances for that long; she was, after all, a lovely young woman, and his own feelings toward her had become...complex.

No, they couldn't just leave her in this state; they had to do something about it.

"Silus ought to be able to break the spell," he said. He picked up the sword, drew it a few inches out of its scabbard, and told Lillandra to touch the blade.

"It won't work," she warned, but she touched the sword anyway. And indeed, it had no effect; her expression didn't change. She was still staring at him, still biting her lower lip, still looking at him as though he were the only man in the world.

"Why didn't it work?" Arai wondered. "Silus is supposed to cancel out these kinds of enchantments."

"It's because I'm not enchanted," she said firmly. "My feelings for you are real."

He frowned. "They're not real," he insisted.

"They are."

"You drank a potion. But why wouldn't Silus cancel out the spell?"

"She's not under a spell," Shell said.

"You're not suggesting she's really in love with me?"

"Well...probably not," she said. "But there's no spells or calculations involved in making potions, nothing for Silus to cancel out. What's she's experiencing is just the natural effects of the ingredients that went into the potion -- enhanced, of course, by the magia that Emi stirred into it."

Arai sighed. "So how are we going to fix this?"

"We could take her back to Lark, to this potion vendor," Sir Estil said. "She might have another potion that could reverse the effect."

"Or we could just let it run its course," Shell suggested again. "It's not really that big a deal, is it? She's just a little out of her head."

Arai looked at Lillandra, who was still gazing at him adoringly. "No," he decided. "We have to fix this. Sir Estil's right; we should take her back to Emi." And then he sighed again. "Why did it have to be me? Why couldn't she have fallen in love with the stew?"