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My darling,

When I look into the water, I see your face next to mine. When the mountain cries, it cries because of your beauty.

* * *

Everyone was looking at him now. Venali watched as their faces changed from disbelief to realization to fear. Only Cecilia didn’t react. She was absently staring through the counter, pulling at the skin around her nails.

“What do you mean it’s gone?” Micah whispered, snapping Venali’s attention away from Cecilia. He could tell he was scared. If Aduial Amon was gone, there could be another Great War.

Everyone who was anyone knew about the Great War. The story was told time and time again in hopes that it wouldn’t be repeated. 500 years ago, the four kings of Ferie couldn’t agree on how to split up the land between them. Their disagreement ended in mass destruction and terror; their magical power catching everyone in the cross-fire. The Daemons, Elves, and Humans joined together to stop their fighting and succeeded. They divided up the land for the kings and declared the Elves the peacekeepers of the world. While the Ferie kings wanted to fight back, especially the Fire king, who was the most powerful and greedy of them all, there was nothing they could do as long as the Daemon’s were on the Elve’s side. If there was no Aduial Amon left and the Daemon’s started to fracture, there would be another power grab very soon.

Venali lifted his chin. “I mean, Aduial Amon is gone. A rogue group of humans attacked the Castle and killed the king. Most of the Southern part of the state went up in flames. The North side was able to hold them off but not without a massive toll. The queen and the princess got away but the queen was killed later when they were found hiding in Tahro, the Earth Ferie nation.”

“Where’s the princess then?” Micah asked, clearly shocked about what Venali was saying.

Venali looked at Cecilia and Micah followed his gaze.

“Wait, you’re the princess of Aduial Amon? Rightful heir to the throne after Gideon and Isadora Dahorn? That Cecilia?” Micah looked at her in disbelief.

“Yes.” She looked down at her hands. Venali saw the look of pain flash over her face when Micah mentioned the King and Queen. “I understand what my reputation means in the fragile state of the world. I will not accompany you all on your journey out of here.” Her words were heavy with a sense of duty.

“No,” Micah said stubbornly, recovering from his shock. “We are sticking together now more than ever.”

“Speak for yourself!” Nevari protested. “We already have huge targets on our backs. Now with her, we’re dead.”

“She’s right,” Cecilia said. “I am only putting you all in greater danger if I come. You are better off if I find my own way.”

“Listen,” Micah said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his hands. “No one is going anywhere. We will figure this out.”

“I agree with the boy.” The sound of Melech’s voice caused a silence to settle over the room. His voice seemed to command attention, Venali thought. It’s probably why he didn’t speak much.

“Is there someone in line to lead Aduial Amon if something happened to your parents?” Melech asked Cecilia.

“Besides me, the high priest is next in line. He should be ruling from the Southern Castle if it wasn’t destroyed. Why?” She replied.

“We must go to him and tell him of the turmoil in Motaiden.” Melech said, looking from Cecilia to Nevari.

“What turmoil?” Venali asked.

“Motaiden has never trusted Entropion to hold up their side of the alliance with us and the Elves. Even before the attack, there was talk of making sure the humans kept their end. Factions are starting to form on the matter, and I assume it’s only gotten worse if the news of the attack has reached there.” He said gravely. “We must talk to the high priest and have him keep the peace within the nations, one war is enough.” Melech looked down and Venali wondered if he had fought in the Great War. Daemons lived for hundreds of years. It was very possible he was alive, even at the age to fight, when it happened.

“How did I not know any of this?” Micah asked, sitting defeatedly in a chair.

“Maybe pick up an edition of firepaper once in a while, farmboy.” Nevari said, sipping her tea.

He ignored her. “Okay, our main goal should be to get the princess back to her home and get the Daemon’s to the person in charge,” Micah said.

“What about you?” Venali interjected. “I’m not sure Aduial Amon will be very hospitable towards humans in the coming days.”

“Actually, we won’t have to go through Aduial Amon at all. I know someone who can transport us right to the Castle, or close to it anyways.” Melech said.

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“And who do you know? A Ferie?” Venali guessed crossing his arms. Ferie’s were the only people who could do magic like that. Ferie’s were the losers of the Great War. The kings had caused the fighting in the first place— every Ferie was a traitor as far as he was concerned.

“Yes,” Melech said. “A Ferie. But she is a friend, she will help us.” His glare descended coldly on Venali. Any hope he had of winning this arguement was immediately stifled.

“Alright,” Micah announced, after a beat. “Regroup in a couple of minutes and then we’re on our way to Melech’s friend.” With that, he left the room.

Cecilia left soon after, mentioning something about heading to the library which he guessed was somewhere in the house. That left him with the two, very drained looking Daemons. Nevari turned towards her brother without acknowledging Venali and whispered something to him.

Feeling awkward, he left the kitchen without excusing himself, assuming they wouldn’t have noticed anyway, and walked out on to the porch. The white paint on the wood that wrapped around the side of the house was peeling. He leaned gingerly against the chipped railing, watching the clouds move past. Though morbidly run down, Venali had to admit it was peaceful here.

His mind wandered to Cecilia. He hadn’t seen her since he started school a few years ago. He had missed her. They would always get into trouble when he would come to visit the Castle. He remembered the first time he met her; Venali was only a boy when he attended his first banquet at the castle. His father had been invited after a promotion as head merchant for Aduial Amon’s exports. Venali had worn a very traditional black tunic and pants with gold embroidery like his father, while his mother had worn one of her favorite customary gold ballgowns. While the hall was beautiful, Venali had found it all very stuffy. That was until he saw her.

The young princess was about the same age as him, dressed in a white empire dress with pearls laced in intricate designs around the bodice. It seemed almost blinding compared to her dark skin and black hair, which hung around her shoulders.

The first thing he had noticed were her eyes. She had a rare disease that made Elve’s eyes and hair different colors. No one knew what caused it, and only one other Elf in the kingdom had it— the Queen.

Being the very confident little kid he was, Venali went up to her and introduced himself. She shyly told him her name and they played together the rest of the night, the adult world disappearing for at least a little while.

Venali smiled to himself as he realized Cecilia was not the same shy girl she had been then, at least with him. Since that night, he had watched her grow into a beautiful princess capable of leading her kingdom one day. While she was still seemingly shy on the outside, he knew there was a wild courageous streak in there somewhere.

He leaned against the railing of the porch and watched the sun stretch itself over the horizon. He had been getting very fond of sunrises considering he had not seen many in Aduial Amon. In Elven, it meant dusk mountain. A fitting name considering the giant mountain range that ran along the country’s western border, covering the sunrise until half the day was gone. The mountains lowered the further North you went, but sunrises were still covered for a few hours where he lived in the North. He had always preferred sunsets because of it, the light glittering beautifully over the sea. Venali sighed. Those were the days. Beautiful, peaceful days before the collapse of his country, his home, his family…

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to start the day with those things in mind. Watching the sun stretch higher and higher into the sky, Venali let his mind wander once again.

Cecilia followed Micah down the steps towards the basement. She had gone to the library to see if she had left her guitar case there the night before. Micah had caught her searching and beckoned her to follow him, mentioning her guitar case had made it’s way downstairs.

He turned on the light as she reached the bottom. There was a worktable and lots of tools to the right of the stairs. On the table, she spotted her guitar. She rushed over to it to discover that Micah had fixed most of it. The neck was reattached to the base and there were no cracks to be seen. The strings weren’t on it and it wasn’t polished— but it was in one piece and that's all that mattered.

“Thank you so much for doing this!” She said, clapping her hands together.

“It’s not done yet.” Micah replied sheepishly. He scratched the back of his head. “I was thinking I could bring some of my tools with me to finish. I also had to use new wood so it won’t be as nice as it was before but—”

“It’s beautiful.” She cut off his babbling. And it was true, she really did think it was beautiful. She loved when things were beat up and put back together. Her father had taught her that something broken and restored is something loved. Seeing her father's guitar patched up like this only made it remind Cecilia of him more.

She opened her case and gingerly put the instrument inside. Her mother’s dagger glimmered at the bottom of the case and she couldn’t help but grab it quickly and stuff it in her boot, hoping Micah wouldn’t notice.

“Do you want to put your tools in here so you don’t have to carry them?” she gestured towards the pocket in her case, distracting him from her actions.

“Oh, no,” he said. “I don’t want to make you carry it.”

“I insist.” She shushed him and unzipped the pouch. “What do you need?”

He reluctantly gave her a few tools from his bench and from a few shelves next to it. “You’re sure it won’t get too heavy?” he asked.

She smiled and set down the tools he had handed her to show him how this case worked. Cecilia started to pull things out of the small pocket. Clothes, a few books, things that would not have fit in there if it was a normal bag.

“How…?” Micah’s face was filled with confusion.

Cecilia laughed at his expression. “My father had a Ferie put a spell on it. It can hold as much as I want it to and it will never get heavy or full. So no, I’m not really traveling light in the sense you mean.” She said referencing back to when he carried it for her out of town the night before. “Speaking of which, I really need change before we get going. If you’ll excuse me.” She put everything back and slid past him to walked back up the stairs. Her guitar case was like an extension of her body, it felt natural to have it back in her hand.

She headed up to the second floor and found the room she had slept in. She shut the door behind her and changed out of her dirty clothes she had been wearing. She reached in to grab a new tunic and pants, packing the old outfit back into her bag.

Cecilia hadn’t gotten a good look at the room in the dark last night but now, with the sunlight streaming in, she realized it was a young girl’s room. The walls were bright pink with big vertical white stripes. The bed in the center of the room had covers to match. On the shelves lining the wall were little stuffed animals and other trinkets. A mobile hung from the ceiling over the bed, and Cecilia layed down on her back to look at it. There were delicate paper birds hanging from the wire and they seemed to be handmade. One of them, a yellow finch, twirled in the breeze from the open window. She watched the paper birds lost in thought, until she heard voices downstairs. She stood up from the bed, grabbed her guitar case, and gave the lovely little room one more glance before heading downstairs.