Adam was observing Cecilia as she sharpened her ax on a rock by the riverbed. Her clothes, skin, and hair were free of blood and guts, but she had kept the same look in her eyes, the one that made a cold sweat run on his back and his knees turn to jelly. Cecilia’s blood-red hair and her clothes were still damp since she had washed them only a few hours ago. Adam couldn’t help but think he must have had the same one when he slashed the throats of his enemies during the battles in the wastelands near the Sheyja kingdom. He was still in his underlayer of clothes he usually would have worn under his armor. He felt naked, yet it didn’t embarrass him.
“Stop sulking.” grunted Adam.
Cecilia shot him a glance that made his bones cold. He saw the Saint his family had worshiped for centuries, the one who would kill for any reason possible. For half a second, what seemed like a flash of guilt appeared on her face. Cecilia lowered her eyes and focused her attention on her ax once again, occupying herself more than anything.
“She didn’t hesitate to send her goons to kill your entire squad of royal soldiers, which were mostly kids, by the way.”
She looked back up at Adam, anger still in her eyes, this time towards him.
“I may be in charge of the royal army, but I have no control over who my soldiers are, thanks to you. I’m not the one recruiting these kids and trust me, if I did, I wouldn’t have chosen them. Not without extensive training.” he said gravely.
Cecilia’s anger calmed down when she saw the regret in Adam’s eyes. His voice was full of rage, orders coming from way up in the chain of command had forced him to keep silent for years. Adam turned his gaze away from Cecilia.
“They wasted their lives thanks to you sending me away.”
Cecilia lifted her head quickly. Adam looked back at her, “They kept me on these damn battlefields for decades, pushing the extension eastward because they wanted me out. What did you think would happen to these soldiers? That they would happily come back to their families?! They just got slaughtered and then their sons were called, and the sons of their sons too!”
Adam had stood up, shouting at Cecilia, who was looking up at him. She tried to not show any emotions, but the reality of his situation had just dawned on her. She gripped the stone she was polishing her ax with and turned her head towards the floor.
“Don’t act righteous, if they had been anything other than human you wouldn’t have cared!”
Adam didn’t dare to answer, shooting her a deathly glare. Was this what was left of their great Saint? The man was about to yell at her some more, but he refrained from it. He still had a mission to complete and this would not help him in the least.
“You used to be one of us.” he said coldly.
Cecilia brushed the rock one last time on her ax before attaching it to her hip at her belt. She stood up, and they walked until they found a dirt road and walked it until they would find a town or even just someone. No matter how fast and long his pace was, Adam could never seem to catch up to Cecilia’s pace. It forced him to follow her blood-red hair and watch as her pace got faster and faster out of the sheer anger she felt. As they walked for most of the day, the sky changed colors, from blue to slight orange and salmon pink, lightly tainting the clouds in its colors. By the time the sun was grazing the horizon, they finally arrived at their first stop. A decrepit and abandoned village whose sign had fallen on the ground pretty recently, it seemed. Someone had attached a paper to it, just as Cecilia bent to pick up the note, they heard someone shouting.
“You witch!”
What sounded like an old man with a slight lisp shouted from inside the town.
“You won’t take any more of my people!”
Cecilia and Adam looked at each other before Cecilia made a beeline to the voice, wandering through the crooked streets and the abandoned houses until she found the source of the voice; Adam could barely follow her without losing her, focusing on her red hair more than her footprints. They found themselves in a plaza in the middle of the town, where they beheld the most unusual of scenes. An old ttac man was wrestling an old ttac woman, dirt and mud on their clothes while a crowd of ttac people looked at them, baffled. Children were begging for the two to stop and the scene shocked adults too much for them to do anything. After a few seconds of assessment, Cecilia rushed in, gripping the old cat-man while Adam followed her and did the same with the old cat-woman. Both of the old cat-people had their claws out and were still trying to scratch each other until they calmed down.
“You witch!”
“Shut up, Norio!”
“Let me go! She even took my wife’s voice!”
His statement surprised Cecilia. She carefully waved her hand in front of the cat-man’s eyes.
“She even made the sun blink! Oh! Anda, you who control the Sun, help me slay this witch! Die!” he yelled as he tried to get out of Cecilia’s grip, claws and canines out.
Cecilia looked up at Adam and signaled him to let go of the old cat-woman since she was calm already. She scanned the crowd of cat-people, looking for something specific until she found it. A child dressed in a deep brown dress was wearing a pair of what looked to be glasses. The glass part made her eyes look ten times smaller than what her big, icy blue eyes were. Cecilia motioned to Adam to take the glasses and bring them, which he did after a moment of asking himself what was happening. He kneeled in front of the old cat-man, carefully putting on his glasses and then stepping away.
“I’ll catch that wi- Tora!”
The old ttac man, now with his glasses on, got out of Cecilia’s grip and ran as fast as his old body could towards Tora, his wife. Before he could hug her, she slapped him, he stopped dead in his tracks, tears soon flowed down his furry cheeks.
“Why?” he asked softly, voice cracking on the simple and short word.
“You spent the last three months calling me a witch and trying to kill me because once your glasses are off, that airy brain of yours takes control!” she yelled as loud as an old woman could. “And you lot couldn’t even tell him I just wanted the town to have better crops to avoid starving! You even joined him on that mad witch hunt!” she pointed at the crowd.
She paused, chest moving up and down from the shouting and the anger and heartache. She looked at the shameful crowd around her before her eyes fell on her husband again. He had tears welling up in his eyes again, unable to move from the choc. She looked at him with a face full of disgust and disappointment, even though her eyes betrayed her aching heart.
“I’ll be in my hut if you want to talk, but don’t come to me until you have a very good apology.” she said.
Tora turned her back on her husband, not without letting the flash of a loving gaze grace her expression before walking away. A few of the people in the crowd went away with her, leaving the rest of the village on the plaza. Adam and Cecilia didn’t dare to move, unsure of what to do. They both turned their heads slowly towards each other as if to see if the other knew what they should do now. A laugh broke the awkward silence. Norio was laughing out of relief. It had been three months since he had thought the witch had taken, or worse, killed his dear Tora and taken her voice to torment him. The old cat-man sniffled loudly and dried his tears as some people from the crowd walked back from where they had come from.
“Stupid demon, couldn’t even help.”
“He’s not stupid..” mumbled two ttac men in between themselves.
“What demon?” shouted Cecilia from a few meters away.
She walked towards them. Her pace was fast and fearless as she came up to the two very tall and buff ttac men, one of them much older and covered in scars.
“We captured one to kill the witch, but the airhead right here let him escape.” said the one that looked much older.
“Well, he was already escaping-”
“You don’t sleep with a prisoner that’s escaping, Kaede. You’re making me add rules to my list!” he said as he slapped him behind the ears with a notebook bound by old leather.
“Do you know where he went?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but a bunch of soldiers were following close after him and his friends,” said Kaede.
A feeling of dread took Cecilia’s stomach, twisting into a rock. “Thank you for the information. I hope your village gets better.” she said as she bowed respectfully.
“Anything for you and your friend, you saved our village.” said the older one, bowing in response.
Cecilia’s ear ticked off. Anything? “Do you have horses? Wolves killed ours on our way here.”
“Of course!” said Kaede.
“Would you mind bringing us to the stable?”
“Right this way, ma’am,” said the oldest.
Cecilia gestured for Adam to follow her since he hadn’t moved into position, unsure of what he should be doing. At her sign, he walked fast towards her and the two Ttacs, who were already walking towards the stable. The walk was short, but the state of the village couldn’t help but remind Adam of the sad irony it was a witness to. The stable wasn’t in such a state of disarray as the rest of the village, probably because it was used more often and therefore more cared for.
While Cecilia was choosing the horses with the oldest, Adam approached Kaede, “If the bickering has been going on for only three months, why is the village looking so abandoned?”
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“Oh! It was like that when we found it," Kaede started, “we’ve been there for only five months. I believe it used to be a human village, but no one was living here anymore.”
Adam only hummed in agreement. He was sure this village reminded him of something, but he wasn’t fully sure of what.
“Thank you. We should head back to our journey now.” said Cecilia.
“Thank you again for helping us, ma’am, sir.” replied the oldest.
Both Kaede and the other cat-man bowed to them as they walked away, the bridle of their horses in hand and bags of bread on the horses’ backs.
“Maybe that demon could be someone else,” said Adam.
“I only know of one demon that would sleep with the man supposed to guard him while he’s escaping.” replied Cecilia.
“And you raised that kid?” he mocked her.
“Yes.”
Once they arrived at the village’s entrance, they mounted their horses. Adam saw the anxiousness and worry eat Cecilia seeping from inside of her. She tried her best to appear calm and collected, but her mother’s instinct was taking over, her thoughts were racing and her breath became ever so slightly faster. She could keep her breathing somewhat under control, but not her worries. Her child was searching for her, like the fool he was, unprepared and not even having his brains on his side. She had a feeling that once again, her little visit to the old eastern witch when she first found Jesse wouldn’t save him from all harm, but hopefully, her work had stayed strong enough to avoid the worst situation possible.
Silence came like a blanket over the both of them as they rode west. The first night, they kept watching one after the other to be sure no creature would kill them in their sleep. They each slept next to their horse to keep warm while the other was sitting against a tree and kept a watchful eye on the woods and the surrounding clearings. Adam’s eyes drifted towards Cecilia’s sleeping form as he got lost in his thoughts. Her blood-red hair was cascading down her back and partly on the horse’s stomach, her sea-green blouse dirtied with sweat, dirt, leaves, and marks left by the blood she had been doused in not even 24 hours earlier. Adam thought about how much he had resented her since she convinced his father to give the throne to a young adopted brother. For years, he had sent him to battlefields, forced him to watch his friends die or live long enough to be injured and then be able to settle down with a wife and children, the ghost of wars still following them close and visiting them intimately in their sleep. Over the years, he had also developed particular anger for his father and brother since both had been sending him repeatedly to the farthest battlefields of the empire, never being able to disobey them without losing his life. Adam’s eyes closed shut slowly, his eyelids becoming heavier by the second as he caught a glimpse of the shy colors of dawn, his breathing pattern copying Cecilia’s as he observed her chest go up and down with her slow and relaxed inhale and exhale. His head fell softly on the tree behind him as his eyelids shut close for a last time as he felt something crawl over his chest and arms.
The young rays of the sun touched Cecilia’s fair skin, waking her up slowly but surely. As her eyes got used to the early sun, she noticed a green mass next to her that she could’ve sworn wasn’t there before. It took her some time to register the noise that came to touch her ears. It sounded like an enormous pile of very busy beetles had built their house next to her. Once her eyes focused, she could see the two boots protruding from underneath the green mass. She stared at them for a few seconds before the thought sunk in suddenly. Her eyes opened wide and she scrambled to get to Adam, clawing at the vines that were covering him.
“No, no, no, no! Adam!” she shouted.
She quickly understood that her bare hands wouldn’t do much. She took her ax from her belt and started severing the vines from where they had come out of the earth. The ones she had cut down died instantly, turning brown and brittle before turning to an ash-like form.
“You don’t get to die on me like that, asshole!”
She lifted her ax above her head before putting it down with such force that it left a dent in the dirt beneath it every time she hit the vines.
“Why couldn’t you just stay awake?! Why did you have to fall asleep?!”
Her voice broke as she spoke, tears flowing down her cheeks, not knowing who she was talking about anymore. She relentlessly axed at the vines, the sound of the thud and her grunting being the only things that disrupt the sound of the birds and the ruffling of the trees in the wind.The vines’ ashes covered her legs, stuck to her tear-covered face, and got caught in her blood-red hair as she ignored the burning in her upper arms. She cut the last vine with a final heavy hit of her ax, she watched it slowly turn brown and then to a pile of ash. She observed Adam’s face, her chest moving from her now heavy breathing. The creatures had heavily scratched it, and he had a kind of black spot underneath his skin that spread as if it was invading its veins slowly but surely. Cecilia’s next word came up from her torso in a bubble that only asked to be let out.
“Fuck!”
The force of her scream bent her forward, her forehead almost touching the ground, her arms limp by her sides. The silence hit her harder than ever before. The birds had stopped singing, and the wind seemed to have made itself quieter. Cecilia tilted her head up slowly, observing Adam: his breathing was slow but shallow, his lips had turned blue and his fingers and nose were red. It was not until Adam had a subtle shiver that Cecilia moved to take care of him. She gently turned his head to see his black veins better. She recognized the two deep purple entry points as the bite of the plant-like creature. As much as she wanted to dwell in the deafening silence of her internal world, she had to act fast: she had heard of this venom many times and had seen it in action before. Unlike that time, she knew who had an anti-venom, and they were as rare as the creature itself. Cecilia picked Adam up, throwing him over her shoulder like a bag of potatoes, as she had done many times before with drunk customers and fallen comrades. She looked for any signs the vine-like creature could have left on the forest floor, knowing it would have at least had to crawl in between the leaves to even get to Adam. Soon she spotted it and followed it, legs stomping by the sheer weight of an adult human on her shoulder. She walked for an hour, following the small trail left by the creature, slightly more and more visible in the first lights of the day. She finally stopped when she saw the vine creatures again. She stood there, out of breath, bent forwards, Adam like a child on her back, a position that was much more comfortable than throwing him over her shoulder. She saw the vine creatures rapidly crawling towards her.
“Let me go to her.”
The creatures stopped a foot in front of her, leaving her an open trail to follow. She blew away the hair that had fallen in front of her face and started walking again. After a few steps, she found herself in a deep forest that looked almost dead. The oak trees and the ifs looked dried out, and dead brown leaves covered the floor. The grass was rare and mushrooms didn’t even grow in the ground or in the tree trunks. The branches were thin enough to let the sunlight in, sparingly, but too thick to let more in. Far in front of her, Cecilia saw a small pond. The water seemed pure, lily pads were covering most of it, and frogs and toads were casually sitting on them, singing. The rim was full of fresh grass, and fireflies and dragonflies seemed to dance around it. A smile flashed across Cecilia’s face. Finally, she was there, all she had to do was enter the water without Adam and come back with the anti-venom. She laid Adam down at the foot of an oak tree near the pond. His body had started to go stiff, she knew she only had one or two hours in front of her to get the anti-venom. She turned around towards the pond and took a deep breath. Despite her natural cold-headedness, she couldn’t stop her heart from beating into her throat, each new heartbeat more painful than the last. With each step towards the pond, she planted her feet decidedly into the ground, trying hard to not run away. As she finally arrived at the edge, she kneeled, took a leaf off of the forest floor, reached her left ear, and took off her earring. She twisted the hidden rusty cap off, and the gem revealed itself to be the smallest vial of water, the last of its source. Cecilia’s hand shook as she propped the vial onto the leaf, pushing it on the pond’s calm surface. The leaf drifted away, slowly, as she watched, heart pounding in her chest like a madman on drums. The leaf drifted to the other side of the pond. Her heart broke in half as she had to conclude that maybe the wrong she had done had taken away even her friend. As she felt her heart sink, a soft, warm golden glow appeared outside of her field of vision. Cecilia slowly lifted her eyes and head, witnessing a cold welcome.
“I told you to never seek me again, Corvus.” a voice echoed.
Elephtheria was far from her usual 8 feet height. She had reduced to a normal human size, barely taller than Cecilia. Her dark, luscious green skin had turned to a sick olive green just as her hair had done. Her ever-flowing hair didn’t move at all now and her flower crown was now made of dried branches and roots. Her features looked more sunken, tired from standing up. The goddess looked at Cecilia just like the last time they had seen each other. A wave of sadness crashed over her as she prepared to answer.
“I do not answer to this name anymore, Elle. I chose my own, and it is Cecilia.”
“Excuse me, Cecilia.” she nodded.
“I have come here to find an anti-venom for my companion, your guardians attacked him.”
Elephtheria looked at Cecilia suspiciously, slightly squinting her eyes, “Since when do you seek your friends’ well-being?”
Cecilia felt as if Elephtheria had just shot an arrow in her heart. So many answers went through her head, all of them felt like she would have been begging for forgiveness for everything, even for the unforgivable.
“He’s not a friend, only someone I have wronged.”
“Aren’t they always?” bitterly sighed Elephtheria.
The goddess tried to take a step forward, but her body failed her. Cecilia stepped into the pond, water coming up to her chest, to catch Elephtheria.
“Let’s go on the other side, you are too tired to stay here.”
Elephtheria felt weak, weaker than she ever did. She wanted to yell at Cecilia to go away, take her human friend she was doing this for, and go find another nymph to bother, but she couldn’t. As much as Cecilia had hurt her and the non-humans, she had still missed her friend. Elephtheria extended her arm with the last of her strength and whispered.
“Iero.”
A dome of water covered both of them and sucked them to the bottom of the pond. They passed through algae and underwater plants, fishes, and frogs, until they finally came to a soft and warm light piercing through the water's surface. They broke to the surface in a similar pond, this time inside a small house made of straw and decorated with flowers and vines. Cecilia brought Elephtheria to her bed and laid her there.
“This doesn’t mean I trust you again.” warned the nymph.
Cecilia lowered her eyes in shame. She walked to a window, a soft, warm light bathed the outside world, fireflies floating around with butterflies and dragonflies. Toads and frogs sang around ducks and swans that looked to be gliding on the giant pond outside. Cecilia could only see a few nymphs, all in an awful shape but not as bad as the one Elephtheria was in.
“Iero Nefriti looks a lot less green than it used to.” commented Cecilia.
“That is bound to happen when humans murder and enslave three-fourths of my children,” replied Elephtheria coldly.
Cecilia turned around towards her old friend.
“The primordial gods chose you to bring magic to humans. To give them an equal ground to stand on-”
“I’m sorry I-”
“How dare you say you’re sorry?!”, snapped Elephtheria as she tried to stand up. “You listened to the cries of your dying friends and you plunged another knife into them and smiled.” Elephtheria was standing in the middle of the room, legs shaking and eyes spitting fire at Cecilia. “I don’t care if the men of your village twisted your mind. Your actions were your own, you were fully aware of the consequences.”
Cecilia looked at the ground, unsure if her next words would make everything worse, “What I did is unforgivable, and I am not waiting for you to forgive me. But a few days ago I felt it. Mother Anima let me go.”
“She lifted her curse?” muttered Elephtheria, feeling the world crumble around her for the second time in her life.
“Yes,” answered Cecilia, feeling like she did not deserve such generosity from the First Goddess. “If you do not want to help me heal this human, I will not hold it against you, but if not for me, do it to honor Anima’s decision.” she continued.
Elephtheria seemed to try to get her calm back, and she looked back at Cecilia, pain and rage filling her eyes. She painfully walked over to a shelf she had on the wall opposite to her bed, grabbed a small jar, and opened it. She inhaled heavily as she grew a leaf on her index finger. Cecilia’s heart clenched as Elephtheria cut her wrist, golden tree sap running freely from the fresh cut. The goddess took the jar and collected the golden liquid, closed the jar, and handed it to Cecilia, her eyes still full of resentment and pain.
“Rub it on the bite marks until it feels warm to the touch.” Cecilia grabbed the jar but Elephtheria didn’t let go of it, looking directly into her eyes. “Mother Anima may have forgiven you but I do not. I am only doing this because of her.”
Cecilia nodded. The nymph let go of the jar and watched as Cecilia jumped back into the pond. Once her old friend was gone, she crumbled to the ground, breathing heavily and her heart clenching. This soft look and golden heart she had admired for years had finally come back to her friend’s face, but it was too late for her to appreciate it again. Her pain grew stronger and stronger as tears streamed down her face, transforming into willow sprouts as they touched the ground.