Zander worked and waited. He reveled in the exertion of his body. Soldiers with experience logging the Red Forest or apprenticed as carpenters in Brighton lands labored to reconstruct the burnt and broken segments of palisade around the encampment and they needed muscle to carry their loads. Zander was happy to oblige in a task that required no extraordinary thinking or wise leadership. He became one with his task: lifting logs, carrying them to the carpenters, dropping them with a resounding thump, lifting lumber, carrying it to the framework of the new palisade, holding it upright while others hammered it into place.
He glanced up at the sun. Alfread would arrive soon. Or he would not. Zander didn’t know which he feared more.
Zander enlisted a squire to help him don his iron. He regretted it at once. The sweating in his underclothes created an itch that he could no longer scratch. Wishing he could separate staff and sack from his inner thigh, he squatted and tried to waddle himself comfortable. Naturally, it was in this state that Alfread discovered him.
“Alfread.”
“Zander.”
No ribald jest nor even a pedantic reprimand for Zander’s circumstance. Zander dared a look at the person who had been his ever-reliable companion, his best friend. Alfread’s face was devoid of the warmth or kindness it had inherited from his mother or the spark of wit and zest for life he had received from Sir Evan. The tall soldier folded his arms over his chest and leaned away.
This distance between, this separation, felt like being worlds apart. In fact, Zander wished that physical distance were the barrier. He could cross distance in miles and reunite with his best friend. This emotional distance felt farther than all the miles in Leveria.
They rode beyond the eastern gate of the encampment, cantering over the repaired drawbridge into Mirrevar. Into the lush fields teeming with life and vibrant color, Zander felt the vibrancy draining from his life as every significant relationship in his life seemed to be failing. In the midst of Alfread’s silence, Zander ruminated on how this was always the way of things.
The worst of it all was he didn’t know how to stop it. He only knew that this was his fate. He bowed his head and dropped his eyes, neglecting his duties. Zander passed through mystically beautiful lands beneath a setting sun feeling only the ugliness of abandonment.
*************
They traversed the distance from outpost to outpost. Zander received the reports while Alfread pretended to look warily for danger. Rather, Alfread studied the idyllic wonderland and felt as though he were a character drawn into the illustrations of a fairy tale set in a fantasy world. Bear’s Crossing and the lands near Urzport were normal places with normal vegetation. Mirrevar beneath the falling sun was anything but normal. The vibrancy of the colors that emblazoned everything below the horizon were otherworldly. Each flower that sprouted from the earth was immaculate. Every tree was resplendent and swathed in multicolored leaves and fruit. The streams were of purest blue or dazzling greens and when Alfread drank from them he was revitalized in body, if not his defeated spirit.
The ground was not the limit of the wonders either. Covademara was divine, its branches reaching above the eye’s capabilities and stretching over Mirrevar. Those great, unreachable limbs were colored by billions upon billions of flowers, and seemed to make a pattern of peace and prosperity.
Alfread did not wonder at the Leverian Dynasty establishing their kingdom here with the bounty of this most fertile of all land in the entire world. He recalled a thousand stories about this place: histories of the Leverians, tales of epic heroes, and mythical sagas that used Mirrevar as their setting flourished in his mind. Alfread traveled into those stories to escape the one he lived. He imagined Elior and Pelianna, Alexia Leveria, Maddeck Eckhard, even Trolltongue’s bumbling Sir Pendipity, for their stories were better to experience than his own was to live.
Alfread tried to kill the feeling before tears and lament conquered him again. Yet, the carriage was already down the hill and his thoughts raced after his broken heart.
My father was wrong. It is not better to live the story than to tell it. I could live countless lives rather than this miserable one. If only…
Alfread chased after his regrets. If only he had listened to Zander and followed the scholar’s path to Erudition or even Leverian University. If only he had stayed home and been with people he knew would never reject him. If only he had driven away his beliefs on love and engaged in tribute. If only. If only. If only.
If only I had never met Asa, I would not feel like a worthless failure.
The thought hung in the air swinging like corpses from trees. Misery permeated through him, spoiling the magical beauty of this land touched by Covademara and the Divine Goddess Leverith. Alfread lowered his eyes to the horse’s mane and felt a weight that crushed his soul. If only I had never come here.
Alfread surveyed this land, knowing that his story here was at an end or this pain would swallow him. He couldn’t see Asa every day and not be with her. He couldn’t see Zander every day and not have his soul turned black with envy. Not only did his best friend have the love of Alexia Bluerose, the inevitable hero of their world’s story, he could’ve had Asa as well. Zander’s years of tribute smacked Alfread in the face now with sharp regret as they seemed to overwhelmingly confirm that the beliefs he had eschewed as indoctrination were founded in reality. Such was Alfread’s misery that he couldn’t look at Zander when he returned.
“That is the last of the outposts along the north. Now we’re to head down the Cardian and round back to the encampment.” Zander’s words were rote and hollow. Alfread’s shame didn’t stir him fiercely enough to overcome the envy.
“Aye.” Alfread set Rubi into a gallop, his bitterness unable to give more than that.
He plunged himself into his misery as he sped south along the central stream of Mirrevar. Alfread pictured the maps. Leveria was shaped like a heart turned upside down and Mirrevar was the heartland of Leveria. The Cardian cut through Mirrevar, severing it in two. The imagery played with Alfread’s mind and he felt a melancholy that he should ride the line of broken hearts with his own sundered core beating in his chest. The storyteller in Alfread attached himself to the symbolism and it made his emotions resonate more intensely. How fitting that this line of heartbreak served as the border and battleground of Leveria for over seven centuries?
His own father had nearly died along these waters. Sir Evan had been traveling under Wayn Bearbreaker’s command with a dozen knights and twice as many squires. His mother had been the sole medican on their expedition to assault an outpost that the Sapphire had taken from them on the other side of the stream. The night before, Evan and Mirielda had danced beneath the stars and confessed their love, conceiving Alfread.
Alfread sighed, thoughts of his failed attempt to remaster the story invading his remembrance. He dove back into the stories he preferred rather than dwell on his own. A brutal battle left many dead, their blood flowing through this untainted source. Alfread’s father took a wound fighting alongside Wayn, turning a blade that had been intended for the future archlord. The Sapphire steel had been coated in one of the world’s deadliest poisons, Isihlan Eclipse. Evan slew the Isihla-descended woman wielding it before she could strike again, but he fell face down into the Cardian no later than his assailant.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Mirielda dragged her lover out of the stream. Her emotions more turbulent than the Eagle during flood, Mirielda’s tonics slowed Evan’s blood flow and nearly stopped his heart, stalling the spread of the infection. Still, black serpentine lines spread from Evan’s leg, slowly slithering across his body. Wayn Bearbreaker answered Mirielda’s desperate pleas that Evan be taken to Master Emmalyn. The knight-captain lamed the fleetest horse in the platoon, breakneck galloping back to the encampment with Alfread’s half-conscious father. Mirielda followed as fast as she could and shouted for her master to use her magic to save her beloved, citing an incident over hundred years before where Cianna Torrent had cleansed Isihlan Eclipse from the dragon warrior Syraxyz.
The cognitive-affectomancer denied that her skills with Leverith and Dalis would be able to save Evan. Emmalyn claimed that she lacked the prowess of Cianna Torrent who had attempted the impossible when the dragon warrior Syraxyz had been infected with Isihlan Eclipse nor was Evan as robust as the superhuman Syra had been.
Alfread’s mother refused that ending. Mirielda shared the dream she had last night that Evan had given her child. Mirielda called to the sky and to her master, begging, willing to trade anything in the world for her life’s mate’s life.
Alfread studied the serene blue waters, knowing that his father’s life had been saved by a miracle. His life would have been steered along a different road as the fatherless bastard of a highborn woman had Emmalyn not used the first panacea mixed in over a century on his father.
Alfread’s first thought was one that brought him enough shame to make him tremble from the poisonous bite of self-hatred. Had his father died, he might never have experienced the pain he felt now. He shook it off, admonishing himself. Had his father died, he would have experienced far more pain. His eyes drew to Zander who knew that pain well. Seeing an enemy, Alfread drew an arrow and set it to his bowstring.
*************
Zander refused to break eye contact with his companion. Alas, he was stricken by his gaze into stupefied silence, as if Sir Edward had asked him a question after he daydreamed himself away from the lesson.
Alfread’s eyes shifted past Zander and the moment was gone. Zander tried to recapture it. He reached for that thread, hoping that he could pull Alfread back to him before he left him forever.
“Alfread…”
The rest of Zander’s words were frozen in time. Alfread, with alarming alacrity, nocked an arrow and drew his bow on Zander.
Zander flinched, lifting his armored forearm over his eyes as he heard the arrow release with a twang. It whistled past him, splashing into the Cardian.
Zander unsheathed his blade, his confused heart breaking even further. “Alfread?”
Alfread’s fingers slipped on the end of his quiver, unable to draw another arrow. “B-b-behind you!”
Zander turned and saw the beast streaking toward them.
*************
Alfread froze at the murder in his friend’s eyes and the deadly grip on his sword. His fingers fumbled on his quiver. He had better luck getting stuttered words out of his mouth. “B-b-behind you!”
The beast emerged from its hiding spot across the stream, nestled in a bed of shoulder-high green flowers. The monstrosity was armored with scales of a sickly green color, marking it as a male of its species. Those scales were covered in boil-like bumps as if it were the three-hundred-pound, six-foot-tall, bipedal edition of a toad. Its arms were disproportionately large, hanging down to its ankles, causing the monster’s back to curve forward.
The forest troll trounced through the stream passing where the arrow had fallen short of its target. He unleashed a thunderous croak as he charged forth. Alfread reached for another arrow. His heartache slowed his reaction as he dwelt on yet another miss.
The arrow never needed to be nocked. Paladin crashed into the stream, hooves splashing the shallow waters, bastard sword readied in Zander’s hand. The troll broke character and turned to flee, seeking the high flowers on the Sapphire side. The monster ran on all fours, but it couldn’t escape Paladin’s great strides and Zander’s long blade. Its ugly, round, three-eyed head hit the shore disconnected from its neck, crushing a white carnation as it rolled back into the Cardian.
The beast’s body dropped lifelessly into the stream.
“What in Yadeen’s name is this monster?” Zander asked.
Alfread halted his horse. Searching as both hunter and prey, he spoke the words to the vast fields in Sapphire territory. “Forest Troll.”
Zander wiped the sweat off his forehead and pushed his wild hair out of his eyes. “Celegan?”
Alfread nodded. He could’ve ventured into the explanations. How the troll had broken from character several times with its initial lurking and its intimidated flight. Instead, his eyes saw Zander’s sword in the air and the troll’s head became his own. Feeling more dejected than he could recall in years, he gazed at the corpse and contemplated whether he even wanted to extract lifesaving potioneering resources from it.
Zander glanced at Alfread, his deep sigh speaking volumes. “The real enemy. Good eyes, Alfread.”
Alfread dismounted with a groan. He wouldn’t allow his divinedamned self-pity to get other people killed. That he had even contemplated it, led him down a road of self-flagellation. For all his mother had trained him to have compassion for those who hurt, he hurt himself for lapsing in his values. For all his mother had trained him to return that same compassion to himself, he hurt himself double for violating those values. His yearning for a different reality, his questing for self-blame, his perseveration on all the missed shots, tainted him worse than the blood in the stream. The stream remained clean, neutralizing the troll toxin with whatever magical properties Mirrevar held. Alfread’s consciousness was infected and he couldn’t treat the wound. His toxic thoughts exacerbated the wound.
Knife on hand, he harvested the troll’s fat. Slime and fatty oils spurting all over him. He cut and cut as the silence stood between him and Zander like a wall.
Alfread set the intention to personally mix the troll fat into powerful draughts that would substantially improve recovery time from injury. He recalled a fairy tale where a squire had to mix troll blubber with goat’s milk to restore vitality to the hero as an army of Halamsul soulless moved on their kingdom. Alfread, trained with skepticism, had cross-referenced that with his mother’s potioneering texts and was surprised to learn that it was an actual recipe for a powerful draught of regeneration. Imagining himself in the potioneering tent brought the poisoned thought of spending time in the tent with Asa.
Alfread glanced down into the stream, his miserable reflection staring back at him. He drove his knife into the water, cutting through his image as if that would end this divinedamned heartbreak. Alas, like the thousands of stories he had read testified, you couldn’t mend something by breaking something else. His dreams remained shattered. He stared, eyes fixed on nothing, mind drifting away like a leaf on a stream, dissolving his consciousness.
“I am here for you, Alfread.”
Alfread permitted his old friend the sight of his despondency, not because he wanted him to fix it, but because he could no longer hide.
Zander—more attuned to matters of the heart than he would give himself credit for—seemed to read his thoughts. “Don’t hide from me. If I’ve harmed you, we can mend that together. If something else ails you, you need not suffer alone.”
Alfread couldn’t look at Zander without seeing nightmares of him with Asa. He needed to get away. From Zander. From Asa. From Mirrevar. From all of it. “It’s getting dark.”
Zander’s pained utterance was barely more than a whisper. “Do you hate me?”
“I hate that Asa would rather be with you than me.”
“She’s a fool!” Zander bellowed. “Leverith will send you someone who deserves you!”
Alfread closed his eyes, remembering with his flawless memory the thousands of dreams he had where he danced with a woman made of radiant light beneath the stars. Each time the dream ended the same, with a wall of fire separating them as she called his name. Alfread would try to call for her but nothing could escape his throat. The dream ended in darkness. Every divinedamned time.
Alfread studied Zander’s reddish auburn hair and beard. He didn’t doubt that Zander was what was between him and Asa, divined by Leverith. He had thought he would find a way around the wall once he arrived in this future. He foolishly believed that he could outsmart destiny and the Divine Thirteen.
He gazed up at Covademara, realizing how small he was. Instead of finding a way around the wall, he'd erected another one between him and his dearest friend. He tried to tear the wall down but couldn’t muster the strength.
Alfread set his horse into motion and the wall rode with them, silence their loudest companion.