Edouard’s anger at his ancient relative was enormous. His parlay with the Ba-Hali had not been as difficult as we might have imagined. By approaching them with respect, he had found several willing to speak with him, and a few who even spoke passable common. He had found the representatives my book had spoken about. They were not all interested in warring with the Empire, and when they found out this soft-spoken young man who had come to them in the nude, had partaken of their raw foods, and did not look down on them was a representative of the King, they were happy and relieved. He spent another day with them, sketching out various ideas for cohabitation of land between the Empire and Ba-Hali, and was as honest with them as possible about King Everard’s feelings compared to his own. He did not lie and say he was in charge of policy, but assured them, as any good diplomat, that he would do his best to influence the King in the right direction.

He had left the Ba-Hali in a state of glee. He finally felt like our trip on the twenty eighth floor was bearing fruit, like we were doing something for a reason. We surmised that the objective of this signet time period was accomplished, thus saving me from my dungeon predicament. Which brought us to the question on everyone’s mind. How was Elisha still with us? I knew this was something he wanted to discuss with me in more detail, but it would not have been good manners to discuss in front of her if she was an automaton of the library’s making, or a person the same as us or something entirely different or in between. For my part, I did not see how it mattered. She was here and we’d treat her as we would anyone else. I shared Edouard’s puzzlement, but after what I’d been through and saved from by Elisha, I was hard pressed to think of her as anything but my hero.

“You must be tied to us now,” Edouard told her.

She had food in her mouth and finished chewing before she spoke, but her voice was firm.

“Not much to miss around here.”

I knew she meant it, but she was so young, and I wondered if a day would come when Elisha would regret leaving her own time behind. We had been gone long enough that I could have told her about the pain of time displacement and how much I missed my own time, in spite of the difficulties I too had experienced within it. But it was decided, not that there was much alternative. She was going to come with us. Our path was not difficult to determine. We had started at the beginning. It was time to travel South and East. We stayed on in the palace for a few more days, sticking to our own quarters out of a sense of decency while my body healed from its run in with Carbo’s fanatic loyalty to Everard.

I hobbled around the palace in those days, even venturing down to the dungeons to look for the machine I had been strapped to. The one which harnessed the power of storms, or so Carbo had claimed with his story about the Duke. But the machine was nowhere to be found. I told Edouard of the machine and Carbo’s story.

“You were in pretty rough shape,” he said.

“I did not dream this part. It was real.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.

“I believe you.”

He was going to be a very good King if he got the chance. Sincerity showed in his eyes and he struck a perfect note with his tone. But I had been with Edouard too long to be fooled. He was being kind, but he did not believe there was any such machine.

“It sounds like a fairytale you have to admit,” he said.

“So does a library with portals into the past all for the sake of teaching a Prince.”

“That’s fair,” he said, laughing.

Exploring the palace was a surreal experience, seeing food abandoned on plates as the eater had ceased to be. A pot in the kitchen was blackened from being left on the fire for who knew how long. There was a hat on the floor of the throne room, and I imagined a petitioner in front of King Everard, hat in his hands, asking for a favor from the King. The library room was much as I left it, and according to Elisha, the stables were clean as a whistle, nary an animal in sight. I allowed myself a small moment of silence for the horse I had ridden to the borderlands. I was never going to be a horseman, but it had been kind to me, I was sure of that.

Once I was healed enough to walk with the aid of a staff, we decided it was time to get moving. Elisha kept her oar as a staff and kept the flat paddle end up as we walked down the streets towards the gate. Its handle tapped on the stones as we went. It was gashed in the center where she had used it to block the sword blow which would have split her in half. Every once in a while, I saw her hand run over it, feeling the groove with her fingers and squeezing the oar tight. We were well provisioned for our trip, as we had run of the palace’s stores and clothing. It was still chilly, though the winter was drawing closer to its end. We wore layered cloaks rather than heavy ones so we could adjust as needed. Edouard had insisted on outfitting us with weapons, and rather than carry a sword again as I did into the borderlands, I had a small, one sided ax hanging on my belt loop. Carbo’s broadsword was strapped to Edouard’s back. Neither Elisha nor I asked him about the choice. For her part, Elisha would not hear of any weapon but her oar.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

“Served me well enough,” she said. “No sense in changing now.”

“You may not be so lucky next time,” Edouard said. “We don’t know what awaits us.”

She stared down the Prince from Quinze, unimpressed with his argument and waited for him to give up. She was a fearsome creature, Elisha, and once she made up her mind, that was that. Edouard shrugged and did not press the issue. Thus we left the city of Singhal. Without any sign or agreement, the three of us all stopped outside the gates and looked up at the city, the palace high on the hill, the zig zag of cobblestone streets, so silent without its vendors and citizens, shopkeepers, braying donkeys, horns, clattering cartwheels. It was strange. A place where Elisha had lived her entire life.

We set out Southeast as planned, Edouard leading. I was behind, with Elisha bringing up the rear. In short order, we would see the folly of this walking arrangement. We left early in the afternoon, with only the goal of getting out of sight of Singhal before setting up camp for the night and the following day was to be the true day of travel. It was a way of easing my body into movement. I stayed off the road whenever possible, as the cobblestones vibrated through my feet and made my bones ache. For the first time in my life, I did not see paved streets as an improvement and trudged along in the dirt in less pain. We left it a little too late to set up camp, and it was coming on dark as we looked for kindling and wood for a fire, and set about pulling out supplies, and laying out blankets for sitting. The dark kept us from noticing the change. We were busy getting ready for the night. Finally, we all sat around the fire and ate from our packs. It was strange, there being three of us rather than just myself and Edouard, but I thought I could get used to it. I looked at Elisha across the fire, her face was in shadow as she took a bite from her apple. Her head leaned forward as she wiped her face with her cloak, and that brief moment was when I saw it. I froze.

“Elisha. Step closer to the fire.”

She spat out a piece of the apple’s core.

“Huh?”

I was standing by this time, my eyes wide.

“Step closer.”

Annoyed, she obeyed. She stepped into the light and my heart sank. What I thought I’d seen was not a trick of the light. Edouard said nothing but the look on his face spoke volumes. Elisha’s hair was gray from root to tip. Deep lines scored the skin around her mouth and her forehead. Her ears drooped. Even her eyes were dimmed, the early stages of aged film across them. I could not speak. Could not find the words. Edouard stood and pulled a log from the fire, holding it as a torch. He passed it to Elisha.

“There’s a stream,” he said. “Pointing into the woods. That way. Walk for a few minutes until you hear it. Go look at your reflection and come back.”

She nodded and picked up her oar in her free hand. I watched her back as she went, and saw it was stooped.

“The timeline,” I whispered.

He nodded.

“She’s not outside of it. Not like we are.”

“What do we do?”

There was really only one answer to that question, but neither of us spoke it aloud at the moment. We stood, staring into the fire, arms crossed over our chests. Edouard turned away and looked into the woods in the direction she had gone. I thought I saw a tear at the corner of his eye. She did not come back screaming or running or in a panic. She stumped back with her oar at the same pace she left. She stood in front of us and cleared her throat.

“Well, I suppose this is the end of my grand adventure with you.”

“We can take you back to the palace,” Edouard said.

“There’s nothing I want there. I’m…I’m going to stay.”

“Here?”

She nodded.

“There’s a stream and small game. I’ll manage.”

“You’re just,” I said, incredulous. “Going to stay here?”

“That’s what I said, Ori.”

“But–”

Edouard held up a hand. He knelt beside his pack and began pulling items out. A small knife, a flint, an extra blanket. He parceled out her share of our food supply and some extra and rolled the entire haul in the blanket as a bundle.

“Take care of the knife,” he said.

“Stone from the deepest part of the stream. I won’t dull it,” she said, taking the bundle.

They were both acting so natural about the situation and I couldn’t stand it. She was going to die out here. She was a seventeen year old girl in the body of an old woman stuck in the forest on her own. The calm from the two of them was maddening. The rest of the night, the two of them spoke, leaving little space for me to get a word in, sensing my disapproval. They spoke of effective trap settings for small game, which small trees to strip of bark for braided rope, and what to do if Ba-Hali showed up.

In the morning, she was gone. It happened so fast. I woke up and Edouard had already packed up his things and broken down camp. He stood against a tree, one foot back, whittling a stick down to a nib. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and pity.

“She’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?”

He did not answer, but kept whittling. Happy with his work, he held up the nib to the light and tossed it into the trees. He put his knife up and sighed.

“I just do, Origio.”

“Leaving her here is wrong.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But it’s what we’re going to do.”

There was command in his voice, and I resented it.