13.6

Adelyne walked through Rochford beside the rest of the noble family of her lady.

And she marveled at the numerous ways she could feel to draw and divert attention. It was like dancing through a city of sheets hanging to dry. It was like sneaking through a building so abandoned that the spiderwebs somehow filled it.

It was like slipping through a crowd made of ghosts untouched.

It was all of those things and yet it was also walking just straight backed enough. Staying just to the right of her lady’s hip.

Not far enough behind the flick of the tail would draw sight to her.

No, the place where she barely felt a single glance towards her was just close enough and just a few steps away to the dragon’s side that she apparently simply wasn't quite notable.

Attention brushed her but not deeply, not sharply.

There was also of course the dress, she was wearing the garments of the staff of Valasect. She was carrying a bundle of incredibly floral and rich smelling sticks and weeds and some other stuff. She had a reason to be standing there and as long as she stepped with a grace of ceremony to match her lady she was practically nonexistent.

Rochford’s way to celebrate winter seemed rather dour to Adelyne. Besides the children running around dressed as beasts. Wearing heavy furs that bent over their backs either under weight or pantomime of monstrous gaits. Crowned with elk horns or bones or the tusks of a boar.

Besides that one bit of frivolity?

Nothing!

They didn't even sing with any real merriment. They sang a dirge at certain houses, and when Adelyne listened to them it was more laments for fallen relatives at each house than any kind of celebration.

These country folk were so depressing.

If it wasn't for the naked old man playing a fiddle at the bonfire in front of the temple all night Adelyne would hardly be able to call it any kind of celebration at all!

She’d stayed clear of the crazy man last time her lady attended. They said he was god-worn for this day and night and she was inclined to believe it. Madness that was! What kind of place invited a god down to wear one of their own?!

And it did not always end well for the elder either.

A star spirit riding you all night to play a fiddle and dance through the coldest and longest night of the year?

Adelyne was surprised it took so many years in the role for them to die.

But at least the weather was nicer in Rochford.

So maybe there was something to it all?

The winters were warmer here in this valley than in Kaeketeh. She thought she’d imagined it the first time but after returning home for a proper Kaeketeh winter she was sure of it.

Rochford and its valley in the middle-east of the Ridgetails had a warmer time of it than her city.

They might only celebrate the one longest night (and barely could be said to celebrate at that).

But perhaps all the gods bothering and chanting and singing in the temple had something to it?

She was no priest, but the morning after had felt brighter last time.

Maybe the man who was forced to dance and fiddle at the whim of the spirit wearing him like a heavy coat helped somehow?

Adelyne stuck to her wizard granted gift, slipping beneath notice by standing tall and proper.

Going where she needed to be.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

The thought of how badly she must have stood out last time she attended gave her gooseflesh up and down her spine.

Only no-

Someone was noticing her, something was taking her in not just by sight and sound or even scent.

She felt attention inside her guts, she felt a touch of knowing contact through her bones.

There was a presence brushing the inside of her skull so bad it itched!

She could feel how bad it would be if she reacted, how much of the entire town would turn to her if she so much as flinched at the contact.

But something was looking at Adelyne.

And as the noble family of Rochford and her Lady greeted ‘The Veles’ as they had before Adelyne realized who it was.

What it was.

The guise of a simple man turned to her after having spoken to the baron and his wife, after exchanging barely three words with the Countess of Viznove and her husband.

He stared at her with a smile of aching familiarity and tilted his head in a way she had missed.

A way she thought she would always miss now.

She stepped forward and the film of eyes running over her skin made her want to shiver but it was nothing against the way the thing saw her body from within and without.

Adelyne avoided the temples in Kaeketeh, they gave little to beggars and less to thieves.

Too much silver needed spending on the work of god bothering maybe.

Children without proper parents didn't get the attention of gods, she thought.

Only explanation for anything.

But Adelyne could feel the gaze of the thing behind the man’s eyes now. The way it saw her like a tongue through the muscle and sinew.

And it was moving like he did.

Like her old grandfather Ginter.

Smiling just the same way, nodding in just the way he used to when he was waiting for her to fess up to something foolish after he’d gotten her out of a bind. She was standing before him, eyes going wet. Tears running tracks down her cheeks with what she’d swear was just snow melt.

And she was trying to speak but too many words lodged in her throat.

Too much she never got to say to the man that had raised her, taught her how to live on the street. Who had barely anything to call his own some nights but split half a roll of bread with a starving worthless child anyway.

She couldn't ask a blessed damn thing like everyone was supposed to.

But for some reason the attention of the village’s eyes on her were all brief, slipping away as if she was somehow stripped naked before them.

Like they were ashamed to intrude on what was happening.

There was a keening noise in her throat, a wheezing thing that hardly could relieve the building pressure in her throat and chest.

But at last a strange kindly old voice, that was not at all Ginter’s but yet somehow echoed of him anyway.

“Adelyne, Little Addy, Foolish idiot of a girl. You haven’t learned yet how to think before instead of after. Getting stuck into business over your head. But look at you swimming against the current anyway. Old Ginter is proud of you girl. Don’t have a doubt about that. He’s proud.”

They were simple words, things she’d already heard before.

Things she had suspected.

But it left her shuddering and gasping for breath to hear a stranger’s voice somehow say them exactly how he would have.

She couldn't focus on slipping beneath notice. A gentle touch took the sacred offering of Viznove from her hands before she could drop it.

A gentle but strong hand was at her back and holding her shoulder.

But a void of inattention, of actively avoiding looking at her in this moment surrounded her. No one looked but they acknowledged her presence.

It felt lighter and softer than sight.

She stumbled and struggled to keep her feet. Her chest felt like someone had pried open her ribcage. She couldn't breathe steadily. Her throat burned with the tears pouring out of her eyes. She couldn't even see as they entered the temple.

But somehow in that moment she found her voice when the strange foreign words of the song filled the space.

As she sang and she cried for the loss of her grandfather Adelyne could feel a light inside her pushing against the dark. A fiery warmth of heat that had been absent last time she attended this strange country folk ceremony.

She felt the weight of the hungry winter sky pressing down on her, but she pushed back against it with her voice.

Not alone, but bolstered by everyone in that temple.

Buffeted and sheltered beneath the wings of her lady.

The Shining Wyrm of Viznove.