He left Mr. Herst’s cabin about an hour later, having sensed that the old man was in no mood for company. The incident earlier at the cathedral had clearly affected him and Alistar could tell that he currently desired nothing but solitude.
Now that it was midafternoon, the temperature had risen by a slight degree and the day had gained a bit of brightness, but it was still quite chilly. Alistar had deliberately left his coat behind, and instead relied on his swordsman’s aura to keep certain parts of his body warm. He was still years away from being able to cover his entire body, which would be even more difficult to maintain while he was moving. Still, covering his hands, his head or thighs and whatnot was very beneficial in helping him to build up a subconscious mastery in manipulating his aura.
He stopped by at Zech’s family’s tavern as well as at the old, dilapidated orphanage where most of his friends lived, but none of them were around. Anice and Lessa were still at home, so he decided to head over to the small, back-alley house where the triplets lived with their parents on a small road that branched off of South Street. Nobody answered the door, which told him that the three girls were either off hanging out with the others or that they were somewhere in town with their parents.
Maybe they’re helping out at the store? Their parents ran a little flower shop near the area of South Street that was closest to the city walls. It was on the way to the Greyline anyway, so he figured that it wouldn’t hurt to stop by.
As fitting for a Sunday, the shop was closed. Since this was the case, he hurried out of Mayhaven’s southern gates and sprinted the rest of the way over to the usual spot. By the time he’d left Big Hill—which was smaller than the Hanging Hill—at his back and arrived at the little copse of trees that housed their hidden camp, his boots and much of his pant legs were soiled with muddy blotches.
His friends were all gathered around a sizeable fire, Zech, Jaden and Woods all roasting spitted fish as they talked to the others from across the dancing flames.
“Look who thought to show up!” said Zech, who pointed at the fishing bucket. It was only a few paces away from the fire, along with some extra sticks that had been laid out beside it. “Come here and help us roast some fish for the girls.”
Helen was the only one that ever roasted her own fish, since the other girls shared a similar disgust for the process of spitting and cooking them, which Alistar found odd since they had no problem eating the finished product.
“How are you all?”
“Cold,” said Lily, who was tightly sandwiched between her two sisters. They were sitting on one of three sizeable logs that had been laid out horizontally in a triangle around the fire pit. “Isn’t it supposed to be warm this time of year? All of the little flowers are going to wilt.”
Rosa frowned. “I hope not. Then we’ll have to wait even longer to restock the store.”
“Where’s Anice?” asked Zech. “It’s not like her to miss out on an opportunity to leave the house.”
“Lessa’s over, but they might come later on.”
Jaden snapped his fingers at Alistar. “Why’re you spacing out? Take a seat already.”
He walked over to an open spot along the log that Helen and Emily were sitting on, and sat next to the latter. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
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“Woods! Stop looking at Ms. Parsnip like that.”
Sitting atop Emely’s lap was the little white rabbit that the girl had found in the central gardens of Caedmon’s estate, the critter having been named after its favourite food. Interestingly enough, the rabbit had never attempted to run away from her in any way, which made Alistar wonder about the things she had said on his Name Day.
“I’m tired of eating fish,” sighed the portly boy, who had become a bit fatter in recent years. “Don’t you remember the rabbit that Mother May brought home when we were little? It was amazing.”
Zech reached into the bucket and tossed one of the recently suffocated fish across the fire, its slippery scales colliding with the other boy’s face with a loud slapping sound. “Stop being an ass, Woods.”
“Why are you wasting our food?”
“Alistar,” said Zech, rotating his roasting stick. “About what was bothering you. You’re not thinking of Kaila, are you?”
“When am I not?” Alistar leaned over in his seat and added another log to the fire. “Though that’s not what I was talking about. It seems that my uncles will be coming for a visit in the summertime, along with some of my cousins.”
Everyone grew quiet, the air taking on a noticeable rise in tension. The one who broke the eventual silence was Corrie, though not in response to Alistar’s words but rather because he had noticed the journal in his hands.
“Alistar. Is that the one from last time?” Getting up from the tree stump that he had been sitting on just beyond the triangle of logs, Corrie approached him from the outside perimeter of the group. Pulling a smaller book from an inner pocket of his rough winter coat, the dark-haired boy held it out and exchanged it with the new one. “Thank you. Hurry up and read that one so we can trade opinions on it.” With that, he returned to his seat and began reading the journal without paying the others the slightest bit of attention, at least until Jaden snapped at him.
“How can you have no reaction? He said the other Silverkins are coming. Those Silverkins! This is horrible.”
“Poor Anne,” sighed Violet, saying nothing more as she fiddled with her straight, hand-length hair in an anxious manner.
Everyone else began to curse and lament, as if they were sickly villagers being told that an enemy army would soon be upon them.
“Is it really that bad?” asked Alistar. He already had it in his mind that he would never get along with his extended family, but for even his friends to show such uneasy reactions…just how unpleasant were the other Silverkins?
“Are you kidding?” said Woods, who seemed genuinely surprised to hear that Alistar was so ignorant of his own relatives. “The last time they came over, two of your cousins followed Anne here and then used her for target practice to show off their water magics.”
“And they threatened us,” growled Jaden, his face red with anger at the recollections. “Said they’d have our parents jailed if we did anything, so we all had to watch. Then they just healed her and told her not to tell her father, else they’d do worse. Your cousins are shit, Alistar.”
“Anne never told you?” said Emely from behind a veil of brown curls. “That was just a few months before we met you.”
“She told me that they liked to bully her, but I didn’t think that it was so bad.”
Zech pulled his fish away from the fire and gave him a stern look. “Listen here, Alistar. You’ve got to make sure that they don’t hurt her again. We can’t do anything because of their backgrounds, since they’re people we’d normally never meet in our lifetimes. We’re just commoners that were unlucky enough to have crossed paths with them through Anne.”
“He’s right,” said Helen, a shiver running through her lean frame. “As much as we hate it, not only are we commoners but most of us are orphans. Even if they wanted to kill us, I’m afraid that for our loved ones’ sakes we would just have to let them do it.”
“Exactly,” said Lily. “But it’s different for you. You’re also a Silverkin.”
“As far as my uncles are allowed to know, I’m just a bastard from some distant branch of the family. I’m not sure I can get away with offending them either.” Now that he knew how nasty his cousins truly were, he was worried that confronting them could possibly cause problems for Caedmon. Even so, there was nothing that he hated more in this world than people who abused their power, individuals that used their advantageous positions in society to inflict pain and suffering on those that happened to be less fortunate than them. “Don’t worry. I won’t just stand by if they try to cause problems for her. Even if I’m just a bastard in their eyes, the fact that I’m a Silverkin should still count for something.”