Laura’s eyes fluttered open.
The creaking sound of carriage wheels echoed in her ears, her breathing drowning in the screeching sound that hurt her head. She covered her ears in haste, tears forming in her eyes as she searched for her mother’s embrace. It would offer her solace, and perhaps her smile would make these squeals disappear to faraway places she had never visited.
“A beautiful dawn, dear,” Aleena’s smile was infectious enough for her to jump into her embrace. The familiar rose scent tickled her nose, and she flared her nostrils in a sneeze. The blare in her ears had calmed down when she glanced at her mother’s fluttering eyebrows. Her lips were pulled to a thin line, rogue evident as she bent down to touch their foreheads.
“Now, now,” Aleena wiped Laura’s snot with her dangling sleeves and cupped her cheeks. “Did the sounds disappear yet?”
“Mmm,” Laura mumbled and buried her head in Aleena’s bosom. The glittering small pearls fastening her tunic rubbled against her cheeks, but Laura didn’t mind. She felt safe, her chubby face blooming into a smile without her control.
“Mother,” Laura’s hands found their foothold around her mother’s waist. “Woods still?”
Aleena pulled the brown curtains, the pleats separating under her pale hands, revealing a lush green forest. The sun's warm rays filtered through the foliage, chirping birds draping the carriage sound in a melodious ring. The drover was humming a tune to tag along, and Laura found it familiar to her mother’s lullaby, which had her scrunching her brows to get a closer look at the drover through the opaque curtains on the front.
“You can’t see through them,” Aleena laughed, nuzzling her nose against Laura’s face. “It’s indeed your brother. He met up with the drover last night and insisted on driving the rest of the way. Aren’t you excited to see him, love?”
Laura pouted and turned her face to the side.
“She’s awake, Byrak,” Aleena said loud enough for her brother and pulled her on her lap. The table before them was draped with hand-picked cherries, the steel plate shining in the glittering light.
Laura’s feet dangled under the wooden seats despite her best attempt at reaching the carriage's wooden flooring. She was a grown-up lady. This little trial couldn’t tell her otherwise. Her pout only increased when her efforts didn’t give her the reward she wanted.
Aleena stuffed a cheery into her mouth as she stifled a chuckle. “He didn’t abandon you for the past year, Laura. Your father needed help establishing our family in the capital, so he went before us. He awaited your letters, still determined to check on your progress, but you never wrote back. Are you still going to pull a long face?” Her tone grew serious toward the end.
Laura’s eyes glistened as she stared at her mother.
“I’m not scolding you, my baby,” Aleena kissed her forehead. “Just that you should make up with your brother. He traveled a lot just to meet us before we reached the capital.”
“I was a bad brother, Laura. I don’t deserve to be your brother anymore,” Bryak’s woeful voice frightened Laura. She wanted him to be her brother forever.
“I-I am not angry,” Laura said hastily, her little fingers clenched in her tiny palm. “I am happy. Brother is here.”
Laura heard a chuckle and realized she had fallen into his trap. With an aggrieved expression, she glanced at her mother, pulling her long sleeves.
“Byrak,” Aleena said sternly, hiding most of the amusement on her face. “Don’t tease my baby. Tell us how long till we reach the capital instead.”
“One hourglass at most, Mother. The gates are heavily guarded now that there is instability at the borders, so you wouldn’t have been able to enter without me. Father asked me to wait at the gates for your arrival, but I couldn’t wait to see my Laura.”
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His words inevitably bought a smile on Laura’s face, and she buried her face in her mother’s kirtle.
“Is your father well?” Aleena asked, and Laura glanced at her mother’s worried expression.
“As healthy as ever, mother. Perhaps too much for my taste.”
“Byrak!”
Laura flinched, but a reassuring pat made her feel relieved. Her unkempt brunette hair irritated her, and she repeatedly pushed it aside, trying to tuck it behind her ears.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Byrak sighed and continued with reinvigorated passion, “He overworks me! Let alone our fabric business; now that we are bound to be appointed nobles, I am forced to study for the officialdom examination. I don’t like them! I’d rather join the army and fight at the borders than waste my life licking boots and dodging invisible arrows.”
“You know what will happen to you, boy,” Aleena said with a frown, her eyes downcast. She caressed Laura’s hair, divided the large assemblage into two parts, and started twirling one over the other.
“But we don’t know until it happens, Mother!” Byrak said, his voice quivering despite his words. “Have you never been wrong before?”
The silence in the carriage spoke in magnitudes of her resolve.
Laura didn’t understand their exchange, but she knew her brother was not joining the army. She was secretly elated as the capital's gates safeguarded her brother’s life if he never went out. Walls were like her mother’s embrace, she thought. Safe and sturdy.
“Laura, my baby,” Aleena grabbed a leather band from her pochette and fastened the braid she had procured. “When you join the Academy this autumn, you must stay strong. Just remember that you will grow up like everyone else soon. Your mother was also like you. After 12 winters, I was no different from a five-year-old kid. But your grandmother’s death changed it, and mine will change yours. I have tried my best to avoid it and stay beside you forever. But it’s hard, love. I-”
An arrow whizzed past the curtains, a sharp arrowhead piercing Aleena’s body, and blood splashed on Laura’s face. There was no warning as outlaws poured in from all sides, swords screeching against the scabbards as they were drawn one after the other. Raucous laughter echoed around them, swords clinked, and blood sprayed to the carriage's walls.
Byrak shouted orders as Laura tried to find her voice to tell her brother about the blood. She was shaking her head profusely, her hand fumbling around the deep gash, trying to stop the bleeding to no avail.
“Laura-” Aleean coughed blood as she held Laura’s hands with her quivering hands. “My baby, be strong… Always heed the memories… fragments give… you… a picture…”
Laura tried to shout, but her voice hitched in her throat. She tried to call out her brother, her hands trying to open the curtains frantically, but she was pushed back inside by the guards. Orders were to protect them at all costs.
Laura screamed in agony as she felt piercing pain in her head. She hit her head on the table in the carriage, toppling the cherries into the blood that had stained the flooring now. She pulled her hair, trying to ease the pain in her head, but it didn’t help.
She saw countless images fluttering in her head, her wails beside her mother’s carcass in an unfamiliar room decked in strange portraits and ornaments. Her brother hugged her petite body in his embrace, his eyes tearful as he tried to console her. She saw unfamiliar people, children she had never met before. Their fanciful expression and laughter echoed in her head. She tried to get rid of the images and slammed her head against the carriage's walls.
Blood trickled out of her forehead and stained her white kirtle. When the voices disappeared, her head lit up with things she had never heard.
[Family Heirloom Unlocked: Splintering]
[Splintering: Fragments of the memory will be transferred to the past. The memories will be restricted to the ones that made a profound impact on the user. The transfer duration depends on the status of the Splintering, which refills over time. A percent status corresponds to three days in the past.]
[Splintering: Status 0%]
[Splintering: Potency 50%; Reduces by half for every additional person alive who knows the spell ]
[Ailments:
* Underdeveloped brain: Cured 0%
* Ruptured magic conduits: Cured 0%
* Despondency: Cured 0%
* Memory Loss: Cured 0%
* Villainess: Incurable]
[Mana In Conduits: None]
[Spells: None]
Laura couldn’t breathe. She tried to reach the curtains but grasped empty air instead. The throbbing sensation in her head only worsened, and even the fading weird letters didn’t help ease it. She collapsed on her mother’s body, tears trying to clean her bloodied face. Aleena’s inanimate body was the last thing she saw before she lost consciousness.