Her mother stood over a cauldron more ancient than the dirt in which their home was
burrowed. Her deep black hair, stranded with silver marks of age and dignity, frazzled over its
bubbling steam.
"Goodmorrow, Mother," Ash whispered.
"Morrow, Ashtik," her mother replied. The two never so much as offered the other a glance as
Ash took her habitual seat at the little stone-based table.
"So," Tilak chirped as he rubbled down into the seat beside his daughter. "What trouble were
you two up to last night?" He reached from his seat over to a stack of carved wooden bowls,
placing one before himself and one before her.
"I'm sure the Elder will let you know soon enough," Ash grunted. She couldn't help but splay her
hidden hand out beneath the table.
"The Elder?" her mother shrieked. "You disturbed the Elder so late at night? Ashtik, you're
nineteen; you cannot act the child for the rest of your life!"
"I didn't have a choice!" Ash protested, though she struggled to keep her tone mild.
"I am sure you didn't," her mother scoffed. "Gods willing, I hope you didn't drag your sister into
whatever mess you've made this time."
The older woman dragged the great beat iron cauldron atop the stone table, letting it rest within
a rounded divot at the tables centre. With a furious heat, she smashed her ladle within and
portioned out a violent splash each for daughter and husband, and then for herself as Tilak set
her a bowl. Her frazzled mass of hair near whipped Ash's eye out as the older woman spun on a
heel to fetch some final seasoning sack.
"Enough, Miel," Tilak pled. "Ash can visit with the Elder and apologise later. For now, let's just
eat."
"Apologise?" Ash choked, lest she shout. She rose from her seat with a scorching huff and was
near past the doorway within a blink.
"Sit down!" Miel demanded.
"You want me to apologise! For what? You don't even know what happened, yet you
assume some great sin!"
"Then tell us," Tilak calmly pled.
She tore the glove from her hand with a righteous flair. She had expected a gasp, a panic, a
frenzy. She got nothing.
"Talk to me, Snowy," Tilak said, rising from his seat and taking her outstretched hand within his
own.
She looked between his fingers and saw nought but tan flesh and a broken nail. No mark
tunnelled within; no corruption plagued her veins. The soul wrenching abyss that might have
inspired her to cut away at her own flesh and bone was left to memory and imagination. She stood
there, red faced and furious with her invisible blight shining invisibly bright, and she must have
seemed half mad.
"What happened?" Tilak quietly pled. She could feel his grip tighten around her quivering hand
as he asked.
"I-" she stammered. "I- don't know." Ash pulled her hand back and brought herself to the
threshold of the room. It was all she could do. If she looked at her father in that moment, she was
bound to cry, or scream, or allow all too many thoughts overtake her and swallow her whole
within their dread.
With a single breath, and a terribly unsettled glance to her father, she abandoned that place and
saw herself beneath the daylight and dawn.
The home was a hole. Dirt roofed them, grass insulated them, and a grand oak seal marked
the only human construction visible of it from outside. She rolled it shut and slid the heavy iron
bolt back as she strolled along the beaten path.
Her mother had kept a garden of wildflowers some years ago, but as her father's health declined,
so did her time to tend to them. Now, the flowers were no garden but a vast field of red and pink
and violet and green. Lilacs lined the trees while foxglove and heathers marked a single well
travelled route forth.
The hour was still early, yet the first rings of village life sang their chorus. The clang of an anvil
woke the roosters, and the clash of training swords and huff of exercise told that Ash was nearing
the village walls. As she surmounted the hillock beneath which her family lived, the village walls
came into view.
Great steaks of ironwood, sharpened at the top with iron barbs protruding along its
lengths. The walls had stood unchanged – and unchallenged – since long before Ash was born.
Maybe even since before the Elder had been.
"Sai-Weleg?" Sir Carolet, the lone guardsman called from atop the walls.
"Morrow, Caro," Ash replied with a beaming grin. In a blink, she dashed from a pleasant walk to
a full sprint towards the towering pillars. As she came a step away from them, she bound as high
as her legs could take her, clambering up in near defiance of gravity.
She came just short of reaching the top, but the guardsman was ready with his halberd to drag
her up. She gripped the ironwood shaft and pulled herself over with a quiet effort.
"Strange apparel today, Sai-Weleg," he huffed as he helped her over.
"I woke up too sore for armour," she chuckled as she stretched out her shoulder.
"But not too sore to climb a three-metre steak?"
He straightened out over her; his long grey beard failed to obscure his pouring smirk, nor the
crumbs of breakfast within, which she imagined he was saving for later.
His brigandine armour rattled beneath a heavy fur cloak – which must have been much too warm
even this deep into autumn. He had told her once, how the most beautiful maid he had ever laid
eyes upon had made a gift of the cloak during his youthful years as a travelling knight.
It was clear that he had cared for and maintained the cloak fervently since then, but the long
years hadn't been kind, and no matter how many stitches and patches the cloak had been given,
it wasn't long for this world.
It looked closer to a pile of rags than the noble pelt it must have been once, though he wore it
with the same pride as his younger self, in its freshest form.
"It's strange. The... Pain, it disappeared in an instant. It seems almost a dream now," Ash quietly
admitted.
"Ah, but if only all pain were so kind and courteous," he chuckled. "I trust in its absence, you are
well enough for another lesson today?"
"I wish," Ash sighed, "I think the Elder and I will be busy. Next time?"
"Fine," the old warrior said with a bow. "But it will be short sword and shield, not spears."
Ash couldn't help but grunt at that. She ran a finger over her arm, where a faint scar settled where
his dulled blade had managed to cut her last time.
"I'm so much better with a spear, though!"
"And so, you must learn with a blade," he said with little pity.
"Why? I can't be great at everything. Surely I can just focus on what I'm good at?"
A heavy leather hand came to rest upon her shoulder. He smiled and said, "You run well, does
that mean you never needed to walk? The blade will teach you good fundamentals, and it will
help you understand your foe, and the decisions he makes in battle."
"I'm a huntress, old man," Ash scoffed. "My foes are boar and deer. All I need to understand is
how to bait them and how to skin them."
"You have no ambition at all - beyond a mild hunt? Do you not wish to join your brother?"
"Join him? Where? Some mass grave or blood pit in Tevra? Should I die fighting so some
nobleman can expand his realm by eight acres? I'm a huntress, Caro, I enjoy being a huntress."
She threw a hand out to the vast treeline beyond their little village. She waved over the canopy
which might have reached beyond the horizon, had the great mountains not separated stars from
gravel.
"Ambition is for young corpses," she declared. "He can go and die in somebody else's wars; I'll
live happily among the animals."
"A waste," he sighed, "but one of your own choosing."
His shifted his leather clad hand from her shoulder and scruffed it along the snow-white of her
hair, pushing her playfully along the wall.
They strolled along the alure for a while with little in the way of conversation. They made
for the centre of the village, where the hearthhome lay. It was not the shortest path, but Ash
enjoyed walking it with Carolet. He reminded her of how Tilak had been some years ago, calm
and confident; capable and kind. She had spent too much of her life alone amongst the trees to
make easy conversations, and most of the villagers tended to think lesser of her for it, but Caro
never seemed to mind. He seemed to enjoy her quiet company as much as she did, and she was
always glad to try and follow his conversation when he offered it.
She split from the parapet as a tradeswoman offered Carolet her greetings. The older woman
dragged the guardsman into her habitual morning's conversation, and Ash gracelessly dodged
away from her without so much as a farewell to Carolet.
The first stirrings of the day came. Goodwives spread seed for the communal chickens while their husbands made attempts at petty maintenance around the homes. The smith's sons gathered
sacks of peat while the miller's daughter made eyes at the eldest of the bunch. Vamet, the curio
trader from Oaran had set up his stall the day prior and would remain for the fortnight.
Evara always loved the strange man's visits, simply because he tended to bring along
some silly little scroll for her to trade for. The last time he came, Ash had traded an entire bear
pelt for the "Pontifications on the beastsmen of Telek Aob." The scroll unfolded came to be
twice her height, though it spoke only of strange men on the opposite side of the continent.
She made her way to Vamet and poked over his storefront while he unboxed some strange,
assorted spices.
"Glad to see another morrow, Ashtik Set-Veleg," the little man said.
He bounced to the wooden stall he had built in the middle of the town square. The overwhelming
fragrance of whatever perfume he had bathed himself in managed to drown out the array of
spices and goods that lay between them. His strange yellow and red tunic sagged over his
undersized body, giving him the look of a much fatter man. His short, stubby nose and
disproportionately thick neck made him seem closer to a poorly bred nobleman's dog than a
world-wizened trader.
"It's Sai-Weleg, Ser Vamet. Set-Weleg means a 'tree that hunts,'" Ash mindlessly corrected as she
perused his wares with an unfocused interest. "But I thank you for remembering me."
"I could never forget thee, Ashtik. The vhite' haired seventeen-year-old who shouted a greatbear
into submission and yet could say no more to me than simply, 'hello'!" He said with a joking
curtsey. "Might I ask then, vhat' is it that Sai-Veleg means in thine tongue?"
"Sai means daughter, Weleg means hunt," she simply replied.
"So, thou art named as thine sister is, that being for thine hunter father?"
"I- No. My sister doesn't have a name yet; she's just Evara. But I'm not named for my father, I
received my name after I completed my huntress rites. Every vocation has their own rites; Ev just
hasn't found one that fits her yet," Ash explained, though her focus lay more so within a strange
crystal ball resting within an ox skull.
"Fascinating, so vhat' vould' I - as a travelling merchant of mythical goods - be named?" He
politely asked, though he slapped away her hand as she rolled the crystal ball across the stall
table.
"Either Joi-Cohge for a merchant or Jai-Tave for traveller," she answered.
"Then I greet thee as Vamet of Behmet, Jai-Cohge, traveller of the Temperate expanse, curio
master and personal antiquarian to thy great Ashtik Vhitehair', Sai-Veleg and sister to Evara the
learned."
She humoured his performance with a slight bow, though was glad to hear his voice quieten as he
continued.
"So... Are you here to pre-hold something for young Evara?" He said, no longer the performer
but entirely the salesman.
"It depends on what you have?" Ash cooly said.
"A great deal, indeed," he seemed to consider, scratching the whisps of his failed beard. "Though for a mind so refined as your fair sister... Hmm, I offer you this."
He bristled at his non-existent moustache before diving below his stall and routing around for a
while too long.
"Just anything written will do," Ash finally said after a while too long of waiting.
"'Just anything' may vell' suit some common rabble, but for the refined and elegant young
Evara, only the best vill' do!"
A muffled "Huzzah!" rang through the stall as the little man bounced to his feet. The jolting effort
dislodged his garish blue hairpiece and left his bald pride exposed. He noticed quickly, but
didn't seem even a touch abashed, instead laughing and throwing the false hair aside.
From beneath the table, he produced a tome, small and leather bound with a strange device
attached to the side.
"A... Tome?" Ash questioned. He didn't let her touch it but presented it before her. "What is it
about?"
"Nothing, dear! And everything!" Vamet peeled open the heavy cover and exposed the pure
white parchment within.
"It's empty?" Ash realised.
"It is called a journal! I assure you; this is all the rage vith' teenagers in Xio Vien."
"What's the point in an empty tome?"
"To mark upon history! To write a tale of fiery romance, or the acts of a young life. Mayhaps even
a guide on thine huntress arts?" He suggested, and it sealed the deal.
Ash knew she had to get the book for her sister but made a performance of hesitance lest she be
overcharged for her enthusiasm.
"I guess I can take it," Ash calmly said while toying with a folding knife lying on the table.
"Ah, a vise' and brilliant mind makes a vise' and brilliant decision," Vamet flattered.
"What do you want for it?"
"A... Small boon, is all."
"I don't think I have any boons; I've got skins, pelts and meats though."
"No, fair one," he sighed with an endeared smile. "A favour."
"Name it," Ash demanded, feigning impatience.
"You see, vhile' I was enroute here, a group of... scoundrels, accosted me. I was forced to
leave a measure of my stock vithin' the voods'. I vould' ask that you recover it and in exchange I
vill' give you the journal and anything you vish' from vhat' you recover."
She didn't entertain the thought for long before flatly saying, "No."
"No?" Vamet gasped.
"The Elder can tell the baron if there are bandits in the woods, but I won't go off and fight them.
I'm sorry," she firmly, but not unkindly said.
"I understand," Vamet bowed, "But this is an expensive curio from across the seas. I cannot part
with it for pelts and meat. I may have other items for young Evara in my case. Return later and I
will see."
"I will, thank you Vamet Jai-Cohge," Ash bowed.
"Be safe, Ashtik Sai-Veleg. I shall not hold you from your clear appointment any longer."
"My what?" Ash asked, but her answer was found in the following of his gaze, which rested well
upon the pacing Elder.
"Sai-Weleg!" The Elder shouted from across the town square. The cry clearly sapped what little
stamina his age had allowed him, so Ash crossed towards him before he could take another step.
"Elder," Ash bowed. He looked tired in the daylight, as though he hadn't slept a wink since they
last met. It seemed the night had added a couple dozen wrinkles to his avaricious collection. "I
was just coming to find you."
The Elder wasted no time and grabbed her hand for inspection. "The mark?" The Elder
mumbled. He ran a finger across her palm, his paper-thin skin tracing a line along the missing
corruption.
"It was there when I awoke and gone not an hour later," she explained, though he didn't listen.
His eyes darted to hers before he beckoned to her shoulder.
"May I?"
She nodded and slid the cotton shirt down her shoulder, just high enough that it wasn't indecent.
The Elder pressed his palm against her shoulder. It made her wince in pain, though it was her
hand that flinched, not her shoulder.
"I can feel the shard now," he said. "It is embedded deep within your chest. It is a wonder you
are alive. Its proximity to your heart and lungs is worrying, but if it has caused no issues yet, I see
no reason it should start any time soon."
"But what happened to the mark?" Ash asked as she pulled her shirt back up.
"I do not know. What happened when it disappeared?"
"Nothing... I didn't even notice."
"What were you doing at the time?"
"I was... Arguing with my parents," she admitted with a hint of embarrassment.
"You were angered?"
"I... Yes."
"Mayhaps the mark reacts poorly to anger?" he suggested. "Champions are paragons of traits;
their marks often rebel against the champion if they oppose those traits."
"So I'm the Champion of mild temperament?" Ash sneered. "The gods do have a sense of
humour."
"The gods would not have chosen you for your temperament," he said in a drawl.
He couldn't help but fall silent for a while, though it was far from a quiet silence. His every breath
screamed with bright ideas and abyssal fears. He blinked more loudly than birds chirped, and
his heart beat louder than the steel clang of the smithy.
Then his eyes darted high, and a smile found his cracked old lips.
"I hold no answers, but I believe it may be time to ask the right questions," he said, his eyes fixed
well above her. She turned to see what offered him such comfort but found only a smoky black
sparrow circling in the skies above. "Follow the sparrow, Ash," he said, his tone having grown
more dire in the instant since she turned her back to him.