“It would appear so.”
Wil took the mug from her hand and slid it across the counter to one of the servers. A moment later it found itself back in Oleja’s grip, refilled.
“You’re supposed to feel like that, don’t worry,” said Wil. Oleja looked around the tent. The edges of her vision faded to dizziness, as if everyone dancing shook the floor so tremendously that it moved beneath her.
Memories of stumbling through the desert slithered unbidden into her mind. The confusion, the dizziness—no hallucinations haunted her eyes yet, at least none that she identified as such, but she never wanted to return to that state of panic and fear in her life. She saw too much that she still fought to purge from the deep parts of her mind.
But as the minutes ticked by, a sense of ease came over her. Her thoughts slowed from their racing pace, and the worries and fears that always clouded the back of her mind felt far away somehow. She released the tension from her shoulders—tension that had been there for longer than she could recount.
“Oleja?”
Her thoughts refocused on her friends before her. Brashen looked at her, turned around on his stool between Wil and Cyrah.
“Hm?”
“You’ve been standing there without moving for several minutes. Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yes—yes I’m fine. Good.”
“Here, do you want my seat?” he asked, sliding out of it. “Not because—I don’t mean it as in, like…” He cut himself off, snapping his mouth shut.
“You’re a bit unsteady,” said Wil.
“Am not,” said Oleja, but she giggled and took the seat anyway. Brashen leaned in between her and Wil, resting his tattooed forearms on their shoulders.
“But anyway,” said Wil, turning to Brashen, “give me one good reason not to.”
“I don’t know—I might not be good enough?” said Brashen with a shrug.
“Good enough at what?” asked Oleja. She took a sip from her refilled drink.
“Brashen was talking about selling his pies and jams and the stuff he makes from his berries,” said Cyrah. “Setting up his own little business, maybe.”
“It was just an idea, I probably can’t actually do that,” said Brashen shaking his head. “Besides, I like my job already. Hunting and trapping is exciting, I get to see the other valleys nearby—way more exciting than sitting inside baking pies all day. Plus, what do I do with a bakery when the city is at war? I can’t keep volunteering as a field medic if I have berry duties here in the city.”
“You hire other people to help you when you’re wildly successful,” said Wil. “Which you will be. You’re amazing at it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Hey,” said Oleja, slapping a hand hard on Brashen’s back. “If you want it, you’ve got to be determined. Follow your dreams.”
They laughed, and the conversation continued into the night until Wil and Brashen retired, abandoning their empty mugs and Wil’s vacant stool at the counter alongside Oleja and Cyrah who remained. Hardly a minute passed before the mugs disappeared, whisked away by a server as they flew past in a haste, and the stool found itself new occupants—a group of two men and two women in their early thirties who looked vaguely familiar, perhaps soldiers she had seen down at the training pit. One of the men fell into the seat, a wide grin playing at his lips and a dazed look on his face. The other three crowded around him as they ordered mugs from one of the servers.
“All I’m saying is, it’s always impressive how fast they get this square turned around,” said one of the women to her companions. “Aukai’s Night and it’s a pop-up tavern, next thing you know it’s filled with stands and a fighting ring for the start of the Seablood Trials. Surprises me every year.”
Oleja took another swig of her drink and then stuck out a hand to the man beside her. “Oleja Raseari. You look familiar—are you a soldier?”
The man looked at her in confusion for a split second and then shook her hand. “Yah… me and this lot’re all soldiers.”
“I thought so. I’m a fighter myself, though new to the city.”
The man looked at her, curiosity pulling his brow in tight. “Really? We don’t get many newcomers these days. We used to, though. Most people in the world stay put where they’re at, ‘less they’re marching to war or off lookin’ for something. Where’d you come from?”
Oleja looked back at Cyrah. Cyrah raised an eyebrow and sipped her drink. She gestured back to the man.
For the second time that evening, Oleja recounted her story. If the women she spoke to before had been expressive, this group was downright enthralled. The man watched her with wide eyes and an equally wide mouth, and his three companions behind him leaned in close over his shoulders. They reacted loudly with every turn of the story.
“… And then I shot him in the leg and leapt from the tower.”
“What?” exclaimed the man, pounding his fist on the counter. “No way! That glider thing worked?”
“It did, well enough to carry me outside the ruins and into the desert.”
The man sighed a long “wow” as he looked up with an expression of wonder and leaned back into his friends. They kept him propped up and off the floor.
Before long, she finished the story, and after a farewell, the group left. Oleja let her posture slacken.
“Looks like you’re taking the ‘tell people how cool you are and convince them to follow you’ route,” said Cyrah.
“Nothing else has worked. I’m running out of options.”
“It’ll work. One way or another, I know you’ll convince the city. Not that they should need convincing. All earthborn are evil; the people should all be jumping at the opportunity to rid the world of a few hundred more of those monsters.”
“It just feels like everyone in the city is too afraid to act. None of them want to do big things and make bold moves. They’re happy and content here, but not everyone is when you go outside the valley. People are suffering. The people here need to take up arms and help.”
Cyrah raised her hands in defense. “You don’t need to convince me—I’m on your side.”
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
Oleja turned towards the voice, but no sooner did she lay eyes on the owner than all the air seemed to vanish from her lungs. Wearing a long sleeveless dress of purple stood Ardess, the girl who helped her the day she went to seek the king’s aid. She smiled at Oleja, her finger still pointing to the stool beside her.
“Oh, uh, no, that seat is free. People were sitting there but they’re not anymore. So it’s free. Here.” She leaned over and pushed the stool out a bit for Ardess.
“Why thank you,” said Ardess with a smile. After offering a small curtsy, she sat.
Oleja couldn’t tell if the warmth in her cheeks came from her drink or something else. She cast a glance in Cyrah’s direction. Cyrah shot one back, a sideways smirk as she downed the last of her drink.
“Ardess, do you know Cyrah? This is my friend, Cyrah Radson. Cyrah, this is Ardess…”
“Kipp,” finished Ardess. She waved down the counter to Cyrah. “Nice to meet you!”
“You two know each other well?” asked Cyrah.
“Yes,” said Oleja.
“Not well,” said Ardess at the same time.
“Yeah, not well, we just met once,” said Oleja quickly.
Cyrah nodded. “Well, I was just heading out, but it was so nice to meet you, Ardess! I’m sure Oleja will stick around and keep you company.” She stood and passed behind Oleja, placing a hand gently on Ardess’s shoulder. “Make sure she gets home all right, would you?”
“Hey, I’m fine, I don’t need help!”
Cyrah patted Oleja’s arm. “Shut up.” She wished them each a good night and then disappeared into the crowd.
Oleja drummed her fingers on the counter. “Do you want a drink? I can… oh. I don’t have money. I think my friends paid for mine, I don’t know. I’m a little new to this.”
&nb
sp; Ardess laughed. “All the food and drinks out tonight are paid for by the city, it’s for the festival. But I’m all set, I’ve already had a few, thank you.”
Only the music and the chatter of others in the tent passed through the air between them for a few moments. Ardess ran a hand through her dark brown curls. Oleja struggled to come up with something to say.
“Want to dance?” asked Ardess.
“Oh, I don’t know how. I’ve never done it before.”
Ardess smiled, her lips parting slightly as they curled upwards. The lantern light from above flickered across them, creating the illusion that the girl whispered words ever so softly. She took Oleja’s hand in her own and pulled her from the stool, taking a few steps towards the empty space for dancing, her body turned back to face Oleja. The soft skin of her palm felt much too tender on Oleja’s own—calloused, rough, sweating.
“Don’t worry, it’s easy,” she said. Oleja didn’t protest as she followed Ardess into the midst of the dancing crowd.
Dancing, in fact, was not easy. Rather, it was quite difficult. Oleja thought fighting and running and climbing were the skills that would be hardest to master on her prosthetic, but it seemed dancing came to usurp them all from that position. The whole plaza spun around her, and that certainly did not make things easier.
Oleja stepped on her dress. She stepped on Ardess’s feet. She stepped on her own prosthetic and her foot. She stepped on the feet of people who did not stand anywhere near close enough to her that she had any good excuse for stepping on their feet—and their dresses too. In fact, it seemed her feet stepped on things other than the floor more often than they stepped on what should have been the easiest target: the floor. Ardess laughed through it all, pulling Oleja along with her movements, not seeming to care that Oleja looked utterly ridiculous. And after a long while, and a few more drinks, Oleja lost those cares as well.
Chapter Thirteen
Sunlight came in through the windows of the cabin. Oleja’s eyes drifted open, her eyelids heavy, her head heavier. Thudding pulses of dull, aching pain pounded at her skull as if trying to break free from the inside. Her muscles ached—the stump of her left leg especially. A soreness like that which follows a hard day’s labor seemed to envelop her whole body, and yet she couldn’t remember doing anything overly strenuous the night before.
In fact, she couldn’t remember much of the previous night at all.
Fingers brushed her side as an arm wrapped around her—Ardess’s arm. As if flowing in through the girl’s touch, memories began to come back—hazy, muddled, vague. Blood rushed to Oleja’s cheeks. She wriggled free of Ardess’s embrace, leaving the girl asleep on the other side of her bed. She pulled aside the covers. A slight chill rushed in where the blankets had been, not so cold that it made her shiver, but it drew some clarity back into her mind. Though clouds hung in the sky, the light from outside came in with the full force of day. It must have been almost noon.
Oleja’s dress slid off her shoulder, and her hair hung low, nearly freed entirely from her braid. Her only other clothes were all the way back in the city at Cyrah’s house alongside her bag.
She shook her hair free of the braid and tied it up in a messy bun. After pulling on the socks she wore as padding for her prosthetic, she strapped on the limb. Standing only revealed another dozen or more aches. Slowly, shaking off the grogginess and confusion, she went softly to the hearth and put a few logs inside, careful to wake neither Ardess nor Tor, who slept in the corner beneath the table.
“Good morning,” came a sleepy voice from behind her. Oleja hesitated, then continued building the fire, casting only a quick glance back at the bed. Clearly she hadn’t been quiet enough.
“Good morning,” she said in response after a moment. She struck a piece of flint a few times, sending cascades of sparks across her pile of kindling. Soon, it began to smoke, and then flames emerged, fending off the chill in the room.
The floorboards let out quiet creaks under Ardess’s feet as she made her way across the room. Oleja stood and looked down at the fire. Ardess came to stand next to her, the blankets of Oleja’s bed draped around her shoulders. She nestled her body in close to Oleja’s.
“Starting a fire? That’s romantic.”
“What? A fire is romantic?” asked Oleja. She just needed to cook herself a meal.
“Well, yeah.”
“But why?”
Ardess giggled. “I don’t know, it’s just one of those things that is.” And then, after she finished speaking, she leaned over and kissed her.
Another memory returned—they had definitely kissed already.
Two forces clashed within Oleja, their conflict paralyzing her. One side felt drawn into Ardess and the way her lips felt—soft, her warm breath momentarily dissipating the chill that settled on Oleja’s nose. She smelled sweet like the air around the gardens of the town where vibrant-colored plants grew in great numbers—flowers, others called them—but also of sweat and ale, though Oleja couldn’t bring herself to care.
But on the other side of the conflict battled a confusion and fear that made her pause. Though some memories of the night before came back, she still had no idea what was going on. She liked the kiss, but too much else came through the touch of Ardess’s lips. Somehow, Ardess had a presence in that room that filled every corner of it and wound deep into Oleja’s mind; she felt trapped, a sort of trapped she hadn’t felt since the canyon.
Oleja took a step back, breaking the kiss and the trance at once. The smile on Ardess’s face faded slowly, painfully, as Oleja’s heart thundered in her chest.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking a small step towards Oleja.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Ardess. “We can walk down to the city and get lunch at a tavern somewhere. Sit and talk about… well, about us and about what’s on your mind. It’ll be fun—a date.” The hints of a smile returned.
Us. Date. No, Oleja certainly didn’t know what she was doing. She couldn’t do this, and especially not now.
“No, I…” she watched the smile fade completely from Ardess’s face. Oleja’s throat seized up. A terrible aching tugged at her gut. Words sat poised on her tongue, ready to fall, but she wanted nothing less than to say them.
“What is it?” The look of concern deepened.
“I can’t,” said Oleja, the words spilling out at last, tugging plenty more with them. “I just don’t know what’s going on. I was drunk and I’m not used to things here in Ahwan and I think I’m just confused, but I can’t go on a date—I don’t… I don’t want to. I’m sorry. I can’t help you with what you’re after; I’m not here in Ahwan for a life, I’m here for help, and then I have to go. I don’t want… I don’t have time… I’m sorry.”
Ardess looked around. “But what… what was last night, then? Why did you flirt with me all night? Why did you lead me on?” Her face morphed from confusion to hurt as she spoke, frustration grinding in her voice.
“I don’t even know what that means!” said Oleja, pushing her hands through her hair. The loose bun came undone, her hair tumbling free about her shoulders. “I just thought you were pretty! I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Pulling the blankets from her shoulders, Ardess tossed them back onto the bed and grabbed her shoes from the floor. In two quick motions she slipped them on.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her head down, already headed for the door. “I read too much into this, I guess. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have bothered. I’m sorry.” She opened the door and stepped outside without a backwards glance.
“I’m—” started Oleja.
The door slammed shut.
Oleja sank to the floor, pressing her back against the baseboard of her bed. She buried her head in her hands. What had she done?
After several minutes staring at the fabric of her dress, she looked up at the room around her. Tor still lay beneath the table, his head on the floor, eyes fixed on her
. When she met his gaze, he let out a soft whine and then stood, walking slowly over to her before lying down again. He laid his head in her lap. She stroked his fur and scratched behind his ears.
“Tor, I need to get out of this city. I don’t belong here.”
She sat there on the floor for another several minutes before rising up to stand. The fire she built with the intention of making a meal burned hot in the hearth, but hunger had abandoned her stomach. A pail of water sat on the counter—drinking water, hauled up from the river. Oleja grabbed it and threw the contents into the hearth. Steam erupted from the hollow, but when it dissipated a minute later, no fire remained.
Fires were “romantic”? What did that even mean?
She still needed her clothes and bag from Cyrah. Pulling on her boot, she made for the door, Tor bounding along at her side. Nothing sounded more miserable at the moment than walking all the way back through the city in her dress, but she had few other options if she wanted to be out of the thing at last.
But she didn’t get far. As she stepped out onto the porch, something caught her eye and she turned. There, tucked along the wall, sat her bag. Tugging open the flap, she found her clothes folded neatly inside. A flash of relief passed through her, but it was short lived; all of her frustrations and anxieties returned a moment later. But at least she could change her clothes.
Back in her shirt and pants, she paced through the cabin for a few minutes. Tor ran about outside. She longed for such a simple way to blow off all of the steam that built up pressure inside her, but running about in pursuit of small animals didn’t sound all that effective. She could go to the training pit and fight perhaps—fighting was as good a way as any to vent her growing frustrations. But if she saw Helis, she might very well explode.
Yet still she had to do something. Anything to quiet her mind.
She took up her bag and packed a bit of food in one of the smaller pockets, then left the cabin. Staying cooped up inside offered no promise of change. She didn’t know where she walked to, just that she needed to walk, and that if she waited a moment longer, she may very well go mad.
Seablood Page 13