“What can we do?” Lex asked as the pair sat.
The girl’s mother, Lyri, sat tea down in front of them, and she shook her head. “You have done enough,” she answered. “We are grateful it was you two who found her. I don’t… I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t.”
“May I see her?” Aydra asked.
Lyri paused a moment, and then gave her a quick nod.
The girl was still shaken when Aydra went into her room. She started to stand, but Aydra shook her head and told her to remain. Aydra sat down at the end of the bed and grasped the girl’s hand. She was no older than sixteen. A beautiful brunette girl with soft features, apple cheeks, and hazel eyes that had once held in them the sun. Aydra knew this girl from before. Her name was Sonya, and she was a free spirited girl, never known a stranger. She’d taken it upon herself to help the Infi when he’d claimed to be a traveler from the Village.
“How are you?” Aydra asked her.
Sonya tucked her hair behind her ear and avoided her gaze. “Okay, I guess,” she admitted.
“You were very brave yesterday.” Aydra squeezed her hand.
“Did you kill him?” Sonya asked, meeting her eyes.
Aydra sighed and nodded. “I did it myself.”
“Will there be more?”
“I certainly hope not, but… we cannot be sure. It is on us to stay vigilant. I have stationed more Belwarks on the ground and at the gates. If any strangers come through, we will know about it.”
Sonya nodded, but didn’t reply.
“The offer still stands, you know,” Aydra told her. “You and your family could move up to one of the homes at the walls. You’ll be—”
“Can you promise our safety there any more than you can promise our safety here?” Sonya interjected.
Aydra’s jaw tightened and she gave the girl a slow nod. “Okay.”
The girl’s sorrow sat heavy on Aydra’s shoulders as she and Lex strode down the beach a while later. The echo of the crashing waves sounded in her ears, barely drowning out the thoughts in her mind.
“I think I will take my leave of you here, Lex,” Aydra said as they reached the edge of the water.
“No company on your swim today?” Lex asked.
“My mind fills with a constipated ache I dare not press on to you,” Aydra replied. “Besides, I think you’ve more pressing matters to attend,” Aydra said with the raise of a brow. “Like that last baker. She gave you quite the once over, didn’t she?”
Lex ran a hand through her straight hair and started walking backwards. “What can I say? Power is an attractive thing.”
“Have fun,” Aydra called back to her.
“I’ll come back for you later—”
“No, that’s okay,” Aydra assured her. “I will see you at dinner.”
Aydra made around the corner of the cliff out of sight and then stripped herself of the pants and gamebeson, revealing her black high underwear and corseted bra. The sun baked her skin, allowing the golden freckles on her arms and face to emerge at its warmth.
She cracked her neck and stretched her arms above her head as her toes touched the water. Her muscles paused a moment and she allowed her eyes to close, her head to lay on her shoulders, as her flesh adjusted to the cold of the ocean water. She continued to step into the water and it swallowed her body into its abyss before letting her float atop it.
The mock of her kingdom stared back at her as she lay atop the clear water. The castle stood high up on the cliffside far behind her. Arbina Promiregis Amaris, the Sun’s first tree, the tree from which she and her brother were born, roots were wrapped into the edge of the cliff at nearly the top, its large limbs reaching high into the blue sky. They’d built their open Throne Room around it. Water from her poisoned never-ending pool spilled over the edge of the cliff and around the roots. Higher up than that was the main of the castle built behind the tree. The castle grew and grew with more rooms than she could count before it wrapped around to three towers. The tallest tower was the dungeon tower. It curled around and sat high above the tree’s tallest limbs, sitting so that the doorway to death sat above the waterfall, and any who were punished death by its fall would have to plunge themselves into Arbina’s poisoned waterfall from her pool beneath her roots as they dove to their death. It hadn’t been used since three Venari Kings ago, when he’d tried to start a war with Magnice by unleashing Infi in their streets as a protest for their giver, Duarb, being banished into his tree.
She wondered if the current Venari King, Draven Greenwood, had a similar plan.
The water wrapped around her body, and she sank into its depths, allowing it to consume her. Her eyes opened to the clear blue of the liquid. The noise of the girl’s screams radiated in her mind as the water’s cold weight held her beneath it. She let it take her breath. Her lungs began to struggle after a few moments. She allowed it to pull at her breath, pull her into the abyss until she could not take it any longer.
Her head burst to the surface. She wiped her face and inhaled an audible breath. The sun danced on her skin once more.
To feel something.
Anything.
Her thoughts consumed her beneath the waters a few more times before she finally retreated to the sandy beach. She sat herself down in the wet sand to let the sun dry her body. Her eyes closed, and she wasn’t sure if she actually dozed off, or if the warmth of it simply dragged her into a mindless abyss her body
