I wander without direction, or rather, with only one direction: away from the hall. Away from my family who would discard one of their own so easily, and from a friend whose caring carried so little substance, and from the memory of Valka.
My eyes blur again, and I swipe at them often until finally I stumble to a stop, sinking down to rest against a tree. I’ve found a little dell, partially wooded with grasses and shrubs growing up where the sunlight falls at the center of its slight valley. There is peace here, and a faint, skipping breeze that blows past me and then funnels around again, hemmed in by the dell.
I rest my head against the tree, listening to a quiet beat. A beat that grows steadily louder. I go still. That is not a bird, not any creature but a horse, trotting through the woods. Without thinking, I scamper down, past my tree to a dense tangle of blackberry bushes at the bottom of the dell. I cannot push within their thorny bramble. But the hoofbeats are coming from the same direction I did; I hurry to the other side of the brambles and hunch down behind them.
I’m being stupid, of course. There is no reason to hide from a rider here. There are no bandits so close to my mother’s hall, no rogues or outlaws who might attack. But it’s not them I fear as I crouch down on all fours, sheltered by the brambles, the young leaves unfurled just enough to hide me.
My cloak catches on a single thorny stem that extends past the rest. I tug the fabric free and then tilt my head, listening. The wind slides past me again, quieter now. I hear the distinctive clomp of a horse coming to a stop up above, among the trees. Can the rider see me from their vantage point? Almost, I look up—but the movement would call their attention if they haven’t already seen me. No, better to stay still.
“I know you’re out here, Alyrra.”
My shoulders hunch instinctively against the threat in his voice.
“Do you think you can run from me? Mother told me you came to complain about me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing him away. My fingers dig into the damp earth, claw-like.
“No one complains about me.”
“Go away,” I whisper softly. “Please. Please.”
The wind, a gentle breeze slipping past me, pauses. I blink my eyes open, but here is the truth of it: not a single blade of grass stirs, not a leaf on the bushes moves. And then it starts up again, flowing smoothly through the dell.
“A-lyr-ra,” my brother calls in a singsong voice that is still slightly fainter. Is he turning? Searching for me? But then his voice returns, clear as ever. “I’m not letting you get away from me as well.”
As well? With a sudden, sinking sensation, I think of the serving girl, the one Valka chose to blame. Surely he doesn’t mean her? But even if he does, she must have evaded him somehow or he wouldn’t have spoken so. Please let her have gotten away.
With unexpected suddenness, the wind whips through the bushes at the end of the dell, cutting through them so that their branches rustle along a single, clear line, as if marking the path of a fleeing creature. Or person.
My brother gives a shout and sets his horse after it. I stare, my gaze moving from him to the bushes, now still. It was only an errant wind, wasn’t it? But what wind blows so strangely?
Wind sprite, I decide. Fickle creatures of the air, they are as likely to hinder as to help, or so the stories say. I don’t know why this one aided me, and I don’t have time to worry over it. I start to my feet and scramble up the gently sloping side of the dell, moving as quickly as I can in the opposite direction from my brother. I stop only when I reach the undergrowth that marks the edge of the forest, the hall just visible through the branches of the remaining trees.
I drop to the ground, my cloak pooling around me, and try to catch my breath. So long as my brother did not turn back after me, I should be safe. I press my hand into the stitch in my side and focus on breathing as I watch the wood. There is no sign of him. No movement in the forest, only the leaves of a branch waving there. Then, again, closer to me, the leaves on another branch flutter.
The wind. Has it come back to check on me? Does it expect something of me now? No, that makes no sense, for what can I do for an element of the air?
“Hello,” I say softly as it reaches me. It makes a single circuit around me, a quick rushing passage, and then slows to rustle through the new growth upon the bushes around me. Almost certainly a wind sprite. I’ve heard of such things, magical creatures with changeable temperaments, their only body the movement of air. I’d thought them folk tales, but there’s no arguing with the breeze before me.
Nor is there any doubt that it helped me. I cannot understand why it would, but I am grateful to it, so grateful—for the aid it rendered me, and because it did so without knowing me, or having any reason to other than that it could.
“Thank you,” I tell it, and find I am crying again, only this is not the heartbroken sorrow of earlier. This a strange, warm feeling, tears slipping down my cheeks as I smile at the air—at nothing I can see.
The wind fans around me, cooling the tears upon my cheeks, and I smile back at it. “Thank you,” I tell it again. “I don’t know if I can do you a good turn, or if you need one, but I am grateful for your kindness.” I needed it today,
