Chapter 56: A Thousand Years Ago

                                    

                                          
Trevus, Giddius, Marcellus and I trek west through the day, straight towards Ephesus. The four of us travel together like two months ago, except instead of being their prisoner, I'm their leader. The three soldiers spread out around me like guards, not to keep me confined, but to watch for threats. This is my venture.
"Girlie, while I am content to accompany your party to Mephia, what does Ephesus harbor that your heart desires?" Marcellus asks.
"We're headed to a small nameless village to the south of Ephesus," I say. "Lord Asarus is already there, and I need to see him."
I omit the fact that it's my home village. It's a sensitive memory.
"Lord Asarus? Have you enchanted yet another highborn Versillian?" Giddius asks.
Trevus glances in my direction. So Giddius believes Trevus is enchanted? The corner of Trevus's lip tugs up. Maybe there's an element of truth to that.
"Lord Asarus is far from a friend, and he's recruited a militia," I say. Trevus is armed with his sword, Marcellus with his axe and Giddius with his bow. "I only want to talk, but he may want more."
Asarus found my home when I was ten. He somehow knew of my existence, and he tracked me down and took away everything. While I don't desire bloodshed, I'm not going to sit around waiting for him to try rip my life apart a second time. I look to the three large men. This time, I'll be prepared.
Marcellus tosses his axe up in the air and catches it again. "I shall not miss the battle a second time."
For a decade, I fought alone in that tower. There was no one to help me, no one to protect me, no one to stand at my side. Now Trevus, Marcellus and Giddius, the men I once considered my adversaries, have put their strength behind mine - something I wouldn't have believed possible the day they boxed me in on the bench at the tavern in Antiock.
"We shall reach the settlement tomorrow," Trevus says, "but the Ceramayan queen harbors knowledge of our route. She shall not continue to the tripoint empty handed. Expect her footmen to arrive not long after we do."
The queen was planning to meet King Tytius and the Mephia Council of Six at the tripoint to bargain with our lives. She can't do that without us.
As we walk, the desert of northern Ceramaya grows greener and greener. Instead of dry orange dirt under our boots, we now step shin-deep in long grass and bolver weeds.
We climb down a deep valley and hop over the thin stream at the bottom.
"The water marks the border," Trevus says. "We are once again in your homeland."
We're back in Mephia.
The sun has set, so the four of us find a hip-height pit and settle down. Sitting conceals us from the outside – necessary in case the queen's army passes by.
Trevus and I huddle together. Marcellus is seated by a boulder, his hands shaping a stone with the chisel - perhaps the start of another statuette of Nomier. Giddius peers over the edge, keeping watch. He's always worried over who we might encounter on the road.
I wrap my bare arms around my frame. Even with the pit to block the wind, the chilly evening air leaves my skin covered in goosebumps. "I'm guessing a warm fire is too risky?" I ask.
"Indeed." Trevus pulls a blanket out the bag and wraps it around my shoulders, hooking it under my collar. "Are you prepared for your encounter tomorrow?"
I've thought about what to say to Asarus - why did you abduct me as a child? Why do you still hunt me to this day? But what possible answer could make any of what happened okay? I shake my head, casting my gaze to the side.