Chapter 15 - Snared, Part 1

                                    

                                          

Beyond our encounter with the Deacon, our path turned south. The road to Bell Haven was not straight from west to east, it flowed north and spiralled around small fields of boulders and dense trees before dipping south into Durn, all the while mostly sticking to rivers and creeks that flowed against our direction of travel and into the ocean that now lay behind us, and the occasional foray between brackish ponds formed centuries ago by a flood and kept moderately saline despite the rain thanks to salt deposits at their basins.
The old road went up along the hillsides, now long since buried by brambles, overgrown roots, and young poplar trees. That was the way of old roads, left unmaintained to rot like ghost towns. There were many of them coming out of Senvia, old logging roads and paths down to the base of the cliffs. But the fields outside of Senvia were covered with thick layers of moss and grass, deep enough to sink into. Those roads were not quickly overgrown. They were replaced with burrowed holes by small furred things, anthills, and tufts of stiff blue grass working its way in between the gravel. Even the logging roads grew in not with trees, but with tall threads of that same blue grass, pigweed, and fireweed.
When I was twelve, Lyana had taken me down one of them. It led through a thin rowan forest filled with rhubarb and ferns. The floor of the pathway had overgrown itself with wild, violet thyme. The edges were adorned with the same bilberries that I had on occasion found on the cliffsides.
I never told Lyana that, or she'd have strung me up. I had officially been in her service for six years, but it wasn't until a few months before that that I had actually come to know her, and see her on a daily basis. Once that happened, she very quickly learned how many of my lessons I had taken to skipping in favour of exploring. I excelled at fighting, naturally, but training was tedious and boring. Even though he was Kindred himself, the palace instructor was an inadequate sparring partner.
So I collected berries. Rather, I ate them straight off the branches, and made sure to wash my mouth before I came back, so that I wouldn't be caught.
It was when I wasn't hungry enough to eat the palace food that she caught my purple-stained tongue, and found out where I had been. It turned out, I wasn't very good at cleaning the stains from it.
She was less concerned about the berries, I think. If anything, she smiled at the thought.
But, she said, "Never, ever go near the cliffs. Do you understand me?"
And I nodded. Of course, I understood. No more cliffs.
Of course, I immediately resolved to go back at the first opportunity, as soon as her back was turned, and eat more berries. Until the next morning, when she took me to that fire road, showed me those same berries, and gave me a bucket to fill.
We brought back heaps and loads, and I stuffed even more into my pockets, not realising they'd be squished as I walked.
We made a randalin and pies with them, and the next morning, she took me to train. Not with my instructor. She sparred with me herself. Twenty four years older than me.
"I don't want to hurt you," I told her. Her age and experience wasn't enough of a handicap to make it an even fight. I was good enough to spar with my instructor, himself a Kindred. Lyana was completely human. She couldn't even use magic, however much she'd studied the theory.
"You won't," she said, and readied her staff. I held a copper short sword, my weapon of choice against my instructor. Dulled, but metal, as was custom. It was well sized, and I could cross the distance between us with ease. A staff would have reach, but only if she could stop me from crossing the distance.
And I knew she couldn't. I was twelve, and no human would have been able to stop me. I knew the very truth of this, of my strength. So I grabbed a wooden sword instead, and promised to strike her gently. She smiled.