Chapter 8 - Curiosity.
The wind came off the north in smooth, rolling swells, bending the grass into long, almost synchronized waves, while the wooden sails of the windmills answered it with a steady, creaking turn that at that distance blurred into the general noise of the field.
The walls of Ockhaven stood white beyond the gentle slope, cut off below by greenery and above by an uneven veil of cloud that trailed away behind the castle hill. Morning sunlight broke through in short, broad bands, setting the grass at the foot of the hill alight with deep gold each time another gap swept across the meadow.
Aren sat with his palms braced against the ground behind him and his face tipped up to the sky, while the wind ran through strands of his hair and his chest rose with every breath. Nothing carried from behind the white walls on the horizon but the distant, barely distinguishable hum of a large city, and here, by the mills, there was only grass, wind, and the creak of wood overhead.
The events of the previous day would not let go of him, settling under his ribs as a weight he could feel, one that rose again every time Selma's face at the bar came back to him, or the survivor named Aris sliding down out of her saddle at the gates.
Elara sat beside him with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, looking out over the field, straight at the walls. She turned her head slightly toward the windmills and followed the slow, unbroken turning of the sails.
"This isn't how I pictured our first trip together."
Aren turned to her and found her face composed, almost indifferent, while her eyes stayed fixed on a single point beyond the field and did not move with the clouds.
I wish everything that happened last night had been a dream... he thought, keeping his eyes on her.
I wonder... what she'd be like right now, if it had all gone the way she expected...
For a moment Elara's happy smile flashed through his mind, the one he had seen so many times over his whole life in Golden Flow, and he faced forward again with a small sigh through his nose, looking at the white walls in the distance and letting a faint smile touch the corner of his mouth.
"Even so," Aren said. "The first few days were really good. I liked helping you with the stall."
Elara looked straight ahead for a few seconds, turning over what she had heard, and then the corner of her mouth lifted slightly, though she never looked away from the walls.
"I remember you almost dropping the whole tray of vials on the very first day," she said, tightening her arms around her knees, while Aren drew his brows down flat, narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together.
The sails above them made one more full turn before she went on.
"I think Bernard will hear about it from Leo before we even get back."
"Oh no," Aren answered with a faint smirk. "He'll definitely be bringing that up for a whole week..."
Elara tried to hold back a laugh and didn't quite manage it, and it came out quiet and gave her away.
"Unfortunately, that's unavoidable. Leo will absolutely tell him before we're home."
"In that case..." Aren drawled, lifting his chin. "I'll give him up to Bernard. I'll tell him who really took the two copper ingots from the forge."
"What? Leo stole ingots from him?" Elara asked, turning to face him with her whole body.
"... Well... it wasn't exactly only him..."
Aren kept his attention firmly on the walls of Ockhaven, feeling her stare press into his temple.
"Honestly... you... mice..." she said, breathing out through her nose and shaking her head.
"Well, at least he got a few parts made for that mechanical shield of his," Aren said, his smile finally winning out over any attempt to keep a straight face.
A short, quiet pause settled between them after that, while another gust lifted the fallen leaves into the air and went on playing with strands of their hair.
"Do you think... there are no survivors left at all?" Aren asked, not taking his eyes off the walls of the capital.
Elara did not answer at once, and out of the corner of his eye Aren caught her chin dropping toward her knees.
"I don't know... Nobody knows... They aren't telling us anything."
The wind moved through the grass again, laying it all one way for a second.
"Only one of the adventurers made it back out of the forest, the one who arrived with the boar's head, and that girl from the Trade League. And she was barely alive... I don't think there's any point hoping for anything definite after something like that... But burying the ones they never found... you can't do that either. Not yet," Elara said, her fingers closing on her knees.
Aren watched her in silence a few moments longer, then turned his head forward, drawing his brows together and lowering his eyes to the grass between his boots.
"I had... a strange dream last night..."
Elara turned to him and studied his drawn brows before answering.
"Strange how?" Elara asked.
"I remember I was in darkness at first, and there was water underfoot, up to my ankles. Then all of a sudden I heard... this loud, deep creaking... like the creak of a falling tree. I turned around and saw three bright lights come out of the darkness, and then a shape... wrapped in mist... it was a huge... no... a gigantic creature, like a stag, only it had two pairs of antlers, a huge, long tail, and also... a third eye... right on its forehead... it was the size of a castle, maybe even bigger, and it was looking straight at me..."
A bead of sweat slid down his temple as he pulled the sight of it back up out of his memory.
"And then... it said my name. Once... and its voice sounded as though several voices had been mixed into it at the same time. And when it started coming closer, I ran, until all of a sudden I dropped under the water... I couldn't get back up, and I remember being pulled toward the bottom, until all of a sudden I landed in a forest of giant trees... I realized it was the Great Forest... and when I stood up... I saw several people around me... I couldn't make them out, only outlines, but I'm sure I could feel their... fear... and terror. And when I heard a growl behind me, I woke up right away."
The wind, light and soothing until then, now ran cold down his back, while the dream would not leave Aren's head.
Elara heard him out to the end without interrupting once, and for a few seconds longer she stared at a single point in front of her, while the last of the lightness left her face and a crease settled between her brows.
"Two pairs of antlers... on a gigantic creature, like a stag... and one eye on its forehead..." Elara said, taking the words apart one at a time and looking past him.
"I don't know what that is," she said, then went quiet and narrowed her eyes at the distant walls of Ockhaven.
"I've heard the old stories. Grandmothers tell children all kinds of things about the forest, about what lives inside it, about what's better left alone. But what you're describing..." Elara said, shaking her head. "It doesn't fit any of them."
The wind swept across the field and bent the grass toward them, just as the ringing of bells rolled out from the city and the townspeople at the outer gates broke into motion, streaming inside.
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The bells struck again, more insistent now, bringing Aren to his feet after Elara, who was already standing with a hand raised like a visor over her eyes, studying the western gates. The street beyond them was filling quickly with people, all moving the same way.
"What is it?" Aren asked, turning to her.
"Looks like the queen's about to announce something. Come on, we need to make it."
The stream of townspeople under the arch of the outer gates moved as one solid mass, and Aren and Elara pressed into it at almost a run, then carried on with everyone else over the cobblestones toward the castle hill.
A large crowd had already gathered at the inner walls that enclosed the castle grounds, standing in a half circle before a low stone platform set into the base of the wall.
The platform stood empty, while the people around it craned their necks and shifted from foot to foot.
The hum over the square held steady and unbroken, so that no separate words could be made out, though underneath it the sound of neighbors nudging one another closer to the stone came through clearly, while Elara and Aren found a place at the right-hand edge, where the platform was visible in full.
Several more minutes passed before a man stepped up onto it, one Aren did not recognize at once and only afterward remembered having seen from above, from the balcony by the Southern Gate, on the opening day of the Hunt.
A long green doublet with gold embroidery fitted him closely, and a silver pauldron in the shape of a stag's head with its antlers spread rested on his right shoulder.
"That's not the queen," Aren said, leaning in toward Elara.
"No," she answered without turning her head. "That's her Hand. Ulrich Thorne."
Thorne stopped at the edge of the platform and waited a few seconds, and in that time the crowd fell quiet on its own.
"Citizens and guests of Waldruhm," Thorne said, his level, deep voice carrying to the far edge of the square. "By the will of Queen Edith Valdrich I announce: tomorrow, at the city arena, the annual summer Tournament will be held!"
Half the crowd answered immediately with a roar, scattered shouts of approval and applause that spread through the whole half circle, while Aren watched shoulders straighten and heads lift around him for the first time in days.
The other half did not applaud at all, and out of it, on the right, a man's voice rose, loud enough to carry all the way to the platform.
"And what about the ones who didn't come back?! Their families are waiting for answers, not tournaments!"
"Where's the queen? Why won't she come out herself?!" a second voice shouted from the other side of the square.
Thorne did not move and did not change his expression, holding the pause just long enough for both shouts to finish.
"The investigation into the Hunt is still under way," Thorne said, once he could be heard over the square again. "The queen is handling the matter personally. The results will be announced in due time. The Tournament does not cancel that work. It continues the festival that our citizens, our soldiers and the guests of Waldruhm deserve, while the crown does its part."
The square broke into noise again, in several layers at once now, and Aren could no longer pick out single words in the din.
He turned to Elara, whose lips were pressed into a single line while her eyes traveled over the faces around them.
"Looks like we'll have to keep the stall closed tomorrow," she said with a sigh.
"Why?"
"Because most people will be off watching the tournament. And Leo and Bernard definitely won't want to miss it."
She turned her head slightly toward him, the corner of her mouth twitching.
"And you, I assume," Elara said, waiting for an answer with one brow already raised.
One smile from Aren was enough, and Elara rolled her eyes and started away from the square first, leaving the crowd behind them still working through what it had just heard.
The Merry Ploughman was louder than usual, since word of the tournament had already seeped inside and settled into the talk at every table.
Aren was holding his spoon over a clay bowl of thick stew that was still steaming, and had only just got it as far as his mouth when Leo shot up onto the bench and nearly knocked the mug of ale out of Bernard's hands.
"HOORAY! The Tournament's happening! Aren, you have no idea how amazing this is!" Leo shouted, his eyes burning and his hands already chopping at the air in front of him.
Bernard lowered his eyes to his mug, then to Leo, then back to the mug, made sure the ale was still in place, and finally stared at the table straight ahead of him with the corners of his mouth turned down.
Elara, sitting beside him with her chin propped on her palm and her elbow on the tabletop, did not lift her head and only closed her eyes for a second longer than usual.
"What even is this tournament?" Aren asked, moving his eyes from Bernard to Leo and back.
"Huh... didn't I ever tell you about it?" Leo asked, raising his brows and slowly lowering himself back onto the bench.
"Noble knights, each one representing his own house, duel in it to prove their strength and bring glory to their house and their name!" Leo explained, spreading his hands over the table.
"And the champion gets the chance to receive a reward from the queen herself," Elara added, turning her face toward him, her cheek still resting on her palm.
"And that's not all," Leo went on, drawing Aren's attention back to him.
"Normally only knights of the Green Order compete in the tournament, and the champion can win the right to be promoted within the Order! But sometimes a knight, for the sake of greater glory, may be willing to accept a challenge thrown at him from the stands. And if the challenger wins, he has the right to go on competing in the tournament in place of the Green Order knight he beat!" Leo declared.
"And what if he wins the tournament?" Aren asked.
Leo froze for a moment with his mouth open, his eyes drifting up to the ceiling beams, where no answer turned up.
Bernard lowered his mug to the table, pointedly slow about it, and moved his gaze from Leo to Aren.
"That's never happened," Bernard said, looking at the table between their bowls.
"A challenge from the stands gets thrown once every few years at most, and usually by some young fool with money and no sense. Green Order knights don't go down that easily."
"Well... in theory," Leo began, dropping his voice and losing half his earlier drive.
"If that ever did happen, the crown is obliged to recognize the win. It's the law of the duel. They can't refuse," he said, scratching the back of his head.
"So a man like that would get the prize and an audience with the queen. What she'd do with him after that..." Leo finished, shrugging and reaching for his own mug.
Elara lifted her head and looked at Aren the same way she had a few minutes earlier at the square, when he had confirmed her guess with nothing but a smile.
"Aren," Elara said.
"Hm?" he answered, turning to her.
Elara looked at him without blinking, and Aren straightened up before he could stop himself.
"You're not planning to get into it, are you?" she said, in a tone that carried less question than warning.
Leo's head snapped toward Aren at once and he stared at him, leaning forward, while Bernard reached for his mug and took a long, thorough pull.
Aren frowned and looked over all three of them in turn, trying to work out where this unanimity had come from.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" Aren asked, lowering his spoon back into the bowl.
"I only asked out of curiosity. You don't actually think I've decided to get in there, do you?"
All three of them were looking at him the same way, brows raised and lips pursed, which made him straighten on the bench even more.
"Oh, come on! I don't even know how to hold a sword! What made you decide I'm capable of something that stupid?"
"Well..." Leo drew out, raising his brows, looking away and rubbing the back of his head.
"In these six months of living with you we've had time to work out that your curiosity is something to be careful with," Elara answered, and her smile came out exactly as nervous as it was warm.
Bernard slowly raised his mug, covering the lower half of his face with it, and kept his eyes on Aren without moving them at all.
"I will never forget..." Bernard said, in no hurry to go on.
"The time you decided to find out why the forge bellows hiss so loudly."
Leo clapped a hand over his mouth at once.
"You walked up, crouched down in front of the nozzle, and stuck your face into it," Bernard went on, taking another unhurried swallow.
"I was working the handle at that exact moment. At full speed."
Elara let out a quiet groan and buried her forehead in her folded arms.
"You got thrown two steps back, half your eyebrows were singed off, and you sat there on the floor with the look of a man who had just made a great discovery," Bernard continued, without a single muscle of his face moving.
"And then you turned to me and asked, 'What's air even for?'"
Leo had given up holding it in, and his shoulders were shaking visibly.
"That's why," Bernard concluded, setting the mug back on the table and looking at Aren.
Aren's face went still, a faint flush rising over it, and then he squared his shoulders to give his words at least some weight.
"That was one time. And there was a lot I still didn't understand back then," Aren objected without lifting his eyes from the bowl.
"Oh?" Bernard answered, barely holding back a smirk. "Then what about that business last week," he began, leaning back against the bench and folding his arms across his chest.
"When Erik asked you to watch his stall for ten minutes while he stepped out?"
Leo instantly craned his neck out over the table.
"A trader from the next row came over and offered to trade ten strings of dried fish for half a sack of salt," Bernard went on, drawing out every word.
"Erik hadn't said a word to you about anything like that. You didn't know what to do. And instead of saying 'the owner's out, come back later,' you..."
Elara lifted her forehead off her folded arms and turned to Aren with her mouth slightly open, her brows climbing to the middle of her forehead.
"You negotiated with him," Bernard continued.
"On your own. Right there. You settled on eight strings and a third of a sack, shook on it, and when Erik got back you reported it to him as though nothing had happened," he said, and held a short pause.
"Erik stood there half an hour afterward looking at that salt. In silence."
Leo burst out laughing at full volume now.
"He told me afterward..." Bernard added, taking hold of his mug again. "That it was the 'best' deal of the whole week."
Aren buried his face in the wooden tabletop and stayed like that.
"He was too convincing, and I wanted to try trading the way Erik does," he muttered into the tabletop.
"That's exactly why we worry," Bernard answered, reaching across the table and laying a hand on Aren's shoulder.
"There's no guarantee that watching a spectacular duel won't make you want to try the same thing."
"Besides," Leo added with a smile. "All the Green Order knights competing in the tournament are Conductors."
Aren raised his eyes to him without lifting his chin off the tabletop.
"Conductors? They're going to use magic?" Aren asked.
"What in the world are Conductors?" Bernard said, setting his mug aside.
Leo straightened up on the bench and turned to Bernard, getting his first chance all evening to explain something to an adult.
"That's what they call the gifted in Aisengard and the Trade League. You know, the blessed, in our words," Leo said with a shrug. "Same thing, basically, just a different word."
Bernard looked his mug over once more, then shook his head and went back to the ale.
"The blessed it is, then," he said.
Elara, who had spent all this time silently watching Aren lie there on the table, propped her cheek on her palm again, while the corners of her mouth lifted a little.
"So then. We're going to the tournament to watch. Only to watch," she said.
Aren smiled and nodded, answering with a short "Mhm."
Leo's laughter, the muffled hum of the tavern and the smell of hot stew kept them at that table for a long while yet, so that everything else drew far enough away to be almost inaudible.
At that same hour, though, the queen returned to the castle with a detachment of knights and Aurey, bringing with them one more survivor, found during the investigation in the Great Forest.