🤍Two Hearts Of Flame🤍

4 · The Cart Boy

Italics: High Valyrian (language of the dragons)

"Leave!" I pleaded for the hundredth time, "I cannot let him see you, flee to the mountains and hide in the cave, I shall get you when he is gone!" The twins grumbled angrily and huffed, steam floated in the air from their nostrils.

"As your mother, I am protecting you." I say with a sigh and put my hands on my hips, I didn't want to pull that card, but these teenagers were getting on my nerves. Draco looked at his sister for her opinion, and her being her normal stubborn self, narrowed her eyes and flicked her tongue out in denial.

He saw my desperate expression and narrowed his eyes to his sister, he hissed quietly and thrashed his tail, daring her to challenge him when he was much bigger and stronger. She looked at him, her eyes wide in disbelief, she hissed back and turned on her haunches and shot into the air. Draco quickly followed. I sighed in relief and thanked the Gods.

The cart boy comes once every five years with a generous amount of supplies, in return, I give him two gold coins just like Dauren told me to if anything ever happened to her. I twisted the coins in my hand and watched as they disappeared in the cloud cover.

I was sort of sad they couldn't fit in the homestead anymore, or the barn either. Sapphira would fit, but, Silvy and Evan would be in distress. They grew a lot in the past two years, Sapphira was now about four and a half, maybe a few months more than that. And Draco was exactly a year younger, but bigger in size.

The black spots of blindness in my eyes were worsening, they were inconsistent, and sometimes translucent but most of the time they were completely dark and left my vision to be like a maze. I had learned a remedy in the Valyrian book for blindness, but I haven't the supplies.

I never saw the cart boy, Dauren always described him a thin boy with dark hair, young, like me. I got a glimpse of his clothes through a crack of a door when he came in the house once to help unload, he dressed in fine leather and silk with many silver or gold adornments.

I entered the homestead and leaned against the wall, looking through a crack in the logs. I stayed like that for a while, my guts churned in anxiety filled anticipation, this would be the second human I've ever met face to face.

After about an hour of pacing and staring through a crack in the wall, hooves cracked on ice in the distance. My heart sped up and I looked out through the crack, the cart was being pulled by a giant brown Clydesdale.

I took a deep breath and waited until he got closer to step outside. I doubt I was the farthest thing from what he expected to see here. I shut the door behind me and stood rigid with the two coins pressed against my palm and fingers.

His eyebrows narrowed and he slowed the cart down, stopping about fifteen feet from me, he hopped down. He looked nothing like a small boy. "This is the homestead of Dauren Deuland am I correct?" He asks and removes his hood and long silver hair is revealed. I am frozen for a moment.

A man, not a boy, nor did he have dark hair. His features were sharp and his brow caused a shadow over his eyes. "Correct," I started, he stopped two feet in front of me and looked down at me. "She's dead, as of five years ago." I finish and look away from him.

He raises his chin and sighs, looking off into the mountains as he thinks. "Alright then, are you her daughter?" He asks another question. I nod my head. "Yes, but not by blood." I wanted to add, 'as you can see' , due to my appearance, but I decided not, I didn't want to make it any more evident, as much as it already was.

"Hm?" He replied and tilted his head, returning his gaze to me. "What is your name, and when did you come into her possession? I've never seen you here before."

"My name is Fraenairys Deuland, she never told me how I came here, I was only a baby. And she kept me hidden from you, for twenty years, you are the second person I've ever met including her."

He raises his eyebrows and smiles, "Dauren was always good at keeping her secrets." He says, and his eyes flick to the homestead. "Let me take Berta to the barn, she can reunite with her daughter and we can talk inside." He says and walks away toward the Clydesdale.

I could now see the similarities between Silvy and Berta, chestnut fur, black mane, and a white stripe down the nose. "And her grandson." I comment and follow him to the back of the house. His eyebrows quirked up and he glanced back at me. "So you butchered Greg?"

"Gods no, he died naturally and I found some soft ground to bury him." Greg was our stallion, Evan's father. The man laughs lightly and I quickly get in front of him to swing open the barn door. Berta immediately gallops in, stopping in front of Silvy's stall.

"What happened to all the livestock I brought here ten years ago? It's only Silvy and the boy now?" He asks and examines the interior of the barn. My cheeks redden as I shut the barn door and then open Silvy's door to let her out.

"The cold took them a few months after Dauren died." I say with a tiny bit of shame. I couldn't take care of ten chickens, a cow, four goats, and two pigs on my own. "I didn't have enough firewood and the stream in the mountains finally froze over."

"It's alright, Fraenairys, you won't be staying here any longer anyway." He says and rubs Evan's nose. My eyebrows furrow, "What do you mean?" I ask, he turns to me, a small smile on his face. "Let's talk in the house."

Medium Chapter 1043 w/c