Mortance: A Miscarriage of Hope

Lily Ⅰ

It had been a peaceful morning, and the first snow of winter, but that was all gone when they came with the news.

"Lily, I'm so sorry," My friend Dani said when I opened the door for her. "There was nothing that could be done."

"I thought Ugen could save anyone," the old dwarf had brought my father back from near death and helped my mother give birth at the same time when they had arrived in Espar. It was said that nobody could die if they were with him, but he would deny that.

"Not this time," Dani said grimly. "Your sister-"

"Take me to her," I demanded, already trying to force my way outside. "Now!"

"You should get dressed first. There's no reason to rush, she's been dead for days already."

My father had already been summoned, it seemed. He was crying over Rose's dead body. She looked smaller in death, and so pale... her body was almost invisible against the snow, save for the arrow through her neck. It didn't help that she was nearly naked.

"Where are her clothes?" I demanded of Aeric, the vir who had been out hunting with her.

"It got cold on the way back... we weren't ready for the snow..." he shivered in the cold, despite his coverings. "I'm so sorry, Lily."

"People keep saying that as if they've wronged me," I told him angrily. "Who did this?"

"Lily..." my father's voice warned.

"We found a corpse in the woods," Aeric started.

"A corpse killed her?"

"She was alive when we found her," Albert, the older man who'd been with them, broke in. "But she quickly died. Nancy was her name. Rose demanded we give her a proper funeral, so she sent us off to collect wood for a fire."

"You left her alone."

"Your sister is capable of defending herself," Albert argued.

"Apparently not."

"Do not blame them, Lily," my father interjected. "They did her no harm."

"No, it was the vir who did that," Aeric interjected.

"Aeric seems to think he saw a vir-"

"You saw it too," Aeric protested.

"I saw a wolf."

"Well it was a vir," Aeric insisted. "I would know."

"How did it happen?" Winter, Rose's lover, asked miserably. She was part elf, though not enough to have stood as tall as Rose when she lived.

"The wolf ravaged the corpse, then shifted and stabbed an arrow through Rose's neck," Aeric said. My sister was murdered.

"Aeric thinks that happened," Albert corrected. "We only saw..." I stopped listening.

Somebody killed her. Rose had never hurt anyone, save for the animals she hunted. Even those were only for survival, and she never let any part of them go to waste. My sister... dead, and she didn't deserve it. Nobody deserves to die, she used to say. You were wrong, I thought, staring at her naked corpse. There is one.

"We'll have the funeral in two days time, on the last day of the year," my father was saying. "She would've liked that."

"I'll depart the next day," I added. I know what I have to do. "She deserves justice."

"I believe you mean vengeance," Albert said.

"Whichever you choose to call it," I shrugged.

"I'll go with you," Aeric volunteered.