If Bogdan ever somehow turned back into a living being, I was going to kill him. Toss his body in the fucking wayfolds river and let him deal with having complete strangers move his naked lump of flesh around without being able to object to the rounds of agony each movement caused.
Sure, I had made the decision to jump in to avoid getting shredded by a hellbat, but there was something going on that he was refusing to tell me. I knew he said something right before we left the wayfolds, but I couldn't recall what. Plus, he took us to the outskirts of Canden. I've done this far too many times for him to forget the numbers to use to get to our usual spot.
Something was up.
The man, whose name I learned was Orik of Tremple, took me to a small, homey cabin he had built around two decades ago for his family. He had three daughters and a son, who happened to be the oldest at twenty-three, with Amly the youngest at the tender age of eight.
Orik's two younger daughters were of his second wife's, who'd died in child labor three years ago along with what would have been his second son.
How the hell did I know all of this, one might ask?
Simple. Amly loved to talk.
"Pa likes to act all mean and scary when he's mad," she said casually, sitting next to me on a chair too tall for her, so she'd repeatedly kick her legs back and forth. "But he cries when they sing the ballads on Enser. Lanie is always mean, so if he snaps at you, don' take it personal. He snaps at everyone, even the girl he fancies."
"Enough of that, you little shite," barked a young man from outside. They had the back door open to air out the cabin, and the boy was out chopping wood.
By now, I was able to shift myself in small increments. Moving my head was simple enough. Anything else was a bit more difficult. Still, I pretended that I was asleep. I wanted to be sure that I could move completely before I did anything else.
After Orik's second eldest - Leina - patched my arm and shrugged me into a tunic much too big for me, she'd ordered everyone else to "leave [me] the hell alone" until I awoke, with a strong emphasis directed at her youngest sister.
To which Amly, being the baby of the family, promptly pretended not to notice.
"Didn't Leina tell ya to let her be?" her brother continued.
"Maybe hearin' a friendly voice will help her wake up," Amly insisted.
"Or she's fakin' it, waitin' for you to go away."
Clever boy, this one.
"I want to know what's in her hair," prompted another girl - Dreal, Orik's third child at eleven years. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"
"She must be a princess," Amly chimed. I almost blew my cover with an instinctive snort.
"You think every woman ya don' know is a princess," Dreal replied.
"But this is just like Queen Raga!" Amly said. I felt someone's fingers pick at a lock of hair. "She fought a pack of wolves, and then got pulled into an ancient portal that burned off all her clothes."
"Then how do ya explain the slime?"
"Remember? She smashed through a giant bug in between the two portals that took her to Liavon. She probably fell through a slug."
Ew.
"Those are just stories, Amly," Lanie said, much closer than before. He was probably finished chopping wood.
"Dankrof says all stories have a bit of truth."
"Ya really think this girl is a fire-breathing queen of the heavens?"
YOU ARE READING
On Death's Honor
Fantasy"When you're in a place that darkness thrives, you learn to fear the light." "Why?" "Because the light will kill you faster." ------ For as long as she could remember, Wren has lived a rather unconventional life. She's hunted down trolls, bled out w...
