The wind came in smooth northern rolls, bending the grass in long, almost synchronized waves, and the wooden blades of the wind catchers answered it with a steady, faintly creaking rotation that at this distance nearly merged with the general noise of the field. The walls of Ockhaven whitened beyond the gentle slope, cut off below by greenery and above by an uneven veil of clouds drifting somewhere past the castle hill. The morning sun broke through them in short wide strips, and each time another gap swept across the clearing, the grass at the foot of the hill flared up in a deep, saturated gold.
I sat with my palms pressed to the ground behind me and my face tilted up toward the sky. Light gusts of wind played with the strands of my hair while I slowly breathed in the fresh air. From behind the white walls on the horizon came nothing but the distant, almost indistinct hum of a large city. Here, by the wind catchers, there was only grass, wind, and the creak of wood overhead.
Yesterday's events would not let go. Somewhere deep in my chest I still felt the weight of what I had witnessed. Selma's face at the bar. The survivor named Aris, sliding from her saddle at the gates.
Elara sat beside me, her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her gaze went out over the field, straight to the walls.
When she turned her head slightly and looked at the wind catchers, noticing their unhurried, unceasing rotation, she spoke without preamble, in a quiet and completely calm voice.
"This is not how I imagined our first trip together."
I turned my head and looked at her, watching her face stay even, almost impassive, but in her eyes something stood still, something quiet and stagnant. The weight inside me began to feel denser, only now it came not from the events of the day before, but from the fact that her expectations of this trip, which she had never voiced aloud, had turned out exactly as they had turned out.
For a moment I felt a wish, completely illogical and therefore all the more distinct, that everything that had happened since Friday evening would turn out to be a dream. Not for my own sake, but for hers. For the sake of seeing what she would have looked like now, if everything had gone the way she had probably imagined.
I found nothing of weight to say, and instead turned my gaze back to the white walls in the distance, letting a faint smile touch the corner of my mouth.
"But still" — I said,
"The first few days were genuinely good. I liked helping you with the stall."
Elara looked straight ahead for a few seconds, and I felt her turning this over without hurrying toward a response. Then she smiled briefly and a little crookedly, looking somewhere in the direction of the walls, as if they were to blame for everything that had happened.
Her hands tightened slightly around her knees.
"I remember how you almost knocked the entire tray of flasks over on the very first day" — she said, with the intonation that was formally a reproach but in substance was something warm and entirely unpretentious.
A short pause.
"I think Bernard will hear about it from Leo before we make it back."
"Absolutely not" — I answered with a light smirk.
"He'll be holding it over me for a whole week."
Elara tried to hold back a laugh and didn't quite manage it, so it came out quiet and a little treacherous.
"Unfortunately, it's inevitable. Leo will definitely tell him before we're back."
"In that case..." — I said with exaggerated indignation,
"I'll hand him over to Bernard. I'll tell him who really took those two copper ingots from the smithy."
Elara turned sharply to face me.
"What? Leo took ingots from him?"
"...Well... not exactly only him..."
An awkward pause hung in the air on its own. I looked studiously at the walls of Ockhaven, feeling her gaze on me, and her indignation in it was entirely genuine.
She exhaled through her nose.
"You little... mices..." — she said with a sigh in which weariness and good nature stood in equal measure.
I wasn't holding back anymore.
"Well, at least he was able to make a few parts for his mechanical shield" — I said, and the smile finally won out over the attempt to keep a straight face.
Elara was quiet for a time, looking ahead with the expression of someone reexamining a series of recent events, and then she slowly shook her head.
Another gust of wind lifted the fallen leaves slightly into the air, still playing with the strands of our hair.
"Do you think... there are any survivors left at all?" — I asked, still studying the walls of the capital.
Elara did not answer right away. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her lower her chin slightly, and the lightness that had been between us a moment ago left the air without warning.
"I don't know" — she said quietly.
"No one knows. They aren't telling us anything."
A pause. The wind swept across the grass again, laying it to one side for a second.
"From the forest, only one of the adventurers returned, the one who arrived with the boar's head, and her. And even she barely alive."
Elara tightened her fingers on her knees.
"I don't think there's any point in hoping for something specific after this. But burying those who weren't found... is also impossible. Not yet."
She said it without anguish, simply stating what seemed obvious to her, and that calm intonation left even less room for comfort in the words.
"I... had a strange dream last night..." — I said suddenly, and my expression became slightly troubled.
Elara turned her head. She looked at me for a few seconds, studying that expression, before saying anything.
"Strange how?" — she asked quietly.
"I remember first finding myself in darkness, with water underfoot, up to my ankles. Then I suddenly heard... this loud, deep creak... like the creak of a falling tree. I turned around and saw three brightly glowing eyes emerge from the darkness, and then a silhouette... wrapped in mist... it was a massive... no... a gigantic creature that looked like a deer, but it had two pairs of antlers, an enormous and very long tail, and also... a third eye... right on its forehead... it was the size of a castle, maybe even larger, and it was looking straight at me..."
A drop of sweat ran down my temple as I recalled the image and the feeling from the dream.
"And then... it said my name. Once... and its voice sounded as though several voices were blended inside it. And when it began to draw closer, I ran, until I suddenly fell through into water... I couldn't surface and I remember being pulled toward the bottom, until I suddenly fell into a forest of gigantic trees... I understood it was the Great Forest... and when I stood up... I saw several people around me... I couldn't make them out, only silhouettes, but I was certain I could feel their... fear... and terror. And when I heard a growl behind me, I woke up immediately."
After those words, the once light and calming wind now underscored the mysterious and ominous atmosphere of the dream that would not leave my head. Despite this, for a reason unknown to me, something was pulling me toward it. Something was kindling in me a strong sense of curiosity that overpowered the fear.
Elara listened without interrupting.
When I fell silent, she looked ahead for a few more seconds, and the lightness left her face entirely, giving way to something denser and more attentive.
"Two pairs of antlers... on a gigantic creature that looked like a deer..." — she said slowly, not so much addressing me as repeating it aloud.
"And one eye on its forehead."
A pause.
"I don't know what this is." — She narrowed her eyes slightly, looking at the walls of Ockhaven.
"I have heard old stories. Grandmothers tell children all sorts of things about the forest, about what lives inside it, about what is better left undisturbed. But what you are describing..." — she shook her head,
"It doesn't fit any of them."
The wind swept across the field, bending the grass toward us, and then the sudden ringing of bells pulled our attention away from the topic, as did the bustle of townspeople at the outer gates, moving inward into the city.
The bells struck again, more insistently now, and I stood up after Elara, who was already on her feet with her palm raised above her eyes, looking at the western gate where the city street was rapidly filling with people moving in one direction.
"What is it?" — I asked, looking at her.
"It looks like the queen is about to announce something. Come on, we need to make it in time."