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Location: Jielam, Arkandia
Year: 28 057 (2557 T.A)
Status: Winter

Thop!

Kyrie pulled a second arrow from her quiver and put it to her bow, tucking it against its rest and clicking the string into place. Her black eyes were emotionless, betraying nothing of what was going on in her mind as she lifted the bow that was taller than her and took aim. Archery was definitely not her preferred form of attack.

Twang! Thop!

It was way too noisy. But it would have to do. She wasn’t sure if she would take the bow with her when the time came, but it was a necessary evil for her plan to succeed. And that meant she was going to have to practice with it until she was efficient with it as she could be, the same goal she had for all of the other weapons she was learning to use.

Twang!

Two. Three.

Thop!

The three bullseyes she’d gotten meant nothing to her. Being able to hit a stationary target was nothing, even if it was at eighty yards. To hit a moving target at the same distance on the run – that was what she was going to have to do.

“Kyrie!”

Twang-crack! Her shot went wild, hitting a tree instead of the target. The arrow shattered into several pieces, but Kyrie’s eyes were on the pale-faced man behind her. Her expression was calm, hiding her smoldering interior.

“You’re late!”

Kyrie blinked slowly, deliberately, forcing herself not to clench her jaw. The twitch of the muscles would show him that he was getting to her, and she was determined not to let him know. Turning her back to him, she moved to collect her spent arrows.

“You should be more grateful,” the man shouted after her, his voice filled with anger. “You’re an illegal: you have no right to be alive! For all I’ve done for you in the past three years, the least you could do is show up on time for dinner!”

Oh, he had helped her, all right. He had taught her how to use the weapons she had been given, and more. He had fed her, clothed her, sheltered her, and kept her hidden from the lawmen. But he had also shown her that even the elves were capable of the atrocities that the humans had performed on her, and he had allowed her to surprise herself at the realization of how much hatred she was actually capable of feeling. But she had learned from the humans, too, and it was here that she was putting the knowledge she had learned from them into effect: eighteen months of daily torture, simply because of the fact that she was not of pure human blood, had taught her patience. She could endure anything. Time was her friend. If she held on, her time would come. She would extract her revenge.

She finished retrieving her arrows and returned them to her quiver as she made her way back to the man. She had never learned his name, never cared to. As far as he was concerned, she couldn’t speak, so there would be no point to learning it anyway. He of course knew her name, but that was from the Dark Elves who had smuggled her to him. She didn’t hold them entirely to blame: they had told her the truth, that he would teach her all she could possibly hope to learn about weapons, and she wasn’t entirely certain that they had known in advance about his abusive and licentious nature. No, she would not go after them.

But the White Elf who called himself her teacher?

She would drain him of everything he knew, everything he could possibly give her – and then she would take his life.

Well, that part was up for debate at the moment. Some days she wanted to be merciful and simply kill him when she felt she was ready to leave, and other days she wanted him to suffer as she had suffered, to torture him as she had been tortured, and then leave him to die slowly and painfully.

When she reached him at last, she held the bow out to him. He took it with a scowl.

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder about your intelligence,” he told her, shoving her roughly towards the cabin they shared. “I swear I’ve never had a student as slow as you are. And stupid! Three years you’ve been here and I swear you’re as addlepated as you were when they brought you.”

He had always attributed her silence to a brain injury, supposedly acquired during her captivity in the human land of Poleria, the country of her mother’s birth. It stood to reason: she was, after all, covered in scars of varying degrees, and that included her face. That didn’t mean that he was right; but it worked to her advantage that he thought her mentally incapable of thinking for herself, so she let him think it. Truth be told, she milked it for all it was worth: taking her time in doing the chores she disliked, putting off the time when she would eventually have to go to bed, hoping that he would already be asleep by the time she made it.

“Give me your quiver,” he sighed as they approached the cabin. “I’ll put it all away while you fetch water.”

She unclipped the quiver from her hip and handed it to him. Anything to get a bit of time away from him. Without hesitating, she turned towards the worn path that led to the river from which they got all of their water. The pale bushes to each side of the path were dotted with small white flowers, but their beauty was lost on Kyrie. She ignored them as thoroughly as she ignored the weight of the man’s body after he had satisfied his lusts on her. She had only one thing on her mind, and that one thing blocked out all other thoughts, for good or ill.

Revenge.

And the day was fast approaching. She was almost satisfied with her skill level. In blades she was easily a match for her teacher; with the staff she surpassed him: it was only with the bow that she was not yet satisfied with her abilities. And yet it was important. Even if she did not want to use the bow, she had to know how to use it. To defend herself at a distance. To hunt for food the most efficiently. To dispose of people in her way while keeping out of sight.

She waded into the frigid water, the crunch of the ice beneath her boots giving her a feeling of slight satisfaction. This was the one thing she was going to miss when she left this place: the river. She liked its volatility, its unpredictability, the way it could be so calm and reassuring one moment and overwhelming the next. It could be dangerous, it was true; but it was indiscriminate in where and when it acted up. She could handle that.

She plucked the large wooden bucket from its hook on the tree and leaned forward to fill it with the icy water. Her thoughts were whirling. Maybe she would get rid of the man when he returned from his next trip into the village. He only ever went once a month and no one ever came out here. She could have an entire month to keep training herself before she would have to worry about anyone missing him. She doubted anyone would come looking for him, but she couldn’t take any chances. If she were spotted by any of the other White Elves, she would be arrested and executed – if they didn’t kill her on sight.

As the thought entered her head, her actions slowed so that she would have a bit more time to think about it. It was appealing. A month with no fear … a month when she could be herself. She would have all the supplies she would need – twice as much, really, which meant that when it came time to leave, she could have a month or more of supplies to take with her, which would be nice. She knew the area by now. She had seen enough maps to know where she needed to go. And she knew what she needed to do.

She blinked suddenly, realizing that her eyes had fixed themselves on the sun’s reflection on the water. As much as the man believed that she was slow in general, she couldn’t afford to overdo it – at least not often. She swirled the bucket to try to avoid any chunks of ice and scooped up as much water as she could, then turned and headed back towards the cabin, holding the bucket with two hands so that she wouldn’t spill it over herself.

When she entered the cabin, her teacher was sitting at the table, leaning back in his chair, his feet up on the table, his boots dripping melting snow on the tabletop. She didn’t even glance at him as she headed to the fireplace and poured the cold water into the pot. She swung the pot over the fire and turned to the pantry to get some ingredients for the soup they had every single day. She could feel the man’s eyes on her, but she ignored him. That was the second skill she had learned during her captivity: how to ignore just about everything. That and patience were the only things that had kept her alive.

She heard him spit on the floor, and she couldn’t keep her lip from twitching in disgust. She would keep her boots on now until she had a chance to wash the floor again.

While the soup boiled, she set the table, keeping her eyes on her work so that he wouldn’t read anything in her expression. All through dinner, she kept from looking at him, and when after dinner she grabbed the bucket and went for more water, he grunted his disapproval but went to bed anyways. She pretended that she couldn’t find the scrub brush she usually used to wash the floor and instead used a rag, which meant it would take her three times longer than usual.

Her plan worked. He was fast asleep before she was even halfway finished. And by the time she did finish, she had her entire plan worked out.

All she needed to do now was wait.

Location: The Jielam/Dolerum Border, Arkandia
Year: 28 058 (2558 T.A)
Status: Mid Spring

The morning sun shone high in the sky, its rays warming the air and the ground alike. Spring was in full bloom. The trees were green, flowers blossoming, and animals were active in abundance.

Kyrie had been traveling for three weeks now, after having stayed in her dead teacher’s cabin for three weeks. She had traveled mostly during the night, her black hair and tanned skin helping her to blend in the shadows, though when she had been trying to get past settlements as quickly as she could, she had also pulled on a white cloak and made her way carefully away from areas where there were people. She had started in the northern end of Jielam but by this time she had made it all the way south and east to the border of Dolerum. She could have left the country sooner, but that would have meant that she would have had to enter Friesia, a country belonging to the Fire Elves, and that would not have been safe for her either. Even Dolerum was a risk, but since she did have some of her Dark Elf father’s elven looks – slightly pointed ears and eyebrows – she had a better chance of survival there than anywhere else.

Of course, it helped that they weren’t at war with anyone at the moment.

But before she could count herself home free, though, she was going to have to cross the border, and that was going to be harder than anything she’d done yet. Sneaking through the countryside – a walk in the park compared to making it past the border control.

She had arrived at the border just past daylight, but after a full night of travel, she needed to rest before she even tried to plan how to get across. The only thing she gave herself the time to do before that was to find a safe place to hunker down for the day. In the end, she found a tight cluster of evergreen trees and buried herself under layers of needles and dirt so that she would be out of sight.

Then she slept.

By the time she woke, the sun had set, and she listened carefully for a long time before she ventured to stir from her hiding place. She left her things there, taking only a brace of throwing knives and a long dagger that was strapped to her thigh in case she should be spotted. She was confident that she wouldn’t be, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

She spent the night scouting, watching the patterns that the patrols followed, memorizing how often the shift changed and where, watching who was allowed through the gates and who wasn’t. Not that many people made an effort.

As the moon began to wane and the sky began to lighten, she allowed herself a few hours of sleep, hiding once more, and then, when the sun was high in the sky, she woke again and resumed her watch. It was imperative that she ensure her observations of the previous night would hold true: if she were wrong, if she made a mistake, it would cost her her life.

She kept up her vigil for three more days, until she was satisfied that she had memorized the schedules and habits of the gatekeepers, and only then did she make her move.

She gathered her things together, and every time the guards were about as far away from her position as they were going to get, she darted forward, keeping low to the ground, and stuck part of it through the fence, making sure that they were hidden somehow – rocks, leaves, debris; whatever she could get her hands on to hide it quickly before the guards turned and spotted her. When the last of her things were over, she picked up the large staff that she had been using as a walking stick. She would have one final use for it now, and only one. After that, she would either have to find or make another one to use.

She waited while the guards did their rounds – pacing up and down along the fence, clearly bored with their positions. It was nearing the end of their shift, and they were not as alert as they should perhaps have been. She wasn’t going to complain though – it was to her advantage that they would be slower to react, if they noticed her. She wasn’t afraid of them chasing her: she would have her weapons on the other side, and she knew that she could defeat them if she needed to. No, her fear was that they would use the magic of their kind against her: the ice shards that she knew from experience would slice through her skin like razor blades.

She breathed slowly, shallowly, keeping her heart rate down and her noise to a minimum. Anyone passing by, unless they were concentrating, would hear nothing apart from the breeze that was whispering ever so lightly through the trees. Her hands gripped the top of the staff, fingers tightening, loosening, repositioning, and tightening again as she watched for her opportunity. She knew how many steps it was to the fence, knew how long it would take her to run it, how much time she needed: all she needed to do was time it right – and hope there were no rocks on the other side to break her ankles when she landed.

Finally, she saw her moment. As the White Elves reached the end of their walk, one of them yawned. Instead of turning and continuing on his vigil, he called out to his partner.

“When are our replacements due?”

“Quarter hour. What’s the matter, kid keep you up again?”

“I swear, she never sleeps at night!”

“Just wait until she’s a bit older, it’ll get better. Now get going.”

And with that, both of them turned and continued their patrol.

Kyrie let them each take about ten steps before she fixed her grip on the staff and darted forward from her hiding place. Her bare feet made almost no sound as she ran through the fresh grass, and she kept careful control of her breathing so that she would hear if there were any changes to the guards’ paces. She picked up her pace and when she got nearer the fence she thrust the staff, like a pole, into the ground against a large rock she had picked out earlier, pushing off with her feet and vaulting over the fence. It was only as tall as she was, and she could have climbed it easily enough, she supposed, but it was faster to launch herself overtop of it instead.

When she reached the apex of her jump, she released the staff and braced herself to land. She hit the ground rolling and was immediately back on her feet, racing for the nearest tree large enough to cover her.

Behind her, she heard a shout, followed by rapid footsteps. She glanced over her shoulder, looking to see what would happen. One of the guards was running towards where she had gone over the fence. He raised one hand towards her, and shards of ice shot forward out of it. She ducked behind the tree to protect herself. She heard the sound of shattering, though nothing hit against the tree. She peered out and saw the strangest thing she had ever seen in her life.

The ice shards had not made it past the fence.

It wasn’t that they had hit the fence. They had shattered against an invisible barrier, and now the shards were embedded in the air.

Kyrie’s heart leapt into her throat. The Dark Elves had been at war with the White Elves long enough to figure out how to put up a magical barrier around their country! That certainly explained why only the countries around them had fences and guards.

Though it did make her wonder how she had been able to cross it.

Without hesitating to see if the White Elf would be able to climb the fence and cross the barrier himself, she ran forward and grabbed her gear from its various hiding places. She strapped on as much as she could quickly, glancing up constantly to keep an eye on the border guard. He hadn’t even tried to climb the fence, but was running towards the gate, shouting at his partner as he went. She reached through the fence and grabbed the staff that she had thought she would have to leave behind, and the moment she had everything in hand, she ran.

For a full quarter hour she ran without slowing, until the shouts behind her went silent. Then she hid all her things but her bow, the throwing knives, and her dagger, and doubled back to check on her pursuers.

They were gone.

Satisfied but tired, Kyrie collected her belongings once more and set off in search of a place to rest and eat.

Location: ???, Dolerum, Arkandia
Year: 28 058 (2558 T.A)
Status: Late Spring

The next time Kyrie woke, she was back under the blanket, lying on her back, though the blanket was only up to her chest. She felt oddly hot and cool at the same time, and it wasn’t for half a minute that she realized that there was something on her forehead – a cool, damp cloth, as she realized upon touching one hand to it. She removed it and set it on the edge of the bed, away from where she was lying. She didn’t like the feeling of being wet like that.

She continued to lie there, simply resting. Her body felt heavy now, unnaturally so, and she wanted nothing more than to lie there forever. Her mind, though, was awake – and racing.

She had been pregnant. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact. Three years she had been with the White Elf, and after two years with the licentious wretch she had believed that somehow she would be safe from such a thing. But clearly that hadn’t been the case. And if she had been so little into her pregnancy that she hadn’t even realized that she had been with child, then she would have had to have conceived only shortly before she’d killed him.

The door to the room opened, and Kyrie’s only response was to turn her eyes towards the sound. The same woman she’d spoken with the first time she’d woken walked into the room and closed the door behind her before making her way to the chair next to Kyrie’s bed. Since Kyrie was so still, it seemed as though she wasn’t aware that she was awake: it wasn’t until she spotted the wet cloth on the edge of the bed that she realized that Kyrie had woken.

The two women watched each other for a few minutes in silence, each taking stock of the other. Kyrie was calm now, calmer than she had been the first time she’d woken, her heart rate perfectly normal, and at last, the woman commented, “You’re far calmer than I had imagined you would be.”

Kyrie continued to watch her, her expression unchanging.

The woman smiled at her. “Come now, you needn’t pretend with me. You forget, I know you’re quite capable of speech.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “My name is Lynliss. You’re currently in my home. Usually, I would keep my patients at my clinic, but you’re a special case. I wanted to be able to keep a closer eye on you. I also thought it would be safer. You’re not a full-blooded Dark Elf, and there are some people here who … shall we say … aren’t appreciative of people like you.”

The corner of Kyrie’s mouth turned up in a slight smile. “I’m used to that,” she said, her voice creaking slightly. She cleared her throat. “Thank you. For taking care of me.”

Lynliss’s eyes grew sad again. “I wish I could say I felt I deserved your thanks,” she said softly. “But I failed you. You lost the life of your child, and the possibility of having any others in the future.”

Kyrie just watched her silently, her expression still not changing.

The woman tilted her head slightly. “Still no reaction … you were horrified to learn that you were pregnant in the first place, but you have no reaction to having lost it? To never being able to conceive again?”

Kyrie licked her lips slowly, taking a moment to consider how to respond. “To be honest,” she said quietly, “I’m not sure how to react. I … it was not the first child that I lost.”

The first had technically been a miscarriage – it was during the early days of her captivity in Poleria, and she had been beaten until she had bled out – and the second had been a forced abortion, where she had been force-fed a toxin that would take care of her “problem”. Truth be told, she had, for a while, hoped that the toxin would have left her sterile, so that she would not have to endure the pain again.

So much for that.

She realized suddenly that the physician was looking at her through pity-filled eyes, and before she thought, she blurted out, “Don’t feel sorry for me for their sakes, they weren’t the products of love, anyways.”

The physician’s eyes grew wide with shock, and Kyrie realized what she’d said. She rolled onto her side, her back to the woman, and put one hand to her mouth. What was with her? Why would she say such a thing aloud? She still didn’t know much about her, and she still didn’t technically know where she was! She didn’t even know if she could really trust this woman, or if she were spying on her for someone, trying to get information from her.

And she had just told her that she’d been raped multiple times.

“Forget I said anything,” she said, her voice muffled by the blanket. “At least now it can’t happen again.”

There was such a long silence from behind her that after a while, she was convinced that Lynliss must have left the room; but when she looked over her shoulder, the woman was still there, her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t,” Kyrie said in a warning tone. “Don’t cry for me. Please.” Her voice lowered into a desperate whisper. “Don’t … please.”

Lynliss shook her head. “I … can’t not,” she murmured. “You are so young … and to have such a past …”

She reached out to touch Kyrie’s hair, but Kyrie bolted upright and pushed herself backwards, away from her hand, eying it suspiciously.

Lynliss looked at her tenderly. “When is the last time you heard a kind word, or felt a kind touch?” she asked softly. “When is the last time you weren’t afraid?”

A tear fell from her cheek, and as Kyrie watched it fall, she felt her own chin begin to tremble. She took a deep breath, determined to hold herself together. It had been too long – nearly eight years. She had barely reached her eleventh birthday when her parents had decided to make the trip to show her and her brother where they were from. She had barely passed her eleventh birthday when her parents had been killed and she had been separated from her brother, barely eleven when she had been taken into captivity and tortured for a year and a half. At twelve and a half, after already having lost two pregnancies, she had been rescued by the Dark Elves of Dolerum who had mistaken her for one of their own people – and when they had found out the truth, that she was of mixed blood, they had nursed her back to health in a cell and smuggled her off to the White Elf that had taught her everything she knew about weapons, and whom she had killed. No, it had been far too long since she’d been able to trust anyone at all. Since she had not known fear. Since she had been shown any sort of kindness.

The physician was still looking at her with motherly concern, and a second tear fell down her cheek. “You poor, poor child,” she whispered.

Kyrie swallowed hard to try to get rid of the lump in her throat. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she tried to blink them back. She opened her mouth to speak, but she had to clear her throat again before she could croak out, “Kyrie.” She took a deep breath. “My name … is Kyrie.”

As soon as the first tear found its way down her cheek, she knew she had lost the battle. Instead of fighting it, she gave in to her body’s need, and for the first time since her original captivity, she allowed herself to weep.

Location: Winum, Dolerum, Arkandia
Year: 28 058 (2558 T.A)
Status: Early Summer

For two weeks, Kyrie had been joining the family every day for dinner, though she still had breakfast and lunch in bed and spent quite a bit of time sleeping. But over time, she grew more and more comfortable with Leo and the girls, to the point where she would even play games with them after dinner was over. She was beginning to enjoy her life, beginning to feel comfortable – until one day she realized something that disturbed her.

It was during one of her daily baths that she noticed. She had finished washing and was in the process of drying off. She’d spotted a fly on one of the walls, and her first reaction was to kill it. She picked up the bar of soap – something that would kill the fly no matter what part of it hit it – and flung it at the insect.

Too slow.

By the time the bar hit the wall, the fly was gone.

Kyrie stared at the wall incredulously, then looked down at the bar of soap on the floor. She walked to it and picked it up, examining it. The corner of it was barely dented. She stared at it for a moment before returning it to its place on the edge of the tub. Then she stood in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. She raised one arm and flexed it, watching her muscles, then did the same with the other arm, and then did a few lunges on each leg.

After only that much, she knew that she had been right.

She had lost most of her muscle mass during her time in bed.

She dressed slowly, her mind whirling. She calculated how long she had been there. Five weeks under the fever, three weeks before meeting the family, two weeks since then … totalling ten weeks.

Ten weeks.

Most of which had been spent immobile.

She hit her wrist against her forehead. Stupid! Of course she had lost muscle mass, she’d been sitting and doing nothing for almost a full season!

She finished dressing and headed out of the bathing room, hoping that Lynliss was somewhere in the house. She found her very quickly in the kitchen, working on preparing lunch.

“Lynliss!” she exclaimed, bracing herself against the doorway.

The physician jumped, startled by Kyrie’s sudden appearance, and she looked up at her anxiously. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

Kyrie didn’t quite know what to say – in fact, was at a loss for words. “My – my arms – my – muscles – I’m – I’m –”

“Weak?” Lynliss supplied for her, calming down. She dried her hands on a towel. “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice. I have to be honest, when you were first brought in, I was amazed at how strong you seemed … but lying in bed as you’ve been doing, you’ve been growing weaker. More quickly at first, it’s slowed down recently, but … Kyrie, you haven’t left the house, and you’ve barely left your bed. You really oughtn’t to be so shocked by it.”

Kyrie felt as though she were going to cry again. “But- but I- I worked so hard,” she squeaked, her eyes wide and filled with shock. “For – for years!”

“And you’ll have to do so again,” Lynliss replied simply. She looked at Kyrie for a moment, then sighed and moved to stand in front of her, putting her hands on her shoulders. “I … haven’t wanted to mention this,” she said softly, “but … it’s time for you to leave the house. I don’t mean get out, leave, I just mean … go outside, get some fresh air … some exercise …”

Kyrie looked anxiously at the window. There were so many people out there …

“They’ll have to get used to you eventually,” Lynliss pointed out to her, moving back to her lunch preparations. “And I promise you, you’ll be safe.”

Kyrie turned and leaned against the doorway, her eyes still on the window. “But I don’t even know anything about this place,” she said softly. “I don’t even know where I am … the country of Dolerum, yes, the land of my father’s people, yes … but … beyond that …”

Lynliss put her hands into a large bowl of ingredients and began to mix it. “Our city’s called Winum,” she replied. “It’s sizable enough, I’d say … maybe three miles both ways.”

That was indeed a large city, Kyrie mused. “Government?” she asked.

“Leo’s magistrate,” Lynliss answered the question. “We’ve a sheriff and a few soldiers as deputies. For now, I would suggest you go out with either Lara or Gwen, just until you get to know the area. Word went out a while ago already that we’ve adopted you into our family, so you won’t be bothered. And if you are, you just tell us and we’ll take care of whoever it is who’s bothering you.”

She smiled at Kyrie over her shoulder. “It really is a beautiful city. I think you would enjoy it. And there’s plenty to do, so you shouldn’t get bored.”

Kyrie was still watching the window. “Room to run?” she asked. “Practice?”

Lynliss blinked at her. “Practice?” she repeated. “Practice what?”

“With my weapons.” Kyrie turned her eyes from the window and looked at the physician. “If I can have them back, that is.”

Lynliss’s eyes grew suspicious, and she watched Kyrie silently for a moment. Kyrie could see the battle going on in her eyes. Did Kyrie want to leave? Was she going to hurt someone? Could she be trusted with so many weapons?

“Lynliss,” Kyrie said quietly, turning to face the woman squarely, “look at me. Really. Look at me. I need my weapons. I need to practice with them. I gave my life – my body – to a man for three years of my life so that I could learn to use them. So that this” -she gestured towards her myriad of scars- “could never happen to me again. If I don’t have my weapons, if I forget how to use them, if I even get out of practice with them … then all of it, even losing the chance to ever have a child, will all have been for nothing.”

She felt desperation creeping into her voice, and she fought to control it. She didn’t want to frighten Lynliss, she only wanted to convince her of how important this was to Kyrie.

Still, she could see that the physician wasn’t convinced.

“Lynliss, look at me,” she said again. “You saw how I came in here. Of all people, I know I’m in no shape to go anywhere, and why would I want to do anything to hurt you, or your family, or your family’s reputation? You took me in, you taught me that not everyone is trying to hurt me. You showed me that love still exists in this world. That I’m worth more than what I had always thought. That even though my parents were killed, and I have no idea if my brother is dead or alive, that I’m a part of a family. I would never do anything to betray you, to hurt you. Ever.”

Lynliss looked as though she was considering Kyrie’s words, and she pursed her lips thoughtfully as she turned back to kneading the dough she was mixing. For several minutes, she was silent, until the dough was ready and she put it on a stone and stuck it into the fireplace oven. Then she brushed her hands together and turned back to Kyrie. Still, it was another moment before she spoke.

“I must be honest,” she said quietly, unusually serious. “This is a peaceful city, for the most part, and no one wears weapons openly. As much as it will cause a commotion for you to be out and about with everyone, if you have your weapons with you, people will not trust you, and may even pick fights with you. As you said, you’re not at your full strength – it would be bad for you to fight with someone, but it would be worse if they were to hurt you.”

“That’s why I need to practice,” Kyrie replied, sounding patient but feeling far from it. “I won’t let myself be defenseless again. I won’t. I can’t … I can’t go through that again.”

Her voice was quiet at the end, and her eyes became unfocused. Thinking back to her years in captivity, she began to feel uncomfortable again. She fidgeted, rubbing her arms as if she were cold, and pressed herself against the door frame as if trying to hide.

Lynliss’s eyes grew sad, and she looked at Kyrie the same way she had that day that Kyrie had admitted her past abuses to her. She washed her hands in a basin of water and dried them again on the towel, then stood next to Kyrie and put one hand on her shoulder.

“I will see what I can do about finding an indoor area for you to practice,” she murmured, “safely out of the eyes of the people. If you would like to run, then I would recommend running around the city … it’s about twelve miles. I know it’s a lot, but you could work up to it. But when it comes to your weapons, I think it would be best if someone else carried them for you while you’re in sight of citizens.”

Kyrie blinked, startled from her stupor by the physician’s words. She bowed her head respectfully.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’ll try to do as you ask.”

Lynliss watched her a moment longer, then smiled faintly at her. “Not until after lunch,” she said, suddenly cheerful again. “Come. It’s nearly ready, help me finish.”

Smiling back, Kyrie complied readily.

Location: Poleria, Arkandia
Year: 28 059 (2559 T.A)
Status: Mid-Summer

Poleria was a land that had lovely summers.

At least, that was what Kyrie thought. Jielam, further north, didn’t get fully dark at night, and was way too dry. Caras Galadhon, the country where she had been born and spent the first half of her life, was warm, but too humid for her tastes. Dolerum was fine, though a bit dry. Poleria on the other hand, was warm without being overly hot, and without the humidity that increased the heat. It rained usually once a week, sometimes twice, so the land was never too wet or too dry, and the air was almost always clear. There was really only one thing that spoiled the country for her, that made her really not like it.

The people.

Yes, they were her mother’s people. And in that way, they were in part her own people as well. But they were killers. They were torturers. And she hated them with every fibre of her being.

She would harm no one that didn’t deserve it, though. Unless she was attacked, she would harm no one but the men who had tortured her. She was no murderer. She would not lower herself to their level.

For three weeks now, she had been in the country. Crossing the border hadn’t been a problem – it had been far easier than getting out of Jielam. Since the war was over, crossing the border was restricted, but at least it wasn’t a death sentence for someone not fully human to be in the country. Once she had entered the country, however, she had disguised herself so that no one would take note of her. It had worked very well – with her short hair and the thick, heavy cloak she had donned, most people had mistaken her for a man, and she had remained unmolested.

And now, she had found it. The place where she had been kept. The prison complex.

It was larger than she had remembered. Then again, she had only been taken between two areas during her captivity, so perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. She had been brought in blindfolded, and had passed out during her rescue, so she had never seen her prison from the outside. Nevertheless, according to the information she’d acquired when she had asked around, this was the only prison camp that had kept prisoners for more than a month at a time. It had to be the place where she had been kept. She spent a few days now scouting it out, observing it from every angle.

There were two main buildings: one that covered approximately an acre of land, and one that covered slightly less than that. While the entire compound was surrounded by ten-food barbed wire fence, the larger of the two buildings was also surrounded by the same fencing, and she assumed that was where the prisoners had been kept. The smaller building had people entering and exiting all day long, people dressed in uniforms, and she guessed that that was where the command center was located.

There were other buildings as well, small ones, the size of houses, and some even smaller. Those ones, she discovered, were for storage of food, water, weapons, and other supplies.

She had everything she needed in the two bags that she carried with her, as well as the belt she’d had made for her back in Winum. One bag had her daily essentials – clothes, food, water, and so on; the second one held smaller pouches of various powders she’d learned to use during her time in Jielam as well as some of her smaller weapons. Her belt held her blades, but it also had leather rings to hold several small vials. These vials held a variety of powders and liquids. She had to be careful with them: while they were all safe on their own, if the vials broke and they were mixed, the results would be catastrophic for her. She would need them for what she wanted to accomplish here.

The first thing she would have to do, of course, was check and see if there were any prisoners left. She didn’t want to hurt any innocents, after all. Then she would destroy the compound, as well as any of the people who worked there, who made their business out of destroying the lives of others.

Kyrie spent three days simply observing the complex, watching it from every angle, learning its routines and its layout. It was obvious they weren’t worried about people getting in: there was only one guard, and he was at the gate that led into the complex. The other three sides were left unguarded, save for the barbed wire that stood ten feet high. Still, that was little more than a deterrent for Kyrie.

On the third night, she made her move. She used two of her smallest knives to saw through the wire of the fence the furthest from anyone’s sight, taking cover in a nearby bush any time she heard a noise. Once she was inside, she donned her black cloak and pressed herself against one of the walls of the larger building to blend with the shadows of the night. She followed the wall along the fence, where there were no people, until she came to a window. She peered inside.

The window was covered in dirt and smudges, but there was a candle lit in the room, and she was able to make out two men: a guard reporting to his superior. She didn’t recognize either of their faces, and she simply filed away the information for later.

Ducking below the window so that she wouldn’t be seen, she continued along the wall until she came to a wooden door. The door was old, not in good repair, and she could see through several cracks between its wooden planks. What she saw was a long hallway that led to an iron door, and along the hallway were several smaller wooden doors.

A chill shot down her spine, and for a moment, she forgot to breathe. She recognized that iron door. She knew what was beyond it. The cells.

For a moment, she felt incredulity stealing over her. She had escaped from these very walls only a little more than half a decade ago. What was she doing, stealing her way back in?

She took a deep breath and steeled herself, gathering her courage. She was on a mission. She had to find out what she could about her brother and then destroy the compound, and anyone who got in her way. That was the reason she had returned here. The only reason.

She pulled two thin pieces of metal from her belt and inserted them into the door’s lock, but even before she began to pick it, she realized with some surprise that it wasn’t locked. With some trepidation, she pushed the door open slightly. The hinges, rusted from years of disuse, creaked loudly in protest, and she stopped immediately, cursing silently. So much for an easy way inside.

Still, she wasn’t out of options. She opened her bag and pulled out a soft cloth, as well as an oilskin pouch that was wrapped around the lard that she sometimes used for cooking while traveling. She wiped some of the lard onto the soft cloth and rubbed it into the hinges to silence the squeaking. It took her a full quarter hour, but the next time she tried the door, it opened with barely a sound. She slipped the oilskin and cloth back into her bad and stepped inside the building.

There were no candles in the corridor, but Kyrie didn’t need them. She knew this place far better than she liked. Of course, it helped that she had inherited her father’s eyesight: the shadows, while they would have been black areas to full-blooded humans, were dark but distinguishable for her.

She stepped carefully through the shards of glass and wooden splinters that littered the floor, making her way to the iron door. She had no intentions of going through it; there were other paths she would prefer to take if they were passable. But she did want to look through the keyhole and see what she could expect on the other side.

She used her cloak, wrapped around her fist, to clear the debris from near the iron door so that she could kneel without worrying about embedding anything in her knees. Then she knelt down and put one eye to the keyhole.

On the other side of the door, the corridor was lit with torches, illuminating the bars of the cells that lined it. Kyrie had to fight down that feeling of coldness again. She had spent a year and a half in one of those cells – the worst year and a half of her life. She forced the feeling away and instead of focusing on it, she looked for indications of what else was there.

At the far end of the corridor, a single guard kept watch. He stood, motionless, facing the cells, but Kyrie could see on his face how exhausted he was, how little he was actually paying attention. She was glad of that – it would make things much simpler. She watched him for a while to make sure he was actually alone. No one came to talk to him, and there were no sounds to indicate that there was anyone else nearby.

At last, Kyrie slipped into the room to the left of the door, her movements silent. There was no door in there except the one she had entered, but she wasn’t worried about that. That wasn’t her purpose in coming in here. She needed the room for cover for the moment. Nothing more. She took a moment to prepare her things for what she was about to do. Then she opened the door to the outside through which she had entered the building, leaving it wide, and slid back into the darkness of the side room. She picked up a brick that was loose in the wall and knelt once more at the keyhole of the iron door. She threw the brick over her shoulder, at the door to the outside, keeping an eye on the guard on the other side of the iron door.

The brick hit the door with a thud loud enough for the guard to hear, and he blinked and started forward. Kyrie backed away from the door and slid into the dark room again just as she heard the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened, and the guard stepped through it. He saw the back door open and stepped forward to check it out. As he passed the room Kyrie was in, she stepped out silently behind him. She grabbed him from behind, one hand over his mouth so that he couldn’t cry out, and in one swift move, she twisted his head hard, snapping his neck. She dragged the body into the dark room and hid it behind a pile of debris. Then she grabbed her things again and returned to the iron door.

There was no one else in the corridor, and she quickly pulled a small pouch from one of her bags. She opened the drawstrings and put one hand inside. She grabbed a small handful of powder and dusted a line along the length of the corridor, right where it met the wall. Hopefully it would remain undisturbed. She was counting on that.

She continued to leave a line of powder along a second and third corridor, making sure each time that there was no one around. It wasn’t until she reached the other end of the building that she finally found another person. After dispatching of him in the same manner as the first guard, she finished spreading her powder. A quick search of the rooms revealed nothing of interest. Finished with the building, she retreated to the door through which she’d first entered before striking a knife against a piece of flint, igniting the powder with the sparks from it. It flared for a moment, and then it began to burn along the line of powder.

As the building began to burn, Kyrie slipped around the corner of the building and back to the fence. Instead of going outside the fence, she got down on her belly and slithered along the base of the fence, towards the other main building. Suddenly there was an explosion, and bricks, mortar and glass flew through the air. There was a shout from the direction of the other building, and then a stampede of footsteps as people raced to put out the fire.

Kyrie took advantage of the chaos and hid herself with her cloak, slipping into the smaller main building. People kept running past her, but they were shouting to each other, and they ignored her.

There was another explosion, and through a window, Kyrie could see that the fire had spread by means of a row of storage crates, and that these had exploded and were showering flaming debris in every direction. Someone was shouting orders, and the people split into two groups: most of them ran towards the fire and were trying to put it out, but some of them were running back to the building that Kyrie had entered.

Kyrie didn’t give herself the time to reflect on her good fortune, that the fire was spreading itself so quickly. She had a few people she wanted to track down if she could, and she wanted to go through as many records as she could to see if she could figure out what had happened to her brother. The fire was the only way she could steal the files without them knowing, and even that was a risk.

Three men suddenly appeared directly behind her, but mistaking her as one of their own, one of them shouted at her, “Hurry up! We have to save our work!”

Another of them shoved her roughly to the side. “Out of the way, you’re slowing us down!” he growled.

Kyrie bit her tongue to keep back a retort, instead taking advantage of their confusion and running after them. This way at least she wouldn’t have to search for the room she wanted: they would lead her directly to it.

They led her to a back room that was full of cabinets, and each of the cabinets seemed to be full to bursting with files.

“Get them out of here!” one of the men ordered. “Quickly!”

“Yes, sir!” the others replied, running for the files. As they began to scoop up files, one of them turned from a cabinet and shouted, “Khetal! This one’s locked!”

Kyrie’s heart skipped a beat. Khetal? That was her brother’s name – not a human name at all!

The man who seemed to be more or less in charge turned and glared at the man who had told him about the locked cabinet. “Then break it open! Those especially are the files we can’t lose!”

A third explosion rocked the building, and Kyrie couldn’t help but wonder briefly what they could possibly have in the facility that would cause so many explosions from what should have been a simple fire. But as the man in charge began to take action, she turned her attention to him to see if her hunch was true.

He shoved the man aside who had complained about the cabinet being locked, braced himself, and used his shoulder to ram the locked cabinet. A single blow knocked it open, but it also knocked the hood from his head. Kyrie bit her tongue to keep from gasping aloud. The man was clearly not fully human – he was like her.

That was enough for her. She didn’t need the files anymore. Let them be destroyed. She didn’t care. She knew where her brother was.

She reached into her belt and pulled out her knives. With all that was going on, she had killed three of the men before anyone could even react. Even then, none of them could stop her: she was a thoroughly trained killer, they were torturers and scholars. It was a matter of seconds before the only ones left alive in the room were herself and Khetal, who was glaring at her, his stance defensive.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a threatening tone, fists clenched.

“Come with me and I’ll tell you,” Kyrie replied, keeping her hood up, remaining hidden.

“And if I don’t?” Khetal challenged her, his muscles tensing as he prepared to fight her.

Kyrie didn’t want to hurt him, but she had no choice. She slid one hand down to her waist and pulled two vials from her belt. Her cloak hid her movements, and her brother suspected nothing. In a swift movement, she flung the two vials at her brother’s feet. There was another explosion, this one smaller, and Khetal looked at instinctively. He let out a cry as he was temporarily blinded, his feet and legs burned by the small blast. Kyrie darted forward and spun around, bringing the blade of her hand down on the small of Khetal’s neck. Like a rock, he slid to the floor, unconscious. Without hesitating, Kyrie picked him up and slung him over her shoulders. With little more than a glance, she headed out the back door of the building, ignoring the fire that was now burning in the file room.

Dodging behind trees and crates, Kyrie made her way back to the hold where she’d infiltrated the facility, doing her best to ignore the heat of the raging fires. She shoved her brother through, followed after him, picked up him again and headed back into the trees.

Location: The shore of Arkandian Bay, Poleria, Arkandia
Year: 28 059 (2559 T.A)
Status: Mid-Summer

Within four days, Kyrie and Khetal were halfway to Dolerum. They were traveling along the coast of the Bay of Arkandia, which would take them into Dolerum with the greatest amount of safety. It also helped that there was lots of water, since Kyrie’s flask had run out days previous. It also meant that for the first time since she’d arrived in Poleria, she could wash herself.

When she returned to their fire after a midnight swim, Khetal was tending it carefully. He glanced up when he heard her return, then blushed and looked away again immediately. “Have you no sense of modesty?” he asked her, reaching for a blanket and holding it up to her.

Kyrie was still naked from her swim, and dripping with water. “After all I’ve been though, you expect me to be?” she asked him, taking the blanket and wrapping it around herself. “Besides, it’s the middle of the night, and I don’t have any more clothes. What do you expect?”

“Then at least take the blanket with you and leave it by the water so you can wrap yourself when you come out,” he told her flatly.

“And risk it being seen?” She arched one eyebrow. “Thanks, but no.”

Her brother stared at her incredulously. “You’re willing to go out there naked, without bringing anything with you, and don’t care who sees you, but you don’t want your blanket to be seen?”

“It can get stolen, I can’t,” Kyrie replied simply. She sat down next to him. “What’s for dinner?”

“We already ate,” he pointed out.

Kyrie laughed. It felt amazing to be able to feel this way, even if they were in danger if they were found. “So what, we keep going then?” she grinned at him.

“I think we should,” Khetal nodded. “The further we get, the better. I want to get out of here. It’s not safe anymore. Even if they don’t suspect arson at the facility, if we’re found here it will still look bad. Especially as I’m fairly well known now.”

“Yes,” Kyrie rolled her eyes. “Because you had to go and be a genius for them.” She put one arm around his shoulders and hugged him lightly. “But it kept you alive.” She smiled at him again.

He shrugged out from under her arm. “Get some clothes on.”

She laughed again. “Fine.” She stood up and grabbed her clothes, then turned back to her brother. “You know,” she grinned at him, “I really don’t think I can tell you how happy I am that we’re back together. When I left Dolerum, I didn’t even think you were alive, let alone that I would find you.”

Khetal smiled back at her. “I know. I feel the same.”

Kyrie’s eyes sparkled softly in the firelight, and then she turned and vanished into the shadows to get dressed again.

Location: Winum, Dolerum, Arkandia
Year: 28 059 (2559 T.A.)
Status: Late Summer

Four weeks had passed since Kyrie and Khetal had arrived in Winum, and already the renovations on the house were underway. For Kyrie, it had been easy to go back to routine: training early in the mornings, spending time with the girls, helping out where she could. For Khetal, however, things were different: he’d spent seven years working hard, researching what he’d thought was a deadly disease, and now that he knew that had been a lie, he felt lost. Yes, he had his sister back, and he was glad of that; but at the same time, his life was in no way the same as it had been. He had no way to fill his days, no purpose to fulfil.

Kyrie had tried to help him, tried to include him in things, but he was the first to admit that he had no interest in learning to fight, to kill. Leo had spoken with him on an academic level, which Khetal had really liked, and though he had learned a lot, especially about the city, it didn’t give him much of a future since, as a half-blood, he had no political rights there. He couldn’t be an active part of the government, even just to sit in on council and offer advice.

Lynliss had watched him over the course of those four weeks with a mother’s knowing eye, and finally one morning, as the rest of the family left the house to go about their daily business, she asked him if he would stay with her for the day.

“You’ve been here four weeks,” she told him, smiling warmly, “and we’ve not yet had a real chance to talk. You’ve gone along with Kyrie and Leo often enough, now it’s time I got to get to know you.”

Khetal smiled at Lynliss from where he was sitting at the dining room table, about to rise from his breakfast. “I’d like that,” he agreed. He stood up and began to clear the table. “I know you’re a doctor. Kyrie showed me your clinic once, though we didn’t step inside. I must admit, I never know how people will react to me.”

“How have things been so far?” Lynliss asked him. She filled a sink with water to prepare for the dishes.

Khetal stacked the dishes and brought them to the kitchen. “Well enough, I suppose,” he admitted. “I have noticed that Kyrie gets more funny looks than I do … and I don’t get the looks when I’m alone that I do when we’re together. It … boggles me, to be honest.”

Lynliss didn’t look surprised, and Khetal noticed it. When she didn’t answer him, he stepped closer and leaned slightly to look into her face. “Lynliss?”

She smiled at him. “Well, there is a very simple explanation for it. You look more elven than she does. She could pass for human quite easily. You would have to hide yourself almost entirely. Unless you told people that you’re half human, no one would ever know. You will be far more accepted here than she will ever be.”

Khetal blinked. “That’s … not … good,” he said slowly. “I think it might be better that Kyrie not … know that …”

“I’m sure she already does,” Lynliss said dismissively. “Trust me, she has no hopes of truly belonging here. She knows what things are like. She’s fine with it – she has us, and she has you now, and that’s all she needs.”

Khetal stared at her as she started to wash the dishes. “You really think so?”

Lynliss nodded for him to grab a towel to start drying. “She was here a full year before she left to find you. I think I can probably say I know her better than anyone else does. She’s happy here. Infinitely more so now that you’re here. She hasn’t known real happiness since you and your parents first left on the journey to see their homelands. But now she’s happy again. Lost, perhaps, but happy.”

“Lost?”

“Think about it.” Lynliss smiled sadly. “Her only goals in training herself were to destroy the place that tortured her so much, and to find you back. She’s done both of those things. Now what? Yes, she’s still training herself, and yes, she spends a lot of time with Lara and Gwen … but beyond that she doesn’t know what to do. And yet she’s happy. She has people she loves, people who love her, a safe place to live … and she has you.”

“I feel the same way,” Khetal admitted softly. “Happy … but lost. I have her again, and it makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be again … but I don’t know what to do with my life either.”

Lynliss thought about that as she kept washing the dishes. “Kyrie told me you were a medical researcher,” she murmured thoughtfully.

He nodded. “Yes. For what I was told was a deadly disease that affected only half-bloods. It was Kyrie who told me the truth – that it was poison, and that she had been subjected to the same poison.”

Lynliss pursed her lips thoughtfully. “She must have been rescued just in time.”

Khetal looked away angrily. He had been there back then, and he’d had no idea. He blamed himself for the way she’d been treated. He knew Kyrie didn’t blame him, but that didn’t stop him from feeling badly about it.

“Be that as it may,” Lynliss continued, “it means that you have experience in medicine. I’m a physician. I’m the first to admit that it doesn’t always keep me busy, but it is a necessary job, even in a small city like this one. And I’ve seen how lost you are. You have an innate need to be doing something to help people.”

It was then that Khetal began to have the same feeling from Lynliss that Kyrie had gotten when she’d first come to live with the family: that the woman had an amazing ability to read people and know what they needed and what they were like.

Lynliss was still not finished.

“What I wanted to say, Khetal, is that I could use your help in the clinic,” she concluded. “If you’re interested, I would be quite happy to allow you to become my aide. Work for me in helping with my patients, and – I hope this especially appeals to you - helping me to develop medicines to more effectively help people who are sick.”

She turned to him and smiled. “It’s true, elves are rarely sick. But when we do contract something, it is usually quite serious. I’m afraid my research abilities are few and far between, and though I have knowledge of plants on their own, I have no idea what would happen if I were to mix any of them. I could really use your expertise.”

Khetal wasn’t sure what to say. “Are you serious?” he asked finally. “You’d do that for me?”

Lynliss laughed. “For you? Honestly, you’d be doing me – and the whole city – a favour.” She grinned at him. “Now, don’t give me a hasty answer right now. I know you want to say yes, but I don’t want you to change your mind later and regret it. So for now, for a few weeks at least, why don’t you accompany me to the clinic, give me a hand, and then in a few weeks I’ll ask you again, and you can let me know if you’re interested in doing that full time?”

Khetal was more grateful than he could say.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you so- so very much!”

Lynliss laughed. “Come now, you’re nearly as bad as Kyrie. We’re family now. Don’t you ever forget that. No thanks are necessary.”

Khetal set down the dish he was drying and hugged Lynliss. He hadn’t hugged anyone other than Kyrie since he’d been a child, but he couldn’t help himself. He was just that grateful.

Lynliss laughed again, leaning into the hug but not hugging him back since her hands were wet. “All right, now you are as bad as Kyrie. Come on, let’s get the dishes done so we can get to the clinic.”

“You got it,” Khetal chuckled softly, picking up his towel again.