Evenfall

The caravan jolted. The caravan never jolted, not while Isa was inside it, still half asleep. She frowned, rubbing furiously at her blurry eyes and glancing around the caravan as she sat up. A dull throb invaded her temples, and she glanced to her pillow. The rose lay next to it, slightly wilted, along with a damp spot on the sheet. She had cried in the night.

Isa sighed and attempted to get out of bed, but another jolt butchered her efforts, instead leading her head to smack against the roof of the cabin. She cried out in surprise as a second, more powerful jolt jumped her to the edge of her bunk, almost introducing her lethargic body to the floor. Again.

“Are you trying to kill me?” She yelled towards the driver’s seat, through the wooden wall. She heard something strangely akin to her mother’s snort. She frowned. Her mother never snorted. She hadn’t laughed in all the years Isa had known her, and if she was being honest, that was her entire life. Chuckled, maybe. But never laughed. Although, she had come sufficiently close to it when she had told Isa of her Anala heritage.

“Are you… laughing?” Isa asked through the wall.

“No,” her mother shouted back. “I am simply amused.”

“You’re never amused,” Isa yelled back, finally managing to grip the bunk in such a way that she’d be able to climb down with minimal injury. “Not by anything, ever!”

Isa was halfway to the floor when the caravan hit another rock and jolted her grip loose. She yelled out – partly from surprise and partly from outrage – as she careened towards the floor. She landed with a dull thump, a second bump in the road causing her to bounce a bit.

“By Archen, I swear you’re hitting the rocks on purpose!” Isa called angrily. What could have been mistaken as a laugh came in response, but it couldn’t be a laugh. Her mother never laughed.

“Stop the caravan and let me get out!” Isa called desperately, shakily rising to her feet. She hadn’t expected her mother to do as she’d asked, but the caravan rolled gently to a stop and allowed her to finally find purchase on the mobile ground. She got dressed as quickly as she could – for fear of even more bruises than she’d likely already get – and threw the door open to jog down the steps. She paused just as she was about to descend and turned back a round. She grabbed the rose from beside her pillow and tucked it into one of her favourite books, to dry and press.

When she ran back out she was met by Naois, sitting at the bottom of the steps and staring expectantly towards her, head cocked.

“Good morning,” she smiled, tying her hair up as she walked out the caravan. His tongue lolled out his mouth and his tail started wagging. She snorted and scratched his head after pulling the door closed. He trotted after her as she jogged up to the driver’s seat. Her mother scooted over to allow her a seat. Once she’d climbed up, Nao placed a paw on the foot rest of the seat, asking permission. Isa nodded and waved him up as she got comfortable.

He jumped up and sat next to her feet, leaning slightly against her legs.

“Was it always this cramped before?” Maria asked jovially as she clucked Monte on. Isa smiled and shook her head.

“You’re thinking of when I was a child and Nao was little more than a pup. We’ve grown since then, Madre.”

“Hm,” she said thoughtfully. “I suppose you have.”

They lapsed into silence, the only noise the rhythmic clicking of Monte’s hooves and the sounds of the forest around them.

“I want to apologize, Isa.” Maria said quietly after a moment. “For my behavior last night. I should never have gotten so worked up, and I never should have hit you. I’m sorry.”

Nao’s head shot towards Isa, what could have been a questioning look in his eye. Isa frowned at him, but he looked away too quickly for her to be sure. He seemed worked up over something. Sometimes she believed that his time with her and her mother had erased most of his wolf traits and replaced them with vague human ones.

“I forgive you,” Isa said after a moment, turning to her mother. “I just wish I could understand why you always find fault with me, especially when I try so hard to make you happy.”

Her mother’s mouth set into a grim line, an indiscernible look crossing her eyes. She sighed.

“I wish I could tell you, Isabelle.” She said quietly. “But it is a burden I have chosen to shoulder alone, and I do not wish for you to live in the same shadow I have. I just want you to understand that it is no fault of yours I find, it is mine and mine alone.”

She looked Isa in the eye, and she could see that her mother was heartbroken over what she had done and said, and that she was being sincere. Isa nodded, accepting that there were things Maria would never tell her. That didn’t stop her wishing she would, though.

Isa sighed quietly and nodded, leaning her head back against the caravan. Her headache was still assaulting her with repeated blows. She really should have taken some water out with her.

“Headache?” Maria asked, raising an eyebrow. Isa nodded, eyes closed. She heard her mother moving around and eventually opened an eye when she was nudged by something. Her mother was holding a canteen in her hand, offering it to Isa. She gratefully took it and drank. Strangely, her headache cleared up immediately as she took the first sip. Her mother smiled at her frown.

“Kovan lake water. I went into Kova after you left and bought some from the market.” She explained gently. “It has incredible healing properties, so don’t drink it all up at once.”

Isa nodded and closed the bottle, sufficiently refreshed and healthy. A thought occurred to her and she glanced to Nao. Sensing her eyes on him, he turned to meet her gaze.

“Paw,” she said. He handed her his healthy paw. “Not that one. The other one.”

His ears flicked backwards and then forwards, hesitant.

“Come on,” she prodded, clicking her fingers. He begrudgingly lifted his silver paw to place it in her waiting hand. She turned it over to find the beginning of the bandage. It was loose, as if it had been untied and retied, and wasn’t difficult to remove. It must have come loose while he was on once of his nightly escapades.

Her eyes widened, however, once she saw that his leg wound was almost completely healed, only a thin pink scar sitting in place of where it had been.

“How…?” She wondered, looking up at him. She gave him an unimpressed look. “Did you go jump in a pond too?”

He sneezed and glanced at her. “I take that as a yes,” she sighed, letting his paw go. He shuffled around until he was facing her completely and rested his head on her lap. She chuckled and stroked his silver fur, watching as the sunlight glinted off it. She frowned. The angle of the sun was wrong.

“What time is it?” She asked her mother. Maria allowed a sly smile to slip onto her face, although that was all her mouth did. It offered no answer. Isa gasped and looked up at the sky. The sun had long since passed its zenith, meaning it was well into the afternoon.

“How long was I asleep!” Isa shrieked, making Nao whine dejectedly. “Sorry,” she muttered quickly to him before whipping to face her mother. “I slept half the day away!”

“More than that, actually,” Maria muttered under her breath. Isa gaped at her.

“You were crying when I returned, so I let you sleep when you didn’t wake up in the morning. You seemed tired.” She offered an explanation.

“Oh,” Isa simmered down. “Well, um, thanks.”

Maria smiled and nodded, eyes trained on the road.

“Well, on the up side, we are almost at our destination,” Maria grinned.

Both Isa and Nao perked up at this. “And where exactly is that?” Isa prodded. Maria pursed her lips, as if to say, ‘I’m not telling you anything’.

Nao huffed and jumped down, trotting off into the woods and out of sight. Isa agreed with him. She huffed too, crossing her arms and scooting over to occupy what little space Nao had vacated. Maria was right, it was cramped.

“Oh, simmer down,” Maria scolded, urging Monte on faster. “You don’t have to wait very long. Look, it’s in sight.”

Isa sat up excitedly, craning her neck to see what her mother had been talking about. Eventually she spotted it.

A massive, looming wall blocked the road, not too far up ahead. It was taller than any building Isa had ever seen, and she had seen her fair share of cities. It was colossal, and sitting right in their path was a gate, almost as imposing as the wall. The wall itself was made of chunks of stone blocks, but the gate was made of an ancient, dark wood. Before the wood stood a wrought iron barring. The message was clear: this city was prone to violent attacks, but it was beyond prepared for them.

Isa couldn’t tear her eyes away from the looming structure, and the closer they got the more detail she picked out. The gate was so massive, the entire town of Kova could probably fit on it – with place to spare. There were guards on the wall, some marching up and down and some manning crossbows and various other artillery. They wore black armor.

Rhazien.

This city had already been conquered by King Rhazien. That explained why the walls and gates looked so new; they were. They couldn’t have been more than a few years old – at best. This was a newly conquered city. She wondered if he had left the reigning monarchs in their thrones, or if he’d replaced them once claiming the city. A man on top of the wall shouted out as they neared. The caravan rolled to a stop before the wall, Maria glancing expectedly up at the soldiers on the wall.

They seemed to quickly decide that Isa and her mother weren’t threats, and so more shouts ensued. This time they were directed to the other side of the wall, likely to those manning the gate mechanisms.

A cacophony of clanks and groans came from behind the gate, and from within the wall. With much protest, the iron barring swung open, and the wooden gate soon followed suit. Isa’s eyes widened with the gate as more and more of the city was revealed to her.

It was massive – bigger than any other she’d ever seen before. She realized then that what she had seen before weren’t cities. They were densely populated villages compared to this. Buildings upon buildings were packed into the city. It seemed that when the architects could no longer build outwards, they built upwards. Some of the structures were almost as tall as the wall, but they were all trumped – wall included – by the massive structure at the very center of the city.

“Where are we?” Isa whispered, breathless, as they rolled further into the city. They were swallowed up in the crowds of people in the street, far more than Isa had ever seen in one place in all her life. She swore she had already seen triple Kova’s population just in front of the gate.

“Emrys,” Maria answered, a proud smile sitting on her face.

Isa’s eyes widened even further when she heard the name of the colossal city she was in. Emrys was the sister city to Zenith, the capital of Aesorion. It was the second biggest city in the world.

“Wow,” she breathed. Her words were lost in the noise around them. It seemed that the entire city was a market, street vendors littering the road they were on every few steps. They seemed to be on the main road, a clear path straight to the center of the city. A myriad of smaller roads branched off of it, and myriads still branched off of those. It was clear that if you hadn’t grown up in Emrys, you would not be able you find your way anywhere without someone who had.

They seemed to be in the poorest sector of the colossal city. As they grew closer and closer to the structure in the center, the buildings became moderately more expensive and extravagant. The city seemed to be divided into rings, each ring a different sector, each sector richer than the last. Isa could only imagine what the center ring held.