SWNOVELS Chapter 14: The Morning After
“Lady Laia” a husky voice called her from outside the tent.
She was just laying on her bed with crouched limbs, not able to sleep the whole night. Startled by the call, she immediately rose up and sat on the edge of her bed. Judging from the piercing light from the tent’s entrance, it must had been morning already. She slowly stood and went to open the drapes of the tent. It was Eli.
“May I come in?” he asked. Laia unveiled the drapes wide for him to enter. “I am sorry for what happened to you last night.”
Laia’s face was indifferent.
“Arbor Grench was a noble man just a week ago. He used his strength to build this camp. He fought off raiders and even beasts to keep the camp safe. In fact, he was one of the first men who formed the Reds of Elmswood. People spoke highly of him, for he gathered broken people and brought them together to fight for a single unified cause. But I don’t know what’s gotten into him last night.”
But it appeared his words did not comfort her one bit. Her arms were still folded in front her chest, hiding her tremored hands. The ridges of her eyes sunken. Her pupils, restless. But despite that, her dry lips opened up.
“The king’s regalia must have drove him mad when Obed handed it to him. For I know that when a man has had a taste of victory, he will always crave for more.” Laia muttered. “That’s what I see every time I encounter humans.”
“Perhaps…” Eli took a jar of water and poured a cup for Laia, seeing that she hadn’t even had a drop since last night. Laia took it from him and had a sip.
“So tell me, Captain Rivergrove. Does your victory last night made you crave more?”
“I only crave a better life for all people in Evermorn; pink, brown and even blue.”
Laia gazed into Eli’s perfect brown eyes, trying to read him like a book. But she couldn’t help but doubt. She saw honesty in Eli but her trust could not be settled down on him. There was still a lot she didn’t know about the man whom she just met a few days ago. A dozen questions about him passed through her mind until a rather random one spilled out of her mouth.
“I see you speak a lot about justice and fairness. Yet I keep hearing the word ‘thief’ coming out of the mouths of your enemies and allies when addressing you. Why is that?”
The sudden question startled Eli, but he did expect such a query to come eventually.
“That is a matter of my past that I do not wish to remind myself.” Eli bit his lip.
“How could I trust you with the realm’s future if you couldn’t trust me with your own past?” Laia pushed him to tell his tale. So Eli, taking a deep breath, hesitantly shared his story.
“Fine.” He gave a soft smile “Let me start by saying I wasn’t always from Dalem…Like everyone else in Eleazar, most of us come from the Blade. The Blade is the ancestral home of the Eleazarians, divided into two nations: Rodenheim and Meridia. I was from the latter.”
Eli poured a cup of water for himself and grabbed himself a seat.
“But I wasn’t a good child” he continued. “At my adolescence, I made peers with six other children my age. And oh, were we the bad apples of our trees. You see, we come from poor families. We didn’t always had enough to eat. So my friends and I started stealing food from the farmer’s market. That was our first victory”
“And then you craved more?” Laia smiled.
“As humans do.” Eli chuckled. “As we grew older, we moved on from stealing food to jewellery. Pretty soon, even that became uninteresting. So we moved on to stealing official royal documents and sell them to the Sentries of Lom. We went in and escaped out of the high penitentiary more times than we could count. We were kings and queens of our own lives. We even made a name for ourselves: The Seven Thieves of Meridia.”
“Sounds like you had a good life” Laia said sarcastically. “What changed?”
“Well…Two of my friends died in one of our heists. Another one captured, Sirium knows how he is now. Then the rest of us were scattered. For some reason, there was nowhere to run anymore. Nowhere except home. But when I finally came back, only my mother and sister were there. Apparently, there was one, new Meridian law that I just couldn’t break…‘Fathers are responsible for their children’s crimes when the child is unattainable.’…So that day, I found out my father was hanged for my crimes.”
“That’s unfair!” Laia remarked.
“My thoughts exactly. It took me a long time but I finally learned that my actions bared consequences, especially the bad ones...” Eli stared into his empty cup. “But what shamed me more than my father’s execution was that I never really got to know him well. I ran off at such a young age that the only memories I had of him was that he would go out early in the morning to work and come back late at night. Mother always spoke highly of him though; telling us he’s the greatest man alive. Knowing that he died for my sins, he might just be.”
“Your mother must be furious when she saw you then…”Laia interrupted, her face expressed empathy.
“On the contrary, she ran up to me and gave me a big hug. She begged me never to leave again. And I promised her I never would. So when I heard that Eleazar opened a new province called Dalem and was looking for farmers to tend it, I took my family there to start a new life. And you know the rest of the story…”
Laia crossed her arms, staring at Eli’s fingers playing with the cup.
“I can see why your endeavour is set on justice then. There are many injustices you did yourself that you wish to redeem.”
Eli nodded, giving out a loud sigh as he stood up to return the cups to the table.
Then Laia gently moved nearer to Eli and clasped his hands together.
“I will do all that I can to help your cause, Rivergrove” She softly spoke. “Let us head for Dalhar in the evening.”
“It will be arranged, Lady Laia.” Eli smiled.
Slowly, Laia moved closer and pressed her dark blue lips on his cheek. And indeed, Eli’s heart was racing, tempted to reciprocate her kiss. But he took a deep breath in and just embraced her, for it was not the time to make love.
“Catch some sleep, head huntress. It is day time already.” Eli whispered with a smile.
Laia just nodded, as Eli let her go and left.