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“I suppose we can’t put it off any longer.”
Eli let out a breath, not taking her eyes away from the armoured shemlen stationed at the bridge. They had followed the track up the mountain out of sight for as long as possible, but there was a bridge leading to a track that was impassable if not on the road itself and there were shemlen soldiers checking travellers before they crossed. The three of them had crouched on a rocky outcrop covered by trees and sparse shrubs, just out of sight.
Yerevan grumbled some curse under his breath as he sharpened his blade one final time, sliding it seamlessly onto his broad back. The sound was oddly comforting, but she suspected anything to do with home would be comforting at this point. She turned to Ghila, crouched beside her on the rise above the path up from the valley. The hunter looked back, dark eyes large in her tanned face turned pale by weeks in the cold. Her scarf was wrapped tight around her mouth, but Eli could tell there would be a grimace under there. “They are expecting us, yes?”
Eli flipped the flap of her pack open and brought out the rolled parchment she found there, heavy with the strange, thick red wax of the Divine. She rolled it out, smoothing the paper over the rock at her side and running her eyes over the writing there. Mostly for her own comfort than to check its legitimacy. It was official, as the seal proved.
“It’s real, Ghila. We are welcome here.”
Yerevan’s voice was sharp from behind them.
“We’ll never be welcome here, they’ll just put up with us. Hopefully until after we leave.”
“I don’t need you starting anything.”
“If some jumped up shem…”
Eli stood up and faced him, looking down at where he still crouched. He trailed off at the stern look on her face, but the glare didn’t subside until she relented, putting her gloved hand to his cheek and crouching beside him so they were at a level.
“Lethalin, some jumped up shem is definitely going to make some sort of remark, something for which we have every right to take offence. But the Keeper sent us here because we have to rise above that. They may not deserve our efforts, but the people dying because of this stupid war need us, regardless.”
“This stupid war is their fault.” He grumbled, softer now. Eli felt the side of her mouth curl in a grin.
“Of course it’s their fault. But it’s our world as well as theirs and we have a say in what happens now. Perhaps we can help, perhaps we can persuade them that there’s another way.”
“You truly believe that?” Ghila asked from behind her.
“I think that their Divine would not have invited us if she wasn’t desperate for some kind of solution. I think if we can just make it through these shem to her, then we will be offered respect. The Keeper offered her aid,” she added, as Yerevan opened his mouth to argue. “And only her aid. It was Divine Justinia who actually invited us here. She believes we have a valuable voice to add, the right to sit at this table.”
“Then why are we dressed like damn spies? It’s not as if they’re not going to see our faces.”
“We’ve talked about this. That was the Keeper’s plan. We stay as listeners only until the Divine and I decide when it is time for us to speak. Otherwise they’ll all gang up together just to get us off the table and then go after each other once we’re gone.”
“I don’t understand shem politics.” Yerevan grumbled, his voice reverberating through his cheek into her palm. She smiled.
“We cannot live on the periphery forever.”
She had ended softly, but a wry smile crossed Yerevan’s face and he cocked his head against her palm, nipping at the pad of her thumb.
“Didn’t saying that get you kicked out of the Elder’s gathering at the Arlathvhen last year?”
She ran her fingers through his wiry black hair and smirked.
“Some may say so. I still think it was because I told Keeper Pelran where precisely I’d prefer his boorish tongue.”
Ghila spluttered behind her.
“May the Wolf fill your filthy mouth with his tail-hair, Ellana, you…”
Yerevan just laughed, kissing her palm as he stood and rolling his shoulders against the blades at his back. Eli laughed with him, picking her pack off the floor and winking at Ghila, who shook her head back with an exasperated sigh. “That mouth of yours….”
“I don’t remember you having too much of a problem with this mouth of mine.”
“That was then, this is now.”
“Ah yes,” Eli agreed, as she stood, pack hanging off both shoulders. “Now you are Bonded we no longer speak of mouths other than your dear husband’s, yes?”
“Her dear husband is not averse to certain other mouths.” Yerevan quipped, motioning for Eli to turn around so he could affix her staff to her pack. Ghila’s eyes twinkled.
“Especially when that mouth is so democratic in its attentions, vhenan?”
“I do indeed believe in equality in all things.”
She let them laugh and let herself join them. It wasn’t as though the banter wasn’t genuine, although it had been a while since they’d properly shared a bed. She knew, however, that it was more comfort for them than anything else. To actively go down this ridge and expose themselves to these shemlen, armed shemlen nonetheless, went against every instinct they had nurtured over the years of their lives. Even Yerevan, who had come to them starving and beaten from an alienage as a child, knew to stay away from armoured shems. And Eli herself, as a mage, wanted nothing more than to melt back into the trees. Except that she didn’t, not really. She would have almost preferred being alone rather than feel responsible for anyone, but she had always wanted to learn more about shem culture and this was her opportunity. Even though those awful few days at Starkhaven years ago had taught her caution, she still could not deny her curiosity.
Gods, but she hoped there weren’t templars here. Of course there would be templars here. She allowed the heavy weight of her staff at her back to comfort her and glanced over at Ghila, busy nagging at Yerevan to do her pack up tighter. She knew damn well her brother had taken Ghila to one side and most likely got her to promise to watch out for templars. Ghila was the next best hunter after Eli’s brother, it was why she had been sent instead of him. Bri technically should be here, but after both of their dreams that night spent in the shadow of the ruin, they had gone to their Keeper to protest both of them being sent away at the same time. It was testament to her Keeper’s wisdom and belief in premonition that she had agreed, although neither Eli or Bri could say exactly what they had seen in those dreams. Despite it not being Bri, if she stuck close to Ghila, she would be alright.
“Ready?”
She steadied herself in Ghila’s dark brown eyes and the strong cords of Yerevan’s arm as it rested gently round her shoulders to help guide her down the stony path to the Temple trail. As she walked, she cleared her mind of the solidity of the metal armour on the shems glinting in the cold sunlight. She pushed away thoughts of hard-faced templars, eyeing her staff and plotting her incarceration. She brought to mind the kindness implicit in the curves of the Divine’s penmanship, the slight dig of her brother’s pendant at her chest, the memory of the firm press of Ista’s lips against her forehead as she sent her First away. She filled her head with the hidden places, delicate grey stone overtaken by the woods these shem would never see, the hum of the spirits that wanted nothing more than to play, the firelight in the camps, the warmth of her Clan, be it just a shoulder to lean her head against or a body to warm her own in the night. She forced herself not to imagine what walking through buildings of stone would feel like, how hemmed in she would feel and brought to to mind instead the descriptions of the stained glass windows in the Chantry temples she had read in stolen books, heard about from travellers. She had always wanted to see them up close. She had the right to do so.
As her foot, uncomfortably clad in furs and leathers, hit the open path in view of the soldiers, she saw them spot her and tighten their holds on their weapons. She kept her arms by her sides, palms open and lifted her head as she felt Yerevan and Ghila slide into place behind her.
This was their world and they had as much right to have a say in how to fix it as anyone else. They were the People and they cowered for no one.