Chapter 18: From Aveloria to Myrath, Featuring Awkward Puppy Love

If you asked a normal person how to get from Aveloria to Liraen, they’d say: “North to Cape Vaelor, take a ship from the fishing city of Myrath, try not to die to storms, drownings, pirates, sea monsters, or boredom.”

Which is exactly what we set out to do.

From the northern gate of Aveloria, the Triscent Road runs like a gray vein through the Stonewheat Plain, crosses the Kelth River at Oldbridge, climbs the Windbreak Hills, threads the Sablepine Pass, drops into the Marsh of Hadd, and finally spills out onto the sea-facing Vaelor Seastrand—a ribbon of road that ends where the cliffs meet the harbor lights of Myrath. Three weeks if the weather behaves, four if it sulks.

The weather sulked. Often.

We left at dawn, packs slung, paperwork tucked safely in my pouch: The Flaming Holy Pancakes of Destiny, Rank C, absolutely legitimate transporters with a very suspiciously light crate that we’d “accidentally” misplaced two towns later. (Oops.) Arkanthos rattled in my bag, humming an imperial marching tune from a civilization that no longer exists. Cassian walked ahead, the picture of stoic reliability. Serine walked between us, counting milestones and wildflowers with equal devotion.

By evening of the first day, the city haze was behind us and waves of gold-green grain rolled to every horizon. Serine decided this meant we were now feral and needed a system.

“Tasks,” she announced, hands on hips. “Rotation. I cook, Rissa gathers kindling, Cassian sets the tent and checks perimeter.”

I raised a hand. “Counterproposal: I charm a nearby tavern into feeding us.”

“Last time you ‘charmed’ a tavern you got me humiliated as always, no thanks.” said Cassian.

“how bitter...” I sniffed.

Serine made a face. “No taverns. We save coin. And your ‘charm.’ Please.”

We camped by a hedgerow, sky painted in apricot and violet. Serine cooked a rabbit stew that would have made saints weep. Cassian set the tent with surgical precision. I… gathered kindling like a responsible adult and only burned my sleeve twice. Arkanthos supervised from a log like a disembodied head of household.

“Stir clockwise for prosperity, purity, and chastity for girls of matchmaking age.,” he said as if singing a prayer.

Serine’s eyes sparkled. “Is that a real traditional prayer?”

“No,” he said. “But holy things annoy the Mistress.”

I pointed my spoon at him. “Mutiny from my own skull pet. Tragic.”

Later, while we ate, Serine asked Arkanthos about Liraen. That was the first time I watched them fall into their rhythm—her eager curiosity, his encyclopedic pride.

“So… elves,” she said around a careful sip. “Do they really weave light into cloth?”

“In the High Looms of Liraen, yes,” Arkanthos said. “Threads are sung into resonance under moon-glass frames. The fabric remembers starlight.”

Serine’s breath caught. “That’s… beautiful.”

Across the fire, Cassian listened without looking like he was listening. His posture said guard on duty; his eyes said tell me more.

I tucked that away with a little smile. The big, quiet ones always pretend they don’t care.

On the third day, a rain squall chased us across the plain. We huddled beneath the wagon of a passing salt-merchant while the sky emptied its bucket.

Serine shrugged off her cloak and pushed it at Cassian. “You’re soaked.”

“I’m fine,” he said, not moving.

She threw it over his shoulders anyway, brisk as a nurse. “You’ll get sick. Don’t argue.”

He went very still, then muttered, “...Thank you,” so quietly I almost missed it.

I did not miss the blush. Delicious.

That night, when Serine finally slept, I leaned toward him. “So. Our brooding mountain caught a cold called affection?”

He stared into the fire. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Shy boy,” I said, turning my head towards Arkanthos in a mocking tone with the ugliest of my smiles.

On week two, the hills rose like sleeping beasts, all wind and heather and rock. The road there grows mean—thin, slanted, easy to ambush. We took a cliffside track beneath a stand of storm-bent pines, and of course that’s when the dusk-wolves came.

I heard them first—pads on gravel, a faint huff of breath. Then eyes, six pale moons in the brush.

Cassian moved. Effortless. Sword out, stance low, the kind of grace that’s born from a thousand drills.

“Stay behind me,” he said without looking back.

“Excuse you,” I said, already pulling heat up from somewhere inside my bones. “I can multitask: mock you and help.”

Serine’s voice, steady: “Dusk-wolves hate sudden brightness. They hunt at the edge of evening—if we change the light, we change their timing.”

“On it,” I said.

I thought of a stadium floodlight from my old world—hot halogen glare—layered it with whatever my magic is, and snapped my fingers. A white flare burst like a miniature dawn. The wolves flinched; Cassian didn’t. He stepped through the afterimage and met the first with a flat strike that sent it tumbling. The second leaped—Serine’s sling cracked (when did she get a sling?), a stone clipped its ear, it yelped, and Cassian with a punch that split the wolf’s skull finished the argument. The third decided existential dread was better than dinner and fled.

Cassian exhaled. “That light… That was—” He stopped himself. “Efficient.”

“Don’t strain something,” I said sweetly. “You almost complimented me.”

Serine was already at his side with a salve. “Your knuckles,” she murmured, taking his hand without thinking. “You split the skin.”

“It’s nothing.” But he didn’t pull away.

“Hold still,” she said, so softly that she almost made me vomit from so much cuteness. She wrapped his hand in a strip of linen. “There.”

He looked down at her fingers on his. Looked away. Pink crept back into his ears.

I pretended to examine the dead wolf so I wouldn’t cackle like a goblin.

We reached a way-village the next day—Bramblegate, a crooked bend of cottages and a market square that sold everything from pickled mushrooms to miracle tonics that were definitely just vinegar. Serine bartered our extra jerky for apples and a spool of blue ribbon. She laughed when the vendor threw in a second ribbon for free.

“For your sister,” the woman said, winking at me.

Serine glanced at me. “She’s not—well, she is—sort of.”

I slung an arm around Serine and stuck my tongue out. “I am her terrifying older sister who threatens merchants until they discount ribbon.”

Cassian watched this with an expression I couldn’t parse. Then, awkwardly, he stepped forward and paid for a small tin of honeyed almonds.

“For… the road,” he said, eyes anywhere but Serine.

“Oh!” She beamed. “I love these.”

He nodded once, like he’d won and lost the same battle.

That evening, she braided the blue ribbon into her hair. When the braid slipped, Cassian—wordless, careful—lifted it back into place, fingers steady as he retied the knot for her. I swear to all the gods, I could feel his pulse from where I sat.

I caught Arkanthos’ eye socket. “Adorable.”

“A study in restraint,” he murmured. “On both sides.”

Days passed, as the hills gave way to the marshlands, our pace slowed. Duckboard paths, drones of insects, reeds sharp as knives. The air smelled of green rot and salt on the edge of being born. We spoke more—maybe to drown the hum of mosquitoes, maybe because the silence felt too big.

Cassian began asking me questions. Carefully, like he was picking locks.

“How do you contain that much heat?” he asked one night while sharpening his blade. “The flare. It felt… condensed.”

“I picture something,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. “It’s a secret. All I can say is that I cheat.” I said winking an eye to him.

“Memories as focus,” he said, considering. “Interesting.”

Arkanthos clicked his teeth approvingly. “Her method is crude, but the principles are sound. In the last age, resonance and recall were common focus. A blade remembers the forge; a mage remembers a first storm.”

Serine leaned forward, eyes bright. “So a healer might remember… the first time a wound closed?”

“Yes,” Arkanthos said gently. “And make the body remember it, too.”

She tucked that into her notebook like a treasure.

And then came Serine’s turn. In return for Cassian’s questions and his will to talk to others, Serine began asking him things—easier ones at first.

“Favorite tea?” she asked.

“Juniper,” he said after a beat. “With lemon.”

“City?”

“None. Cities echo.”

She laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”

A pause. A very small smile. “Probably.”

One night she asked about the scars on his arms. She did it softly, offering him a way out. “You don’t have to answer. I just… when I see them, I wonder.”

“Training,” he said. “And mistakes.”

She nodded. “Thank you for letting me ask.”

He looked almost startled by that. “Thank you for not… prying.”

“Prying is for scholars,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Oh wait.”

He snorted. An actual snort. Reader, I cherished it.

We left the marsh for the Seastrand road, and the world opened into wind and slate-blue water. Gulls screamed. Cliffs dropped away to white teeth of surf. The air tasted like iron and freedom.

I loved them then—fiercely, stupidly. My tiny, ridiculous family. Serine fussing about our socks drying properly, Cassian pretending he wasn’t watching her, Arkanthos telling stories of roads that ran like silver under three suns that no longer rise. I loved the way Serine slumped into sleep with ink on her fingers, and the way Cassian placed his blanket over her when he thought I wasn’t looking. I loved how Arkanthos called me “Mistress” with fake pomp and real affection.

I had wanted adventure my whole life. Turns out adventure is mostly sore feet and shared jokes and the way the firelight finds the faces you don’t realize you were starving to see.

That night, camped a day’s walk from Myrath, the sky went clear as glass. Stars everywhere. Serine fell asleep mid-sentence, braid across her cheek, blue ribbon a little crooked. Cassian stared at her like she’d hung the constellations by hand.

I should have let him have the moment. I should have. But I am me.

“Well, well,” I murmured, sliding over until my shoulder bumped his. “Look who’s moon-eyed.”

He didn’t look away. “Rissa.”

“Cassian.”

“You’re intolerable.”

“I’m also right.”

A long silence. The fire popped. Somewhere, a wave hit rock.

He finally turned toward me, jaw set. “No.”

“No what?”

“No,” he said again, softer. “Whatever you think you see.”

I tilted my head. “I see a man who wants to be kind and doesn’t know how to forgive himself for it.”

His eyes flickered. Hurt, anger, something older. “You don’t know me.”

“True,” I said lightly, because if I let it be heavy I’d say something real. “But I’m an excellent guesser. Also, you stare at her like she invented the sun, so.”

His mouth flattened. “It isn’t allowed.”

I blinked. “What, by law? Are the romance police going to arrest you?”

He looked back at Serine’s sleeping face. When he spoke, his voice had gone low and steady, the kind that carries truths you don’t want to touch. “Not by law. By vow.”

I shut up. For once, I shut up.

He continued, and each word felt like it cost him a coin from a purse that wasn’t full to begin with. “I have a purpose. I chose it. It demands everything. There isn’t room for… that.”

“For love,” I said, because someone had to say it and it couldn’t be him.

He flinched like the word had edges. Then he stood, the motion abrupt. “I’m going to walk.”

He walked into the dark with the discipline of a man fleeing a battlefield he can’t see.

Arkanthos was very quiet. Even the skull knew not to make a joke.

I hugged my knees and watched the place where he’d vanished as the fire settled into embers. The sea went on muttering to the cliffs, everyone’s private god.

“Mistress,” Arkanthos said at last, gentle in a way he rarely is, “we do not always choose what we owe, or who we owe it to.”

“I hate that,” I said.

“I know.”

I looked over at Serine, curled small, ribbon slipping from her braid. I reached across and tucked it back, fingers careful not to wake her. She made a little sound, something soft and trusting. It undid me.

“Family dinners,” I whispered, throat tight. “They were supposed to be fun.”

“They are,” Arkanthos said. “And they are everything else, too.”

He was right. I hate when he’s right.

I lay back and let the stars blur until they were just light. I thought about Myrath, and ships, and Liraen shimmering on the far side of the world. I thought about Myrrin marching north with righteousness blazing like a torch. I thought about the palace and the games I was playing with it. I thought about Cassian’s vow, the shape of it like a knife under cloth.

And underneath all that thinking, I just… felt. Warm, content, terrified, greedy for the next morning. Greedy for more of them. My people. My ridiculous, precious pancakes.

The fire sighed, the sea breathed, and for a few hours, the world let me keep what I loved.