Wound

“Mera, Mera come back! You know we aren’t allowed out that far! You’re gonna get us in trouble!” he called out, watching the reddish curls of his sister bob as she made her way toward the edge.

“C’mon Frewin, stop being such a wimp. When else are we going to see what’s over there? Mom and dad certainly aren’t going to allow us and Aphae definitely won’t. One peek won’t hurt.”

Frewin groaned and begrudgingly followed after her, Mera’s laughter floating back to him on the warm breeze. The sun hung high in the sky and made everything bright and shiny, forcing him to shade his eyes with his arm. Even covered, the sun’s rays still seem to illuminate everything in an intense brightness.

“Do you really want to get in trouble? That’s all that’s going to happen and you know it.”

“Oh please, you kn-“ Mera was stopped, a short, piercing scream punctuated her sentence and stopped Frewin.

“Mera?” Frewin squinted into the brightness. The blurred shape of Mera fell forward, her arms flying above her head, her legs kicking to regain footing on the edge of the cliff.

His throat was raw but he couldn’t make sense of his words, his ears were ringing, eyes stinging from the sun. He wanted to run, to potentially catch her hand and drag her back up, but his feet wouldn’t let him. They refused to move from where they bound him, his entire lower half ignored his mind’s pleas to move even just an inch. His chest felt heavy like there was a weight pressing down on him, his breaths could only come in short hitches. Each time he exhaled, the weight on his chest pressed down harder and harder, shortening each breath he was able to take in. His head was swimming, the ringing in his ears getting louder and louder and droning out the sound of his name.

“Frewin…“

It sounded far off. If only he could get a breath in he could focus. The sound of his name slipped away from him like water.

“Frewin…“

He couldn’t make out who was talking. It couldn’t have been Mera, could it? Was she playing a prank on him again? Like the time she pretended to slip out at night only to sneak up and spook him. He was such a cry baby and she knew it. He squinted his eyes against the sun and tried to focus. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

“Mera? Mera are you there?” He rasped, his chest tightening further.

“Frewin!” it was closer now, the voice was loud enough for him to almost grab. It didn’t sound at all like his sister, the voice was much deeper, more adult sounding. It danced around friendliness and demanding.

“Who…who are you?”

“You know me, Frewin. Who took care of you? Who’s still taking care of you?” the way they worded the last sentence almost soured his stomach. Such adoration laced with something darker, the sort of tone a predator would use to honey their prey.

“It's okay if you want to sleep more, but you have to wake up eventually. Too much sleep isn’t good.”

His chest was burning, unable to get much more of a breath in, he was certain even trying would break a rib. His head was pounding, the sun was dimming and bright spots of white were starting to decorate his vision. It was far too early for it to be night and these were far too close to be stars…

His eyes flew open and he found himself staring into Ambrosine’s silvery ones, their noses nearly touching as she laid across his chest. Her damp hair clung to her forehead and dripped onto the pillow underneath him.

“What the hell?” was the only phrase he was able to muster under her weight. She sat up with what seemed to be a content grin and returned to drying off her hair.

“You were panicking in your sleep.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.” Frewin groaned as he sat up, the muscles in his body aching.

“You kept yelling for someone named Mera. ‘Mera, come back Mera. Don’t go so far, Mera.’” Ambrosine copied him, albeit exaggerated, “so, who’s Mera?”

“She was my sister.”

“You have a family?” this seemed to genuinely grab Ambrosine’s attention. Her hands dropped the thin towel to her lap and she leaned close to him. “Tell me about them? I don’t think you have.”

“Had. My sister died when she was little, then my mother passed a few years after. My father is fine, but we were never really too close.”

“It must be nice. To have had a family and all that.” Ambrosine mused whimsically.

Frewin arched a brow, “yeah, I suppose. What about you? You have to have one, too.”

A gentle knock interrupted their conversation. Rhyannon opened the door slowly as she entered carrying a tray of food.

“Ah, good. You’re well. I heard you fussing downstairs and was worried. Anyway, you need to keep your fluids up and your stomach full if you want to detox the miasma quickly. That stone alone won’t help.” She set the tray down on the bedside table.

Frewin turned his hand over to reveal the small stone that was tied to his wrist,” Miasma? Stone?”

“Levnyth’s miasma covers the town, it’s what brought the sickness that ended up causing the village to be like it is,” Rhyannon brushed Ambrosine aside to help Frewin take sips of water, “although it’s much weaker now than it was then, leaving the village unprepared can heighten the effects. The stone is charged with a ward that’ll help draw out the residual.”

He took the cup and stared at the water inside for a bit, his face reflecting the confusion he was feeling.

“Is that why you tried to get me to go back with you?”

Rhyannon fell silent, her hands balled up, and released the front of her skirt. She then turned to Ambrosine with a strangely friendly smile, “do you mind giving us a moment? There are a few things I’d like to discuss with your…friend.” The way she enunciated ‘friend’ caused Ambrosine to squint. The overly friendly tone she used with her and the smile were unusual.

“Fine, would you like me to shut the door and barricade myself in a bunker to not hear whatever top secret information you’re embarking upon him?” She remarked sarcastically, picking up her towel as she went to the door.

“No, but you’re welcome to do so. If you’d like to, at least.”

Ambrosine just gave her a hard stare before leaving the room, Rhyannon ignored her as she brought the tray back to the bed and laid it across his lap. He wasn’t familiar with the smell, but it appeared to be a hearty soup with large chunks of potato, carrot, and some sort of meat. He assumed rabbit from the toughness.

“So what-“

“Your injury.”

“What?”

“Tell me about it? It can’t be that old of an injury with how clumsy you are with simple tasks, your good arm is clearly not your dominant- the spoon is shaking in your hand.” Even though what she pointed out was obvious and true, he still felt a tinge of embarrassment.

“It’s fairly a few weeks old I suppose. Not enough time to really get used to doing everything with one arm.”

“How’d it happen?” She crossed her legs and leaned forward, her chin resting against her hand.

Frewin took another bite and considered his words.

“Just you know…farming accident.”

“Lies.”

“What’s it matter anyway?” he roughly placed the spoon back down, the metal clinked loudly against the glass as some of the displaced broth splashed onto the tray.

“I’m just curious. As I was cleaning the dressings, I noticed the skin was incredibly smooth with barely even a hint of scarring. Now, not to gloat, but I’m very good at healing. My family and I were highly sought after for our magic. But your arm…That’s beyond the scope of what’s possible even by magical means.” She pressed as she started rolling up the sleeve of his sleep shirt.

The sight of his arm made his stomach flip as an odd, uncomfortable feeling washed over him. Where the skin was jagged and burned, it was completely smooth save for very faint pink marks where the charred skin was. He reached out to touch the skin and recoiled by how soft the skin was, Rhyannon took in his furrowed brows and confused expression.

“That’s…weird. I didn’t think Ambrosine’s salve was…this good.”

She raised a brow. “I don’t think a salve did it at all. You don’t know anything at all about this?”

Frewin shook his head no.

“All she’s said was that she’s good at what she does.”

Rhyannon chewed at the inside of her cheek and looked away.

“Tell me the truth. Levnyth said you had been exiled. So…what happened.”

He sighed and recounted how he had tried to rob Aphae of her egg, how he’d been caught and punished and forced out of Saria. He told her about how he had passed out and Ambrosine had found and taken care of him, how his injury had depleted her supplies and how they both had wound up in Acidalia. Rhyannon was silent the entire time as she listened to his recounting. The only time she seemed to react was to him taking the egg.

“Why the egg?” she asked after several moments.

Frewin’s face reddened at her question, “it’s dumb now that I think about it.”

“Then tell me. It’s already happened so what’s the worst that’ll happen by being honest?”

He sighed again as he resigned himself to the fact she’d keep asking and pestering until he told the entire story.

“Where I’m from, we have a legend that states if you take something of importance from a dragon, they’d have to barter with you to get it back. The more important the item the more steep the bargaining would be. If drastic enough, you could bargain a wish and have your deepest desires come true. So…you know.”

The look Rhyannon gave him was filled with so much disdain that he felt barely bigger than an ant.

“You stole their child?”

“Essentially. Yes.” he hadn’t felt this chastised in years.

“I could understand their treasure, their lair, perhaps even their territory…but the child? What could possibly be worth potentially dying for? You were lucky to escape with the injury you have.”

Frewin stared down into the bowl of half-eaten food. He hadn’t considered it lucky, but in the bigger scheme, maybe he was. Tales of people being judged by Aphae for lesser offenses and not coming out alive were commonplace and told as bedtime stories to keep the younger children in line. Even knew of at least one version of the guy being caught stealing and being eaten by the dragon. Maybe it was luck that he was just maimed and exiled. Even still, he couldn’t really say he had regrets.

“I, well…When I was younger, I lost my little sister. Then the stress of it worsened my mother’s already fragile health and she went shortly after. My father…we were never close. I thought…maybe…” Frewin didn’t continue, he just allowed the silence to settle around the two. Rhyannon didn’t seem as if she was going to pressure for further details. Instead, she gave him a sad yet fond smile.

“I’m happy I was right when I said you were like my son, instead of it being a lonely mother’s yearning.”

It was Frewin’s turn to not press for detail.

“You see, my son also believed in that idea. My husband and I…we started having problems. It was around the time Levnyth and their little pawns moved in. He started acting odd one day. Picking fights over things that didn’t matter. I figured he was upset, our oldest son had just moved away with his new wife. Elias had always been the type who never showed his emotion. Yannick thought bargaining would bring peace back to our family. He talked about it constantly. I tucked him into bed one night. The next morning he was gone. My husband followed shortly after.” Rhyannon gave a meek shrug.

He wanted to ask the obvious question, ask question after question as she had done to him, but the distance in her expression silenced him. The stubborn and prickly exterior he had grown used to felt foreign to him as he stared at her. She was vulnerable, bearing some of the burdens she had been carrying since losing her family. The calmness of her movements and the dullness of her eyes made her look much younger, the lines around her eyes smoothed out without her stern expression, and the gentle smile she wore as she spoke of fond memories brought a certain innocence back that Frewin nearly felt bad for disturbing.

“Why do you hate Ambrosine so much?”

Rhyannon allowed her story to trail off as she began to gather up the tray and items. She took a deep breath before going on.

“When Levnyth arrived, they brought with them…a strange group. They were quiet, kept to their own selves, and rarely came into town. They would often stay out in the swamp with the dragon. On the off chance you would run into them, they had the strangest eyes. The weird iridescent silver Ambrosine has.” Rhyannon paused in her story to stack everything back onto the tray, “every time something bad would happen in town you’d see one of them. When the water started turning brown, they’d be out by the wells. People started getting sick and dying or moving out, they’d be everywhere from the infirmary to town lines or the graveyards.”

She made her way to the door, the tray edge partially balanced on her hip as her free hand grabbed the knob.

“If I were you, I’d question my attachments and think of where my loyalty truly is.”

The door closed with a quiet clicking as Rhyannon descended the stairs, her heels making the echoed tapping sounds she’d become overly used to. Years ago, when the inn was in a better state and functioning, she’d hear the quiet laughter of honeymooning newlyweds or the pattering feet of young children running in the upstairs hall. Most nights would be the boisterous, drunken laughter of travelers. Her chest felt heavy with the nostalgia for years past.

Ambrosine sat on the lobby sofa running a brush through her long hair. Her pale eyes followed Rhyannon’s footsteps into the offset kitchen area. She set the brush down on the cushion beside her, braiding her hair quietly. The sound of dishes being cleaned was the only noise. It took Rhyannon only a few minutes to clean, dry and put away the used dishes. She then left the kitchen and went to return to her own bedroom.

“Have you ever thought about killing them?” Ambrosine’s voice was low, nearly inaudible. Rhyannon almost hadn’t even heard her until she repeated herself.

“Have you ever thought about killing them?”

“Killing who?”

Ambrosine’s laughter at her question made a shiver run down her spine. It was low and sinister, yet lighthearted enough to almost be playful.

“The dragons.”