A cheery voice jolted me from my thoughts. “If that isn’t a sight for sore eyes!”
Dolores had spotted me from her stall and approached, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Beside her, her husband Ulyss tuggedthoughtfully on his impressive white beard, a smile playing on his lips. “Are you and Rada not selling anything today?”
I shook my head, returning the smile. “No. Rada has something to discuss with the mayor. I’m just waiting for her.”
“Trying to get into the lassie’s good graces, son?” the old Dwarf asked, his voice a deep rumble.
“Getting into her good graces was never the problem,” I replied with a chuckle. “Staying there is the challenge.”
“True, true,” Ulyss laughed, patting my arm. “A woman’s mood can be as tempestuous as the sea. We can only hope not to be caught in a storm every time we brave the danger.”
Dolores scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Talking from experience, you foolish old Dwarf?”
“Only appreciating your patience, my love.” He kissed her cheek, and she giggled like a young girl.
A wave of wistfulness washed over me as I watched them. “Rada should be back soon,” I said, fighting a strange sense of envy. What would it feel like to be so content? To share such simple, profound joy with someone who loved you unconditionally?
“In Order we find purpose, and in purpose we find peace.” The familiar blessing of the Ten echoed behind us, each word feeling like a taunt. The temple garden stretched nearly to the wall beside us and a few believers had gathered there.
“Are you praying to the Ten, son?” Ulyss asked, raising one bushy eyebrow as he noticed my sudden distraction.
“Not really,” I replied absentmindedly.
“It was in those golden days that the Sky Lord decided to be merciful toward his brother and freed him from his chains.”
The local priest’s rich baritone caught my attention. Under the shade of the apple trees, their white blossoms moving gently in thebreeze, he narrated the fall of Yggdrasil to a group of children. Despite myself, I stepped closer, drawn in by the story.
“Yet nothing good remained in the heart of the Fallen One, only festering hate and resentment. Before long, he was scheming once more, longing to destroy everything the gods had achieved.”
“The Sky Lord should never have freed him!” one boy exclaimed, his face flushed with righteous indignation.
“Yes,” his friend chimed in. “Or even better, he should have thrown him into the Abyss. He never deserved any mercy.”
“That’s why it’s called mercy,” a tiny Brownie girl corrected primly from her spot in the first row. “It’s about giving those who don’t deserve it a second chance. Just like Lady Khiraz taught us.”
Mercy? Was that what it had been? A bitter laugh caught in my throat. To free me after two thousand years in darkness, alone with my anger and regret? Something inside me had broken during that time, had withered without hope. I was vulnerable when my brother came with his offer. Weak. Desperate enough to agree, even knowing I would break the oaths I was forced to utter, condemning myself no matter what I did.
“Quite right, Rosalind,” the priest said, a gentle smile on his round face. “Yet the Fallen One repaid his brother with an even worse betrayal, using dark whispers to seduce many to his doomed cause. Anima, mortal, and even…” He paused, his expression pained, as if overcome by sorrow.
“Even the Star Queen,” little Rosalind whispered.
“Yes, even Lady Baradaz,” the priest confirmed, gently touching the girl’s wild curls. “And because Light failed, Darkness triumphed. One terrible night, the Destroyer took his sword, Chaosbringer, and drove it into Yggdrasil’s heart. The Tree fell, and the world was sundered.”
The children gasped in horror. They only calmed when the priest continued, detailing the hard-won victory of the forces of Order. There was no mention of Masir and Baradaz’s deceit, I noted, but that probably made for a less enticing story.
“That’s not quite how it happened,” I mumbled when I sensed a familiar presence beside me.
“Do you remember, then?” Rada’s voice was filled with anguish as she answered me. “That night?”
I couldn’t bear to look at her.Monster, monsterechoed relentlessly in my mind. I remembered the fire, the searing pain, the terror in her eyes as she recoiled from my touch. She had every reason to blame me for what had happened.
“Only fragments,” I admitted. “But I know even Chaosbringer couldn’t have felled that tree.”
No, it would have taken the most powerful magic to achieve that. I’d heard my sword was now kept in the Temple of Order, mounted on a wall behind unbreakable enchantments. A symbol of the Ten’s triumph over Darkness and Chaos.
“Do you remember what happened?” I asked. It took all my courage to glance at Rada. Her face was as pale and distressed as I had feared, her silver eyes brimming with unshed tears.
“Some of it,” she whispered, a single tear escaping and trailing down her cheek.
