Three. Three.Three.
She oftentimes wondered where the hell the other two of those blessings hid themselves. If they even existed.
But instead of wandering down a path she frequently allowed her mind to follow on the dark and quiet nights she spent holed up in her guarded room,she surveyed the scenery.
The journey to G’Illach took them through the fresh ruins of Drikiera. The homestead that had been fortified to house the Banshee was now blackened and charred remains. It was sad to Kaya, to say the least. Her father told her Drikiera was once a beautiful village with gardens that nurtured the most beautiful blooms, with a landscape of rocky slopes in between small plateaus of land on which the Drikiera clan farmed.
She frowned at two largely-horned goats bleeting in the distance, the phantom bells that their previous owner placed around their neck jingling with each hungry movement.
This scenery was depressing, but within an hour, Kaya and Ilias crested the end of the path through Drikiera and began their descent toward G’Illach.
She could see smoke billowing from chimneys down below, the sun just starting to climb above the vast horizon of hills and pine. A stark contrast from the shriveled, lifeless tomb they just passed through.
Kaya let out a sigh, finally turning her attention to the man who had silently ridden alongside her for the past eight hours.
She wondered how one could be so silent—what he could possibly be thinking of to keep himself from dying of boredom. For herself, she tried to count the trees they passed, tried reciting books in her head, telling herself wonderful tales of heroism and adventure. It worked, for the most part, but now there was a bubble in her chest that ached to be released.
She needed to talk.
“Have you ever been to G’Illach?” She asked.
Ilias hummed, his bearded jaw going rigid. As if the sound of her voice stroked a particularly heinous nerve. She frowned.
“I’ve never left Holiadon.” She continued, nonetheless. If he was going to be rude, the least he could do was listen to her. “And while this is certainly not what I imagined in terms of adventuring, it is quite nice to see a place that isn’t gleaming with silver light. The natural light, the air—everything is just incredibly refreshing. But I assume you’ve traveled Galore enough to not be too enthusiastic or overjoyed about sitting on the butt of a horse for hours at a time. I’ve ridden horses before, but never to this ext—”
The guard jerked his head in her direction, his eyes narrowed at her in that all-too familiar way of his. Kaya snapped her mouth closed, that strange heat settling into her cheeks as she mimicked his stare.
“Am I not allowed to speak, Captain?” Kaya hissed.
Ilias was relentless in expressing his distaste for her, though she assumed it was well-earned. She’d been quite rude when they met. He loosened a breath, shaking his head as he looked away. “I don’t care if you talk. Do as you wish, princess.” He grumbled.
“Well,” Kaya sighed, a small smile forming in place of her sneer. “If that is a command, then I must suggest we stop for a bit. I’m starving and have been holding in my piss—” Ilias looked at her then, his brow arched and something akin to an amused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I need to relieve myself.”
Ilias gave a curt nod, immediately pulling at Fury’s reigns, drawing her to stop. He watched as Kaya nearly flung herself from the back of her horse, stumbling slightly as she ran behind a bush. He pretended not to hear anything, but when Kaya let out a relieved sigh, he couldn’t stop the chuckle that formed in his chest.
“Stop laughing!” From where he sat, he could just see the top of her head behind the shrub, could see her eyes narrowed in his direction as she finished and rose to her feet again. “Such a childish thing to do.” She grumbled. “Laughing at someone for something that comes naturally to us all.”
By the time she made it back to her mare, Ilias already dismounted and was unraveling dried meat and bread wrapped in parchment. He handed it to her, watching closely as she brought the food up to her face and sniffed.
It didn’t smell horrible. And Kaya was famished.
“You are one peculiar princess.” Ilias didn’t realize he had spoken, but the words came fumbling out of his mouth in his broken dialect. Kaya stared at him, trying to decipher what he’d said and raised her shoulders in disregard.
“And I take it that you have spent time with countless other princesses before?” She hummed, frowning as bread crumbs tumbled down the front of her shirt. She batted them away. “Wish you brought jam or something. This is dry.”
He laughed again, shaking his head as he turned back to Fury. “I take back my previous statement. You’re just as spoiled and entitled as the rest of them.”
“Entitled?!” Kaya shrieked. “Every single person in Holiadon is supplied food. Good food. There are no beggars, there are none that go hungry. How could I be deemed entitled or spoiled under those conditions?”
Ilias shoved a jar of black jam into her chest, his face cold as stone as he looked at her. “You said it, yourself, that you’ve never left Holiadon. There’s a whole world out there that you don’t know, princess. Therefore,” he sighed, “you are spoiled.Entitled.” He took a step closer to her, looming over her in such a way that suddenly made her feel small and inadequate.
She didn’t like it—but she also didn’t like knowing that she represented something so harmful. So she listened. “The people of Drikiera have lost their homes and are living on borrowed land. Living in tents and squalor. While your father, gracious male that he is, has done everything in his power to ensure that they are fed and cared for, there is only so much that he can do. And, I assure you, the least of their worries at the moment isjam.”
There was that hollowness again—that overwhelming pit in her Core that would soon swallow her whole. “What do you want me to do about it?” Her question was not voiced out of anger, not for argument. She genuinely wanted to know.
And as she looked down at the food that she no longer had much of an appetite for, he let out a long sigh that almost sounded as if it were laced with guilt. “Just do as your father tells you.” He stated. And with that, he walked away.
Kaya didn’t stand there waiting to see where he wandered off to. She folded up her food and stuffed it into one of the saddle bags before heading in the opposite direction, back down the path and towards Drikiera. She hovered there, by what used to be a wooden archway shrouded with luscious grapevines and looked out at the remains of the village.
