Ninety nights after meeting the General
When I met him, I was a prisoner. I came to believe that fate would have never allowed me to live a simple life. There were always two choices, and a crossroads that would present itself in any timeline.
The General was always one of two possibilities, and in all possible happy endings, he was the choice I had to make. He was my chance at survival. At a life well lived.
That was, however, not what I expected when our eyes first met. Neither was it what I anticipated when I was first captured by his men. Who could have known that a chance could masquerade as something as shady as an abduction? That our story could start with him instructing my captors? Could it have been that the gods decided that the chain of events that started in the empire would lead me to him?
Sleeping in our shared chambers, with his hand around my waist, we welcomed a future that neither of us had foreseen. The first time I was in these chambers, I could have strangled him for keeping me there.
I couldn’t cool down. The castle was too hot in the summer. His bed was too soft. Despite the cold climate, I wasburning up. I turned to my left. It gave me no relief. I turned towards him.
“Gabriel?” A low and gravelly voice. A call to go back to sleep.
The domesticity was comfortable. Only ninety days ago, this situation would have been laughable. I would have thought myself to be enchanted. And I was, in some ways. Just not by his magic. He grew on me too fast. Perhaps it was a result of our shared magic. Whatever the cause, the result was ours.
This was, however, not how our story started.
Thirteen nights before meeting the General
I expected to have met my end the morning before my capture. It happened during a common trip to the market on the lowertown square. It was not even in an unsavory place, although the high-born might disagree with that assessment.
I knew I had to keep my distance from imperial soldiers. Although my disguise had always been enough to avoid suspicion, it was wise to avoid them altogether. During my trip, I averted my gaze and made myself small when soldiers appeared next to me at the oyster stall. I became nothing but background noise.I made sure that at first glance, there was nothing magical about me.
“Why is the navy stuck here in Auriyonne, while our brothers are out fighting rebels up north,” I heard a tall soldier complain. As if fighting would bring him anything but death.
“They will call on us soon enough,” came the voice of a man that was too old to be a soldier, wearing armour far too valuable. “When the wolves play in the forest, the armada moves north.”
I moved away from the imperialists. A perk of being small and poor was that important men paid me no mind.
There was a traveller's stall that stood out to me. A rich emerald fabric cloaked the stall and gave it a mysterious aura. The wares on display were foreign. I could scarcely recognise anything as nothing was akin to objects I had seen before. Behind the counter stood an old lady so ordinary that I half expected her to turn into someone different. Perhaps that was a sign of what was yet to come.
In the back of the store was a crystal bottle that caught my attention. It was a clear crystal, indicating a craftsmanship that was not found in Auriyonne. I wanted to use it to distil oils. The bottles I used were prone to explode if the flames got too hot.
“Is that bottle heat resistant?” I asked the shopkeeper. She turned to me then. I felt a chill run down my spine. Something was off with this woman. But I could not prove it, and I could not identify what it was that bothered me so.
“Sure is,” she said. Her brown eyes were focused on a point somewhere behind me as she addressed me. I turned to see what she was looking at, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. “Do you have enough gold?”
I rummaged through my pockets and found several gold pieces, but not enough to pay for anything as exquisite as crystal.
“When will you close shop?” I asked. The woman was still not meeting my gaze. I caught a whiff of sulphur and something rancid. There was an unnatural shine to her dark skin. A faint green glow on her cheeks. I felt a tingle of magic run from somewhere around her towards me. A magical exchange that led her to finally meet my eyes. Other than the shocked expression on her face, she appeared the same as before. Not a magic I could see then, but a magic I could feel. Not magic similar to mine, but another type of magical being, using some sort of glamour. Anamulet, perhaps? A creature that does not look humans in the eye. A lamia, or a crone?
I would never know, for that was the moment she ran from the store. I thought for a moment that it was me that she was afraid of. It was not. Right next to me stood an extremely tall figure with dark skin and braided hair. Magnificent in her stature and stance. A werewolf. Werewolves were not found in these parts. Magical beings were hidden, disguised, like myself. Glamours hiding our true faces. Magics could hide, but werewolves were unable to do so. The empire would find them far too easily.
She was the last creature I saw before being cloaked and sedated. The road before me was long and treacherous. Who knew that, after all of this was over, I would recognise her as a blessing in disguise?
Ten nights before meeting the General
In a drowsy state, I knew I was not truly asleep as I dreamt. My dreams replayed the moment I was captured again and again, with different outcomes. The first dream I had started right at the moment the woman at the store ran away, moments before I saw the werewolf.
However, this time, next to me stood a tall figure with no white in her eyes and a demented smile. Grey skin, paper-thin. Bald, without lashes, and eye sockets filled with the colour of ink. A shapeshifter. She was magic like me. I saw her for what she was. And if I saw through her disguise, she saw through mine. I knew I had to run.
I managed to get further than I expected. I heard her cackling as she followed me. I was waiting to be caught even as I ran. There must have been soldiers following me as well. It was only a matter of time before they caught up to me. I was surprised to reach the hole in the baker’s fence that stray dogs used for passage to the market. I was short and slight. I slipped right through the hole, praying that no soldier was small enough to follow me. I was lucky. But my luck ran out not much later.
If there had been more time, I would have made more salve for the woman with the burns. I would certainly not be planning to escape in a rundown canoe.
There was no time. I could not take my gold, any heirlooms or even another pair of trousers. I thought of all the remedies I stored in the backroom. The flasks filled with floral oils and distilled salt water. Glass jars, rows and rows of them, filled with ingredients. Some paid for in gold, others paid for in effort.
In another version of the dream, I bought the glass bottle, and simply returned home. Yet, as I walked home, I knew I was being followed. When I looked back, nothing was there. In my mind, imperial crests kept popping up. Somehow, I believed Emperor Victor himself was hiding in the shadows, spying on me.
