So Long

Sleeping on the floor was cruel on her back and neck, but Jorlin forced herself to wake up,  even though she hardly felt any less exhausted than she had the previous day. She was glad that her father and not her mother was the only other one awake.

“I’m going outside for a little while. I’ll be back,” she told him before heading out the door. She didn’t give him time to answer as she closed the door behind her.

The air seemed colder than normal, and her breath billowed out in front of her as she stood for a few moments in front of the house. The sun was just beginning to peek out over the horizon, the shadows of the nearby small thatched houses unusually long. Before she was taken away, she had to say goodbye to Tholan. She hated herself for having to do it, but he deserved to at least know that she was leaving and where she was going. He had done enough to deserve a formal, if abrupt, goodbye.

She took off at a brisk pace in the direction of Tholan’s tree stand. Her fingers and ears were numb by the time she could see it far off, partially covered by the skeletons of the trees surrounding it. Her steps slowed as she came nearer and she held in a breath; this was something she wasn’t willing to do, but it had to be done. Like a puff of smoke, the air in her lungs escaped into the frosty air, and she took a few more steps forward. Tholan must have known she was coming, for the ladder slowly lowered to the ground as she approached.

“How’d you fare out here last night?” Jorlin asked as she climbed the rungs.

There was a pause. “Decently,” came Tholan’s reply.

She pulled herself through the opening in the floor and brought the ladder up with her. He was reclined against the trunk of the tree, his legs stretched out in front of him. He didn’t bother looking at her, and he kept his gaze on the object in his hands. Wood shavings were piled beside him, and he held a small chunk of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. He was carving something.

“Think you’ll be able to live out here all winter?” she asked, settling onto the floor.

He solemnly shook his head as he chiseled off more pieces from the wood block. “I won’t have to.”

She bit her tongue. Everything came back to the draft.

“Won’t be long now.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. Her normally low patience was running near to empty.

Tholan looked up at her, a strange look in his eyes. “Why are you here?”

“Do I need an excuse to visit a friend?”

“No,” he replied. “Something’s different.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know?” she asked. There was no use in trying to keep secrets anymore.

He shrugged, then looked back down at his work. A couple more shavings floated to the floor beside him. “Might as well tell me,” he muttered.

“My mother’s forcing me to go live at Decaster Castle,” Jorlin stated flatly.

Instead of replying, Tholan shifted his line of sight to the window slit, staring at the bare branches outside. The light made his eyes look even more blue. For the longest time, neither of them said anything. Then, he looked back down and continued carving, letting out a pent-up sigh.

“It’s for the best,” he managed to say.

Jorlin let out a cold laugh. “My mother said that to me. We both know she’s lying. I’m going to be miserable there.”

“We all end up being miserable one way or another,” he replied. “Keep an open mind, though,” he added after a pause. “It might not end up being as bad as you believe.”

She was convinced that he was lying to try to comfort her, but she kept her mouth shut. After a while, she asked, “How’s your leg doing?”

“Better,” Tholan answered. “I can walk around pretty well now. So, when are you leaving?” He didn’t fall for the attempted topic change.

“Any minute.”

He clenched his jaw and stopped carving for a few heartbeats, then put the knife and carving on the floor. When he looked up at her, he said, “Well, I’m not meaning to keep you. I-…” He looked down. “…I’m glad you came to say farewell.”

He hobbled to his feet after she got up, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against his chest. Jorlin breathed in the aroma of the forest on his jacket, the pine needles and moist dirt. The faint scent of smoke clung to the fabric. She didn’t want to let go, not again.

Tholan forced a smirk when he drew away and put a hand on her shoulder. “I hope you find happiness,” he murmured. “I really do.”

She looked down, and he bent to lower the ladder onto the ground. When he straightened up, Jorlin stepped forward and embraced him again. He felt like home.

“If I ever see Slater again,” she said when she drew away, “I promise I’ll punch him in the face.”

That made Tholan grin. She couldn’t bear this anymore; she was about to cry, and that was something she couldn’t allow to happen in his presence. It took more effort than she expected to turn and put her hands and feet on the rungs of the ladder.

He knelt by the opening as she climbed down, and called, “Farewell, Jorlin.”

She looked up at him and forced a smile. “So long,” she said in return.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, Jorlin turned and sprinted back towards Asher’s house, her boots thudding rapidly on the forest floor. She forced herself not to look back. The cold air rushing in and out of her mouth soon made her teeth ache. Her fatigue from the poor amount of sleep the previous night made her more clumsy than usual. She failed to sufficiently dodge tangles of thorns, which carved shallow, red veins in her forearms, though she barely noticed.

Jorlin’s heart sunk to her toes when she left the edge of the forest and saw a brown stallion standing outside Asher’s house. A man in leather armor was standing nearby, his arms crossed over his chest. Her parents were there too, and the three of them stared as Jorlin trotted up to them.

Great, she thought. More goodbyes.

She didn’t move when her mother embraced her tightly. This was something she wasn’t able to forgive, not yet. Numbly, she let her father embrace her afterwards. This wasn’t his fault, so she let her muscles relax to some extent. The man in leather armor mounted the horse. He grimly looked down at Jorlin, his frizzy dark hair floating in the breeze.

“Let’s be off,” he stated gruffly.

Wordlessly, Jorlin climbed behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist to steady herself. She turned to look at her parents one last time. Her mother waved, but Jorlin didn’t return the gesture. Instead, she turned and gazed forward, a grudge against her mother burying itself deep in her heart.

“Let’s go,” she muttered.

The man nudged the horse’s side with his boot, and the animal took off at a lively trot eastwards, keeping to the path. They were approaching the fields when Jorlin heard a shout behind her. She turned around and saw Tholan running after them, his cloak flying behind him and his boots thudding rapidly on the ground.

“Wait!” he yelled.

“Stop,” Jorlin told the man.

He let out an annoyed sigh and pulled the horse to a halt.

“Jorlin,” he panted when he reached the horse’s side. “I-…”

“What are you doing?” she interrupted. “You could get caught out here!”

He winced, and shifted his weight to his good leg.

“And your leg! Are you stupid?”

When he caught his breath, he replied, “I forgot to give you something.” He held up the object he had been carving. It was in the likeness of a four-legged animal, and it was about half the size of her hand.

A lump formed in her throat, and she held out her hand, letting him press it into her palm.

“It…,” he paused to chuckle. “It’s supposed to be a cow. I hope it’ll remind you of home, and maybe… me too.”

Jorlin smiled sadly, trying not to look at the brokenness in his eyes.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “I’ll treasure this.”

He lightly slapped the horse’s flank, and it took off trotting again. Jorlin stayed twisted around, watching his figure slowly grow smaller. She clenched the carving tightly in her hand. One last time, he waved at her, and she waved back.

When his figure was small in the distance, a patrol rounded the bend behind him. Adrenaline shot through her body, her mouth gaping but nothing coming out as she watched him turn and face the group. He didn’t try to run. He merely stood there, the general of  the group dismounting and approaching him.

“We have to stop!” she shouted.

“Your mother told me this might happen,” the man said flatly. “She said that under no circumstances was I allowed to let you get off this horse and go back.”

“Tholan!” she screamed when two soldiers from the patrol grabbed him and dragged him to the back of the group. Even with the distance dividing them, she could tell that his leg was causing him a substantial amount of pain.

Jorlin instinctively jumped off the back of the horse, her ankles in splitting pain when she slammed onto the ground. She fell to her knees, but before she could get to her feet again, the armored man had roughly grabbed her wrist.

“Stop! Let go!” she screamed, desperately trying to escape his grasp. “That’s my friend! You have to let me help him!”

“I’ll tie you to the saddle if I have to,” the man growled. “Now come on.” He jerked her arm in his direction.

Jorlin sank to the ground, watching helplessly. The general on the horse suddenly turned his line of sight in her direction, and a broad grin spread over his face. The general was Slater.

Another scream tore from her throat. The scream was one of rage. She couldn’t allow him to take away someone else. He deserved whatever pain she could inflict upon him. The rage that made her blood boil was enough for her to kill him without hesitation.

“Grow up,” the man ordered, yanking her to her feet.

Jorlin whipped around and slapped him across the face, her actions almost uncontrollable. He painfully grabbed both of her arms, his eyes emotionless.

“Am I a prisoner?” she demanded.

“Get on the horse. Now.”

He mounted the horse again after she did. He urged the horse into a canter this time.

The reality that Slater had taken Tholan away was almost too much for her mind to process. After several minutes, it finally began to sink in. Warm tears slid down her face and dripped onto her cold hands.

When she turned around, Tholan was limping, trying to keep up with the patrol. This was it. The thing that Tholan had been running from for seven years had finally caught up to him. He turned around and glanced at her one final time.

Decaster Castle smelled nothing like Auld Town. The portcullis that raised to let Jorlin in looked like spiked teeth, and the castle itself looked like a sprawling, stone prison. Tattered purple banners with the Decaster coat of arms embroidered on them whipped in the wind atop the battlements. She tried to remember what the rearing unicorn over two crossed swords on the purple cloth stood for, but her mind was occupied with still trying to grasp what had happened earlier that day. The courtyard contained a stable, blacksmith forge, and several other small, thatched buildings. The soldiers, smiths, and workers eyed her as she followed the man in leather armor to the keep.

The interior of the castle was worse than Jorlin had initially imagined. There were no windows, save for a few small slits in the keep’s walls. There were three floors; the first was richly decorated with banners and tapestries. As she studied the heraldry depicted throughout the halls, she began to remember what her mother used to say about it. She had told her that the purple symbolized royalty, the unicorn strength, and the swords justice. The interior of the keep was musty, and the air was stale and cold. The only light came from either torches on the walls or the occasional fireplace, which was usually crowded around by nobles or soldiers.

The second floor was mainly used by the soldiers as storage for supplies, such as wood, metal, barrels of beer, and hundreds of old weapons. Dozens of aged suits of armor were scattered around the second floor, but most of them were kept in the armor room along with tunics of chainmail and other armor components.

The third floor was mostly a living space for the highest generals. Clovis’s massive bedroom was at the end of the hall, guarded by two soldiers.

Jorlin’s wandering thoughts were pulled back into her body when she felt the man in leather armor tug her arm. Annoyed, she followed his lead as they walked down the main hall of the first floor, weaving their way between people. As they neared the end of the main hall, passing under the arches that reached up to the ceiling, he suddenly stopped.

“My lord,” he said to a man about as tall as Jorlin, but much stockier, “this is Jorlin. You sent me to fetch her for you.”

The stocky man turned to look at Jorlin, and he studied her for a moment. “Ah, I did, and you have done as I asked, Cassus.”

“Aye.”

The stocky man was richly garbed, had a hooked nose, and was bald save for a few gray strands around the sides.

“You may take your leave,” he told Cassus.

Cassus bowed with his fist over his heart, then swiftly marched away, disappearing into the swarm of nobles.

“I am Clovis, your uncle,” the man said. A strange, fake grin grew on his face. “Your mother wanted you to live here, and here you are. Make yourself at home, daughter.”

“I’m not your daughter,” Jorlin said coldly. She bit her tongue; that wasn’t supposed to have come out. A few people around them turned to glance at her.

Clovis, pretending not to have heard her remark, smiled falsely. “My head general has made mention of you before, Jorlin.”

She stared blankly at her uncle.

“Slater,” he added.

Something must have changed in her face, for he chuckled. “I see that obedience does not come naturally to you. I hope that won’t become an issue while you stay here.”

Jorlin stiffened but said nothing.

“Not a talkative one, eh?” Clovis looked down at her tattered dress, dark dots on the sleeves where the thorns cut her arms and dirt browning the hem. “You have new, better clothes in your wardrobe in your room. Supper will be brought up to you if you choose not to join the dining hall.” He appeared somewhat disgusted at her clothing. “Now if you’ll excuse me…,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist.

As he turned around, Jorlin asked, “Where can I find Slater?”

Her uncle paused, then answered, “On the first floor during the evenings. Oh, and I forgot to mention that your room is on the third floor, third to last on the right. Now I must be off.” He waddled away.

Jorlin spun around on her heel and marched in the direction of the stairwell. Tomorrow she was going to find Slater and somehow make him pay. She didn’t know how, but the concept of revenge had been eating away at her thoughts for the whole day. Too lost in thought, Jorlin nearly crashed into a young boy, carrying a set of bracers.

“I’m sorry miss!” he apologized, almost seeming scared of her. He straightened up a bit when he saw that she wasn’t like the others around them.

“Don’t worry about it,” she muttered.

“Say, you’re Clovis’s niece, aren’t you?” the boy asked. He only seemed about nine or ten. He was probably a page.

“Aye. Got here today,” she replied curtly, not interested in conversation.

He looked at her intently, brown eyes glittering in the torchlight. “Well, I s’pose you’re not as bad as they all say you are.”

Jorlin raised an eyebrow.

“Not to be rude,” he suddenly stammered. “but rumor has it that you’ve got somethin’ of a serious grudge on my master. Usually, I’d already dislike you, but my master is about as disagreeable as they come.”

“You’re a page of Slater, aren’t you?”

He nodded, his long, dark curls bouncing. “Turns out all I ever do is chores.”

“Seems like we’ve got a similar mindset when it comes to our friend Slater, eh?” she asked.

“Aye!” he agreed. “I’m Ancis, by the way.”

“Jorlin.”

“I’ve heard that you come from Auld Town, that serf village,” he remarked.

“Does word really get around this fast in this castle?” she asked, surprised at how much he knew about her.

He nodded. “The nobles got nothin’ better to do than gossip all day.” A few people gave him harsh glances, but he didn’t seem to care. “Well, that, and… actually, I don’t really know what they do all day, other than stand around. Must get boring, if you ask me.”

Does everyone around here talk this much? she thought.

Ancis said, “I must get going. I’ll get yapped at if I don’t get these to where they’re supposed to go soon.”

She watched as he ran to her left, weaving between the nobles. She didn’t know what to think of him. It was late in the evening, so Jorlin decided to go up to her room on the third floor. She made her way up the dim staircases to the last floor and briskly walked down the dark hallway. The corridor split in two, and she didn’t know which way to take. All Clovis had said was that her room was “third to last on the right.” She decided to try her luck with the hallway that turned to the right and crept towards the end, mindful of how the sound of her boots thudding on the floor bounced off the stone walls. Once she reached the correct door, she stopped for a moment. She didn’t bother to knock as she opened it, revealing a young man standing beside a desk, its cabinets open and rummaged through. He held a few parchments of paper in his hands, and when the door swung open his head snapped up and he quickly slid the papers onto the top of the desk behind him.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. He had dark brown, almost black shaggy hair that tumbled onto his forehead. A lock of it concealed his left eye. He had a grim look about his face, yet he seemed almost fearful when Jorlin entered the room.

This was obviously not her room, but she was curious as to why he was rummaging through the desk. He didn’t seem to belong in there, either.

“I could ask you the same question,” she replied.

“Get out,” he demanded, his eyebrows lowering.

“Whose room is this?” she asked, looking around and ignoring his command.

“General Caine’s,” he replied. “I’m running an errand for him.”

He was lying; she could tell. The signs were all there.

“And who are you?”

He sighed, annoyed. She could see that he was only answering her questions to make her leave. “Draven.”

“Ah,” she said, turning to leave. “Well, I’ll leave you to your snooping.”

She closed the door behind her before he could reply and started jogging back where she came. The left hallway must have been the one her room was in. Whoever Draven was, he wasn’t someone she cared to encounter again.

When she opened the door to her correct room, the first thing she noticed was a thick layer of dust that covered the empty bookshelves, the wardrobe, the mantle over the unlit fireplace, and something Jorlin had never seen before. A mirror, caked with dust, was mounted on the wall over the table that sat near the foot of her rickety bed. She strode over and wiped it so that she could see her reflection staring back at her. The girl in the mirror looked afraid. Disgusted, Jorlin took down the mirror and laid it face-down on the desk next to a book that was falling apart, the only one in the room. She gingerly opened it to a random page towards the end, the pages cracking and dust flying into the air. Her eyes scanned the page as she tried to decipher the letters. Jorlin closed the book. She could read a few written words in English, but the book wasn’t in English. It was probably in Latin. After opening the aged doors of the rowan wardrobe, she discovered that it held a few dresses that were much finer than her own. There were some men’s clothes folded up and placed at the bottom. Jorlin took off her cloak and threw it over the back of the chair that sat next to the table. She was exhausted and ready to retire for the night when there was a knock on the door.

“Hello?” she called out wearily.

“Supper,” came a voice from outside.

Upon opening the door, she saw that it was Ancis, holding a small tray of food. He let himself in and set the tray with meat, bread, and grapes on the table.

He suddenly said, “Honestly, I don’t blame you for not wanting to eat down there.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Jorlin muttered, inwardly hoping that he would leave soon. She wanted to be alone.

He stood near the table for a few moments, then turned to walk out the door when she didn’t make a move toward conversation.

Before he closed the door, Jorlin asked, “Have you seen or heard of anyone named ‘Asher’?”

The boy paused, and thought for a moment. “Can’t say I have, but if anyone knows where he is, it’s Slater.”

Slater, she cursed inwardly. I’m likely to sever his head before he can even insult me. “Thanks,” she said, watching him exit her room.

Jorlin scarfed down her food, more hungry than she realized, then climbed into bed. She had to find Slater the next day. She didn’t know why, but she felt the need to confront him. With no friends, family, or home, the dark, empty space of the room seemed to grow larger.

It was cold, but for once Jorlin welcomed it. The chill that made her curl up into a tight ball under the blankets reminded her of the cold nights she spent in the floor above the tavern, with the wind blowing in through cracks in the wall. After staring at the dancing shadows cast by the solitary torch on the wall, she let herself drift into sleep.