Conviction's Pain by Dave de Burgh

Author:Dave de Burgh [Burgh, Dave de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tickety Boo Press
Published: 2016-12-05T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Seiria rose from the shrub she had been picking berries from, careful not to knock over the basket, and wondered when she had begun to enjoy the ache in her back and legs. Their camp was at her back and she could hear Amalia’s distant, off-key humming as the woman pottered about the tents. Life outside of the palace was certainly different, just as she had known it would be. She hadn’t quite imagined living rough, but she was enjoying it, nonetheless.

There was certainly more satisfaction to be had when eating a meal she had helped to prepare, and knowing that her clothes —meagre as they were— were clean because she had washed them herself. Allowing herself to get dirty, suffering pricked fingers from the thorny shrubs and bushes, or just tying her hair with a simple leather thong instead having a stone-faced maid do it for her... It seemed to her now that everything she had enjoyed —the paints and powders for her face, the dresses and stockings and useless, shiny shoes— had been such a waste of time.

She loved pampering herself as much as the next woman, and she knew that beauty could be a weapon, just as a sword or spear was, but even though she had been forcibly removed from the palace and her previous life, it felt like she had finally arrived at a place she had long ago left behind.

If Jarlath hadn’t been given the power that had so changed him, they would have lived out their days in their little house, perhaps even had children. He would have chopped wood, perhaps hunted; she would have sewn clothes for them, would have made daily or weekly trips to the market for vegetables and fruit. At least, she thought so. She really had no idea what people who didn’t live in palaces did to survive, day to day, but she was beginning to learn.

Seiria bent to take hold of the basket’s handles and rose, holding it against her stomach as she turned and faced the camp again. A day had passed since Khyber’s panicked return from the capital’s slave-hold. He hadn’t spoken to them at all, just rushed past them toward the Elvayn he had managed to save, a look of mingled horror and sadness on his strange face. What was telling for Seiria was that he hadn’t brought another group of Elvayn with him. Amalia agreed with her that something must have happened at the slave-hold – something terrible enough that Khyber had made the choice to flee and leave the rest of the Elvayn behind.

They wouldn’t know what, though, until he came out of the tent and told them. Seiria was constantly fighting the urge to force her way into the Elvayn’s tent and demand answers – it was obvious that whatever had driven Khyber from the slave hold had been something terrible, and she felt that she and Amalia had a right to know what had happened. They were his allies, weren’t they? She hoped he understood that and knew that he wasn’t alone.

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