Chapter 24: Entering Westrikov

Rienna fidgeted in the new leather clothes she was wearing. She hadn't worn leather before, and it was a little odd. It felt kind of cold and stiff, but it was also like she was wearing armor; if a thorn tried to poke her, she knew she wouldn't feel it. She made some final adjustments to her outfit, grabbed her backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the curtain doors of the hut and stepped down the small bridge-way.

At the end of the previous day, she had gone to meet with Måren as planned. Måren had explained the dynamics of the Four Towns and where Rienna would be brought to. That was the part she was worried about. The way Måren was planning to transport her was through the ground, just like she had done to rescue her from Trusten—an experience she wasn't keen on repeating while conscious.

She made her way down the main tree and over to the entrance tree. She walked down the spiraling ramp to the secluded branch where Måren waited with two guards beside her and the rope ladder. Rildie was nowhere in sight.

She glanced down at Xio and Xia before straightening her shoulders and approaching Måren. "Where's Rildie?" she asked, forcing herself not to think about the journey ahead. When she had first undergone Måren's form of transportation, she had fallen asleep from fatigue and a minor sleep spell. Now, she would have to travel through dirt and soil while completely awake.

"She is not here, nor will she be here soon," Måren said, her eyes' colors flickering distractingly. "She is in training right now."

"Oh." She wasn't quite friends with Rildie, but Rienna felt weird about not saying goodbye. She shifted the strap of her backpack uncomfortably. "So, what happens now?"

Måren gestured to the soldiers, who began unraveling the rope ladder. "We go down to the forest floor."

The two guards finished and watched curiously as Rienna walked over to the ladder. She tried to ignore their gaze as she began climbing down. Xia and Xio floated beside her, using Xia's magic.

As Rienna hit the ground, the tree trunk beside her began to twist and bulge. She stared as Måren stepped out of the tree itself and condensed back into a humanoid form. Her hair was the last to return to a normal state, hanging stiffly at her waist.

Måren smiled her odd smile and waved her hands in front of her as if wiping something. The ground around Rienna shifted and rumbled until the grass was uprooted and covered in dirt. Rienna tried to reach for the ladder but discovered that it had already been pulled halfway up the tree. She stifled a scream as her feet sank into the dirt. The cats mewled in surprise as they dropped forcefully onto the ground and partly into the soil.

"Remember what I said," Måren told Rienna as a soft green light began to swirl around her hands and spread around the dirt circle. "Remember your purpose." Then she put her hands out, parallel to herself, and pushed down, causing the earth to erupt around Rienna and swallow her.

Dirt swirled and tumbled around Rienna as she was pushed through the ground. There was no light, not that it mattered since Rienna was trying as hard as she could to keep her eyes completely shut.

She didn't know how long they were underground. Time felt distorted, and for all Rienna knew, they could have traveled for five seconds or five years.

After some amount of time, though, the ground spat out all three of them onto a dry, grassy terrain in the light of the blazing sun.

Rienna sputtered and spat out some of the dirt that had gotten into her mouth. She wiped the dirt off her face. It was dry and dusty, so it came off easily, even though there was a lot of it.

After sufficiently clearing her skin and clothes of most of the dirt, she took a moment to examine her surroundings. She lay at the base of a lone tree. It seemed as old as it was tall and mostly leafless. For almost as far as she could see, gray tree stumps and branches littered the ground. She felt like she was in a graveyard.

She stood up and watched the cats shake off dirt and groom their fur. The landscape around her, depressing as it may be, was also empty enough that she was able to tell where she was in relation to the Four Towns. With the shadows of mountains on the horizon and the vine hedge barely noticeable in the distance, Rienna could tell by her map that she was in the northeast area above the Four Towns, closest to the town of Trilliah.

Rienna turned to her cats and pointed southward. "Four Towns should be that way," she said with confidence.

And so they began yet another journey, this time hopefully bringing them closer to Vieryen and home. Of course, Rienna still had to uphold her promise to Måren to stop Sovereign Jenni from using the magic crystals.

The air was still, and Rienna's bag was significantly heavier than she was used to, due to the new supplies it now held. She could tell that the cats were also tired from the days of travel. She wondered whether they regretted the decision to go out into the Alyene.

As they traveled, the sky began to cloud over, and soon enough, it began to rain. The moment buildings came into sight, they ran towards them in hopes of escaping the increasingly heavy rain.

The house they first came upon was a simple cottage made of wood and less-than-clear glass windows. It didn't appear to belong to anyone of wealth or power, as there was a simple vegetable garden off to the side that, though well cared for, was not very high quality. The home looked friendly, with pots of flowers near the door and pretty vines drooping around the entrance.

Rienna knocked on the door rapidly, hoping she didn't sound too desperate.

There was shuffling and voices from inside, and after a moment, a middle-aged woman answered the door. Her hair was pulled into a bun, and she was wearing rags of a dress. "Hallo?" she said with a Queltan accent.

Rienna stuttered. She had forgotten that she would need to communicate with people who spoke a different language. "Uh... um—Can we stay, um... while it's raining?" she said, then mentally smacked herself for not having Xio talk for her.

Before she could ask him to do so, the woman's sound eyes widened and she said, "You are child of Vieryen?" Her voice was shaky, but more from not mastering the language than from fear.

"Err... Yes. Yes, I am," Rienna responded. The lady just looked at her, so she added, "We got caught in the rain. Can we come in?"

The woman snapped back into focus. "Of course! Come in, please! I will make you some tea."

The woman ushered her in and to a table with three seats. A man and a boy both sat wide-eyed at the table, likely the son of the couple. They said nothing as the woman rushed away and left Rienna sitting in front of the family.

The silence continued awkwardly. Even when the woman returned with a towel and a cup of tea, the silence was only broken once the lady pulled up another stool and sat next to her husband.

"I am Minafrid," the lady said, offering a smile.

"Mina!" the man said sharply. Mina just shrugged.

"I'm Rienna," Rienna offered.

Mina beamed. "Please, Rienna, drink some tea. You look cold."

Rienna obediently began to sip the tea. It was bitter and had a floral taste. She would have preferred some honey with it, but she had a feeling that these people didn't have access to honey, and what they may have had, they certainly wouldn't waste on a stranger, especially one from Vieryen. "Thank you," she said, setting down the tea. She quickly dried off her arms with the towel, then spread it across her lap for the cats.

"Do all people wear clothes like that in Vieryen?" Mina asked, examining Rienna's leathers.

"Oh. No," Rienna said awkwardly. "I've been traveling a lot, so I needed some different clothes."

The son spoke up before his mother could. "Why are you here?" The question did not sound unfriendly, necessarily, but it wasn't exactly spoken in a kind manner, either.

Rienna hesitated. She wasn't sure she should tell these people what she was planning on doing, but then again, they could be helpful. "I'm looking for the crystal caves," she decided to say.

"Oh, dear," Mina said, glancing at her husband. "Why would you ever want to go there?"

"What do you mean? What's wrong with them?" Rienna asked worriedly.

"People who go there do not come back," the boy said cryptically. "Two months before, a Lofun council member went in and did not come back."

"Ha," the man said bluntly. "You say like there is a ghost. Dabon did not disappear; he was killed." He turned to Rienna. "And you know why?"

"Erik, nei," Mina said sharply.

Erik shot her a glare before continuing, "He say something a fairyeld guard doesn't like. Next day, his name is on Lofun list of miners. Hendrik saw Dabon pulled aside by a guard. Now Dabon is gone."

"You do not know that," Mina said for Rienna's benefit.

"It is true," Erik said loudly, standing up and slamming his fist on the table. The candles rattled and threatened to topple. "We cannot trust her kind." He pointed to Rienna, then said something to his family in Queltan before stomping off into another room.

No one said anything. The boy just stared down at the table, and Mina had her eyes closed and was breathing deeply. Rienna clenched the bar of her chair with her toes and stroked her cats’ fur nervously. It was hard for her, knowing how terrible the fairyeld guards were to people who lived in the Alyene.

"I am sorry," Mina finally said.

"No, he is right," Rienna sighed. "The fairyeld guards are horrible people. Not everyone from Vieryen is like them, though." She chuckled grimly. "I mean, most people don't even know people exist outside of the suppression."

"What?" Mina asked, startled.

"Yeah. We think the sun is going to kill us if we ever leave." Rienna shook her head sadly. "I am sorry for everything the fairyeld guards have done. We never knew..."

"Wow... I... Perhaps I should bring you to Mæri. Once the rain stops, of course," Mina stumbled.

"Who's Mæri?" Rienna asked, tilting her head. She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with another authoritative figure; the last two had been rather stressful.

"She is one of the council members here in Lilliah," Mina started, causing Rienna to bite her lip to prevent herself from showing annoyance. "She knows more than I, or my husband, about Westrikov Kontravi and the cræstil caves." She paused. "Also, more about the guards. There are a lot by the caves."

Rienna nodded. "Thank you," taking a sip of the tea. It had grown lukewarm, and its bitterness had become more pronounced, but Rienna drank it anyway.

The rain continued, and the boy left to do chores. Mina insisted on pouring Rienna more tea and even brought a small cheese platter to her. She was grateful for the woman's unbounded generosity, but she saw the woman's thinness; this family did not have food to spare. And yet, this woman insisted on feeding a strange girl from a kingdom that was likely the cause, or a reason for, their poverty.

Eventually, though, the rain finally let up. Mina put on an old jacket and opened the cottage door.

"Now, usually, I would send one of the boys with you," she said, stepping out the door. "But they are not very comfortable with you because of your relation to the guards." She closed the door behind Rienna and led her down the path, continuing to chatter away. "Well, Erik is less than comfortable," she chuckled. "He will listen to anything those men will say. Even if they are drunk half the time."

She glanced down at Rienna. "Er. They have good intentions, though, I am sure."

As they walked along the thin dirt path, they passed various houses. The closer they got to the village, the more clustered the houses became. Even once they got into the town proper and the road they were on had widened to accommodate wagons and carts, the houses and buildings still weren't multi-story or very close together like they had been in Rufdand. There were even fewer people out on the streets, and even though the road was obviously for carts with horses and such, they never passed one.

Rienna noticed that the people were all relatively malnourished despite the fact that most of the people outside were selling fish and vegetables. Perhaps more surprising was that the vendors themselves didn't seem well-fed either.

Then Rienna started seeing the fairyeld guards. They all wore better clothes than the townspeople around them, as well as a purple circle somewhere on their uniforms. They were also clearly not suffering from the same food shortage as the citizens. Soon enough, it was obvious why: they cut in front of lines of people, claimed they had "military discounts," and sometimes even blatantly stole. No one protested them because they flaunted swords, clubs, and armor that would protect them if anyone managed to get in the first hit. It made her think of V4, except this time it was an entire town.

Rienna kept her head down the rest of the way to the town center, preferring to keep her interest in the rocks and pebbles rather than the people around her.

The house Mina brought her to was larger than the rest, like a fancy duplex, with its double entrances and large demeanor. It had pots hanging from the roof with simple plants and flowers.

When Mina knocked on the leftmost door, it was quickly opened by an older woman in better clothes than Rienna had seen on anyone in this town. Her gray hair was tied into a low bun. When she opened the door, she looked surprised.

Did she think no one would be in front of the door? Rienna joked to herself before suddenly realizing that the woman may have been expecting a fairyeld guard.

"Mina? Er det du?" the older woman asked, holding tightly onto the doorknob for balance.

"Ja. It has been a long time," Mina said with a smile. "Mæri, this is Rienna. She is a child of Vieryen." She gently grabbed Rienna's arm and brought her in front of her. "She needs to speak with you."

Mæri's face darkened with confusion. "Alright. Come inside."