AELIN'S JOURNEY

Chapter I

The Fisherman

It was the first nice day in March, and Ambrose Patrona didn't want to waste it fearing for his life. It was in the middle of the burnings in Aderlan, and he was worried that his extensive library of books would get him jailed, sent to Endovier, or worse. So he gathered up his rod and tackle box, got in his small boat, and set out on the river.

The fishing is good today, he thought happily as he landed another trout. These would get him at least enough money at the market to bribe the Aderlan soldiers who searched his house routinely to pretend they hadn't seen anything. Maybe there'd still be enough for dinner, depending on how much he caught.

Suddenly, he heard a sound. It sounded like something gurgling and thrashing - Someone, he corrected himself as he saw the small figure waving around in strange, jerky movements. It was too small to be an adult. Did Aderlan now stoop as low as throwing living children into the rivers? Ambrose spat, disgusted. He contemplated hooking the child's hair with his rod's hook and reeling it in, but then decided against it. It was moving around too much - he might accidentally poke it in some undesirable places. And he couldn't just leave it here - it would surely die. There was no choice, he realized. He'd have to dive in.

Ambrose tore off his shirt, took a deep breath, and jumped feet-first into the water. The freezing river took all his breath away, but he swam fast towards the child - it was a girl, he realized, with long, flowing golden hair. She couldn't be more than ten, and she somehow didn't look like the sort of girl who would fall into a river on accident. This had to have something to do with the burnings. He was sure of it.

Ambrose grabbed a fistful of the girl's hair and led her slowly back to his boat. Out of the blue, she started kicking and thrashing against him as hard as she could. Trying to get free, he realized. Poor thing, he thought while paddling as fast as he could to his boat, which was slowly drifting away in the current. She probably thinks I'm some sort of Aderlan soldier.

He was starting to heave himself and the girl onto his boat when a strong pulse shot through the water, flipping his boat over and dumping his rod, tackle box, and fish into the water below. Ambrose made a desperate grab for his boat, which was floating away from him fast, but missed, and he watched in despair as it floated away from him down the river.

But then another pulse came, this time from the other direction, bringing his boat right back to him. He pulled himself and the girl, who had stopped thrashing up onto the upside-down boat.

Ambrose took a good look at the girl, who was unconscious. She was even younger than he thought - probably seven or eight. He cursed Adarlan for the second time that day. Who in all of Erilea would toss a defenseless child into a river?

A third pulse then came through the river, flipping the boat back over. Fortunately, Ambrose retrieved both it and the girl before paddling (the paddles had been under the benches of the boat and thus had been salvaged) back home.

The first thing Ambrose did when he got back to his house was lie the girl down on the bed in the guest bedroom and put a wet towel on her forehead. She looked so peaceful lying there, with her eyes closed and seaweed tangled in her bright, golden hair (he was going to have to do something about that). She was wearing a T-shirt that looked like it had once been nice - she was probably from an upper-class family, maybe even nobility.

She awoke, and opened her eyes tentatively. "W-who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Ambrose." Ambrose said soothingly. "I rescued you from that river, remember?"

"Oh." She said. "I thought you were someone who'd hurt me. I'm in Aderlan, right?" She paused, and Ambrose nodded. "Well, the king of Aderlan sent assassins to kill me and my parents while we were sleeping. Apparently they couldn't find me, because when I woke up, my mom and dad were dead, and I wasn't. I got the sense that I should probably leave, so I tried sneaking out, but one of the assassins spotted me, and cut the bridge over the river while I was running across it. I fell in, and I thought for sure I was going to die, but you rescued me."

All the things that that girl had went through! Ambrose blinked tears from his eyes. If he had been her age and had gone through the things that she had, he would have been permanently traumatized. The girl didn't even seem fazed!

"Who were your parents?" Ambrose finally said.

"Oh, they were the king and queen of Terrasen." she said matter-of-factly. "I thought you'd know because of my eyes."

Before Ambrose had time to react, the door swung open and in came two heavily armed soldiers bearing the Aderlan royal sigil on their uniforms. "Well, well, well." One of them said. "What do we have here?"

As fast as lightning, the girl bolted out the door and left the old fisherman to his inevitable fate.