Beornia's bare feet slapped against the cold wooden floor as she ran. She swallowed a sob, dodging over the old saddles and bridles her father had left in the hall, and barrelled on through to her mother's room. The cold in the air shifted around her, and she felt it like freezing water down her spine.
She nearly smacked into the door, but held herself before it, breathing in one, steadying breath, and holding her hand to her mouth. She closed her eyes against it, against all of it, and then swallowed, raising her head and looking forward.
She raised her fist and then, before she could stop herself, knocked on the door.
"Who has come here?" her mother called back.
"Beornia!" the daughter answered, hearing the waver on the end of her own name.
"Enter, my sweet."
Beornia obeyed her mother meekly, pushing the door in and entering the room. The bed her father and mother shared was large, and atop it were many furs and soft blankets. The mattress was stuffed with straw and down, and great, fluffy pillows adorned the head of the bed. In the corner, a hearth was warming the room with a small, coal-red fire. Across from her, and sitting at a vanity, fine-tooth comb in hand, sat Beornia's mother.
Alfreda was a strong looking woman. She did not have her people's golden hair, but she had their freckled skin and blue eyes. She was twisting one of her ochre-stained strands around one of her fingers when Beornia entered. She was not as young as she once was, and grey was starting to push through the red. She was strong still, and noble of grace.
She started when she saw Beornia, and stood to her feet. "My love! What troubles you?"
"Mama," Beornia cried, and ran to her. Beornia buried her face into her mother's skirts, like she was younger than she was. "They say…" she sobbed, properly beginning to cry. "They say…"
Her mother shushed her, and led her to the bed. "Come now, darling. Come, come. Wipe those tears, and still your breath. What do they say?"
Beornia allowed her mother to guide her to sit. She huddled near her still, hungry for her sweet smell, for her warmth, for the certainty and the love she knew resided there. "Mama—"
There was a bang against the door, and mother and daughter snapped their heads to look.
Alfreda looked to Beornia, eyebrows narrowed, motioning for her to be quiet. "Who comes here?"
"Apologies, my Lady," Beornia's uncle's voice floated through. He sounded tired, and grief stricken. Aldor was Beornia's father's brother, the younger by 10 summers. He was 16 years older than Beornia, and had been more like a cousin to her than a world-wearied patriarch. It stuck her strongly to hear him so worn. "We had not known Beornia was behind the door."
Alfreda turned back to her daughter, confusion on her face. "Enter, my dear Brother." The door pushed open, and Aldor stood there, his grief heavy across his face. "Why was Beornia running?"
He looked to her, surprised, and then to Beornia, who was beginning to cry again. "Has she not told—"
"She has been here but a few moments," Alfreda interrupted, and Beornia could see her anxiety growing. "What is this about, Aldor?"
"Papa," Beornia moaned, and collapsed against her mother, burying her head into Alfreda's lap, and beginning to cry again.
Alfreda stilled beneath her, and looked to Aldor sharply. "What has happened? Is he ill?"
There was a deep, aching silence, before Baldor spoke, his voice husky; "We told him he had no leave to go."
Beornia felt her mother stop breathing. "Go where?"
"The Paths through the mountains," Aldor said, exhausted. "The Paths of the Dead."
Alfreda gasped, a deep, shuddering inhale of breath. "What?"
"I am so sorry, my Sister," Aldor said, voice still quiet. "He swore to do it, honouring the final days of the building of the Golden Hall. He swore on his horn, and for the health of Meduseld. There was nothing we could do." Her silence stuck out, and he said again, softly, throat full; "I am so sorry."
"No you aren't," she said coldly. And Aldor jerked his head up in response, mouth open with indignation, tears glinting in the corner of his eyes. "You aren't. Now you can go on, become king." She spat, and turned her back to him. "Leave."
"Alfreda—"
"Leave!" She howled, turning around, eyes full of tears. Her voice was hoarse, like she'd been screaming. She leapt up and crossed the room to him. "LEAVE! Let us, us who truly loved him, grieve in peace!" She was screaming at him now, hands balled, tears staining her face, glaring up at him. "You wanted this! You prayed for it! I know it, I know it!"
"I did no such thing," Aldor said back, voice dangerously quiet. "Do not dare accuse me—"
"Do not dare insult me!" She snapped back. "I saw how you watched after him, Envy-Brother, they called you! The Spiteful!" She barely suppressed a sob before roaring; "This is your fault!"
He gazed at her a moment, anger melting to nothing, and nothing turning to pity. A remorse so deep it struck Beornia in her soul flickered across his face.
"I will return to the Golden Hall tonight," he told her finally, with an air of deep finality. He gazed upon her face, and Beornia could see that he desired to hold her, and comfort her. He knew he must leave. "My father does not yet know the news."
Beornia had a sudden, flashing memory, of her father and grandfather feasting together mere months ago. They had been laughing and talking, and the king had placed one of his hands on Baldor's brow, closed his eyes and blessed him. She wondered if that was the last that they had seen of each other, before her father had…
She closed her eyes against it all, and took in a deep breath.
Both Aldor and Alfreda turned to look at her, and it seemed as though they had just remembered that she was there. Slowly, and casting a furtive gaze at her mother, he moved to the bed.
"Beornia," he said lowly, and with love on his voice.
She peered up, and, swallowing, pushed up into a seated position. "Hail, Uncle," she said weakly.
He laughed, in a low voice. "My dear, I swear to you, I will give you everything as if you were my daughter also. You will know nothing of neglect, for my House, is now yours."
Beornia started to smile, softly, but her mother cut in, voice like daggers.
"The girl has her own house, and it is one far grander than yours, Aldor son of Brego," Alfreda said. "Now leave, before you destroy my family any further."
Aldor tightened his jaw, but did as she asked, walking from Beornia and to the door. He paused for one moment, and looked back. She blinked at him, feeling more miserable than she had before. Aldor spared her the softest, briefest smile, before disappearing back through the house.
In the year past her father's death, Beornia saw none from the royal line. Her mother refused to go to Meduseld for the official funeral, and instead held a small ceremony with the local Holy-Man outside the front of their dwellings. The king and Beornia's uncle wrote often, but neither she nor her mother responded. And her mother made no effort to tell the king when they decided to leave the house Baldor had been granted, and set off for the far reaches of the country.
They had gone to Alfreda's Birth-Brother's halls, a small village near the white mountains. It was a fresh place, with new homes being erected, and new ground broken for farming and to keep old horses.
The uncle, named Alden, was a strange man. He made little effort to know her, and often grunted in response to her questions. It wasn't much of a mystery to Beornia. She knew that the cost of feeding two more mouths would be high, especially for a couple with no children, and few villagers who could afford to pay the tithes.
Beornia grew much that year. The day she turned 9, she was as tall as her mother, and could nearly ride a full grown horse. Her bones and muscles ached with the growing, but she enjoyed being tall, though navigating it was taking some getting used to. She struck her head on the low ceilings in her uncle's house more times than she could tell.
Once she aged to 9, her uncle's wife began to teach her letters. Beririen was Gondorian of birth, and spoke Sindarin as well. Beornia learnt that as well, and managed to grasp it relatively well after only a year of teaching.
By the time she had reached her tenth summer, she and Beririen could hold entire conversations in Sindarin, to the frustration of her mother and to the angst of her uncle.
"Why learn the Elvish words?" her mother had asked her, finding her tracing the Sindarin letters on a scroll of parchment on the floor of their quarters one evening. "It is a skill of no use."
Beornia had looked up at her, wondering if she was being told off, and said; "it is interesting, Mama."
"That is no proper explanation," Alfreda had said, mouth tight, but she made no comment after that, and Beornia's lessons continued as normal.
Alfreda had grown more tired and old in the two years since Baldor had died. She'd gone completely grey, and her eyes had become hazy and milky. The lines in her face had deepened, and she seemed to be in constant pain. Her stomach ailed her constantly, and she rarely managed to eat three proper meals in a day. Soon she was unable to eat meat at all, and subsided off a peasant's diet of radishes and corns.
Another thing that Beornia found improved about her uncle's home was that she was given far more free reign to explore. At her father's house, guards had prevented her from leaving the house excepting official business. She would become golden and freckled in the summer, and her once dull, near mousy hair become alive with y and white. She'd set off in the morning and explore the moors atop one of her uncle's horses, or she'd run through the small forest the villagers cut their wood from. She taught herself to climb trees, and to run long distances.
She had set off early this particular morning. The mist had rolled in, and the earth around the village was cast in snow-mist. The summer, that had been so warm and good, was coming to an end. Soon winter would roll around, and the snow would come from off the mountain and blanket their home in soft white.
She saddled one of the horses, a fast mountain horse who responded well to her guiding hand, and mounted him before the sun had risen from the East. She had decided she was going to try to reach the roots of the mountains, and see if, as the villagers would whisper, the Dwarves really did live there.
The air was crisp, the way was long, and she had bread and apples in the saddlebag pressed against her leg.
The going was rough, and far further than she had thought. The mountains continued to grow in front of her for the rest of the day, and it wasn't until it had reached and passed its zenith that she finally arrived into the shadow of the mountain. She slowed her horse to a walk, worried that if she continued to go, and spent an hour looking for dwarves, that she would be back after the sun had set. Her mother would worry, and she would be told off.
She went to turn, and slammed against the horse as an arrow whizzed past her head. The horse reared itself up beneath her, and she barely managed to hold on. She looked back, heart in her throat, and saw three men chasing after her, swords drawn.
She screamed, and kicked her horse to start running, and he complied without complaint, thundering off. She turned, and screamed again as two more men emerged, riding their own horses, firing two arrows towards her. Both missed, but one only barely, and she pressed herself down onto her horse, willing him forward.
Her horse was faster and stronger than her assailants, and they sprinted against the grass as swiftly as they could. The journey that had taken 6 hours one way took only three on the way back. The sun had barely begun to set when she arrived, haggard, fingers sore from clinging onto her galloping horse.
"The mountain men!" She cried as she raced through town. "They come! They come!"
The villagers gathered, murmuring with fear and uncertainty under their breath. She did not pause to spur them into action, though their stillness frustrated her.
Move! She wanted to demand. They had swords! And arrows! And horses!
She found Beririen first, sitting with a book out in the sun. She leapt from her horse and tripped as she met the ground, legs now unused to walking. Beririen believed her without question, and hurried her inside.
Her uncle did not. Alden watched her with bored, unbelieving eyes as she told her tale. Beornia's mother listened fearfully, and clutched at herself as Beornia retold how they had fired arrows at her and how she had escaped.
"I know the Men of the Mountains," Alden said, spite coating every word. "I have fought against them, and I have watched my brothers die upon their evil daggers and knives. No girl could escape one, let alone as many as you name."
Beornia was shocked into silence.
Beririen spoke in her defence. "Husband, is it not likely that they never meant to harm the girl, and instead made to make her as a warning? If the report is correct—"
"The girl has a dead father and an overactive imagination," Alden dismissed his wife, and stared down at Beornia. "And she will do a week of chores to make up for her lie, and for taking a horse without the Horse-Masters permission."
Beornia gaped at him. What good was a week of chores when the Mountain Men burnt down their village that very night? And she had never needed the Master's permission before!
She looked to Beririen, hoping for an ally, but the woman had bowed her head, and stepped back.
Beornia swallowed her pride, and bowed her head also.
"The child never lies," Alfreda spoke up, snapping at her brother. "I raised her this way. She holds honesty before anything else. I believe her."
"And I am the Master of this house, and the one whom you sought refuge with," Alden snapped back at her. "My word on this is final. The child has lied."
The siblings ended their fight with tight lips. Beornia watched her mother expectantly, but she made no more of a move to protect Beornia.
The ten year old, hair still wild from the race from the roots of the mountain, red and hot and exhausted, raised her chin against her uncle. "I do not lie!"
"Two weeks of had chores for your obstinance," he snapped back. "Another word, and I'll make it three!"
He spared a moment to glare at his sister, and then his wife, and stormed from the room. As soon as he left, Beririen raised her head and sighed, looking to the door he'd disappeared to with an unreadable expression.
Beornia turned to her mother, "Mama, I was not lying! I swear that they are coming!"
She sighed and held at her stomach. Beornia wondered if all the excitement had caused it to be pained again. "My sweet, if it was only six you saw, as you so claim, then they will not come here. Six is not enough to storm a village."
Beornia shrunk in on herself, defeated. Of course, her mother was right, but she was right also.
Beornia spent the next two weeks following her uncle's instructions. Most days she would be helping in the kitchens, working the skin of her hands bloody and raw as she washed and dried and cut. She'd go to bed each night smelling like dried meats. Some days, and these were the days she enjoyed, she would be ordered to go help muck the stables. The stable master was a young boy, twice her age plus two years, who was kind to her, and let her do the easy jobs.
One day she saw him tending to a long sword, pulling it from a fine, leather scabbard and taking a whetstone to it. The metal sang underhand as he worked, and Beornia watched in wonder.
"You bear a mighty sword," she told him, eyes wide. "Not even my father's compares."
"It was a gift from the old Lord King," he told her grandly, pulling it up and holding it in front of him. He scanned it, a small smile on his face. "I faced an enemy alongside his son and survived it with him. All in my company were rewarded similarly."
Beornia blinked suddenly, at the mention of son. "Which Son-of-King?"
The boy blinked over at her, tilting his head. "Why, Aldor, I believe."
It had been the first time hearing her uncle's name since she had seen him the night he'd brought the news of her father's death. She nodded, looking down at her hands.
He seemed curious. "Why ask?"
She frowned, looking up. "For Baldor was my father, and Aldor is of my blood also." She paused. "And the king is my family."
"Why live here?" The boy asked, eyes wide.
Beornia shrugged, and made no answer. She would not speak ill of her uncle, and she did not trust herself not to spit his name if forced to relate it.
She looked up suddenly, "Master, what is your name?"
"My name?"
She nodded.
He answered slowly, as if perplexed; "Eldwyn, my young friend."
"Are you adept with this blade, Eldwyn?"
He nodded, slowly, more confused as they went. "As any could be, indeed I am."
She tilted her head, remembering fleeing from the mountain men, remembering the feeling, the fear. One thing had resonated with her, one thing had stuck; if she had killed the Men, and brought home on of their heads, she would have never been named liar. She would have been celebrated, and she uncle would have looked upon her with pride.
"Do you think you could teach me?"
Edwyn's eyes rounded. "A girl?"
"I am as strong and as tall as any boy my age," Beornia snapped, crossing her arms.
Eldwyn nodded slowly, appraising her. He had a wistful look about him, as though remembering a fond memory. "My mother used to tell my brother and I stories of Sword-Wives, great women with as much skill with a blade as a man. She told us that they raced with the Great Hunter, and were the ones who protected him when his enemies drew near."
Beornia's heart rate picked up, and she squeezed her hands into balls. "Will you help me, Master-Sword?"
He considered her for a moment, "for my mother's memory, I shall."
Over the next year, through winter and summer, Beornia split her time between swordplay and traipsing around the countryside. She rarely had time to do her lessons with Beririen, and whenever they did she was always impatient to leave.
Eldwyn was a patient coach. They went through everything properly, and slowly. She wondered how he had gone from servicing the Great Men of Rohan in the Eored to working for her uncle in his stables. She didn't want to know, she supposed. It was likely to be a sad story.
A year passed, and on Beornia's 11th year, her mother took her to a far larger neighbouring town. It felt strange to be there, seeing unusual faces. It had been exciting, and there had been a market.
Her mother and her bought hot soup and ate it sitting at the edge of a roaring fire. There a minstrel was singing, his fine face illuminated by the flames.
He was singing in both Sindarin and Rohirric, each line or so alternating languages. It was a funny song, about a great Lord who had requested that his sons outwit the other to earn his Land and his name. The third son, whom he'd neglected, spent the song manipulating each of his bullish brothers against the other. In the end, he proclaimed to his father what he had done. The father, so impressed by the young sons tenacity, offered him the land.
The young son defiantly said no, told him to let the land be inherited by one of his thick-headed brothers as penance for her father's preference of them. He left his father's home, in a cloak, upon horseback, and rode to the Golden Hall, where he became advisor to a new king and established himself there.
Beornia laughed when it finished, clapping with the rest of the crowd.
The minstrel bowed, and then began another song. This one was slow, and sad, a ballad describing the life of the king Brego, beloved by his people. And then to his death.
Beornia gaped, staring first at the singer, and then to her mother. Alfreda made no move of surprise, she merely listened with an attentive face.
"You knew," Beornia stated, staring up at her mother. Some of the people gathered near looked at her, annoyed, as if to ask her to be quiet. "You knew."
"A mother is entitled to keep things from her children," was all Alfreda would say in response. She did not need to clarify what Beornia was furious at. And her surety only made Beornia angrier. Alfreda had become stiff, and clutched at her stomach. "I did this to protect you."
"My grandfather is dead," Beornia said, feeling dull and hollow. Her eyes widened, "Aldor is king?"
Alfreda made no move to reply, but from her now rigid mouth, Beornia knew that he must be.
She looked back at the minstrel, eyes filling with tears. She had missed her father's funeral, and her grandfather's, and now she had missed her uncle's coronation. She remembered his soft smile the last time he'd seen her, and the vow he'd sworn, and she'd nearly accepted.
She closed her eyes, and a tear fell down her cheek. The last bars of the song were being sung, and with them she prayed to the Great Hunter, and to the keeper of the dead, for a safe passage for her family, and for their forgiveness for her not knowing.
She spoke not at all to her mother for the next week, and then scarcely for the next year. Beornia spent as much time as she could with Eldwyn, honing in her craft and growing stronger and stronger by the day.
Practicing with a sword made her feel closer to her father than she had in a long age. She remembered how his sword had looked at his hilt, so regal and strong. They had told her that he was a great swordsman. They told her, after, that no sword can fight off the curses of the dead.
It took an entire year before she could disarm him, and then another before she could match him in even stead. By her 13th birthday, he had bowed to her and apologised, offering her a dagger from his collection.
"There is no more I can teach you," he told her. She closed her hand around the hilt of the dagger, and felt dangerously close to crying. "You shall be a woman soon."
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Eldwyn, will we not remain friends?"
He smiled down at her, and held her shoulder. He had celebrated his 25th summer just two months earlier. "Of course, but friends alone. No more am I your tutor, no longer are you my pupil."
Despite her initial grief, the period following her training was one of genuine joy for Beornia. She and Edlwyn would spend entire days roaming the plains under the sun. Her hair would glint under the light. He would teach her how to navigate by the stars, and how to shoot an arrow from horseback. Beornia was terrible at archery, but she appreciated the lesson of balance.
At home, things were becoming more dire. She saw her mother very rarely, if at all. Alfreda's condition had worsened, and she spent most of her time in the healers house, being fed herbs and teas to ease her discomfort. Beornia went to visit her, and would bring flowers that she had picked on the moors, or a shiny stone she had found at the base of the hills. She often thought of her dead grandfather as she did this, and mourned him.
By the time she was 15, she was strong and tall, with a mighty sword arm and a keen sight. Eldwyn's kind word kept her popular with the villagers, who trusted him, and her placid demeanour in the estate meant that when he wasn't berating her, her Uncle largely forgot about her.
Beririen did not, however. And Beornia was the first to know that Beririen was pregnant, and that the child would be coming in just five months' time. Not even Alden knew.
"A baby!" Beornia's eyes had sparkled, and she'd held her hand against her Mother-Aunt's belly. She imagined she could feel some small child moving there, and felt a thrill run through her. "How marvellous! How exciting!"
Beornia dedicated a lot more of her time with Beririen than she would have previously. Her escapades with Eldwyn were shorn down to one a fortnight, and when her mother was in the healer's house, Beornia barely found time to visit her at all.
As the baby grew, Alden was in higher spirits than he had been since Beornia had known him. The holy-Man had assured him that the child would be a boy, and Alden had celebrated with a feast.
The mood of celebration was infectious, and Beornia found herself becoming increasingly excited for the birth. She would have a little cousin, someone she would be as close to as a sibling. She imagined that her uncle would need her to mind him often, and she would sometimes daydream about a tiny hand holding her finger, gurgling with laughter as it stared up at her.
It was only a week from Beririen's birth date when the first arrows smashed against the village.
Woman and children screamed, running, tripping over each other, desperate to get to their houses, as Dunlendings razed through the town. Beornia had been with Eldwyn, helping him muck stables, when the first ringing sounds of danger alerted her to them. Eldwyn made no hesitation, reaching for his sword and charging out of the stable. Beornia had stood, merely in fright, before grabbing her dagger and joining him.
As soon as she stepped out, she felt like throwing up. She looked around as if in a dream, and her dagger was limp in her fingers. All around her the Dunlendings were hacking people to death. She watched with wide eyes as one cut down the baker, a kindly old man she had known since arriving here. He had a son, and a daughter about Beornia's age.
She watched as he died, and felt the tears welling up in her throat.
She stumbled back, and then gasped, seeing smoke from the front of the village. It was where the healer lived. There were at least five desperately ill people in there, and none of them would get out by themselves. She sprang into action, running past the action and into the densely packed area of town. She dodged a Dunlending, who snarled in her face, and barrelled on through without checking to see if he was following her. She was alone when she reached the healers house, and she was alone when she saw how it was completely swamped with flame.
She fell to her knees before it, looking into the fire hopelessly. Nothing could survive this, nothing could escape it. There was no chance of her entering it, and she only would for want of death.
Her heart broke, she felt it. A deep, panging, pain in her chest. And she realised, with a strange, prophetic certainty, that her mother had died. That she had been in pain, and that she had been alone. Beornia closed her eyes, and prayed, as desperately as she could through the smoke of her grief. She prayed that her mother met her father in the afterlife, and that together they rode their horses across the night sky.
She prayed to the Great Hunter to protect her, and harnessed the newly emerging anger in her belly. She pulled the dagger from her side, hands no longer shaking. Someone would pay for this. Someone would die.
She stood and ran back to where the Mountain Men were, driving her dagger through the back of one fighting the blacksmith's son. He yelled out with pain and collapsed. She kicked him in the ribs for good measure. The son watched her with round-eyes surprise. She ignored him, and pushed on.
She sliced throat and cut through flesh, roaring as she went. She would kill them all.
She thought of her mother and sobbed, burying the dagger up to the hilt into the chest of one of the men. He died in shock, staring at her. She twisted, gritting her teeth. A woman. A woman did this. Me.
She kept on going, and then cried out when she saw a band of the Dunlendings marching on her uncles house. She ran towards it, and doubled her speed in pain when she saw them dragging Beririen out by her hair. The Gondorian woman cried out, wrenching herself around as well as she could. Beornia strained her legs desperately, but she was not fast enough.
She watched, in horror, as one of the Mountain men buried their sword through her swollen stomach.
"No!" Beornia screamed, and she caught Beririen's shocked, pained gaze before the woman died.
Beornia nearly fell over, bowing her head, mind numb and ringing. Beririen had been kind to her, had been intelligent and gentle with her. She had been her mother when Alfreda had lost the will to do it.
Beornia prayed as quickly and as desperately as she could when she approached, and she moved in on them. She fought without mercy, and without question. She no longer feared being struck down by their swords, for there was no one left alive whom she loved. The world was empty and cold to her now. She wanted no part in it.
She dropped her defences and bared her neck to her attacker. She took what she had thought would be her last breath, and closed her eyes.
There was no part to it that was worth surviving for.
Her eyes snapped open as blood whipped across her face. She turned and saw that her assailant had been skewered by a sword, blood bursting from his chest. Behind him Eldwyn was snarling, and then heaving, as he pulled his blade from the Dunlending.
"Eldwyn," she breathed, clutching her dagger, eyes filling with tears. "My mother, Beririen…"
"I know," he said firmly, turning and standing in front of her sword raised. "But this is no reason to let them kill more of the Horse-Lords. Come, friend. We are stronger than this."
Spirited by him, Beornia stood aside, and together they chased away the last of the Dunlendings from the estate. By the time the hour was up, all the Dunlendings had fled.
Beornia was coated in blood, seared by smoke and felt trembling and cold with exhaustion.
Eldwyn clasped her on the shoulder, and smiled. "You fought well."
She stared at the broken body of Beririen, and felt so distant, and so wrong. She felt the blood on her hands and across her face. And she felt nothing at all.
Her uncle would not see her. That was what they told her, as she waited, filthy, outside his bedroom door. He was in mourning, he was not himself. He would not see her.
"He must," she cried, so close to tears her eyes ached. She had lost her mother and Beririen on the same day, she had lost the cousin she'd imagined loving, and she'd lost so many of the friends she'd collected over the years.
She had been a woman nearly two years, but she hadn't realised how much of a child she'd been until everything she had been reliant on was stolen away.
The servant who had told her watched her with pitying eyes. He sighed, and pushed back in. Beornia pushed her fingers against the bridge of her nose and took a deep, shuddering gasp of a breath.
The servant emerged a moment later, face white, mouth downturned. He looked at her with apology.
"He will not see me," she guessed weakly. She ran a hand through her hair, feeling the grit and flesh in there.
"He needs you to leave."
She nodded slowly. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and turned. "I shall be in my mother's…" she swallowed. "In my chambers."
She had turned to leave her, but he stopped her with a small "no".
She frowned, confused. "He will see me-?"
"He wants you to leave this house," the servant stressed. He looked ashamed to be delivering the message, but he kept his chin up, and bore her shocked eye contact well. "Now."
"Now?" Beornia demanded, voice cracking. "Where am I to go?"
This time the servant did bow his head. "I do not know."
"Ask your master then," Beornia snapped. "Ask him why a girl, with a Mother-Dead should be expected—"
The door behind the servant snapped open, and Beornia's uncle stood, red faced and furious. He was slanted, and his eyes were watery. His face was bloated and red. In that moment, Beornia pitied him; wife and sister torn from him in one day.
And son, she thought miserably, thinking of Beririen's corpse.
"GET OUT!" he screamed at her, and she stumbled back in fear. He took a laboured step toward her. "You curse of a child! You curse! You did this! The Hunter cursed me the day you arrived, and now he has taken his retribution!"
Beornia had the vivid memory of her mother accosting Aldor, screaming in his face, hatred bare in her eyes. Alden was his sister exactly. The ghost of her mother swam before her, now looking at her with hatred.
"You did this—"
"I am sorry," Beornia gasped, tears streaming down her face. "I—"
"Get out!"
"Uncle where shall I go!"
"Die for all I care!" He snarled at her, and took a step back into his room. "Starve the way you should have starved when your hapless father walked the steps of the dead. GET OUT!"
He stumbled back into the room and the door slammed behind him.
Beornia gaped after him. She looked at the servant, and he made to talk to her, but she cut him off sharply, and sprinted down the hall.
She would not stay here.
This oasis, this brief lifetime that she'd eventually remember with such fondness and love, was blocked to her now.
She threw herself out the front of the house, and collapsed to the ground, vomiting out her stomach's contents. She heaved, and her throat contracted. She coughed into the grass, and burst out a deep sob.
She looked up; the sun was setting, and before her, the surviving villagers were slowly cleaning their village, taking the bodies of loved ones for their final rites. She should do the same for her mother, for Beririen, but she felt no strength in her body.
She sat back from her stick and, shaking, wiped her mouth. Eldwyn had done her no favours when he'd saved her. She should be dead. She should be dead.
She closed her eyes against it all, and leant back, breathing in deep, laboured breaths.
There was nothing for it. There was nothing for her.
Her days were catching up to her, pressing heavy on her eyelids. She felt herself drifting, and drifting, feeling light. Her fingers eased against the grass, and she slipped into sleep.
She awoke briefly to find herself being carried against the grass. She imagined that Alden had come out, grief stricken that he'd turned away his only family, and had carried her back into his house. She imagined him waking her in the morning, and that they'd laugh and remember Beririen and Alfreda, and that they'd end up becoming as close as a daughter and a father.
Warmed by the thought, she drifted to sleep with comfort, and her dreams, though dark and menacing, showed none of the horror she'd seen in the daytime.