Okey, I just have to say this is almost the last chapter. I know I update very fast, but it's not too long a story and I wanted to finish it. This part made my husband somewhat annoyed at the end, so if anybody get cross for it, I will have to publish the last chapter very quickly I think ;D
I wrote the last part listening to the beautiful music of Vienna Teng, with the lyrics from Heart's Alone in my mind, so don't blame me for sad cuteness. ;D
******
It was two days later that they arrived at the first river separating Two Silver from the plains. Since she saw the first familiar landmark Cassandra had been silent. She walked a little behind Jah'ren, looking around for the roads and paths she knew so well, most of them now grown over and forgotten.
When they entered the uneven hill between the rivers that had long ago been a populated village, she could feel her heart beat in her throat and her hands trembled. The hill now had trees growing on it, not large ones, but young, straight trunks shooting up from the fertile soil left by the fire.
There were no graves anymore, the stones fallen over, the crosses gone back to the earth. The only signs showing there had once been life on the hill were the remains of charred and blackened stonewalls.
Cassandra stopped by the soothed stones that had once been her father's forge. She turned to the troll, eyes full of despair.
"Can you leave me alone here for a minute?" she asked.
Jah'ren touched her shoulder and nodded.
"I go find food," he said.
She sat down on a rock, not knowing what to do, not daring to think. For the first time in ten years she could not keep the memories and pain at bay. Soon the quiet tears turned into shivering sobs, her whole body shaking.
Meanwhile, Jah'ren searched the riverbanks for something to keep him occupied until Cassandra would call for him. Walking along the bank he came to an old bridge leading across the water, and waded out on the sand beside it.
He was standing knee deep in the river, with no other purpose than enjoying the slightly cold water against his skin, when he heard the footsteps through the grass. They reached the bridge and the next moment the troll was standing face to face with a man.
His first reaction was to raise the bow, arrow pointing at the human on the bridge. The man was shocked by the sight, but raised his rifle and looked at the troll down the muzzle.
"No fear, I friend," Jah'ren said, feeling silly for doing so and at the same time so obviously being a threat.
The man spat at the ground, not taking his eyes of the troll a single minute.
"What are you doing here? There is nobody left here to kill," he barked. "You trolls took care of that long ago."
"I come with friend. Friend home here." Jah'ren lowered his bow a little to show goodwill.
"No friend of yours belong here," the man replied to this. "You and your kind should all be wiped out."
There was a rustling among the shrubbery behind Jah'ren, and as the man readied himself to meet the new threat, the troll's ears picked up the familiar footsteps of his human friend.
"Jah'ren? What in the world are you doing in the river?" Cassandra asked, her voice still hoarse from crying. "What is…"
She pushed through the last of the brambles and stopped dead on the bank as her eyes caught sight of the figure on the bridge. The man was staring right back at her, his gun still pointing towards Jah'ren.
"Who are you?" the other human asked suspiciously.
Cassandra could not answer. She blinked and blinked, but he still stood there.
"Simon?" she eventually managed.
There was a long silence. Jah'ren used it to get out of the river and take his place on the bank beside Cassandra.
"You cannot be," Cassandra croaked. "You died. I watched you die!"
Simon took a few steps forward, the gun now lowered and a look of complete despair on his face.
"I lived, Cassandra. I was saved by a healer. When I came to they told me you had left."
They stood looking at each other a long time, before Simon spoke again:
"I did not recognize you at once. You have changed much."
"You still look the same," Cassandra smiled, still numb from the shock. "Older, but the same."
"I guess. They told me you went after the raiders, swearing revenge. I guess you have lived quite a life out there."
She did not know what to say to that. He almost made it sound like he was blaming her for going away.
"I did not know you were alive," she apologized. "Nobody told me. They said everyone was dead. I could not stay. I was fifteen, I was angry."
Simon quickly told her the story of how the healer had come down from the main city with a band of soldiers right after the raiders had left because of the paladin who had not reported in. On their way down to check on him they had seen the smoke, and had found Simon in the forest not long after Cassandra had killed the orc and thought him dead.
"There were some of the others that survived," he told her. "The baker's boys were on the beach and hid among the rocks, and the soldiers saved the miller and his wife who were lucky enough to just be locked inside the burning mill."
Cassandra nodded, it proving too hard to speak. She had been so angry, so infuriated. She remembered leaving late at night that same day, stealing a dagger from the family who had taken her in and running through the forest, a single thought burning in her young mind; revenge.
Simon came a few steps closer again, realizing, as for the first time, that the two of them were not alone.
"You have been gone a long time," he said. "But I talked to some men from down on the plains and they told me they had heard that the girl who survived was on her way. I have been up here each day since that, just in case."
"Although," he added. "I heard nothing about no troll."
Cassandra, still deep inside her memory, stepped closer to Jah'ren.
"He is my friend," she said.
Simon seemed to consider this.
"No, that can't be," he finally decided. "I can not accept that."
Cassandra did not know what to reply, but before she had a chance to do so Simon continued:
"I do not want to believe that you, who swore to kill all their kind, would betray you kin and race in such a way."
"I swore revenge on the ones that took my life away," she said, rather angrily, hearing a low, humming growl from beside her. "I never had my revenge, but I will not take my anger out on someone who is innocent."
"Innocent!" Simon raged. "None of them are! They are all wicked and should be killed."
"Stop!" Cassandra snarled, making him look surprised at her. "You have no right! You do not know what I have been through, you do not know how I have lived. My life has changed, I have changed!"
They stood watching each other until the rage subsided and other feelings took over. Simon walked up to her and took her hand.
"I waited for you. For ten years I have waited. I just did not think it would happen like this."
Overwhelmed with feelings, Cassandra barely realized that Jah'ren had walked down the bank a little distance and was sitting on a rock, long blue legs dangling in the water. Simon put his arms around her, holding her tight and whispering in her hair:
"Now you are home. You can be with us again."
"Yes," she answered, relief flowing over her. "I am home again."
They sat on the bank, talking about what had passed and what to do for a long time. The troll was still sitting on his rock, trying very hard to look like he had no care in the world.
"I need to talk to him," Cassandra told Simon eventually. "He is a good man… troll… man. He has protected me more times than I can tell you. I need to speak with him."
Simon just nodded, not liking it at all, but afraid to loose her if he started arguing again.
Cassandra jumped across the water on some riverrocks before crawling up on the flat stone Jah'ren had chosen for a seat.
"He wants me to come back to the new village with him," she said. "I have told him I will go there and meet with the others. I need some time to think and decide what to do."
"You be with human again?" he asked, and she could hear the pain he was trying to conceal.
"I don't know. I need to think a bit. It is all very strange to me right now."
"Maybe come with Jah'ren? Maybe stay with human?"
"Yes, if Jah'ren wants me to come."
He nodded, trying not to look at her.
"I don't suppose there is any chance I can get you to stay here with me, if not in the village, then you can live nearby?"
"No. Not Jah'ren way."
"Then will you wait here? I need to go to the village and think and get some time for myself. Will you wait for me here?"
"Yes, Jah'ren wait. And then Kass decide."
She put her arms around his neck and hugged him.
"Please forgive me," she whispered, kissing his cheek softly. "But I need to figure this out."
"Kass don't be sad. I happy when you happy."
She placed her forehead against his, closing her eyes and feeling the bond between them that scared her so. He stroked her hair.
"Tomorrow night I will come with my answer. I promise. Before the moon is up I will be here at this stone and you will know."
The village of Stern had been built after Two Silver was burned. It was not big, but held within its boundaries some hundred people, most of them new settlers who had come in the later years.
Cassandra met with the survivors from her own village, now strangers and suspicious to this unfamiliar, dirty girl looking like she came straight out of the wilderness. Then she was introduced to some of the townsfolk, feeling strangely comforted to have her own kin around her again even though she did not know them.
She did not sleep that night, but thought all through the dark hours, and then, at dawn, she was certain of what she wanted. She went to tell Simon and found him so enthusiastic and loving that her mind was swayed once more.
All day she tried to get a chance to think, but the town was bustling with people who wanted to meet her and Simon would not leave her side for a single moment. As nightfall drew nearer she got more and more nervous and uncertain.
Washed and dressed in new clothes she sat outside the town's tavern, surrounded by some of the women who had taken her under their wings.
"Simon says you can have the wedding in just a few weeks," Clara, one of the older ones, told her. "He said he would like to take you into town for the dress, and the village will all help with the feast of course."
"I'm sorry," Cassandra said, feeling confused. "But we have not talked about marrying yet."
"Oh, but that is no problem. Simon has waited for you all this time, and he told us you would need some weeks to get used to be in a village again, but we will all take very good care of you."
Cassandra excused herself, and while Simon was busy talking to someone else she ran over to his house, quickly grabbed her things and was out of the village before anyone could stop her.
She reached the river even before dusk fell, but found the rock empty. Her heart beating hard and scared as she jumped out to it.
There was something small laying on the stone, carefully packed in green leaves and tied with long straws. Cassandra started unpacking it, her hands shaking with fright.
It had already gone dark when Simon came out from the trees on the other side of the river, but she knew he had been standing there a long time.
"He has not come?" he asked, although there was no need.
"I will wait," Cassandra said firmly. "He sometimes forgets everything if he's hunting. He's really whimsical."
"Will you let me wait with you?" Simon said, still standing on the bank. "Just in case this is the last hours I get with you."
She could not deny him that, but as he climbed onto the rock she kept her hand closed around something she would not let him see. He put his arm around her shoulders, and said:
"He might not come, you know. If he really is as good as you tell me he should be able to understand what is best for you."
Cassandra said nothing, but she knew they could wait the whole night, and forever if she wanted, and he would not come. He had made the decision for her, telling her what he wanted without words.
She could feel the pain in her chest, clutching at her heart as she clutched in her hands the small, smooth heart carefully carved from a piece of wood.
