The Elementalist

Chapter 5

We made it to the city before dark.

I didn't take in much of the scenery. It just seemed... I don't know wrong to marvel over the new after, well, after.

The knight and our group all entered together, 'For our protection,' they said. Like they think that they can do anything if it comes back. It was a quiet walk to the city. The knights carried their dead through the city gates, and we separated soon after entering the city.

The city smelt horrible. The smell of densely packed people, animals, and trash mixed in a way that somehow combined the worst aspects into a pungent odor that made me and Daniel curl our noses.

Hundreds of people were going about their evening. Did they not know what happened just outside their walls, or did they just not care? Either way, it felt off-putting in a way I could place. It just felt wrong.

Sticking close to Lantos as we navigate our way through the crowded streets, he explains our next steps.

We will meet with the Hallon family to discuss safe travel to San'kis upriver in the morning. Apparently, there was an agreement between the Imperial family and the ruling families of the Empire for safe passage through the empire for imperial agents.

For now, however, we enter a crowded, rowdy tavern hoping they have room for us to sleep.

The bartender was a middle-aged woman whose demeanor just had a resigned annoyance. Stepping up to the bar, she leaned forward, the candlelight of the bar sconces reflecting off her shaved head—Lantos and her negotiated for how much for rooms going back and forth before settling on a price.

With a quick exchange of coins, we were shuffled up the stairs and into a room—me and Daniel in one, Lantos in another.

The room had barely enough room for a bed, and an adjacent chest, let alone two people.

Neither of us talked. Daniel did something incredibly idiotic. If the Beast were fighting more of those guards from earlier instead of those knights, we would have died. He didn't even say anything before running off, didn't ask, or try to convince us or anything. He just ran off without a thought. That's what angered me the most, I think, his thoughtlessness. I bet he didn't even have a plan.

Opening my mouth before sighing, I slump down on the bed. I just don't have the energy to argue.

Daniel laid on the floor, staring at the slightly warped ceiling, "I did the right thing."

I, however, did have the energy to slap him.

---

I was back home. It wasn't a big or fancy house, just one room with ratty sheets hanging from the ceiling to separate the corner I slept in from the rest of the house. But it was mine, and the village was kind enough to help build it. That had to mean something. It should mean something.

I quickly dress and walk to the stove, feeding it some wood and making stew for breakfast. It's cold today.

Is this how you lived?

I have to fix my dress again. I must have snagged on something the other day. Somehow managed to get a hole in it. Pouring the stew into a bowl and grabbing some stale bread from a shelf, I sit on the cold dirt floor and eat.