Avengard: The Fall of Senvia

Chapter 8 - Snapping Twigs

The cliffs where Senvia once rested stretched far north along the shore of the Ardent Sea, from the hollow point where the city once stood to the peninsula where the province of Kore was located. The expanse alongside the cliffs was covered much like the area outside of Senvia, with deep, spongy mosses covering a craggy rocky base, with short, dry grasses growing out above them. Near Senvia, the grasses were common, but as you moved north, they became increasingly replaced by moss and wildflowers.

In the summer months, those flowers blanketed the fields with mostly yellow, but also shades of blue not found anywhere else in nature. I've been all over, and I have never seen anything like it, except in arcane dyes in the clothes of high nobility. The natural dyes in those flowers couldn't be extracted by mundane or magical means, a mystery that long eluded the fashion artists of the continent of Avengard.

Most of the animals were birds, often unique and with brightly-coloured beaks, and they dived in and out of ever-present mists, vanishing entirely from view in a heartbeat.

It was a stunning place, if difficult to turn into a home. The winds that crashed over the ocean turned the area a frigid cold. There were no trees that close to the ocean, and even further away from the coast, forests dwindled the farther from Senvia you went. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but harsh and rough, even for a traveller just passing through.

It was why Kore had so few visitors, and why Senvia had never formed a stronger presence there. Lucky Lake was the furthest north anyone not preferring a notably colder climate would settle, and it was filled with the summer homes of nobility who could afford it. Lyana had a small cabin at Lana's Perch, a village on the north side of the lake that sheltered in an alpine forest, under a large cliff outcrop from the steep hills that surrounded the lake. It was lit in the winter by dozens of wrought-iron gas streetlamps, giving the village and its snow-covered rooftops and cobblestone streets a warm, ornate glow. Cozy, was the proper, accurate word. Silent. She only took me once, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life there, without ever a change in seasons.

Further east from the ocean, Eaden Helm was positioned as far north as one could go before entering the Plains of Refiriem, the wildlands that only champions dared to enter.

I had left this behind. The biome had shifted as I ran from the city when it vanished. The inn at the crossroads was surrounded by a forest that gradually adjoined those grassy fields, but no longer strictly alpine. Most of the trees dropped their leaves in autumn, and decorated the road with brilliant hues of orange, pink, and red. But it was spring, and instead there were buds and fresh sap that lit up the forest with a thousand delightful scents. The first insects had climbed out of their holes in bark and soil, and danced around the skies, too early in the season to pester our ears and noses over and over again. At that moment, they were welcome, and made everything feel like it was brimming with new life, even though the leaves hadn't quite come out yet.

Our path to Bell Haven was not direct. It set out straight east from the inn at the crossroads, which marked the halfway point between the two cities. The road curved and twisted as it went. Our trek would first take to the Lakeside Inn, a reasonable halfway point on the shore of Ghost Lake, and then dip into Durn for less than a day before re-emerging and continuing to the city. The entire thing would take two weeks.

For two weeks, I'd have to put up with his mewling.

He didn't complain as much as my words imply, nor was his voice annoying. If anything, it had a pleasant gravel to it. If he were a singer, and he chose to sing softly, he'd attract crowds. He'd have made a brilliant storyteller, too.

Three hours after we crossed into the deep woods that poked out the northwestern peak of Durn, before we dipped into the province itself, Eskir insisted on a break. It was the fifth one he'd insisted on since we'd left the inn, and his breaks were long.