The Origin of Fear

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Fera lived a lonely life, but she had long since grown accustomed to it. The majority of her time was spent avoiding others as well as being avoided, and it had become a defining aspect of her life. People always bowed their heads when she walked by, though it wasn’t out of any sort of respect or reverence; they only wanted to ensure that she wouldn’t look at them. Though few knew the specificities of her curse, all knew of her power. She had her own tower, a small private section in the back of the castle at Alfheim where the rest of her family lived as well, because none of her sisters wished to share a room or even a wing with her. It was in one of her rooms in this tower where she sat at the window, looking down into the training courtyard below where two of her brothers were practicing throwing daggers into straw dummies. She remembered a time when they would throw the daggers at her, and teach her how to catch them but never how to return the throw.

“You’d think after coming home from a long and bloody war, Salladhor and Kovarro would give it a rest for a day or so,” A familiar, cheerful voice sounded behind her and a sudden knock on the door drew her attention away from the window as she turned to see a man halfway in the room and grinning at her gleefully. He was tall and built like a warrior, with long auburn hair that reached far past his shoulders. His eyes were dark and blue yet inviting, and his olive-toned face was framed by a defined jaw and high cheekbones. As she turned to him he glanced down at the ground, though still smiling.

“Silvë!” Fera cried. She jumped off the window seat and ran into his open embrace. 

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “The war was terribly dull without you,” 

“I’ve missed you too,” she replied, taking a step back and beaming at him, careful not to meet his gaze. She had been home for a little less than a month, yet had not seen him since she’d returned. “It took you long enough. Where have you been? How was the war? You must tell me everything!” 

“Everything?” he replied with a light chuckle as they returned to the window seat. “There’s not much to tell. We went, we fought, we won, we had to negotiate for some prisoners of war,” he told her in a soft voice. That was the strange thing about Silvë. He was a fierce warrior, able to run a man through from his shoulder to his hip in a single stroke, yet when he did not have a sword in his hand he became as quiet and mild as a church mouse.

Fera rolled her eyes. “How did you manage to win a war in but a few months? Especially without your primary asset--me,” 

The smile slowly slid from Silvë’s face, his dimples disappearing as his mouth curled into a small frown. “They retreated without warning,” he said quietly. “One night, one of our own was captured. Taken to an enemy camp. We thought he had died on the battlefield that day, but a fortnight later he returned, starving to death and beaten so badly we didn’t recognize him until he scratched his name into the dirt,” 

“By the Nines,” Fera said under her breath, glancing out the window. Salladhor and Kovarro were taking a break, gulping water out of large brown wooden mugs. 

“He died the next morning,” Silvë continued. “We don’t know what happened to him at the hands of the Orcs and their Thursar footsoldiers, but we believe he was tortured,” 

“Obviously,” Fera scoffed. “But for what information?” 

Silvë shrugged noncommittally. “It hardly matters now. But it was strange. They left the morning he died. All of them at once, they just packed everything and entered the Eternal Forest,” 

The Eternal Forest was a dark, dense wood that spanned for so wide an area that no one truly knew where it began or ended. None dared enter that wood unless under the most dire of circumstances; Fera realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that it was a good place to hide an army.