Leiea clutches Craith's mane and fights the urge to melt down on the spot, but she digs her heels into the horses flanks and they shoot forward into the wreckage. Her ears seem to go out, Sheyric's heavy breathing and ramblings reduced to muffles. All the smoke in the air makes her eyes and throat sting, not helping with the oncoming threat of tears.
Nothing distinguishable remains. Everything is- or is covered in- mounds of ash. Small pillars of smoke come from the larger piles, the occasional ember flying up. The dreary sight makes her wonder if the dark clouds illuminated by the sunrise is actually billowing smoke rising off with the wind. Not a thing about this land of black and gray suggests the tiny, thriving village set in the middle of the rolling hills inland.
Sheyric rides past her on Odenne, covering his mouth and nose from the smoke. He picks up speed and goes to the far side of the remains, a part of the village that wouldn't normally be visible from such a distance if the old roofs were in the way.
In that direction, Leiea notices the ash piles are larger, and situated over stone foundations. She pulls the horse to a complete stop, realizing that's where Sheyric's house is. Or rather, was.
She watches him get down in cinders and rummage through it before getting Craith moving again, although not sure of where to go. Sheyric's lucky to have such an easy way of knowing where his house was, she thinks, bitter but also sad that he knows so exactly. Her home was just the same as all the other buildings in the village and impossible to distinguish in this state.
Leiea jumps from the horse and wraps the reins around her fist a few times until it's almost cutting off circulation to her arm. Her feet shuffling through the ash like that of a snow day, hanging onto half-melted metal bars sticking out. They pass a few crumbled stone ovens. Bakeries and supply shops must have been some of the first buildings to go up, being full of more flammable things than others. It reminds her of the jobs she would take up at the bakery when school was out. She was always the one to start the ovens.
This only would have happened recently. They didn't see or hear anything on the way, but it was only a five days or so trip. It all looks barely touched by wind, but no fires remain. The smoke can mean up to a week ago that it happened. With so many contradicting variables, there's no easy way of telling. Yet, it's easy to tell that it's been long enough that everyone is dead.
With a gasp, Leiea trips over fallen brick and lands in the cinder and dirt. She picks herself up, completely smudging her clothes and face, before crawling up next to a wall the brick came off of. With a pull of the reins, she gets Craith closer before curing her face in her knees and letting her tears spill into the hard leather knee pads she forgot to take off earlier.
Even though she can't hear a thing, she mutters everything that needs to be said. Feverishly apologising without end, for bringing such a disaster upon the village. Trying not to scream when it sinks in that everyone is dead. Everyone that lived in this tiny village, besides Leiea, Sheyric, and Odenne (plus Lorietta, although she would rather pretend otherwise), dead. The burned bodies of everyone she ever knew stuff under ash and collapsed buildings they lived in and survived from. Breathing in and walking in the soot made of all those people and all their livelihood. Sheyric breathing in the remains of his parents and all people he's made business with. Leiea breathing in the remains of Fleya and Mother, Ryn and his family, too.
She gasps for air and rips a portion from her undershirt, tying it around her face to block the fumes and try to prevent hyperventilating. Craith whines and nudges the back of her head with his big snout, rubbing black ash on his light cream-colored fur. Soon, the sound of footsteps coming her way snaps her out of her episode, jumping up from behind the wall, her knees stiff and stopping her from standing at her full height- although that won't make her look anymore confident or untouched anyway.
Sheyric trips on his feet and stops with a dazed expression, looking down at Leiea. Lines of tears carved out on his face, his black hair more messy than she's ever seen it. Odenne's trailing behind him, but untethered and confused.
Leiea relaxes her shoulders and sits back down next to the wall, this time facing him. "Why didn't we come sooner? We lost so much time-"
"Time?" The soft look to his eyes disappears as he raises his voice. "If we blame anything, it's those fire birds. I may have seemed willing, but it's not like I was excited to give away the caravan. If we didn't happen upon Saena, it would have taken another week to get here."
"Let's think back a little," She responds, purposely trying to get her bitterness override the tears in her system. "Who gave me those hints for this crazy adventure? You. That emerald, whatever you did with that blasted thing, traces right back to you. All of this was on your accord, from start to finish."
"You agreed to go in the first place, sweetheart."
"Again with the "sweetheart", huh?"
"What's stopping me here? There's no one."
She snorts and nods. "Good job proving my point. Just because you've said that before doesn't give you the right to say it now. Everyone is dead, and it's becasue of your stupid decisions. Enjoy digging in your parents grave." She doesn't say it, but she knows that if he called her that any other day with people around, no one would care.
He grabs Odenne's bridle next to him to stop her from running again and sighs, taking a long look at the sun far above the horizon. "Do we need to fight here?"
"No, but you don't need to bargain either."
She savors his expression and jumps up onto Craith, immediately making them shoot forward into the ashen east edge of the village. The area where the marketplace used to be. Little remains of the building are visible on this side, since most of it was trees and plots of land anyway, but metal markers dug into the ground from long ago indicate where the market stalls were to be set up. Normally, she would steer clear of the starting place of this calamity, but other memories not involving Sheyric overpower it. Days of buying fabrics, bread starters, and produce. Sometimes she would even something like a tiny painted jewelry box for Mother, although against her rules of unnecessary purchases for gifts or pleasures.
Leiea pats Craith's neck to let him slow down. With the sun up, it's much more apparent how thick the smoke is. All the swirling particles in the air making the cerulean sky dull, sharp angles of the ashy clouds looking like mountain peaks above them. She pulls the fabric back over her nose and turns the horse to the left as they reach the far outskirts of the village.
Craith pauses without warning to sniff the ground, pawing at it and jostling Leiea on his back.
"Come one, keep going," She says, patting his neck again. He snorts and throws his head up, taking a few steps. Leiea winces as the sound of breaking metal fillings the still air. The horse keeps walking and Leiea takes a look on the ground at what was broken.
In the dirt, the broken and blackened shell of the Fleya's old locket.
CITEȘTI
Gift- Book 1
Fantezie- - -Don't underestimate your influence.- - - Before she knows it, Leiea's done with school and whisked away into Kiira by the brother of a girl she can care less about. Yet, while trading and learning along the way, she can't shake the sense somet...
