Lux [h.s]

thirty-three

They made their way back down in the same silence as before, but took a different road than the one they'd used to go up. Harry insisted it was so they would pass through the town, but Cora sensed it had more to do with the mysterious officiants they'd met earlier. She wanted to know why he'd reacted like that but didn't know how to ask.

The longer she spent with him, the more she felt like she'd fallen in the middle of a game that had started long before her arrival, one where she didn't know the names and roles of the pieces nor the right moves to make to survive. And for some reason, the only one that could bring her some clarity was doing his best to keep her in the dark.

Did he think she couldn't handle it, or was there something more?

They entered the town and Harry fixed his hair to make sure the pointed tips of his ears were covered before going into a bakery, leaving her to wait for him outside.

She glanced at him through the window. The glass was dusty, but she could recognise a long table with bread and pastries on one side of the room and a large oven on the other. She smiled slightly when it reminded her of the kitchen of the hostel.

Some moments passed and then Harry got out and threw something to her. She caught it and chuckled when she saw it was walnut bread. Mrs. Bouday used to make it as well, and the smell alone reminded her of all the cold winter mornings she'd spent in the small living room of their home with her aunt.

"Thank you," she said, putting a piece in her mouth and letting out a happy hum. "I missed it. I used to have breakfast with this."

Harry sent her a surprised glance. "Then I suppose we've been mistreating you," he replied, kindly but with an edge of playfulness. "I'll take you out to have a proper breakfast when we get to Idais."

Cora let out a gasp. "The capital is next?!"

She'd never been to the capital of Andar, but she'd heard plenty of stories about it in her time at the hostel. Every traveller she encountered swore it was the biggest, most beautiful city of the country. No market could compare to the one of Idais, where all the merchants from far and wide gathered and exchanged their riches, and no noble mansion could compare to the outstanding beauty of the king's residence, the Adhara Hall. According to the stories, it was so breathtaking because it had been built when magic still freely roamed the earth, centuries ago, when the Moonvall family first came into power.

Cora remembered listening to the stories the merchants that passed by the hostel narrated about it while she cleaned a table or swept the floor. Sometimes, she'd closed her eyes and imagined a distant future where she too was free to roam Andar like they were, where she too could stand in the midst of the large pink-streaked marble square in front of the Adhara Hall and look up at it. It'd been the location of countless of her fantasies, some so foolish she blushed just thinking of them.

As a child, the royal family had held the sway over her one would expect of a little girl forced to stay inside to help her family. For years, she'd spent the days of festivity looking out of the window or scouring the streets, wondering if the king would've come to visit them for the celebrations like the kings of old in ballads did. It was only when she became older that she realised King Evander didn't bother with the cities. He didn't care, as long as they paid their due and didn't revolt. Wherever she went, she heard people complain—the prices became higher, the goods fewer, the taxes more unforgiving.

The myth she'd created for the royal family in her mind fell when she became old enough to understand what all those words meant. King Evander was not a good king. He'd become secluded with time, and he was little more than a name now, an authority only to the nobility and the citizens of Idais, too old to do much more than sitting on his throne and hosting banquets in honour of his birthday.