Chains of Fate

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The world swirled beneath me until I crashed into an enormous pile of straw. 

“Why…?” I groaned to the night sky as the straw poked through my blouse, causing my skin to itch. “Why couldn’t we have used the door?” 

The nymph beside me stood, dusting off the remnants of straw from her scarlet blouse. “Now where would be the fun in that?” 

“Fun is a relative term.” I rolled out of the pile of straw and plopped on the cobblestone, sneezing from the dust that flooded my nostrils in waves. “And it’s not something I’m particularly fond of, either.” I frowned at the straw. Since the tavern was next to the inn stables, it was only logical that this large amount of straw was for the horses. But were the villagers really too lazy to keep the straw in a specific area of the stables? 

“They jumped out the window!” 

I glanced up, growling in frustration at the men poking their heads out the window. They disappeared seconds later, obviously set on using the stairs. One prepared to leap out of the window. I turned to the sylph. “What the heck did you do to them, Mayra?” 

She waved a careless hand and started jogging away down the street. “I took their money because I’m better at gambling than they are,” she called over her shoulder as her scarlet cape billowed behind her. “It’s not my fault they hate to lose!” 

I staggered to my feet, grumbling to myself because I had no choice but to follow her. I caught up to Mayra, and we maneuvered through the streets of the small town until we finally stopped at a wooden bridge. She pulled me beneath it, and we waited until the tavern men rushed by us. 

My heart pounded inside my chest, and my breaths came in short, agitated gasps. I turned to glare at the sylph sitting beside me on the grass. “Why are you in Letrine, Mayra? Were you following us?” 

The woman drew back her hood to reveal dark brown hair that tumbled in waves over her shoulders. She tucked a strand behind one of her long, pointed ears. “I intended to ask to board your ship,” she said, “but I never intended to cause such a ruckus.” A shaft of moonlight illuminated the glow in her amber eyes as her gaze followed the path the villagers took. Their boots created faint echoes that mixed with the flowing stream beneath the bridge. “These humans are uncharacteristically prone to violence,” she went on. “It is…odd.” 

“What do you mean? That’s how people always are, right?” Then again, I supposed I wouldn’t know, since I had been cooped up in my house for most of my life. I read books to supply my knowledge of the outside world. However, everything the books said about human culture rang true so far. Tavern men lied, gambled, and cheated each other, becoming violent if they lost. And tavern life was only one section of some of the stories I’d read before. 

Mayra eyed me, and I felt the innate sense that she was pitying me. “No,” she replied. “Letrine is a gentle town with gentle people. Usually, at least,” she added as she shook her head. She pulled the hood over her features and rose from our hiding place. “We should be going. I think it’s safe now to go back.” 

“But it’s only been a couple of minutes,” I protested, grabbing the edge of her cloak to draw her beneath the bridge. “We won’t be able to go back to the inn unnoticed unless….” 

As I trailed off, she gave me a queer smile. “I’ll get us on the inn roof and we can get into your room from there.” 

I was so scared that I didn’t dare ask her how she meant to do that. 

                                                ————————

Mayra came tumbling after me through the window as I landed heavily on the hardwood floor of our inn room. My hair was sticking out in all directions, and my left trouser leg was ripped off. That idiot sylph had used her magic to catapult us (without my consent) to the roof of the two-story inn. I landed haphazardly and fell off the side of the roof. I nearly dropped into a pile of bricks until she caught me and took us both to the inn room. My poor trousers would never be the same again.