War Of Men

Emilee

Hours of silence weren't doing Emilee any good. During the initial shock, her isolation hadn't mattered because she'd been incapable of producing a coherent thought. She'd stared at the wall while a black hole had consumed her mind. Sometimes she'd hoped that if she dissociated enough, she'd escape to another world in which Lavia was as sweet as she'd pretended to be.

After a week of that, anger had arrived. That time had mostly been spent with the other Eseterrians to try to distract herself. The rest of the time she spent cursing Lavia and hoping she suffered.

Her anger hadn't only been directed towards her manipulator. When she'd had to entertain again, she'd told the Chèr to uninvite Ela. Emilee knew she shouldn't shoot the messenger, but she couldn't help but blame her sister. Without her mingling, Lavia would have never gone so far as attempted murder. They could have still been happy. Deep down Emilee knew that wasn't something to dream of. Lavia hadn't loved her, that much was clear. Aside from all her lying and manipulation, she'd also cheated on Emilee. A few questions to the right people had made that clear enough. So when she set off on the pilgrimage, she grew depressed.

It drove her mad that people had known. Medea had known, Ela had known, plenty of the people around the palace had known, but nobody had come straight out and told her until she'd already fallen deeply in love. Ela had warned her many a time about seemimg too naive. Now she feared that after the whole palace had witnessed how gullible she was, they'd take their shot at deceiving the most trusting Eseterrian. So she found herself trusting no-one. She even watched the crowd of pilgrims with wary eyes. It wasn't a stretch that one of them might fancy life in the palace.

Emilee found she hated the pilgrimage. The walking was tiring, her stomach always felt empty, she always felt watched, she was lonely and her thoughts had free reign. She starting blaming herself for what had happened, thinking of herself as a foolish child. For hours on end her mind twisted thoughts into daggers and stabbed her. She couldn't help but wonder whether this was how Arcane had felt after being stabbed.

The one part of the pilgrim Emi appreciated to some extent were the evenings. She could sit together with her fellow Eseterrians and listen to Merari whine about how achey she was while Medea reminded her she'd warned her about taking those shoes. The bickering was harmless and distracting.

Most times the owner of the house they were in joined them. After the Leere came a wealthy man who claimed to be a descendent of the orange pilgrim-which nobody believed. While he wasn't exactly trustworthy, he threw them a feast so Merari and Arcane found him agreeable.

The next two stops had been various noblemen's empty holiday homes, then they'd reached another religious institution. A young member of the order sat down with them and recounted some of the myths that had supposedly taken place nearby. Supposedly this was where Gadeden forgotten to keep time going one day, so everyone had been trapped for a few hours before they'd suddenly found three hours had passed. Toutelé had created an element shrine—that meant there was a spot at which it was breezy, there was a river and there was a tree that had been set on fire in the past but hadn't burn down. Toutelé did like setting fire to trees, that much had become clear in her myths. Supposedly Sorita had also possessed one of the order members once and attempted to convince them to murder a local thief in an attempt to test whether they were true Esprians. She hadn't succeeded.

Emilee couldn't go on like this. She barely slept or she couldn't wake up, leaving her exhausted everyday. She couldn't think straight and was a nervous wreck. She wondered how other Eseterrians had managed in the past. She wondered how the others weren't cracking under pressure. Even Arcane seemed to be handling herself with great grace. Emilee couldn't help but envy her and hate her for it, which in turn made her despise herself.