Keeper of the Lost Cities: Rebuild [COMPLETED]

Chapter Fifty - MARUCA

Maruca knew a Councillor had been assigned to help Belisia find a new location for the human reinstatement site, but for a reason she couldn't equate to anything but her obliviousness, she hadn't expected it to be Fitz.

She'd been escorted by one of Belisia's elves to a different forest, which also happened to be a national park. However, here the trees were thinner, and two major roads intersected at the camp's border. Maruca had been brewing complaints she could give to Belisia and said assigned Councillor, but that was when she saw Fitz wandering around.

She froze. Her elvin escort had left her as soon as they'd arrived, so she didn't have anyone to hide behind—not that she would've done that anyway. It sounded like something Stina would try.

Just be a big girl and face him, she encouraged herself.

It turned out she didn't have to. He spotted her right then and jogged over with a slight limp. "Hey!" His eyebrows suddenly pushed together, and his smile faded slowly. "Wait, who are you again? You look familiar, but I can't quite place you..."

Maruca felt her heart skip a beat. "Do you have a concussion?! Why didn't Elwin treat you!"

Fitz busted up laughing. "Oh, you're too easy!"

She smacked him on the shoulder. "Come on! That was so immature."

"But hey—you might as well be a stranger. Have you been avoiding me or something? I haven't seen you since the heist."

Maruca cringed. She hated how he could mention that with so much ease, like it was nothing—and she was glad he wasn't traumatized, or had at least gotten over it, but she couldn't say the same.

"I haven't been avoiding you. I've been busy helping Mom, Dad, and Prentice settle back into Everfalls. And now I was sent here to talk with Belisia and an assigned Councillor—though I didn't know you were going to be the one."

"Actually, I'm not; Bronte is. I'm just here to visit, see the new site. Um, in fact, I'm on a hiatus from the Council right now."

"What? Really? I didn't know that was possible."

He shrugged. "I didn't know a secret waterfall that grants elves longlasting life was possible, but here we are."

"Yeah, me neither," she said with a sigh. And Nhyonuitoufhoa had been on her property.

The only one who'd ever told her anything about it had been Bronte, so the day after the battle, she'd confronted him and demanded he tell her everything he knew.

So he did. The discovery of the waterfall. The war over it. The Peace Summit in which its name was decided—a name in every single language of the intelligent species. Originally it had been "Nhyontuitouffhtoea," but over time it was shortened to what Bronte had told her.

Since the humans showcased a yearning for the fountain's power, the elves had to take drastic measures—so they cut off all ties with them and put every intelligent leader's memories of Nhyonuitoufhoa in caches; the first and only time another species had allowed their memories to be tampered with.

Centuries had gone with the only major danger being the brief attention the humans expressed through their folktale of "The Fountain of Youth." But when the Human Reinstatement Program was established, Bronte had unlocked that secret in his cache. In order to protect the waterfall from the humans ever getting it again, he entrusted the information to Lesedi. She'd been granted her own cache with the instruction to not open it unless the Purities came.

That was what she and Wylie had been doing when Maruca leaped to Everfalls. And the assumed attack on Lesedi when the Purities first arose? It was all a side effect of the burden of carrying a dark secret, even if she didn't know what it was.