Last Rank

Chapter 12

- Elly -

Elly grabbed a pot with the thick vegetable soup from the understaffed kitchen and went a round to refill the bowls of the guests for the night. 

The church provided shelter and food for less fortunate souls or travellers. On cold nights like this one the benches at the long tables in the arched dinner hall were always filled. The air was thick with smoke from the fire giving warmth and full of chatter.

Elly wrinkled her nose at the smell of the brew in the pot. It was clearly lacking spices, but she supposed that couldn't be helped with the convents little means to give to the poor.

"Need help with that?" Sarah asked.

"Thanks, I can manage," Elly gave back.

Sarah shrugged and grinned her loveliest tooth-gap smile. "See you later then."

Elly nodded and hoped her discomfort wasn't visible on her face. She did like the girl, truly, but the way Sarah never left her side was unnerving, no matter how much Elly disliked being alone these days.

Maybe because the girl wasn't who Elly longed to have at her side. Her brother David would have been nice. He had always known how to make her smile, even in the worst situations. Or her mother, to give her a warm hug. 

Elly steered for the first table in the hall to give out the soup. Happy grunts and thanks grumbled with full mouths were her answers.

"Pretty as always," one of the regulars said. Elly had noticed he was one of the many people without his own roof who came in the same clothes every night. "Your face is really wasted in a place like this."

Elly smiled and walked on to the next table. "Seconds?" she asked.

Few men and women raised their bowls as an answer.

Elly's attention caught on a hooded figure that seemed to wish to disappear below the table. Next to it sat a tall man with a nasty scar all over his face that eyed Elly with a silent attention that gave her goosebumps.

"Seconds?" she asked anyway and forced a smile on her lips. She had become good at that lately, with all the practice she'd had in Castermere. And also at patience. Her mother might have been proud of her, hadn't Elly been so entirely disgraced.

The tall man shook his head, the hooded one gave no response at all. He held his head low and shoulders high.

"Very well." Elly went on to complete her rounds, until there was nothing left in the pot, then she brought it back to the kitchen to collect the empty bowls next.

And there she caught him staring.

The hooded man who wouldn't dare look at her up close before, watched her every move from afar. The moment their eyes met, both of them froze.

It was those crystal clear blue eyes, that had haunted Elly every day and every night ever since she had first seen them.

For a second all the world slipped away from her. Therewas no sound but her hectic heartbeat. The bowl almost rattled out of her hands and the black hole in her stomach threatened to swallow her whole, like in her nightmares. At the same time her heart ached with hopes she refused to acknowledge.

"Are you alright, pretty? You seen a ghost?" the homeless man asked.

Elly needed a second to respond. Then she smiled at him. "Even worse."

A demon.

She meant to run away crying, all the horrible memories and emotions coming back to her. The pain of loss. Loneliness. Shame. Wild anger over the injustice thathad happened to her. She didn't want to begin to imagine what terrors waited now for her. And there had to be some.