The Kept

The Homecoming

She didn't know when death stopped being unwelcome. Nerys had never consciously wanted to harm herself, and the desire not to live was a slow, creeping thing that began simply with noticing the means by which she could make herself disappear.

Her escape was in the loose jiggle of carriage door as they passed close to a steep mountain gorge was caused by a missing pin on the latch. If she only leaned on it the wrong way...

We are worth living for.

Aimery's voice stopped her.

In the distracted mercenary whose dagger was not secure; she could have it off of him before anyone could stop her...

We are worth living for.

Kalea stood between her and the mercenary's dagger.

In Arthes berating the mercenary leader, Enzo, as his men stood by trying to act as though their fingers were not twitching above their blade hilts. The trees had grown scarce and eventually turned to scrubby bushes that were farther and farther apart. Nerys could use the distraction to run off into the vast wilderness and eventually dry up and blow away in the dust like the trees themselves had.

We are worth living for, Trygve whispered, his words cool and welcome in the unrelenting heat. I love you.

The voices that brought her back also made her struggle to recall a time when she actually felt as though she were truly living.

She wound Aimery's cloak remnant around her forearm, and then pulled it off. Unlike when she passed it through her hands, the fine material did not snag on rough patches as it slid over the thin, delicate skin of her wrist.

She wound it around her wrist again. The unwrapped portion spilled away from her arm and pooled in her her lap, and she imagined how similar the scene might look if it were blood instead of silk flowing from her arm.
The thought should have bothered her, but she didn't really feel one way or another about it. It was simply another option.
Dadien entered the tent where she was held in the evenings between travel. He sat as near to her as she would allow, with the same worried expression he had worn since she had returned from Arthes's final lesson.

"Hey," he said gently. "You want to try eating something today? I think I am growing on that Enzo fellow. He only threatened to murder me twice today, and he let me cook breakfast."

Nerys tugged at the crimson fabric, pulling it loose once more, then carefully began re-wrapping it for the day.

"Nerys?" He said, ducking his head down into her line of sight. "Come back to me. Please?"

"She was never yours to begin with, boy," Enzo said gruffly as he stepped into the tent. "Princess, we are going on a walk."

"You can't—" Dadien said.

"I can, and I am," Enzo said, gently drawing and unresisting Nerys to a stand.

"Then I am coming with you," Dadien said, trying to follow them out.

"No. You will wait here and jsut stay out of that Keeper's way while we are gone."

Dadien bit his lip and furrowed his brow— stopping himself just short of raking his hand through his hair. He nodded reluctantly.

"Don't worry," Enzo said, almost kindly. "She will be back."

They had made camp on a nearly barren hillside the night before, and he took her to the summit and gestured to the space on the other side.

"Welcome home, Princess."

A small village lay on the plain just below the hill, and beyond it, stretched more of the empty desert they had been passing through for days. A thin dark line in the haze at the limit of her eye's sight seemed to be the beginning of a tree line.