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Zelia landed in a field of tall grass, a village on one side and a forest on the other. She collapsed to her knees and the chanting stopped. Only the ground beneath her feet was frozen. She sat with her shoulders slumped as she watched the color return to her fingers and her hair slowly started to move in the light breeze.

A voice sounded from the edge of the village and stirred her from her daze. Her muscles ached as she pushed herself to her feet. For a moment she stared at the cluster of little wooden homes with thatched roofs, then she shook her head and walked into the forest… she couldn’t risk hurting them. She stumbled down a roughly warn path, hoofprints were scattered here and there. Little puffs of dirt drifted from her feet as she drag them, fatigue weighing her down like lead weights until she collapsed in the brush to the side of the trail.

~~

Something tugged on her and she fluttered in and out of consciousness, the blurred shape of a young man kneeled over her. “Can you tell me your name? Are you hurt?”

“Z… Zelia,” she managed as he lifted her from the forest floor. The last thing she heard was the silk of her dress sweep through the underbrush and the crunch of leaves.

~~

 “Mother!”

Barg caught Rog before he could reach her. As he struggled, she could see Yalif tending to Zivu and Yargo’s frozen forms. When he finally stopped struggling, his thoughts turned inward.

“You did this!”

“Rogath, I couldn’t control it.”

“Couldn’t control it? I’ve never seen you freeze things like this. This isn’t like frost growing on a chair, Zelia.”

“Rogath, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You may have run away, but I’ll follow you no matter where you go for what you’ve done.”

“Please Rogath, I didn’t mean to. I left so I wouldn’t hurt anyone else. I couldn’t control it, I couldn’t even hold it back,” she pleaded with him, but she knew he wasn’t truly listening to her words.

“No, I’m done listening to you.”

She felt the connection slip away as he closed her out. His absence left her alone with the reality of what had happened and questions of whether they would be alright.

~~

As she began to stir she could feel someone tending to her, checking her over. Where am I? She opened her eyes to see the back of a balding man’s head, his ear pressed against her chest. The plate, I shouldn’t be alive. She held her breath and his head whipped around.

“Easy there, you wouldn’t want to stress your heart out.”

“What? I…” She swallowed as she gathered her thoughts. “Where am I?”

“Why, you’re in Coridale. May I ask, where are your parents?”

“I… I don’t have any.”

She scanned the herbs and vials that lined the walls. Coridale, that sounds familiar. It was part of the old Kingdom of The Mountains. Okay, so the Faithful Mountains are between here and there…

“Then who cares for you, Zelia? That is your name, right?”

“No one. You’re a healer?”

“Yes, I am. I work for the King. Where are you from?”

She paused her scan of the dimly lit room. What should I say, the truth or at least a partial truth? I can’t outright lie, I’d have nothing to back me up.

“I… I used to live south of The Mountain of the Old Ones.”

“My dear, how did you get here? That is a long ways away, especially for someone to travel alone.”

“I walked,” she paused for a second before continuing, “and caught rides here and there.”

“Why did you travel all this way?”

Her gaze fell and her jaw quivered for a moment before she continued, “To get away.” She could see the wheels turned behind his eyes as he handed her a bowl.

“Here, eat this and I’ll be right back.”

She swished the soup around. Not until I make sure of where I am. She sat the bowl on the table and peeked out the door. Light streamed through an open passage a short ways down the stone wall and beckoned her to its golden rays. She turned into an open area surrounded by the high walls of a castle. Metal clanged from the far end where men practiced, one in particular caught her attention. She thought he was the one who found her, his ruffle of brown hair and built fit.

She leaned against the sun warmed wall unnoticed and watched their shoddy footwork. They can’t all be this bad without reason. She may not have had the best footwork, but she knew what good swordsmanship looked like. I wonder if it’s their swords. She walked along the edge of the open area and pulled a sword from the rack. It weighed no more than the sword she had trained with, yet the tip of the sword weighed down and refused to swing with the grace and precision of a properly balanced blade.

A young man, hardly of age to call a man, strode towards her.

“Hello, there. Would you mind handing over the sword? We wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

“That’s fine, I’m done with it anyways.” He looked at her a question in his eyes, so she continued. “This sword isn’t worth the iron it’s made from. If the others are like this, no wonder you and your men lack form. They have to compensate for an unbalanced weapon.”

“And what would you know about swords?”

“Only what I’ve been taught.” She dropped her arm to her side and let the sword’s tip rest in the packed sand.

“Good to see you looking a bit better.” The boy that had found her came up behind the first.

“You know her?” the young man asked.

“I found her in the woods on my way here. I brought her to Kilian.”

“You know, I didn’t catch your name before,” Zelia said.

“You can call me Jones. What were you doing alone in the forest anyway?”

She paused to decide her answer and scanned the young man. He didn’t fit the description of any knight she had ever seen, with his scrawny arms and freckles. Granted she hadn’t seen all that many in the last few centuries, but they never seemed to change.

“Just traveling,” she replied.

“Do you expect me to believe that your parents just let you take off on your own?”

What is it with you people and parents? I’m not that young. She refrained from rolling her eyes as she said, “I don’t have parents, not anymore.”

“So why do you know so much about swords?” the other man asked.

“I… I just do,” her voice fell quiet. What am I doing? I can’t trust them.

“Oh, you do now do you?” He looked down at her with narrow eyes and a creased brow. “I want to see what you can do, come on.”

“No, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Then don’t fight me, think of it as practice.”

He pushed the tip of his sword towards her and she couldn’t help but react. She knocked it away and took a step back, holding the sword up at the ready for the next strike.

“Nice reflexes, so you have trained. Going to tell me where?”

“It… it’s a long story.”

“Well, we have time.”

She caught a glimpse of Kilian, the healer, in the corner of her eye as she returned the sword to the rack.

“I have to go.”