“Well, asking such difficult favors so early in this relationship!”
Auron was clearly feigning surprise: from his furrowed brow and the outline of his mouth, Tristessa could tell he was smirking. She wanted to know more and more why he was wearing that handkerchief… Her curiosity was only going to grow, and there in Nekrom, the girl knew the expression “curiosity killed the cat” was more than real.
“What can I say, Auron? I’m kind of desperate...”
“I know, I know. It was more than obvious that was your objective: no wonder you were on your way to the great gate with your life hanging by a thread, and not even caring that there was a guard blocking your way.” As he spoke, the gunslinger offered her a canteen full of water, which Tristessa accepted with so confusion, as she hadn't seen him take it out of a backpack or even from inside his jacket. “But I have bad news for you: there's only one way into Entrana, and that's through that gate.”
“And what about the northern one?” she asked, before practically emptying the contents of the canteen. She'd been dying of thirst and hadn't even realized it; her desperation to reach Entrana had nearly beco the reason for her fifth Death.
“Impossible. Security is much more excessive than it is here in the south.”
“Huh? But why...?”
Just then, the tent's entrance swung wide open, and the flushed, sleepy head of a ragged, hooded man poked in.
“Good stormy night for you, Auron! Don't you have so...?” Judging by the blush spreading across his nose and cheeks, he was drunk. And as he first found himself face to face with Tristessa and then saw Auron behind her, a grin spread from ear to ear, filled with holes and missing teeth. “Ohhh, did I co at a bad ti? Damn… I'm all alone here, and you're in the company of such a pretty and filthy young lady, just the way I like them…”
“If your wife hears you, she'll cut your balls off,” the gunslinger replied, graciously eting the grimace of disgust his guest made as she felt the newcor's alcohol-laced breath reach her. “Tristessa, this is Ivan. A pain in the ass who always appears at the most inopportune monts.”
“Co on, don't deny we are best of friends! Rember that ti we spied on that group of young ladies bathing in the Ennel River?” he asked, ignoring the gestures Tristessa made with one hand to fan the stale air in front of her.
“No, I don't rember because that never happened: the Ennel River runs through the Nemasis Dominion, dear Ivan.”
“Wha…? Really?”
“Go away, will you? You'll get sick if you stay under the…” Auron paused for a second to listen. “Oh, it's stopped raining. Let's go outside and get sothing to eat. We'll talk about that topic later, lady.”
Auron bent down and pushed Ivan by the head outside so he could leave, followed by Tristessa. As the stormy skies continued to threaten the world below with lightning and night was approaching, several lights had been lit on the outer walls, emitting an eerie blue glow from crystal-powered lamps, evenly spaced from left to right and top to bottom, making the southern entrance to Entrana a place free of darkness.
People living along the road were beginning to light their own fires, either to get so warmth against the impending night or to eat before the storm could resu. Sick, hungry and forlorn, almost all of them were dressed in old, torn rags, almost leaving them at the rcy of the elents.
Tristessa saw the misery on their faces, the hardship and helplessness of fathers unable to feed their families, and mothers hugging their young children to stop them from shivering from the cold.
She saw a rickety, sickly-looking woman wearing a tattered tunic, carrying her unconscious child in her arms, in equal or worse condition than her, arguing and crying in front of the knightess guarding the entrance. Tristessa couldn't quite hear what they were saying, but the idea that one could form was quite difficult to miss.
“It breaks your heart to see this...” Tristessa murmured.
“That's the way it is, lady. The slums in the interior of Entrana are overcrowded, and the priests of the Heterodox Church can't keep up,” Auron explained beside her, with his arms crossed. “So simply have nowhere else to go.”
“Don't exaggerate, Auron. It’s not that bad out here,” Ivan joined in, the alcohol filling him with happiness and his increasing loss of balance only worsened by the wet brick floor. “Look on the bright side: we're within the Evil-Warding Pillar's range of influence! No Evil Dream or Princess of Sin can harm us here!”
“Well, he's right about that.” Both Auron and Tristessa appreciated the large, sky-scrapping pillar, which, given its relative position, was surely at the epicenter of the city. “Though I doubt it will be any consolation to that mother and her son… oh? My, look at the Blackguard. That woman has a heart of gold.”
Tristessa didn't understand what he ant until she noticed that he was looking in the direction of the large door: the blonde knightess had knelt to hold the child face up and was administering a potion of vitality inside his mouth.
An action that lted Tristessa’s heart once again.
“She helped too…” the black-haired girl sighed, entranced by the woman as she handed the child to his mother, who bowed her head in gratitude. “I should have asked her na.”
“Who are you talking about, miss…?” Ivan put an arm around Auron's neck, awkwardly hugging him, and squinted at the blonde knightess resuming her watch. “Ah, hahaha! It’s the Blackguard, Astoria, who else? What was her last na? Silver…sil…”
“Silverthorn,” the gunslinger finished it before shaking him off, nearly causing Ivan to fall to the ground. “I’ll go get so soup, it’s on . Take care of Tristessa, Ivan… No, scrap that: you better take care of him, lady.”
“What?! But…!”
The girl’s mouth fell open as she watched Auron walk away toward a more crowded section of the holess camp. Ivan, staggering beside her, was still grinning foolishly thanks to his intoxication; up close, a few golden curls escaping from under his hood could be seen, and dark eyes that struggled to close by sleep with countless blinks.
“Uh…”
“As I was saying, Trissa! That one is Astoria Silverthorn!” Ivan pointed at her, unashad. “There must not be a more failed knight than her in the entire Empire! Lady Eramisaptor is a true saint for giving a waste of a person like her a job in her city.”
“W-what do you an?” Tristessa asked, ignoring how badly he misspoke her na because of everything he was saying about that Astoria Silverthorn, which dismayed her to no end.
“Huh? Co on, that isn't sothing to joke about! Everyone knows about the Silverthorn family and [Valthiel]!” Between his laughter, Ivan finally snorted and closed his eyes but briefly. A mont of sobriety in which he could only fling contempt at that knightess through his eyes. “She and her damned family deserve every curse, every spit, every scorn. She should have crawled and kissed Lady Eramisaptor's feet to even be allowed to set foot in Entrana.”
Tristessa didn't know what to say, in her ignorance. She wasn't going to deny that she'd ford a very positive ntal image of that woman, without even knowing her or having interacted with her more than a few words… Without knowing the troubling context that Ivan was hinting at.
But soone who helps those in need despite their position must be a good person. That's what Tristessa wanted to believe, dreamily appreciating that majestic knightess from a distance.
“Seriously, even a job as diocre as guarding the southern entrance to the city is too much for scum like her… Just to keep useless filth like us out. That's what that gate is for, nothing else.”
“And what about the beasts and monsters out there?” she asked, wanting to force the subject of Knightess Silverthorn away. “What about the Coven?”
“Bah! Those girls wanting to play at being ruthless killers aren’t that big a deal… I don’t an to say that kidnapping children to use as sacrifices doesn’t warrant execution, huh?” the man justified himself, seeing Tristessa’s dark and angry grimace, which she couldn’t contain after having suffered so much at the hands of that group. “I’m just saying that those lunatics are a minor threat compared to everything else. When I was younger, I was in the north, smuggling in lands conquered by the forces of the Shadow Queen, and let tell you, the Coven is insignificant compared to the other threats our Empire of the Night’s Watch faces every day.”
You're not prepared. Severus's words, seared red in her soul, echoed inside the silent girl's head.
“Sotis, I feel sorry for those abandoned girls. They're abandoned by their families, by the Empire, by the Gods... They prey on the poor who live outside Entrana, like us, and then slink away into the Sea of Trees for months until the next kidnapping or massacre, in the na of their Lord.”
Ivan looked toward the distant, dark horizon, where Tristessa had arrived.
“Outside the city walls, of the safety of Entrana, we're the only ones at the rcy of those lost souls, eh?”
Behind that hollow smile, Tristessa could see the relentless loneliness of soone trying to pretend he didn't fear Death and the evil that lurked out there, in the dark.
“At least they'll never attack the city again. I just hope that one day they'll make a mistake and Lady Eramisaptor and her knights will manage to catch them and put them to the guillotine.”
“Yes… I hope so too,” she whispered, sensing the falling of that dark veil of the dire fate that awaited that family living in exile. She looked at the hooded man with a certain nervousness, growing as she rembered that she was in a race against ti. “Ivan, did you say the Coven attacked the city once?”
“Yes, only once, and it was because they had a spy working from within. They were able to sneak inside and murdered countless people, kidnapped more than fifty children… They carried out the Massacre of the Endless Night, the worst tragedy ever seen in Entrana, thanks to that girl.”
Ivan gathered saliva and spit on the ground in a sign of contempt, before continuing.
“The eldest daughter of the rcer-Archeos. Yet another family that deserves the worst of fates.”
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