Eryka

She knew Aloisio was a strange person.

It wasn't his western blue-eyed, pale-skinned face. It wasn't his silent movements or the way he seemed to blend into whatever was behind him when he was still. No, it was the way he analyzed everything, analyzed her. It was like he stored every little detail away into his mind to pull out if he ever needed something.

She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. It was the next morning since the fight, and hopefully Aloisio was still inside the palace. Wait, should I want him to stay? Eryka touched her face, with the spirals of ink and the cloud of green dye surrounding one of her eyes. Her face was painted with the makeup she always had to wear, except when she was sleeping... and collecting information as a peasant. Would he recognize her from yesterday, or did her plain face just blend into the crowd?

She patted her robes to make sure there were no wrinkles and continued on. Aloisio would be the first person she chose to go with her, even though they met yesterday. He didn't seem the type to laugh at her goal or order the king to send her away to isolation. She sighed and tipped her head back. Miquel's words repeated themselves in her head: Will you please watch out and take care of yourself?

"I wish, Miquel," she muttered. "I wish."

"You wish what?" She froze when Alosio turned the corner. He brushed hair out of his eyes, hair that was almost to his knees. He must be nearing his second decade, like her, except her hair was as short as if she was ten years old. Royals didn't have to follow the tradition to cut their hair back to chin-length every ten years.

"Nothing, sir. Can you please move out of the way so I can attend to my council?" she asked. Instead of moving, though, he took a step forward.

"It'll be my pleasure... Eydis," he said. The name sent a chill down her spine.

She didn't show her fear. The past years have taught her how to hide her emotions. She tilted her chin up and swept past Aloisio, her robe's train drifting behind her.

"I believe you have me mistaken for someone else," she said, although that was impossible, with her hair, makeup, and the robes that depicted the hero Aloisio himself tricking Casimiro, the deathbringer.

When Aloisio rounded another corner, she let out a breath. Who was he, and why did he act like everything was a game to him?

♦

"Princess Eryka. I heard you wanted to speak with me." Aloisio gazed at her from his stool. Eryka resisted the urge to run from his room and gestured towards the table.

"May I sit down?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied, and drew out a stool for her.

She sat down, crossed her legs, and studied Aloisio's face. "You... are different than everybody else here," she observed.

He smirked and leaned back. "Well, obviously. Are you here to comment on my race, princess?"

Eryka's face flushed and she stammered, "N-no! That's not what I meant. You look at everything like it's something to tuck away for later. Your eyes are open to everything around you while everyone else's are shut." She shook her head at herself. "I'm probably not making much sense, aren't I?"

"I understand, princess, but I don't think you came here to talk about how I see the things around me. So that begs the question, why are you here?" Aloisio asked.

"To offer you a choice." Eryka leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I have a goal. Something I wanted to do for years now, from the very first day I learned about it. I want to find the Thieving Witch."

"The Thieving Witch. The one who stole all the magic and created the beasts that haunt this very land," Alosio confirmed.

"Yes." It sounded so simple when she said it. Preposterous, even. A little princess who wanted to chase the legends from her books. But it did affect everyday life, people from the kingdom she someday had to protect.

"A noble task, for sure. Definitely interesting and out of the ordinary. Why are you telling me this, again?" he said.

Eryka took a deep breath and released the words she'd been thinking about since yesterday. "I want you to come with me."

He raised a single eyebrow. "Princess Eryka, my sincere apologies"—the way he said sincere did not convey its meaning at all—"but I'm not some knight you can call on command. What will you give me in return?"

"What do you want?" she countered.

Aloisio smiled. His smiles were so like a thylacine's, sly and knowing. Eryka didn't like that look on him, especially him.

"What do we not want?" he sighed dramatically as he tipped his head back. "Money. Power. Love. A long life. What I want, Princess Eryka, you might not want to hear." Eryka didn't doubt that one bit. "I'll tell you what you can give me after this suicide of a quest." He stood up and placed his hand on his heart—the signal to a deal. "Are you sure you want a near-stranger to go with you? What about that Lautaro fellow? He seems protective of you."

"Lautaro can take care of himself. I'm the princess of Altos, so I think I can make good decisions once in a while," Eryka said dryly. She placed her own hand over her heart, and the deal was done.

"The king will send out search parties for me, so if they find me with you they'll lock you up and execute you," Eryka explained. She was sure he already knew the risks, but it didn't hurt to know he understood what he was getting into.

Aloisio nodded.

"And, I think you already figured it out... but I was the peasant that brought you here yesterday," she added.

"Eydis. How could I forget?" Aloisio said. "My knight in shining armor."

Eryka rolled her eyes. "About our Eydis and Aloisio front, can we get that out of the way? You know I'm Eryka, so you should give me a name."

"Well, you can call me Fuhua," he said.

"'Flourishing fortune.' Alethea knows we need it," she murmured. She knew it wasn't his birth name and her heart sank at the thought of him not giving it to her, but they were only allies. A name variant was fine.

"I'm assuming that I can't yell out your name everywhere we go," Fuhua suggested. "What do you want me to call you?"

Eryka mulled it over for a few seconds before she finally said, "Hellevi." It wasn't a fitting name for a princess, especially her.

"Flourishing fortune and happy in war. What a pair we make," Fuhua said.

"How about you grab yourself a little piece of fortune and take what you need so we can leave," Eryka prompted. "We need to go soon."

Fuhua took his bag and threw some clothes into it before slinging it over his shoulders. "What, nothing else?" Eryka asked as they hastened to reach the secret exit.

"Unless you can pack an entire bar into here, no," Fuhua said, and Eryka left it at that. "Do you even have a plan?" he added as she whisked him through the secret passage.

"Yes. We're going to Alethea's Spring in Esmuig, and I'm going to ask her the Witch's location," Eryka said.

"Call me crazy, but I don't think it will be that simple," Fuhua muttered.

"Anyway, can you go a little to the left once I'm done? I need to change out of these," Eryka asked, and she pushed a stone until it fell on the other side.

"You couldn't have changed before you came to get me, couldn't you," he grumbled.

"Hey, you could've said no. It was suspicious enough carrying around this," she said, pointing to her own bag.

They eventually got out, Eryka changed into her peasant robes in the nearby forest of skyreachers, and they were off.

They veered off the main path, and Eryka spotted Fuhua's hand twitching towards his arm and then away. "Is your arm bothering you?" she asked, but he shook his head.

"Your medic friend patched me right up," he answered, but he didn't sound enthusiastic about it.

Their feet sunk into the sand, and the skyreachers shook slightly with miniature sandstorms. Their bare, yellow-white branches stuck out like someone waving to their friend. Eryka pulled the robe's flap over her nose and mouth—Fuhua did the same.

"So, Hellevi, how's your private life? Must be pretty bad to risk going out in public without a guard," Fuhua joked.

"My private life's the same as my public one," Eryka replied. "Except for the sneaking out. That's as scandalous as it gets."

They walked until they reached the top of a sand dune. It overlooked Palazina los Krete, or City of the Palace. She turned around and surveyed her city that hustled with the familiar busyness of life. For the first time in her life, she was going beyond its borders. Unprotected. Alone.

Well, not completely alone, she amended. But I don't completely trust Fuhua, even if I did ask him to come with me.

"Staring at it won't make things any easier." She rolled her eyes at his tone and turned around.

"I don't know how many times you skipped town, but this is the first time I ever left the city." She plodded down the sand dune and Fuhua followed.

"I never left the city either, but I'm not sentimental about leaving," he said.

"I'm so glad I have you to comfort me," she muttered.

The sun sank low in the sky as they walked and walked. The king and queen never really checked on Eryka, so the search parties would probably be slow to come. Fuhua attempted some small talk, but she didn't want to answer, so they lapsed mostly into silence. When the moon rose and the night chill came, they settled down to make camp.

Eryka lied back in the sand, snuggled in a blanket. Her body was still wracked with chills from the cold—she was about to go collect wood for a fire, but Fuhua argued with her. "The smoke will alert any knights that come looking for us," he said, and she had to agree. Until I freeze to death, then I won't agree with anything else he says, she thought.

"Hey, Fuhua. What's your family like?" she whispered to him.

He dragged a hand across his eyes and muttered, "Nothing to tell. I can't remember them."

Eryka sighed. Of course the first time she would try to crack him open would be awkward. "I'm sorry," she said truthfully. "Do you miss them?"

He studied the sky. "Do me a favor, Hellevi, and never ask me that question again," he said shortly, and he turned over on his side and closed his eyes.

Eryka could tell by his tossing and turning that he wasn't asleep, but she left him alone and smiled sadly up to the stars. I hope you're looking after your kid, she told Fuhua's parents. And I hope you're proud of him. For both of our sakes.

Her eyes stayed stubbornly open through most of the night. She tried to force her mind to sleep, but it was like she was a knight—trained to last through days without sleeping. It was only when the horizon lightened a bit that she sank into sleep, but it felt like seconds before Fuhua shook her awake.

"It's dawn," he said and pointed to the sky.

She rubbed her eyes and pushed herself up from the ground. They packed up their blankets and moved on through the desert.

Suddenly, Fuhua thrust his arm out in front of her. "Stop. Do you hear that?" She strained her ears, and after a few seconds she heard it—something digging through the sand.

She drew out her tessen war fans and Fuhua readied his kusarigama. They stood rock-still until a low growl reverberated through the air and a shadowy form leaped out from beneath the sand.

"The shadow beasts!" Eryka exclaimed, but Fuhua didn't wait to make sure. He dashed under the creature and dug his blades into its stomach. It howled and fell limp to the ground, but it wasn't the only one. More beasts lunged up through the sand and stalked them in a circle.

"You take the left, I'll do the right," Fuhua whispered, and she nodded before leaping into action.

She flicked open her fans and sliced right through a beast's head, and it whimpered sadly before crumbling into black dust. Something brushed her hair, and she gasped as another creature's claws tore a few strands free. She arced an arm through the air and cracked its spine with the metal spokes of her fan.

"Hellevi! Watch out!" Fuhua screamed. Eryka whirled around and suppressed a scream as a beast clawed her nose. Fuhua charged towards her and let one of his kusarigama hooks fly. It tore right through it and Eryka kicked it away before striking with one of her fans. It, too, crumbled into dust, and she gasped as the gashes in her nose bled and stung.

"Here, sit down. I didn't pack any bandages." Fuhua said. His voice was quiet and didn't tremble. Did he see blood or serious wounds a lot of times before?

"My blanket," she ordered. "Tear some strips off."

He chuckled before reaching into his own pack and grabbing his blanket. "Somehow I don't think the general public will like it if I use the princess's blanket to stop the bleeding in her nose. Does your royalty spread to the objects you touch?"

"If it did, then all the boarded-up shops back in the city would be thriving businesses," Eryka said with a weak smile. Fuhua took his hooks and sawed a few strips free.

"If you told me we were leaving a bit earlier, I could've packed some medicine," he pointed out as he wrapped her nose.

"No, Lautaro is the only medic in the palace, and he's always in the hospital. If he knew my plans, I never could've gone," Eryka explained.

"Ah. Maybe that's a warning sign you shouldn't have gone," Fuhua said.

She rolled her eyes and sat up once he was finished. "Are you a medic?" she asked as she touched her wrapped nose.

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth, but why? It was a simple question. "No, not even close," he answered as he stood. "Now let's go. We wasted enough time." Without even waiting he walked away towards the north, where Esmuig lay waiting.

She sighed and followed him. Who was he to refer to beasts as a "waste of time?" Her heart was still pumping with the adrenaline. Maybe she should've packed medicine, even if it did risk Lautaro's desperate attempts to stop her. She didn't even think once about beasts being a threat.

Am I that protected and sheltered, to believe danger can never touch me? She definitely wasn't like Fuhua, who acted like he faced danger every day and none of it scared him. She rubbed her arms and shivered. The beast's claws were only inches away from her eyes. She was so close to being blinded and never being able to see again.

♦

After a couple more days of walking, they finally spotted the Esmuig border patrol. It was a kingdom that wanted to protect its treasured Alethea's Spring, and they weren't friendly to outsiders in general. It was one of the few countries to even have border patrols.

"Do they know your face?" Fuhua asked Eryka. She shook her head, kneeled down, and rubbed her face with sand.

"No, but if the king and queen come rolling through town they'll recognize me. The general public probably won't, but just to make sure..." She strapped the flap that covered her nose and mouth back over her face and pulled up her hood. "Okay, let's go."

Her stomach twisted into knots as they walked up to the border patrol. All of the knights immediately pointed their patas at them, and one asked gruffly, "What do you want?"

She lowered her head and clasped her hands. "Please, sirs, we need to get into Esmuig. My cousin, he's very sick, and my friend and I wanted to see him." There was no way she could pass off being related to Fuhua, with their different eye, hair, and skin colors. "Can we get through?"

"I'm sorry, my grace, but we don't like outsiders. I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave," the knight said, but his voice didn't hint at any empathy.

Eryka bit her lip. "Please, my cousin is very sick. Can I at least come through while my friend waits outside?" One in Esmuig was better than none.

"No, what you need to do is go back to wherever you came from," the knight said sharply as he hoisted his pata a little higher. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her robes tightly. If she threw back her hood and wiped all the itchy sand off her face, then this fool knight would grovel at her feet if he knew she was Princess Eryka. No, she chided herself. What are you thinking? That would rip all of her well thought-out plans to shreds.

She opened her mouth to try and persuade him one last time, but a glint of metal caught her eye, and Fuhua's hooks flashed in the sunlight as he flew past the knights. They turned around, patas in hand, but he already hooked the lead knight that was speaking and yanked him to the ground.

Eryka and the rest of the knights stood for two seconds, shocked into stillness, but she quickly regained her senses. Her fans hissed out from under the sleeves of her robes, and she threw one right in the chink of one of the knight's chestpiece. He groaned and fell to the ground, and she scurried to retrieve it.

Two down, five more to go. She took a deep breath to help her pounding pulse and throbbing head, but her eyes flew open when metal clanking grew louder and louder. A knight was running for her, but his metal armor made him slow and loud. She allowed him to get arm's-length away, but when he raised his sword to strike she swept her leg and tripped him. He crashed to the ground with a surprised "Oof!" and she kicked the side of his head so he could fall unconscious. She only severely injured the other knight—she wasn't ready to kill human beings. She might never will.

Fuhua already took care of another knight, and in unison they turned towards the last one. Even with all the metal she could tell he was quivering, his pata shaking in his grip. Fuhua started towards him, but Eryka blocked him with an arm. "No. Allow me," she said, and he gave her a quizzical look.

She walked towards the knight and pulled his sword out of his hands. He stared at her, motionless. She dropped the pata and it clattered to the ground. She flicked open her fan and ran one of the metal spokes down his neck. "The thing with your armor is that it has the most chinks in the most important places," she whispered. "Although I'm sure you know that, with your many years of training and study."

"Hellevi, we should go," Fuhua warned, but she ignored him as she tipped his chin up.

"Go. Run and tell your captain. We will not be here once he starts searching." She pushed him away from her, and he stumbled before jogging towards Esmuig. Fuhua stared at her with a grimace while she stepped over the knights and their swords. Of course he killed the ones he attacked. What about their families? What will they say?

Their blood is on his hands, not mine, she reminded herself, but tears still threatened to push through. She didn't know them. It didn't matter anyway.

"Well, Fuhua," she said grimly, and gestured towards the city below them. "Welcome to Esmuig."