Rebellion: Prince of Dawn

Chapter 5.7: The Hierophant

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HELOISE VAN ASTELL

I never wanted to talk about my past because it took too long and every time I tried to tell it, the person listening always grew bored. Ilias kept insisting and I gave in.

   When I was a sixty-three-year-old kid, an ice palace labyrinth spawned near my village and attracted monsters that wiped everyone out but me. Because I was a child, I didn't know the names of my relatives or where they lived. Afraid to leave the village I had never once left, I stayed nearby and used an abandoned farmhouse as my home. Every now and then, I would go back to my ruined village for food. It was livable at first, but the winters in the North were brutal and the food began to spoil and grow mold.

   During the night, I spotted fires from a faraway village. As scared as I was, I knew my chances of heading there were better than staying by the ice palace labyrinth.

   It took me two months to get there.

   Those two months were the lowest my life had ever been. With no water, I had no choice but to eat snow. I ate scraps and green acorns for sustenance. One night was so cold that a direwolf died on the road. I cut open its stomach and slid inside its belly to keep myself warm. When it finally got warmer, I ate as much of the wolf as I could before continuing down the road.

   I've travelled down that road many times since then and even on foot, it only took four days at most.

   The village that I thought would be my safe haven turned out to be a different kind of hell. Because it was remote, the villagers only cared about their families. Even when a little girl that was all bones showed up, no one glanced an eye at her. I tried to steal food, but I was caught and overpowered. I tried to sleep inside buildings, but I was found and kicked out.

   Everything changed when I ran into a soldier who took me inside a building just outside of the village. The building looked like a farm, but there was a door underneath the hay that led to a dungeon with cells full of children that were as skinny as me.

   "I found an elf girl," the soldier said. "She'll be worth a lot so let's get some weight on her first."

   Even now, I still consider that soldier to be my saviour. His plans for me were vile, but at the time, he gave me everything I ever wanted. Food, water, shelter, warmth, and a dry place to sleep.

   The door to the dungeon was always locked and there was always a soldier watching us. We would get three meals a day and were let out the same amount one at a time to relieve ourselves.

   I was put inside a cell with four other children, but they grew envious of me. The soldiers gave me more food and always made sure I was in pristine condition.

   One night I was beaten—the kids who beat me up were punished and I got a cell to myself.

   I knew it was a prison. But it was a safe one. At the time, that was all that mattered.

   Once my condition stabilized, the soldiers sold me and a few other children to an oversized man with an unkept goatee. There were six of us in total. Two terran boys, three beast girls, and me, an elf girl. He kept us in chains hidden inside his covered wagon. The village we came from was in the northwest area and our destination was a town in the eastern region called Arlam. Even though the journey took us six months in all, we always rested on the road. Never once did we spend the night in a settlement. Every time we passed through one, the oversized man's men would remove our chains and place us inside barrels, instructing us to keep quiet until we passed through.