868 P.C, Early Lumynos (Spring), Hearth-Home, Luminya.
Katerin stood in one of the many temples of the city, still holding back her tears. She had cried many times today, but it seemed her ability to continue was endless. The spacious chapel room was full of somberly dressed people. Some she knew well, many she had never even heard of. Everyone had come to offer their condolences. She was sick of hearing the words, "So sorry for your loss" and "you're in our thoughts."
She held her stepmother's arm tight and kept her face in the best smile she could manage—which was more of a grimace. She only faintly heard the words of the priests in the background as they performed their rituals of salt and prayer to keep the body of her father from being turned into a mockery of life. The funeral rites of my father. The thought made bitter acid roil in her stomach and she grimaced, fighting to hold the stinging tears at bay. She would not let them fall.
Not now.
Later she would find somewhere quiet in the Tower, on one of its steep, slanting roofs, and she would cry. Of course, it was against the Tower's policy, but Katerin had always found the roofs to be the perfect place to escape. It did not take her much magic to reach them, only a few simple spells to hasten her climbing. The Tower had taught her the magics necessary in her first year of studying there, and ever since, not one person had come looking when she sought the solitude of the roofs.
She focused her thoughts on her father, instead. Igan had been loved by many, she realized as she looked around the room. He had been trained as a blacksmith in Lagamar. The subterranean dwarven city was known for endless deposits of ore and excellent weaponsmiths. The inhabitants of Lagamar were more than a little picky about who they would train in their craft. Her father had never been a weaponsmith, despite the urging of his mentors. He had preferred art, or the more practical side of his craft. He could craft the finest horseshoes you ever saw, and he had spent his days making beautiful iron gates, fences, sconces, and even things as simple as nails, but never a weapon. No amount of urging or coin had ever changed his mind.
The people in this room today all behaved as if he was the finest smith to have ever been born, and Katerin hated it. Any of these people could have stopped by to see him at any time if they had cared about his health, but it seemed that the dead were more important than the living.
She sighed and tried to pull herself away from her bitter thoughts, but failed.
One day, he had simply begun feeling ill. She and Imeiza, her stepmother, had believed it to be no more than a spring cold, but the fever never left him and he kept that "spring cold" long past the time that spring had come and gone.
Over the course of several long months, through the guidance of many practitioners of healing and magic, no one could offer any answers about what plagued him. The sickness got worse and worse, his body and mind weakening to such a degree that he was by all means, insane. He would spout nonsense when he could speak and he would writhe and shake—as if in some immeasurable pain—when he could not.
Her memories of his illness were vivid and terrifying still.
A ten-day ago, he had begun to improve. Of course, the healers and clerics on hand at the time had insisted that it was their doing. He had risen from bed, regained color and energy, and come back to his family. Until the morning Katerin had awoken to find Imeiza crying over him, begging him to stay.
Katerin jerked herself from that dangerous path of thought and memory. It was a pain for another time. Right now she had to be strong, for her stepmother and for herself, for she feared that if she broke down again she might not recover. She felt as though the floor was rolling and shaking beneath her feet—like the room would collapse around her at any second. She squeezed Imeiza's hand and huffed out a breath.
Imeiza held her hand tight as a vice, as if afraid to let go.
Seeing Imeiza without her colorful attire was an odd experience all on its own. For all the years Katerin had known her, not one day passed where she had worn anything that did not at least have a bright splash of color across it. Things change, Katerin reminded herself. Usually, that was a comforting reminder, but today it held a deep and bitter pain.
Hours passed as the priests finished their rituals and carried the body from the temple to its resting place among the stones and grass with the remainder of the city's dead. The crowd was finally dispersing, after they heard the final prayer and tossed grain atop the body—a rite performed in the hopes that in his afterlife he could find peace.
As a large gentleman in a tall hat finished speaking to Imeiza, Katerin saw two people standing in the back of the crowd, waiting. She knew then that if the ever-present feeling of dizziness did take her, they would help her up again.
The blond woman was all muscle, taller and broader than most anyone and proud of it. Her attire was not revealing, but it was light and her skin showed more than one scar, though that was not uncommon in the wandering tribes. Kindra was easy to pick out of any crowd.
Beside her swayed a peculiar man. He had red tinted skin and polished black horns that curved up and pointed back behind him, twisting elegantly with shining chains adorning them. His eyes and hair were a striking silver that shimmered like liquid metal. Mordai carried himself with confidence and charm, and he had a smile that could sell anyone on even the most outlandish of ideas.
Kindra walked towards her, and people moved hastily to get out of her way, as she crushed Katerin in a near bone-breaking hug.
Katerin sniffed, "Did you put your hair up?" She gave Kindra an astonished look, to go along with her teasing tone.
"Your da' always told me I should do something with it." Kindra glanced away with a slight tint to her cheeks. Her voice was deep, rumbling from within her chest, but still somehow held a feminine quality—a softness that lingered within the rumble.
Mordai waited just behind Kindra, almost hidden by her large frame. He stepped around her, handed a bouquet to Imeiza, and gave Katerin's hand a gentle squeeze. "Sorry, we're so late..." he trailed off, glancing at Kindra.
"You know we wouldn't miss it," Kindra said, narrowing her eyes at him.
Katerin shrugged. She was too used to both of them getting into trouble to be at all bothered by their 'better-late-than-never' approach to life. "You didn't miss much, just a lot of people repeating themselves."
Imeiza shot her a quick glare from puffy eyes.
"He knew you cared," Katerin added, feeling unsure of what to say under Imeiza's glance.
"Well, we've got the rest of the day to keep you two company, so where to first? A good strong drink?" Kindra, said, offering the most encouraging smile she could muster. Though her encouragement looked more intimidating than anything else.
They spent most of the remainder of the day in a tavern they all knew. The Boar's Backstrap was a lively place, with soft lighting and worn yet comfortable benches. Portraits of the owner's favorite customers hung on the walls, and her father, of course, had one. Igan had brought Katerin and Imeiza here at least four times a ten-day, for dinner or to celebrate one small thing or another. It was like a second home to them.
Spindle and Gracie, its proprietors, were not their usual talkative and excited selves tonight, but they still provided Imeiza and Katerin with the best they had to offer. The food and drinks were as delicious as they had always been, though without Igan they seemed to have lost their comfort and joy. The group talked, laughed and cried, reminiscing over days they would never see again until the tavern filled to capacity. The intrusive eyes of other patrons had broken their somber commemoration rather quickly.
On the walk back home as the sun was setting, Katerin realized it was the saddest walk she had ever taken. Her pace slowed as she stared at the ground with tears pooling in her eyes—her boots thumped too loudly on the cobblestones. Her thoughts wrapped her up in sentiments and sorrows she could no longer push away.
Mordai dropped back to walk beside her, as if he could sense her mood. "It'll be alright, you know," he said, tossing an arm over her shoulders.
"Right now, I don't," she admitted, turning to look at his charming smile. "It doesn't feel alright."
"You'll survive, and make him proud." His suave tone was tempered with soft reassurance, and he gave her shoulder a squeeze.
She scoffed, "I don't even know what he wants me to do. I have no talent for smithing. You know that."
Mordai rolled his silver eyes at her. "He wants you to do great things. And you will, regardless of what they are." He stopped and turned to face her, placing both his hands on her shoulders, though he was at least a head shorter than she. "I promise you'll be alright. Just look at me." He winked and flourished his no doubt expensive cape—leather and velvet in dark shades of gray and purple. "I turned out just fine."
She laughed despite her mood and raised one eyebrow, "If by fine you mean slow in the head, with no ability to be on time for anything, then absolutely."
"See? That's the spirit." His face turned serious. "But I mean it, Katerin. You will be alright. You know we're here for you."
She nodded and gave him a small, shy smile.
"Now let's go drink ourselves into a drunken stupor." He turned and gently nudged her forward.
She elbowed him lightly in the ribs and pointed in the opposite direction. "The bar is back that way."
"No, no. Home is a better place for a stupor. Unless you want to get into trouble," he said, winking.
Katerin awoke the next morning in her own bed, with the unfamiliar sensation of being well rested. Her last memory of the night was Mordai leading a toast, his eyes showing the telltale signs of magic. She shook her head and tiptoed around the corner to check on Imeiza, and to her surprise she found her sleeping peacefully. Whatever Mordai had done, she silently thanked him for it.
She made her way to the kitchen and resolved to go to the market soon. They were out of nearly every commodity. No fresh bread, no cheeses, and worst of all, nearly no coffee. Neither had truly left the house for a ten-day, in exception to the funeral the day before. She rummaged for the last remnants of ground coffee and waited for the water to boil. After a moment, she gave in to her impatience, and hurried it along with a simple spell while nibbling on a stale piece of bread.
Her thoughts turned to the house's storeroom as she sat on the floor of the kitchen, her bare feet tapping on the wood. She knew that boxes of her father's belongings were in there, and she knew that they were mostly belongings he had brought with him from Lagamar.
Curiosity overtook her, as it usually did.
With her steaming mug of weak coffee in hand, she found herself in that dirt-floored room, brushing away the spiderwebs between the beams. Memories of being terrified of the room when she was a child made her grin as she lit the room with a simple spell. Dust and darkness seemed a trifling thing to her now.
She spent many hours rummaging through the boxes, holding each item as though it might shatter in her hands, laughing and crying over every one. She found an old, torn up leather backpack, tucked in one corner of the room. Inside of it was a small set of tools, and a small leather–wrapped parcel with a letter attached to it. She went to move the pack aside, but caught the name on the letter.
It was addressed to her.
She blinked and adjusted her glasses before she took the letter and the parcel. In an instant, she recognized the writing. It was her father's, in his usual thick and crooked letters. Another parchment fell from within the bundle. It was a worn sketch, with heavy lines and exquisite detail and it depicted a broad bearded man with a big smile his arm around a beautiful slight-looking elven woman. It was an image of her mother. Katerin had never gotten to meet the woman. She had asked her father for years about it, never getting much in response. Only a name, and a reassurance that she would never have left them if she had not needed to.
She knew that Sulea had left her father in Lagamar, while he was still in his apprenticeship to the dwarves, and that she had never returned. In desperation and curiosity—forever feeling that he was hiding something from her—Katerin had changed her Surname to Moonshadow, and it stuck, though it did not annoy her father as much as she hoped it would.
"It suits you," was all he had told her.
The letter was on a small scrap of parchment, torn at its edges:
My dear daughter,
When your curiosity should lead you here, I want you to know that I love you.
This is one of the few things she left with me, your mother.
I want you to have it, and she would, too.
Know she loves you, and she never deserted us.
She holds the answers you burn to find. I'm so sorry I had to hide it from you.
When you find her, tell her I never forgot.
Katerin held the letter tight, but the way it was worded seemed strange. As she studied the parchment she realized it was not old, nor dusty, and neither was the leather–wrapped parcel.
It had not been there as long as the tools.
Inside the leather pouch, she found a beautiful pendant hanging on a silver chain. It was in the shape of a teardrop, and it caught the light in a fascinating way, reflecting it back onto old and dusty timbers. She spun it on its chain, watching it as if it was the only thing in the world. Slowly in her mind, an idea was forming. Something her father could be proud of. Something that could quell the burning for answers.