ELEMENTO: A Pull Of Fate

Episode 10 + 2 - Ayla, I...

Icelynn liked me since childhood.

I’d known it since we were children stealing peaches from the south orchard. She’d always stood too close. She’d always laughed too loud at my jokes. She’d always looked at Ralph like he was furniture and at me like I was a weapon she wanted to hold.

And now I was walking after a mud-stained forest girl while the king lived because of her. She couldn't help being angry.

Along the way Ayla and I stopped.

The corridor was empty. Torches high on the walls. Our shadows stretched long. Her shoulders were tight. Her arms were crossed like she was holding herself together.

I asked Ayla for an explanation, not rudely.

"Ayla," I said. My voice was quiet. "What was that?"

I was quite bewildered myself.

Sigil gone. Power gone. And yet she’d walked in with a leaf that shouldn’t exist and pulled a king back from the edge. I didn’t understand any of it.

Ayla looked at me. Her eyes were tired. Green, like the leaf. Like the forest.

"My mother instructed me to do all these," she said.

She spoke about some crisis she yet to comprehend.

"She said there would be a king who couldn’t breathe. She said there would be a room full of knives. She said if I didn’t bring Marucus at the exact minute, the Fortress would fall before the moon turned." Ayla’s mouth twisted. "I don’t know what that means. Not fully. I’m still trying to understand it myself."

That aside, she was glad it worked out though.

She let out a breath. Half a laugh. "But he’s alive. So… that’s something."

I said, me too.

"Me too," I said. And I meant it. Father was standing. The Fortress wasn’t falling tonight. The blades were staying in their sheaths.

I wanted to say I missed her.

I wanted to say how glad I was to have her around.

One day. That was all it had been. Barely a day since we’d seen each other in the trees, her with mud on her knees and that leaf cupped like a secret. But it felt longer. It felt like I’d been breathing shallow since she left.

But I was slow.

And I thought it was awkward to say such.

What would I say? I missed you? To a girl who’d just saved a king? While guards had just held her like a thief? While Icelynn was watching? While I had no sigil to back my name?

So I dithered.

I scratched the back of my neck. I looked at the torch. I said, "Your boots are still muddy."

Stupid.

Ayla’s mouth quirked. "Forest dirt doesn’t come out easy."

It was barely a day since we’d seen.

But it felt like years.

Elowyn and Asher appeared to thank Ayla in person again.

They didn’t come with guards. They came themselves. Elowyn’s crown was slightly askew. Asher’s hand was on her back, like he still needed to check she was real.

"Ayla, I..." I was about to say it when they showed up.