A packed dark-brown dirt walkway with a rough-hewn fence lining it on both sides stood ahead of them. A rag-tag group of people wound down it, all the way up to the front of a blue and white striped tent that looked as if it could hold an entire city inside of it. Up the path, they spied the familiar face of a shorter girl who looked almost like a younger image of Marialena except with brown eyes and next to her, a towering figure with pointed ears and flowing black hair. "Fjalda," the shorter girl, hurried to them and began excitedly recounting how she'd spent two hours at the archery range and made nearly all bulls-eyes. "Not surprising Eliza, given your dedication, but of course, we're all proud." Fjalda ruffled the shorter girl's hair and turned to glance in Viktor's direction. "Well, I never thought I'd live to see Viktor Kyrgan speechless around me." Bringing her voice down to a whisper, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Did something happen today?" How does she always know? I have no idea when something's bothering me.
"It's nothing," Sighing, he turned his gaze back to the path in front of him.
"Viktor, what was it?" Her tone had already broken above a whisper, while the rest of the group had fallen silent, though they were all trying to feign indifference. "Honestly, I don't want to tell you because it's the same old problem I've had for years. What's the use? It's on me to make it stop." Everyone tries to help me but it only gets worse when they do. Their attempts at solving the situation embolden him.
Fjalda slid in front of him and put a hand on his chest, causing a rush of energy to shake out from her hand, all across every part of his body until he veritably floated on air. "Please, tell me what happened." She only wants to help. It doesn't mean anything else.
"Illthyr happened," he sighed, "just like always." As they joined the line, thunder rumbled from somewhere far off. "Headed in from the mountains. Before it hits us and drives us inside for a week, at which point, Kellen will be too drunk to tell the difference between the days," Enialis finished with a burst of laughter from the rest of the group. "What did he do to you?" Fjalda's tone was a sword scraping against a sharpening stone. "The same that he always does Hawk. Torture me until Kellen comes around to save me." His voice broke for a moment and she placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. "Tonight, we forget about him and everything else and just be together," she ran a hand through his hair and he felt warmth rush up his body. "Sounds like a dream Hawk." But what about the space between us?
Shut up.
He shook his head back-and-forth until it hurt, then looked up at Fjalda, whose eyebrows were drawn together
As he brushed a hair out of her eye, Mari's fiery-green gaze appeared between them. "What are you two up to over here? We're almost at the front of the line and you've been off to yourselves since we got here." She raised an eyebrow when neither of them immediately spoke. "You're not arguing again? Don't turn those icy eyes on me Viktor Kyrgan, it needs to be said."
"Does it?" Fjalda rolled her eyes, looking up to the sky as thunder rolled from somewhere beyond the forest surrounding them, once again. Lions. "The word floated across Viktor's consciousness as he slipped away for a moment, though Fjalda's groan pulled him back to the present. "My least favorite part of the circus, it's just not natural." She peered off over the fence and towards the pine trees, then trained her amber gaze on Viktor. "Are you going to distract me when they start bringing out the animals?"
"Oh you could tell a story," Eliza popped up from somewhere behind them, sidling into their now almost full circle. "What about the legend of Talahir Winfandell, where he brings magic to the North and then unites the Hiervalan to rule?"
"That one hits a little too close to home," Viktor chuckled, moving as if to ruffle her hair, though she side-stepped his attempt and placed herself next to Marialena, frowning. "Aw, but that one's my favorite."
"Later Ellie, after whatever Kellen has planned for us when we're back in town."
"What does Kellen have planned for us?" Her eyes bounced between Marialena, Fjalda, and Viktor and when none of them answered, she continued, "well? Isn't someone going to say something?"
"It's a secret," Kellen pushed between the three young women, winking at Eliza. "Telling you now will ruin it." Grumbling, the younger of the trio stomped off to stand with Enialis just ahead of the group, who was staring off in the direction of the mottled-grey mountains to the west. "It isn't a night until Eliza's angry at one of us," Fjalda chuckled from Viktor's side and with that, they found themselves amidst a growing crowd close to the front of the line and a few paces away from a wiry blond man with a crimson cape and a finely embroidered blue coat, standing on top of an oaken barrel above the crowd. " Now is the time to open your inner eye, to experience the wonders of the world, to be dazzled by mysterious foreign beasts, tales of distant lands, and heroic acts. All are awaiting you within."
Each member of the group exchanged a wide-eyed glance as they realized they were now at the front and the brilliantly lit inner-expanse of the tent stood just out of their reach.
As they approached, an arm stopped them short of entering the gate and the flamboyantly dressed man was directly before them, speaking and moving about in a rush. "Ah, but what would this mystical act be without a small admission fee," he continued, one arm outstretched with a hand open as his cape somehow still flowed perfectly behind his back. "One copper each." He stretched out a hand, flicking a few strands of hair away from his face as he did. Above him, the clouds were beginning to blot out the rising moon. "Vik," Fjalda's voice sounded softly from behind him. "Kellen said you're paying?" Viktor threw his hands in his pockets, clenching his teeth as he rummaged in their depths. "Or maybe not?" Smiling when his hand chanced upon a stack of coppers, Viktor pressed the stack into the man's hand, watching his narrowing eyes run over them. "Ten coppers? The Laurentians thank you, boy!" The Laurentians. Everyone says they're a secret society of carnival maestros. He swept himself aside with a flourish and Viktor and his friends entered the tent, with Kellen clapping him on the shoulder and Fjalda ruffling his hair as they did.
As they entered, light attacked every side of the tent, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The six friends found seats about five rows up on one of the oak benches, each of which was the same length and pointed toward the central area where the performances would happen. "I do love the carnival," Eliza's eyes were shining as she fixed her gaze on the center of the tent below as if something exciting could happen at any moment and she didn't want to miss it. Looking down the line on both sides, he noted everyone had their eyes on the inner arena except for Fjalda and Marialena, who were deep in conversation. As he continued to glance at them with one eye, Marialena nodded in his direction and Fjalda reddened so much that her cheeks looked almost as if they were on fire, though she attempted a smile. "You know she likes you."
"Of course she likes me, we've been best friends since Reynar dropped me at the Hawkspire house for the first time when we were five."
"Not my point," Marialena's eyes twinkled and the hint of a smile played across her lips.
"I get it," Viktor looked down as his cheeks and arms started to tingle. I couldn't stand to lose her if she didn't feel the same. It's not the right time yet.
Before his flaxen-haired friend could respond, the show roared to life, drowning out any hope of conversation. "Ladies, gentlemen, elves, and any other beings in attendance, if you've come to see the world's greatest wonders, you're in the right place." The same theatrical man from the front of the tent who'd been collecting admission fees in earnest spoke. After a few more moments of the maestro's showboating, everything went dark, and Marialena put an arm across Viktor's shoulders, pressing into his back as a string of lights popped into existence outward and above them and the trapeze artists came first, whipping and whirling through the air, making death-defying leaps one after the other. From time to time, one of the two would seem to slip and almost fall, causing gasps to erupt across the crowd before the trapezists would catch themselves on the nearest bar and continue.
Whether their mistakes were real or not, Viktor couldn't tell, and it seemed, his friends couldn't either.
As the show continued, they all found themselves spellbound by the acts of the lion tamer. The burly man consistently kept a tenuous control of four lions at once, and after a time, even had them dancing as well. They frequently growled, roared, and bared their teeth at him, but he never once broke his intense concentration. At one point, they somehow broke free of his hypnotic power and all lunged for him at once, though he kept them at bay by cracking his whip in their direction. To Viktor, however, the most interesting part was that the tamer never once hit the lions. He only played the whip around them in different ways, almost as if his show was a sort of artistic performance that required great precision. As the crowd began to clap and the lion tamer exited the arena, Viktor took two deep breaths and moved towards the seat next to Fjalda, which was freed up by a giggling Marialena. Women. Fjalda had both eyebrows raised as she turned to him. "This is amazing Vik.. leaps and bounds ahead of last year." Her eyes are shining. Like the first time we played our music at the inn and surprised her. Something's going on or she wouldn't have forgotten about the animals. What if?
No that's stupid. It can't be. Not after everything.
"You're in for quite the time," he winked at her, noticing her answering smile, with a slight blush forming on the edges of her cheeks. Where did that come from? What's wrong with me? Am I Kellen now? His thought occurred at the same time as Kellen whispered the same question to him from his other side and he threw up his hands in response. "Oh and thank you for financing our visit," Fjalda added in a near whisper.
"It's only the beginning of a night for legends to be made!" Viktor covered his mouth at the resultant looks from his friends. "The wolf's howling already," Marialena was bent over, laughing at Fjalda's other side. Wolf. That was one of his nicknames in the group, while everyone called Fjalda "hawk." In his case, he guessed that it was because of his ice-blue eyes, though he'd never been sure. I'm sure my regular lack of sleep plays a part as well. "Rich coming from you Noer'alan." Noer'alan, a term for someone who looked and acted like a mixture between nobility and the notoriously bacchanal-prone forest folk of the regions surrounding Silverwood. "I wear my identity proudly," Marialena raised her head in an imitation of a queen surveying her subjects and Kellen burst out laughing, slapping his knee as he did, followed by Eliza, and soon the rest of the group.
As their laughter died, Viktor raised an eyebrow, noticing that the lion tamer had left a considerable amount of time earlier and no new act had come on. "Folks," the front-gate hawker again. "We've had an issue with the next act which will take about an hour to fix. For now, we'll be passing around mulled wine and we implore you to stay!" The friends looked at each other all at once, with Eliza moving quickly to stand below the rest of them with Marialena at her side. "So?" Marialena flicked her head back to straighten her hair, placing her hands on her hips. "Are we staying or getting to the inn a bit early?" "Always impatient," Enialis whispered to Viktor, drawing a fiery glare from Marialena.
"There is a reason we all need to be there early, so I say we go," Kellen offered into the brief moment of silence that followed. Every other member of the group looked at him at once with varying levels of surprise, though Fjalda answered first. "I say we go and I say the party can't start without us kicking it off." Her statement was met with a chorus of uproarious cheers as a circus attendant passed by with a wooden tray full of iron mugs, steaming from their tops. "Lucky these parts are famous for both wine and quality iron things," Kellen raised his mug up in the air and the others followed his gesture, one by one until they all clinked their mugs together, save for Eliza.
"Is this going to be another one of those nights?" she tugged on Marialena's sleeve and the taller girl bent down and winked, "nothing we can't handle El'." As she moved to ruffle Eliza's hair, the shorter girl sidestepped and kicked her in the shin playfully, causing her to yelp and jump up and down, almost knocking Kellen over, who was standing on one leg and balancing his mug on his nose. Viktor started on his way down with Fjalda close behind, followed by the others, leaving only a still hopping Marialena and a thoroughly distracted Kellen, whose mug ended up clinking loudly down the stairs and almost clocking Viktor in the head. After a short but chaos-filled walk through the forest, they found themselves outside of the inn, with no sound around except the wind rustling through the branches of the surrounding trees.
"We've got to head around back," Kellen motioned to the west side of the inn and led the group behind it, where everything opened up with shining light and activity.
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