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Madja staggered forward, hearing a loud thunk from behind her as she regained her balance. Turning around, she saw that it was a little girl. She had fallen, legs splayed awkwardly as she stared down at the blood pooling on a scraped knee. She looked up at Madja, her brown eyes wide.
“I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Madja said, crouching down to the girl’s level. Bunching up the sleeve of her robe, she pressed it to the tiny knee. “Are you okay?”
They were distracted as another girl, this one slightly older, came dashing up. She skidded to a halt in front of them and narrowly avoided crashing into Madja herself.
“What happened?” the older one asked after catching her breath.
“I fell down,” the smaller one mumbled.
Madja realized that she recognized the girls. They were the two bored-looking children that had been sitting at the fish cake stall earlier that afternoon.
Standing up and brushing herself off, Madja asked, “What are you two doing down here at this hour? Where are your parents?”
They exchanged guilty looks.
“Our father is working late tonight, because of the festival,” the older one said.
“We got tired of sitting around,” added her sister.
“There’s a festival tonight?” Madja asked as she helped the little girl up.
“For the dragon.”
Madja stiffened. Had they found out that Sevrrn was in the town?
The older girl said, “They’re going to light fireworks over the cove. When Sevrrn sees them, he’ll know he has to come and keep us safe.”
Madja knew what they were referring to and relaxed. Years ago, when the Allonans had declared war on them, they had held a similar festival. Her father had told her that when he was a boy, it had been called The Firelight Festival and the islanders had held it every year to honor their god.
“Well this is no place for nice girls such as yourselves,” Madja told them. “How about I take you back to your father?”
She hadn’t pla
As it turned out, the girls had also recognized Madja from earlier. As they made their way back to the marketplace, they plied her with questions about where she was from and why she was visiting Bern. The younger one, Ana, had been enchanted by Madja’s silk robes and had thought she was a princess. Her sister Cella had been more interested in Sevrrn, whom she shyly admitted was handsome.
Although most of the shops had closed, the marketplace was more crowded than ever. Fortunetellers with crystal balls offered prophecies next to apathetic youths that ma
Madja didn’t mind the chaos and even took the girls for a walk up and down a couple of the streets. Because she had thought to bring a few coins, she was able to buy a hairpiece for Cella and shaved ice for all three of them.
Their father looked to be closing up shop when they finally arrived. The street that housed his stall was much quieter than the others, with only a handful of people who all seemed to be passing through.
When he saw his daughters, the man was visibly relieved.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, his voice and odd mix of enthusiasm and ster
They both ran to their father. “Madja bought us dessert!”
Their father looked up, seeming to notice Madja for the first time. Even in the dim light, Madja could see a flush creep across his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, removing his hat and giving a polite bow. “I hope they didn’t cause you any trouble.”
Although Madja had grown up in an upper-class family, she had rarely dressed the part of an heiress and wasn’t used to people treating her as such. To show that his deference was misplaced, she returned his bow.
“The pleasure was all mine. Your girls are wonderful.”
She couldn’t have been more sincere. Although her time with the children had been brief, they had done wonders for her mood. She felt more invigorated than when she had woken up the morning prior.
The man smiled, transforming his plain face into something endearing. It had been a long time since anyone had regarded her with such genuine warmth and she found herself smiling back at him.
“I hope they didn’t keep you from your husband.” While he spoke, he tried to busy himself with cleaning the table of his stall, but Madja noticed he was only pushing the rag in small circles.
“Oh, I’m not married,” she told him.
“The man you were with today?”
“He’s my brother,” she said, completely forgetting their cover story.
Scratching his temple, he said, “I can’t say that I see the resemblance.”
“He was my late husband’s brother,” she said, trying to salvage the lie. It was a realistic answer. Widows were not bound by the same social conventions as maidens, and therefore it was not unheard of for them to travel without a chaperone.
“My condolences,” he said, tilting his chin down. “I lost my wife two years ago.”
Madja’s face burned with shame. While she had endured the loss of both her parents, it felt wrong to accept his empathy for something so intimate.
“Well, I suppose I should be going,” she told him. “I wouldn’t want to take any more of your time.”
Ana looked up at her through big, round eyes. “Don’t you want to see the fireworks with us?”
“Please,” their father said. “If you don’t mind waiting for me to finish up here, it would be my honor to show you the best view in town.”
6
The streets emptied out just before midnight. The elderly or the very young had long since shuffled home, while the other denizens of Bern had made their way down to the pier for the fireworks show.
After Yoren, as he’d later introduced himself, finished closing up his shop, he led Madja and the girls through a maze of residential areas. Moonlight brightened their path through the dusty streets of the working class, while bright lanterns illuminated the wide, paved roads that ran through the upscale areas.
The home they stopped at was situated on a small hill and looked to be the finest residence in the town. It was four stories high and appeared to be constructed with a combination of white rock and marble.
“Is this where you live?” Madja asked. Having grown up in a house twice its size, she was no stranger to affluence, but it was surprising to see such a nice house in a small port town like Bern.
“Perhaps in my dreams,” Yoren said. He was carrying a sleepy Ana in one arm, while Cella held onto his free hand. “This is the mayor’s house. I know for a fact that he and his staff are out right now. The whole town will be watching the fireworks from the pier, but the view from the rooftop is like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
Gri
They took a seat near the weathervane and stared in the direction of the cove. Yoren was right, the view was spectacular. Trails of fire shot into the air, combusting into an explosion of shapes and colors. There were starbursts of red, great white rings, and spheres of azure.
For a while, Madja forgot who and where she was. It was a pleasant and much-needed escape, but as they always did, her thoughts wandered back to Sevrrn.