The sun picked up on each tiny shard of glass that found itself mixed into the cobblestone path. Barely out of Kingshill, and already the tall white buildings phased out to neat little brick houses of brown and grey, their roofs thatched with gold straw or tiled with grey. Quaint wasn’t the correct word to describe them, though they were far from the grand golden structures she was used to. Homely, perhaps. Something about them triggered something in Cooper’s brain, a small spark in her otherwise empty mind. Some long-lost thought or memory, nothing tangible though it unearthed something from her life pre-temple. A life that she wasn’t sure existed.

Just for that uncertainty alone, Cooper was ready to toss Hawkins into Greyhaven Lake.

As a lieutenant, Cooper was barely more than a pack mule - though it was preferable to being in charge. The bags thudded against her armour with each heavy step, rocking her forward with its pendulous momentum. Maybe Cooper should have left Hawkins’ bag, but instead, it was slung over her shoulders next to her own.

“Why in Gods’ name are we walking?” moaned someone who was surprisingly not Cooper. The disgruntled, whinging voice of Aiden Fowler broke the growing silence. “Surely we’re not going to walk all the way, right Hawkins? You have a plan, of course? To get horses or perhaps a motorcar?”

Cooper had no idea what a motorcar was, but she nodded along.

Aiden trotted alongside Hawkins, floppy tangerine peel braid bouncing stiffly around her shoulders. Hawkins, undeterred, ignored the elven huntress and carried on, now sandwiched between the towering twins. Together, their intelligence rivalled that of a week-old lettuce sandwich at the height of summer; wilting, barely held together, but very much a thing. It was truly a marvel that they found the time to join the temple’s little expedition, rather than the multitude of ways they could single-handedly end their bloodline through existence alone.

They were also strong contenders to be thrown into the lake, nationwide scandal be damned.

Heaving the sacks firmly back into place with a clank, Cooper could only thank that she wasn’t wearing her armour. Syi Dorei was never hot, warm perhaps, on a certain good day that happened once in a blue moon. It rained, it had breezes and wind that could chill to the core, but it was never hot. Never hot, until the day she was forced to leave. Her linen shirt clung to her like a second skin, and Hawkins was no better. Though, Hawkins didn’t have to carry two sacks.

“Where is your friend, Cooper?” asked Hawkins, finally, finally taking charge of her own sack, pulling it from sagging shoulders and swinging it over her own. Cooper started at her incredulously beneath the waterfall that was her forehead. “That woman you sneak off to see? The heiress that you pretend not to be engaged to?”

“Why the hell would Iarden be here?”

Hawkins took one look at the Queen’s children and lowered her voice, “we’re taking a shuttlebus over the Naveer border, and she’s doing a runner, I guess? But hey, I’m not going to be the one to stop her.”

“She didn’t mention any of this.”

Hawkins shrugged and stopped the party by what looked like an open cage. Thick rusted plates of metal crossed over into an orange grid, curved into an elongated dome at the top. The little metal bench inside dipped in the middle and looked like a breeding ground for all diseases. Cooper sat down at the very centre and huffed at her captain.

The shuttlebus pulled up to a stop, smoke billowing from its pipes. Much like the shuttle stop, it was decidedly more cage-like than Cooper felt comfortable with. Big and black, its top is another elongated dome but now its holes are filled with glass. A long pill on four large wagon wheels, a smaller one up front and centre. The small squadron clambered on, the twins pushing each other as they fought for their place on the empty vessel. With one final look, Iarden nowhere to be found, Cooper grasped Hawkins’ hand and let herself be pulled up into the tall vehicle. Plopping down into a stiff leather seat, Cooper glanced out the window with her heart in her stomach. Hawkins took her place up front, chancing short looks at the lieutenant, her eyebrows furrowed and mouth open as if ready to say something but seemingly distracted by the door hissing to a close.

The woman running towards them was not Iarden. A tall woman, her dark hair and brown leather book back bobbing with the effort to catch the shuttlebus. Nicely dressed in a rumpled navy suit, one hand desperately holding her flat cap down on her head. The woman who tapped at the door until it reluctantly opened, dust and grime dirtying her brown skin, was not Iarden.

“Close one, eh?” she said through a grin, making her way down the aisle to plop down next to Cooper, chest heaving. Hawkins was not wrong in calling her the heiress, but that was thankfully where she stopped being right.

Raelyn Godrick, the middle child of Marcus Godrick, from a long line of people that Cooper had never heard of, from a place she’d never been. Business owners and automobile makers, whose paths would never have crossed with Cooper’s if Raelyn hadn’t been the way she was and joined the military at age sixteen and immediately adopted the young templar. Whatever was wrong with Cooper, was undoubtedly wrong with her as well, and thus the two seemingly bonded for life. The very same Raelyn Godrick who had ten long fingers on her short right palm, blissfully unaware that her left hand was thrown into a landfill shortly after its amputation at the ripe age of seventeen by her now boyfriend, professor and insufferable pack mate.

She gripped her bag in her lap, shoulders relaxed as the shuttlebus took off. Cooper gripped at her seat, worrying her lip between sharp teeth. Her hand was taken in Raelyn’s, thumb rubbing at her palm.

“What brings you here?” managed Cooper, “Like, we’re going to Naveer. Did you join us or something?”

Raelyn snorted. “Not in the slightest, just easier to take a shuttle with you lot rather than on my own.”

“Are we… bodyguards? Do you need protection?”

“No. No I’m fine, I promise. My father asks fewer questions if he thinks it’s a Stykes thing rather than me having the horrific thing that is free will.”

“So you’re running away,” stated Cooper, to which Raelyn rolled her eyes and took back her hand to cross it back over her bag. “You are, aren’t you?”

“Let’s just say that I have a score to settle with history and leave it at that.”

Cooper hummed, turning to press her forehead into the rattling Godrick manufactured glass. Greyhaven looked more like an oil painting than any place that Cooper had been. The first time setting foot into the Earl-ruled land, and saw nothing more than a bus stop and a handful of houses. The lake came and went in a streak of grey-blue sandwiched between the greens and browns of the surrounding area, looking more like the far-off city of Cooper’s birth rather than anything she had seen in the pitiful amount of Mabristan she had yet to see. The only thing missing was the tall purple mountains that overshadowed the north.

Questions itched in her throat, barely contained and sore. Swallowing them down, again and again, keeping them at bay from bubbling to the surface. She wiped her damp palms into the seat leather, keeping her eyes glued to the blurred landscape, watching it speed by.

It was then, she realised, that it wasn’t the questions churning her gut.

“Eyes forward,” said Raelyn softly, “don’t worry, just look forward.”

Cooper let out a small whimper, glancing at her captain who had very little interest in Cooper as it was, but as if sensing something was happening she became statuesque. Statuesque in that she refused to move, not that she was a work of art. Warm fingers found hers once more, intertwining. She couldn’t help but look. Something real, something that wasn’t oil-painted streets darting by.

“Cooper, you hear me? Don’t look out that damn window again.”

She wanted to reply, but the idea of opening her mouth sent another pang to her stomach. Thick saliva pushed at her lips, a tidal wave that hit the fleshy bank. Swallowing not an option, it built in her mouth till it seeped past the corners of her lips encouraging a concerned exhale from Raelyn. Cooper closed her eyes tight, body shaking with effort as Raelyn rummaged through her satchel.

Soft hands touched her face, forcing her to face her friend. “Swallow and open up. It’s alright.” Cooper whined; eyes open wide only to silently plead. “This is going to help, but you need to swallow whatever's in your damn mouth, I don’t want it on me, you hear?”

Reluctantly she listened, trust overwhelming her disgust. Trust that was challenged as a little green pill was dropped into her palm with the instruction to not only take it, but to take it dry.

Torture of the highest degree.

“So, you’ve never been in one of these before,” said Raelyn, sounding half a question and half a statement. More of a statement, really. Sixty-forty, at least. “kinda figured you’d be better, honestly.”

“Ever considered becoming a medic?” snorted Cooper, before wiping her nose and mouth on the back of her sleeve. “Your bedside manner is immaculate.”

With an extravagant eye roll, Raelyn hit her with the back of her clunky wooden hand. “In your dreams, Cooper.”

Dorren Fortress sat in the very centre of Naveer, its tall stone walls stark against the backdrop of green. Solitary, like a lonely thing. It bore no gold nor grandeur, stuck in its own historical complexion; crevices creating wrinkles in its weathered face, its wooden doors a warped mouth. Cooper would have marked it off as abandoned and moved on if it hadn’t been for Hawkins declaring that a break was well in order. She assumed that this was mostly the Fowler twins whinging once more; as if they had stopped throughout their trip so far.

The fortress was set to ruin, completely abandoned save for the four armoured figures patrolling the walls and the fifty-odd people who lived inside, and had done for generations. Those fifty-odd people were far happier away from the rest of the world, and happier still without six strangers standing on their fortified doorstep. Five strangers, for Cooper didn’t acknowledge their navigator. A mixed bag of adventurers, facing off against high stone.

Crossbows pointed out between notches, figures mere shadows against the harsh sunlight. The longer they stared, dangerous statues in the sunlight, the more Cooper acknowledged that this might very well have been the end of the missing prince.

“So, what’s the big plan Captain?” drawled Cooper, squinting up at the silhouettes. If it were up to Cooper, she’d fake her own death and never return, though Hawkins was a stick in the mud who refused to join in on the fun. Faking her death would be marvellous. Very relaxing, she’s heard. Though, in order to fake one’s death, it’s assumed that you must be alive to do so, and failing that you’ve faked too well. Method acting would get her nowhere.

Her question went unanswered, as Hawkins held her hands in what was somewhere between a two-handed wave and a surrender. A rather pathetic sight, truth be told, and a sight short-lived before Raelyn pushed her hands down to be firmly at her side.

“What brings you here?” bellowed a voice too loud to be natural, an amplified, divine boom that sent birds flying from their nests, and whatever creature living in the bushes to find shelter elsewhere. Such a sound rang in Cooper’s ears, long after the voice had ceased.

Hawkins waved again, since that had clearly gone so well last time. “Passing through, we mean no harm.”

They stepped forward, then. The small group of people were watching them cautiously, peering over the edge as if the ragtag crew had the mind to rush them regardless of height and fortification. Their leader - what Cooper assumed was their leader - was young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, but his voice carried authority and wisdom beyond age. He stood with his chest puffed out, backlit by the golden rays. He turned to his fellow guardians before leaving them be, disappearing from the bailey. The large wooden doors opened, and he reappeared in their gaping arch.

Golden eyes and white hair that looked silver, closer to a divine being than anyone that had ever entered the temple. “What brings you here?” he repeated, teeth bared like a dog.

The Twins, much like a singular entity possessing two forms, rolled their eyes in unison, though it was Aiden who spoke up once more. “We’re looking for my brother, Prince Kirran. The crown still has meaning out here, yes? Let us pass intact, if you wish to keep your life.”

He glanced around suspiciously as if the stone walls could hear him, before his eyes settled back on Aiden. A curious gaze that lingered longer than necessary. “You’re Navi.”

He said the word like it was dirty, beneath him. He spat it as if he himself wasn’t also from Naveer. As if he’d sooner roll his tongue over a grater than form those syllables again.

Aiden flashed her perfect set of pearly whites in a strained grin, and returned the stare.

“I am,” she admitted. “Not that it matters, not that it changes anything.”

“What can you tell us about the Ironwoods?” asked Hawkins, voice slightly strained. “That’s where we’re headed, we don’t wish to bother you.”

The guard’s face turned away from them, and there was something… different about his posture. Like he was trying to hide inside his own shoulders, more an armoured reptilian than the grand man he was seconds prior. It was a subtle shift, but Cooper saw it immediately. She didn’t think it was a good sign.

“The Ironwood forest is a place of darkness. You need not go there, you may not come back.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hawkins asked, frowning. She stepped closer to the man, leaning forwards. She was so small before his towering stature, almost laughably so. The great captain of the twelfth, engulfed in the shadow of some lowly village guard.

The guard swallowed, “My father once left me a warning. He warned of the Ironwoods. A great evil, a curse on our land. And now I see it myself, living here. This forest is death, for all who enter it. If you go, I will not stop you, nor will I help. I can only wish you luck, and that they never find you.”

With that, he left once more through the great wooden doors which swung behind him as if automated. The clang of metal echoed into the empty air, the fortress walls now empty. Any evidence that the event took place was gone, now nothing more than a memory.

The words lived on, latching onto Cooper’s brain.

To hope not to be found.