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Chapter 67: Cider

As soon as his hand left the helm, the vision vanished, and silence crashed back down over him. It did nothing to still his hammering heart. Arwin took a step back, staring at the plain helm on the ground and pressing a hand to his chest.

What the hell was that?

Arwin crept closer to the helm, reaching out and brushing the backs of his fingers across it. There was no response. It was just a piece of metal. He carefully picked the helm back up, extending his senses toward it once more.

And then, almost as if it had never left, the faint whisper of wind returned. Arwin hurriedly set the helm back down on the anvil, not willing to summon the vision forth again. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he let it run its course, and he didn’t want to find out until he was actually ready to forge it anew.

Arwin tucked the helm under his arm and rose to his feet, pushing the rickety door back to stick his head outside. To his surprise, it was already well into the night. The moon hung high overhead, over halfway through its trip back toward the horizon.

How much time did I spend in those visions? It felt like I sank into them almost instantly, but that clearly isn’t the case.

It was a question for tomorrow. Standing around in the middle of the night and waiting for someone to see him was a damn fool thing to do, so he closed the old door and strode toward the tavern.

As usual, the tavern was somehow darker than it was outside. Arwin squinted as his eyes tried and failed to completely adjust to the dark. The lanterns had all been snuffed for the night, so the only thing he had to see by was memory.

He worked his way across the common room and up the stairs, moving slowly to avoid running into anything too loudly and waking someone up. After successfully completing his ascent and finding his room, Arwin lowered himself into his bed and laid back, letting his head hit the mattress with a soft thump.

It wasn’t as dark in his room as it was in the tavern, likely because Lillia was farther away. And, even though the amount of light was so faint that it might as well have not been there, it was still enough to bore into Arwin’s eyes like screws and ward sleep away.

He laid on his back, his mind rebelling against his desire to rest as it ran through the events of the previous day over and over. Things were only made worse by the presence of the room just behind him, now devoid of its occupant.

Arwin gave it another few minutes before cursing softly under his breath and rolling to his feet, resisting the urge to pound a fist into the bed. Hands clenched, he headed back down the stairs and into the tavern.

I wish the damn hearth was ready. At least I could do something through the night instead of just sitting around here like a damned idiot. Can’t sleep. Can’t work. All I can do is stand around.

He made his way over to the doorway and poked his head out, checking the position of the moon. It felt like it had been hours, but somehow, the shimmering sphere of silver had only inched ever so slightly across the sky.

Figures.

Arwin turned back, then nearly jumped straight out of his skin as he saw something shift in the shadows. He was halfway to summoning Verdant Blaze to his hands when a shimmer of pale moonlight forced its way through the darkness just enough to illuminate purple skin.

“Why are you awake?” Arwin asked in a hushed whisper.

“The same reason you are,” Lillia replied dryly. “The light isn’t going to help you sleep any better, though.”

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“I’m not sure the darkness will either.”

“I’ve got something that might,” Lillia said. Arwin could just barely pick up the flickers of movement as she walked across the tavern and into the kitchen. He hesitated for a moment, then followed after her into the darkness.

The faint trickle of liquid pouring into a mug led him toward the back of the long kitchen, but it took him a little too far and he nearly walked straight into her before she stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Here,” Lillia said.

“I have no idea where here is.”

Lillia’s hand found his and pushed a small cup into it.

“What is this?” Arwin asked, raising it to his lips and sniffing at it. His nose scrunched and he almost doubled over coughing at the strong scent – berries, mixed with a sour undertone like the greenest apple.

“Painful,” Lillia said, a note of humor in her voice.

Arwin shrugged, then tipped the cup back, draining it in one go. Fire stung his throat and worked through his chest like the fingers of a vengeful ghost. Arwin suppressed a cough, barely even able to notice the faint but pleasant aftertaste.

“Okay, now I really want to know what that was.”

“Something new I figured out,” Lillia replied. “Cider. I think.”

“How is this going to help me sleep? I feel like I swallowed hot coal. Tasty coal, admittedly, but still coal.”

“You’re thinking about it instead of other things, aren’t you?”

Arwin paused. Lillia wasn’t wrong, and she took his lack of answer as affirmation.

“Unfortunately, it’s far from a cure,” Lillia said. “It just makes sitting around a little more tolerable.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got more of that?”

“Gave you the last of it.”

“Sorry.”

A shift in the darkness marked what Arwin suspected to be a shrug.

“I wouldn’t have given it to you if I was going to drink it myself. I’m pretty sure it’s poisonous.”

Arwin almost laughed. “You fed me poison?”

“You eat magic. You’ll live. It’s only mild poison.”

Her footsteps headed off in the direction of her room, then paused. Arwin considered heading back to the tavern and trying to sit at the counter and wait for the morning to come, but that idea sounded about as appealing as trying to go back to bed.

He followed after Lillia, and her steps resumed a second later. Her actual room was even darker than the rest of the tavern, and he only managed to find where she was by following the rustle of straw.

“I’m not going to sit on anything important, am I?” Arwin asked. “I’ve got no blasted idea where I am.”

“You’re fine. Just straw.”

Arwin sat down on the makeshift mattress, then scooted back until his back was pressed against the wall. Lillia shifted beside him, copying his position. Neither of them spoke for several minutes.

“Of all the situations I would have seen in the future, I think this is the one farthest from anything I could have pictured,” Lillia said, breaking the silence.

Arwin grunted. “Tell me about it. I think the world got twisted on its head some time ago and nothing has been right since.”

“I don’t suppose anyone is going to twist it back?”

“I’m not sure if I want them to,” Arwin admitted. “If anything, I feel bad for our replacements. I wonder if they’re the same as we were.”

“It took us years to finally kill each other. I figure they can last until we get around to figuring that out ourselves,” Lillia said.

“Lofty goals,” Arwin said, shifting to try and get more comfortable. The wall was a little colder than he’d thought it would be, but it was better than just sitting without support – and he wasn’t about to sprawl out on Lillia’s bed. “We’ve got to deal with our much smaller problems before we can even think about going up against the Adventurer’s Guild.”

“We will,” Lillia said, a note of steel entering her voice. “It might not be soon, but we will. They’ll get what’s coming to them – just like the Iron Hounds will.”

“Except sooner rather than later for them. The new hearth will be ready tomorrow,” Arwin said. “And I think I know how I’m going to forge my helmet. I’ll start on your armor after that. We’ll have to deal with them before the Wyrm horde, or the entire city is going to have much bigger problems.”

“That could be the best time to strike,” Lillia pointed out. “Chaos makes it difficult to react. The larger the organization, the worse it’ll be.”

“Maybe,” Arwin agreed. “But I don’t want to let anyone else die. Not if I can help it.”

Lillia let out a soft laugh. “Still the Hero, even without the Class. Using the horde would be distasteful anyway. I want them to know why they died, not cut them down in the midst of panic.”

Arwin was pretty sure he should have warned Lillia off getting too caught up in revenge, but he couldn’t help but feel the same way. He let out a huff. After everything he’d told Reya, he was still nothing more than a hypocrite.

Arwin shifted again, and his shoulder brushed against Lillia’s in the darkness. Her arm was much warmer than the cold wall pressed against his back. Before Arwin could pull his arm back and apologize, she leaned slightly into him.

Neither of them said anything. They’d already spent all the words they had to share for the night, and now all that remained was the night and their looming thoughts. But, as Arwin’s breathing slowed, he couldn’t help but wonder if Lillia’s drink had been a little more effective than she’d said.

He still wasn’t anywhere near falling asleep and his heart still ached for what could have been, but the faintest flicker of warmth split through the cold, bringing with it the promise of solace.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get through the night.