Page 3 of Terragnata and the Heir of the Earth

“N—no problem,” I stammered, looking at the man. He pushed back the hood of his black cloak, revealing a face so carved it almost looked gaunt. It would have been unfair to describe him as anything but beautiful. Eerily so, his beauty seemed impossible. His eyes were as blue as deep water.

“May I help you with something?” Miralvda’s tone sharpened into something harsher than I’d ever heard her use with a customer.

The man’s head inclined slightly. He inquired about her selection of silver cuffs when I saw them. A collection of men scattered throughout the crowd—the largest men I’d ever seen, just like the one before me, with angled jaws and black cloaks drawn low over their faces. They were not akin to the usual types I saw at the market: scraggly old traders, pompously dressedcapitolites, or young adventure seekers. I knew at once they were all together, even though they were dispersed throughout the market, some examining goods, some meandering quietly, some surveying the crowd.

I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Were they soldiers? They weren’t in uniform, at least no uniform I’d ever seen before. And how could they all be soimpossiblylarge?

“Terra,” my best friend Gia broke my trance, appearing by my side. Her empty basket indicated she’d already dropped off her mother’s goods.

“Are you finished? We could walk back together.” She pointedly ignored the man next to us, who was shooting me a glance every other second.

I exhaled, relieved. “Yes, let’s.” I gave Miralvda a nod, who returned it in kind. Gia just linked our arms and steered us away from the table. We slipped out a small side exit next to Miralvda’s stand.

When we were far enough, I let out another breath. “Did you see those men?” I asked, hushed. “The huge ones, with black cloaks. Sprinkled throughout the market like… ants.”

Gia shrugged, the motion lined with a slight tension in her shoulders. “Foreigners, most likely.”

I shuddered. “They gave me the strangest feeling. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

Gia gave me a sidelong glance that could have been mistaken for an eye roll. “You just want to get back to whatever novel is currently tucked under your mattress.” She grinned, deftly changing the subject. “Matthias, was that his name? The broad-faced knight with long waving locks of gold and washboard abdominals?”

I threw her a glance of equal amusement. “You would like to know, wouldn’t you?”

Two and a half miles stretched between our homes and the town center. Gia’s cottage was past mine, up the hill, but still opposite the forest. I loved my home, I did. But the past year or so… I’d been having dreams of grander lands, palaces filled with sparkling gowns and smoldering candles. Ships sailing fast over open ocean. They weren’t always pleasant. No, like the one the night before, sometimes the dreams were terrifying. But each morning I woke, it felt like something was yawning inside of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, as if my view would change upon reopening them.

When I did, I only saw the familiar trail home.

“You okay?” Gia’s face held genuine concern. Leave it to my best friend to never miss a thing.

I shrugged, shaking my head. Shaking free the fantasies and thoughts of a world beyond our small town.

“I’m just thinking about Spring Day tomorrow. I’m nervous, that’s all.”

But I wasn’t thinking about Spring Day at all, I was thinking about what came after. The safe and predictable life of domesticity prescribed to a girl of my age. It wasn’t that I didn’t want it. The promise of my own house and a family to warm it didn’t soundbad. But something about the thought of that life beginningnow,manifesting so soon?—

“Nervous? Well, of course you are! It is your first, after all. I’d be concerned if you weren’t. Especially given Mav will be in attendance.” Gia gave me a small, knowing smile.

Her comment earned a healthy cheek reddening from me. Gia was three years my senior, and while she did not qualify to attend Spring Day due to her spoken-for status, her brother, Mav, did.

“I don’t want to talk about Mav right now.” I tried and failed to lighten my tone. “It’s not that I don’t love him fiercely, you know I do. But I—I don’t think I’m ready.” A fabricated imageof me perched on a ship’s bow, wind rippling past my face, appeared in my mind.

As always, a sudden pang of guilt followed the fantasy. Mav would make a fine match. Everyone considered me lucky to have his interest.

“You two were so close when you were young,” Gia protested quietly. “You played together endlessly—so much I even felt left out for a time. And the other girls say he’s not terrible to look at…”

It was true, Mav was one of the more handsome boys in our village, athletic and strongly built. He had the same features as Gia, clear eyes set amidst pale skin, chocolate hair, strong brows, and dark sweeping lashes. He was good-natured, quick, and close to me in age—nineteen, nearing twenty. I spent countless hours with him in the hill grasses and forest creeks until our mothers finally pulled us apart for propriety’s sake. It was then I was forced into the open arms of Gia, to make amore appropriatefriendship. And although she preferred gossip and hairstyles to trapping frogs for further study, we became great friends.

“And,” she continued, “we’d be double sisters. How could you not want that?” Her clear eyes questioned me, penetrative as they always were. I fixed my gaze on the path ahead, shading her from any guilt crossing my face. We had talked about it in our younger years, rejoicing in the possibility that we would cement our friendship in sisterhood. But back then, I couldn’t have imagined leaving Argention. And now…

“At least help me with my hair.” I poked her in the ribs, hoping my diversion wasn’t as obvious as it felt. “You know I’m complete rubbish when it comes to styling.”

Gia squeezed my hand. “I wouldn’t miss it. Tomorrow, one hour before sundown. And you better be washed when I getthere.” She practically skipped away as I veered off the path and towards home.

Our small cottage was nestled at the edge of a thickly wooded forest, which butted up to the foot of the Argen hills. My father and brothers had built it when we’d moved to Argention from Lahar. I was only eleven or twelve then, but I still remembered the care they’d used to stack planks of piñon on one another. The precise angles of slanted edges met at a point each time, resulting in a geometrical pattern mirroring the layers of mountains.

I crossed the small field before my cottage. The uneasy feeling from the market, which had grown silent on the walk home, spread wide again in my gut. I reached the front door and spun around, half expecting to startle something or someone. But I only saw Gia disappearing over her hill. Nothing strange, nothing to validate the turmoil coiling in my belly.

---