Page 63 of Lore of the Wilds

“The Exile?”

“Come on. I’ll show you.” He raised his voice, clearly not caring that Isla and Asher were still asleep just behind him. “And Finn, you come, too! It’s almost time for your shift!”

Lore hid her smirk when she noticed Finndryl’s perpetual frown deepen. He grabbed a leaf to mark his place in his book before standing up and sliding his boots on. Lore, too, donned her boots and scarf, wrapping the latter tightly over her ears, and followed Gryph’s massive frame out the door.

Once outside, she stopped to look around. When they had arrived last night, it had been dark, with no lanterns to light the street. But now, in the gray light of morning, she could see that their stairs led down to a small stone and dirt courtyard with a single tree in the middle that reached up toward the sky. Narrow alleyways branched out in different directions, all lined by apartments.

Gryph’s dwelling was also on an alley, with another two-story building beside it and more across the way. The buildings were made from stone, and some looked worse for wear, showing off stone that was covered in moss or that had chipped away. The roofs sagged with age, many of them missing shingles. Smoke rose from chimneys as people warmed up their breakfast or morningtea inside their homes, and below in the courtyard, children played under the watchful eyes of their parents. Snippets of conversation carried on the wind in languages Lore had never heard before.

Here, there weren’t just dark fae. There was a small boy, wrestling a tree nymph child by the tree. The boy was careful of his two small tusks; even from a distance Lore could see that they ended in two sharp points. An orc child, she thought. She’d read about them in the library.

Old men sat on their sagging wooden balconies smoking pipes and playing board games.

Lore felt a sharp pang of nostalgia for home. This wasn’t like Wyndlin Castle, where the servants stayed out of sight in dark corridors, while the royalty lived like... well royalty, in abundant extravagance.

Behind the row of dwellings was a steep drop-off into a forest. This early, and on such an overcast day, Lore couldn’t see far into it at all—thick tendrils of fog curled between the trees, blanketing the edge of the hill and reaching toward the balcony Lore leaned against. Most would probably be wary of the dark forest, but she felt that the forest was somehow calling to her.

Perhaps the lonely forest recognized the lonely ache that permeated her core.

She tucked the longing for home away, burying the ache, and followed Gryph and Finndryl down the narrow stairs.

The Exile was, apparently, the pub below their residence, the one that Gryph owned. Its true name, which was carved into a wooden sign above a simple image of a dragon in flight, was the Dragon’s Exile.

Lore avoided walking directly beneath the sign; it was hanging crookedly by a single hook that did not look secure. That was an accident waiting to happen.

Gryph pulled a set of keys from his inner coat pocket but didn’t try to unlock the pub quite yet, as someone had fallenasleep on the stairs, blocking the door. Gryph nudged him with his boot. “Aye, Flix. Wake up. I told ye you can’t be sleeping out here. I don’t run an inn.”

Flix opened bloodshot eyes and smiled at Gryph. He was missing more than a few teeth and Lore could smell him from where she stood a few paces behind Finndryl, who didn’t appear to be surprised by this exchange.

“Gryph, good morning! I, uh, didn’t sleep here. I just came early.”

“Riiight.” Gryph drew out the word, emphasizing his disbelief. “You need to go home to your children, Flix. Wash up and then come back. I’ll be open all day, just like I always am.”

Flix stood slowly, then stepped out of the way. Lore spied his dirt-stained, wrinkled hands and how they shook with small tremors.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Flix said. “Jus’ gonna have one drink and then I’ll head home. Great idea.” His words petered off in unintelligible mumbling.

Gryph shook his head but didn’t bar him from entering behind him.

Lore had a feeling this was a conversation they had had plenty of times, and Gryph hadn’t really expected it to go any other way. Lore didn’t know the dark fae’s—Flix’s—story, but there were a few like that back at home. They drank way too much and neglected their partners and children, driven by the same haunted look that lurked in Flix’s eyes.

The pub was dark, as the sky, thick with clouds, barely let in any light. Lore thought she smelled rain lingering in the air, refreshing the stale scent it had held the night before. Gryph went straight to the bar and grabbed a box of long matches to light the candles in the wall sconces.

Flix grabbed a seat at the bar, placing his head in his hands as he waited for one of them to pour him a drink and ease hishangover. Finndryl disappeared through a door at the end of the bar that Lore hadn’t noticed the night before.

She hoped it was a kitchen. Her stomach growled and unlike Flix, what Lore needed to ease her hangover was food and lots of it. She followed Finndryl through the door.

Her hunch proved correct, and she entered a large kitchen. A huge brick oven stood in the center of the room, with brick arches on all four sides. In the center of the oven was a massive iron pot suspended from the ceiling above a bed of coal. Beside the oven stood a long wooden table, perfect for preparing food. On the table was an old, well-loved cutting board, a pan for frying, and an iron kettle.

Behind the table was a small bundle of firewood. Along one wall hung cooking knives, more pans, a few dried herbs, and a small piece of dried meat. On the table beneath the herbs was a small, half-eaten wheel of cheese and some dried potatoes with buds growing out of them. The wall farthest away from Lore was lined with more barrels of spirits—some large, some small. High up near the ceiling, long narrow windows let light in, and Lore could see dust dancing in the rays.

She immediately decided she loved this room. It reminded her of home and of Eshe cooking for the children.

Finndryl grabbed a few logs and some smaller sticks. He set them onto the coals of the banked fire before cranking a lever built into one of the brick arches around the cookstove. His muscles strained against the sleeves of his tunic. The giant cook pot rose toward the ceiling and, once it was high enough, he struck a match, coaxing the flames to ignite the fresh logs.

Lore grabbed a kettle from the table, checked it was clean, and walked over to the water tap to fill it. Tea would do all of them good, and even from the doorway, she could tell some of the herbs hanging up were dandelion leaves, which were perfect for tea. She rummaged through the small apothecary chest sitting on the table and found a few dried lavender buds and a small honeycomb wrapped in cloth.

It wasn’t coffee, but tea was better than nothing. She stirred the leaves and herbs into the kettle and placed the large pot onto the coals.

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