The Curse of Arcadia

They wandered the market a while longer, Ana pointing out old haunts as they passed — a tailor who'd once mended her cloak for free after a particularly bad week, a bookseller whose shelves she used to raid whenever she had coin to spare. Tucked between two buildings, a small shrine still held offerings people left for safe travels.

"You really did know this whole city," Kaelid said, watching her navigate it all with the same effortless familiarity as the night before.

"Small city. Small enough that everyone tends to know everyone, eventually." She smiled, a little crooked at one corner. "I didn't realize how much I missed it until we started walking around today."

"Good missing, or bad missing?"

"Good, mostly." She considered it a moment longer. "Complicated, maybe. But good."

They found the bathhouse easily enough, a modest building near the northern district with separate entrances marked clearly on either side. Ana peeled off toward the women's side without much ceremony.

"I'll meet you back out front," she said. "Take your time. No rush today."

"Sounds good."

They parted ways, and Ana settled into the quiet, steam-filled space a few minutes later, grateful for the solitude after a day spent thoroughly re-immersed in a life she'd left behind. She sank into the warm water slowly, letting it work at the travel-stiffness still lingering in her shoulders, and let her mind wander somewhere it had been circling back to more often than she wanted to admit lately.

"I feel the same.""Sleep well, Anastasia."

She still hadn't recovered from that one. People still used her full name sometimes, but never quite like that — not since her mother, on the rare occasions she'd been serious about something. Hearing it in his voice had done something strange to her chest — immediate, and nothing she'd been remotely prepared for.

This is getting complicated.

She let her head tip back against the edge of the bath, staring up at the steam curling toward the ceiling. It would be easy, in theory, to just name it — to admit, plainly, what she'd been circling around for weeks now without letting herself land on the actual word. But naming it meant deciding what to do about it, and she wasn't sure she was ready for that yet. Not with everything else already in motion — the party, the training, the life they were all still busy building together.

And if it goes wrong, she thought, the old, practical part of her brain immediately supplying the worst-case scenario the way it always did, it doesn't just complicate things between the two of us. It complicates everything. The whole group. That should have been enough to settle it — caution over feeling, practicality over whatever this was. It usually was, for her, on most things.

So why can't I stop thinking about the way he said my name.

She sat with it a while longer, no closer to an answer, letting the warm water do what it could for the parts of her that weren't sore, before finally deciding the question could wait a little longer — today, at least, was supposed to be about Raichas, not about untangling whatever was quietly growing in the space just past friendship.

She finished up not long after, dressed, and made her way back out front, where Kaelid was already waiting, looking more relaxed than he had all week.

"Better?" she asked, falling into step beside him.

"Much better. You?"

"Getting there," she said, which was, in more ways than one, entirely true.

They wandered back toward the market district as the afternoon light started mellowing into early evening, in no particular hurry, content to let the day wind down naturally.

"There's one more place I want to show you," Ana said, glancing at the sky to judge the remaining light. "If we've got time before dinner."

"We've got nothing but time."

She led him down a quieter street, away from the market's noise, toward a modest stone building with a small garden out front — herbs and flowers growing in neat, deliberate rows despite the lingering chill of late winter.

"The healer's shop," Kaelid said, recognizing it from earlier. "Thought you said not tonight."

"I changed my mind." She squared her shoulders at the garden's edge. "Feels different, somehow, after today. Like I earned the right to walk back in instead of just standing outside wondering if I should."

She pushed open the door before he could respond, a small bell chiming overhead, and a woman looked up from behind the counter — silver hair pulled back practically, sharp eyes that immediately softened with recognition.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Anastasia." The word came out warm, almost disbelieving. "It really is you."

"Hello, Silvia." Ana's smile was genuine, if a little nervous around the edges. "I know it's been a while."

"A while." Silvia came around the counter, studying her with the same critical, caring eye Marta had earlier. "You look well. Better than well. Avalon's treating you kindly, it seems."

"It has." Ana glanced back at Kaelid, gesturing him forward. "This is Kaelid."

Silvia's gaze shifted to him, the unhurried assessment of someone who'd spent a lifetime reading people accurately. "The swordsman I've heard mentioned in a letter or two, I'm guessing."

Kaelid blinked. "You've heard about me?"

"Elves gossip too, dear. Word travels, even from Avalon." She said it with a faint, knowing smile that made Ana's ears go pink again, before mercifully turning her attention back to the shop itself. "Come in properly, both of you. Let me actually look at the place through your eyes instead of just standing here reminiscing."

Ana stepped further inside, running her fingers lightly along a familiar counter, eyes tracing shelves of dried herbs and tinctures that clearly hadn't changed much in her absence. Something in her posture eased with every step deeper into the shop — not just visiting a place, Kaelid realized, but letting herself belong there again, if only for a few minutes.

For the first time, Kaelid really looked at Silvia — silver hair, mismatched eyes, one green and one blue, ears faintly pointed just like Ana's — and something clicked into place. Half-breed. Like Ana. I didn't think I'd meet another one.

He didn't say anything, but Silvia caught the look anyway, sharp as ever.

"Ah. He's just now putting it together, I see." She said it to Ana with obvious amusement, not unkindly. "Yes, young man. There are two of us in this shop today. Rarer company than you might think."

"Ana's the first one I've ever met," Kaelid admitted. "Didn't think I'd meet a second."

"There aren't many," Silvia said simply, no further elaboration offered, though something in the way she said it suggested she knew exactly how rare "not many" was. "Small world, in some ways. Smaller than people assume."

Her gaze shifted back to Ana, something quietly proud in it. "I trained her for a short while, back before she left for Avalon. Taught her most of what she knows about the finer points of healing that her grandmother's methods didn't quite cover."

"You never mentioned that," Kaelid said, glancing at Ana.

"Didn't come up." Ana's ears had gone faintly pink again, though this time it looked more like fondness than embarrassment. "Silvia's the reason I'm actually good at this, not just naturally gifted at it. There's a difference."

"Flattery," Silvia said, waving it off, though she looked pleased regardless. "Sit, both of you, if you've got the time. I want to actually hear how Avalon's been treating you, not just guess from letters."

She really did leave a whole life behind for this, Kaelid thought, watching her reconnect with something that clearly still mattered to her, and with someone who'd clearly shaped more of who she'd become than he'd fully understood until just now. For us. For the party.

The thought sat heavier than he expected, equal parts humbling and quietly, fiercely grateful.

They spent a while longer in the shop, Silvia showing them around with the easy pride of someone genuinely fond of the place, occasionally pulling Ana into quiet asides about specific ingredients and techniques that clearly meant more to the two of them than simple nostalgia.

"Your Earth magic's come along," Silvia observed at one point, watching Ana demonstrate something small and practical with a nearby plant. "Cruder than I'd like, still, but functional. You've been getting real combat experience, I take it."

"More than I'd like, some weeks," Ana admitted.

"Good. Theory only takes a mage so far." Silvia's gaze flicked briefly to Kaelid, something knowing in it again. "I imagine you've had plenty of opportunity to practice on him specifically."

"Every single week," Ana corrected, though she was smiling this time, and Kaelid raised his hands in surrender.

"Not my fault the world keeps throwing ogres at me."

"That's exactly your fault, somehow," Ana said. "I haven't worked out the mechanism yet, but I'm confident it's you."

Silvia laughed, warm and genuine, and the conversation drifted easily from there — Silvia asking after Ana's mother, after Eclipse, after whether Ana had found time to actually rest since leaving, each question answered with the patient honesty of someone who clearly trusted the person asking.

Eventually the light outside began shifting toward evening, and Ana glanced reluctantly toward the door.

"We should get back. The others will be waiting for dinner."

"Of course." Silvia walked them to the door herself, pulling Ana into one more hug before letting her go. "Come back before you leave the city, if you can manage it. I mean that."

"I will. Promise."

"And you," Silvia added, turning to Kaelid with a look that was somehow both warm and faintly threatening at once, "take care of her out there. She's better at taking care of everyone else than herself, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I did," Kaelid said. "Working on it."

"Good answer." Silvia seemed satisfied, stepping back to let them go. "Safe travels, both of you."

They left the shop as the sky deepened toward proper evening, Ana quiet beside him for a few steps.

"Thank you," she said eventually. "For letting me have all of this today, without making it weird."

"I was happy to." He said it simply, no performance in it — just the plain truth.

"You could have made it weird, though. A lot of people would've gotten bored, or impatient, watching me wander around reminiscing all day." She glanced over at him, something genuine and a little vulnerable in it. "You didn't. That mattered more than you probably realize."

He didn't have anything clever to add to that, mostly because there wasn't anything he actually wanted to say — just her, walking beside him, the day settling comfortably into memory behind them. So he let it sit, warm and quiet between them, content in the simple fact of being there rather than needing to fill the space with something more.

They made their way back through Raichas's darkening streets toward the inn, unhurried, whatever the rest of the evening had waiting for them still a little ways off yet.