Chapter 123: The Aching Doesn’t Stop
Since the days were short, Irene only had a couple of hours of sunlight before she was cast into a world of darkness and felt paranoid at each turn. She remembered exactly the direction she needed to go to get home, but it was still jarring to do it all by herself.
Luckily there weren’t any complicated twists and turns and only one bridge to cross before she would find the inn.
For a long time, all Irene heard were hoofbeats and the sound of her breathing as she tried to calm herself down from all she had experienced that day.
Times like that, she wondered if she should have just come clean in the first place about who she was. It was her father’s idea to hide herself, but it had complicated things so very much.
Not only was her relationship with Felix strained because of her secret, but she was experiencing something she couldn’t tell anyone about. Her only option was to power through and hope that it didn’t hurt so bad each time it came or it might make her an awful apprentice.
The doubts followed and caused her to wonder if that was the reason women didn’t try to be knights in the first place. Was it simply too fussy to have to deal with something like that when dealing with monsters or traveling for a long time?
She dreaded the hurdles she would have to climb with this added complication, but if that’s what it took to be the best knight she could be, Irene imagined there was no other choice.
If she could get through this moment, she could get through practically anything.
It took hours, but the girl finally made it to the very inn she had been seeking in the middle of the night. Luckily the innkeeper lived close by so, even though he was resting when she arrived, he still was able to get her a room in exchange for coins.