Elyre wanted to focus on her research.
According to Princess Nymphica's prescription, plants had to be watered with the medicine in order to get healthy. This meant if the cure could indeed help, great quantities of it would be needed in the future! Elyre was thinking about this.
Spinofolia purpurea. This was the last herb in her list. Elyre asked all merchants but nobody had it. She frowned. It seemed it wasn't available. She was so very impatient to collect all the ingredients for the cure, but now she had to wait…
Also, spinofolia purpurea was a local plant. How could it be unavailable if it was indigenous?
Now she had to wait... -.-
She wouldn't like to get out of the city and roam the forests alone to find the plant. She wasn't so good with directions, and she was a bit afraid she might get lost.
Elyre went back to leave her purchases in her room. She hadn't seen Aristhaeus the whole afternoon. She didn't know where he was.
She visited Heliona in order to thank her personally. In the morning she had only sent thanks via Tarrin.
Heliona was in her study together with her apprentice Tarrin. They were both curious about Elyre's progress on her task, and she happily told them about it.
"If you want to pick spinofolia purpurea, you can do it," Heliona said. "It can indeed be found near the city. You can go by yourself. It is not very far away and the roads are good… Some merchants will probably have it soon, but they won't go into the forest just for this one herb. Why wait for them? And the weather has been so nice recently."
"Perhaps you are right," Elyre considered the idea.
"…But you should be careful not to lose your way," Heliona continued. "The forest is small. It cannot even be called a forest in comparison to Wild Wood. There are vast fields of grass and herbs and almost no trees… You can ask local people for help if you get lost. There are always some locals picking herbs."
"Yes," Elyre agreed.
"But…" Tarrin's voice was heard. "Spinofolia is a rare herb and Elyre has to go deep into the forest to find it… I have been there many times. Perhaps I should go with her just in case?"
"What a great idea!" Heliona exclaimed. "Of course you should go. I was about to suggest it, but I was afraid you might be busy."
Elyre was more than happy.
"Elyre, let's go then," Tarrin said. They were walking down the halls of the library. "If you don't mind, we can wait near the city gates for some other pickers and go together as a group."
"Why?" Elyre wondered. "Is it dangerous? I thought it wasn't…"
"Ah, not because it's dangerous," he replied. "I suppose this is just a tradition… People usually go out of the city in larger groups. They can talk, spend some time together… and of course also help each other."
Elyre and Tarrin were just about to get out of Heliona's study when they bumped into Aristhaeus. He did not seem to be that enthusiastic about the idea of leaving the city. In the recent days, he had learned too many things about Elyre to believe that going out of the city was a hundred percent safe. There was something too strange about the whole situation.
"So now you have nothing better to do and decide to risk your safety?" he said in an unamused voice.
She had just told him she was going to pick some herbs out of town, and she was just about to look for him and tell him. She couldn't understand his answer.
In a moment, the features on Aristhaeus's face seemed to soften and he said quietly,
"Elyre, how can you go out of the city after all the attacks on us? …I shall come with you."
"Tarrin knows the way. And he said there aren't any poisonous snakes or dangerous predators so near the city. And there are a lot of people," Elyre was trying to explain.
***
They went to pick some herbs out of the city. Some other people joined them, forming a pretty large group of six. They had to cross fields in order to reach the woods further away from the city. They went deeper and deeper into the grass fields until they finally reached the undergrowth.
Elyre managed to find spinofolia purpurea.
But Aristhaeus's fears proved to be reasonable. The others were as far from being anxious as they could be.
On the way back, Aristhaeus felt a strong magical presence. Somebody had attempted to hide it. It was the work of another mage, but Aristhaeus was sensitive enough to notice it. It wasn't easy to trick the archmage and not every cover was as good as the one Elyre's amulet provided.
In a matter of seconds, eight mages attacked them. The battle was short-lived, but one of the mages threw a dagger which stabbed Aristhaeus in the shoulder. Aristhaeus could defeat all of them, but he needed some time simply because of their number. Perhaps half of the mages tried at one point or another to attack Elyre. Someone could have thought that the attackers were after spinofolia purpurea, but this was impossible. Deep into the forest, there was plenty of it for all of them.
The other herb-pickers screamed loudly, lost hold of their baskets and scattered their herbs.
Finally, the result was that six mages lay on the ground and none of them was Aristhaeus. Two mages had escaped. Aristhaeus was sorry. If it weren't for Elyre, he would catch and torture one of them until he understood who stood behind the attack. Now, he just observed their silhouettes disappearing in the distance.
Aristhaeus removed the dagger from his shoulder.
Elyre felt extremely guilty, thinking that this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't insisted on coming here to gather spinofolia purpurea. Why did she have to be in a hurry?... But they had assured her it was safe. And indeed it was so close to the city. Still she shouldn't have been so reckless. She felt a mixture of worry and frustration.
"It's not your fault." Aristhaeus said, "You couldn't have suspected this could happen."
"But you expected it from the start. You didn't want to leave the city." She kept blaming herself mentally that she had never managed to foresee the danger. She wasn't used to anticipating danger.