Riya had saved many young kids who were the targets of the Dealer alongside Silverfang, aka Sil. But she had never seen one this peculiar before. Riya was only 10 years old when the wars began. The reason for the war too was never clear. Some claimed power struggle and some said deception. The others suggested rebellion.
The first war was like a scar in the history of the world. The biggest empires colliding with each other, but the ones actually hurt were the commoners in between. Riya hailed from a tiny union, Lar Territory. It was a peaceful union of commoners under sovereign rule. They had a commoner chief who would look after them.
Her father was a hunter and her mother and brothers would manage the farmland. She mostly stuck around her peers dreaming of visiting the Fiera Empire. She was a spoilt kid. She was the smallest in a family of 7, her father, mother, 4 brothers and her. They were happy. Until the commander of Rowan attacked their territory.
It happened in a second. One hour ago, she was laughing with her friends, teasing the girl who just got engaged. She was awaiting dinner, as it was her favorite dish tonight. After all, the harvest was plentiful. She was determined to ask her parents to send her to academy of scholars, just like her third brother.
She had got up to go home, when all of a sudden. Horns were blown. Some sort of thumping noise filled the town, The girls were scared. They knew what it meant. Riya being a 10 year old was unable to process anything. The other girls knew, if they were caught, they would be sold or worse killed. They immediately took off, holding Riya's hand.
When Riya finally understood what it meant, Life felt frozen. It was not supposed to happen this way. That single line haunted her. She prayed desperately to God, she took out her chain from her neck and prayed and prayed, she even begged. Let her family be safe. She didn't want that scholarship chance, she didn't want a lover, she didn't even want cute clothes or new shoes anymore. Just her family. Please please....
The soldiers caught up to the girls. They chained them and took them to their camp, Riya watched as her chain fell back among the corpse of the young lord whom she had seen just an hour ago. The older girls were asked to serve the soldiers. Whereas the younger ones, were just kept chained aside.
Had it been a week or more? Riya didn't know. Out of the total 18 girls captured only 11 survived till then. Riya barely got food.
At first she refused to eat. She cried and begged for her mother. The soldiers replied by giving her a kick in her stomach and laughing away. Her morale was broken. The next day she was given a single slice of bread. She gobbled it up and remained still like a doll. She didn't want to live anymore. But the only thing keeping her alive was the tiny hope that she could see her parents again.
The next few days passed on like that as they were crossing the desert. There was another group of soldiers stationed just a bit far from them. Riya could understand what the commander was speaking. She had learnt the official language to write letters to her third brother. She was not so great in it. But she could understand.
The commander panicked and was asking soldiers to go back, when they turned another battalion of soldiers, From Rowan appeared. It didn't make any sense to Riya. Why was the commander of Rowan afraid of his own country?
Soon all hell broke loose. There was fight between three groups all bearing the same flag. It turned out that, This group, who attacked Lar territory were just a mercenary group recruited in Rowan. Their battalion was just supposed to scare the Sovereign of Lar into agreeing to support Rowan. The attack on Lar was never meant to happen.
The real battalion had been searching for them and came across the Lar territory's Talon province, the hometown of Riya, the whole town was massacred with 0 survivors. The real commander asked the mercenary's motive. The reply shook Riya.
Their reply was that Lar territory was against mercenaries, The use of mercenaries and their entry was forbidden. This was like a revenge.
Riya was frozen. The bastard who hurt her, her friends and her land were just some mercenaries who didn't understand orders? Her head hurt, She could hear her heart thumping as none of her thoughts made any sense to her. She took an arrow from the ground, in the middle of all the fighting she looked calm as she made her way towards he mercenary commander. She had no knowledge in war or fighting.
But she did know hunting. Her father would teach her some techniques so that she too could get food to the table. She hated it, as she felt it was not girly. Looking back now, She would have killed to laugh and learn again with her father. She reached him as he was killed by the real leader of Rowan. She looked angrily towards him and supported the head of the mercenary commander who was coughing up blood.
Without a second of rest, she took the arrow and pierced it into his eyes. He screamed and thrashed about but she looked on without a single bit of pity. She took the arrow out and pierced it in another. She was going to continue that all over his body but the commander of Rowan took her away. He carried her and consoled her.
He took all of them to Lar territory's Falcon province, The capital, and made sure all young girls were adopted. He made sure they were all good families. Now that it was Riya's turn. Riya didn't want to go anywhere else. She just held onto the commander's leg.
The commander carried her in his arms and said.
"Phillip, My name is Phillip."
"Riya", She said.
"Riya, do you want to come with me?", he asked.
"Yes.", she said
"Can I adopt you?", He asked.
"No.", she said.
"Why?", He asked.
"I know my parents are alive... I want to find them.", She said.
The commander thought about it, They didn't find the bodies of her family. The only family which wasn't killed. The weird thing was that this news wasn't known by Riya. He didn't crush her hope. Usually the runaways do find a place and job in another countries. But since the war started the systems crumbled, making it very hard to issue a search.
"Fine, but will you trust me?". He asked. It was difficult, but she felt safer near him.
"Yes."
"I will take you to a place, it is a safe place. It will also help you in your goal. What do you say?", He asked
"Yes, I will go.", Riya said.
The commander took her under his wing, he joined her in as a servant girl, but in reality he was training her. He was honest with her, he wanted her to kill one person and she would be free to do whatever. She agreed in a condition that he would help her find her family.
Time flew and she was 17 years old when she killed the person she was raised to kill, the King of Rowan. She thought she would be okay, but killing a person was harder than she thought. She was traumatized. The commander began his search for her parents and her brother who was a student in the academy. The problem was that the academy had long since dissolved. Phillip did manage to find the records of her brother.
Her brother was studying magic, A rare course. Almost all of the students have a loyalty agreement to a country, stating to be their personal wizards. He checked in Rowan, but there wasn't any wizard who had hailed from Lar territory.
He didn't give up and went on searching. He couldn't find a single lead. He apologized to Riya, claiming his incompetence was a sign of old age. He did give her a piece of information, In Ezekiel Empire, There is a mercenary group run by a person, famously known as the Dealer. He holds information on every wizard that is born, died and living.
Riya thanked him for the information and left to Ezekiel Empire. Upon meeting the Dealer, He made a deal with her (pun intended) He asked her 30 years of her service in exchange for the info. She agreed to it. The Dealer would give her tiny bits of info after her every mission.
She soon went up in ranks to be the second most strongest in the group. She then met Sil, Silverfang, who was the top killer in town. She hated all mercenaries due to her past and hated herself to be one. But Sil, he healed her. He too lost his family to war. Both healed each other and loved each other.
After 10 years of constant war, The Empires declared peace. It wasn't for forever though. The Empires just needed a break to grow again as they exhausted their resources. They got married three years back. When she had turned 27. She knew Sil's weakness, it was young children. It was mostly the fact that he was too kind to kill young kids. She often helped Sil save them and fabricate the evidence.
The Dealer warned her that he wouldn't give any information if she continued helping Sil do so. But Riya didn't care anymore, she was tired of all the searching, she had been all over the continent but couldn't find her brother nor her family. She felt the thought of her family being alive was just an imagination, a mirage her mind created to let her survive.
The wars began again from Last month, this time the war was mainly concentrated between Lozano Empire and the Kamaj Empire. Riya and Sil along with Kyle decided to overthrow Dealer and his malpractices. Their influence on the mercenaries was good enough for that to work out. The only problem was when? But now the finally did it. But she never expected the reason to be a young girl.
Among these all children she saved, a lot of them were illegitimate children of Nobles, thieves, Heirs. Many held a fire in their eyes, a burning desire to live. She had praised them for it, but comparing those to the fire in Eleni's. It was like comparing a spark to the Sun.
Eleni was weird, The first weird thing, being her very loose dress, and cloak which obviously belonged to an adult. The next thing was her blonde hair. No commoner had it. Everyone knows that. Only nobles would posses blonde hair. The third thing was the weird symbol on the cloak she wore. It was only half as the cloak was cut. The young girl's name, Eleni, at the first glance it looks like a commoner's name, but it was too perfect to be one. All the senses in Riya tingled. This girl was not normal. Not even by a small chance.
The girl was hiding something. Something very dangerous. She tried to calm down.
"Mother.", Elle/Eleni said.
"Uh..Yes.", Riya replied.
"You have a kid in your belly?", she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"Yes.", Riya said smiling as she sat comfortably.
"Then why must I call you mother? We aren't a family, you, that man and your baby are one.", Elle said.
"It's a disguise. You see those bad men who tried to kill you, there might be some more where we are going. By hiding your identity we can protect you.", Riya replied.
"I see.", She said.
"You hungry?", Sil asked with a smile.
"Yes... father.", She said and ate alongside her new family.
"So, tell us, where are you from? Have you got any parents?", Sil asked.
"I don't. I am from... uh... Ezekiel Temple.", She said.
"I see, you are an orphan?", Sil asked.
"Yes.", Elle said.
" Alright. You can relax and live calmly beside us. We won't harm you and will take care of you. But you must make yourself useful. You can't live a life like a princess.", Sil said.
"I know, I am a commoner.", Elle said.
"What?", Sil asked bewildered.
"Yes... father, I am not a noble, though I have Blonde hair.", Elle said.
"But... Alright fine. Elle", Sil said still unable to process the information.
The whole atmosphere was weird. Sil was wondering about who would want to kill this young girl, that too for 30 million? He was thinking whether his decision to save her at the expense of his best friend worth it. Just what was Elle hiding?
Riya was troubled at the unclear identity of Elle, scared of the possible future. She placed a hand on her belly. Her dream future of raising her kid with love seemed to go further away from her.
Eleni turned to sleep. Her thoughts running through her mind didn't let her fall asleep. Was she finally safe? Could she trust them? there were many other things in her mind. But she couldn't understand why they would risk so much and protect her. After what she had done, she did deserve death. Do these people know what she had done? Will they hate her? All these thoughts ran in her mind and she finally slept.
Riya stared on at the young girl who now slept. There was something wrong with the way she gave us her identity. She was fixed that Elle kept some loopholes in her identity. To protect herself. She couldn't probe her to tell more so she just calmly slept as her nausea began to build up.