Glaenis was hiding. That she knew how to do very well. The ruin was empty but for her and the mare, grassing. She sat on the ground, her back leaning against the cold stone wall. An excruciating pain in her right leg where she was hit. Hopefully she was able to hold on to her mare and reach the ruins before falling aside like a doll made of cloth.
She didn’t know for how long she stayed there, listening only to the sound of her own breathing. Thinking about the others. Were they alright? At one point another sound reached her. Footsteps. A known voice calling her name. “Toddir. I’m here.”
His face was bloody. As were his gloves. Glaenis needed to be helped up and back on her horse. Todd would reproach her for running away, for the possibility of finding more danger, far from the others. But running away and hiding is what I do. What about the others?
Suddenly, Aghithor was there. Where did he come from? What was he doing there? “Your friends asked me to look for you.” He said. Her friends. She could finally see them. Lorayne|Ray lying on the ground, not moving an inch, Vatnar seeing to his wounds. So many wounds. And Stevven. Oh, Stevven. Covered in blood and vomit, appearing in a state of shock. She was on the ground again. She could not walk nor help. So she just sat there and watched. All her fault.
Days had passed. They were on the road again. Bad dreams had followed her ever since. In her dreams, Othrikar was so very close. All her friends were dead. She could not reach it. For every step towards it, the dwarven city seemed to move one step away. She would run, but every effort was useless.
I almost got them killed. The thought wouldn’t go away. Those things she heard and tried to forget, the things she was told when telling her story, came back. “All of this for just a harp?” “But you came all the way from Dale for this?” No. It was not just a harp. Was it? Was this harp worth a life? Her best friend’s life?
The others didn’t seem to understand her disquiet. Ray said that was what he did for a living. But what about Stevven? He didn’t need to be there at all. He was there because of what? For saying the wrong thing as he so often did? For once making her bad day worse? Nonsense. How absurdly selfish she was for taking him along on this journey. Her journey. Him, who didn’t even like going anywhere or seeing anything. Who was boring and lacking creativity like most Bree-landers. And I almost got him killed.
“Stevven came all the way from Bree with me, can you believe it?” She told Aghithor the night that he had spent with them. “I believe it. You have loyal friends, Glaenis, they worry about you.”
That time, perhaps for the first time, her actions were affecting the fate of others. It was terrifying. It wasn’t just her doing something she shouldn’t and falling from a roof, scarring her face, or stealing a keg of wine from her own grandfather, or running away from Dale to Bree with a caravan, not caring for what would happen. Those people were there, in the wilds, because of her. And they were not even her brothers.
