The Illyrian Series: The Oracle Of Rosedale

I'm still shocked. "How are you... why are you here?" He tries to talk but cries out in pain instead. "He's lost a lot of blood, we have to treat the wound."

Malin bites his lip. "My camp is not far from here. Just help me get there, I can take care of myself." Violet and I help him up. He wraps each of his arms around our shoulders for support and leads us to his camp a few meters away.

The camp he talked about is just a brown tent and fire pit shaded by a few tall trees. We ease him down gently to the grass and he crawls to his tent. Violet ties our horses to a nearby tree then joins me in front of the tent.

"You know him?" She asks. We hear Malin groaning from his tent and I nod. "How?"

"We were close friends in Illyria," I reply. "I can't believe it's him, we haven't seen each other in years. Not since the war ended."

She clasps her hands together. "Since you two aren't close anymore. We have no obligation to stay here. I plan on being in Mayborn before it gets dark."

I ignore her and walk up to the tent. I open the flap and see Malin surrounded by bloody rags. He looks up at me and scowls. "You can go, Adria. I'm fine."

I walk up to him, he pulls away from me. "Let me help you, you don't have to be so stubborn."

"I said I don't need your help. Get out. I don't want Caledonian forces finding me."

I sigh and pick up a bloody rag. "Honestly, me neither." I rinse it in a bowl of water and dab his wound. "Now hold still, this is going to hurt."

"What do..." He cuts himself off by screaming. I clean out the injury with the rag and when I'm done, a deep gash remains. I pick up the needle and thread that's laying beside the bowl of water. Without warning, I begin to sew the injury shut.

"This will all be over in a bit," I whisper. Violet barges in and waves her hands at him. He stops screaming and falls back slowly. "What did you do to him?"

"He'll wake up in a few hours. I couldn't handle his wailing anymore." She sits down opposite me and examines my work. "Hmm, you're not completely useless."

"I shot two of the bandits with an arrow and drove them all off. A lot more than you did with your colourful puff of smoke."

"Would you like to feel that colourful puff of smoke?" She threatens. Malin groans quietly and fidgets for a few seconds before drifting back to sleep.

I focus all my attention on him and finish stitching him half an hour later. I help treat his other wounds and clean up more dried blood. When I'm done, I smile down at him, he's grown so much over the years.

I look down at his bruised face and my heart breaks. Even with a few injuries, he's still as beautiful as ever. His eyes are still brown, curvy, and deep with shadows at its corners. His nose is still straight and his lips full. His hair is a mess of dark waves on top of his head and his skin is a little darker than its usual olive colour. Probably from days training in the sun. I refrain from tracing my fingers all over his features.

I leave the tent and meet Violet outside. She's setting up for the night. "I thought we had to be in Mayborn by nightfall."

"It's getting late, I don't want to risk it. Besides, those thieves could retaliate at any moment. We'll leave at dawn."

I help set up our tents while she makes dinner. As we're eating our stale bread and beef stew, Malin stumbles out of his tent. He sees our belongings all set up and shakes his head.

"You don't have to say, I can take care of myself," he protests.

"Just sit down and eat. We're not staying here for you, it's too late to get to Mayborn." Violet doesn't even look at him.

I catch his eye and he looks away. "Here." I serve him a plate but he declines. "Please Malin, you lost a lot of blood today. You need to eat."

He hesitates for a few more seconds before taking the bowl and marching back to his tent. "He's so stubborn, you'd think he'd be more grateful to the people who saved his life," Violet says loudly.

I leave my bowl by the fire and follow him. "Can we talk?" I ask with a racing heart. He doesn't say anything. "I haven’t seen you in years."

"You haven't seen me in years.” He repeats. “I wonder whose fault that is."

I sit down opposite him. "I wasn't sure you were alive. And, I didn't know where you were, how was I supposed to reach you?"

"Don't act as if you tried, I know you and I'm very sure you didn't."

I exhale. "Fine, I didn't. I'm sorry. I was scared and I liked pretending that you were still alive. I don't know what I would have done if you were dead. I didn't want to lose any more people."

He scoffs. "So instead of facing us, you deluded yourself into thinking that we were okay."

"What did you want me to do? I couldn't have done anything."

"You surrendered, Adria. You gave up on us. I could have done the same, could have taken King Evander's offer and kept my peerage. But I gave it up for the resistance. So don't stand there acting like you suddenly care about me."

"Of course I care about you," I whisper. "I never stopped caring about you."

"You have a great way of showing that." He sighs and drops his bowl. "What are you even doing here, why aren't you at the castle?"

I grow quiet. How do I begin to tell him what happened these past two weeks? "I'm searching for an oracle. The oracle of Rosedale."

He laughs drily. "Please tell me you're joking. Seriously Adria, do you expect me to believe that?"

"I'm serious, I've been having these strange dreams. Then this woman made me jump out of a window and a child gave me a map to find the oracle." Maybe I shouldn't have phrased it like that. "Violet is a mage, she's been tasked with helping me complete this quest."

I expect him to call me a liar or accuse me of being mad. He just shuts his eyes and curses. "The person who gave you the map. Did she have an annoying red-haired girl working for her?"

My eyes widen and I nod. "Yes, how do you know that?"

"Because she sounds like the person who told me to come here. To come to one of the most dangerous roads past the Caledonian border and wait for a sign." He curses again. "She was pretty relentless, hard to avoid."

"Yeah, after dreams, she starts to appear in real life. Made me think I was losing my mind." I smile at my joke. He doesn't look amused.

"So I left the resistance, where I was doing actual work, just so I can help you on your little quest." His fists are clenched.

"It's not a little quest, the oracle will tell me how to help my people."

He squeezes his fists. "Don't call them that, they stopped being your people the moment you abandoned them. You can't ignore Illyria for three years only to reappear when we're at our worst like some savior. It doesn't work like that."

"Well then what do you want me to do? Because I am committed to this quest. I'm not going back, I can't."

"You can't go back to your big castle and your easy life and your loving family?" He asks sarcastically.

I stare at his hard face, there’s no happiness or compassion there. Whatever happened to him these past three years have scarred him. He's not the same Malin I remember.

"You hate me, and I don't blame you. I hate me too, that's why I'm doing this. There's a chance to help Illyria and I'm taking it, even if it kills me." I stand up and walk to the flap. "I really am sorry. I should have done better, not just as an heir, but as a friend."

I leave the tent and busy myself with tidying up the camp so I don’t cry.

By leaving, I didn't just abandon my country, I also abandoned my best friend and he is never going to forgive me.

I wake up the next morning and find the camp mostly empty. My heart drops when I see the empty space where Malin's tent was.

"Hurry up, we need to leave." Violet says from behind me. She’s standing next to Malin and tracing the map with her index finger. "We ride west for twenty miles till we reach the forest. Going round it will take days, so we'll have to ride through."

Malin nods. "Hopefully, we can pass it before it gets dark. The place is disturbing enough during the day, we don’t want to be there at night."

"You're coming?" My heart begins to flutter. He doesn't say anything, he just walks past me and towards his horse.

Violet shrugs. "He was sent for a reason. We need him for the quest, I was able to convince him."

"Thanks, Violet. You really..."

She stops me. "Don't. He's really angry with you, just give him some time to calm down. It's for the best."

Malin is looking everywhere except at me. I remember the last time we talked. It was a few weeks week before the end of the war. He had followed his father to the castle for briefing.

We were in the hallway outside the meeting room with damp spirits. He broke the long silence between us with even more depressing news.

"I'm joining my father's squadron. I'll be fighting in the war." Like now, he didn't look at me.

"Your sixteenth birthday is months away. You don't have to join." The thought of him dead was too much to bear.

"I have to, the army's numbers are quickly depleting. This country needs soldiers, the age to conscript is going to be reduced. That's what they're discussing now."

"Well then I'll talk to my father, he'll make an exception for you." I was prepared to say anything to change his mind. "We can figure something out."

"You're not getting it, I want to join the army. I want to fight for my country, I want to go to war."

I shook my head vehemently. "Please don't do this, please don't go." He pulled me into a warm hug, neither of us let go for a long time. "Promise me you'll come back."

He didn't reply and I hugged him tighter. "I'm leaving this evening, we're going to fight a battle on the west border."

He finally released me and the door opened. My father called his name and he gave me one last smile before going in.

We've always been close, I used to think nothing could ever make us hate each other. I thought we'd always be friends. I was a child back then. Now, I have to live with the consequences of my actions.

I pack up my tent and get ready to load my stuff on Apple, I see Malin stroking his side. I always suspected my horse preferred Malin to me, even after all these years, Apple still remembers him.

Malin sees me coming and walks away with his horse.

It's like Violet said, he needs time. Just give him some time. Hopefully, he forgives me. It would be nice to have a friend back.

We begin our journey towards the forest. I still can't believe it, he's part of our quest. This time yesterday, I didn't know what to expect. And now, I still don't know what to expect. But I'm happy that he's here. Even if he won't look or talk to me.