Chapter 3990: The Hard Part (Part 1)

"This is for you." Friya handed the tray of food while performing one last check-up. "Take your time and be careful. It’s hot."

"Thanks, young lady, but after living sixty years in the Desert, I can handle hot." An old woman said.

"This is for you. Take your time and be careful. It’s-"

"Drenya?" A middle-aged woman said, cutting Friya short. "Thank the gods you made it here. I was afraid those bastards had taken you or worse."

"I’m sorry?" Friya swallowed hard upon hearing her birth mother’s name, but waited for the woman to rub her eyes and shrug off the drowsiness before asking any questions.

"Oh, gods, you’re not Drenya." The woman said after taking a good look at Friya. "Is she somewhere here? She looks like you, just older and less pretty."

"No. I’m pretty sure there’s no one matching your description." Friya kept her voice level, but Nalrond noticed from the ripples in the soup that her hands were trembling.

He took the tray from her and handed it to the woman.

"Eat aplenty and regain your strength, Miss." He said.

"Please, young man, tell me Drenya is among the corpses." The woman’s expression turned desperate as she grabbed Nalrond’s hand. "If she’s not here and those savages captured her, her fate will be much worse than death."

"I can go check the bodies of the fallen to see if your friend is among them, but most corpses don’t... look good." Nalrond said, hoping not to upset the woman and Friya more. "Does she have any distinguishing features aside from her beauty?"

"Yes, silly me." The woman nodded. "Drenya is not from the Blood Desert, so her skin is pale compared to ours. You can’t miss it."

"Thanks. I’ll be right back." He said, holding Friya’s hand tight for a moment before leaving.

"What a nice man." The woman sighed. "You are a lucky woman."

"I beg your pardon?" Friya snapped out of her daze.

"You know he cares for you, right?" The woman asked. "You can’t be a Healer and be that blind."

"Oh, that." Friya nodded. "Of course I know. He is my husband."

The law had yet to recognize their union, but the promise they had exchanged and the small lives growing in her womb were all the bond Friya needed.

"You make a cute couple." The woman sipped a spoonful of broth. "I’m Eryl of the Black Stork."

"And I’m Friya Ernas of the Griffon Kingdom." Friya replied while offering her hand to Eryl.

"Is... yours a common name in the Kingdom?"

"Yes." Friya nodded, realizing her own blunder. "Why do you ask?"

"Because Drenya too is from the Griffon Kingdom and she has a daughter with your same name." Eryl replied. "Between that and your resemblance to Drenya, for a moment I thought you were her daughter. I guess Mogar isn’t that small."

"Indeed." Friya smiled, yet the corners of her mouth twitched from the stress.

She resumed handing food trays, but her demeanor was robotic, and she turned towards the tent’s entrance every few seconds until Nalrond returned.

"I’m sorry, but there’s no one matching your friend’s description among the fallen." He said.

"Thank you, young man." Eryl sighed. "Poor Drenya. She must have been born under an unlucky star. She escaped to the Desert to save her life, yet she met an end much worse than what the Kingdom would have done to her."

"I’m sorry for your loss." Nalrond said. "Do you want to talk about her friend?"

"There’s not much to say." Eryl replied, and Friya almost poured the hot soup on an unlucky fellow instead of in his bowl. "Drenya came to the Desert about nine years ago. According to her, she was forced into exile to escape an unjust persecution."

Nalrond remained silent, politely nodding for her to continue.

"Yet I’m not sure about that. She had a lot of precious stuff with her when she arrived, and she came straight to our tribe. If she were innocent, she would have bought herself a comfortable life under the Usurper.

"Instead, she knew where the Black Stork tribe was located and offered everything she had in exchange for asylum."

"And you took in someone that suspicious?" Nalrond asked.

"Life in the Desert doesn’t give you much choice, young man." Eryl shrugged. "We could use all that gold and a pair of extra hands, no matter how unskilled."

"Was she that clumsy?"

"At first, yes." Eryl smiled at the memory. "You could tell she was a noble because the simplest of chores baffled her. Yet Drenya learned quickly and was very good at using the little we had in the most efficient way."

’That’s my mother down to a T!’ Friya thought while handing a bowl full of spoons to a flabbergasted patient.

"Life was harsh, and Drenya had a lot of ideas to make it better, but no one trusted her enough to listen to an outsider." Eryl said. "Drenya never complained and kept working hard until she earned the right to speak in front of the elders.

"After that, things for the Black Stork tribe got better. Until yesterday." She lowered her gaze, staring at the broth for answers that never came.

"What about her daughter? Freya?" Nalrond asked, snapping Eryl out of her daze.

"Friya, young man. Just like your wife." She grunted. "And I don’t know much about her, just like I don’t know much about what Drenya did to earn her exile. She only talked about those things at the beginning, when she was too angry or drunk to hold her tongue.

"Drenya claimed that Friya is a talented mage who has been accepted into one of the Kingdom’s six great academies. I bet that Drenya’s original plan was to use her daughter’s powers to get herself a position of power in one of the largest free tribes and use her riches to become a village elder, if not even the chief.

"That woman was too ambitious for her own good, and I can tell you that she regarded the Black Stork as a consolation prize."

’That’s why Drenya only included me in her escape plan and left my siblings and the rest of her family to die!’ Friya thought, her inner turmoil causing the broth in the cauldron to boil.

’She knew that Salaark would have never welcomed a traitor in her court. Best case scenario, Salaark would have killed Drenya on the spot. Worst case scenario, she would have returned Drenya to the Kingdom.

’Drenya needed me and the tier four spells I learned at the White Griffon academy to start a new life at the same level as her old one! I was just like the gold she smuggled past the borders, a means to an end.’

"I’m very sorry. Please, take this." Nalrond replaced the glass of frozen water in the hands of Friya’s latest victim with one filled with fruit juice. "Come, dear. You must have overexerted yourself. You need a break."

"Don’t worry about us." A kid with three trays but no food on any of them said. "You have done enough, Miss Healer. Go get some rest."

’And let us get something we can actually eat.’ Everyone thought.

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