Chapter 3: Act I Chapter 3: Before

Chapter 3: Before

One month ago

When Enya returned home from recordkeeping that evening, the door swung open before she finished knocking. She found not Nadine on the other side, but Raynor’s smiling face. He was still wearing his training armor, which, combined with his height, made him look comically large in comparison to their modest house.

“Hello,” Enya greeted politely as she blinked up at him. She registered a savory smell wafting from indoors; Nadine must have started dinner early.

“Hey,” Raynor said as he stepped aside to let Enya in. “How was patrolling?”

“It was fine, there were no new appearances to report.” She propped her sword against the wall as she stepped inside. Raynor immediately took the sword and placed it less precariously on the worn, tattered old couch that Nadine insisted couldn’t be qualified as a “couch.”

(She and Altair had gotten into an argument about it once. She’d proclaimed that the thing was so worn and dingy that calling it a couch was an insult to couches, while Altair had said that, by all literal definitions of the word, it was in fact a couch. Nadine had countered that Altair didn’t even live there and therefore had no right to classify their furniture.)

Once he was satisfied with the sword’s placement, Raynor straightened and nodded. “That’s good. Some of the Paragons heard there were some Rot sightings down south, but I guess they weren’t too close.”

“Did training end early?”

Raynor blinked. “Huh? Oh, right. My mentor got called away for a meeting, so I’m here now. I brought some stuff back.” He pointed at a limp bag lying on the floor across the room. “Nadine said I could join you for dinner. I hope you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind.” Enya never cooked anyway, so it was no hassle to her. But she was a bit surprised Nadine had so readily offered; her sister liked cooking, prided herself on her skills, but Raynor ate a lot and Nadine usually complained about having to make too much.

The answer to Enya’s unspoken question came not a minute later, when another familiar face poked her head out from the kitchen and waved.

“Oh, I see.”

Raynor glanced at her, confused.

“Nadine’s making Theresa cook.”

“No I’m not!” came a muffled yell from inside the kitchen. Sometimes Enya wondered if Nadine was secretly a perception affinity.

“Nadine’s making Theresa help cook,” she corrected. Nadine might have responded, but the loud sizzling of the stove covered any retorts she may have had.

Removing her outer cloak, Enya took a seat at the table, which had already been set, probably by Raynor. “Where’s Callan?” she asked.

“He’s at a friend’s house!” Raynor said, voice cheerful. He took a seat across the table. Enya considered suggesting for him to remove his armor, but he didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable, so she decided against it. “His name’s Henry, they’re in the same class. He—“

Enya instinctively tuned out as Raynor launched into a long speech about the current state of his younger brother’s social life. He was constantly bemoaning Callan’s lack of friends, insisting that a kid his age needed to get out more, and he’d had plenty of friends when he was that age, etc.

The speech, however, didn’t end up continuing for much longer as Theresa and Nadine soon stepped out from the kitchen, each one balancing a few plates that Raynor practically jumped up from his seat to help with.

A few moments later, Theresa said a quick prayer of gratitude, thanking the Seventh and the Eighth for the meat and vegetables, and the crowded table dug in.

About 5 minutes after they’d begun eating, there was a knock at the door. Raynor hurried to stand and swung it open, revealing Altair, who immediately walked inside and into the kitchen.

“Done with paperwork?” Raynor called after him.

Altair didn’t respond, instead returning a few seconds later with a plate and silverware. He took a seat at the table, muttering a few prayers himself before picking up his fork.

Nadine snorted. “He was just trying to get out of cooking.”

“No, I just happened to remember I had paperwork immediately once you began cooking,” he deadpanned before taking a bite of mashed potato. Theresa giggled and Nadine rolled her eyes.

It had been a while since all five of them had sat down and eaten together, Enya thought. The last time was before Raynor began Paragon training. They saw each other often, but with their separate schedules, it was rare for them all to align. Usually someone would be away, busy with work, when they tried to plan a group dinner. Enya took a sip of the tomato soup, one of Theresa’s dishes; it had a rich, creamy texture that she savored.

“—been in a pissy mood,” Altair was saying. “I don’t really care but I wish he’d stop assigning me more paperwork. You’d think he’d have better ways to vent.”

“Maybe he really does have more paperwork lately,” Theresa suggested. Raynor nodded in agreement.

“Oh I’m certain he does,” Altair said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m the one who should be dealing with it.” He stabbed his fork into a piece of chicken. Enya stared passively as juice bubbled up around the fork and drizzled down the plate.

“Well why’s he so mad?” Raynor asked. “Maybe you can deal with that.”

Altair paused, glancing up from his food. He frowned. “Apparently there’s been a lot of Rot sightings in Xorris. The Council’s expecting a lot of people to move into Reyin this year.”

“Um, I don’t think we’re supposed to know about this,” Theresa said softly.

“Shhh, Theresa, let him talk,” Nadine interrupted. She’d leaned forward a bit in her seat, listening intently. Altair rolled his eyes, but continued.

“Anyway, they were already discussing that a month ago. But last week apparently some messengers said Lysmere might end up in a civil war soon, so that means all the people who would’ve moved to Lysmere will probably be heading here.” He sighed. “Which means more planning for the Council of delegators and all their victims.” And more work for me, was the unspoken addition.

“I didn’t think things had gotten that bad,” Raynor said. “I’ve heard about there being more Rot sightings in the south, but…” his voice trailed, and he grunted in frustration.

Enya took another sip of her soup. “I looked at the records today,” she said. “It looks like it started out as an increase in the south, but it’s been moving north for a while now.” She paused. “I’m not sure if it’ll reach here or not.”

A heavy silence fell over the table. Nadine groaned.

“Okay, that’s it. No more talking about the Rot. Hell, it might go away on its own, so stop acting like it’s the second Flight.”

Enya frowned, but kept quiet. Despite the confidence in her voice, Nadine’s brows were furrowed, her lips pressed tightly together.

Another second of silence followed before Raynor cleared his throat and turned to Enya.

“Do you want to spar later?” he asked, eyes bright with hope. Enya took a moment to finish chewing and swallow her food.

“Okay.” It had been a while since she and Raynor had sparred. She didn’t see the harm in it.

“No magic,” Nadine interrupted, eyes narrowed. Raynor nodded and held his hands up placatingly.

“No magic,” he agreed.

—

Once they’d finished eating and cleared the table, the group moved to the back of the house. Enya and Nadine lived on the edge of Acrine, and while their home wasn’t the largest, they never lacked for space outside. Tall grasses brushed against Enya’s pants as she inspected the old rack of wooden training weapons left propped up against their back wall. It had been weathered down with rain, and the wooden swords still felt a little soggy from the last rain they’d had. She pressed her finger against one, testing it. They were a bit more bendy than was ideal, but they still looked usable. Satisfied, Enya grabbed her usual practice sword and made a mental note to move the rack somewhere indoors once they were done.

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Raynor had already grabbed his practice weapon, a long plank of wood that Maren had carved into a rough axe shape for Raynor to practice with when they were kids. Its balance wasn’t very accurate, and it was now rather small for him after Raynor’s growth spurt, but it was probably a better approximation of his real weapon than anything else they had.

Enya held her wooden blade in front of her, testing her footing. There was some lingering wetness on the grasses that she’d have to be careful of. Just as she was thinking it, she heard Theresa called out, “Be careful, don’t slip!” from where she, Altair, and Nadine were watching from the sidelines. She and Nadine had taken a seat against the back of the house while Altair remained standing.

“First one to get a hit in, no magic, don’t be stupid. Ready on three,” he said in a bored voice. Raynor and Enya both nodded.

“One, two, three, go.”

Raynor immediately charged forward, just as Enya had thought he would. She twisted to the side, dodging the incoming blow, and lunged at his exposed back. Raynor swung his axe back around, blocking before the blow could land, and Enya jumped back to put more distance between them, her shoes sliding on the wet grass. She blinked.

“You’re faster,” she commented. Raynor grinned.

“Thanks! My mentor’s been helping me with my reaction time.”

It was a smart decision, Enya thought. That had always been his biggest weakness when they were younger. She flexed her fingers, adjusting her grip on the sword, and shifted her stance lower. As her foot slipped a bit on the grass, she got an idea. Inhaling and exhaling, Enya darted forward.

She drew her blade back, pretending to aim for the head, and Raynor brought his axe up in preparation to block. At the last moment, however, she dropped low to the ground and brought her sword into a wide swing aimed at Raynor’s legs. Just as the wooden blade was about to hit, however, she felt a thump on her shoulder. Blinking, she glanced over and saw the wooden axe resting against her neck. Raynor grinned cheerfully and pulled the weapon back.

“I won!” He sounded so excited that Enya couldn’t help but smile a little as she stood up.

“Good job,” she said, holding her hand out to shake, which Raynor did enthusiastically. She heard clapping on the sidelines and turned to see Theresa and Nadine approaching, with Altair trailing behind them at a slower pace.

“Is anyone hurt?” Theresa asked. Both of them shook their heads, and Nadine snorted.

“Just Enya’s record and pride.”

“I don’t really mind,” Enya said truthfully. She’d known Raynor had surpassed her at fighting some time ago; this just confirmed it. Her sister rolled her eyes.

“Shut up and let me have my fun.” She wagged a finger at her. “That last swing was too sloppy. You forgot that you’d be moving slower in the grass too,” she lectured. Enya listened with growing amusement. At times like these, Nadine really did resemble Maren.

“Nadine! Do you wanna spar?” Raynor asked, eyes sparkling with energy.

“No,” she sat flatly.

“She’s too scared of losing,” Altair suggested. Nadine rolled her eyes.

“Whatever, let’s get back inside already. It looks like it’s gonna rain again.”

Enya looked up, noting that the grey clouds cloaking the sky did indeed look darker and heavier than before. Her eyes drifted to the weapon rack, where Raynor had gone to set down the training axe. Enya followed, returning her own wooden sword before leaning over to get a grip on the edge of the rack.

“You’re moving it?” Raynor asked, hurrying to grab the other side. She nodded and began to lead them towards the back door. She could hear Nadine’s sharp voice arguing with Altair’s bored one behind them, with an occasional placating note from Theresa. Enya drowned them out and focused on the task at hand, making sure not to accidentally tip the weapons over.

Once the two had set the rack down just beside the door, Raynor frowned, brow furrowed. “Hey, about Nadine,” he began. Enya nodded for him to continue, curious. His eyes darted behind them, then back again. “I was just wondering, she’s really given up on being a Paragon?”

“It seems like it.”

“Oh. I mean, I get it, but it also feels kind of like—never mind.” He shook his head. “It’s not my business.” His face brightened again. “We should spar again some time! That was fun.”

Enya found herself agreeing with the sentiment. As she’d taken on more and more recordkeeping patrols, the majority of her fighting was limited to the occasional run in with Decays. She’d forgotten fighting just for the sake of it could be enjoyable.

Nadine, Altair, and Theresa soon came inside as well, and Enya found her eyes lingering on Nadine, Raynor’s words ringing in her head.

In the beginning, when they were just starting to learn how to fight, Maren would sometimes bring the two of them with her to the Paragon training ground. There were a lot more training weapons and other resources there, and the other Paragons would sometimes watch and give the two of them suggestions as they practiced.

From a young age, Nadine had always excelled at swordplay. Enya had never managed to beat her once, even when she knew her sister held back when they were sparring (though Nadine never admitted to it).

After one particularly long match, the two were putting away their weapons when they overheard some of the Paragons talking quietly amongst themselves.

“—a real prodigy,” one of them was saying. “You can tell she’s Maren’s daughter. She could probably pass the test now if not for her magic.”

“I’d heard she had low innate magic, but I didn’t think I was that bad,” another voice said.

“It’s bad. From what I saw, just one minute of motion magic would probably end up paralyzing her, and any longer than that and she’d die.” The voice sighed. “What a waste, with that talent. It’s a shame.”

They kept speaking in hushed tones, and while Enya had been too young at the time to fully understand what they were saying, she’d known that she didn’t like hearing people talk about her sister like that. Her eyes had drifted over to Nadine, who’d gone still at the weapon rack. She waited for her to yell a retort, curse at them with those words Maren always scolded her for saying, but nothing. When Nadine turned around, her face was stony and her voice utterly calm as she told Enya that she was leaving early.

The next day, Nadine sparred more viciously than Enya had ever seen from her. She’d barely been able to keep up, pushed back by relentless strikes. That was when she’d realized that her sister had always been holding back during their fights. Nadine certainly wasn’t pulling any punches at that moment.

Enya had lost by a landslide in record time, collapsing onto the ground from exhaustion at the end of the spar. She’d been so tired she barely even registered Maren’s voice scolding her sister.

The day after that, Enya was training with Raynor when Nadine announced that being a Paragon was dumb and that she wasn’t going to train anymore. That day was also the first time Enya ever saw Raynor yell, and it remained the only true argument she’d ever seen between the two of them.

Ever since her announcement that day, nearly a decade ago, Enya had never seen Nadine swing a sword. She’d bring one out on recordkeeping patrols, but she almost always chose to patrol with someone else, usually Enya. Then she’d gotten a job at the tavern and taken less and less patrols until, these days, Nadine rarely record kept at all.

Enya, meanwhile, had thrown herself into training after Nadine gave up on being a Paragon, practicing with a burning fervor. Then Maren had died, and faced with a new choice to make about the future, she’d decided to become a recordkeeper instead.

Enya’s eyes drifted outside, where a few droplets of rain were beginning to fall. They soaked into the ground, forming dark patches that bloomed across the earth. She heard the others chatting around her and wondered, not for the first time, how differently things could’ve been if she’d chosen a different path.

“Oy, Enya, did you hit your head?”

She blinked, turning to see Nadine frowning at her with her hands on her hips. “Theresa’s baking a cake, so get over here and help, you lazy bum.”

Sure enough, a crash sounded in the kitchen followed by Raynor’s loud apologies and Theresa’s soft reassurances. Enya even thought she heard Altair sigh. Nadine raised an eyebrow.

“Why’re you smiling like that? Something on my face?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s nothing,” she said and turned to head towards the kitchen.

The cake turned out mediocre, somehow managing to be both burnt on the outside and still doughy and undercooked in the center, but at that point they were too tired to really care about the quality and happily devoured it, questionable center and all.

In the weeks that followed, Enya would find herself increasingly busy as more and more Rot sightings appeared in the area, her earlier predictions proving accurate.

And exactly one month later, she would be attacked by a moving corpse, an event that would mark the second of a series of crossroads in her life.

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