Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Glimmer of Hope

“Where are we?”, Abner finally spoke, his voice abnormally hollow. Gilbert sat beside him with a bowl full of anchovy soup. He swirled the liquid with the spoon he held, causing the tender meat and vegetables to swish around in their confinement.
“We’re in the capital, right now, Sraborn”, Gilbert replied as he eyeballed the soup, “You’re at my residence….. where I live, when I’m on duty”.
Silence fell between them once more; only the sound of the soup splashing remained as Gilbert played with it. The silence that surrounded them at the moment wasn’t the one that had soothed the both of them the night before; this one felt like a giant snake, threatening to swallow them whole; Gilbert knew he had to break it. “You have to drink this soup”, he said, “You haven’t-”.
“What happened….”, Gilbert got cut off by the question he dreaded the most, “… that night?”, Abner asked.
Gilbert felt his throat constrict, tears threatening to break out as he tried to get the words out of his mouth, “I-I don’t know……”.
Again the snake, dressed as the deafening silence, settled between them, eyeing them with its slit eyes, judging them.
“They are questioning Alaric, the watchmen….. I mean”, he uttered, “He was one of us, the four of us, who……….. the knights”.

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Gilbert paused for a second, hoping to see any kind of response. When none received, he continued, “We just know he helped, he helped the people…… who ignited the village. Ummmm….. The night before the night, it happened, I, I saw him, talking to….. ahh, some people, in black hoods, when I asked him, he said it was nothing. Then the next night, I barely escaped the fire”, he paused, lifting his shirt from the side slightly to reveal a patch of bandage covering the corner of his abdomen.
Abner’s eyes shot open as he leaned forward a bit in concern. “Why aren’t you resting?”, he asked.
“It’s nothing”, Gilbert replied, with a faint smile touching his lips, “I’ve experienced a lot more than this”.
Abner settled back again, “How did the fire start?”, he asked.
Feeling a bit of his anxiousness evaporating, Gilbert replied, “We don’t know that yet, but it probably wasn’t natural. It started all at once, everywhere at once. We think, I think, it had something to do with magic”.
“Who ever did it-”, Abner uttered, as a tear fell from his almost desolate eyes, “I will not let them get away with this”.
“I know”, Gilbert answered, “And I will help you, but first, you should please, drink this soup. You haven’t eaten anything for two whole days”, he brought the spoon closer to Abner’s mouth, pleading with him to just take a few sips. He waited a while in that uncomfortable position, but as soon as he was about to bring it back, Abner brought his lips around the spoon, gulping down whatever resided on it.

Abner looked around the stony walls; he lay helplessly between. ‘How did this happen?’, he thought, ‘Why did this happen?’. Abner still felt as helpless as he had felt the previous night, but something had changed. He knew that among the darkness that surrounded him, there was a little light standing beside him. Abner knew now that he wasn’t alone. He knew that, and he didn’t feel that scared now.

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