After so long on the road with Storyteller, endlessly walking from village to village, traveling with Hugo’s Trading Company had proven far more relaxing than Cadence had anticipated. She only had to walk part of the day, rotating in shifts with the other young gifted, and she got to spend the rest of her time in the shadowed, albeit bumpy, confines of one of the company’s three wagons.
She spent the entire first day getting to know the two warden recruits in their wagon. Oliver, unfortunately, continued to prove stand-offish. Cadence couldn’t tell if that was due more to his injured pride or the dysphoria sparked by the celestial’s presence.
“Oli’s just like that,” Beryl told Cadence when she asked. “I don’t think he’s socialized with normal people very much. He can be a bit… oblivious.”
“I noticed… he’s a noble, right?”
“Yep. You should’ve seen him the first night we met, it was like he’d never talked to a girl before.” Beryl chuckled, the sound earthy. Cadence had quickly come to appreciate the larger girl’s blunt, irreverent manner, and enjoyed chatting with her. “Rose has been trying to trip him into bed since we left Correntry, and I don’t even think he’s noticed.”
“So how’d he end up here?”
Beryl shrugged her massive shoulders. “He told us the whole story, but I don’t think it’s my place to share. Suffice it to say he and his family don’t get on great.”
“I could imagine…” Cadence mused, remembering a similar story, another piece of the aggressive squire’s puzzle slipping into place.
In the days that followed, Cadence took the chance to meet the other members of the company. For the first time in what felt like ages, she found herself surrounded by people her level or lower, who her Gift Divination would work on.
[Gift Divination] - Wanderer, Echo - Active, Utility, Soul - Learn the gifts possessed by a target. Can only be used on targets your level or lower.
It was an interesting mix of gifts that made the caravan work. Paul and Derrik were Hugo’s porters, large men of early middle-age who made a living off their gift of the laborer. Provided by the Elder, the gift of the laborer was common in the Heartlands, and Cadence had seen it in both Felisen’s loggers and Kellister’s stone workers. It provided a strength buff at a steep stamina cost, ameliorated by the gift’s major stamina boon, and a passive potency buff to non-combat tools. With some experimentation, Cadence was pleased to find that her hatchet was included in that category, making it a handy one to copy.
Aren and Ben were younger men, only a year or two older than Cadence. They had taken up with Hugo to study trade and economics in pursuit of their own gift of the merchant. Neither had made it yet–like the Mage, the Scholar required a formal exam to receive a gift–but Cadence took the chance to copy Hugo’s gift to get a feel for its powers. Its first ability, Merchant’s Eye, was an identification power not dissimilar to Wanderer’s Knowledge, but focused on appraising the value of an item, while its second, Inventory, provided a mental inventory list that updated itself.
Neither would be of exceptional use to Cadence, but she was delighted nonetheless. Like the Elder, the Scholar primarily offered non-combat gifts, and thus far Cadence had little chance to experience the advantages they could provide to merchants and similarly skilled tradespeople.
Harriet was similarly intriguing. The rancher and carpenter were both blessings Cadence had become familiar with before she even left Felisen, but seeing the way the experienced teamster used them in combination to tend to the caravan’s wagons and draft animals alike was fascinating.
“A trade-gifted like me,” Harriet explained, “can demand a fair price for their work, even at Novice level.” The woman lifted a weathered hand to shade her deeply tanned face, inspecting the sun’s current position in the sky before she continued. “You can always tell a shrewd merchant because they’ll employ someone with my gifts. The cost of my wages doesn’t begin to compare to what Hugo would lose without me doing maintenance on his wagons and keeping the goats healthy.”
#
Their third night out of Jellis, Cadence had the chance to get Oliver alone for the first time since her attempt to talk to him that first night. Since then, he had made a concerted effort to always keep at least one of the warden girls around, as if he sensed Cadence’s reluctance to bring up the topic of his gender in front of them. Admittedly, he was right–Cadence was too sympathetic of Oli’s situation to out him in front of either girl, but with each passing day of the squire’s abrasive behavior and sullen silences, Cadence found her sympathy quickly dwindling.
So, after dinner, while everyone else was gathering around the fire, Cadence snuck up behind Oliver.
“Hey Oli, do you have a sister?”
The boy turned towards her, his brow furrowed. “I mean… yes? Why do you ask?”
“Her name is Alyssia, right?”
Oliver blinked in surprise, one eyebrow arching. “Yes? Did Rose or Beryl tell you that?”
Cadence smiled. “Nope. I actually met her, just a little while before I got to Jellis. She was working with the hunters in this little village named Kellister.”
Cadence started to walk idly, and Oliver followed as she told him about her time in Kellister, about the gnoll raid and training with Alyssia. He stayed close to her, soaking in her stories about a family member he clearly missed, and Cadence soon felt she had a good handle on what had sent Oliver away from his home, his family, and a sister he loved.
By the time she finished her story, skipping over the sensitive topics of Storyteller’s working at the Cairn Glade and the last night Cadence and Alyssia had spent together, they were seated on the edge of the empty road, the caravan’s campfire a distant light behind them. The grass on the side of the road was soft and lush with summertime. Overhead, stars wheeled in a vast tapestry that reminded Cadence of the view from the Bonfire Hill in Felisen.
“She’s probably on her way back to Elliven by now,” Cadence concluded. “She was so close to Initiate when I left, I have no doubt she’s gotten her third gift by now and started her journey home.”
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Oli chuckled. “I had almost forgotten. Adeline told Alyssia that she’d help her get her gifts over the line. I don’t even know when she managed that.”
Cadence smiled. “I will say, she’s a much better fighter than you. I never even got close to beating her.”
Oliver rolled his eyes and leaned over, bumping a shoulder against hers. Cadence recognized it as the same gesture Alyssia had made that night in Kellister. It was the friendliest the boy had been since they met. “Me either. She always was better than me, even before we got our gifts.”
Cadence nodded easily, her eyes up on the stars. It was time to take another shot. “Is that why your family chose her to be the sentinel? Or was it that you were eclipsed?”
Oliver went still next to her. She kept her eyes up, not risking scaring him away with a direct look. The calm stillness of the night, she hoped, provided a layer of insulation, a comfort that would make the noble less likely to push her away.
They sat together in silence for a long moment. A gentle breeze blew down the road, and Cadence heard her companion blow out a long breath to join it. Finally, Oliver said, “It was because she was older than me. But…My father never approved of me, either.”
Cadence nodded, but didn’t say anything more. Oliver took another moment, another deep breath, before continuing.
“I wrote these stories, when I was young. I wanted to wear dresses, to feel pretty. To be like my sister and her friends. To be sunny and beautiful and strong all at once…”
“Your father found them?” Cadence guessed.
“He burned them. He was ashamed.”
Cadence frowned. She knew that the support she had received as she embraced the mercurial nature of her gender was a rarity. She still remembered the pain after Brian had met Caden, how poorly he had reacted to his girlfriend wanting to be his boyfriend sometimes… But to burn Oli’s stories like that? It was a profound act of violence. Cadence couldn’t even imagine what it had done to the poor girl inside of the young noble who just wanted to feel accepted.
“How did you know?” Oli asked, voice trembling. “No one else… only Adeline had ever figured it out.”
Cadence doubted that. From what she had seen of Oli’s personality, she guessed the knight was simply the only one to be open about the revelation, for fear of provoking the exact same reaction Cadence had earned the first time she tried to broach the topic.
“You know I’m celestial. It’s not quite the same, but… I recognized some familiar feelings in you.” Cadence turned to face Oli for the first time since the conversation had started. “Do you remember what I said that caused you to attack me so aggressively, during our duel?”
There was another moment of silence, then Oli replied, “No.”
“‘You're such a boy,’” Cadence recalled. “I’m sorry, by the way. I saw how much it hurt you after I said it. I didn’t mean to… you know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Oli eventually replied. “I mean… it’s not, but… thank you.”
“Yeah.” Cadence swallowed, her throat tighter than she expected. “With the others, how do you want me to… you know? Refer to you?”
Oli stayed quiet again, eyes up on the stars. “For now… I’m just me. Oliver. A boy. Maybe once all this is over, then I’ll… Maybe.”
Cadence shook her head. “If that’s what you want, I’ll respect it. But you can’t keep thinking of it that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t put it off forever. There’s always going to be something else going on, a reason not to go ahead and be open about who you are. I’ll respect your wishes, but we’re going to keep talking.”
“Yeah?” Cadence couldn’t decide exactly what it was she heard in Oli’s voice with that word. A tremor of something. Fear, excitement, anxiety, hope. Maybe all of them at once.
“Yeah.” Cadence leaned over and wrapped an arm around the self-proclaimed boy’s shoulder, and felt the way he bobbed in place, the same tightness as his voice reflected in his muscles. “You’re not alone.”
#
The evening of their fifth day on the road north from Jellis had Cadence reclining in the back of what she had come to think of as the young wagon, which she shared with Oliver the two wardens from Correntry. As the novelty of the new experience began to wear off, Cadence quickly found herself going crazy from the tedium. There was nothing to do but take her turns walking and riding in the wagon, talking to her new friends, and trying to keep herself from going insane.
She had tried one of Oliver's books to pass the time, but found the tight scrawl of the text far too dry (and dense) for her inexperienced eyes. Instead, she found herself toying idly with a wooden puzzle box, an item Rose had picked up to pass the time in Jellis, while Oliver read silently across from her. Rose was taking her turn on the driver’s bench, but the petite girl needed to fully focus on the team to keep them rolling in the right direction, lacking Beryl’s casual strength.
“Well aren’t you a peppy group.”
Cadence’s lips split in a smile as Beryl’s voice broke the silence. Oliver barely looked up from his book, but Cadence happily put the puzzle box aside as the athletic girl hopped up into the back of the wagon.
“All quiet?” Cadence asked.
“So far. I was thinking though… Rose!”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve gotta be pretty close to where the storm hit, right?”
“Definitely,” she called back. “I can still see the broken branches.”
“That means it’s going to happen soon,” Oli declared, putting down his book. “We fought the specter that night during the storm. So if there’s going to be another attack, it’ll happen nearby.”
“We should sleep in shifts tonight,” Beryl suggested. “Keep watch.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m in,” Cadence volunteered. The trio shared a look, and Cadence shook her head at the clear doubt. “No, no getting out of this. I came along to help, and I’m taking a shift just like I have been the rest of the time.” Habitually, Cadence had been keeping Oli’s Reinforced Defense ability reflected while riding with the caravan. The defensive power had more than proven its use when she used it against Oli.
“Okay, okay,” Oliver conceded, waving a hand. The eclipsed noble had opened up a bit since their late night conversation a couple nights before, but he was still brusque and irritable by nature. Cadence still wasn’t sure if that was a result of his constant repression, or just who the silver squire was. “For now, we need to keep up patrol. I’ll take the last shift.”
“I’ll come with,” Cadence said, hopping out of the wagon with him. When Oli arched an eyebrow at her, Cadence just responded with an innocent smile. She tilted her head towards the next wagon ahead in the caravan. Ben sat on the back of it, his feet dangling over the edge of the flatbed as he idly worked on a tally sheet, juggling numbers to calculate the caravan’s expected profits. “I want to talk to Ben about what he’s working on.”
Oli rolled his eyes. “Sure you do.”
Back on their wagon, Beryl relieved Rose, taking the draft goats’ reins with one hand and letting the slender redhead get some rest. The two chatted casually while Oli and Cadence continued bickering.
Ben looked up as they approached, a small smile lighting his face when he saw Cadence, and then an arrow lodged itself straight through his throat.
