The first goblin attacks immediately. He is fast, much faster than a slime, and his blade hisses toward Nara’s belly. She jerks her sword up and catches the blow, metal strikes metal and the impact runs through her arm. The second goblin flanks her from the right and Nara stumbles out of the way. The blade scrapes over her leather and just misses her skin.
Her heart hammers so loudly that she cannot hear her own breath. The goblins move in coordination, one attacks while the other uses the gap. Nara parries another blow, but her stance is wrong, her grip too tense, her feet too close together. She knows it and cannot change it. The first goblin thrusts again and Nara knocks the blade aside, but the swing twists her off balance. Her foot slips on wet pavement and she stumbles backward.
Her back crashes into the boards of an old market stall and she goes to the ground. The sword slips from her hand and clatters across the stones. She reaches for it, but the first goblin already stands over her, yellow eyes wide and grin wider than before. He raises his dagger with both hands over his head.
Then his head falls on her.
There is no sound. At least none that Nara perceives. The goblin’s head hits her chest and rolls to the side, yellow eyes still open, grin still on its face. Warm blood shoots from the neck stump and pours over Nara’s face, her neck, her clothes. The headless body stands for a moment longer, then tips to the side. Behind it stands Cerena, barefoot and wrapped in a blanket, sword in her right hand. She is already turning to the second goblin, who shrieks and turns to flee into the alley. Cerena does not pursue him.
Nara lies on her back and stares into the night sky. Warm blood runs into her eyes and she blinks. Her mouth tastes like iron. She hears Cerena’s voice, but the words do not reach her. Everything becomes muffled, then dark.
When Nara opens her eyes, she lies in her bed. The right side sags as always. The room is dark, only a weak light falls through the window shutters. She turns her head.
Cerena sits on a chair next to the bed, head bowed on her chest. She sleeps. Her arms are wrapped around her sword as if it were a stuffed animal, her hands closed around the grip. Her hair hangs in her face and her feet are still bare.
Nara watches her. Cerena’s breath is slow and steady and for the first time since she stumbled out of the portal, her face looks peaceful.
Nara lies still and stares at the ceiling. Someone has washed the blood from her face and removed her clothing. Her hands are clean. The memory of the goblin head flashes briefly and she pushes it away before it can take hold.
She closes her eyes. Cerena is here. That is enough. She falls asleep again.
Sunlight falls through the slits in the shutters and traces bright stripes across the floor. Nara blinks, rubs her eyes and sits up. Her body is stiff and her back aches where she fell onto the boards. The chair beside the bed is empty.
She stands up, stretches carefully and walks down the creaking stairs. The main room smells of warm food. Cerena stands at the fireplace, has hung up Nara’s pot and stirs it with a wooden spoon. She has her own clothes back on, washed and dried, though still somewhat wrinkled. Her sword hangs at her hip.
“Good morning,” Cerena says without turning around.
Nara remains on the lowest step and looks into the pot. Potato pieces in hot water with strips of dried meat.
“Cerena, how much did you take?”
“One potato and a handful of meat.”
Nara goes to the cellar and looks inside. The supplies that were meager but sufficient a week ago now look alarmingly thin. She counts the potatoes. Eleven. The dried meat will last perhaps five more days. For two people.
“Cerena, we have a problem,” she says and tries to keep the panic from her voice.
“I know.” Cerena turns around and her gaze is calm. “I will go hunting at the first opportunity. Is there game in the area?”
“I have not seen anything from the city wall. But I was never outside.”
“Then I will look around. Where is the bow we threw through the portal?”
Nara nods. “In the cellar, all the way against the wall.”
Cerena walks past her into the cellar. Nara hears her rummaging in the darkness. Then she stands up and goes outside.
The morning is cool and the air smells fresh. On the marketplace everything lies as Nara remembers it, including the goblin corpses. The one headless, on its back, the green skin even more repulsive in the morning light. The other curled up, a few meters further. Cerena must have caught the second one after all.
Nara swallows. Her stomach turns and she presses her lips together. The smell is sweet and metallic and hits her like a wall. She breathes through her mouth and forces herself not to look away.
Then she sees it. On the headless corpse, where the neck ends, something glints between the dark flesh. A faint blue glow. Nara steps closer, bends down and recognizes it. A crystal, similar to those from the slimes, only somewhat larger and the glow is more intense.
She hesitates. Her hand hovers over the corpse. Then she reaches in, grasps the crystal and pulls it out. It detaches with a wet sound that turns her stomach and lies warm in her hand.
She goes to the second corpse. The crystal sits deeper, somewhere in the chest area. She pulls the knife from her thigh and cuts it free. Her hands tremble and she grits her teeth until the crystal comes loose.
Back in the tavern she retrieves a second basket from the shelf and places it next to the first on the counter. In the first basket, her basket with the seven slime crystals, she places nothing. The two goblin crystals she places in the new basket. She looks from one basket to the other and does not quite understand why she keeps them separate. It feels right.
Cerena comes with the bow from the cellar. It looks usable, if somewhat dusty. She checks the bowstring, pulls it to test and nods approvingly.
Nara watches her and then says, “Cerena, give me sword lessons.”
Cerena looks up. “Pardon?”
“Last night I nearly died because I do not know how to properly hold a sword. I need lessons.”
Cerena studies her for a moment. Then she nods. “That can be arranged.”
After breakfast Nara leads Cerena up the stairs to the city wall, the same section she walked yesterday. The wind is weaker today, but still annoying enough to blow Nara’s hair in her face. She brushes it aside and leans against the parapet.
“You can see the most from here,” she says.
Cerena stands beside her and looks over the parapet. Her gaze moves methodically across the panorama, from left to right, like someone reading a map. The city beneath them, stretching further than Nara suspected in the early days. The wall curving in a wide arc around it. The breaches.
“Seven breaches total, but only on the side toward the forest,” Nara says. “The other sides are still intact.”
Cerena nods slowly and Nara sees her jaw tense. “No moat. No palisades. No fortification at the breaks.”
She turns and looks out beyond the wall. The meadow, the slime groups as blue dots in the grass and beyond them the dark wall of the forest.
“How many do you estimate?” Cerena asks and points to the slimes.
“It varies. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Individual ones come into the city now and then, but the groups outside mostly stay in the meadow.”
“And the forest?”
“I was not there. And I do not plan to go alone.”
Cerena is silent for a while. Her gaze is fixed on the forest edge. Nara knows this expression. Cerena is calculating. Distances, sight lines, retreat routes.
“The breaches are the biggest problem,” Cerena says finally. “Everything coming from outside can get in unimpeded. The goblins last night are proof of that.”
“I know, but that is not a problem we can solve between the two of us. Apart from the actual work, we also lack the knowledge to repair the wall.”
They stand side by side and look down at the city. The roofs, the streets, the palms between the buildings. From up here it looks almost peaceful, if you do not see the breaches. If you do not see the forest.
Nara props her arms on the parapet and rests her chin on them.
“Cerena, I do not want to be a princess anymore.”
Cerena turns her head toward her.
“I mean it,” Nara says quietly. “If more people come, they will expect someone who knows what they are doing. Someone who makes decisions and takes responsibility. And I cannot do that. I can barely hold a sword. I do not know how to defend a city. I do not know how to lead people. I was seventeen years old as a princess, I read books and annoyed the church.” She breathes out. “That is not enough.”
Cerena is silent for a while. Nara notices that she is searching for words, and that the right ones are not coming to her.
“Highness, I understand your concerns,” Cerena begins and Nara hears her struggling to find the right words. “But the people who come will know you. They know the stories of how you challenged the church. They will not come to a perfect leader, but to the person who had the courage to defy the Cardinal.”
“Courage and foolishness lie close together.”
Cerena hesitates. Then she says, “There is a saying I read in a book by a strange old wizard. It said: It is a curious thing, but perhaps those best suited for power are those who never sought it. Those who take leadership because it is forced upon them, and to their own surprise discover that they do it well.”
Nara says nothing to that. She looks out at the city again. At the roofs and streets and breaches in the wall. At the blue dots in the meadow and the forest on the horizon.
As they come down from the wall and head back toward the marketplace, Cerena abruptly stops. Her hand goes to the sword hilt. Nara follows her gaze and her heart skips a beat.
On the marketplace, in front of the portal, stands a group of people. Ten people in travel clothes, armed, with backpacks and boxes around them. The portal flickers behind them and is just falling back into its usual weak glow.
One of them turns around. A young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with short blonde hair and a sword at his hip. His gaze falls on Cerena and his eyes go wide.
“Cerena?”
“Aldric,” Cerena says beside her. Nara hears the surprise in her voice, though she regains control of it almost immediately.
Aldric comes closer, his eyes moving from Cerena to Nara and staying there. He recognizes her. Nara sees the moment it clicks, the dark eyes, the pale skin, the black hair. He goes to one knee. Fist at his chest.
“Your Highness.”
Behind him the other nine kneel as well, one after another, until all ten kneel on the marketplace, faces bowed to the ground. The silence on the plaza is absolute.
Nara stands there and does not move. Ten bodyguards kneel before her on the pavement of an abandoned city in another world. She feels Cerena’s gaze on her.
“You see,” Cerena says softly.
Then she steps forward and positions herself with the others. She draws her sword, drives it into the ground in front of her and bows.
Nara stands alone.