Chương 19: Chapter 18: Ruminations and Wanderings

Upon arriving in the dining hall, both took their seats at the long table, where the aroma of freshly brewed herbal tea floated like a promise of calm. The other women were already there, their familiar faces framed by the flickering light of tallow lamps. That night, a small miracle lay at the center of the table: brown bread, crusty and steaming, torn into thick slices that someone had carefully arranged atop a clean cloth. As they ate and drank the bitter tea, the day's rumors flowed.

Nyssa repeated her litany of prices with a distant gaze, but tonight her monologue had found a focal point: the quality of the ash soap had dropped, she said; it now smelled of scorched earth and left the clothes feeling rough. Maren, the woman with perpetually reddened eyes, interrupted her usual air of sadness with a mixture of scandal and secret fascination the gossip that had drifted from the laundries to the ears of the gatherers: the Mayor's personal servant was not just a servant.

He was, moreover, half Sandstrohm. —A true affront— Maren whispered. But none of the women listening showed any real surprise. In their eyes, there was no shock at all. Enara, the washerwoman with twisted hands, steered the conversation toward brighter shores: she spoke of the children playing on the banks of the estuary, their high-pitched laughter cutting through the afternoon air as they splashed barefoot among the dusaut, chasing anurhys and getting covered in mud. She said that seeing them made her happy.

That sometimes, she would close her eyes and listen to their shouts, and she could forget the pain in her fingers. Pira remained silent. Her eyes were filled with a private sorrow, her calloused hands gripping her teacup. No one asked her why. Lyra, the young girl with the massive reddish birthmark covering half her face, rambled about the history of the Mayor and his servant. Her voice was clear, and as she spoke, her fingers rose to touch her own marked cheek.

—Servitude will always be servitude— she said at last, with a certainty that seemed chiseled into her bones. —It doesn't matter to the lord. It doesn't matter the blood you carry beneath the uniform. She fell silent. Time slipped through the conversations until Anya brought the evening to an end with a sharp clap, and the silent procession toward the chapel repeated like a ritual learned by heart. Prayer bloomed from the women's lips in a collective murmur the same words, the same gesture over the heart.

Then, the darkness of the communal dormitory. The rustle of straw beneath bodies settling in. Until, finally, silence. In that silence, at last, Selena had time. Everything had happened so fast that there had been no room for slow thought, for that measured rumination that was, perhaps, the last refuge of the man of the earth within her. But now, in the dense stillness of the night, the gears of her mind began to turn. Kaela had said: two hard pence. She remembered spending ten softs on bread and milk.

She recalled the tally: each of them received fifteen softs. A twenty-for-twenty coin system. The monetary system unfolded before her eyes with the clarity of a diagram. Twenty soft pence made one hard penny. Twenty hard pence made one copper crown. Twenty copper crowns... one silver crown. I have money. A lot of money. The epiphany struck her with the force of a silent sledgehammer. The dune felis bag, that soft, sand-colored leather object she had sold to the market artisan, was not a simple accessory.

It was a luxury item. A possession that a woman in frayed clothes and cheap lodgings should not be able to afford. Unless... unless she wasn't an ordinary woman. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Selena, the original owner of this body, began to take shape in the shadows of her mind like a ghost with increasingly defined features. A thief, perhaps, or a spy. A fugitive with resources and contacts.

Someone who could hire a mercenary like Bjorn and pay him two silver crowns for his silence and his watch. Someone with a meticulous plan, with hidden money, with a false identity. What happened in that cabin? The question floated in the darkness, unanswered. But now, she had context. The original Selena's caution, the secrecy, the hiring of an anonymous messenger boy, the voluntary isolation... it all pointed to a delicate, dangerous operation that had gone terribly wrong.

Perhaps she had achieved her goal and someone or something had caught up to her anyway. Perhaps she had disobeyed those who paid her, and she had used whatever was in that bag. That brought my mind to this body. The contents of that bag, maybe. Her exhausted mind refused to delve any deeper. She needed direction, a concrete first step in the middle of the labyrinth. That first step had a name: Rolus. The little messenger knew which inn to go to, which sign to look for, which "errand" to collect.

He was the key, even if he didn't know it. And tomorrow, at dawn, Selena will find him. From the edges to the center. That would be her plan. Sleep arrived hours later, not as a sudden visitor but as a slow tide that gradually covered the cliffs of her consciousness. The screech of nocturnal insects filled the air, a sharp and rhythmic chorus filtering through the cracks in the adobe wall.

They were sounds she didn't recognize, she had never heard insects sing like that in her other life, in her other world, yet they felt strangely melodious to her. Like a cricket's song, she thought. It was something new, something of this world, which was slowly ceasing to be foreign to her. The dream formed before her closed eyes with the cruel sharpness of memories that do not ask permission to return. And there he was. Again.

He was walking across a campus of intense greenery, the freshly mown grass giving off that fresh, slightly sweet scent that only carefully tended gardens possess. Red brick buildings rose around him, solid and familiar, crowned by a pale blue late-spring sky. The sun warmed the back of his neck, and the weight of his backpack pulled gently to his shoulders. A dark-skinned man walked toward him with the effortless cadence of someone who knows the path by heart.

His smile was wide, tired, and full of ancient familiarity. —Román— he heard his own mouth say, the words surfacing without effort, as if he had never forgotten how to pronounce them. —How was the med exam? Román rolled his eyes with theatrical exaggeration. —Brutal, bro. I think I'm going to fail again— He sighed, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. —Damn Krebs cycle. Who was the genius who decided that memorizing eight enzymatic reactions was a good idea?

He shook his head, but there was a spark of humor in his eyes, a fond resignation. Then, his gaze settled on him and his smile turned mischievous. —How about you, Mr. Graduate? Is your multilingual ass here just to brag that you're going abroad to study? He didn't respond immediately. He just looked at him, a smile slowly growing on his lips, savoring the moment. —You know already? Román clicked his tongue, a gesture of feigned resignation.

—Gossip runs faster than anything else— A brief, warm laugh shook his chest. —Yes, I'm going. Saint Petersburg State University. I was accepted. I'm going to try for the doctorate. Román whistled through his teeth, a low, admiring sound. —Saint Petersburg. Russia— He shook his head, as if he still couldn't believe it. —I wish the body were like language, or at least something more predictable. He smiled, showing his white teeth. —Didn't you say it once, back when you started?

That bit about 'language constructing reality'? I hope there are some words, any words, that can help me pass that damn exam. He laughed, and his laughter was so familiar it hurt. A distant bell began to tint the edges of his vision. Distant at first, barely an echo, a metallic whisper floating from the other side of consciousness. Román's face blurred, his words became unintelligible, a watery murmur.

The green campus faded into a grayish mist, and the tic-tic-tic of the bell grew closer, more insistent, more real. Selena opened her eyes. The ceiling of beams and straw in the communal dormitory loomed over her, solid and tangible. The grayish light of dawn filtered through the high windows, and the air smelled of damp straw. The metallic sound, now firm and unmistakable, filled the room. Anya was standing in the center of the dormitory, her robust silhouette silhouetted against the brightness of the courtyard.

In her hand, the small bronze bell vibrated with every strike, wrenching the women from their dreams, returning them one by one to the implacable reality of the new day.