Journal Entry, Dated 12/02

Jasmine

Metadata

Reference Number: BICI/SSP/CRJ1004/008

Title: Journal Entry, Dated 12/02

Author: Jasmine

Date: Written approximately 12/02, Year 5607 A. o. W.

Extent: One journal entry, twelve pages long

12/02

I thought I would leave first thing in the morning. 

I was wrong. 

I woke up a little after dawn. The gentle light was disorienting; I’m not used to waking up so early. Though at that point, I was still determined to get back onto the road as quickly as possible. I changed my bandages with the supplies Nico left out for me, and hung the extra I didn’t use on the inside of my cloak. I heard Nico moving around in the rest of the cottage. All I needed from him was to point at wherever we were on the map, and then I’d be on my way.

The thought of apologizing needled at me. I wanted to, but I wanted to leave more badly. I could stomach the guilt. 

When I opened the door, it was like walking into a wall of mouthwatering smells. An entire feast laid out on the table, far too much for only two people. I saw steaming milk bread, hot soup, fried eggs, and a massive bowl of sliced fruit.

Nico stood by the table, his hands still around the bowl of fruit. “I got a little carried away. It’s been a long time since I cooked for someone else,” he said, letting go of the bowl to scratch the back of his head. 

He must have been cooking since before dawn, and judging from the fruit, he only just finished. My guilt sat me down at the table across from him, but my rumbling stomach certainly helped. I hadn’t had a hot meal in days. 

In the past few weeks, I’ve had no appetite. The villagers were kind enough to fill the cottage with food so I could feed myself, but most of it began to rot and wither before I even touched it. What I did force down tasted like ash. What did food matter when Blossom wasn’t there to eat it with me?

For the first time since she died, I was genuinely hungry. 

“Think of this as an apology for hounding you last night,” Nico said. “I’m a good host, I promise.”

Again, I thought about apologizing.

“But maybe you’re open to a chat now?” he continued.

…I could give him that much.

“Fine,” I said, and at his pout, I added, “We can talk. And I’ll answer.”

“Great! So, tell me about yourself,” he said, propping his chin on his intertwined fingers and watching me with a smirk. His eyes were bright, a kind of red-orange that reflected the light of his nearby hearth perfectly.

I grabbed a piece of bread and tore into it. It was sweet and soft, and my eyes burned as I chewed. It wasn’t quite the same as Blossom’s favorite, but it was close enough to sting. She’d never eat this again.

I had to get going. I had wasted enough time already.

Once I swallowed, I spoke. “My name is Jasmine. I’m nineteen. I was born and raised in Seabreeze Shoal. It’s a fishing village past the western end of the forest.”

“We’re almost the same age! I’m twenty-two.”

I was right. He was a little older than me.

“I’ve heard your villagers don’t get out much. Why did you leave? Sick of fishing?” Nico continued.

I couldn’t tell this stranger the truth. If he was any bit pious, he might stab me on the spot for sacrilege. “You could say that.” I cleared a spot on the table and unrolled my map. “Where are we?”

Nico leaned over the table. “Nice map! We’re about… here,” he said, pointing at a spot that was far more north than I had hoped. We were practically in the middle of the forest.

“And how far are we from… anything?”

He clicked his tongue, frowning. “We’re pretty far from everything. Stonesworth is about a day and a half away by foot. The northern edge of the forest is a day away, and the closest village after that is even further. The path you took out of Seabreeze Shoal is a little over a day’s walk. If you really rushed, you could maybe hit the path directly south of us before it got completely dark.”

I grabbed two more pieces of bread and put them in my satchel. “That’s what I needed to know. Thanks for the food,” I said, getting up out of my seat. 

Nico stumbled out of his chair as he tried to follow me. He reached for me, but faltered right before his fingers could grasp my arm. “Wait, Jasmine! You don’t want to do that!”

I didn’t want to keep talking, either. “I can’t keep wasting my time.”

“It isn’t a waste to rest and heal up,” he insisted. 

I ignored him and headed outside. The chasm was bigger than it had been yesterday, now sawing most of the meadow in half. I didn’t realize it was actively growing. I gave it a wide berth as I studied the sky to see out which way was south. 

“Jasmine, it isn’t safe! You should come back!” Nico called after me. I didn’t look back at him. If I did, I might hesitate. And charitable host or not, he struck me as the kind of person to exploit any weakness he saw. 

This journey was never going to be safe. I knew that the moment I left. But if I was fast enough, I could get back to the main path within the day. From there, it was only a matter of keeping to it until I hit the Tending Grounds. Then I could finally get some answers.

That’s when the aberrations came tearing out of the forest, sprinting straight for me. Nico shouted something behind me that I couldn’t make out from the spike of panic that overtook my senses. I took off at a sprint back towards the cabin, powering through the sharp pain that lanced through my leg. 

I spotted Nico running out of his cabin, crossbow in hand and poised to strike. He fired a bolt, killing the aberration closest to me instantly. In my panic, I didn’t bother to think about the implications of that, but it’s obvious to me now. I should have known.

My focus then was on running. I heard the click and woosh of several more bolts shot from his crossbow, but in the distance I spotted even more aberrations spilling out of the forest. Far too many for Nico to take out on his own. 

“The gorge! Run towards the gorge!” Nico shouted.

“Are you crazy!?” I shouted back. There was no way I was getting close to that thing, especially not with the aberrations chasing me. One wrong move and I was dead.

“Trust me!” Nico shouted.

But how could I? Good host or not, I didn’t know him. Granted, I wasn’t sure why he’d have a reason to kill a stranger like me, but still. I wasn’t going to put my life in the hands of some stranger I met in the fucking woods. 

Another pack of aberrations tore out of the forest. Stranger or not, I had two choices before me: listen to him, or die. Really no choice at all. I ran closer to the chasm. An aberration screamed right behind me, but with a wail and a whoosh, it suddenly fell silent. Nico must have shot it. 

The chasm curved sharply in the middle of the village. I followed the curve, hoping it would put some space between me and the aberrations. Right as I did, the ground began to shake. I tripped and fell, only catching myself roughly with my hands. If I got back up, I’d surely fall again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ground besides the chasm crumble away to nothing. The aberrations chasing at me stumbled and fell. Their shrieks carried up into the sky, echoing endlessly.

The ground stopped shaking. I crawled away from the chasm and carefully got to my feet. My heart pounded in my chest and blood rushed in my ears, but I was alive. I looked around and saw Nico running towards me. I limped over to meet him halfway. My hands burned, and I looked down to assess the damage; I had scraped them in the fall and sliced the thickest part of my palm on a rock. 

Nico stopped once we faced each other, clearly out of breath but clearly faring much better than I. A single crossbow bolt sat in the quiver hanging off his shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I glanced down again at my hands. He followed my gaze worriedly. I flipped my hands over to show him, and he relaxed slightly in relief. 

“Nothing that’ll kill me,” I said.

He cracked a smile. “Good.” Then, he sighed. “Did you really have to do that? Breakfast is cold now…” 

He headed back inside, clearly expecting me to follow. I did. What other choice did I have?

…It’s funny. Describing it now, it seems like the term I should use to describe my current situation is… trapped. I’m trapped. I can’t leave here by myself without meeting a certain death.

And yet… I don’t feel trapped. I didn’t at that moment — I was too exhausted for the thought to even occur — and I definitely don’t now.

Before long, I was sitting back at the table. Nico poured me a new cup of tea. This one was less astringent than the one from the night before, but still wasn’t to my taste. Nico fussed around his kitchen, heating up the hot things that had gone cold and fiddling with the fruit. 

I watched him work in silence. Finally, I could sort through my thoughts. And in the quiet of his home, I realized something I should have seen the moment we met. It was so obvious. How hadn’t I thought of it before? I should have figured it out the moment I saw him living alone in an abandoned village without any walls, surrounded by aberrations. If not then, then the moment I realized his eyes glow orange. 

Like embers.

“You’re an Undying Ember,” I said. I pushed down a spike of fear that burned my throat. How could I possibly stay here? One slip-up and he’d kill me for my heresy. 

I stood up, favoring my good leg over my injured one.

“I was an Undying Ember,” Nico said.

I sat back down. A welcome relief to my abused body.

“What do you mean, was?”

Nico slipped into the seat across from me and pushed the bowl of fruit over. “Can you keep a secret, Jasmine?”

“Why tell me a secret? You just met me.”

His eyes were bright, his smile mischievous.

“I have a good feeling about you. And my intuition is pretty spot on.”

I considered my options. What was he going to do, kill me? If he wanted me dead, then I’d be dead already. Besides, what else did I have left to lose?

“Tell me,” I said.

His voice dropped to a whisper, even though there was no one else around for days. He leaned over the table. His mouth was so close enough to my ear that I could feel his breath puff against my skin with every word. He even put his hand up to cover his mouth, as though he was worried about someone reading his lips. “I defected. I renounced the Undying Embers, I cursed His Eternal Warmth and His bullshit Forge, and I ran away.”

I pulled away just to stare at him. “I… what? How are you not dead?”

It was one thing not to trust the Undying Embers. But to curse His Eternal Warmth? Seabreeze Shoal is seen as a backwater village at the edge of the world for being only mildly pious. Even then, we don’t deny who He is: the god-king of all eternity.

He sank back into his seat, but he continued to whisper. Now I was the one leaning closer to hear him. “Normally, I would be. You can retire from the Undying Embers if His Eternal Warmth — but really, the Flame-Feeder — thinks you’ve served long enough. But a retirement that doesn’t get approved? You just get… ah, what do they call it?” He tapped his finger to his chin, then snapped his fingers together. “That’s right. You get extinguished. The Flame-Feeder slides her knife across your neck and tells you that you’ll be reforged into something more useful in the next life.”

It finally hit me. “You’re in hiding.”

“I doubt anyone’s looking for me anymore. They probably assume I’m dead.” 

Death doesn’t seem to matter to anyone but me. Everyone else speaks of it so casually: Embers, my villagers. The fact that they’d kill Nico, one of their own, without blinking twice made me so angry. How much less did they care about a little girl from a backwater village? 

“See, I got my Spark early,” Nico continued, his voice returning to a normal volume as he spoke. I forced myself away from my thoughts so I could better listen. “Very early. Started my training at ten and was Branded by thirteen. I was delighted. Not many Embers come from a place like this. Everyone says we’re too far from the touch of warmth to be blessed with Embers. The ones we did have came from out of town and protected us because they were told to. And as you can see, the forest is full of aberrations. I was so excited to finish my training and come back to protect my village. We needed all the help we could get. Except… they didn’t let me do that. Instead, they set me nearly everywhere else in the world. By the time I returned, it was basically what you see now.” 

Something inside me shook, like a choppy, storm-sodden wave crashing over my heart. Unfamiliar and astounding.

“Everyone was gone. My family, although between you and me, we didn’t get along. My best friend. My childhood sweetheart, who would have been my lover if I could have seen him alive again. Everyone I knew and loved was just… gone. And nobody but me cared.”

Now I know what that feeling meant: I had finally found someone else who understood what I felt.

His story was the first thing that made sense to me since Blossom’s death. 

“And that broke your faith,” I said. 

He nodded. “I’ve stayed here since. Partially to hide from any Embers who still might want me dead. And partially to help travelers like you. That part was true, I promise. Luckily for me, His Eternal Warmth must have been too busy knocking rocks together inside His shitty volcano to cut me off from His magic when I left. Since I still have it, I might as well use it to help people, right?”

One question still lingered. “I believe you, but… where’s your Brand? I don’t see it anywhere.”

Nico laughed. “It’s somewhere I can’t show a new friend.”

“Ew. Why there?”

“His Eternal Warmth’s almighty will,” he said. “Now, let’s try this again. I told you about me. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

Knowing all that he told me, all that he trusted me with, why wouldn’t I tell him the truth?

So I told him. About Blossom. About the Spark I saw in the ashes under her corpse. About the gap in my head, in my soul. The ghosts that would have haunted me had I stayed. 

About my current plan: how I thought my best bet for answers was at the Undying Ember’s training camp down south.

It felt good. 

It felt freeing. 

And when I finished telling him my story, he told me two things in response: that he was sorry, and that he believed me.

For the first time in years, I felt like I did when I was a child. Not powerless or scared, but… supported. Protected. The way I felt when I first told Spica that I wanted to be a merchant like Cinna, and Spica held my hands and promised that she’d be the Ember to protect me, just as Malva protected Cinna. 

I didn’t feel alone anymore.

We finished breakfast not long after. Nico told me to go and rest. Even if I didn’t feel my injuries now, I’d feel them soon. He must have wanted me to rest in bed and maybe nap, but the thought makes my skin crawl. I don’t do well with stillness. 

Instead, I’m writing to pass the time. Something tells me Nico would scold me if he saw me, considering the state of my hands, but I’m well-used to writing with injured hands. I know how to hold a pen without aggravating the injury. 

Nico said he had an idea to share with me a little later, once he had checked on a few things. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m willing to listen.