Prologue
Elia - Eleven Years Ago
The trajectory of my entire future was changed on another seemingly ordinary day. There were no fireworks or explosions, no waving red flags. No big sign from the universe or the Ancients themselves telling me that today in particular would be anything other than the usual monotonous day in my life. But I’ve since learned that fate has a funny way of showing itself.
The day started off as all others did for me back then - with the sound of the rooster crowing. It was my daily morning greeting, pulling me from the comfort of my dreams and forcing me awake to face reality. The rooster call was the everyday reminder of where I lived. Owning a farm meant work and chores in the morning, and then more work and more chores in the afternoon and evening. Somehow, though, the rooster never woke my parents up with his cry, so instead I tended to the animals and the crops until my parents rose around midday, the morning work mostly, if not fully, completed by then.
“Aurelia!” My mother called me from inside the house. I was in the chicken coop, collecting the eggs that had been laid the previous day.
“Coming!” I yelled back.
I grabbed the last egg, thanked each of our chickens for their contributions, and headed back to our farmhouse. We called it a farmhouse, but realistically, it was more of a cramped cabin that my parents had tried to convert into a farmhouse with little success.
“Six eggs today,” I declared, placing the basket near the stove where my mother was manning a sizzling pan. “Bacon smells good.”
She placed a quick kiss on my forehead. “Thank you, dear. Go wash up and tell your father that breakfast is almost ready.”
I hurried to wash as I was starving. I’d stolen the few remaining pieces of cornbread from dinner yesterday as a snack for the morning, but I finished up the last of it hours ago. I’d already been up for about six hours, so this meal was going to be more lunch than breakfast to me.
“Aurelia, there you are,” My dad commented as I joined him at the table. “I was wondering where you’d scampered off to.”
“I was doing my chores, as I have to do every morning.” I tried not to let my irritation show but had little luck. “The wheat is almost ready to be harvested; I’ll need help when it’s ready. Oh - and I think Maisie has another infection in her eye, we should probably have someone come and take a look.”
Maisie was our largest brown cow and biggest milk producer and was also my closest friend. Only friend, really, if I was being honest with myself.
My dad waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Sure, fine. Whatever you need.”
I knew I’d have to find someone else to help or figure it out on my own, as usual. My parents were very outspoken about the fact that they weren’t farmers, and never wanted to be, despite them owning a farm. They claimed they bought this farm for me, as a way to put roots down and settle, to have something for me to grow into. However, when they bought the cabin and surrounding land, four-year-old me hadn’t known then that all the farm work would turn into my responsibility as a result. My parents hated farm work, or any work in general, and their disdain showed everyday, always reminding me of the life they’d had before I’d been born.
As if it was my fault I was conceived.
“Breakfast is ready!” My mom carried the steaming pan over to the table as she served my father first, then me.
The scraping of silverware on the plates filled the cramped space as we enjoyed breakfast. The table only seated two comfortably, and my elbow brushed my mom every time I moved my fork. I couldn’t help but notice that everything on the plate - the scrambled eggs, the bacon, even the cheese scattered on top of the eggs - were all sourced from my labor on the farm. Another reminder that they’d starve without me.
When my plate was clean, I started to stand to place it in the sink, but my mom stopped me, one hand on my shoulder, pushing me back into my chair.
“Aurelia, dear, your father and I have something we need to talk to you about.”
I sat back down tentatively. In all my fourteen years, I could never predict what words would tumble out of their mouths next. Their desperation for adventure had recently been becoming crazier and crazier, isolating themselves from the rest of the townsfolk. Was there another shooting star we needed to follow? Another pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? They were the type of people that believed everything anyone said, no matter how outlandish it was. I chose not to speak, waiting instead for them to drop whatever eccentric idea they had devised.
“When your father went to town yesterday for supplies, everyone was talking about the news from King Corvin. He announced a kingdom-wide treasure hunt - the Golden Hunt!”
I was still stuck on the first part of her sentence, replacing ‘supplies’ with ‘fraudulent elixirs made to scam people’ in my head. Then I realized I missed the part where she had mentioned the Ashven King and – did she say a treasure hunt?
“Sorry, can you repeat that last part again?”
It was my father now who interjected. “The King is searching for a treasure chest full of relics!” His eyes were as wide as saucers, his remaining breakfast long since forgotten on his plate. “And whoever finds it keeps a percentage of whatever else is inside.”
I glanced at my mother, but she too had this dreamy expression on her face, her head already lost in the clouds.
I figured I should start with the basics. “Okay…uh…where is the chest, exactly?” My parents often told me that my negative energy had ruined some of their wild goose hunts in the past, so I always tried to lace my voice with positivity instead of the skepticism that usually came through.
“Well that’s the mystery of it all, no one knows! It could be anywhere in Ashven. Maybe anywhere in all of Erithia! That’s why The King asked all of us to help.”
I paused for a second to make sure my mom wasn’t joking. The sparkle in her eyes and the way she leaned forward on the table towards me told me she wasn’t.
“You don’t know where it is?” I asked slowly. “So… how do you know where to start? Ashven is a huge kingdom itself, nevermind the whole continent of Erithia. A search that size could take months… probably years, decades even. And what did you mean by ‘whatever else is inside’? Shouldn’t the King know the chest’s contents?”
