It was over, but Adrastos couldn’t make himself believe it, even as he stared across the lake at the burning city of Vortigern.
The one place he’d sworn to protect, burned to the ground. Its people murdered in their sleep by the invaders.
How had it come to this?
He stood on the beach, watching the city that had been his home burn to ash in grim silence. Voices from the survivor camp some distance behind him reached his ears, but they were nothing but a dull drone, and he didn’t bother trying to pick out the words being said.
Well, until one came near enough for him to have no choice but to listen.
“I would tell you that you should be resting, but I get the feeling it would fall on deaf ears.” It was Lianna, his twin sister.
Adrastos didn’t bother turning to face her. “You’re right—about more than one thing.” His leg—wounded while he’d been escorting a family out of the city—still smarted, but he would not return to the healers’ tent, not with so many dark thoughts swirling through his head. “But, then again, you should be resting as well, don’t you think?”
He heard Lianna sigh but, before long, she was coming up to stand beside him. Her pale face, like his own, was smeared with soot, and her black hair was held back from her face in a messy tail. She too was injured—more seriously than he, he personally thought—her left arm supported by a makeshift sling and numerous cuts marring her cheeks.
For a time, they stood there in silence, watching the city burn.
“…I can’t believe it’s really gone,” Lianna said at last, and Adrastos finally did turn to look at her. Like him, her eyes were dry—neither of them were particularly prone to tears—but there was no mistaking the sorrow on her face.
“Neither can I,” he admitted. It was the most he could offer.
“But most people got out—that’s good.” He could tell that it took some effort for her to say that anything was “good” right now, but she managed. “Just don’t know what we’re supposed to do now.”
It was the same thing that had been troubling Adrastos ever since he’d woken up and learned what had happened. But, somehow, hearing her voice the worry helped clear his thoughts enough to see the path before them.
“The survivors will need warriors to protect them while they make their way to a new home; our path still lies with them, so long as we choose to follow it,” he said after a long silence. “The city may be gone, but they, the people, are Vortigern.”
Lianna considered that a moment, then managed a small smile. “We are Vortigern.”
Adrastos couldn’t agree more.
Thank you for reading! I wrote this story as part of the Storytelling Collective’s Flash Fiction February 2023 challenge, so a huge thanks to them for inspiring me to give it a shot.
