It had been the same for over twenty years; she was used to the treatment she was given. She was used to the look she was given, and the whispers.
“A place that can support a regular supply of goods to the North. Most of the items have to be food that can last months and should consist only of things that come from warm places.” This was enough to limit it to a few places. There was little land in the north near Biflten with large quantities of food. There weren’t many people who wanted to live close to the monster-infested lands.
“But why are you looking for this?” the knight asked suspiciously.
“To find a place to be married in,” she said.
The knight sneered. I bet he thinks no one will marry me, thought Ilyin. Rumors of Ilyin de Arlen would have already been spread to the social circles. A young noble who didn’t even make her social debut despite being in her mid-twenties. They automatically assumed she had some sort of flaw. This became a gossip subject for many, and they wondered what flaw she could possibly possess.
“You can go now,” said Ilyin, “Thank you for your service.”
The knight turned away without so much as a nod. Decent courtesy is dead these days.
Ilyin persevered. She was human too; she couldn’t help feeling a little resentful. It’s alright, she comforted herself. She was used to this; she could certainly take it a bit more. She found comfort in the thought that she had only a little time to spend in this mansion. She would be gone soon. That relaxed her.
What will happen if I choose to leave Biflten? she wondered. Something could go amiss on the first night. The recruitment letter also provided an alternative of divorce for the prospective brides. They gave her the option to leave. But Ilyin would never set foot in her father’s mansion if she could help it. At least, not in this lifetime.
No one will welcome me anyway. My father doesn’t love me enough to accept me back from my failed marriage, she thought. If anything, they’ll say that I ruined the family’s reputation. She sighed and startled as the door closed with a bang.
The knight had slammed the door behind him as he went out. The attitude of the knight disgusted her. But no matter, she would be away soon. Eventually she would come down for her first night. The Mistress of the Biftlen family was already ready. There was no need to fret. Ilyin felt a little relieved.
*
Ilyin had a dream:
It was a dark dawn as the morning sun had not yet risen. A time so dark that one could barely see the shadows of people and things. A dozen people moved towards a cart. They moved silently, shuffling as there was no light.
There were mostly fruits and rice loaded onto the cart. The high-quality ones were hidden beneath blankets to protect them from the weather. The blanket had a seal drawn in green, indicating trust. The seal of a rising hawk.
The name next to the seal spelt Essid. It was clearly the name of the place distributing the goods.
“Hurry!” said a voice, “We need to leave before sunrise.” The Lord perhaps. Ilyin, in the dream, looked on as a person ran towards this Lord and bowed his head.
“My Lord,” said the person, “If we leave too early, the deliveries might freeze in the cold.”
“It’s alright,” assured the Lord, “If we leave now, we will be at the gates of Biflten by afternoon. Don’t worry.”
Biftlen? Ilyin thought in the dream. She watched the Lord lift the blanket and check the deliveries. Beneath the blanket were thick cotton buffers. Its purpose was to save the fruits from being crushed into each other.
“We are all set!” declared the lord as he lifted the last blanket to check the contents. Ilyin saw a mobile with the provisions, so colorful that it shone and sparkled.
Ilyin opened her eyes. Perhaps the dream was a sign providing her with a means to reach Biflten quickly.
*
Ilyin’s first precognitive dream was during fall when she was seven. The dream was as vivid now as it had been so many years ago. She had seen her own brother fall from the terrace on a snowy day.
“Sid!” she had cried and woken up. She had clung to her parents, crying. Unlike Baron Arlen, who brushed it off as nothing but a childish nightmare, Lady Arlen, her mother, had believed her. She had known the nature of these dreams. She had become afraid of winter and went mad as the day got colder.
“Sid will fall off the terrace to his death on a snowy day,” Ilyin had said and it has stuck to Lady Arlen’s mind from that day. Lady Arlen would have seizures whenever Sid went near the terrace and would forbid him from leaving his room at all on the days that it snowed. It was a desperate attempt at preventing his imminent death, to no avail.
Sid fell down the stairs of the mansion. The emergency stair on the third floor was usually high. As Sid fell, his head had bumped on the sharp edges of the stair. Sid had been very ill. By the time the fall ended, Sid was already dead. He had died on a snowy day. No matter how hard one tried to avoid them, the precognitive dreams always came true.
“Did you ever dream of me?” Her father would ask her after Sid’s death. Every time he saw her, that was the only thing he barked at her. Little Ilyin had been afraid of her father. He had never shown her any warmth after that, only pestered her for any unfortunate visions she would have had that would befall him in the near future.
One day, her grandmother had had enough of it and had slapped the Baron across the face. “You crazy, vile piece of shit,” she had cried, “Will you leave her alone? She is just a child!”
From that day forth, the Baron had only looked at Ilyin resentfully. Having the vision to see the future but being unable to change it, or even trying to change it, was a terrible thing. Ilyin’s grandmother lamented at the terrible ‘curse’ that had gripped her progeny.
When Ilyin was young, she had not given a thought to her dreams. She had thought they were just harmless dreams but then they started coming true and she couldn’t ignore them further. It always showed her the future and always, a mobile would be present.
She didn’t know if the mobile was the requirement of these kinds of dreams or if her mind had created it to differentiate these dreams from others. When she was young, Ilyin loved watching the mobile that hung over her head as she slept. It had been a gift from her mother before she went mad. Her mother had always loved her until Sid’s death.
“Why do you dream such terrible things?” she had asked with resentment in her voice. “The cursed blood…”
Sid’s death had changed everything. Her father’s wrath and her mother’s resentment rang in her head. With Sid’s death, she had lost a family. Ilyin’s grandmother pitied her mother and pitied her. Ilyin began to hate her dreams.
“My lady, he is called Brad,” said a voice, following a knock on the door. It brought her back from her memories to the present.
“Come on in,” she said.
The door swung open and the knight entered. She had sent him to identify the Lord she had seen in her dreams.
“Thank you,” she said to the knight. He turned around and left the room without any response, slamming the door after him like before. The knight wasn’t really good at his job and deserved no acknowledgement. The city wasn’t even big, and it had taken him one whole week to find the Essid Merchant. But she wanted information.
It was time to move.
*
“Your identity, Ma’am?” asked the clerk.
“Ilyin de Arlen,” she said.
There were some Arlenza nobles that Ilyen knew, but very few nobles knew about Ilyin. She had never been officially presented in the social circles. The clerk at the capital of Essid made a long face. He was trying to investigate whether Ilyin was indeed a noble.
“Ilyin de Arlen. Isn’t it enough to be from the Arlen family?” said Ilyin again. Her father had treated her as a nobody. The Arlen family didn’t have many connections and very few people even knew of his daughter. She understood the Clerk’s hesitancy, but she had no time to dawdle.
“Please wait a while,” said the Clerk.
The clerk made his way inside. Was it too much of a stretch to demand to see the head of the place right away? Ilyin wondered. The clerk came out again.
“Miss, you’ll have to be back in half a day,” he said.
It was quite obvious his Lord had refused to see her at the moment. She sighed. Ilyin looked around and saw no one approaching. “I understand that a large delivery is to head north,” she said.
“Of course,” said the Clerk, “Boro is our main destination.”
Boro estate was much closer to the capital than the Biftlen estate. It was closer to the central part of the capital than the northern part of the empire.
“I heard it’s headed further north than that,” she said. “I know that some of the carts are headed for Biftlen.”
It was impossible for Ilyin to say more without clarifying about her dreams. In Biftlen, even in summer, crops were unable to grow. So, it was clear that Biftlen had deliveries from different places. It won’t let its people starve just like that. Ilyin was sure that only very few people knew about these deliveries.
It wasn’t winter yet, but it was getting chilly. Maybe Biftlen would already be covered in blizzards.
“…Please wait a moment,” said the clerk, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
The clerk went back inside. Ilyin was sure that this time she would be granted an audience. The clerk appeared a moment later. “This way, please,” he said and ushered her inside.
The clerk looked much subdued now. He led her through the curved hallway. A sign reading ‘Head of Merchants’ was hung above. It was flashy and self-assured. The clerk led her by it and into a small room at the side.
“My Lord,” said the clerk, “She is here.”
“Thank you,” said a man who looked simple enough. By the sign at the door, she had expected to see a huge, flashy, perhaps narcissistic gentleman. But the ‘Leader’ of merchants, dressed in a white shirt and active pants, looked very humble. She recognized him from her dream. The clerk bowed and left the room.
The Lord greeted Ilyin with a smile. “Did you say your name was Ilyin de Arlen?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s a sensitive matter so I have invited you indoors,” said the man, “We aren’t dealing with Biftlen.”
“That can’t be true,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“First of all, our cart does not go to Biflten,” continued the man, “I’m not vicious enough to send my men to that barren, godforsaken land.” He smiled again. “It’s true that a lot of food is being delivered north. They are being delivered to the Boro estates and the surrounding lands. You already know the north is quite vast.”
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