**Chapter 137 – Between Warrior and Home**
The room still hadn't emptied.
Someone brought more water. Someone adjusted the pillow behind Elowen's back. No one treated the pause as an excuse to leave. The story had stopped on the road, and now it needed to continue.
Elowen took a sip, held the cup a little longer than necessary and spoke:
— After that night, I didn't go back to being the girl from the low fence. I also didn't become a soldier right away. I just… went with them.
Harley pulled the chair closer.
— Tell us.
Elowen nodded.
— The journey to the kingdom lasted days.
---
Elowen traveled in Vaela's lap for most of the way.
Not because the women couldn't arrange another way. Because every time they tried to put her on the ground for too long, her body started trembling without a clear reason. Sometimes it was cold. Sometimes it was memory. Sometimes it was just the delayed shock finally catching up.
Serenya walked ahead, opening the route. Nyra stayed behind, listening to the woods. The others divided themselves between guard and march. No one made a celebration. No one also treated Elowen as dead weight.
On the first night of camp, Vaela sat near the fire with her wrapped in the cloak.
— You need to eat.
— I don't want to.
— I didn't ask if you want to. I asked if you can.
Elowen looked at the bowl. Then at Vaela. Then she ate three spoonfuls and stopped.
— That's already something — Vaela murmured. — Tomorrow we try four.
On the other side of the fire, Serenya sharpened the blade without looking directly.
— She talks little.
— She's seen too much to talk a lot — Vaela answered. — Leave it.
Nyra, sitting on a rock, added without softening:
— If she screams at night, someone stays awake. No scolding.
Elowen heard that and, for the first time since the yard, felt something similar to relief. Not peace. Just the idea that if the nightmare came, maybe it wouldn't come alone.
And it did.
That same night, she woke up choking, chest tight, hand searching for a cellar door that no longer existed. Vaela was already there before the second sob. She didn't ask for details. She only held the back of her neck and spoke low:
— Breathe. Count to four. Again.
Elowen counted. Badly. Then again. Until the air returned.
— I… I stayed hidden…
— I know.
— I heard everything.
— I know.
— I couldn't…
Vaela tightened the hug a little more.
— You were seven years old. It wasn't your job to save them. It was your job to survive. And you survived.
Elowen cried again, but this time without that total unraveling from the yard. It was a smaller cry. Tired. Still true.
Serenya, from a distance, observed the scene in silence and only spoke when the girl had already gone back to sleep:
— She stays with us. Until the end.
— Until the end — Nyra repeated.
---
The kingdom of women didn't look like a fortress from the outside.
It looked like a living wall of mist and light.
Elowen only understood the strangeness of it when the group stopped in front of a boundary that the common eye almost couldn't see: the air trembled differently, like hot glass. Serenya placed her hand on that space, murmured an ancient word, and the path opened.
— Barrier of the goddesses — Vaela explained, noticing the girl's gaze. — No man crosses without permission. Most don't even get close enough to try.
— And if they try? — Elowen asked, voice small.
— If they try — Nyra answered, dry — they regret it.
On the inside, the world changed.
There were light towers, high gardens, training yards beaten from so much use, houses of pale stone with colored fabric in the windows. Women of all ages crossed the paths with weapons, baskets, books or children by the hand. The air smelled of herbs, clean iron and bread. It wasn't temple silence. It was the movement of a city that knew how to defend itself.
When they entered, several stopped to look.
Not with hostility.
With attention.
— Serenya came back early — someone commented.
— Brought a child.
— Bad condition.
— They ask later — Serenya cut off, without stopping. — First roof, water and real bandaging.
They took Elowen to a low house near the guard wing. It wasn't a cold hospital. It was a simple room, clean bed, basin of hot water, smell of boiled cloths. Vaela removed the dirty cloak, washed her face, her hands, the tangled hair, with the same practical patience of someone who had already done that before in the field.
— If it hurts, say so.
— It hurts.
— Where?
— Everywhere.
— Then we go piece by piece.
A healer from the kingdom appeared later — an older woman, white hair tied high, eyes narrowed from looking at so many wounds. She examined Elowen without hurry, murmured about bruises, dehydration and the mark of fear on the body. She healed what magic could close. The rest she left for food, sleep and time.
— The body comes back — she said to Serenya. — The head… that one walks at its own pace.
— Then we follow the pace — Serenya answered.
In the first days, Elowen almost never left the room.
She slept too much or almost not at all. Accepted broth. Refused bread. Accepted bread. Refused broth. Sometimes she answered. Sometimes she just looked at the wall. Vaela came in the morning. Nyra appeared in the afternoon with short news from outside, as if it were important to remind the girl that the world continued. Serenya came at night, sat in the chair and didn't demand conversation.
It was on one of those nights that Elowen, suddenly, spoke:
— Why did you bring me?
Serenya raised her eyes.
— Because leaving you there would be the same rot as the ones who hurt you.
— I'm not one of you.
— Not yet — Serenya agreed. — But you can be.
Elowen squeezed the sheet.
— I already had a home.
— I know.
— I already had a mother. A father.
— I know.
— I don't want another one to erase them.
For the first time, Serenya took a while to answer. When she did, her voice came lower:
— No one here is going to erase. We don't replace the dead. We only prevent the living from staying alone.
Elowen didn't say yes.
She also didn't say no.
She only turned her face to the wall and let a tear run without wiping it.
---
The following weeks were made of small returns.
At the beginning, Elowen only went as far as the veranda. Then to the internal courtyard. Then to the edge of the training field, where she stayed far away, quiet, watching women exchange blows with a precision almost beautiful in how cruel it was.
It was there that Nyra stopped beside her one day, without announcement.
— You're looking like someone measuring distance.
— I'm not going to train.
— I didn't ask you to train. I asked you to look properly. Low shoulder on that one. Dragging foot on the other. The redhead in the back feints too much with the left hand.
Elowen observed.
— The one in the back… telegraphs the shoulder.
Nyra let out a short sound, almost approval.
— Good eye. When you want to use it, say so.
— And if I never want to?
— Then you live the same way. Here no one forces a child to become a blade. But no one also hides that the world outside eats the unprepared.
Elowen stayed silent.
— My mother hid.
— Your mother saved — Nyra corrected. — There's a difference.
That phrase stayed in Elowen's head for days.
---
The first true affection, after the shock, came in layers.
Vaela was the easiest. She had the way of someone who cares without turning care into pity. She taught Elowen to comb her hair without pulling everything at once. Taught her to tie her own cloak. Taught her to say "I'm not well" without thinking that was weakness.
— In my old squad — Vaela told one afternoon, while the two folded cloths — there was a girl who only spoke when the food burned. The rest of the time, total silence. One day she opened her mouth and told her whole life. We almost choked on the broth.
— And after?
— After she got lighter. Not whole. Lighter. Sometimes that's the maximum it gets.
Elowen ran her finger along the edge of the cloth.
— I don't know if I want to get lighter.
— Then stay alive first. Light we discuss later.
Serenya was different. Less lap. More presence. When Elowen started having anger — real anger, not just fear — it was Serenya who took the first push.
It happened in the courtyard.
An apprentice laughed too loud too close. The sound cut the air the wrong way. Elowen felt her chest close, saw red, and in the next second had already pushed the girl with an awkward and desperate force. The apprentice fell sitting, more surprised than hurt. The entire courtyard stopped.
Serenya arrived in three steps.
— Elowen.
— I didn't… I couldn't take the noise.
— I saw.
— I didn't want to…
— I saw that too.
Serenya knelt in front of her, at the same height.
— Anger doesn't make you the same as them. Badly held anger, maybe. So we're going to teach you to hold it properly. Deal?
Elowen, trembling, nodded.
— Deal.
The apprentice was helped up, checked, and the matter didn't become public humiliation. At night, however, Serenya returned to the room with two wooden practice weapons.
— Tomorrow you come to the field. Not to fight people. To hit a post until your arm gets tired. If the anger wants to come out, it comes out there.
— And if I don't want to go?
— Then I carry you. And it gets a lot less dignified.
Elowen almost smiled. Almost.
The next day, she went.
---
The months turned routine into ground.
Elowen started eating with them. Sleeping most nights without waking up screaming. Helping Vaela with small tasks. Correcting posture with Nyra. Listening to Serenya talk about routes, duty and borders like someone telling time by the sun.
There were still bad days.
Days when the smell of iron opened the cellar in her head. Days when a door slamming too hard made her entire body pull back. Days when she locked her mouth and didn't let anyone near until nightfall.
But there was also the other side.
There was the morning when Elowen, without being pushed, called Vaela "Vaela" instead of "ma'am." There was the afternoon when she corrected Nyra's aim with a dry observation and earned, in return, a rare corner smile. There was the night when Serenya arrived wounded from patrol and Elowen, without asking permission, brought water and cloth before anyone ordered it.
— You didn't have to — Serenya said.
— I wanted to — Elowen answered.
Serenya looked at her for a long time.
— Then you're learning the hardest thing.
— Fighting?
— Staying.
---
In the academy room, Elowen paused for a moment, fingers squeezing the sheet.
— That's how they became family. Not on the first day. Not by decree. It was in the accumulation. In the reheated broth. In the accompanied nightmare. In the fair scolding. In the respected silence. I opened up to them because they gave me more than enough time for it.
Kuroe spoke low:
— And the other girls who came with you to the academy?
Elowen shook her head.
— I lived the rest of my life, until I was sent here, with those women. When other girls from the kingdom arrived to study outside… I couldn't open the door. Not because they were bad. Because I already had my place. And because part of me was afraid that any new family would just be a house about to fall again.
Marina looked at her own hands.
— Until us.
— Until you — Elowen confirmed. — You gave me that feeling of ground again. That's why I managed to get close. The mark only organized what was already happening. I still love Serenya, Vaela, Nyra and all the others. I always will. But here… here also became home.
Harley leaned back in the chair, her gaze more serious than her tone usually admitted.
— Then the middle is missing.
— It is — Elowen said. — The real training. The way I grew up in there. And the reason I was sent to this academy.
She looked at everyone in the room.
— That I'll tell next time.
Outside, the academy night continued ordinary, indifferent. Inside, the girl who had lost the low fence had already gained a wall, a name and a war lap.
And there was still more path to tell.
**End of Chapter 137**