Tempered by the Will

This is the SEQUEL to Driven by Instinct. Find the first book on my author profile! : ) * * * * * To Oren - I hope you're well. There's a messenger boy here at this halfway settlement who says he can make the run to Winding Oaks in three weeks. I'm not sure if that's the truth or if he's just trying to get the three gold coins I have in my possession from when the governor of Aventon tried to bribe me to stay. Am I awful for taking it and then leaving it the next day? I didn't know. There's someone I met named Bren who explained it to me after we were long gone, so it wasn't as if I could run and give it back after that. I hope you're still there at that inn, but at the same time I hope you're not. Apparently three gold coins is enough to convince one messenger boy to look for you around Winding Oaks and the next town over too, though, in case you've moved on like you said. So maybe he'll find you. Maybe he won't. I want to tell you that I'm only three days out from the Capitol. I'm so close. Constantine is with me, but we haven't spoken since a certain incident happened a while ago. I don't know how fast news travels in these parts, so maybe you've heard what happened. If you haven't, maybe that's for the better. I think I may have made a lot of enemies, but Bren assures me that asserting my presence will draw allies too. I hope so. I want to think that I can do this on my own, but it will feel better knowing that there are others with me. I know you would say it doesn't matter, but it does. Because I don't want to do it alone. You were right. I have more than I ever realized. I am more than what I ever thought. I have a chance to leave my mark on the world on my own terms, and I want more than anything else for the things I do to matter to the people who need them. Who need me. I wish you were here. But elves are treated awfully in these parts, even worse than in Winding Oaks, I guess. Or at least, that's what I assume based on all the horrible things I overhear when these people talk about anything that isn't them. I don't see many elves around, so I don't know why these people would have anything against you all to begin with. How can you hate people you've never met and have done nothing to you? How can you hate people just for being here first? But it doesn't matter. I just wanted to let you know that I've made up my mind. A lot of things have happened, Oren. A lot of things have changed. Me. The world. Everything. Constantine, too. I just don't know how much of that change is real and how much of it I'm imagining. One minute, he's hot, the next, he's cold. I can't tell if it's because he can't decide or if he's just trying to keep me off balance. It's hard to trust someone who doesn't know what they want. Well, I know what I want. I know where I'm going. I know where I'll be in a few days. Bren tells me it'll be dangerous, but we've figured out a way to get in without being gutted on sight for what I've done (I won't tell you what it is, because in hindsight, it was very, very reckless and I should have been more careful). Constantine will take me to whoever contracted him to get me. He's not holding me prisoner anymore in any way - in fact, sometimes I get the feeling he desperately wants to get rid of me. He left Bren and me to our own devices back in Aventon, actually, and disappeared off to who knows where for the night. It's strange how things have changed between us. I despised him at first, and then I hoped in him for a while, and now - I don't know. I feel sorry for him. I wish he had what I had. A purpose or something else greater than this one life he's known, the life of a mercenary and a crook. But to that, he told me the other day that I'm as self righteous and pompous as ever. That's another thing that's changed. I never thought I'd be in a position to argue with him in the first place, but it feels like that's all we've done this past week. Bren might as well not be with us sometimes, the way we go at it, and it's not banter or even Constantine's cruel teasings. He's so angry sometimes, and I start remembering the fear I used to feel before I realized that he's actually... Is it cruel to say pitiful? Maybe I'm still angry at him. Bren doesn't mind any of it as he travels with us, but then again, he tells me all the time that Constantine is only a temporary fixture in our lives. Like tolerating a hangnail, or a drafty room in an inn. It is strange how Bren's attached himself to me all of a sudden. When we next meet - if, I suppose - I'll tell you about how he and I found each other. He's an elf, by the way. Half. Mysterious sort. He seems like he'd be quiet but he isn't, he can talk my ear off which is a relief because it's so silent around Constantine now. When we aren't fighting, at least. You'd laugh, but it bothers me. But I do know that if our paths diverge, I know where I will go. With him, I can't tell if he will travel the other way or if he will stay with me. He'll need to make a decision soon. Or maybe he'll betray me and leave me for dead after all, who knows. I'm wondering if I was an i***t to ever trust him. You'd call me an i***t, I'm sure. But you're not here. And today we leave for the last stretch to the Capital. I hope this letter finds you well. Be safe. Be healthy. I hope we meet again.