Chapter 584: The Estuary
Nearly four months away, and Border Town felt different.
Lotus noticed it first on the Redwater Bridge, the way she always did — something in the scale of things that hadn’t been there before. The town expanded without pausing for weather. Even the heavy snows of winter had not stopped it. Below the bridge now, the south-bank factories arrayed themselves in neat squares, and the dock area across the water had grown several times over. Concrete-hulled boats trailed black smoke up and down the river in such numbers that the glittering surface was almost hidden beneath them.
“It’s much more crowded than Sleeping Island,” Honey said, leaning over the railing to look down. “All those people — they look like ants.”
“They do,” Lotus agreed.
She had thought the bridge was wasteful when they built it — too wide, too much material. Now she understood. Roland had known what he was building toward.
Occasionally someone on the bridge looked up at them, curious about their clothing. In any other city, a glance like that would have had Lotus mapping her exits. Here, she just looked back.
There was more that couldn’t be seen from a bridge. The heating systems that kept rooms warm through winter. The electric lamps that held the dark at arm’s length. Ice cream. Evelyn and Candle could talk about these things for an entire day. But what surprised Lotus most was none of that.
The biggest change was the relationship between witches and ordinary people.
She had seen it in Evelyn’s tavern.
The Witch Union had funded the place; Evelyn ran it, managed it, tended bar — serving the fine blended wines she produced to visitors from across the Western Region. The idea of witches spending savings on a business rather than hiding them under floorboards had been His Majesty’s. Lotus had sat with Wendy over two glasses of pale green apple wine — clear enough to see through the crystal — and found it lighter and more aromatic than anything she’d had on Sleeping Island. The room itself was nothing like an ordinary pub: the floor was clean, the tables set properly, the guests arranged in their seats without shouting at each other. It would not have read as a pub at all, except for the row of barrels behind the counter.
Evelyn stood there talking to her guests, and nobody remarked on what she was.
Many of the foreign merchants had come specifically out of curiosity. Lotus watched Evelyn smile with a freedom she had rarely seen in her, and knew she meant it. Before Lotus had left, most of the witches’ activities had been confined to the castle district, and they had moved through the town under the protection of bodyguards. Now they were folded into every part of city life.
One season. That was all it had taken.
She thought about what Wendy had told her during their evening together, and understood why the witches of the Union worked so hard. They were not building Neverwinter for Roland. They were building their own home.
“Let’s go,” she said to Honey. “If everything holds, we’ll finish the estuary today.”
“Yay!”
When the last piece of rock sank into the ground, Lotus pressed her sleeve across her forehead and breathed out.
“You really made a road through the mountain,” Honey said, applauding.
From the treetops above them, the row of birds Honey had collected along the way burst into song.
“Of course,” Lotus said. “There’s nothing I can’t do.”
The rock layer here had been much deeper and harder than the reef formations around Sleeping Island — more resistant, more unforgiving, requiring more precise work. But Roland’s plan had not asked for the whole mountain to be flattened. He only needed a passage wide enough for five or six carriages to move abreast. Recalling the iron bridge, she no longer thought of such width as waste.
The approach she’d settled on was gradual: sink the ground in stages until the hillside became a gentle slope, running from forty meters above sea level down to the coast. She had pressed the surface rock flat while she worked, smooth enough that rain would run off it cleanly without pooling.
Standing at the crest now, she could see the golden shallows and the blue sea at the bottom, and feel the cool breeze coming up the slope carrying salt.
“Did you bring fire?” Honey bounded toward her.
“No. Why?”
“Roast fish!” Honey grinned. “You could drive them to the surface, and if we don’t have fire we could just dry them in the sun for two days—”
The birds above them erupted into louder, cheerful noise.
“Absolutely not,” Lotus said flatly. “I refuse to smell dried fish on a road I just built. And haven’t you had enough? You ate fish constantly on Sleeping Island.”
“I thought it was quite good, actually.”
“Putting fish out to dry is banned here. His Majesty doesn’t like the smell either.” She paused, thinking of Ashes, who had survived on fish soup for months on the island. “His Majesty says he plans to build a harbor. That way Lady Tilly can come by ship whenever she wants, instead of the hot air balloon.”
At the mention of Tilly, Honey went still with a kind of pure, uncomplicated longing that only she was capable of.
“So — will she come?”
Lotus patted the girl’s hair — soft and perpetually wild. “I don’t know. But the church war is coming, and she’ll want to help her brother.”
That wasn’t the whole truth, and Lotus knew it. The situation with the Bloodfang Association and Heidi Morgan made everything uncertain. She had not liked the combat witches and their posturing, back when that prejudice had been easy to carry. Now it seemed thin and a little embarrassing. After she’d set it aside, she’d found they were not so different — she and Iffy had even managed brief, actual conversations.
Whether Tilly could bring the combat witches to heel was another question.
“That’s great!” Honey said, already somewhere else in her mind, imagining the reunion.
Lotus said nothing. The girl understood nothing about war, and Lotus did not see the point of explaining it to her. She did wish, though — quietly, with more feeling than she usually let herself have — that Lady Tilly would come. That she would stay.
Then the wish she had made in winter would come true: all of them, together, in this place they were building.
All of us. Living here.
Chapter 584: The Estuary
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
After nearly four months, Lotus had a different feeling when she returned to Border Town.
The town had developed rapidly, and even the heavy snow did not stop its expansion. She had this particular feeling every time she was on the Redwater Bridge.
The factories located on the south bank of the river were arrayed like a neat square, and the dock area across the river had expanded more than several times. Concrete boats with black smoke moving back and forth on the river almost covered the glittering surface of the river.
“It’s much more crowded than Sleeping Island. There are a lot of people, and they look like ants down there.” Honey leaned against the railings of the bridge looking down.
“I agree,” said Lotus. She had not understood why His Highness had wanted such a broad bridge and felt that it had been a waste of materials when the bridge was being constructed. Now, however, she thought that his decision was proven to be right.
Occasionally, people moving across the river via the bridge would glance up at them, curious about their odd dress and appearance.
In other cities, Lotus would think about how to escape at moments like this, but she did not need to worry about her safety here.
In addition to the changes one could see, there were still many more improvements in life, naked to the eye.
For example, the heating system that made people feel warm, the electric lamps that lit up the night and new, delicious food like ice cream and so on. Evelyn and Candle could talk about those changes in their life with her for a whole day, but those were not what surprised Lotus the most.
She thought the biggest change was the relation between witches and ordinary people.
And this could be seen in Evelyn’s tavern.
The tavern was funded by the Witch Union. Evelyn was the manager and bartender, serving guests who visited the Western Region delicious blended wines. It was His Majesty’s idea that they should spend some of their savings on business instead of keeping it hidden inside their drawers.
Lotus had been invited by Wendy to have two glasses of iced apple fruit wine. The taste was exquisite, much more aromatic than oat wine and mixed with a delicate fruit flavor. The drinks also looked quite attractive, and you could see the clear pale green liquid through the transparent crystal glass. The environment there was not like that of the ordinary pubs which were often noisy and chaotic. Instead, the guests were sitting elegantly in their own seats, and the floor, tables and drinking vessels were all clean and tidy. She would not consider the place a pub, if it were not for the row of barrels behind the counter.
Of course, the experience corresponded with the high prices of the drinks.
Evelyn stood in front of the counter, having conversations with her guests and nobody reproached her because she was a witch. Instead, many foreign businessmen came over to drink due to curiosity. Lotus had seldom seen Evelyn smile so happily, and she knew Evelyn really liked the job.
Lotus recalled that most of the activities of witches had been basically within the castle area before she had left, and the witches had often been protected by His Majesty’s bodyguards when they needed to go out. But now they were gradually being assimilated into every part of the town.
It was incredible that such changes could be made within just one season.
Talking with Wendy that evening gave Lotus a deeper understanding. She believed perhaps that was the reason why the witches of the Witch Union were willing to do their best.
They were not only building Neverwinter for His Majesty Roland, but also building their home.
“Let’s go. Today we’ll complete the transformation of the estuary if everything goes smoothly,” Lotus said to Honey.
“Yay!”
…
When the last piece of rock sank into the ground, Lotus wiped the sweat off her forehead and took a deep breath.
“Awesome, you really made a road through the mountain.” Honey applauded.
Meanwhile, the row of birds crouched in the treetop above her head tweeted.
“Of course, there’s nothing I can’t do,” said Lotus proudly.
Unlike the reefs surrounding Sleeping Island, the rock layer here was much deeper and harder, so it was much more difficult to transform it. Fortunately, she did not need to transform the entire mountain into flat ground. According to His Majesty’s plan, she just needed to build a passageway that could allow five or six carriages to pass side by side. Thinking of the iron bridge, this time she did not consider such a spacious road a waste.
Since the hills were more than forty meters above sea level, the easiest way to build the road was by sinking the ground gradually until it turned into a long, gentle slope.
In order to facilitate the passage of carriages, she purposely pressed the rock layer on the surface of the hills into a level road surface. By doing so, even if it rained, puddles of water would not form on the surface of the road.
Now, if you were standing on top of the slope, you could see the golden shallow beach and the blue sea, and you could feel the cool sea breeze blowing along the slope with a familiar salty smell.
“Did you bring fire?” Honey bounded toward her.
“No, what do you want to do?”
“Roast fish, of course!” Honey smiled and added, “How about you drive them out to the top of the water’s surface when I attract them here? We can just put them under the sun for two days if we don’t have fire.”
The birds above her head tweeted even more merrily.
Lotus rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t want to smell salted fish everywhere! Besides, haven’t you got bored of it? You ate so many on Sleeping Island!”
“Hmm? I feel it was quite good,” Honey said while tilting her head.
“Anyway, putting fish under the sun is forbidden here. His Majesty doesn’t like the smell of fish, either.” Lotus suddenly remembered Ashes and was not sure whether she was still plagued from eating fish soup on Sleeping Island. “His Majesty said he plans to build a harbor, so Lady Tilly can come here anytime she wants, and she won’t need to come by hot air balloon anymore.”
When Lady Tilly was mentioned, this attracted Honey’s attention. “So… will she come?”
Her expression was even simpler than that of an animal. Lotus patted her fluffy hair, saying, “I have no idea, but soon His Majesty has to fight against the church, so she must come to help her brother.”
Actually, Lotus was not sure, especially after she had heard all the details of the Bloodfang Association and Heidi Morgan. In the past, she had not liked the pompous attitude of the combat witches, but now it seemed that they were also quite pitiable.
After she stopped holding prejudice against them, she realized that they were actually not that different from herself. At least now, she could have a short
conversation with Iffy once in a while. The combat witches on the island, however, would not be persuaded by Tilly easily.
“Yay, that’s great!”
Lotus sighed inwardly. This little girl knew nothing about war. If Lady Tilly failed to solve the Bloodfang Association’s problem, and the church attacked His Majesty Roland at the same time, it would mean big trouble.
Despite that, she still wished that Lady Tilly could come to Border Town again.
And she also wished Lady Tilly could stay here forever.
Then the wish she had made in the winter would come true
“Thus, all the witches including myself could live happily in Border Town,” Lotus thought.