Once upon a time, I wanted to get out of the usual writing rut and write about a protagonist who isn’t a young person being called to save the world. Instead, Lorielei Alterian presented herself. Lorielei is an elven Healer with centuries of knowledge, and she is called upon to help purge relics of the old world.

The gates of the House of Healing had not felt so imposing in centuries.

Sister Lorielei stood before them, staff planted on the stone, as though the ironwood might anchor her to the familiar earth beneath her feet. The first vestige of dawn lightened the eastern sky, and a thin mist clung to the gardens she’d tended for longer than most kingdoms endured. Somewhere behind her, novices arose, their soft chatter drifting through cloisters she knew as well as her own breath.

She did not turn back.

“Well,” came Argaron’s voice, low and steady, “they won’t open themselves, m’lady.”

Lorielei sniffed. “Patience is a virtue you would do well to learn, Master Argaron.”

“I have learned it,” he replied. “I simply prefer not to practice unnecessarily.”

She cast him a sidelong glance. In the pale morning light, his features seemed less severe than she remembered, though the scars remained—etched like old roads across his face. He wore no ostentatious armor, only well-kept leathers and a cloak clasped with a sigil she did not recognize. House Trivesh, she assumed.

“You are eager,” she said.

“I am,” he admitted. “Time is not a luxury we possess.”

That again. A muted urgency beneath his words. It’d been present in the Patriarch’s office, though veiled behind courtesy. Lorielei hadn’t pressed him then. She intended to now.

Before she could speak, the grand gates groaned open.

Two novices bowed as they pulled them wide. Behind them stood Father Byron, hands clasped before him, his expression composed. Mother Josslyn lingered just behind his shoulder, her gaze warm but sharp, missing nothing.

Lorielei straightened, drawing herself up despite the stiffness in her body.

“So,” Byron said, “the day has come.”

“It has,” Lorielei replied.

He stepped forward, lowering his voice. “You carry more than your own purpose now, Sister.”

“I’m well aware of the weight you’ve placed upon me, Father,” she said coolly.

A flicker of something—guilt, perhaps—passed through his eyes. “Not just mine,” he said. “The order’s reputation travels with you. And… there are matters beyond even that.”

Lorielei’s fingers tightened around her staff. “You speak in half-truths, Father. I would advise against that habit while I am away. I cannot listen for what is unsaid if I am not here to hear it.”

Mother Josslyn snickered. “She has you there.”

Byron sighed. “When you return, perhaps I will have more to tell.”

“If I return,” Lorielei corrected.

Silence fell at that.

Then Josslyn stepped forward, pressing a small bundle into Lorielei’s hands. “Dried herbs. Not the kind we discussed. These are for you, not your spells. Sleep will not come easily on the road.”

Lorielei blinked, surprised. “You always did know my weaknesses.”

“And your strengths,” Josslyn said gently. “Don’t forget those.”

Argaron approached, bowing his head in respect to both elders. “You have my word,” he said, “she will be protected.”

Lorielei snorted. “I’ll not be coddled like some fragile relic, Master Argaron.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he replied, though she heard the faintest hint of humor in his tone.

At last, nothing more could delay them.

Lorielei stepped through the gates.

The world beyond felt… larger than she remembered.

The road stretched ahead, winding through low hills dusted with morning light. Birds called from the trees overhead, and the air carried scents far wilder than the curated gardens she’d left behind.

She paused once, just beyond the threshold.

Taking a deep breath, she kept walking.

The pair traveled in silence for the first hour.

Lorielei found herself acutely aware of every sensation—the unevenness of the road beneath her boots, the pressure of the leather armor against her ribs, the unfamiliar weight of the pack on her shoulders. Not unpleasant, just… different. Untamed.

“You walk well,” Argaron said at last.

“I haven’t forgotten everything in my old age,” she replied.

“I didn’t expect you had.”

“Yet you sought me out.”

“I did.”

Lorielei stopped.

Argaron halted a step ahead, turning to face her.

“You didn’t answer my question in the Patriarch’s office,” she said. “Not truly. You spoke of relics and regions, of history and faith. All very noble. All very vague.”

His expression did not change, but something in his posture shifted—subtle, guarded.

“You wish for more detail,” he said.

“I require it,” she corrected. “I don’t wander into danger blindly. Not anymore.”

For a moment, he studied her.

Then he nodded.

“We learned of five relics,” he said. “Each tied to a different region of the continent. Each bound to… older powers than most remember.”

“Artifacts of the old faiths,” Lorielei murmured. “Pre-schism.”

“Yes.”

Her mind stirred, old knowledge rising like sediment disturbed in still water.

“Such relics are not merely historical curiosities,” she intoned. “They are… anchors. Conduits.”

“Exactly.”

“And you intend to collect them.”

“I intend to find them before someone else does.”

There it was again—that urgency.

“Who?” Lorielei asked.

Argaron hesitated.

That was answer enough.

Lorielei’s lips thinned. “You ask for my aid, my skill, and perhaps my life,” she said, “yet you withhold the nature of the threat.”

“I withhold nothing lightly,” he said. “But names have power. Even speaking them carelessly can draw attention.”

“Then speak carefully.”

A long pause.

Then, quietly, he said, “We know of a faction—one that believes the old powers should not remain dormant.”

Lorielei’s stomach tightened. “Fanatics.”

“Yes.”

“They always are.”

“They have already found one relic.”

That stopped her cold.

“One?” she repeated. “Which region?”

“The Southern Wastes.”

Lorielei closed her eyes. “Ice and monsters,” she murmured. “Of all the places…”

“When they claimed it,” Argaron continued, “the land itself changed. Villages abandoned. Crops failing. Something… awakened.”

“And you expect the same elsewhere.”

“I expect worse.”

Lorielei exhaled slowly, her earlier irritation giving way to something colder, sharper.

Purpose.

“You should have led with that,” she said.

“You might have refused.”

“I nearly did anyway.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “Then perhaps I judged correctly.”

She gave him a look that would have withered a lesser man.

“Don’t grow comfortable in that assumption, Master Argaron.”

“Perish the thought.”

They continued walking.

By midday, the road had narrowed into a winding path through sparse woodland. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in shifting patterns, and the air had grown warmer.

Lorielei felt the strain. Not in a dramatic way—no sudden weakness or faltering step—but in the slow increase of effort. Her back ached. Her legs grew heavy. Even her hands, steady for centuries in delicate work, felt the unfamiliar burden of constant motion.

She said nothing.

Argaron, to his credit, didn’t comment.

Instead, when they reached a small clearing beside a stream, he stopped.

“We’ll rest here,” he said.

Lorielei didn’t argue.

Lowering herself gingerly onto a fallen log, she suppressed the small sigh threatening to escape. Argaron moved efficiently, checking the surroundings, filling a waterskin, and gathering a few fallen branches.

“You make camp early,” she observed.

“We won’t stay long,” he said. “Fatigue makes for poor decisions.”

“On that, we agree.”

She watched him as he worked.

She saw a discipline in his movements—not the rigid precision of a soldier, but something more fluid. Practiced. Adaptable.

“You’re not merely a ‘bounty hunter,’” she said.

He glanced at her. “No?”

“No. That’s the title you offered. It’s not the truth.”

“What would you call me?”

Lorielei tilted her head, studying him. “A man with too much responsibility,” she said. “And not enough allies.”

For the first time, he looked surprised.

Then he chuckled.

“That,” he said, “may be the most accurate description I have heard.”

“Then let’s correct the latter problem,” she said. “You mentioned others.”

“I did.”

“Where are they?”

“Waiting,” he said. “In a town two days from here.”

Lorielei frowned. “You left them behind?”

“I came ahead to secure a healer.”

“And if I’d refused?”

“I’d have found another.”

She didn’t like that answer.

“You wouldn’t have found one like me,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t have.”

Something in his quiet tone gave her pause.

Before she could respond, a faint sound reached her ears.

A rustle.

Not the wind.

Not an animal.

Lorielei’s grip tightened on her staff.

“Argaron,” she whispered.

“I hear it,” he replied, already turning.

The forest held its breath.

Then—movement.

Figures slipped between the trees, too deliberate to be chance. Cloaked, armed.

Watching.

Lorielei felt a flicker of something she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

Fear.

Followed almost immediately by something else.

Resolve.

“Well,” she said, rising slowly, “it seems your urgency was not misplaced.”

Argaron’s hand hovered near the hilt of a blade she hadn’t seen him carry before.

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

Lorielei adjusted her grip on the ironwood staff, the amulet at her throat growing warm against her skin.

“Stay behind me if you must,” she said.

He glanced at her, one brow lifting.

“I thought you had no intention of fighting.”

“I don’t,” she replied. “But I do intend to survive.”

The first of the cloaked figures stepped into the clearing

And Sister Lorielei Alterian, healer of the House, who had not faced danger in seven centuries—Prepared to meet it.

Read the first part of Lorielei’s journey at: Lorielei: Ready or Not