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Dear Emielle,
I hope this letter finds you well. It has been some time since I graduated from the Academy, and although I don't say it much, I think of you often.
It’s strange to write to you from so far away—right now, I’m at a small café in Alcor, watching the evening light over the rooftops from my window seat. The tranquility here is beautiful: narrow stone streets, old brick buildings, the sound of the sea always close by. The light is different, somehow softer, as if the setting sun is pouring warmth into the streets. I think you'd like it. Alcor reminds me of the Academy: maybe it's the way people gather in these coffee houses and sit and talk for hours at a time, drinking out of small cups and watching the world pass them by. It makes me think of Violetta’s tea parties. Strange, isn’t it, that only after I graduated I learned to appreciate them.
Two weeks ago I was further south, on the coast of Alioth. The cliffs there stretch on forever, stone slowly crumbling into the sea. Further inland, the flower fields are just as they’re described in the books: lavender and sunflower stretch on forever, rows and rows of blossoms all the way to the horizon. I stood there for a long time, just breathing in that sweet scent and feeling the wind through my hair. I took some of the lavender flowers with me; they're pressed into the front cover of my journal. Enclosed is one of them, though I’m sorry it has to be second-hand. I wished you were there to see it, too.
There are times when distance feels heavier than I thought it would. I miss the Academy - not so much that I'd want to go back, but being this far away made me realize how many things I took for granted. Mostly the little things - being among peers my own age, the teachers and the caretakers who looked after us. The songs you'd sing when we took those long walks through the rose gardens, and the piles of books we read sitting in our favorite corner of the library.
There are harder times, too. The humans here are wary of strangers from afar, and weeks go by when I don't feed at all. But our kind have put down roots across the continent, and there has always been someone willing to spare me some animal blood, or a night’s shelter from the hunters. Next week, I will leave my small room in Alcor and cross the mountain range to Megrez. I don't know what awaits me there; what the people are like, whether there will be hunters. The mountains here are towering, ancient, and they remind me how small we are, how we live merely a handful of years. But the Academy taught us all how to survive, and then how to live. Those lessons remain with me still. It comforts me to think that one day they will keep you safe, too.
I think of you often, Emielle. Even with the entire continent between us, I feel the binding of the blood oath still. I used to wonder, sometimes, if it would. The bond of sisterhood is formed out of necessity, and ends when we leave the Academy; it is the way of our kind, that the elder sister goes out into the world to find her own way, and the younger will learn to live without her. There are rumors, however. That if both sisters truly wish for it, the oath may continue.
Or perhaps it is simpler than that. Perhaps I simply miss you, Emielle.
I'll write again soon. Until then, please know that I'm well. Take care of your sister.
Yours always,
Eve
Dear Eve,
Your last letter arrived on the most ordinary Tuesday, and suddenly my whole week felt brighter. I read it curled up on the windowsill, the one with the chipped paint where you dropped a tea tray on it, and for that little while, it was like you were right there beside me again. I imagined you pointing at a map telling me where you'd gone and where you’d go next. Marie caught me grinning at the paper and immediately demanded I read it aloud. We spent an entire study period marking off on the map all the places you've been to. (Okay, it was also an excuse to slack off from schoolwork. You'd have been cross with me, but Marie was only too happy.) Marie asked me if I’d travel too, when I graduated, and I said I’m not sure. I'm not someone who can backpack across the world alone like you can, and at any rate, I feel like I’ve seen it all through your letters already.
The Academy feels different without you here. Between classes the hallways are too loud in all the wrong ways, and no one laughs at my terrible jokes like you did. I’ve taken over our old study corner in the library, and sometimes I still look up from my books thinking I’ll find you there. I’ve pinned your lavender sprig above the desk in my room. It’s dried out, of course, but when the afternoon sun hits just right I can imagine how those fields must look… and smell, and feel. But really, things at the Academy are the same they've always been: the first-years went on their first hunt last month, Violetta is teaching her younger sister to host tea parties, and the old tree in the rose finally lost that dangling branch in that last storm. Between homework and tea parties and hunts, I make plans for our weekends off. Marie and I have mapped out every used bookstore within a day’s journey. Remember how you and I used to go to the rose garden and spend whole afternoons just staring at the sky watching the clouds move overhead? It’s quite like that, except Marie likes staring at books, instead.
Your words about hard times stayed with me for days. I wish I could send you care packages of tea, cakes, and the smell of the grass in the rose garden after it rains. But I can’t, so I hope these words can keep you company instead. Come back to visit (or come back to stay), whenever you’re ready. There’s always a seat saved for you at Violetta’s tea parties, and I’m stockpiling all the best stories to tell you when I see you again.
I feel it too, you know. The blood oath. Since you left, I've felt as if you're always just around the corner, just out of sight, vanishing every time I try to look a little closer. Of course it has lasted. I don’t think promises should be made lightly. If you go out into the world to find yourself, then of course I will wait for you to come home. And when it’s time for me to leave, too - Eve, please know that I go to find you.
With all my love,
Emielle