Ehlissa's Story (a Castle Greyhawk Prologue) - p. 24

She could feel the tears welling up inside her.

"Is something wrong?" the patient captain asked.

Now, the last thing Ehlissa wanted to do was answer because then she
knew she would burst into tears. Then this nice captain would
probably escort her home and make her explain herself to her entire
family and she would be embarrassed and….Or maybe, she began to think,
this was not such a nice man at all, but was trying to make her lower
her guard so he could take advantage of her? She forced back the
tears and looked up at him with as stern a look of defiance as she
could still muster.

The captain's look darkened in response and he acted by bringing his
shield down hard right on Ehlissa's dagger-wielding hand. The pain
made her cry out and drop her dagger, which landed on its side in the
dirt at her feet.

"Now, be off with you before I change my mind and slap you in the
stocks for brandishing a weapon against a night watchman," the captain
warned sternly.

Ehlissa backed down quickly, her smarting hand banishing temporarily
from her thoughts all her other troubles. She left the captain
standing over her dagger and made her way unarmed back home. She
aimed vindictive thoughts at that vicious captain until she reached
home and then, in the safety of home, she allowed her other worries to
flood back into her mind. She immediately wanted to tell Johydee
everything. Having her sister as a confidant through this whole
ordeal had helped her through everything, and yet now Ehlissa felt a
sudden urge to say nothing. Surely there would be another lecture
from her younger sister about how she should not pursue this any
further. And she would be right, wouldn't she? The more Ehlissa
thought of just giving up and backing out of this whole business, the
more she felt there was no other way but forward. Her obsession, and
she freely admitted to herself it was an obsession, had made a narrow
tunnel in her mind where she could see no side route to her goal. She
simply had to still learn an adventuring spell, for it led to Tenser
and the life of adventure he promised her.

She told herself that she had not decided yet what she would do, but
she also decided not to mention anything to her sister about it. She
avoided Johydee's gaze at dinner. She went straight to her room after
dinner without a word to her sister. It was inevitable that Johydee
would come to her room to ask her what happened. Ehlissa dealt with
that by pushing her chest of drawers across the room and in front of
the door to block it. Johydee tried talking to her through the door
as far as it would open, but Ehlissa just laid there pretending she
was asleep already.

All of this turned out to be a very good thing, as it worried Johydee
to no end. Had Ehlissa simply lied about what happened to pacify her
sister, Johydee might not have taken steps that would soon save her
Ehlissa's life.