It was early in the morning, and today something rare happened while Hexa was still asleep. A ship arrived from another island, bringing traders into the distant island of the Lushfalls. It was a reason to celebrate, because trading also meant making money. As the traders entered the town, a rumor entered with them: Maya's bounty in Etherium. The island normally avoids outside politics, but when the people heard the amount, they couldn't just think nothing about the news.
As soon as Maya stepped out of the door, she could only suddenly only hear one name. Maya. That had been the name she had gone by her whole life. Now it was coming from everyone's mouth like a choir singing a familiar childhood tune everyone had learned as a kids. The name was common on the island, but it felt like mockery to be the only Etheriant carrying that cursed name, yet she didn't even know why they were chanting it.
When she saw one of the wandering traders looking at her for longer, she knew it was about her. And to make it worse, that exact salesman used to be her coworker when she had her first job as a sales assistant and knew almost everything about her, making it easy to use it against her. She was fuming. What could that idiot have possibly come up with just to get a bit more sales? she thought.
One of the whispers of someone in the marketplace caught her attention. The truth comes out of the child's mouth, or at least that's what people say. "Many thousands of gold coins if someone gets Maya Emberhold to the queen of the island next to ours!" that kid exclaimed excitedly. Emberhold. Her surname. It all confirmed her suspicion. It was about her, not another Maya.
In these years, Maya has learned that the island was poor and most people were graceful if they got 20 gold coins, which was the amount a little kid gets as pocket money in Etherium. Oh, and the happiness if someone got to spend the thousands of coins on constructing the town.
Maya was deep in her thoughts trying to assess the danger and possible ways to escape if necessary, planning out all the things she'd need to take with her and if it was a good idea to take Hexa with her. She was too deep in her thoughts to notice a tall, dark-haired guy observing her every move from the other side of the market square. His dark eyes sized her up as she was walking around mindlessly. His intentions were unclear, but whether it was the bounty or entirely something else, that gaze could mean anything good.
Maya was planning ahead. Even though she never told anyone her last name, she could still sense someone would learn it someday. It would not be safe enough to live there if she didn't fake her identity or change her name, which both sounded like awful options to her. All she wanted was to keep herself, Hexa and the town safe. Well, half the town. Some people were insufferable to her, some never stopped asking where she's from, and some still want to learn her last name to recognize her from the crowd of people named Maya. It's not a rare name there, it seemed.
Hexa had finally woken up. She got out of the house and found Maya straight away. Because they forgot to take Maya's riches with them, they have been working like the others on the island. And as usual, they helped the villagers with harvesting their shared crops from the small farms to gather food for everyone in town.
In fact, the weather was really good for harvesting crops outside. The children were playing outside in the warm, sunny weather. The adults were working in their small shops or harvesting crops with Maya and Hexa. The day was going all too well for everyone. Little did the villagers know the huge bounty was closer than they'd ever have expected.