73Pov woke me in the morning. 'Remind me never to get you mad,' he said as I got ready. 'I think Kai is seriously considering suicide,'
I wasn't exactly sure whether or not he was joking, but I decided that since it was Pov, I'd be better off ignoring the comment altogether. 'We'd better be leaving for Athlea today,' I commented offhandedly, trusting him to look away as I changed. There was a silent few moments before he answered.
'Yeah,' he nodded, as I finished up and secured my belt on my hips. 'Hopefully the legendary level-headedness of the elves will straighten this group out, eh? I honestly can't believe Shita. I never thought she'd sink so low as to make a move on Kai.'
I rolled my eyes. 'I just hope today goes better than yesterday. I'm sorry you had to see all of that crying on my part…I feel like such a pathetic fool. My dad—' I cut myself off, remembering that he wasn't my real father, but deciding that I didn't care, 'My dad always told me that I was tough, and that I shouldn't cry for anyone. He said that if they did something to hurt me like that, then they weren't worth a single tear.'
Pov shrugged. 'Haven't I told you before? Kai is just messed up.'
'He told me he hated me,' I muttered, tying my long blond hair into twin braids—one on each side of my head. 'Seriously, Pov, told me he hated me.'
'That he did. You know he didn't mean it, though.'
'Then why would he say it?'
'I couldn't tell you,' Pov sighed, messing with his loosely curly brown hair as we walked out the door. 'I don't know what his motives are, frankly. For awhile I thought I had him pretty well figured out, but now I'm not so sure. It's not natural to live as long as he has, you know. I think all that time has done some serious damage to his brain,' the last two statements were made in Pov's most brilliantly witty voice, and I laughed despite myself.
'You never cease to make me feel better, Pov. Thanks for it.'
Suddenly Pov stopped walking, and he looked at me strangely. 'Are you feeling ok, Summer?'
I frowned. 'Um, I think so, but let me check…' I gave myself the once over, then wiggled around a bit. 'Yep. I think I'm doing pretty good,' I joked.
Pov raised an eyebrow, but nodded quietly nonetheless. 'Your eyes are just a little…I had a friend who got the same way, once.'
'Mind if I ask why that's so monumental?'
He looked at me seriously for a moment, and I fidgeted a bit under the awkward scrutiny of his stare. 'He's dead now,' Pov told me. 'I found his corpse in his room one night.'
I choked a bit, but tried to cover it up. 'What was wrong with him?' I asked calmly.
'I don't know,' he said, shaking his head. 'He was never the same after his sister died—he'd disappear for weeks on end, and then come back to his house and sleep for three days straight. It was almost as if…Well, I know you wouldn't do something like that, no matter how bad it got. He was weak, and you're nothing like that. It's probably just from the crying.'
I smiled halfheartedly. 'Yeah, sure,' I said, not even asking what I was supposedly too strong to do. I had a feeling that Pov had already hit the nail on the head.
We walked into the dining hall and sat down to eat. There wasn't much more than bread and meat, accompanied by a rather bland, tea-colored drink that I only threw back to get rid of the dryness that plagued my mouth.
Shortly after we began eating, Cam walked in alone and sat with us. There was an odd moment of complete silence between the three of us, until finally my will broke, and I had to end it.
'Thank you for standing up for me,' I said quietly.
Cam smiled and shrugged, snatching some bread from my plate. 'What are best friends for?' He said. 'I, um…I'm sorry I said that I hated him. I don't really, you know—not for the things I said. I hate that he hurt you, Summer, and even if I forgive him for it, I won't soon forget what he did.'
I nodded. 'I know.'
I laughed as Pov cleared his throat beside us. 'Well, now that you two have had your touching—and horribly sappy—little moment, I vote that we get on the road. Athlea is waiting, after all.'
Cam and I agreed readily, and as soon as we were finished with what little food was left, the three of us went our separate ways to pack up. It didn't take long before not only us, but the rest of the group gathered in the conference room for a pre-journey meeting.
Kai stood in the corner on one side of the room, and Shita was sitting next to her very disapproving brother on the other side. Kuro had been kind enough to take the initiative in the matter and had kept her with him the entire morning. He didn't look like he was enjoying the company.
'I think you should stay on with us,' I told Cam's group. 'Even if it's just for a little while. I missed you guys a lot, and it's getting dangerous out there. There's always safety in numbers, right?'
Cam frowned regretfully. 'We have…previous commitments. I'm sorry, Summer, but we've already stayed far too long.' He seemed to have returned to the diplomatic Cam from when he first arrived. It was as if he'd hidden away my best friend, and replaced him with someone else.
My heart sank, and it must have showed on my face, for he smiled suddenly and returned for a moment to his former self.
'What's your last stop, before you're done rounding up help?'
'Um, Yikep, I think. It's a human settlement—an island, but I'm not sure exactly where it is,' I replied.
'It's off the northwest coast,' Kai put in, and every single person in the room except Shita glared at him.
'How long will it take you to get there, do you think? Including whatever stops you have to make, and all that.' Cam asked next.
I shrugged, 'Maybe a month? A month and a half? Seven years? I really couldn't have less of an idea.'
He grinned, and his blue eyes glinted triumphantly. 'Then we'll see you in Yikep,' he said.
'But I don't even know when we'll actually be getting there, Cam! You could be waiting in Yikep for weeks before we show up,' I told him, a little disheartened.
Cam just laughed. 'Then we'll be waiting in Yikep for weeks before you show up. I thought you wanted to see us!'
'I do, I do!' I groaned, rolling my eyes. 'Yeah, it's a plan. We'll meet you all in Yikep,'
With that, we were forced to say our goodbyes. What was left of my original party somehow drew me into an odd, halfway-group-hug, and we all laughed when Pov made an annoyed noise and muttered—very loudly, I might add—that we were glory-whores and should stop making such a show of saying goodbye.
Akila saw us off. We hadn't seen the councilmen since the first day, nor did we really care to. Their incessant arguing had been too much for me to handle even then, and as things were now I probably would have pulled out a knife and stabbed one of them.
Even though we all walked together, the five of us were in no way a functioning group. A good ways in front of us, Kai led our little party through Dulsoj territory, and ultimately toward Athlea. Behind him walked Pov and I—we talked quietly about inane things as we traveled, if only to keep that horrible silence from settling over us. I did not want to have to be the one breaking that particular phenomenon.
The last two in the group were perhaps the most interesting. Kuro had stayed by Shita's side ever since 'the incident', and it certainly wasn't a show of loyalty on his part. He bore a perpetually annoyed look on his face, and whenever she took in a breath to speak, he hissed something foul at her, and she held her tongue.
'You know,' I leaned over to Pov, 'I'm almost getting worried, just because we haven't run into any trouble in such a long time. Kai and I used to see signs of Uribon's increasing power just about everywhere we went, but now…'
'I was thinking the same thing. Things have been so quiet lately that it makes me wonder just what, exactly, is he planning?' Pov frowned and glanced around nervously, as though just by mentioning the dreaded black wasp he would appear and cut us all down.
'Even if he is scheming away up on Vinahur, I don't see that there's much we can do about it. Unless, of course, you think it's a good idea for us to go charging up there ourselves,' I laughed easily, but joined in Pov's apprehensive watch of the forest around us.
We'd walked for nearly half of the day when the forest began to thin out, and I spotted a town on the horizon.
'Look! A town, finally.' I pointed excitedly, as though everyone hadn't already seen it. My smile soon faltered as I caught the scent of blood and old smoke on the slow northern wind. 'Famine,' I muttered bitterly, recalling when this had been a regular routine.
'Pardon?' Pov asked me when he heard my mumbled curse.
'They're all dead,' I sighed. 'Well, if we're lucky enough there might be a survivor or two, but I doubt it. The only time we've ever found anyone alive after a town's been wrecked like this was when we found you, Pov, and I think I'm right in assuming that you weren't actually in that town when it was razed.'
He shook his head. 'I stumbled upon it shortly before you did, but I knew you two were coming, so I pretended to be injured in the cellar. If I'd been there, I probably would have known that Uribon was behind it, and I never would have met you,'
'As I thought,' I nodded, bracing myself when I knew who I had to talk to. 'Kai!' I called up, and he was beside me shortly. 'What should we do?'
Although I couldn't discern the expression on his face, I was pretty sure that it wasn't hatred or annoyance, and I relaxed somewhat. His voice sounded odd when he spoke, though, and I suddenly wished more than anything that I knew the meaning of it.
'The same thing we always did,' he said. 'Check the town for anyone who's still alive, and then move on since there doubtlessly won't be anyone meeting that description.'
I chewed on my lip as I agreed with him, hoping that eventually things wouldn't be quite so awkward between our formerly close-knit group.
We reached the ruins, which had evidently at one point been a rather large town, by late-afternoon. The five of us split up and wandered around, but we found only charred corpses and rubble, which came as no surprised whatsoever to any of us. Despite this, it took us a good while to complete our little survey of the area, and by the time we all met up on the far side of the ruins, it was getting dark.
'I guess we'd better set up camp,' Kuro said. 'Preferably away from this town. I don't like the idea of sleeping next to all of those dead bodies.'
'I second that. We'll walk to that bluff over there,' I pointed to the large clump of trees that stood like an island on the sea of prairie ahead of us, 'and rest for the night. Any volunteers for watchperson?' Kai nodded at my question, and I pointed to him wearily. 'So shall it be, Lord Kairond.' I was glad to see him smirk at the name.
We made our way over to the shelter of the trees, and laid out blankets around a makeshift fire pit. I was lucky enough to see a rabbit racing by, so I nocked an arrow to my bow and caught our supper easily. It turned out to be a fairly good meal, as far as rabbit roasted on a spit over an open fire goes. Kuro had asked the Dulsoj for some spices to flavor our meat with while we were traveling, and they had gladly complied. He now carried with him a rather extensive array of seasonings, and I when he disclosed this to the rest of the group, I could hardly help but grin at him. As long as the majority of us were trying our best to get things back to normal, it couldn't be all that long before our group regained some semblance of normality. I figured that better food was as good a place to start as any.
We all talked over supper, if a bit nervously. Even Shita put in a word or two, despite Kuro's looks, which were hard for me to decipher. I had a feeling his twin sister could read them perfectly, however, and they didn't look all that nice.
I let my personal vendetta with Shita slide for the moment, knowing that there would doubtlessly be a better time to give her such a tongue-lashing as she had never heard the likes of before. I was already thinking up all the new curses I would gladly bestow upon her in my fury when I stopped myself short, attempted to forget them all, and prayed to God that he would erase such malice from my mind, and forgive the sin I had committed only inside my head. I had been thinking, of late, that perhaps I was letting myself go in the moral department.
When we were finished eating and cleaning up, an awkward silence suddenly fell over the group. I opened my mouth twice as if to break it, but for once in my life, I couldn't think of anything to say. The wind shook past us, even through the shelter that the bluff provided, and it only served to perpetuate our stillness.
Finally Pov spoke, quietly and with utter seriousness. 'We cannot expect to help anyone if we are unable even to shoulder our own burdens,' he said. 'It is for the good of the country—no, the world—that we should talk this out and resolve our petty issues. Shita, since we can all agree that you committed the greatest crime against the group, I think you should go first.'
'And say what?' She asked bitterly.
Pov spoke in a forceful voice that was laced with anger—one that demanded submission. 'You will say whatever you think is necessary, Mynshita.' It was hard to believe that he could act this way, being young as he was, but was clear that he wasn't going to let us all get away with mumbling some weak apology to the group and then faking our way through conversations for the next few months.
'Then I will say only that it wasn't so one-sided as you all appear to think,' Shita said calmly, and that was the end of it for Kuro.
'I think that you were right, and that you've said quite enough, dearest sister,' Kuro snapped. 'You should be ashamed of yourself for so purposely trying to hurt Summer. Do you not understand that we're fighting a war, Shita? There is no time left for your trivialities and selfishness, and even if there was such things would not be welcome here. You manipulated Kai into doing something he never would have done on his own, and while he is also in the wrong for partaking in your little scandal, he isn't behind it. No, sister, that blame rests solely on your shoulders, and I hope that behind all of your conniving and scheming to get something that has never and will never be yours, some small shred of a conscience is flaring up inside of you. I hope that somewhere in the back of your mind, you can hear that tiny little voice that says to you, "What you did to them was wrong."'
For a moment, Shita looked genuinely hurt. It was only a moment, though, before her face slipped into dispassion and she nodded. 'I understand,' she said obediently. 'I apologize for my wrongdoings, and assure you that I will never again be found doing anything so horrible,'
If anyone besides me noticed the enormous loophole in Shita's supposed moral obligation, they didn't say anything. If they didn't care to make something out of it, then neither would I.
Attention was quickly turned to Kai, courtesy Pov's cool voice. 'Now that the first offender has been dealt with, I think it would be appropriate for you to say something, Kai. I don't expect you to pour your heart out in front of all of us, but I think you owe everyone at least something.'
Kai nodded, but his face showed no expression whatsoever. 'What happened between Shita and I was wrong. I feel nothing for her that way.'
'That's it?' Pov broke his mediator-like neutrality to snap at him, 'Nothing to say to Summer?' It was a question that I had also been asking, if inwardly.
Kai was already gone, though. Sure, he was still sitting in the same spot by the fire, but his eyes had taken on a distant look. He didn't even acknowledge the fact that Pov had spoken, let alone give an answer. We wouldn't get anything further from him without a fight.
Pov even looked like he would go so far as to say something more, but I silenced him with a look. Now isn't the time for us to talk things out, Pov, I thought. It isn't exactly a group issue that we can discuss in front of you.
Not to say that I didn't appreciate Pov's effort. In fact, it made me feel better than ever just knowing that at the very least, he and Kuro were on my side. It even dulled the pain that I felt hearing Kai's words play back repeatedly in my head—louder and louder, sharp and clear as the moment I first heard them: I hate you.
'Well, since Kuro has already spoken, I guess I'll say what I have to say next.' Pov shook his head, still clearly annoyed. 'I think that if you two were looking for the best way to screw us all over royally, you did a damn good job of finding it. I had honestly thought that you—both of you—were above this, but apparently I was mistaken. Selfish, immature, wrong…am I leaving anything out? Does it matter? You could make the argument that you can do whatever you like, but I'd ask that you don't shame yourselves by trying to peddle that to us. Summer?' He turned to me for the closing speech.
I bit my lip before saying anything. 'I forgive both of you. It's not my place to be angry with you for…being together. Even if no apology was given,' I chewed away on my lip some more, 'I forgive you. The important thing in this journey isn't some melodramatic feud between us all—it's about doing what's right. Betrayal is a horrible thing, and so very characteristic of the evil we're all trying to fight, but personal vendettas and bitter revenge streaks are just as bad, if not worse. A mistake is a mistake. It only becomes dangerous when people are incapable of letting it go and moving on, so move on I shall.' I made sure to emphasize the last four words, just for Kai's benefit.
After I finished speaking, we readied ourselves for bed quickly, and Pov, Kuro, Shita and I all went to sleep without saying a word to each other beyond 'Goodnight'.
The next morning, everyone was making a genuine effort to get along. Or at least they were doing a good job of faking a genuine effort. Either way, things were sliding a little closer to 'normal' again.
We had bread and water for breakfast, which didn't bother me all that much. I'd eaten worse things than day-old bread and lukewarm water, that was for sure.
While we sat there in our little circle, I voiced the thought that Pov and I had shared the day prior. 'I'm seriously beginning to wonder what's going on with Uribon. I mean, we haven't seen any sign of him lately, which bothers me—he doesn't seem like the type to stay quiet for long.'
Kai answered my comment with one of his own, 'The obvious answer is that he's planning at something—that, or he's already set something in motion, and he's waiting for it to take effect. Either way we should brace ourselves, because it's almost indefinitely just the calm before the storm.'
The very second that the last word came out of Kai's mouth, the sound of a single, brittle twig snapping loudly had every one of us with our weapons in our hands, and our eyes on the forest around us—even Shita.
The second after that, the arrows came.
'Get down!' Kai called, already falling to the ground and covering his head. The four of us followed without question or delay, just as four bolts struck the foliage around us. I heard Kuro groan, but I wasn't sure whether he'd fallen on something hard or he'd been hit. It didn't matter right then.
All that mattered was the five of us getting out alive. Injuries could easily be dealt with later—death, not so much.
With sharp eyes, I scanned the forest around us, but found no sign of our attackers. I wondered how they could be hidden so well when they'd been careless enough to step on a stick and give themselves away—they would have had us for sure if it hadn't been for that single instant that allowed adrenaline to flood our systems.
I grabbed blindly for my bow, snatching it up and nocking an arrow to it as fast as my hands could retrieve the projectile from the quiver at my hip. Another bolt from the enemy whipped through the trees, and landed directly beside my head. It didn't take long for me to figure out where it had come from, and I loosed an arrow back to the source. I knew it had hit home when a muffled grunt found its way to my ears.
I was about to take aim again when Kai leapt on top of me, knocking the bow from my hands as he did so. The arrow flew off crookedly, and landed in a tree trunk with a dull thrak.
Profane words were just on my lips when I felt something sharp scrape across my shoulder, and my eyes found their way to the short crossbow arrow that had pierced Kai—only the very end of which was showing through his back, low on his right shoulder-blade. It had gone right through him, and was now pressing into me. It would have cut straight through my heart. I would have died.
Worse yet, I could smell something strange on the arrowhead, and knew immediately that it had been poisoned.
Without wasting a moment, I reached over Kai—who was gritting his teeth and looking as though he was a heartbeat away from falling unconscious—and broke the fletching from the arrow-shaft, quickly throwing it to the side and grabbing onto the arrowhead. 'Sorry ahead of time, Kai,' I muttered, pushing him off of me with one hand while I used the momentum to simultaneously pull the rest of the bolt out of his chest with the other.
He called out in pain, and rolled away from me to cover his wound instinctively.
'Damned sons of bitches don't know who they're messing with,' I snarled, crawling over to Kuro's pack and digging around for something that I knew had to be there. It was only a moment before I found the little glass pot of thick, black liquid, and gritted my teeth.
I looked over to see Pov and Kuro dragging Kai away from the clearing that we had set up camp in, and into the relative safety of the underbrush. He was unconscious and pale already. By the looks of things, he would be dead in a matter of minutes without some serious help. Shita was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear her breathing somewhere to my left, already hidden away. I wanted to fault her for not helping Kai, but at the same time I knew that she could really do nothing better for the group than keep herself from getting killed.
Besides, I would entrust Pov and Kuro with Kai's life in an instant, as well as my own—I wouldn't trust Shita with the safety of my nail clippers.
As the two of them rescued Kai, I hid, crouching behind a tree to spell three arrows. Since four bolts had originally come through to us, I could take my best guess and assume that there were only four archers. I'd already incapacitated one of their number, so that left a trio of them to deal with. Three crossbowmen, three arrows—coated with our nearly-forgotten supply of Fira poison, and spelled to find their mark even through a hurricane; spelled to murder.
The only problem with killing magic was that it almost always has a backlash. If you use your own energy to do it, there will be no visible kickback, but you'll be eating away at your soul just to get the power needed for such a thing. Elemental magic can be used to kill without any consequences—unless you count the moral ones, but I needed the arrows to find their targets no matter where they were, not burn, drown, suffocate or age them. Celestial magic would never allow itself to be used to kill another creature, evil or not.
The only thing for it was to use the most common kind of magic in existence—demonic magic. Demonic magic comes with a steep price, though, if you use it the way I was about to.
'Vonu syh ner-ka errak, enu borsu syu yuersu av syu amut dya omsunu it yern,' I whispered, the words flowing from my mouth laced with malice. Nobody hurts Kai and gets away with it alive. Nobody.
As I said the words, which were strange even to my tongue, the arrows glowed faintly dark, and hovered off the ground just in front of my feet.
I fitted the first one to my bow, stood up from behind the tree, and fired into the woods. I heard nothing beyond the empty thud of a body falling to the ground.
Clearly it wasn't going to be as easy as I would have liked it to be, though. Another crossbow bolt hissed past me, and I was only a fraction of an inch from meeting Kai's fate. It hadn't come from the same place as before.
It didn't matter, though. I was paying for a service, and that service would be done. The next arrow I nocked and set flying spun around in mid-air before it went sailing through the forest to find its victim, but find them it did. Another thud.
The last archer had apparently decided that he didn't want to die, as I heard the mad thrashing of an escape attempt behind me, and I laughed inwardly at how badly-trained these assassins were. Sure, they had done a moderately good job of sneaking up on us undetected, but die-hard loyalists they were not.
Any other day, I would have let them run screaming all the way home to tell their master what they had seen, but there was a thirty-three-point-three percent chance that I would be letting the one who had shot Kai go free, so I loosed the last spelled arrow that I possessed, and in a moment, I could hear no more running.
Or breathing, for that matter.
I let out a sigh, dropped my bow, and ran over to the trees where Kai lay—now in a bad state if there ever was one. It looked like a fever was setting in on him. He was fading fast. Not only was the poison our attackers used quick, but it worked even on Kai's demon blood, which was hardier and more adaptable that human blood could ever be.
I leaned over him while my eyes filled up with liquid, which I had to wipe away quickly to prevent it from spilling onto his face.
When Pov spoke, it was with a voice that was strained from his attempt at masking the horror in it. 'Summer…your eyes are bleeding.'
'I know, Pov,' I said, staring at Kai while I continued to wipe my eyes clear.
There was a short silence.
'Staring at him isn't going to help him any, you know,' Pov commented quietly.
'I know, Pov,' I breathed, still blinking the blood and tears from my eyes and studying Kai's face. He looked as though he were sleeping, and having a particularly awful dream. 'But I'm going to go blind in a minute, and I'm making sure that he's the last thing I see.'
Kay, so I'm a few Mondays late-forgive me! Exams...summertime things...It was hectic. But! This is a very exciting update, ne? So. You should just..read it and forget that I totally flaked on y'all...Tch!
You know I love you. Passionately. Please keep reading? :D
Night: Yeah I'm not Shita's biggest fan in that section, either...clearly...Hahahah. I dunno how I feel about her currently. I have yet to decide. And I'm glad you liked the update, luv! Hahah that marked the place where things start to really get effed up here sooo...bear with the drama. I hope you feed on it as much as I do. Muaha!
aferdeity: Haha oohoho I'm glad you liked my pro-drug BS right there...tehe. Yeah I know, I love Kai with a passion...even as screwed up as he is. He is like mega messed in the head, you know...But he is good at the very core as far as I can tell currently. I hope that you still like him, because if he ever does anything so tragically bad that y'all start hating him...I will be sad. Hahaahha. There are reasons that he does what he does...some are more selfish than others. . Anyway yeah, Kuro...I really don't know what to make of him either. Weirdly enough it was the same way with Pov-I had no clue I was going to like him until he just decided to show up again and..be cool...I actually didn't intend him to be a permanent character when he first appeared. Now he's like an integral part of the story! Who knows where Kuro will end up? NOT ME! Luvs!
Aero Faerie Extraordinaire: I really hope that you are still reading! As in...are going to read this update! Haha! And I hope this answers your question as to whether or not the actual mission is ever going to prevail over their retarded personal issues. Haha the problem comes when their personal drama gets all wrapped up in the mission...as it is very quickly going to...Anyway yes, the mission is coming along. Everything will soon be clear (yeah..as mud! PSSH)..Thanks for the review and I hope you keep reading!
Wow apparently I was in the mood for long replies. Anyhow, KEEP READING AND KEEP REVIEWING. It makes me want to write more when I've been stuck on this story for awhile. Review, review, review! Bad things as well as good! I neeed to knooooww! (I love you all dearly.) The next update will come soon because I want to make sure I'm over the 100,000 word category. Heehehehe.