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Yay! Here're the next chapters! biggrin
I love Sarila's chapter! It's amazing!

Chapter 17 Kera
“Are you sure that I can really have all these clothes?” Kera asked uncertainly, looking at the five outfits Adelle had placed on the bed for her to pack.
Adelle laughed, “Of course you can! Take them before I make you take more!”
Kera smiled and pulled her bag off her shoulder, taking out the only thing left in it, the spell book that Sharron had given her. Adelle tossed a soft leather bag at Kera’s head, and she ducked to avoid it. She laughed picking it up from behind her, “It’s not very nice to throw things at people you know.”
“Says who?” Adelle grinned and motioned Kera to hurry and pack. “We’ve got to hurry or we’ll never get going.”
Kera began folding clothes and stuffing them into her new bag, and once she had packed all the clothes she picked up the spell book. “What’s that?” Adelle asked, pointing to the spell book.
“It’s something that Sharron gave to me…” She answered, moving to place it on top of her clothes in the bag.
Adelle’s eyes flicked between Kera and the book, and she gently grabbed the book from Kera’s hands. “From Sharron you say? The same Sharron that you were talking about before?”
Kera nodded, nervously watching Adelle flip through the book. One of the pages seemed to register something in Adelle’s memory, because her face became lit with shock and she looked up from the book to look at Kera with wide and surprised eyes. “Sharron…you know Sharron…”
Kera stared at Adelle, “Yes...are we talking about the same Sharron then…?”
Adelle’s face broke out in a wide smile, “Yes! Kera, you don’t know how happy this makes me! You might have already known this, because I had a feeling from how you were looking at me, but Sharron’s my sister! I thought she hadn’t made it…”
“Made it from what?” Kera asked worried. It was true, she did have her suspicions, and she wondered why Sharron had never told her of her family. Whenever Kera had asked about her family Sharron had changed the topic before answering, maybe now she would get her answers.
Adelle closed the spell book and handed it back to Kera, sitting carefully on the bed. “Well, when Sharron and I were little we used to live in a village quite far from here. It used to be one of the biggest towns, everyone who lived there was well known by everyone. But as you may know that can be a double-edged blade, all of the huge enemies of people in the town knew exactly where to find them at any time during the day. So, one day the enemies of different people in the town started setting homes and mansions on fire, and soon enough the entire town was up in flames. It was a terrible fire, no one could find anyone, the town gate was too small and afterwards casualties were quite high.”
“So what happened to you and Sharron?”
“Well, I’m so glad to hear that Sharron got away, but I don’t think that either of us really got away with much money or food. That spell book is the one that Sharron and I made ourselves, we looked up spells and kept track of them in it, that’s how I know we’re talking about the same one. She was fifteen at the time of the fire, but I know she was in the basement at the time of the fire and she was the only one home, she might not have figured out about the fire until too late. I was twelve and my parents dragged me through the gate telling me that Sharron would make it out and we would meet up with her somewhere, but its been almost sixteen years now, and I’ve never heard anything from her.” Adelle’s eyes were tearing up, and she was smiling.
It was awkward for Kera at first, she couldn’t tell what to say. She barely knew Adelle, and so she didn’t have a clue what to say, should she tell Adelle where Sharron was, or would that only distract her? Luckily for Kera, she didn’t have to make a decision yet, because Adelle stood from the bed and said, “I’m glad that she’s still alive, and that’s going to be the main thing I’ll fight for. I’ll trounce the darkness so that I can have the chance to see Sharron again when this is over.”
Kera nodded and smiled, grabbing her bag and following Adelle from the room and back through the long hallway. As they walked Adelle wiped her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to get herself back to normal. Kera heard bits of conversation as they were coming up the hallway, but she couldn’t put them together to make any sense.
“Are you ready to leave? We need to get going; we never know what Sarila and Cavan are going to do.” Devlin asked.
Adelle nodded, her face flushed, “I think so…”
Kera looked at Petula, “Are we going to take Petula with us?”
Devlin nodded, “Of course we are! We couldn’t just leave her behind we need her if we ever want to be able to find Sarila and Cavan.”
“Oh…are we walking?” Kera asked, it sounded like a long journey and carrying Petula would only make it harder for whoever had to carry her.
“Sort of, we have two horses, but since there’s four of us…” Adelle answered.
“But I don’t need a horse, I can run with you guys,” Sherwin added, “so we really only have to worry about Devlin, who says he’ll be fine.”
“Well...are you guys against using a spell to get us there?” Kera inquired.
Sherwin, Adelle and Devlin all shook their heads, “None of us can use traveling spells, that’s more of William’s forte.” Sherwin replied.
“You…can’t use them?” Kera repeated slowly, confused.
“Traveling spells are really something that you can either use or you can’t, depending on the type of magic you have it can be impossible, and we haven’t ever managed it, although we’ve tried.” Devlin explained.
“Do you think I could try it then?” Kera offered.
The three of them stared at her, “You’ve done a traveling spell before…that’s right…” Adelle murmured, she glanced at Devlin and Sherwin. “That could work…”
“No, we’re not going to drain her! That would be a bad idea,” Sherwin shook his head rejecting the idea immediately.
“But we would be even more tired if we had to travel…” Adelle countered, looking at Petula and Devlin.
Sherwin turned to Kera, his expression calculating, “Do you think you can do it? Do you have a spell in mind?”
Kera smiled and nodded, pulling out the spell book and flipping to the traveling spells section. She pointed to the spell that she had seen before and thought of no use, Traveling with companions and animals. “Will this work?” She asked as Sherwin read over the spell.
Sherwin nodded cautiously, “I can’t see any reason to object if you’re willing to try it.”
“Great! This’ll save us lots of travel time!” Adelle cheered.
“There’s just one problem,” Devlin interrupted, “we don’t know where we’re going.”
“That’s true,” Kera bit her lip, she hadn’t managed to get where she was planning to go with these spells, they had always taken her somewhere on their own. “I need a specific destination…”
Devlin looked down at Petula, his face crumpling, “This is all my fault, if it hadn’t been for me we could work this out much easier, Petula would know where to go.”
“We know it’s your fault but blaming you won’t help us, so don’t go down into depression,” Adelle chastised, reading over the spell. Her face was thoughtful, “If I remember correctly, Sharron and I also found a spell that allowed you to travel within a close range of someone you’re looking for, but that might be dangerous.”
“We’ll have to risk it, we don’t want them getting too far away from us, they might find allies.” Sherwin said, his face grim.
“I’ll contact William and try my best to tell him we need his help…but he might be busy…” Devlin set Petula down carefully on the couch and hurried outside.
“I hope William gets the message, there’s no guarantees that he’ll be able to come help though, he’s infiltrating, Narelle’s castle today…” Sherwin murmured.
“Who’s Narelle?” Kera questioned.
“She’s Sarila’s mother and she’s very strong in her beliefs of destroying the light.” Adelle answered.
“She’s also got the power to back up those beliefs,” Sherwin added.
Devlin came back into the room his face pale, “I sent William a message, except, it wasn’t received by William, Narelle got it…and she told us to tell Sarila that her forest was burnt down.”
“That doesn’t mean…?” Adelle asked, the blood draining out of her and Sherwin’s faces.
“I think it does, she’s captured William and she is expecting us to run into Sarila soon…” Devlin’s eyes were full of panic. “William and Petula were the only ones who knew what the plans were and neither of them told us, what are we supposed to do now?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to do the only thing we can do, we’re going after Sarila and Devlin, now.” Sherwin decided firmly, leading Adelle out the door. Devlin quickly followed picking Petula up from the couch and carrying her outside.
Kera stood stuck to the floor staring at the spell book, did that mean everything was up to her now? That didn’t seem like a good idea to her, but just as she began to freak out the jewel around her neck began glowing, and she knew everything would be fine, she would cast the spell and it would all work out. She took a deep breath and left the room carrying her bag and the spell book listening to the door closing itself behind her.
Adelle had gathered the two horses and placed the bags on top of the two saddles, she handed one set of reins to Sherwin and she took the other set. Sherwin, Devlin and Adelle then made an intricate hand signal that lifted a rope from the ground around their feet and tied them together by their hands. When Kera joined the circle, the rope tied itself loosely around her hand. “Ready?” She asked everyone. They all nodded in silent affirmation and she began reading the spell.
Kera dared not tell them that she had no clue where they were going to end up, she just made sure that she put every ounce of magic she could into the spell. She hoped that this would insure them to get to the right place, after everyone had made the appropriate adjustments to the rope Kera muttered the final words that would cause them to travel, “Sarila and Cavan!” As soon as the words left her lips the world began spinning, and she felt the rope digging into her wrist. Kera clutched the book to her chest, closing her eyes to keep herself from becoming dizzy.
It was only a few seconds before the spinning stopped, and the rope around her wrist slackened, she let out the air that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She opened her eyes and found herself to be in the middle of a clearing that looked as if it had been recently used. She saw that everyone else had already untied themselves, and they were sitting exhausted in the grass, their faces pale. The horses were mostly calm, they only seemed nervous about the bags balanced precariously on their backs, but they were eating the grass in large mouthfuls.
“Are you guys okay…?” She asked apprehensively.
They all shook their heads wordlessly and so she asked, “Did I do something wrong…?”
Again they shook their heads, not seeming to trust themselves enough to open their mouths. Kera untied herself and put the book back into her bag slung over her shoulders. Then she moved to take the bags off the horses’ saddles and set them around a conveniently built campfire. “Wait…” she realized slowly, “we just got here, who built this camp fire…?” Kera inquired slowly. She looked up to see Sherwin and Devlin shrugging.
Adelle was looking a little better and she actually managed a few words, “Sarila and Cavan…”
“You mean this is their camp site?” Kera grasped. That meant they might be close! But, as she looked around, she knew that they wouldn’t be able to leave for a while, not until everyone was feeling better. “Why are you guys feeling so sick?” She ventured.
Adelle gave a tiny smile, “Well, since we’re not really the type of magic users that can travel by spell, it takes a lot out of us, and it makes us sick.”
“Oh…why didn’t you tell me?”
“We knew you’d worry about it, but don’t. The important thing is that we’re here, this is probably about a weeks traveling that you’ve saved us!” Devlin said happily. Both he and Sherwin were looking much better now too.
“Well, since its dark we might as well use this campsite and rest until morning.” Sherwin decided, looking up at the setting sun. Everyone agreed and Kera began to unpack the sleeping bags, feeling the heavy weight of her stone around her neck. It had begun to glow brightly in warning of something.

Chapter 18 Sarila
It took almost five hours of riding for Sarila to convince Cavan to stop for a break, and even then he was only stopping because the horses were tired and he was hungry. “I can’t believe we pressed the horses that hard Cavan! They’re not built for anything more than pleasure riding!” She chided him.
“Relax, your mother expected us to be using these horses for lots of traveling she’s probably been preparing them on long distances since they were born, they’re not very winded. You’re just mad because I wouldn’t stop for you.” He rose an eye brow at her his expression confident.
“Well we should’ve stopped an hour ago!” She argued.
“Ridiculous, if we kept stopping every time you said to we wouldn’t be here now. We still need to make some more ground tonight, so we’re only stopping for a small lunch now.” He responded, all but ignoring her.
“Why do you get to decide everything all of a sudden?” She sneered.
He stopped taking out the pans and plates to turn and stare up at her still on her horse. “Why are you in such a bad mood? You never minded before that I planned everything out, what changed?”
She stared down at him, her eyes glaring, “I’m not in a bad mood, I’m just angry that you’re bossing me around!”
He exhaled loudly, his expression tedious, “I’m going to give you a chance to calm down while I make lunch, go do something to release tension.”
Sarila felt like screaming, this was driving her nuts! The only person she had ever had to listen to like this was her mother, and that was the reason she was trying to get away from her mother! But, since she finally had the change now she took her bag and stormed off to the nearby stream with Cavan shaking his head behind her.
Once she found a secluded part of the stream she changed out of her clothes and began rapidly washing herself in the ice-cold stream. The icy water chilled her bones and she did everything she could to rush her wash. So, in a matter of minutes she had finished washing and drying herself, and it was just as she was putting on new clean clothes that she began to get an eerie feeling. Pulling on her shoes she looked around, there was something odd about this part of the stream, she could feel it.
The wind began steadily blowing through the leaves creating a rustling among the branches and discarded dead leaves. Eventually the water began to join in, the wind whistling as it blew across the water’s surface, blowing stray drops of water into Sarila’s face. Startled she backed away from the river’s edge, clasping her bag to her chest to keep most of the water off herself. What is wrong with this forest? She asked herself, watching in fear as the water began overflowing and creeping progressively closer to her. It was as if the water was clawing its way towards her however necessary, and when the wind hadn’t worked it was going to go by land.
“Sarila! Sarila where are you?” She heard Cavan’s distant voice calling her, his voice sounded worried.
Sarila knew that it would be easy to get away from this torrent of water, it couldn’t follow her forever, but she wanted to know what it was doing. This was so unnatural, things like this didn’t normally happen in nature did they? Vigilantly she reached out her hand towards the water her fingers outstretched and trembling.
“Sarila, what are you doing?” Cavan’s voice sounded closer and she could hear him crashing through the trees from farther away, but she pushed the sounds to the back of her mind and focused on the water. She needed to find out what it was doing. As soon as her hand touched the ground the water seemed to relish in the contact and it rushed to meet her hand. Sarila was expecting the same frosty water as she had felt in the lake, but this water was warm, and as more water reached her hand it began to wrap calmly around her hand in a sphere. The water eventually began to cover her arm enveloping her arm in a warm watery barrier, but the strangest thing was her arm didn’t feel wet, and the water didn’t fall off.
“Sarila? I’m sorry okay? Please come back out?” Cavan’s insistent voice apologized.
Sarila ignored the apology, completely entranced by the water now creeping to cover her other arm and hand. “What are you doing?” She murmured flexing her fingers. The words seemed to break the spell. Her skin began glowing a light blue color suddenly fell off of her, splashing loudly to the ground. Her glow darkened increasingly until it reached a royal blue color, at that point she began to feel filled with power, and a strange sense of warning.
“Sarila, you must beware, your enemy is coming…” A voice whispered in her ear, but the voice wasn’t Cavan’s.
“Beware what?” She asked out loud, turning and trying to find the source of the whisper.
“Beware your enemy, listen…she is coming and if you aren’t careful her companions will take something dear to you…” the voice whispered again.
“Take something dear to me…?” She pondered aloud, but this time the voice didn’t answer and her glow faded, leaving her skin the same it normally looked.
“Sarila!” Cavan burst through the underbrush panting he had found her. “Why didn’t you answer me?” He demanded irately.
His bad mood quickly passed into her, but she was strangely calm from the voice and so the annoyance she would have normally felt faded into acceptance. “I don’t know, the river…” she turned to look for the water that had just been around her, but all of it was gone.
“What about the river?” He asked crossly.
Sarila turned back to face Cavan, his face was red but there wasn’t anger so much as concern. “I’m sorry Cavan, should we go eat?” she suggested.
“What?” he stared at her startled, “No you’ve got to talk to me!”
“What about?” she asked leading him back towards where they had camped.
Cavan grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “You! You’re pissed and furious when you storm off here, and now suddenly you’re calm?”
Once again the anger that would have flowed through her veins at Cavan’s rough handling of her flowed passed through her, “I don’t know what happened, I just feel…tranquil…” she trailed off and shrugged, waiting patiently for him to release her arm.
He blinked but finally released her arm sighing, “Fine, whatever you say, let’s go eat.”
Sarila couldn’t even explain it to herself, how could she explain it to him? It seemed like Cavan just wanted to know everything but Sarila had no idea how to tell him. It was impossible to know what he wanted, he changed moods just as suddenly as she did, if not more so.
They reached the camp and began eating in stony silence. Sarila wondered how she could cheer him up, there had to be some way. She remembered the conversation they were having when they first began riding and she found her answer. Shoveling the food quite unladylike into her mouth she quickly finished eating. Placing her plate near the fire to be washed later she moved to her bag and pulled out the spell book, turning through the pages to find a spell.
She knew what would cheer Cavan up right away, if she could find the spell to turn him into a cat she knew he would be angry at first, but he would cheer up and start laughing too. Plus, she couldn’t wait to see how he would look as a cat, he would be so much cuter as a cat, his handsomeness had started to fade in her eyes from all the time she had now spent with him. She smiled, his looks weren’t so beautiful now contorted in their current furious expression. It took a few minutes but finally Sarila found a spell that she knew would work. It was a temporary spell, only an hour, but it was worth it, the horses would get a break from carrying heavy Cavan, and she could have a nice little pet that couldn’t boss her around for an hour.
“Cavan…” she called tentatively.
“What?” He grumbled.
“Can you come here for a second?” She requested, hiding her smile behind the book.
He looked up at her and mumbled angrily under his breath, but he complied, placing his plate by the fire on top of hers. When he reached her it was already to late for him to do anything, she began reciting the words swiftly pointing to him and spinning her hands faster and faster until a few seconds later the spell was done, and before her was a startled unsteady cat. Cavan had changed into a tall, lean black cat with white paws and two white stripes on his tail. His eyes were the same gleaming bronze as his real eyes, but now they looked slightly threatening in the face of a predator.
The expression on Cavan’s cat face was priceless, and Sarila found herself giggling uncontrollably. “It worked! I told you that I would do it! I told you!”
Cavan’s face quickly changed, and while Sarila didn’t know cats very well she could tell he was emotionally somewhere between anger, astonishment and laughter, and the emotions didn’t mix very well. Eventually he decided that he was happier than angry and he began purring and precariously making his way over to her. His mouth was upturned as close as he could get to a smile with his cat features and Sarila found herself grinning too. “This is what happens when you doubt and explode on me, so watch out, next time you snap I might just have to turn you into an adorable little cat!”
Cavan rubbed up against her hand and Sarila scratched him behind the ears and under the chin, “I’m sorry I exploded too.” He nodded, licking her fingers gently with his sandpaper tongue. “Now how about we get out of here?”
He blinked to agree and nudged her to get up with his nose. Sarila closed the spell book and flicked her fingers to wash the plates and put out the fire. After she had put away the plates she checked once more to make sure that the fire was completely out, and then she turned to pick up Cavan. It was only then that she saw a problem, how was she going to get back onto her horse? She could never get up onto her tall horse without Cavan’s help and she hadn’t thought about it before she cast the spell.
“Whoops,” she muttered, setting Cavan on top of the horse and pulling out the spell book. Cavan looked at her confused, meowing in question. “I can’t get on my horse,” she explained, looking for something to step on.
He meowed again in understanding and settled comfortably on the horse to wait, purring in amusement. Sarila got lucky and there happened to be a tall tree trunk for her to stand on to get back onto her horse. She pulled her horse over to the tree trunk and climbed laboriously onto its back. After she had finally gotten into the saddle with Cavan seated in her lap she stuck her tongue out at him, “See, I can do things for myself even with you as a cat.”
He purred contentedly, flicking his tail at her. She laughed pulling the reins of Cavan’s horse she urged both horses into an easy gallop. She concluded that it was much more interesting to ride with Cavan riding the same horse with her than it had been when he was riding next to her. There was less talking, but somehow they seemed to become closer without conversation. “I don’t think I want the hour to be over, I like you as a cat.” She told him, petting him affectionately. He meowed in response, but she couldn’t tell whether he was agreeing or disagreeing.
The spell ended up lasting three hours, and those three hours of travel was quite enjoyable for Sarila. She had decided to stop a few minutes before the spell reverted itself, so Cavan had already jumped off her lap and he was sitting on the ground licking his when he changed back. The change back wasn’t quite instantaneous, but Sarila couldn’t see anything that happened, as her magic created a bright blue light surrounding him as the change reverted. When the light subsided he was sprawled on the ground a wide, cheerful grin on his face. “Now it’s my turn…”