Chapter 19 Kera
After Kera had finished setting up camp with the pathetic help of Sherwin, Adelle and Devlin she left to wash and change for bed. Her stone was still warm and it was beginning to heat up, it didn’t make sense though, there wasn’t anything for her to be worried about in this forest. She doubted any animals could harm her with her magic, and most of them were peaceful anyway. But, the odd feeling in her stone spread throughout Kera anyway, and she couldn’t help but feel out of place and nervous.
She was very wary while washing, each rustle of the leaves or sound of small scampering feet caused her to flinch and look around frantically for the source of the sound. She became quickly irritated by the exercise and dried herself off with a simple spell changing into one of the new outfits that Adelle had given her. Holding the stone in her hand as she walked Kera headed back towards camp, droplets of water streaming down her back from her wet hair.
The smell of warm food and the sight of a tall fire greeted her when she returned, everyone looked much healthier and the food seemed to help a lot. “Welcome back,” Adelle greeted cheerfully.
“Thanks,” Kera looked around nervously, “but I’ve got a question…”
“Shoot,” Sherwin encouraged, testing the soup they had made.
“Have you guys been feeling worried since we got here?”
They all three shook their heads no, and Kera became worried. “Why?” Devlin probed.
“Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it, I’m probably still just cold from the river…” she assured them. That was a lie though, the water had been strangely warm, something she had attributed to her stone. If they weren’t feeling the sense of warning as well, it must not be important, she told herself, taking a seat next to Adelle by the fire.
Sherwin had deemed the soup ready so he dished out soup to everyone while Adelle cut and distributed the bread to everyone. “Get plenty to eat it helps replenish your magic faster,” he reminded them.
For several minutes the only sounds were those of the crickets and their eating. Kera managed to draw up the courage to interrupt the silence to ask, “How’s Petula?”
Devlin glanced over at her, “She’s looking better, she should wake up in a couple of days I hope.”
“A couple of days…?” Kera asked, her mouth dropping open slightly.
Devlin gave her a small reassuring smile, “That’s not so long compared to other times that I’ve known.”
“Really?” Kera was still surprised, she couldn’t imagine sleeping that long.
“Really, she’ll be fine.” Devlin repeated.
The rest of the meal concluded with only little bits of chatter every now and then, and most of that was between Adelle and Sherwin, and when they talked they seemed to feel awkward so the conversations didn’t last long. After they had finished eating Adelle and Devlin were the first ones to retire to their sleeping bags, and Devlin soon followed them, carrying Petula with him. Kera saw Devlin placing Petula carefully into a sleeping bag and covering her with both her blanket and his before climbing into his own sleeping bag and falling asleep. Adelle and Devlin followed a similar routine but before they fell asleep Adelle encouraged Kera to go to sleep soon herself.
Kera stayed up staring into the flames, watching the flickering dancing of the sparks eating the wood. After a while Kera noticed that the flames were getting closer to her. The flames were flicking closer and closer to her as she watched, the sparks seeming to jump from the fire to her arms. Later the sparks seemed to become more adventurous long arms of flames stretched out to her wrapping their tendrils cautiously around her arms until they completely covered both her arms and hands.
Only a few minutes had passed before all the fire had moved from the fire pit to her body, rolling easily along her skin. The fire felt like soft animal fur and it was cool to the touch, not unbearably hot as she had expected. Kera began to notice the odd warmth of her stone around her neck, it was gradually getting hotter, and it reached a point where it felt like it was burning her skin. “Ouch!” She shrieked as quietly as she could, trying not to wake everyone else up. Her fingers fumbled, the fire enveloping her fingers suddenly hindering her movement the closer she moved them to the stone. Fear began rising in her, the stone was burning away her skin, and she couldn’t get her fingers to move to fix it, “What’s going on?” She hissed to the stone and the fire, hoping that her voice might be able to do something.
Somehow, her voice actually did the trick, the stone immediately cooled and began shining a bright red, the light growing every second. The fire began cowering away from the light of her stone jumping back into the fire pit that it had been in previously. After all the fire was gone Kera looked down at her arms and saw that it was slightly burnt where the fire had touched it, but unfortunately her arms weren’t the only part of her body that was burnt, the skin under her stone was red and blistering. Her fingers trembling she reached around the back of her neck for the clasp of the chain to take the stone off. Fumbling with the tiny lever she worked blindly to get it off, managing after three or four tries to get the clasp undone. The chain fell limply from around her neck fluttering to the ground in a small silver and red heap, the stone draining of color becoming the same blank marble it had always been before.
Kera stared at it breathing heavily, the pain coming to her in waves, she needed to find a spell to lessen the pain of the burns or she knew she would begin screaming. Gritting her teeth she was just about to move over to her bag when she was blinded suddenly by the light of her stone, she turned to it angrily, it had already caused her enough pain and now it was preventing her from treating it. She picked up the stone, ready to throw it into the fire when she was interrupted.
“Kera, stop, don’t throw it into the fire,” a tiny voice whispered in her ear.
Kera stopped, her hand halting in mid-air her fingers holding onto the stone. “Why not?” She whispered.
“You need it, you can’t destroy it, you saw what happened the last time you lost it, that pain was unbearable then, and it will only be worse now.” The voice warned her.
“What do you know?” she demanded quietly, “I don’t even know that you exist!”
“Ah, but you’re still talking to me are you not? So either you think I can help or you don’t really want to destroy the stone.”
“What can you help me with, I don’t have any problems to fix.” Sarila argued.
“I’m bringing you a warning, you’re enemy is coming and you need to be aware.”
“My enemy? I don’t think I have an enemy to beware of,” she sneered, this was getting ridiculous, why was she continuing to talk to this voice?
“You do, and I can’t make you believe me I can only urge you to beware your enemy, she is coming and if you don’t heed this warning she will take something dear to you.”
“What do I have that’s dear to me? I have no material possessions, and my only tie is to this stupid stone, and if it’s up to me I’ll destroy it right now!” She threatened, drawing her hand even closer to the fire.
“No! Don’t do that, you’ll go insane under the pain of it’s loss.”
“Really? I think I’d do just fine, if I destroy this then I won’t have to worry about my ‘enemy’ taking anything.”
“Kera, be logical now, don’t do anything stupid and be aware. If you destroy your stone how will you help these people you’re traveling with? You’ve seen how important this battle is to them, how will you tell them you’ve destroyed their big hope?”
That stopped Kera, how would she tell them? She couldn’t, after what Petula had said, it would be too hard. “Fine…I won’t destroy it, but I can’t promise you that I’ll trust it again, it burnt me!”
“Oh, let me fix that for you. It didn’t mean to, it was only trying to protect you from the fire.”
“The fire did less damage that it did!”
“But the fire was going to do more damage, so please put that stone back around your neck and forgive and forget…” the voice faded to the crackling of the fire, and the burns faded leaving her skin exactly as it had been before. Taking a deep breath she picked up the necklace from the ground and wrapped the chain around her hand, it would take a while before she would put it back around her neck, it was important to her, but she had been awakened, the stone could be dangerous.
If the stone could hurt her before when she was separated from it, then no matter how much power it granted her it wasn’t worth it. No material possessions could be held onto forever, she didn’t want to risk it. Petula may have called Devlin and William stupid for holding back on this kind of thing, but Kera now saw them as insightful, they knew the risks involved. No extraordinary good could come from things that hurt her to save her. Yes, she amended, it does happen every once in a while, but if I didn’t have these powers then the fire wouldn’t have come to me at all! I’ve tended fires plenty of times before, and never has anything like this happened! It couldn’t be a fluke; it had to have been the stone.
Kera held her hand with the stone in it up to her eyes, staring at the colors battling for dominance in the middle. What was this thing’s secret? It gave her confidence, power and a sense of belonging and friendship that she had never felt anywhere before, yet in the same breath as it praised her; it caused her great pain and misery. The voice had spoken the truth; Kera had noticed that she was more powerful now than she had been when she was back in the forest, and she couldn’t contribute that to just having more food and sleep than she was used to, this was different, this was because of the stone. Did that mean that now if she was separated from the stone it would hurt more than it had before? She shivered, that would be pure torture, and she knew no one who could live through the increasing pain. But…if she held on to this, would she have to? Every minute that she held this stone close to her, every time it shone her bond with it was increasing, she knew it.
She had to make a decision, because there was no waning off of the stone, or coming back to it once she made her decision, when she decided, that choice was final. She knew that she was expected to carry equal burdens in this war, would that still be possible without the added power of the stones? From what she had heard from the others it would be nigh impossible with the stones added strength and all of them together, and they had already lost William. Kera bit her lip, it seemed like her decision was being made for her, but she knew that she had to search for a way out as soon as everything was said and done, she wasn’t going to be tied down to this stone forever. She closed her hand around the stone, making her decision, she would use the stone to its limits if she was forced to, but as soon as opportunity arose it was gone. She wouldn’t say never, even if it took the rest of her life she would find a way out, she didn’t have any other plans lined up for after the war.
As she climbed into her sleeping bag she looked at Adelle, Sherwin, Devlin and Petula, here were people that were going to be tied to their stones for the rest of their lives, she knew that they would be, and she prayed that she wouldn’t have to join them. She pressed her lips to her closed fist, whispering, “Not me too….”
Chapter 20 Sarila
As Sarila and Cavan set up camp Sarila couldn’t help giggling every time she saw Cavan. Ever since she had seen him as a cat every action he made seemed more graceful and fluid, like one of a cat. Cavan though seemed slightly irritated that every time she looked at him she started laughing. As soon as he got the fire started he confronted her. “You know you could really hurt a person’s feelings that way…”
She laughed, a great opportunity, “Who’s feelings am I hurting? I only see a cat!”
He glared at her and continued, “I might just have to turn the tables and turn the joke on you!”
“You could try, but I have the spell book and I decide if you get to use it or not!” She smiled innocently.
“You have to sleep at some point, you can’t keep your eyes open forever,” he threatened, pouring water into a pot to make soup.
“Are you going to turn me into a cat while I sleep? That won’t do much,” she teased, beaming at him. Something cold and wet hit her face, she opened her eyes startled. Cavan had splashed her with water!
“I can do that and wake you up so you’ll notice,” he was smiling now too, his eyes twinkling with foreseen plans.
“You will not! I’ll lock the book up!”
“With what? Do you just carry locks and things around with you everywhere? We’re out in the middle of basically no where here.” He called her bluff easily.
“I’ll figure something out, but for the time being I’ll be back when the food is done!” She stuck her tongue out at him indignantly and strolled out to the forest to get more fresh water from the river.
“When you come back I might make my move!” he called after her, she heard the splash of vegetables being added to the water.
“Thanks for the warning! I’ll be ready!” she smiled, everything was much more cheerful now that they had made up, she was glad that she had made the decision to cast the spell, it had calmed everything. She hated to admit it, but she was actually quite happy that it was Cavan traveling with her, she knew that it wouldn’t be this much fun with anyone else. Maybe she could just forget about her mother, and just focus on escaping somewhere with Cavan….
Realizing that she was letting her thoughts stray too far she pushed her mind to think of something else. The only other thing that she could think of was the voice she had heard back by the river and the warning it had given her. A rival, could it be one of those people that she had read about coming after her and Cavan? But the voice hadn’t said rivals so it had to mean one person, was it possibly Kera? She was reminded about all the times her mother had stressed her to learn everything she could about Kera, her life with Sharron, and the journey she would soon take with those other people. Kera’s relationship with the stone, how it was her only source of power…was that supposed to mean something to her now?
Sarila reached the river and filled the two canteens and bucket she had been carrying with cool, fresh water. She began lugging them back towards camp pondering different things. Could she do anything other than ‘be cautious? Or was she doomed to be stalked and hunted like prey? Was there any way that she and Cavan could just scare them away? From what she and Cavan had read the day before she was under the impression that she was feared and that they wouldn’t make any stupid moves right away. So, could she and Cavan make a lot of smoke to scare them off for a while, to give them longer to get away? She would talk things over with Cavan and see what they could do.
When she reached the camp she saw that Cavan had finished making the food and he was serving it out into bowls for the two of them. “Made it back just in time!” She greeted him, picking up her pace.
He smiled cynically as she approached, “Good timing, you can see me slip something into your food!” As soon as he finished talking he opened a small bottle of something and dumped it into the two bowls and the big pot of soup.
She stared at him suspiciously, it couldn’t be anything too bad, since he had put it into his own soup and the pot…but he had made a point of showing her, she would wait for him to have some first. “Fine, I like mysterious things anyway, it adds excitement to the meal that had become dull.”
He grinned, “I knew you’d see a light point to it, this is why I keep you around! Enjoy!” He toasted her with his empty cup and picked up his bowl.
She smirked at him and sat next to him, hesitating to pick up her bowl, if she picked it up now there wouldn’t be a lot of excuse to wait for him to take the first bite. Cavan noticed this and so he made a show of dipping his spoon carefully into the bowl and pulling it out again burdened with soup. Then, making sure that she was watching he stuffed the spoon into his mouth and pulling it out slowly, grinning from ear to ear, “Yum!”
Could he really act that well, or did it really taste good? Sarila didn’t detect anything odd in the smell of the soup, and Cavan certainly wasn’t dead yet so…Sarila warily dipped her spoon into her own bowl and lifted it to her mouth, blowing on it for a few seconds to cool it. Taking one last glance at Cavan to confirm that he was fine, she drained the soup from the spoon directly down her throat not even taking time to taste it. She half choked as the warm liquid surged down her throat, the warmth quickly spreading through her neck. Coughing she reached for her canteen to drink some water, and took several sips of water before looking up at Cavan, he was grinning.
“Try not to choke yourself; I didn’t plan to get you back that way.”
She cleared her throat and replied in a weak voice, “Sorry, I’ll try not to ruin your revenge.”
He grinned, “I’d appreciate that.”
Sarila stuck her tongue out at Cavan again and dipped her spoon into the bowl once again. She brought the spoon to her lips and sipped the soup carefully, her eyes widening as soon as the soup touched her tongue. She grabbed her canteen and chugged half of it before her eyes stopped watering, “What did you put in the soup!” she managed to demand her throat dry.
Cavan looked at her innocently, “What do you mean? I didn’t put anything in the soup other than normal things.”
“You put something spicy in it! That’s unbearably spicy!”
“Really, I hadn’t noticed that it was spicy, tastes good to me,” he blinked surprised.
“What is wrong with you? Why would you ruin a perfectly good batch of soup like that?” She demanded, her tongue beginning to tingle again from the spiciness.
He grinned and winked discreetly at her, “You turned me into a cat, but that’s okay I forgive you.” He waved his hand over her soup and it changed color briefly, small little spices collecting at the top of it before lifting out of the soup and flying into the same container that Cavan had dumped them out of. “All back to normal, I figured you wouldn’t be able to handle that much, even I have issues with that much flavor.”
“You are so mean!” She pushed him roughly on the shoulder, knocking him off balance and off the tree stump they had made their chair. He landed on his back with his soup spilled all over him, and once again Sarila found herself giggling uncontrollably.
Sarila woke late the next morning; the sun was already in the sky and shining in her eyes when she woke. She saw that Cavan wasn’t there and she guessed that he had gone to wash the soup off from last night; he had been so in shock last night that he had just stared at her and went to bed early. She had gone to bed just after him once she had made sure that the fire was out and the dishes had been washed. She stretched briefly before getting to work; it wasn’t good for her to be oversleeping, especially since they needed to be avoiding getting caught. Sarila folded and packed the sleeping bags, then she saddled the horses and gave them water. Just as she was pouring the rest of the water on the brush they had used for fire Cavan arrived yawning widely.
“Did you get a good night’s sleep?” she asked smiling.
“More or less, I had to research some things after you fell asleep though,” he smiled slyly.
“What did you research…?” she asked nervously.
“Not too much, but I did tell you that you had to sleep sometime didn’t I?”
“You didn’t!”
“I did,” he smile became mischievous.
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know I thought it would be fun, I enjoyed being the cat, I think you would too.”
She stared at him in warning, “Don’t you dare.”
He looked at her calculating, “I don’t know…it seems like a good idea to me….”
She changed tactics quickly, “Only if you can get me first,” she glared threateningly.
“You’re on….” They both began mumbling the words to the spell at the same time, trying to repeat them as fast as they could to beat each other, but in the end it was still a tie, and the next thing she knew, Sarila was sitting on the ground much lower than she normally would be. Looking down, she saw that she had indeed become a cat, but it wasn’t so bad, glancing across from her she saw that Cavan too, had become a cat with her.
“Nice, blue fur that’s not unusual at all…” he guffawed.
Sarila looked down at her paws again, then she trotted over to a small puddle of water, her eyes widening. She had become small silky dark blue cat, about half the size of Cavan. Her eyes were blue as well, as the rest of her except for her ears, she had white ears. “Oh no! I’m such a freak of a cat! Who ever heard of a blue cat!” she complained.
Cavan gracefully made his way over to her, rubbing up against her, “Hey, relax like I’ve said before, blue suits you.”
Sarila was about to reply when a sudden crashing in the forest interrupted her, someone was coming into the clearing. Sarila’s ears perked up and she glanced at Cavan alert. He looked at her, “What’re we going to do! We’re just cats right now!”
Sarila shook her head, “I don’t know! Should we scare off the horses, no one would even see anything odd if we just sat here…”
Cavan nodded and in an instant he was gone, doing something to the horses, it was lucky Sarila had untied them, they could run away and they would find them later. Sarila heard the horses’ hooves clapping against the ground as they sprinted away. Cavan sat next to her just as the people charged through the trees into the campground.
There were two men and three women, one female was passed out and being carried in the arms of one of the men. “It’s them!” Sarila whispered urgently to Cavan.
He glanced back and forth between them and her, “Are you sure?”
She nodded wordlessly, but looked up when she heard one of the men swearing.
“They just got away! I heard their horses! I’m going to try and catch them!” In a flash the man was gone; running faster than Sarila could track.
“Maybe we’re lucky we’re like this…he’s going to catch our horses…” Cavan muttered, shifting nervously on his haunches.
The others in the group glanced over at them curiously, and a girl came closer to them. Recognition surged through Sarila, “That’s Kera! I’m sure of it; her description is exactly like what I’ve read!”
“Well…what’re we going to do?” Cavan asked, watching the group warily.
“I don’t know, but we’ve got to do something!”
btw! My avatar can be very expensive! O_O
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