Chapter Eight

The first night I don't stop before the sun goes down. I find an outcropping of rock near the river so I'm not exposed on all sides. I pace myself with the food Frederick packed for me, eating only enough to keep my belly from lurching in hunger. I do the same for breakfast when the sun rises, and then I'm back at it.

Rune is not very talkative the next day, I assume because he's still pouting over the whole Frederick thing. My bad for bringing it up over and over and reminding him just how stupid he's being for acting so jealous.

Not really though, because it's kind of fun poking at Rune. He sounds so snobbish and entitled, like he automatically believes he's better than everyone else. It's only fair to take him down a peg or two and remind him that he's just a tattoo on my wrist.

The second day I stop before the sun goes down to practice finding food in the river. I also wash my clothes—and by that I mean I huddle naked under my cloak and rub my clothes against each other in the water. It's about all I can do, but it's better than nothing.

Finding clams and crayfish is easier than catching fish. I don't eat them, though. I put them back where I find them, not yet starving enough to want to be brave and try them.

The third day I get an idea as I'm practicing summoning yellow bolts of sizzling magic.

"Rune," I say as I walk along the riverside, "you threw up that shield when that crazy dog attacked me." My focus had waned from the magic sprouting forth from my hands, moving to the river beside me.

The current is harder, faster here than it was before, and yet I don't see many large rocks in it breaking up the surface.

"I did," he says. "Why? Reminiscing already?"

I roll my eyes. "No. I'm just wondering if we can try something. Do you think I could summon a shield thing like it?"

"I don't see why not, as long as you focus."

Dropping the bag on dry ground, I stretch and crack my knuckles. My idea might work or it might lead to me drenching myself for no reason. I'll have to try it and see.

I step closer to the water's edge and let out an even breath as I close my eyes. I extend an arm in front of me, my palm outward toward the water. I imagine what I want to conjure up—a trick I learned from Rune yesterday while trying to summon other magical things besides a bolt—and before I open my eyes, I take a step forward, knowing that step would be the true test.

I don't need my eyes open to know if it works. If my shoes get wet, I'll know.

They don't get wet.

Opening my eyes, I chortle out glee as I look down to the magic currently keeping my feet above the water. It's like a surfboard, only rounder and directly beneath me. See-through, it crackles and fizzles with blindingly bright yellow jolts of magic, the same look the shield had when Rune threw it up around me before.

"It worked!" I squealed, unable to hide my own excitement.

"Yes, how wonderful. You can walk on water now."

"Don't you know what this means?" I ask. "It means I don't have to walk day after day. I can just glide on the water. It'll probably help to get me there faster, too." Less walking and a shorter trip? Sign me the fuck up.

Now, all I have to do is figure out how to let the current of the water take me. Hmm. Or, better yet, use magic somehow to propel me forward on the water's surface. If I can do that, I'll practically fly on the water.

I step out further into the river, so I'm right in the middle of it, where the water is a bit deeper and it runs harder under the magic keeping me up. I've never tried to do two things at once before, not when it comes to this magic shit, so it might be touch and go.

Worth a shot, anyway.

I imagine the process is the same as it is when I do a single thing with magic, only I have to do it for two things at once. Focus on both, let the magic flow into both things simultaneously. Keep myself afloat while also moving—while also dodging any rocks that might jut out of the water here and there.

It won't be easy, but it might be the best fun I'll have in Laconia.

I move positions so that my right foot takes the lead and my left foot is behind it, shoulder-length apart. Rune crackles on my wrist, a yellowish-white color from the magic-use. I take a deep breath, and then, with my left hand, I push against the air…

And I send myself flying forward, knocking myself off the magical board and right into the water.

I'm drenched, instantly drenched, but I try again. This time I keep my right hand flat to mimic the magical surfboard beneath my feet. Don't ask me why, but it's easier for me to do all this magic stuff while moving my hands. Rune told me I don't need to use my hands so much, but it just feels more natural that way.

Using both hands helps. I'm able to make it twenty feet down the river in about five seconds by propelling myself along. I don't stop. I keep going; I know I'll need to go back for my bag, but I want to get some practice in before I do it.

I bend my legs, lean my body while keeping the magic beneath my feet going and pushing me ever forward with magic behind me. It really is like a surfboard. I don't have the best balance, but it's kind of fun.

"Whoo!" I yell, laughing as the wind whips at my face. My hair is wet from the first time I fell in the water, but I don't care. The sun is warm as it kisses my skin, and though I'm doing something totally unnatural, I feel as if I'm one with the world.

A world that's not mine, but even that doesn't matter as I coast along the water's surface.

"This is amazing!" I shout. "Are you seeing this?" I expertly dodge a large boulder that juts out of the middle of the river, and in doing so I manage to spray myself with some water.

Rune's tone is the very opposite of impressed. "Yes, how wonderful."

"Don't be jealous just because you're stuck as a tattoo—"

"Rune," he corrects me, but I ignore him.

I'm seconds from saying something else, probably from mocking him and the fact that he's stuck on me, when I get distracted and don't see the small rock breaking the surface of the water ahead of me. I hit it head-on, and though it's small, it's enough to tip me over thanks to the speed I'm going.

Up and over, I lose my concentration on the magical surfboard and the magic propelling me along. I fall face-first into the water, completely submerging myself in the river. Luckily I don't crack anything on the rocks beneath the surface; it's a deeper part of the river. I swim up and cough out the water I inhaled during the accident, and I move to the river's edge.

Once I'm on grass, I roll over onto my back and sigh. Even after that fall, I'm still smiling. It was fun.

I need to go back and get my bag, but I don't move for a while. With the excuse of wanting to dry off a bit before I get moving again, I lay there in the sun with my legs and arms outstretched as I ask Rune, "Do you think we'll find Frederick's dad?"

"His corpse or his research?"

"Either," I say. "Both. If he's as smart as Frederick thinks, if he was researching the woes, what if he found a way to fight them?"

Rune counters me with logic: "If he found a way to do just that, wouldn't he have returned to his son? It's been years, Rey. I doubt anyone could live outside the main city with everything that has been plaguing the kingdom. And as for his research… I don't know if we'll find anything. We are taking a lot on faith here, following the supposed trail he took while trying to reach the castle of Acadia."

Faith. That word sticks out to me the most out of everything Rune says. Maybe because I need to keep faith that I'll somehow get back home and be able to fix everything that was going wrong in my life. If I lose faith… if I lose hope, then what's the point in all of this?

I can't make a life here. I need electricity. I need indoor plumbing and guys that don't look like they came out of a fantasy movie. It wasn't like I had the chance to meet everyone in Laconia while I was there, but literally the only guy around my age I saw was Frederick himself. If I have to guess, I'd say that not many children survived the initial woes.

So, no, I can't stay here, in this world. Magic is neat, don't get me wrong, but it's not everything. I'd gladly give it up to go back home, where I'm a nobody instead of a demon to other people.

I lay there for a bit longer, and then I heave myself up. No time to wallow right now. I have a mission, a trail to follow. Whether or not I find anything on this trail is anyone's guess, but I don't want to make it last longer than it already has to be. I surf backwards against the current to grab my bag.

If I feel myself falling again, I'll have to think fast. Whip off the bag and try tossing it ashore so the food inside doesn't get wet. I think smoked meat, in order to stay good, has to stay dry—but then again, what do I know? I never took a survival course. I was never a Girl Scout. My dad didn't teach me any of this stuff before he…

No. I won't think of him right now. I can't. If I think about him, about the fact that I left his picture on my bed—a bed that might not be there when I get back—I'll then start to think about how I'll have nothing.

Not an education. Not a place to stay. No job. No picture of my dad.

So I don't think about him. I don't think about everything I could lose as I balance myself atop a magical surfboard and zoom along the countryside. I don't let myself think about what's at stake here if I come across something I can't handle.

I'm not ready to die, and I sure as shit ain't going to die here. I'm going to fight to get home as long as I can, as hard as I can. I'll find Frederick's dad's stuff, bring it back to him, and do whatever else I can to help him so he can help me. Right now, that man is my only hope.

I do pretty well. Surfing, I mean. I don't trip and fall into the water again. I pay attention to the rocks breaking the river's surface and I avoid them. Sometimes I get a little unsteady, but I'm able to re-balance to stop myself from tipping over.

I don't care what Rune says. I'm pretty damn good at this shit. I'm a natural. Even if the magic comes from Rune, it's basically mine now. As long as he's on me, as long as we're connected or whatever, it's my magic.

And I'm going to kick so much ass here, mark my words.

The scenery moves by faster than I can blink. The river courses along rolling fields of wildflowers and gentle hills. A few smaller trees here and there, but nothing like the forest where I first woke up. Nothing eerie or creepy about this part of Laconia. It's just beautiful. Nature in its finest, even though the land has been plagued by the woes for so long. You don't get places like this on earth.

Not anymore, at least.

And that's why, even though I'm on a mission, I take it all in. I memorize the fields and the weird-looking flowers as I zoom by. I devour it all mentally so that, eventually when I'm home, I can remember what it was like.

Hours pass, and I see a settlement coming into view in the distance, a few miles away, if that.

"Vermyr?" I ask.

"I believe so," Rune says.

Wow. This magic really did help me cut the travel time in half, huh? Too bad I didn't realize it the first day. If I had, maybe I could've been to the tower already.

The river brings me right to the village, and I hop off my magical surfboard when I reach the edge of it. Vermyr is supposed to be a larger settlement, the closest Acadian village to the center of Laconia. I can already see it's bigger than the village where I encountered that crazed dog-like creature and the dragon.

It's built differently, too. Everything is made of stone. The homes, the three-foot tall wall that surrounds the entire thing. Even the roofs are made of stone slats. I walk through the archway and officially step inside the village on its main dirt road, and I look around.

It is a ghost-town, very much like that first village. My ears hear nothing more than the rustling wind reminding me that nothing in this kingdom is safe or good.

"Well," Rune harrumphs, "I suppose we best start looking. House to house might be the smartest way. We have no idea where he would've stayed if he reached Vermyr."

I didn't see any abandoned camps or skeletons on the way here. I know that doesn't mean Frederick's dad made it here, but it's a good sign, at least. Rune is right; I'll have to look in every single house for a makeshift camp just to be sure.

I start at the first house on the right. Small abodes; single-story houses, they're quick to search. What rooms there are in the homes are tiny things. Most are empty, too—and I take that to mean the people in this village were able to pack and run instead of just, you know, dying.

The first two houses turn up nothing. It's as I'm about to walk into the third house that I notice a single black bird sitting on the ridge of the stone roof, watching me. Though it's fifteen feet away, I can see its red eyes, and they look completely unnatural. It doesn't attack, though, so I ignore it and continue my search.

House to house I go, dirt road to dirt road. I find nothing—but that might be a good thing. The more I search through this village, the more hopeful I am that its people got out alive, that they're some of the people crowding the lower district of Laconia.

"I don't think he ended up here," I'm busy saying as I'm walking out of a house. There are still a few more to search, but each one is turning up the same result. I'm seconds from saying more when I stop.

The black bird sits on the house across the street, staring at me still. He followed me from house to house, only this time, he brought some friends with him. And by friends, I mean there's at least fifty crows watching me from the house across the way. Some sit on the roof's stone slats, while others had gathered in the house's wide-open, glassless windows. All have bright red eyes, and all of them are watching me.

"Uh…" I hear a squawk behind me, and I whirl around to see that the house I just walked out of is also lined with crows. Normally, I'd say they don't scare me. They're just silly birds, the size of my hands put together, so not even that large.

But there's a lot of them, and they're all watching me like they want to peck away at my skin and pull me apart. Definitely afflicted.

"I would either find shelter or prepare for a fight," Rune advises.

Moving away from the house, I step to the center of the dirt road. "I'm not running from birds," I mutter with a frown. "Even if there are a lot of them." I twirl around and shout to the birds, "Well? Aren't you going to attack me now? Come on! Give me your best shot."

"Rey, I don't think antagonizing them is good idea."

"What do you know? You're just a tattoo."

At my insult, he sighs heavily into my mind, but he quiets. Good. At least he's starting to realize he can't persuade me to run if I don't want to run. If I want to fight, by God, I'm going to fucking fight.

None of the birds move. A cloud passes over me, but I ignore it, too focused on the birds. "Hello?" I ask as my hands clench into fists. "If you're hungry, why don't you come at me already?" There might be a lot of them, but I can handle them. I'm pretty good at this magic stuff, so I think I can handle a flock of maniacal birds.

The same cloud passes over me again—and that's when I realize it's not a cloud. It's another bird. And this one is much, much larger than the crows surrounding me. I look up and squint to see the bird circling me in the air. It lets out an otherworldly squawk before diving down. I have to jump back to avoid it.

It lands on the dirt with a thud, right where I was standing a few seconds ago. It shakes its feathers and flaps its wings twice before tucking them in and looking at me.

The only thing I can say when I see it is "Holy fuck."

It's another crow, but it's five feet tall. Its talons are bigger than my fingers, and its beak is stained with red, sharp enough that it could tear me limb from limb and peck out my insides with little effort on its part. Its eyes are focused on me, a cloudy, blood red hue.

The only thing, other than the eyes and the size, that is off about the bird is that the scaly skin that makes up its feet is full of scabbed-over wounds, old sores that never truly healed.

Did the plague make this crow huge, or was it already huge before? Do I even want to know the answer? Because if a crow can be gigantic, so can a dog. Or a wolf. Or a bear. God, the last thing I need to stumble across is a bear the size of a wooly mammoth.

Suddenly I'm not so gung-ho about fighting, and I take a step back. It watches me, cocking its head at me. Maybe it'll let me go.

A wistful thought, and a wrong one, because right as I think it, it spreads its wings and lets out the worst shriek I've ever heard. It rings through the air at such a high pitch that my eardrums hurt.

And it riles up the other birds, of course.

The birds around me scatter. They fill the air, all squawking and frenzied. The air around me turns into a crazed cacophony of noise and feathers, and some of them swoop for me. Rune throws up a defensive shield reflexively, and the smaller birds ping right off it like raindrops on a newly-waxed car.

The giant bird in front of me flaps its wings and lifts itself in the air to join the fray.

I can see the birds through the sizzling golden shield, and I summon a small ball of magic and throw it in the air. It doesn't hit anything, so I do it again with the same result. Balls and bolts aren't going to do much here—and I realize now that single-strike magic was the only kind of magic that I practiced on my way here, besides my magical surfboard.

Shit.

The birds swarm me, and the large one swoops down. Its claws dig into the shield, and I can see its power waning. It phases in and out of reality, and Rune grunts out, "Rey, now would be the time to act!"

So I do. I try more balls of glowing magic, only to no avail. The large crow shrieks and pulls back, flying high in the sky while the smaller birds continue to swarm me. I'm not worried about the shield giving in for the smaller ones. Another attack from big mamma, and I might be shit out of luck.

"I can't hit any of them," I mutter with a grunt.

"Then perhaps you need to go about this another way."

"Another way? How—" It's as I'm asking that I look at the shield around me. An idea occurs, due in no small part to the shield itself. "I have an idea." I lift a hand and set it on the shield's inner curve, feeling the magic crackle under my touch.

Rune says, "Whatever you're going to do, you best do it fast."

I look up and see the large crow angling itself in the air, about to divebomb me again. Magic is magic. There's no limit to what you can do, right?

Right. Now is not the time to get in my head about it. Now is the time for action.

Spreading my legs, I drop my hand from the shield and ready myself. The large crow cawks as it swoops down, talons outstretched. I wait until it's maybe five feet away before reacting; have to beat it before it breaks the shield completely.

Rune's magic courses through me, the tattoo on my wrist and hand glowing. That glow only grows in intensity, yellow turning to white when I bring both hands to the shield and slam into it with all I have.

It's like an explosion. The shield surges forward, growing and expanding the farther it gets from me. A chain reaction, one moving in the opposite direction from the birds swooping into me. The force of the sudden push of power catches all of the smaller birds in its path and disintegrates them, and it knocks the larger crow back with a force so hard it can't catch itself. The large crow is slammed into a nearby house, the stone wall crumbling from the force.

I breathe hard, and by the time the makeshift attack fades away, I feel like I can use a nap.

The large crow squawks as it tries to pull itself from the stone wall.

I walk over to it. I can't leave it. A deep inhale leaves me as I summon a sharp bolt of magic. Like a lightning bolt, only piercing enough to penetrate skin.

I stop when I stand ten feet away from the big crow, and with a flick of my wrist, I throw it into the giant, crazed bird.

The sound it lets out is swallowed up by the way it turns to ash when it dies, leaving nothing in its wake but the hole its body made in the stone.

Huh. Wonder why they all do that. It has to be something involving the woes. Maybe the woes are the only thing keeping these twisted animals alive, like zombies, shadows of their former selves.

"You made good work of them," Rune praises me, something which doesn't happen often. Or, you know, at all.

"I try," I say, moving to lean on the house near the broken stone. "Couldn't have done it without you."

Rune hums. "Yes, I suppose we make an awfully good team, don't we?"

I grin, and out of habit, I look around. Not to make sure I'm alone, but because instinctively, I feel like I'm not. I feel like Rune is standing next to me, telling me that while watching me with a mixture of disdain and appreciation.

But he's not. He's still just a tattoo on my wrist.