26. Chapter 25

Night changes Stone once more. It brings peace to the land that I have never felt before. All the nights that I would sleep in the field near House Luz, the one that I spent evenings in, watching as the sun fell over the west side of this very mountain, was nothing compared to this. As we lie down for a rest, I feel Stone go into what I can only describe as hibernation, as if it too is replenishing its strength.

I am nearly asleep when a piercing cry rings through the cold air. I sit up fast, searching, ignoring the excruciating drumming behind my eyes. The fire is on its last legs, making the ring of light around us dull and hard to see in. Sweat drenches my hand when I reach up to soothe my headache. I should be cold. My jacket lays next to my bedroll, and my socks are absently left over the dying fire to dry.

So hot.I rip the blanket off, freeing my body. There it is again, the cry of a woman in the distance. Kirian is sound asleep, his back turned towards me. I shake him violently to wake him. Unsure of how I got over to him so fast. The Shadows attempt to peel me away from him as he stirs awake. I ignore them.

"What, what is it?" he asks frantically when he sees the terror on my face. His own chest beating from the abrupt awakening. He takes me by the shoulders as I find the words.

Stone spins beneath me as I find my words, and I have to concentrate on not falling over. "There is someone in the woods," I tell him breathlessly. As if whatever is out there heard me, a horn blows, low and… triumphant. His head snaps to the noise behind him, then he looks back at me calmly, too calmly.

"There are said to be settlers in these mountains. Those who did not leave after the war." This does nothing to slow the panic that is running rampant through me as I think back to all the times I thought there were eyes on us as we walked. If there are settlers here, there really could have been someone trailing us. It isn"t the strange energy of this mountain or my imagination.

Kirian sees the thoughts as they pass behind my eyes, sees the terror that I now feel. "It"s okay, you"re okay," He tells me in a soothing voice. The glow of his aura brightens. An opaque light that drifts from his mouth. Using his gift to convince me of what is most definitely not true.

I am not okay in many more ways than one.

Right now, in this place, where I need to feel every emotion to survive, to keep track of my surroundings, to let the bile rise to my throat at the threat of danger. To retreat from it if need be.I shake my head violently. Get away from me. That is all I can think. Get away from her. The Shadows join in. They lay their slender fingers over his wrists. As if restraining him.

I fall backward in a rush to get outside of the reach of his power. My backside hits the ground in a painful thud. A rock catches my trousers and tears at my skin. I continue my retreat. I don"t want him to use his gift on me. I don"t want to be manipulated by him or anyone ever again. His face turns from worry to realization to anger. Then his large shoulders rise and fall in a heavy sigh before he turns his back to me again. "Get some sleep, Katsia. We have a long day ahead of us." He says to the night.

"Kirian, I-"I try, but it"s no use. What could I even say?

All the heat falls from my body, my teeth chatter and my bedroll no longer holds heat. I flinch at every noise throughout the night. Soon, I start to think that I was wrong about Stone going into hibernation, no it"s much worse than that. Kirian once told me of creatures that steal babies and beasts that eat livestock.

The mountain has gone quiet for no other reason than to hide from whatever it is that lurks in these woods. We are well past the villages that live beyond the wall. We are in The Uncharted Territories. Where maps mean nothing. Where no one knows who or what lives beyond. Not even those who live past the walls of Thorn Row travel this far north.

Except Augustine. Who supposedly takes soldiers to The North and brings them back in a daze, which sends me further into the part of my mind that thinks of what could happen to me if I stay in these mountains for too long. I can"t help but grip my dagger until the sun rises.

My suspicions of possible madness taking hold of me are proven correct. The gray surrounding us slowly bleeds into color. A sight that only I see as I flip over to Kirian who still sleeps in his bedroll, his large body sunken into the ground.

Twigs snap under light feet behind me. The kind that you would hear under a fawn"s footing. Where a child is, a mother is sure not to be far. I think to myself. All my years of hunting for myself have told me that.

When I turn my head slowly to the noise, far in the distance beyond trunks of trees that grow in rows, a woman stands. A white veil over her face, concealing her features. It falls over her breasts, landing just below the curve of her womanhood. Her skin porcelain with the help of chalk or paint, the color runs all the way down to her toes. Not a fawn at all and yet her steps are just as such, as if she has walked upon the pine needles and creeping vegetation many times before.

This time, I do not wake Kirian. I only watch as the woman raises her arms with the sun. Her movements like liquid as she takes methodical steps in an almost dance. She is not alone. Others join her from somewhere, only blurs of perfect white figures in my periphery. They step with her, all moving in a circle before dispersing in different directions, the same as a star in the sky, its points shining all around it, filling the black. The woman who I saw first starts towards me. The southern point of the star. It"s not real, I tell myself. Something is wrong. With me.

A heavy weight falls over me, like the air has condensed. I do not take my eyes off the woman, and if I am not mistaken, she sees me as well. Her arms come around, her hands cupped and outstretched in front of her.

In her palms she holds light, white and steady. Not like the flickering light of a candle. More like the light I saw around Kirian, but much brighter, consistent.

She keeps a steady pace, closer and closer. "Take it" the Shadows demand, their sudden presence startles me, my whole body jolting before settling again. "Take it, all of it, it"s yours." But I am unsure of what exactly it is that I will be taking.

I want to. I almost can"t help it, as if it really does belong to me. If I wield it in my hand, will it look like that? Pure and white? Like the angel and her sisters? I wonder. Or will it be black like the Shadows?

Kirian stirs behind me, breaking my concentration for half a second but I won"t look away, I can"t. I lift my hand and begin to point, in hopes that he will follow my finger to what I see before me. Will he see her? "What are you looking at?" He answers the question without me having to ask it out loud.

When I do not reply he moves beside me. My finger is now up and shaking slightly in front of us. The woman who bears a gift to me gets closer and closer, completing the southern point of the star. "What?" he says confused as he scans the forest before us. This time I do not move away from him as he nears me, the pull to the woman much stronger than the one that pulls me to him. His magic is…weaker.

"Katsia" he says my name as a hoarse whisper. Then "Katsia" louder.

The woman walks nearer until she is right next to us. I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. She kneels in front of me. Kirian"s eyes are only on me. He does not see the woman. He even reaches a hand up to my forehead between the two of us.

She holds out her hand filled with light.

Then, it"s just her. Kirian is no longer beside me, and her sisters have disappeared. On my next breath, I feel the weight of the airlift.

I blink, I hadn"t realized that my eyes were stinging, dry. That I have not closed them in a long time for fear that I would lose her, and I did. She is no longer there, she has taken the light with her.

I turn my head to Kirian, whose face is that of a scared child, the same look that took him over outside of the village, after our encounter with Damien. I wonder what color surrounds the boogie man.

A tear that I had not felt falls from my cheek lands onto the fabric of my shirt. I meet Kirian"s concern, looking back and forth between the green pools, my reflection looking back at me. I take in as much air as my lungs can hold, this breath different from the last. This one is ragged and painful.

I haven"t gotten any sleep. My mind could be playing cruel tricks on me. Or worse, the forest is playing its tricks, maybe the same ones that affected the soldiers that were once sent here with Augustine. Kirian takes a tentative seat onto my bedroll of which I am only half in. Even in the cold of the morning I still feel as though my body is on fire, one that I cannot get rid of.

I can"t imagine what I look like right now to Kirian. I, myself, feel like I"m falling apart. Like every emotion I have ever felt, is all present at the forefront of my mind all at the same time.

We stay almost bundled together in silence like that for what feels like a long time, until my eyes become heavy. I think Kirian says something as I drift into sleep, but I can"t make it out, no light emanates from his words this time. I only feel his calloused finger as he tucks my hair behind my ear and places the leather-lined cover over my shoulders. Too warm I think to myself but I"m too tired to remove it.