Legacy: The Unravelling

XXIV

Hours later, when the adrenaline had vanished, Kiara cursed her brother with every known curse as she slowly descended from her old haven. "That sucker dislocated my knee," she angrily thought as she tied the cloth she had ripped from her ankles already dreading the pieces of wood she had placed down there to fully support her knee. "Well, but to be fair I almost permanently damaged one of his eyes." Besides her brother's movements, what amazed her at that moment was her inability to feel any guilt nor regret derived from their mini fight the night before.

She was also grateful towards her past self for her love towards bows because she had acquired a new weapon that she did not hesitate to aim towards a rustle in front of her from which Freya and Stefan emerged with their hands raised towards her.

Kiara immediately untensed her bow and sighed with relief, stumbling towards them, Stefan running towards her and lifting her with a huge smile on his face.

-Thank you for surviving.- he giggled as he gently placed her back on the floor, Freya approaching her with a smile too.- We were worried when you did not reply to any of our signals.-

-I was out of range.- she shrugged.- Freya did you tell them all?-

-Yes.- she nodded, her smile now becoming a small pout when she saw Kiara's tourniquet.- That was definitely more than a sibling fight though...-

-He ended worse than me.- she replied with a grin.- nobody messes with my people, not even my past.-

They said nothing else as Stefan lifted her up careful of not injuring her any further as Freya walked beside him and Kiara instructed them on where to go to find resources or safety.

-How do you know about this place? -asked Stefan.-

-It used to be my home.- she whispered, her mind drifting away slightly.- Freya what did you discover? -

-That sadly, our answers are in Eganis.- she replied with annoyance.-

Kiara muttered a curse under her breath as they entered the place that used to be her home years ago.

-Why does it look like the only place in the village that was not burnt over completely? - Stefan asked as he laid Kiara on the kitchen counter. -

-Because it wasn't.-she replied.- the whole town was raided, here is where they got what they wanted and in order for a boy to stop defying his commanders' orders, they burnt the village in front of him.-

-A boy? -he asked while taking a glance at Freya who had just come back with few supplies.- So the rumours of an EZ created due to a boy were true?

-Yes.- Freya replied solemnly.-

-Who was it then? -he asked, oblivious to Kiara's angry stare.-

-Dmitri Novack. -she replied, fully unable to hide her hatred.-

Stefan swallowed hard when he noticed her golden eyes shining with dread. The only time he had seen those eyes before was the day when she and Liam recounted the fiasco they went through months ago.

-Guys, I believe it is important for us to discuss what we are going to do and then we can focus on the past. -Freya said nonchalantly.-

The brunette interpreted their silence as an affirmation so she placed the letter they retrieved the night before in the table for them to read it fully.

-I managed to tell the rest to meet us in Eganis before our signal was lost.- she added as she pointed certain things on the letter.- The curious thing about this is that it wasn't signed by Matthew Alburg nor Nicolai Novack or their respective elders, but rather their respective war councils.-

-What? -asked Kiara, promptly grabbing the letter from Stefan's grip.- Normally this type of requests would have been done by the highest in the hierarchy, not them because normally they only serve as counsellors or conveyors.-

To say that she was disconcerted was a vague description of her current state, "why would the council send that instead of their higherups?" she thought.

-That is why I say that our information resides in Eganis.- Freya explained.- I was also puzzled when I read it.-

-Anyways, Kiara do you know where I can hunt food from? -Stefan asked the redhead who was lost in her thoughts.-

Half an hour later Stefan was back and he found Kiara and Freya around the table in the living room surrounded by parchments and were examining a map that was almost the size of a coffee table nearby.

-Hey Granger.- Kiara welcomed without bothering on looking at him.- Are the squirrels deskinned?-

-Yes.- he said as he approached them with curiosity dripping from his pores.-

-Can you chop them up and throw them in the stock that is cooking over there? -Freya asked him, also refusing to meet his stare as she tilted her head ever-so-slightly, her sight focused on a certain point of the map that he realised was from the continent.-

-Don't worry, we will share everything with you as soon as you do that.- said the redhead, also watching the same point as the brunette with a sneer.-

Stefan hurriedly rushed to the kitchen counter and after roughly shopping the animal and throwing it into the stock, he made his way between the females who were muttering some stuff he could not comprehend. As soon as they felt him sit down between them, they shared a glance and pulled him further to the table.

Directly in front of him was a sort of an outdated map of Varlem that included some NZs that were either conjoined or were dismantled, though he also noticed that there were some drawings that added details he assumed were built after the map was done, for example, the base east from where they were, a port in Khaeron, the Pavillion in the coast of Rhean after some cliffs, and some mines in Aella and Rhean respectively.

-It is a bit outdated but it does the trick.- Kiara informed him.- We were trying to come up with a plan on how to enter Eganis.-

-But I imagine that there are several problems to our dilemma.- said Stefan already guessing where the conversation will go to.-

-Yes, even if we had more information we would.- Kiara said solemnly as she pointed towards a land south-west from Rhean's supposedly capital, "NZ02R".- This is where we currently are, it is now known as "EZ-R" and here.- her finger drifted to another point in the map, this time south-east from the capital, close to the border with Eganis but no tag was written.- Is the place where the base fiasco occurred and where we hope the rest are.-

-I was looking into the landscape and we have a natural border from our current position and Eganis.- said Freya as she pointed towards the borders of Rhean and Eganis respectively.- including a coast from our side without a place to hide and cliffs from Eganis' side along with a river whose exit connects with the sea, but according to Kiara, that's not our only problem.-

-What could possibly make all this worse? -he scoffed with sarcasm as he leaned closer to the map.- Besides the fact that we don't know anything about our teammates and that we cannot go for them.-

-Well, for starters it is easier to leave than to enter, and this section...- the redhead said as she pointed to a small place north-west in Eganis, almost directly in front of them.- Is where their soldiers train, and just so happens to be the only place in Eganis that has an opening inside of its wall besides the frontier post, but the land is highly unstable and as soon as we climb up there we will encounter geysers.-

"And I am saying this from what I can remember and as far as I was concerned, we cannot enter through the river though it connects with the sewers, just because we would be highly exposed metres after we enter due to it flowing through the middle of Eganis."

-Wonderful.- he said with a grimace.- Just wonderful!-