The seven

Bridges

Merek—————

Song : billie eilish - your power

We had been riding a while now, and every second of it I spent longing for Rosie to be beside me, but she had chosen another horse and hastily sped to the front of the line. Now the narrow path of the forest prevented me from going to her.

It was hard to keep focused when my mind was on her lips and eyes and that traitorous smirk she had that could never stay hidden around me. Every step she took seemed to capture my gaze so that even now I was watching the swinging of her braids and hadn't a clue where we were headed. If Lorcan wasn't here we'd surely be lost by now.

After a while when the night became so blanketed around us that only Arrchana was able to see through it, we allowed the forest to swarm around us.

I dismounted my horse in one stride and formed a glow between my fingers to light the forest clearing. The light spiderwebbed out like I had freezed a lightning bolt in the air around us, it hung above like string lighting but with an electrical glow to it.

I muttered a small warning for anyone not to near the scorching light and then began to unpack the small bedroll from the side of my horse. We had packed little else, a few small bags of dried meat and bread and some hooded coats for each member of the hunting party. But it would get cold soon, so I shoved the coat on too, taking my time to remove the straps of my weapons and then pulling it over my huddled form.

I restrapped the weapons though, I wouldn't take them off even if we slept. It was unsafe out here, not that I would know but I felt it, Lorcan was the only one out of the two of us who really knew his way around, even though the palace in our kingdom was less rigid than what I had heard of those in the inner city, the sense of duty I had for mine placed far above any other of the kingdoms. I hadn't left often. This adventure and meeting of half of the prophecy's "seven" was the most excitement I had had in a while.

Age and palace life had bored me and it was such a drag that even when Lorcan had invited me countless times down to the court of revels I had refused. There was no use. The only thing that seemed to yank my submerged body out of the suffocating palace rituals was Rosie. Her eyes the only thing I saw when I closed mine. The sounds of her breathing in tune with my own every time we fought together. Her right coils of hair the only thing I yearned to grip onto when I was instead holding that stupid sword in my hands, so that I could force back her head and breathe her in...

Fuck not now Merek, there's a fucking war to fight.

Even then, I craved a taste of her.

I was snapped out of my daze when Isa lit a flame in the clearing, it's heat so startling that even my lighting seemed to shy away. I let it, curling back into me in its awkward fashion till I felt it's warmth within me once more.

In time we settled around the fire, huddling on bedrolls and settling as close to each other as we could. My brother and Isa had already melded together by the fire. Even when she had protested earlier I had seen as he had gently pushed her into him, wrapping his arms around her and settling himself above her, using her hair as a pillow.

I wish Rosie would just let me close. She had settled her roll beside me but that was just it. She was asleep before I plucked up the courage to ask her of the sort, to ask her in a haste if she would want to sleep near each other to keep 'warm'. But it seemed the playful sarcasm we had developed had turned into a jittering ball of nerves within me, I hadn't been able to form a word, let alone a sentence, not before she had pulled her coat around herself and shuddered into sleep.

I slowly began to sink further into the small bedroll despite the fact that even my power hadn't stopped the creeping chill from crawling into every fold of the warm coat I was wearing. I let the cold wash over me and used the energy within myself to heat my body.