The Curse of the Blessed

Chapter Fourteen

"Fyra."

The voice was muddy and unclear at first. I blinked spots from my eyes. Everything ached, as though I'd spent a hard day working in the fields.

"Fyra!"

My vision focused. Lark was above me, her brown eyes worried, darting nervously around as she tried to determine whether I was all right. The green of the grass around me was painfully bright.

"Are you okay?" Lark asked.

I could hear her clearly now. I nodded. "I think so."

Bran stood a few feet away, his back to us, his fists clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Bran tried to get at Elder Brona. You stopped him, and it was like... like you'd been struck by lightning, or something." She stood and offered me a hand. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"No," I admitted, taking her hand and pulling myself to my feet. "I seem to be doing well enough, though. How's Bran? Is he okay?"

Lark shrugged. "I don't know. He probably feels terrible. I don't think he meant to hurt you."

"And you and Reed are okay?"

She nodded.

"I'm going to go talk to him."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I'm not sure he's..."

"Safe?" I suggested

"Stable."

I considered for a moment, but finally shook my head. "Someone needs to talk to him. It might as well be me."

"Good luck," said Lark. She turned and walked over to Reed, who sat on the back porch of the farmhouse.

I went to Bran. He glanced at me, but when his eyes met mine, he quickly looked away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not sure what happened. I got angry. I lost control."

I smiled slightly. "It happens to all of us. I would know—I'm the one who set a deathbird on you."

"It's not quite the same thing."

"It's similar enough." I'd been staring at the grass, but now I looked at Bran. There were tear tracks streaking down his cheeks. "Do you have any idea what you did?" I asked.

"I gave you power. A lot of it. So much that you called all the deathbirds within range."

"How do you know that?"

Bran gave a quiet chuckle. "You were out for a while. Your birds came down, and they were everywhere, and Elder Brona was so terrified that she ran for it. It was kind of funny, actually."

There was a short silence.

"So are you just an unlimited power source?" I asked. "Why have you never given me so much before? Can you control it?"

"I don't think I am," said Bran, frowning. "I think I got the extra power from the ghosts."

"What?" I said. "How?"

"I think..." He hesitated. "I think, when I made them disappear, I did so by draining them of energy. And I destroyed so many of them that I had a lot of energy. So when I got angry, you can guess what happened."

"The energy amplified the emotion?"

He stared at me. "No, but actually, that makes sense too." He shook his head. "What I was going to say was that the energy sort of... oozed out of me at first. And then, when you touched me, it exploded outward."

I looked more closely at his face and noticed the dark circles that had grown beneath his eyes.

"You've used it all up," I said. "You're exhausted."

"I'll be okay eventually." Bran glanced nervously at the farmhouse, and added, "For now, though, we should probably get moving. Elder Brona might rally the townspeople and come back to kick us out of the area. It would be best to avoid another confrontation. Especially with me so tired."

"First, we'd better make a plan with Reed and Lark," I pointed out.

"True."

I walked over to where they sat on the porch stairs, engaged in conversation. Reed was frowning, as was Lark.

"I don't think that makes sense," Lark was saying. "I know what you're getting at. But, if they really wanted us gone, why not just kill us, or tell us to get lost?"

Reed shrugged. "There was always a chance that we would succeed. Then they wouldn't need to worry about the ghosts anymore."

"What's going on?" I asked.

Lark said, simply, "Reed thinks we weren't meant to survive the night."

"The farmer and Elder Brona both seemed surprised to see that we'd made it," Reed explained. "And before, the way Elder Brona talked about the ghosts... she knew they were dangerous, but she wouldn't say how, or why. I think she was skirting around the truth."

"Oh," I said, unsure of what to think.

Reed stood, glancing briefly at Bran and seeming satisfied by what he saw there. "It doesn't matter, one way or another. Are the two of you feeling well enough that we can be on our way?"

I looked at Bran, who gave a slight nod.

"Yes," I said. "But where are we going to get food?"

Lark stood. "I know some edible plants. Reed might be able to draw some fishing supplies for us, so we can get meat. Also, we still have the food we started out with, even if it's not ideal taste-wise."

"And you think that will be enough?" Bran asked.

"We'll have to hope so," said Reed. "If things get bad, Fyra can always send one of her birds out to steal some food from a nearby village."

"We can always offer our services to a different village," Lark suggested.

Bran shook his head. "No. I don't want to try that again."

"You lost your trust in people so easily."

"Maybe it was never real to begin with." He looked down at his feet, then looked up again, locking eyes with each of us in turn. "And I haven't lost it all. I trust you. My friends."

"I trust you, too," said Lark earnestly. "We owe you two our lives"

I couldn't help a slight grin. "We'll be going up against even worse things, soon enough. I'm sure the debt will quickly be repaid."

"It's good that we trust each other," Reed said. "The team will be stronger that way."

"You trust us?" I asked.

He grinned, and said, simply, "I have to."

Trust... Reader, I trust you'll vote if you liked this chapter.