The Sentinels

39: Auburn Hair

The fisher's village Irima was a dead place and reminded me a lot of the forest we had seen where the earth's magic was scarce. Here too, everything seemed to be rotting. I took cautious steps as I followed behind Reece onto the wooden steps leading to one of the houses still built on the shore. We were all ascending in a row, careful where we placed our next steps. The only thing that traveled through the air was the smell of fish and creaking sounds that seemed never to stop. Even when none of us moved, there was always a grating sound to be heard. It was the only sign of life, so far, and it was eery to say the least.

We saw no one but heard many.

With my heart beating in a frantic frenzy, I tried to calm myself down, taking steady breaths. This place gave me the chills.

The pack, the four Thrakos men and me, gathered as soon as we were past the steps and on some kind of a platform, just in front of the entrance to the first house. Looking up, there were two windows facing the entrance side. Both of them were cracked. No sign of life hid behind the broken glass. Although the front door was intact, I doubted anyone lived in this shady house. Its white paint peeled off in more places than where it still held. Some sort of wind-chimes made of what looked like bones hung from two planks that protruded out of the house, a washed out sign hanging from its ends. The writing on it wasn't in letters I'd learned at school, so I had no idea what this place could have been in its better days.

"What's written on that sign?" I wondered aloud, hoping either Emmet would know or Ryker. An eerie stillness stretched out after my words echoed through the silence. It was Ryker who spoke, though he could not answer my question. "Irima speaks a language of their own, like many places in Espheros."

"I thought we all spoke the same, only in different accents", Emmet said.

"That is essentially what happened over the years. Irima is very old, many people here speak Irsh as their native but speak your native with an accent, too."

"Are the people here shifters or human?" Debrova inquired and I found myself wondering the same, though I suspected they were human. Wolves would never live in housing built above the ever changing ocean.

Ryker cleared his throat. "We don't call them shifters. But yes, part of them are, and part of them are human."

"What do you call us then?" Emmet asked.

I looked at Ryker, whose dark hair was being blown out of his face as a small gust of wind blew past us. His gray eyes connected with mine, before he let them wander towards the endless sea next to us. The waves were calm, though I could see some foam below the unstable wooden boards that held us above the water.

"We call you the Sentinels."

☼

The group continued over a small, short bridge that led to the next house. From that house, there were more platforms like this one, many of them not attached to any houses but forming somewhat of a walkway wide enough for make-shift shops to be temporarily put up. One merchant-cart was still standing there, but it wasn't in use though it was still fairly well preserved.