In Stone

37: "The forests."

37: "The forests."

4 days prior...

"She'll be heading towards the cliffs," Caspian told them. "Kiriion, you remember how to get there?"

"I do."

"Then you lead. Let's move quickly. I don't want her coming back as bloodied as she was last time."

They both nodded and followed him along with two others, towards the city gate.

They couldn't stop the goddess from calling on Caia, but they could at least do their best to prevent her from being hurt on the trip.

Five people in total went into the forest to look for Caia. Kiriion explained that she didn't move all that fast, so Caspian didn't think that she could have gotten very far. Beside that, these were their woods; this place was their home. They could track through these trees far better than Caia could move. In fact, he suspected that finding her was going to be easy.

So, after an hour passed and they found no sign of Caia, Caspian began to get worried.

The five of them were spread out now, out of sight but not earshot of each other. Caspian could already see the cliffs taking up his vision and it wouldn't be long before they were right on top of them. Yet there was not a single sign of Caia.

It had been a while since Caspian had tracked anyone, but it was a skill that was easily remembered as he fell into his old patterns. It wasn't like he was tracking a light-footed animal either. He was tracking Caia, who couldn't be sneaky even when she hadn't lost her mind.

Yet there was no sign of her. He came across an animal crossing, probably a deer, and signs that maybe a large cat was coming in too close to the village in order to hunt it. The former was irrelevant and the latter needed to be reported, but none of that mattered in relation to Caia.

He was so focused on finding some trace of her as he moved that he nearly ran right into the cliff face at the edge of the trees.

His eyes moved left, then right, but he saw nothing. Kiriion had already made it this far and he could be seen a distance away, also standing at the cliff.

"Anything?" Caspian asked, not really hoping he had. After all, he would have said something.

Kirriion shook his head before turning and walking further down the cliff to keep up the search.

Caspian turned in the opposite direction in order to do the same.

Where was she? There was no way she had made it to the cliff so fast. Not moving as slowly as she did when she was like this. Maybe it would be better to turn around and go back through the woods on a different path. This was just the most obvious one to take here. Maybe Caia, who didn't really know the woods well anyway, had taken a different approach.

As he walked along, Caspian came upon a pile of moss covered rocks stuck out near the cliff. Thinking to get a better look, he climbed them and stood on the tallest one.

The trees of the forest weren't so closely packed together that he couldn't see anything past their magnificent trunks. However, the height he had earned did little to help things.

"Caspian?"

He looked down to see Vaeri frowning up at him. He shook his head sadly.

She sighed. "Okay. I'm going to start working my way back. Kiri?"

"He's going along the edge of the cliffs."

She nodded and turned to walk back into the trees. Caspian watched her go, his face as neutral as he could make it. He didn't want the others to see how worried he was getting. His worrying would do nothing but make it harder on them to focus.