Beyond The Shadows (Shadows Saga bk3) ON HOLD

Chapter 11-Traveller

The guards were already up and ready by the time Mara woke up in the morning. She could tell the one's who'd had the last shift by the dark circles under their eyes, but they were no less alert than the others.

She went down into the kitchen where food had been laid out for all of them. Toast, bacon, eggs, fruit, it was way more than she'd been expecting.

The guards in the kitchen quieted down when she entered and she looked between them.

"Don't stop on my account. Laugh, talk, have fun. Someone might as well do it."

Conversation resumed, but it was much quieter. Mara grabbed a piece of toast and leaned against the kitchen counter watching the others.

A shadow moved next to her and she looked to the side to see Vaun had taken up residence beside her. He looked down, assessing her.

"Did you sleep well, ma'am?"

"I did," she said with a nod. "It beat sleeping on a floor, which I had to do last time. Though that's hardly fair, it's just where I happened to pass out after the train crash."

Vaun didn't even ask. He just gave her a nod. Mara was fairly sure he'd had far worse as well.

"You don't seem too happy this morning," he assessed.

"What is there to be happy about?"

"We're alive and we're moving on. And no one attempted to kill you yesterday."

"I am thankful for that one, but I probably won't be happy until this is all over."

"If there's one thing I've learned over the years, ma'am, it would be that it's never over."

Somewhere deep inside, Mara knew it to be true, but hearing it aloud was like a kick to the gut. What else did she have to do? What else did she have to give up?

"Gather everything. We're leaving in ten minutes," Mara said as she pushed off from the counter. She made her way back to the room where her bag was and she did a sweep over the room, making sure everything was together.

Guards passed her on the stairs as she made her way down and out to where the portal was still marked with a broken chalk line.

Pulling a piece of chalk out of her pocket, Mara started to draw symbols, weaving them in with the line that marked the portal boundaries.

The symbols were of the ancient witch dialect that Mara had been learning. It was seldom used, and only in spells. In this case, they were used to take Mara where she needed to go.

She hadn't needed the symbols to link the portal with the kingdom, because she knew the kingdom. This new town however, she knew nothing about.

She spelled out the name of the town in the symbols and closed the line back up. The portal was ready to use whenever the guards arrived.

They were early, as Mara expected, and when everyone was gathered, she walked up to the stone wall with her bag. She sat it next to her and pressed her fingertips to the cold, gray wall. The power coursed through Mara and she directed it to the portal, bending the power to do her will and open up a passage to Morill.

Mara crossed the threshold first, the guards following after.

She was surprised at what she saw. The village was well put together; it reminded her of some of the gaited communities from back on Earth. People were going about their daily business, and it didn't seem as if anyone was packing.

Mara wondered if she had wandered into the wrong place. Had she gotten the symbols wrong?

A portly man with a large, fuzzy moustache greeted her not far from where they ended up, showing her that she was indeed in the right place.