Journey onto the Storm (BOOK 2)

Chapter 27

YUVEN

It is always something. If I believed in the Ancients, I'd say they were mocking me. Yuven followed the Wardens, led by the hippogryph in the sky. Memories shivered through the tips of his feathers and released the loose down to the grass. A rider one with his hippogryph, working in tandem with shared magick and mind. Homesickness dug deeper into his throat as he kept pace with Fenrer. When I get home, I shall ride once more. I shall feel the wind and hear it sing. Its shadow whisked through the grass, circling them to keep track of the placement. To be in the sky, to see it all and know what I must do.

Fenrer floated three whittled spheres over his palm, tangled on a track of green vines. Adara, on the other hand, kept in their shadows without her ceaseless, endless questions; unsure if the idea of silence comforted him or bothered him, he reached out with a icy hook to grab one of the spheres off the track. It flew into his fingers, causing Fenrer to follow its wayward disobedience. He brushed his finger down the smoothened wood Fenrer worried and whittled in the wasteful moments. "You do not have to do this thing, Fenrer. We could find another entrance — anything to get down to Haneka." He dug his nail on the axis to study it. Magick rippled out from the focal cross, but Fenrer returned his attention to the two he had left to him. "As long as we get down Draken's Descent in my allotted time."

"We would more than likely deal with infestations. Here, we might have a better idea on the state of the descent," Fenrer mumbled with another press of his fingers to twirl the tracks of vines.. "I would much rather figure out the source of this wraith. If they do not have an Aurus Warden, it is hard to say whether it shall pass of its own accord to the Umbral Ocean." He closed his eyes. "If it is sourced to a Derelict, that could cause more problems down the line. It would take the same amount of time, Yuven."

Yuven huffed out excess magick layered in his lungs through his nose. It came out a misty plume. Their guards trotted along with horses to ward off curious animals back into their pastures. Adara tucked her fingers behind her shawl, an irritating sense of exhaustion creasing her brow. He balanced the whittled sphere on his finger, then used his icy hook to return it onto the track. Undisturbed with his interjection, Fenrer continued his mindless movements. Anything to return home to her. Too long, with a shortened time — the more time we take, the more I'm faced with the truth. This medication - it is not working as it should, as it used to. Yuven stopped when Warden Katau landed with a pulse of wind, with the hippogryph's wings stretched before settling against their sides. His own feathers fluffed out in an echo of their own, at the touch of the breeze coursing through the steppes as marble crushed the crass to lead up to an old monastery of black cherry planks and a foundation of curling stone. Lamps sat on the gables, lit with burning coals, smouldering different colours, but none doubted the silver at the very center. Massive steps led into the monastery dug into the hill, and he studied the stories.

"This is the place where the wraith tends to start its haunt of the area," Katau explained when they dropped from their hippogryph.

Fenrer ascended the steps and opened the webbed doors with both hands. Staleness dug deep into his feathers and spread the chill through his blood when it groaned with a rustic hinge. Inside, the light refused to touch the deepest corners. Spiders webbed their dens and gave no care to the wraith. "Sense anything?" Yuven asked, trying to flick his feathers free from the dusty wind. "The air in here..."

"Stifling, I know," Fenrer mumbled and moved for the back of the monastery while the Wardens sat by the door, on watch. He leaned across the floor basin. "Empty. For some time, it looks like. We might be able to use it for Anchoring." His gaze swept to the broken hinges before turning back to them with a tip of his head. "Might I ask when the wraith makes its appearance?"