Requiem Run

Chapter 23

After teleporting using the portal, the first thing I noticed was that the camp wasn't in a clearing anymore. Now the tents were disposed among the much thicker trees, and people weren't around as much as they were before. Daniel was by our closing portal, polishing something on his crossbow. As soon as he saw us coming through the portal, he placed his crossbow on the rock he had been sitting on and stepped over to us.

"Good to see all of you in one piece," Daniel said, though he raised an eyebrow when he saw Katie being carried.

"We got lucky," I said, "But we'll tell you everything in a moment. In the meantime, we're gonna need a bed in the medical tent for Katie, she nearly got sucked dry by the leech."

"It's over there," said Daniel, pointing to one of the tents in the area, "I'll go let Tarron know you've come back."

We split up and went for the medical tent. Elisen was inside, tending to someone on one of the beds. the elf looked up when we came in, looked back down, then her head shot back up when she realized what we were doing. She rushed over to us as soon as she could.

"Katie!" Elisen said, "What happened?!"

"Killian happened," I said, "She lost a lot of blood, but she's still alive. Is there anything you can do for her?"

"Hold on." Elisen said. The elf leaned in close to Katie on the bed, placed her hand over her chest, and hummed. A light appeared for a brief second, and Elisen came back up to us.

"She should be fine," said Elisen, "She did lose a lot of blood, but not enough to do any lasting damage. If you could bring her some food and water, she'll recover just fine."

"I can do that," said Rhys as the two of us stepped out of the tent after she deposited Killian in one of the beds, next to the still-sleeping Kydro and Xelsa, "Riley, you and Katie had to go across the desert to get to the temple. It's the least I can do since I wasn't there to help you."

"You don't owe us anything Rhys," I said, "But if you want to, I won't argue. Meet me in mess tent as soon as you can."

"Gotcha." said Rhys as we went to leave the tent. Just as I was about to leave, Felice pulled me back towards Killian and Xelsa.

"Huh?" I said, "Felice, what's up?"

"Give me one second," said Felice. She took control of my hands and moved them over Killian and Xelsa, and started speaking.

"I bind thee will to my life! As thou enjoy freedom as I do breath!"

Lights appeared beneath my hands and consumed Killian and Xelsa before they disappeared.

"You did that with Kydro too," I said, "So they can never be controlled again."

"That's right," said Felice, "This is as good a time as any."

With that done, I rejoined Rhys and we made our way into the tent packed with people eating food at tables. Rhys packed some food on a plate, got some water in a mug, and left the tent, while I moved to a table section where no one else was with my own tray of food.

"You feel stressed," Felice said when I settled into the bench, "Why is that? Katie's going to be okay."

"It's just that Killian almost killed her," I said, "And I think the only reason he didn't fully go through with it was because he wanted to kill me first. I only survived because Rhys was there. What would have happened if she didn't meet with us just before we got into the temple? Would I have died?"

"I'm sure you would have survived." said Felice, "You're never alone, moor-acu. I'm always with you."

I smiled.