Storm Sisters

Chapter Two

~1~

    It felt like an eternity as the girls huddled together on the cold, damp wooden floor of the cellar, waiting for the first signs of daylight to break, with only the sounds of the passing wind to keep them company. None of them had slept at all. Despite the overwhelming exhaustion of the day's events, still their minds raced with fear and sadness throughout the night, for the horrors they had just witnessed glared vividly in their memories whenever they tried to close their eyes.

    Aura broke the silence as she began to hum a simple lullaby; it was a familiar tune to them all, but none could place the source of where they had heard it before. Although her voice was dry and cracked, the melody gently settled lightly adrift on the air.

    Then the first hint of light came peaking through as a warm, orange hue slowly giving shape to the shadows around them. The girls rose to meet the day, to seek out the answers for the thousands of questions they now had: who were those horsemen; what did they want from Abicus; and was he really dead—DEAD(he couldn't be)?

    The grass outside was wet with morning dew and a sheet of fog hung low on its surface so thick that the girls couldn't even see below each-other's ankles as they made their way down the valley, toward the burnt tree at the top of the hill where streaks of smoking blackness still bled into the morning sky.

    They dreaded what they might find up there, but they needed to know just the same. As they drew closer, they became aware of the true magnitude of the tree. It's thick trunk, now charred and blackened, had the caricature of a thousand souls etched onto its surface, as though they flowed from the roots beneath, upward, spreading out into diverging branches in all directions. It was unlike any tree they had ever seen before.

    "He's not here." Audra said frantically. "Where's his body...did they take it?"

She was right... there was no evidence of Abicus's body to be found around the base of the tree, from where they had witnessed the flames.

    "They wouldn't have taken him, would they?" Aura looked to Aelia who was silent on the matter. "Maybe he didn't die...maybe he escaped somehow, using the fire as a diversion."

    "You saw what we all saw." Audra said, "there's no possible way he could've survived that."

    "True... but he's not here."

"Then those monsters had stolen his body for whatever unspeakable reason."

    "So what are we supposed to do we do now?" Aelia spoke-up at last, "The whole town is dead, and what if those horsemen come back? We can't stay here anymore."

    Aura and Audra looked at each-other, each knowing that the words Aelia spoke were correct; it was true, they probably needed to keep running, but to where?

    "I think I know where we can go... I read about a place nearby, a place were thousands of people live behind high stone walls, walls that can keep out such attackers as these horsemen; a place called Corinth. It's a city." Aelia said.

Aura, "A city!... I've always wanted to see a real city. How do you know about it?"

Aelia, "Sometimes Abicus would tutor me in managing the books for trade. He said it would be a useful skill... for someone like me."

    "I suppose you know exactly where this city is?" Audra said mockingly. Aelia was silent. "No... but I know someone who might." Her eyes lit up. "Rory!"