The Pain in My Heart [Completed]

Chapter Twenty - Zaria

Stepping into Crow's Point is what I imagine stepping into a medieval marketplace feels like. Thousands of jewels and beads hang from all over the tent making the ceiling look like one massive chandelier. Wind chimes sing and whistle as the night breeze blows. I shiver, shielding as much of my arms as possible.

Perfumes and sages are bottled and collected on tables. Candles, rosemary, cinnamon sticks, and oils fill the tent with an overpowering aroma.

Lucy strolls at the other side of the tent observing a wall of daggers, some hilted with gems and others wrapped in leather from an unusual reptile. The scales look too big to be from an animal I've ever seen before.

"What are we looking for exactly?" I whisper catching up with Lucy.

"Just keep looking," she says seemingly level headed, but I can see the whisps of anxiety swirling around her.

I split up from her again, searching the tent faster. Racks of soft linen tunics and vests made of animal skin and fur fill the center of the tent. I run my hands along the rack and notice the different patches sewn inside.

Firefly, smoke, lava, ice, frost, rain...

Different elements are sewn in and tagged onto the clothing. A rack of capes shows the same thing. I whistle and Lucy looks up. I nod my head over to where I am and she puts down the dagger she had been holding and waltzes over to me.

"Did you find something?"

"I don't think so," I answer and I can see her shoulder slump. "But I found these." I unhook one of the capes and point to the tag sewn in.

"Mystical Frost"

"What does that mean?"

She takes the cape out of my hands and observes it around all sides. "I've never seen anything like it before. Well, I have never looked for it before."

"That's not all," I say parting the other clothes on the rack and reading off other tags. "This one says Smoke Infused, or how about this one, Waterfall Mist."

"That," I hear from someone behind Lucy and the same white hair from earlier this evening pops up behind her. "Is a present from the Fae."

He smirks, looking down at Lucy. No one ever looks down on Lucy, but this guy... Fae towers over her like it's nothing.

"It's a protection, really. For those who are brave enough to cross the border." He crosses his arms. "However, I'm surprised you seem to have not known about it."

"What's the supposed to mean?" Lucy snarls and her tone catches me off guard. The Fae man just seems to chuckle like eavesdropping on ladies is a regular habit.

"Oh, I see. A secret," he says stepping closer.

"What's a secret?" I ask, but no one looks at me at all. They are giving a stare down and neither one of them is giving up. Lucy's hands ball up into first clutching the fabric of the cape.

"A... secret..." he draws on. "That you are supposed to understand what it really means..." he says still looking at Lucy.

"That doesn't make any sense," I say.

"Why of course it does." Leaning on the racks he pulls another cape out. "You humans are just supposed to think of these tags as some novelty; no true meaning behind it."

"Is there?"

He leans in. "You didn't hear it from me, but yes."

I shake my head in confusion. Was it not him who walked up to us practically dropping this 'secret' like the next hot thing in the newspaper?