Life or Death

Chapter Nine

          Walking into Sybillia Wood, I felt a chill go down my spine. We all had our daggers drawn as we walked deeper, listening to the hidden creatures. From the stories I was told as a child, the animals here were anything but normal, and the howls and cries I heard confirmed it.

We walked in silence, hours passing like seconds, and when I looked up, the sun was beginning to rise. We stopped a handful of times so that we could rest and drink water from our canisters. Since we started early in the morning and wouldn't be making camp until much later, we needed as much time to rest as we could get.

In an ideal world, it wouldn't take a week to get to Asmen. But in an ideal world, we wouldn't have to go to Asmen in the first place.

~

"We should stop here," Raiden broke the seemingly never-ending silence.

I nodded, exhausted. Andra and I lay our sleeping pads down while Raiden goes to collect firewood. The sun was setting, and it was getting colder. Starving, I grab food from my bag and hand some to Andra. It isn't much, but we could always hunt. Plus, I wasn't expecting to have two other mouths to feed.

"Ness, we need to talk," Andra says, mouth full.

"Ok..."

"Do you have a plan? Or are we just mindlessly walking to our deaths?" The expression on her face is calm, but her tone is sharp.

"I'm working on it," I say, looking down at my hands. It sounds so foolish, to say it out loud. To be completely honest, I wasn't sure I'd make it out of the castle.

"Oh, you're working on it?"

"Look, Andra, I asked you to come because I knew you would know how to do things I don't. You would know the best way to break into the castle, get Matthias, and get out. If you didn't come along, I probably wouldn't have made it this far."

Silence. We sit like that for at least a minute before she speaks.

"You know, you could use it."

I know exactly what she's talking about. "Andra, you know I can't. plus, I don't know enough about it for it to be useful."

"Does Raiden know?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. Matthias probably didn't mention it to him. Why else would he be so nice to me?"

"I think you should tell him, Ness. I mean, if we want to make it out of this alive, we need to use what we already have."

I frown. I know she's right, and that's the worst part of all of it. "It's been a long day. We're all tired. If you want, we can form a plan tonight." I smile. "Plus, it's too late to back out now."

This gets a smile from her. Just then, Raiden walks up, arms full of firewood. He sets it down and starts sorting through it. Andra takes a bow and arrow I didn't realize was strapped to her back and goes to find something for us to eat.

"Andra give you a beating?" Raiden looks up, an annoying smirk on his face.

I shrug. "Not too bad. She's mad we don't have a plan yet."

"Well, I guess I can see that. But we've got a whole week to figure that out."

I nod. The air is getting much colder, and soon Riden has a fire going. He takes a seat next to me and we watch the embers float up into the night sky.

I know I need to tell him, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it could help us. But I also know that I don't want Raiden to see me differently. We've hardly known each other for that long, but I care so deeply about how he sees me, and I don't know what I would do if I lost him. I turn to him and hope for the best.

"Raiden, there's something you should know."

He looks at me, his blue eyes bright from the firelight. His brows are furrowed in confusion, and I almost want to back out, but it's much too late for that.

I take a deep breath. "Both of my parents had magic in their blood. We don't know how or why, but I assume one of my ancestors did something pleasing to the gods, and they gave them magic as a reward. But our bloodline has had magic in it for generations. So naturally, both Matthias and I have inherited that magic."

He nods, and I'm certain that he already knows about this.

"Matthias took after my father, with earth powers. He can summon plants from the earth, and sometimes even earth creatures." I pull my knees up to my chest. "When I was born and later in my life, I hadn't shown any signs of magic, so my parents just assumed that I had none. But one day when I was about twelve, I... something happened."

"What happened?"

Another deep breath. "I killed someone."