The Kindreds, Volume 1

The First, Pt. 3

Kartinar realized then that they were standing on the lip of the erupted volcano itself, and the valley was inside its mouth. Looking into it, he realized the eruption must not have been as ancient as he had initially thought it to be. Few drifters and fewer city folk had gone this far up into the north, but there were rumors of what this untouched land would be like. Piecing together those rumors, he'd thought the volcano to have been dormant for millennia, but he now saw that the trees were still young here, having only just started growing in a once-harsh land now vibrant with nutrients. They were the smallest trees Kartinar had ever seen in Elt. They were just shorter than the trees in his world, and he was incredibly surprised to see that their leaves resembled the needles of pines as well, only here they were pink and blue rather than green, and the trunks were black like obsidian.

Drath whistled as he came to stand beside Kartinar. He dropped to a crouch with a grunt and a pop of his knees, found a lava rock, hefted it, and chucked it into the valley. It landed in the nearest lava pool with an indignant sizzle, and a loop of magma popped up like saliva.

Drath grinned and tossed another rock. "Neat."

"This isn't the time for play. Eleventh hour, remember?" Kartinar said, voice still hushed. However, after a short pause, he scooped up a rock of his own and flung it toward the magma. It fell short and lamely dropped into a bush.

Drath's laugh was unnervingly loud in the silence. "Not time for play for you, maybe. Stick to thievin', Karti, I'll do the rock-throwin."

Kartinar rolled his eyes but grinned anyway. Seeing Drath having fun made him happy—the kind of happy that only a big brother who'd seen his little (giant) brother suffer could experience. By his nature, he wished to urge Drath to stop his playing and get their job over with, to go go go. But he made himself push it down for the sake of his brother's happiness. The castle and its moat had been standing watch over this valley for centuries. They could watch a little longer. Kartinar put his hand on Drath's shoulder.

"Tryin' to see if I can make some magma splash onto that rock," he explained, still chucking rocks. "Think anyone lives down yonder?"

Kartinar snorted. "Not in Torteuir's fire. We're leagues from that lava pool and you're already sweating like a human at a troll's campfire. Anyone who dared reside in that valley would die before they could even think to build a house."

"Yeah, but, what about evolution or that shit?"

"I don't think they have that here," Kartinar said. "Their lineage traces back to the Mothers, remember? I believe little has changed between them and the people here now."

"Nah, you don't believe that."

"Sure I do."

Drath leveled him with a stare. "Griffinshit."

He couldn't help but smile. "Griffinshit," he agreed.

Kartinar felt as though something had let him go as he'd crossed the threshold of the forest. It was as though the roots and branches of the trees had snuck into his flesh while he walked through the woods and had been dragging him back toward where he'd come from. But now they'd pushed him out, away. Rather than relieved, he felt bare in the moonlight. With his back to the forest, the black castle on one side, and a valley of fire on the other. None brought him any comfort, and he was unable to go against his instincts to go go go anymore.

"Where do you wish to do it?" Kartinar asked abruptly.

He didn't choose himself because while he was the intellect of the pair, this was for Drath. It was his quest. Like a coveted griffin's egg, he had been hatching it since they were boys being treated cruelly by a world that didn't understand them, as hard as they tried to understand it. It was almost as though the drifter had appeared to them in answer to the silent call of his brother's soul.