Chapter Two
Jade ran through the dark. She paused to catch her breath and scanned the area.
" Trees, and more trees, and look! Is that a . . . no just a tree." she groaned, realizing how stupid she really felt. She was desperate enough to start talking to herself like a lunatic.
It was hard to track Faelinn at night. Especially when there was no moon out tonight. The sky was so thick with blackness she felt as if she could feel it.
She tried to calm herself, her breath coming out in short quick gasps. She had never been alone in the forest this late at night before. If something were to be planning to attack her, it could sit in front of her and calculate how delicious she would be roasted and Jade wouldn't have a clue.
Jade pulled an object out of her pack. She whispered, "In this stone I shall seek, a friend or foe let me peek." Greeting her words, an image of Faelinn appeared on the stone.
Jade's heart beat quickened when she saw him. He was in a tree, leaping to another next to it.
He looked absolutely exhausted.
She watched him stop and check out the area below. Jade gasped when he jumped from the tree landing on the ground near a moss covered boulder. He rolled to keep from jarring himself too much.
He shook his head slowly as if he was shaking away the pain. He then set down his pack in a deep crevice in the rock and made himself comfortable with his back to the rock.
Exhaling, Jade realized she recognized that rock. It was a place her and Faelinn had gone as children. They used to play on it and guard it like a castle.
She stifled a shriek of joy and took off to the north.
* * * *
Faelinn lay sprawled by a huge rock. He had chosen to settle here for the night because it was his favorite place to go as a kid. He could remember playing on it with Jade. A smile grew on his weary face.
He missed her already. Her smile, her sarcastic joking, and tomboyish beauty. The way she laughed at his attempts to charm her, and how she could show him up in just about everything except for swordplay. He missed her a lot.
He looked at the green-blue color of the moss. Groaning with regret with what he was about to do, he started scrapping moss off the boulder.
The moss had been the best part of playing on the rock when he was little. They would act like it was a finely woven carpet, made by an angel.
Once he had gathered a few armfuls, he dropped them in a pile and said a simple spell.
It was common for his people to learn magic at a young age. Why, his parents had started teaching him spells when he was only three years old.
"In this spot flame appear, place one spark of fire here." A small flame lit the moss.
Faelinn smiled wearily. The moss burned well and did not smoke. It turned an odd color of purple as it burned. Faelinn wondered if it was a side affect of his magic. He was too tired to dwell on it though.
He was closing his eyes when he heard a rustling in the leaves not a foot away from where he sat. His eyes shot open and he snatched his sword from his brown leather belt.
The diamond hilt glinted in the moonlight. Faelinn stood up, on guard, ready. His whole body trembled, he wasn't sure if it was from the exhaustion or his fear. His breath quickened, sweat starting to drip from his features.
He heard a faint rumbling, then silence. The silence scared Faelinn. He frantically searched for the creature that made the sound, swinging his sword around as if to scare the creature.
