Saviour

9. I Accept A Challenge

Chapter 9.

A soft sound of humming filled the air as I woke up the next morning. I pushed myself to sit upright, my back aching from yesterday's training and the night of sleeping on the hard ground. Rubbing my eyes, I looked around for Kara.

She was knelt by the water, her long hair tumbling over her shoulder. As she heard me, she turned and crawled over to me, passing the pile of white ashes and charred logs from last night's fire. "I thought you'd never wake up." She smiled and kissed me on the lips for a second. "You sleep with your mouth open. I'd hate to think how many spiders you've swallowed in your life." Her hand rested on my chest.

I frowned and closed my mouth, thinking about a mass of spiders crawling down my throat whilst I slept. "That's not a nice thought, thanks for putting it in my mind." I rolled my eyes at her. The feeling of her hand on my chest startled the butterfly farm in my stomach back to life and I looked across at her.

Looking over the water, I tried to stand up but she was stopping me with her hand. As she realised, she pulled it away and smiled apologetically. I crawled down towards the side of the lake, kneeling right by the water, letting it lap up against my knees each time the water moved. Leaning forwards, I submerged my hands into the water and picked up a smoothed pebble, running my thumb over it.

Glancing back at Kara, I flashed a grin at her before skimming the pebble along the surface of the water, tiny ripples sprouting and spreading each time the stone made contact with the water, spreading out across the lake and interrupting the water.

Kara came up beside me and copied me, with her own pebble bouncing twice as far as mine. I glanced over at her and shrugged my shoulder slightly before pushing myself up onto my feet again. The water that had soaked into the fabric on my knees spread down my legs, chilling my skin. I shivered slightly and tipped my head back, looking out into the distance.

"What's that?" I asked her and pointed in the direction of a mass of storm clouds. They lurked around a mountain that seemed to tower higher than the others. We were a long way away from it, but even at this distance it seemed to look incredibly hard to climb.

Kara turned her head to look in the general direction of where I was pointing. "That's Mount Vexadus." She sounded uncertain and she dropped her gaze.

"What happens there?" I walked over to stand beside her, slipping my hand into hers gently and lacing our fingers together. When she didn't answer, I pressed her harder, squeezing her hand ever so slightly to try and get a response out of her.

"Alex, I-"

"Tell me! I don't see why you have to be so secretive." I felt my eyebrows knit together, pulling my expression into a frown. "What's up there?" I asked once more.

Her teeth grazed her lip and she took a deep breath, tipping her head back and gazing at the sky as if she was checking for rain. "The Griffin, Alex. Mount Vexadus is where it lives. The one that brought you here, the one painted on your wall. The one that is said to be your partner." Kara looked back at me and gave my hand a reassuring grip.

"No way! I'm not going up there to get that thing! You've got to be joking." I complained and sighed, looking back towards the mountain. "That would take ages to get to."

"Actually, it's closer than you think. I mean, once we get back down into the town it's closer than it is now." She told me. "And you will get that Griffin." Her elbow found its place, digging right into my side as a warning.

"Fine." I rolled my eyes and sighed.

The journey back down into the main town was long and tedious. We talked the whole way, with the occassional break which involved a lot of kissing and making out. I told Kara about my fear of snakes and she didn't seem to care, thinking that it was a reasonable fear. She didn't even laugh when I told her.