Ravaged

Chapter 26

The sky is wide open, unencumbered by trees or mountains or anything that might block one's view.

For miles and miles in any direction, there's just the sky, slightly overcast but still blue even on this chill winter day. Feng, though shirtless, doesn't feel cold. Even the cold north wind blowing across his body doesn't raise gooseflesh on his skin. Feng rarely feels cold.

And besides, he has a furnace at his back, a very large, very furry furnace.

He flips a dagger absently over his knuckles as he watches the sky drift by.

They've been heading southward for hours, ever since they discerned that the northern border between East and West Layos--which stretches from north to south--didn't have anything even remotely resembling the Blodwyrn. Isa says there's a stronger scent of death coming from the south, so southward they've been going.

They stopped for the night in a little ghost town in the middle of the fighting. On his map it's called Shina, and it used to be a trading hub, but now it's just a husk of buildings where deserters hide and soldiers bury their dead or rape their women.

Despite her previous protests, Isa had no qualms about keeping him warm in the tent she manifested for them.

She isn't that attached to Rohan, then--though Feng thinks, after careful study, that she might be able to get there.

He doesn't quite know what to make of that. He'd rather not be forced to keep the annoying godling as a constant in his life.

But if Isa is happy... that would be a good thing. She deserves some happiness after the pile of trite that is her family life.

Neither she nor her parents have had it easy in the last four hundred thousand years, to which the tattoos on her body are an ongoing testament.

One tattoo for every life her mother has lived since Isa was born--one tattoo for every time she and her father have watched the woman they both love die in some horrible way thanks to an age old curse that no one can fix.

Even when other Gods have tried to interfere, it only makes things worse. And no matter what Zindar tries, no matter how much effort he puts into saving her, his wife dies every time. Sometimes she loves him, or starts to. Sometimes she doesn't know he exists. Sometimes she fears or even hates him.

But every time, Zindar loves her, and does everything he can to help--only to have his efforts turned on their head, his actions made pointless by her inevitable death and rebirth as someone else, with another name, another face, another life, and no memories of who she truly is.

Even Feng has tried to help, but she died in his arms.

This lifetime, he's taken a more obscure approach, sending Den to look after her instead of trying to change her fate.

This is one of the worst lifetimes she's gone through, one of the hardest two decades she's ever had to face. Zara, Zindar's twin sister, tried to do something this time around by giving Chare the ability to master the foilar'raina and making her Immortal. But as usual, fate turned that on its head, taking both away from the girl and making her life even more miserable.

It's a wonder she's sane, really.

Well, moderately.

Any woman who gleefully calls herself 'Sin' can't be entirely sane.

Feng grins wryly at the thought of Sweetness. He never did get around to asking Den what they're doing here--he was too distracted by the fact that Sin's brother was touching LeiLei in ways Feng really didn't like, and even worse, she was letting him, so he couldn't kill the stupid elfling.