The Disappearing Fields

chapter 40

+Haven+

I squint in the moon's glare as I'm dragged from my small room. The grip on my wrist is bruising. But I suppose I shouldn't whine, she's at least hummoring me.

"So uhmm... where exactly are we going?" I ask the girl clad in a long black hooded robe, not that I expected her to answer.

I've made several attempts at talking to her and all have been met with silence. More importantly, I can't tell whose side she's on. She walked in with Glover but she's not exactly following his orders.

When he left to go handle some "disturbance" he left her in charge with a set of rules, all of which she promptly broke after he left. He said not to give me food to keep me weak. The moment she locked the steel doors, she pulled out a pack of 4 blueberry muffins and gave half of them to me. He said to keep me chained up. Before I finished the first muffin the chains vanished. He told her to keep me inside. Judging by the dark grey sky void of stars, we definitely aren't inside the room.

As I expected, she continues walking silently down the mountain. But I'm just happy to be out of that room. We walk in silence until we reach the base of the mountain. That's when I start feeling my essence coursing through my veins.

"Can you sense Kazimieras now?" It was the first thing she said to me.

"Hmm..." I'm not sure how to sense essence. But my instincts have never steered me wrong. I close my eyes and focus on what Kaz's essence feels like. At first there was nothing. Then a prick that burst into a roaring sea of crackles. My skin heats up almost as if I'm standing new an open flame. There's no doubt that was Kaz's essence.

A tingle shoots up my arm and I instantly know it's his Essence vein on my arm. As I focus on the tingling, an image appears in my minds eye.

Kaz is pacing back and forth on a grassy plane. Taj is behind him leaning against a nearby tree. Valerie is sitting on rock watching Kaz's nerve wrecking pacing.

"It's been three days and we don't have a clue as to where she is. You can't expect me to be calm." He sounds irritated and tired, like he hasn't slept for awhile.

Taj heaves a sigh before speaking calmly. "Listen little brother, she's fine. Her mother has said so herself. We shouldn't rush into battle. You've been searching for her high and low without any sleep. Even if we do find her irenaues is guaranteed to be there. We need to be ready and you're not."

"Besides, the Soles from Janu are waiting for the signal. That bastard will be easy to take down with them on our side. You need to rest. Acting out like this isn't you're thing. We're supposed to be laying low until your essence regenerates yet your throwing it out the window when you spend all day long worrying and all night searching." Valerie tries to reason but Kaz's stubbornness knows no bounds.

I couldn't hear what he says as the scene gets blurry and fades away. But his feelings are conveyed through the tortured look on his face.

I snap my eyes open and I faced the girl. "He's on the outskirts of the town center. Probably around the hill from the looks of it" just imagining his face hurts me more than the years of being called a freak did.

Her words surprise me. "Good. He's always been reliable. We'll meet him there and then he can escort you into the hidden barrier. Your mother and Janu are expecting you."

"How do you know that?"

She gave a shrug of her shoulders before pulling her hood down revealing ash brown hair and charcoal eyes. "It's not common but Fades and Soles have interbred before. I'm not the first, and you won't be the last. Most of us don't live long enough to matter. Most creatures don't know we even exist. Our small numbers go to show that the Soles are not as accepting as you'd think although they are far more than the Fades.