Burned

Chapter Eleven

     Xantho sat in the corner, his tears and sobs finally quieted as he’d cried himself to sleep. Clarity, Tidal, Valin and I sat around a small table that Fog, another member of the Spiriten Lands, had brought us. None of us really wore our happy face as he each took food from the table now and then.

     “This is a major problem,” Tidal said uneasily, her gaze constantly shifting to Xantho. “If we don’t stop her, then she’ll start doing the same to other creatures in the other land.”

     “At this rate, Xantho may be the last sprite there is,” Valin put in quietly. “Knowing my mother, she would want every last one hunted.”

     “So Xantho is a boy?” Clarity asked.

     We all looked to her a bit confused. But, the more I thought about it, it made sense that she wouldn’t know. Xantho was a strange name and she hadn’t been properly acquainted with sprites to really understand the differences.

     “Yes, he is.” I let out a sigh. This was hardly the time to be playing catch up with things not as important as the impending war. “We have to stop her before she even gets to the other lands. The Airen Lands are already helping her and she’s over run the other two. She’ll take her time and prepare before combating the Spiriten Lands and their royals.”

     “And we know the Spiriten Lands won’t prepare or fight,” Tidal replied quietly. “Even if provoked or full on attacked. That just isn’t their style.”

     “But she’ll still want to be careful.”

     Tidal nodded and my gaze turned to Valin who had his hands folded together on top of the table. He was another problem I wasn’t quite ready to figure out—and he was one that I had to figure out fast.

     “We need to remember that our main goal is to find the Ferryman and the Gate Key.”

     Our gazes shifted to Clarity and she shifted a bit uneasily beneath the sudden attention, her hand folding and unfolding in her lap.

     “If we don’t find them then it doesn’t matter if we fight the Icen Queen,” she pointed out. “We’ll still lose. We need something stronger than just Spiriten magic. And the Kashi is exactly it. Because there is something worse than the Icen Queen.”

     The room went dead silent, mouths falling open and eyes widened as she sat there casually, shifting to she leaned back against the wall. Her hands pulled her knees to her chest as she frowned.

     “When I was in Acheron, I heard who I think was the Ferryman,” she explained. “I just…am not for sure about it. But the person said that there was a force driving the Icen Queen and that it had been attached to her like a parasite for years. It’s the reason she is such a bitch.”

     “And here I thought it was always because of the cold,” I muttered.

     Valin glared at me, his eyes a frost winter color and I shrugged as Clarity went on, blind to our little display.

     “But she still has to be killed and become a part of the Kashi. They are the only ones able to take down whatever this thing is. The person didn’t tell me, but they said they needed all five elemental members of the Kashi to be together and, somehow, when the Ferryman and Gate Key are placed together an event is triggered that activates the Kashi’s power.

     “I don’t really understand most of it but that’s really all I can remember.” She frowned, stretching her legs forward and fixing her dress carefully. “Does anyone have any clue what it means? Because I don’t.”