Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 46

York

"York." I heard a singsong voice trying to rouse me from my sleep.

I grunted and rolled over, not wanting to wake up yet.

"Come on, get up we gotta get going." They shook me. I rolled back over and looked angrily at who was touching me. I saw Valen looking down at me impatiently.

"We gotta go, today's the day." His face had a very solemn look.

I just looked at him for a minute, then after I processed what he said I began to sit up. "Oh. Okay."

"Ashanaya is rushing everybody out of their tents, she alreay had her and Cullen's tent in the void, poor guys hardly even awake." He smiled.

I couldn't tell if he was joking or not so I decided to get up, or, get on my hands and knees so I could climb out of the tent.

Once I got outside I saw a very angry and tired Kel with her arms crossed, she stared at Ashanaya angrily as Ashanaya threw a folded tent into the void. "It's completely stupid to wake up this early+."

"It's not." Ashanaya said as she pulled our weapons out of the void. "We have things we need to do."

Kel leaned over to Marhara. "She's completely daft." She whispered.

"Kel, I can hear you." Ashanaya rolled her eyes.

"Must be those ears."

"Hey!" Everyone except for Cullen shouted. I suppose Kel just forgot most of us had pointed ears.

"Okay, here 'Naya. I folded it up as fast as I could." Valen handed her out tent.

Ashanaya looked over at me. "York, I know it's a weird thing to think about but watch the rune I draw. If I die when we fight against Valerie maybe all of you can at least keep our stuff."

I didn't like thinking about her dying but I watched. Cullen walked up to her just as she closed the void back and he put his arm around her. "'Nay, you're gonna be fine. We won't let anything happen to you." He kissed her forehead, he had pain in his voice.

"It's just in case, Cullen. And that reminds me, you should take all the indoctrinaries from the Ashen from last night. The one you have might break, or maybe they're stronger when you have more you never know." She told him. He nodded and walked off toward where most of the bodies were. They weren't where they originally were. I assume Marhara or someone moved them not wanting to sleep near a bunch of dead bodies.

It only took him a few minutes, he came back with two handfuls of little purple gems.

"Where's he gonna put all those?" Kel asked.

Cullen smiled, and what he did next left me speechless. He threw them up, keeping on in his left hand. He held his right hand straight in the air with his palm parallel to the sky. The way he threw them, maybe one would have landed in his hand, but his hand worked like a magnet and as they fell they started swirling like a small tornado of pretty jewelry death. They all fell into the centre of his palm and disappeared. He lowered his hand and faced it at us. In the centre of his palm was a purple eye, only partially opened. Even though it was barely open it still felt like it was staring into my soul, looking for my indoctrinary. He met the gem to the eye and slowly the gem was sucked into the pupil of the eye, disappearing completely.

He looked up at us with a wide smile as the eye closed on his head and completely disappeared. "Cool, right? I found that out last night."

"Yeah, that's really cool Cullen." I said, even though it was a little scary, but maybe that could be a good thing. Maybe he could use it to spook the enemy, or maybe there's more to it than we know about it.

"This is also the only hand that the weapon will come out of. It's like this eye is the source of my power or something." He seemed to be completely nerding out, as he rubbed his right hand like the eye left a strange feeling after it left.

"It'll certainly be handy." Marhara said as he watched the fire sputter out slowly. He had a weird fascination with it.

I stared at it until the coals roared violently and a fire came bursting from the ground in front of me. He fell back in surprise and I started dying from laughter.

"You porven, you could've burned my face off!" He yelled, not getting off his back yet.

"I wouldn't have, I now how to control my magic." I stood and wiped dirt off my clothes. "Now come on, we gotta get going."

"Yeah, Oldie, come on." Kel began skipping ahead of us.

Marhara sat up, his eyebrows look slightly singed but he seemed to be perfectly fine otherwise.

We began walking together, in the direction that I remembered frpm when Yorwek's bird showed me the mountain. The memory wasn't very clear anymore however. I still knew where to go but not very much. It was a good thing we were getting close, because another day of this and I definitely wouldn't remember.

"How are you feeling?" Valen asked.

I looked over at him. He was probably worried because, depite Yorwek's advice, I used magic and got in the middle of the fight. It wasn't exactly juvenile magic either. "Truthfully? Kinda weak."

"You shouldn't have snuck out like that." He pulled me close.

"It wasn't really sneaking out, you were all preoccupied so I just walked out. I left Jeb in the tent but I don't think he was there when Ashanaya and Cullen went to sleep. I never heard a little girl scream." I shrugged.

"'Naya doesn't scream like a little girl." Valen rolled his eyes.

"I was talking about Cullen." I said it completely serious but it was meant to be a joke.

He laughed.

I started breathing heavy and slowly my posture grew worse. "Hey, can we slow down a bit."

"I-" Valen started to speak but before he could actually say anything, a bright blue sprite flew out in front of me. It danced around and made the normal annoying high pitched noises they always made. Normally blue sprites were for water, but this one was a brighter blue, almost turqouise colour. It started to fly around me, it flew like it was jumping, but whatever it was jumping on I couldn't see. It would lift and the slowly fall back down and then lift again, with long graceful strides. Each time it circled me, my posture became better, and my breathing less laboured.

It circled me at least 15 times until eventually I felt okay, I even felt like I could use all the magic I had in me and be fine. I practically felt like I was oozing with magic, which is a weird way to put it but seems accurate. Then flew up to me face, stopped for a second, and flew away. It looked like a small featureless person with dragonfly wings and blue particles trailing behind it.

"What just happened?" Valen asked.

"I don't know. I think it helped me." I said as I looked in the forest where it flew off, though I couldn't see it anymore. "I certainly feel a lot better."