Daughter of Tide and Illusion

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

That same morning, Lyv and Elys were just a short distance away from reaching Azam. It had been a week since they left Moswen and Tairin's village and Lyv was enjoying the open air and sleeping under the stars more than she had in her life before, especially now that she had Elys, Roshan, and Posy with her. Though they could have made the entire journey in just a few hours by flying, Lyv didn't want to tire them out too much. Plus, she loved spending the one on one time with Elys without having anyone else around other than her dragon and pixie.

The little Fae boy was still asleep, curled up on their makeshift bed up against Roshan's side. Lyv was already up and reigniting the fire that had gone out in the night, wanting to get breakfast ready before they continued on. Streams of golden light were beginning to appear over the grassy hills to the east, hitting the water that ran in the small stream they were beside to make it sparkle.

Lyv had been up before any of them, including the sun. Her dreams were strange, not her own, but the same lyrical voice called to her in the dark shadows. Laughing at her. Teasing her.

"My dear girl...you are one of the most powerful creatures in all the lands...and yet darkness wants you, calls you. Do not think you can run when it always gets what it wants. Just you wait to see what you become. I would know, giving into the darkness myself. Then we shall both watch these lands fall..."

Gods above, Lyv didn't know what to do when those words were spoken to her in the dungeons of Asturia. That voice began to laugh as she backed away toward the stone steps leading out, accompanied by Guinevere's...and Lyv ran.

The following morning, she was far away and heading to Ethran in hopes of finding the one person who could help her make sense of it all, the one who she only read about in a chapter on Ethran religion. It was different than in Dalcaine and Escarral. Three deities rather than five and they had names rather than only being called the Mother, the God of Light, and the Goddesses of Darkness, Life, and Death. Every major city had a Temple of Vehhar and Cetia, the Lord of the Earth and the Lady of the Stars, but there were always idols dedicated to their son Ikreus, the Lord of Time.

And in a short exert from that chapter was the mention of how ever few generations, one would be graced with Ikreus's abilities and called the Seer of Ikreus, a prophet who not only could see the future but also into the past. The seer was always coveted and often served with high honors in the court of royalty, though his or her abilities rarely manifested until they were matured. However, the most recent seer had gained that sight long before then, which had been recognized when he was just two years old and a slave who had been ripped from his murdered parents' arms.

Lyv thought, especially with what the female locked up in the Asturian dungeon had warned with a laugh, she would be able to find this seer and have them help change what was to come. She just hadn't been anticipating finding out they were a five-year-old slave being carved up by his master.

As Lyv started breakfast, putting those thoughts to the back of her mind and pulling out the last of the bread and fruit Tairin had packed up for them, a rustling in the grass caught her attention. At first, she thought it as just the water falling over rocks and leaves, but she looked over to see a small, light brown mouse sniffing around her bag. Slowly creeping up on it, it froze when it turned to peer up at her, eyes widening when it realized it had been caught.

"Are you hungry, too?" she asked it before leaning down to place a bit of bread in front of it. When she did, the mouse didn't move, but she was close enough to see a small black dot just below its right eye. "There. Just don't go eating all my food in the bag. You'd probably get lost in there, too. It's bigger than what it seems with the extension spell I put on it. Got to have all the stuff we need, don't we?"