The Fall of the Keepers

Chapter 42 Flames of Fury

As we drew apart I caught sight of a figure watching us from the shadows of a wigwam at the furthest edge of the encampment, a hundred yards or so away. I didn't recognize them but I assumed it was one of Ren's Warriors, assigned you keeping an eye on me. I was sick of being spied on and I was tired of having to be so careful. This was the Wildlands, we were supposed to be free!

"You want to see what the world looks like from a bird's eye view?"
I asked Ranen, making my mind up in a split second.

His eyes widened and his head lifted up towards the sky.

"Right now?"

"Yeah, why not?"
I extended my hand to him, palm up.

A wide smile spread across his face as he clapped his hand on top of mine.

"Let's do it."

I slipped easily into my translucent state when there was no one there to judge me on my skill and with a lightness and confidence in my heart I had never experienced before, I lifted us upwards on the breeze. We zoomed past the evergreen boughs, up into azure sky, higher and higher until the trees turned into toothpicks and the camp spread out beneath our feet like a million tiny pebbles on a beach. I continued ascending until we were level with the tri peaks that surrounded the Wind Clan. A falcon swept past us with outstretched wings, watching me with beady eyes.

Ranen's face was alight as he looked out over the valley below us, then turned his head to meet my gaze.

"It's beautiful up here, like a whole other world."

"You're not afraid of the height?"
I couldn't help but ask.

"I trust you not to drop me."
He replied simply.

A warm feeling grew in my heart and I had a sudden longing to show him the world. With a wave of my fingers, I had us shooting forward, soaring like the falcon on the winter wind. We flew over the frosted cap of the western of the tri mountains and swooped down along its ridge on the far side. Here there lay a glistening river that flowed quickly even in February. On a whim, I came within a hundred feet of the rushing water, following its twists and turns until it cascaded over large gray stones into a basin far below. I let gravity take hold of us for a moment then and plunged a thousand feet down, faster than even the water itself seemed to be traveling, only to shoot us skywards at the last possible second.

Ranen let out a whoop and my own laughter filled the breeze.

"This is incredible!"
He shouted.

I hurtled us higher and higher 'til we were above the clouds that speckled the sky, giving us a view of the Wildlands one could only see from an airplane otherwise.

"You're incredible."
Ranen said more quietly, no longer looking out over the snow-covered lands, but instead watching me as though I were the only sight worth seeing.

"Up here I feel like someone else."
I admitted.

"Like I'm able to leave my worries tethered to the earth."

The trouble was, of course, I couldn't stay up here forever and my problems would be there to embrace me like an old friend the moment my feet touched solid ground.

"What do you want Astrid? What do you want most?"

I thought about that for a moment.

"I want to find a peace that no one can take away from me."

My words hung in the air as we hovered there above the world. My entire life had been filled with one type of chaos or another, I wanted to know what it was like to have real rest, to have true peace. I was so weary of the stress of the day in and day out, the confusion, the worry, the fear, they were slowly killing me. I wanted to know more than anything in the world, what it would be like to live fearlessly.