Belladonna

10

Alex and Xavier watched the swift red boat turn and leave them in the desolate place. The smell was worse on land and the ground was spongey with blood.

"What happened here?" Xavier questioned walking around an incinerated body.
Alex shoved a burnt piece of timber with her foot and froze. The wood was still warm.
"Xavier, get to the trees," she said forcefully.

He needed no further encouragement as he hastened to the cover of the trees. That's when they heard it. The roar of a dragon split their ears. Fear etched down their spines and froze them both to the moist ground. Alex shook her head as she took off towards the trees.

"Xavier come on!" She shouted back at him.

They barely made it to the safety of cover before a wonderous blue beast exploded from the air. He let out a fearsome cry and before Alex could react, the swift red boat was caught up in flames.

"Alex, quick!" Xavier cried out, swiftly making his way to the riverbank.

Alex grasped his arm and forced him back to the cover of the trees as the boat sank downward.

"Alex! Let me go," he yanked his arm out from her firm grasp.

He was angry with her, his yellow eyes flashing dangerously bright.

"No, stay," she said quickly and forcefully.

"Why?" he roared.

"They died in the blast," Alex forced his face to meet her own," Did you feel the force break?"

He stopped and seemed in deep thought before tears pricked his eyes. The boy was much too sentimental for war, but Alex knew that he was what the war would need.

"Come on," she said gently before he could mourn longer," Let's go before we meet the same fate."

He followed her sullenly into the trees. Alex summoned their packs to them and watched as the boy barely made a notion to pick it up.

"Xavier, come on," she said gently," We cannot mourn. We have to get to the king and then we may mourn."

He said nothing but straightened the pack on his back and started walking the creek bed. They found their trail with no problem. Alex had studied the map with dedication. She was determined to make it to the edge of the forest by the next day. They would have to sleep in the forest that night and her heart began to beat in anticipation.

The elders were strict in their warnings. They knew that this forest was nothing but trouble. Nothing good ever came from it and they would be more successful if they stayed far away. They said that the spirit of a necromancer was trapped in the forest. Alex firmly believed that it was an old wives' tale. Necromancers died in a war eon ago. Their kind was extinguished from the world by a powerful warlock. It was said that he did it to create the free lands with their magic, but Alex still believed that was just gossip.

Allowing Xavier to mourn on his own time was the best thing to do. He took his time by being quiet and cold towards Alex. The idea of death was hard on him. He was always faced with the idea that the people closest to him would die. When Alex and he stayed in the cells, he was constantly plagued by the nightmares in his head. The experiments gave him constant noises in his head. They kept him captive, but Alex had tried to help in that. She told him that she would take his pain away, but he had refused.

"Xavier," Alex hissed.

He whipped his head around and saw that her leg was caught in a hole. Grit-determination was on her face as she desperately tried to remove her leg. He quickly moved to her side and placed his hands on her leg. He tried pulling, but the hole made a sucking noise almost as if it were alive and physically eating her leg.