As Emiran continued walking she could periodically feel the sharp point of Dratholik’s weapon stab into her back, even though she never slowed or needed a push to go on. It was always in a different spot, and she could feel how much he was enjoying it. Finally after an hour of this Emiran lost her temper and said “I thought you were supposed to bring me in alive. Why are you trying to kill me through blood loss?” A hiss escaped his lips and penetrated her ear, as he was standing uncomfortably close to her. His breath smelled of something that resembled whiskey and some food she couldn’t place.
“I’m not trying to kill you. I know what I’m doing believe me.” He said, poking her again, this time intentionally harder than before “I’m not going to kill you. But the journey back is a long one and the weaker you are the better. I rather enjoy seeing you in pain. I despise your kind, and I’ve got all the time in the world to take it out on you.” He grabbed her hair now and yanked her head back so hard she almost fell back into him. She stopped walking and grunted in pain and irritation, trying to reach his body with her hands. He wasn’t close enough though and he’d tied the ropes so tight that her hands were quickly going numb.
“Well if you do that, how do you expect me to keep walking?” she said through gritted teeth, as he squeezed her hair tighter and tighter. He laughed in a deeply sinister way and Emiran could feel how strong his desire to hurt her was. It alone was a pretty painful feeling but she tried not to show it. He wanted to hurt her in every way he could without killing her, and Emiran knew she’d need to find a way out of this quickly if she wanted to survive it without letting him have his way. He growled and pushed her forward so hard she fell to the ground before she could regain her balance.
“Get up and keep walking.” He said with no hint of apology in his voice. He grabbed her arm and yanked her back up to her feet. Emiran did her best to catch her breath that the fall had knocked from her, and stumbled forward, on to wherever it was they were leading her. She didn’t sense the same kind of cruel satisfaction and desire from the other two men walking with them. As far as she could tell, without reading their minds, they were just in this for the money. Had they been leading they would have been perfectly content to just get her back to COLO as quickly as possible.
They must have been walking for a good four hours before Dratholik told his men to stop and find a place to rest. By this point Emiran had been poked or sliced with his weapon more times than she could count. Her arms and back stung fiercely. His satisfaction was giving her a power he didn’t realize though. Every time he felt satisfied by the pain he believed he was causing her it gave her an energy burst like she’d just downed six shots of espresso. By time they stopped to rest Emiran was so stocked up on energy she felt her heart might burst from her chest and take off on a journey all its own.
Once they’d found a satisfactory place to stop and rest Dratholik shoved her to the ground fiercely and pointed his weapon at her chest. He sat on the rock in front of her and kept his weapon leveled with her heart while his mean went to find something they could eat. With them gone he didn’t feel the need to hold back as much and pulled a viciously curved blade from somewhere in his mess of gear that he carried. He dropped the bag he had on his back and leaned forward, a smug sneering smile on his face. He tossed the other weapon to the side and pulled Emiran up by her shirt so his face was directly in front of hers.
His confidence and bravado were like fuel on a fire and as he drew the blade across her cheek she couldn’t help but start laughing. Somewhere in her mind she had to thank him for his foolish satisfaction. She may be learning on the fly but she couldn’t deny that she quite enjoyed the power he was giving her just by virtue of what he was feeling. He wasn’t amused by her laughter and stuck his knife unceremoniously into the front of her thigh. Not deep enough to severe anything important but deep enough that it was intensely painful and she screamed even though she couldn’t stop laughing.
“What the hell do you find so funny, Witch?” he growled, pulling his blade from her leg. He was crouched above her with one knee on the ground and one knee up to support the arm he was using to keep the blade leveled with her throat. She pursed her lips trying to contain the laughter. She couldn’t really explain why she had to laugh but it was very hard to stop. Another choked giggle escaped her lips and it infuriated him so that he clocked her jaw harder than she was anticipating. In doing so though he had to let go of her shirt. As she fell back against the ground, she used the momentum to twist her body and bring her knees up and into his groin.
He let out a growl of pain fell sideways. As soon as his knee came down Emiran rolled with all her might and scrambled up as fast as she could. It was hard to do with her hands behind her back, but she managed to get on her feet before he’d gotten his bearings. His rage was so intense it was all Emiran could feel even though she knew he was also in pain. The power of his rage though had the added effect of making her feel her own pain less too. She smirked to herself and thought “I could get used to this.” But she still had to shift the majority of her weight to her left leg as she tried to get over to his weapon before he recovered completely.
The sound of her scream must have drawn the attention of his men because she could hear them running through the underbrush. She reached his weapon just as he stood up and she threw herself down next to it as he threw himself in her direction. She maneuvered her hands to the sharp part as fast as she could and tried to saw through the ropes. He grabbed her foot and yanked her across the ground hard putting his foot down on her ankle with all his weight. When he’d yanked her, the blade of his weapon had sliced through a good chunk of her arm but it had also finished cutting the ropes.
He took the viciously curved blade and was getting ready to bring it down hard into her shoulder when the man that she’d seen first came running into the camp yelling “What the hell are you doing? We have to get her there alive if we’re going to get our money!” Dratholik turned and glared at the man and said “This little bitch deserves it. She’ll get there alive, but just barely.” before turning back to her to bring it down like he’d planned. The man leaped at him and shoved him away from Emiran, trying to wrestle the knife from his grasp. While they fought with each other Emiran took the chance to get back on her feet.
Dratholik seemed to be winning the fight between them, which didn’t bode well for Emiran. He brought his elbow up into the face of the other man and he fell backwards, out cold. He was about to kill the man so Emiran saw no choice. He’d saved her life; it was only fair she return the favor. “Hey!” she shouted. Dratholik looked at her with hatred and tried to stab the man anyway. Emiran darted forward and focusing all the intense rage and energy she’d collected from him into her hands she reached for his face. The look of shock on his face as Emiran squeezed it said everything.
His eyes went wider than even Hera’s had and his mouth opened to scream but no sound got a chance to come out. His body went slack and Emiran let it fall. The other man came bursting into the camp just as she let him go and gave her a dubious expression seeing the other two men on the ground. She could taste his fear and he took off without a word. Clearly whatever COLO was paying them wasn’t enough for him to go up against her seeing the scene he’d walked into. She was thankful for that at least. It was one less person to have to hurt.
Now that Dratholik was dead Emiran felt considerably weak and every part of her ached. She needed to get away from here and back to her own camp though so that she could be on her way out of wherever the hell it was Traevin had hidden them away. Grabbing the viciously curved blade from Dratholik’s tight grip she stumbled and fell through the underbrush as she did her best to run from the scene behind her. She didn’t know for sure she was going the right way, but any direction away from there was better than nothing.
It was only after a good twenty minutes of hobbling through the woods that she realized just how much her arm was still bleeding. It was too late though and sudden exhaustion took over her quicker than she could combat. The forest floor came up to greet her as she crashed down to her knees. Without the fuel Dratholik’s rage and cruelty had provided she could feel every injury and her body went into a state of shock. She called out for Traevin, whether audibly or mentally she couldn’t really be sure and closed her eyes. Nothing but blackness greeted her and she crashed quickly.
She really hadn’t expected to wake up, but when she did she was no longer laying on the forest floor. The man that Dratholik had tried to kill greeted her eyes as she wearily opened them. Great, she sighed inwardly, and closed her eyes again, just what I need she thought. He was carrying her and walking through the forest, to where she could only guess. She tried to sense what he was feeling but she was far too exhausted to make any sense of the information she could get. When he saw that she was awake he stopped and set her down gently up against a rock.
He didn’t say anything immediately, but set about building a fire. It was dark out by now and was starting to get chilly, at least to Emiran. She knew she was in no shape to try and get away from him right now so she just lay against the rock waiting for him to finish what he was doing. When the fire was nice and big he picked her up and laid her down closer to it. She made no move to stop him, thankful for the warmth. He sat down up against the rock in her place and stared at her intently. He chewed on some type of what could have been a piece of bark or jerky of some kind for all she could tell. Finally Emiran half whispered slowly “Who are you? Is money really so important to you that you had to come searching for me again?”
He continued chewing for several minutes before he finally spoke. “You should be thanking me for coming to find you. You would have died if I hadn’t.” he said “Just as I should be thanking you for saving my life. So thank you.” Emiran licked her dry lips and closed her eyes again “Yes I suppose I would have, but if you’re taking me back to COLO then I’m as good as dead anyway. So I don’t see why I should be thanking you.” The man chuckled at her snarky attitude even in the face of what he’d done and replied “I’m not taking you back to COLO. They couldn’t pay me enough to bring you to them.”
Emiran was confused now and said “Then what were you doing with that maniac if you had no intentions of following through?” He tilted his head now and looked at the ground. “I was sent along with him and his companion to make sure they followed through on their end of the deal. I never had any intentions of letting them accomplish their goal though.” He replied “I just needed to find you. COLO doesn’t know that of course. If they knew who I was I’d be just as much a fugitive as you.” Emiran opened her eyes now and looked at him again. “And who exactly are you?” she asked.
He smiled sheepishly at her now and said “My name is Aurelius. I’ve been working for COLO now for 9 years. If they knew that I came from a magical family just like you, I would have been dead long ago. I have passed myself off as human all of my life. My family’s mark is so light and small that it can easily be covered with makeup or clothing.” Emiran looked at the mark on his forehead now and blinked slowly, trying to form the words she wanted. “Where did you get the mark on your head? I know that mark. I have one of my own. What is it that your family can do that you’ve been able to pass yourself off as human for this long?”
He came closer to her now and held her hand lightly. “My family has the ability to heal. We can only heal ourselves, not others. A few of my family has grown powerful enough that they have managed to live much longer life spans than they should have. The last person to do that though was before COLO rose to power. That I know of anyhow.” He said “I know when my family pass the point that they ‘should’ be dead, they either give up healing themselves or they start a new life with a new identity.” He kept hold of her hand and looked away from her. He seemed disturbed by something. Even in her weakened state Emiran could feel how concerned and perturbed he was.
“What is it?” she asked “What has you so concerned?” He looked at his hands, peeking at her from the corners of his eyes. “I’ve managed to infiltrate far into COLO these past nine years. I know the atrocities they’re capable of. I’ve committed more than my fair share of them in the name of my job.” He said “One of those atrocities was killing a young woman that bore this mark, so I could steal it from her. She was forced to give it to me before I killed her. Believe me I’m not proud of it. But if I hadn’t then COLO would have killed me.”
He took his backpack off and got out what appeared to be a map, and a flask made of animal skin. He helped Emiran into a sitting position and held the flask to her lips so she could drink. She did her best not to inhale it, eagerly sipping at it until her mouth didn’t feel like a desert. Pushing it away from her mouth she said “Thank you. You don’t have to explain your reasoning to me. I understand.” She lifted her arm to look at the wound Dratholik’s weapon had caused when he’d pulled her across it. She was surprised to find that it was stitched up. Well at least that will save me the trouble of having to do it myself, she thought.
Pointing now to the paper he’d pulled from his bag she said “What’s this for?” he handed it to her and said “This is a map to the inside of sector 5. That’s where you’ll need to go. That’s where they keep the woman who told us about you.” he pointed to an x he’d marked on the paper. Emiran grabbed the paper from him and looked it over. Her head was starting to throb and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “Well thank you for this.” she said “Is there any way you could take me back to my camp? There are things there I need before I have any chance at completing my job.” He nodded and helped her to her feet, swinging her arm around his shoulder.
“That’s where we were headed anyway. I would be happy to assist you.” he said. As they stood there he grabbed her hand and said “Let me give you my mark first, hopefully it will allow you to heal faster and make this trip a little easier.” A tingling sensation passed through her entire body and her eyes wanted to roll back in her head. She tried to cry out, but no sound escaped her lips. Then just as quickly as it started it was over. She opened her eyes wide and blinked a few times. “Wow. That’s some healing power alright.” she said “Where is this mark located, and what is your family name?” he rubbed his wrist vigorously against his clothes then held it up to her.
On his wrist was a very light pink mark, that might have been a scar if anyone had asked, that had been covered in a foundation or concealer of some kind. Looking closely with squinted eyes to see in the darkness she examined the mark. It was maybe an inch and a half in length and resembled a crescent moon with a star nestled inside the curved part of it. She looked at her own wrist and nodded appreciatively at the faint mark. “I come from the Shamir family. My name is quite a mouthful I know.” He said with a boyish smile. Emiran smirked and mouthed his name to test it. Grabbing his backpack, he slung it over his free shoulder and kicked a bunch of dirt into the fire.
With the fire out, it was quite dark and Emiran was a little hesitant about walking through the woods. Aurelius held on to her hand tightly and walked at a snail’s pace as she limped along slowly. As they walked she tried to focus on the wound in her leg to see if she could heal it. With her eyes closed and her hand upon the wound, she felt a strong tingling sensation, as if an electric current were passing through her hand and into her leg. The pain began to dull and she felt she could put more weight on her leg. She pulled the tear in her pants around, trying to feel the wound. She couldn’t really see it in the inky darkness, but it felt significantly smaller and she sighed happily.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Now this power she actually saw as a gift, unlike the telepathy and empathy. She was slightly envious that he’d grown up with this ability. Had she had his gift when she was young she would have embraced her powers wholeheartedly and found a way to use it to heal her mother. Aurelius had said that he could only heal himself, but if she were truly as powerful as Traevin said, she was sure she could find a way to use it to heal others as well. Now she had a touch of death, and a touch of life. She was truly starting to feel like a powerful witch. Putting all her weight down she stood up straight and tested her leg.
Satisfied that she could now walk alone, she told Aurelius to let her go and they walked side by side in silence for awhile before he spoke up. “How do you plan to stop COLO?” he asked. Emiran looked at him out of the corner of her eye, in a half glaring stare. “I don’t know that yet.” She replied “I don’t even know what it is I’m supposed to be stopping. What are they doing that’s so dangerous to us?” Aurelius went slack jawed; clearly surprised that she had no idea. He shook his head and said “After decades of killing off our families, and studying our abilities, they discovered that the woman you’re trying to save, could travel through time.” He pointed at the map again, this time to a room on the opposite side of the paper from where the x was.
“She tried it to escape, but being weakened it didn’t really work in her favor. It gave COLO the perfect opportunity that they’ve been searching for. After many years of experiments and torture, they discovered how her power works, and in this room they built a gateway arch.” He folded the paper back up and continued. “Once they’ve figured out how to make Lenora power it, they intend to send people back to the very beginning of the ancient magical bloodlines and wipe them out before they can become what they are today.” Emiran shook her head, to incredulous to say anything at first.
“So how exactly did you find me?” she asked “After I changed my appearance I thought I’d be able to hide out easier.” He looked down now, clearly feeling guilty about something. Emiran could smell it. It was a very sour tangy smell and it made her guts tingle. “Out with it. I can feel your guilt a mile away. Just say whatever it is you need to say.” “Well, when you were spotted in that town COLO sent out several teams to sweep the surrounding areas. They got their hands on a seer of their own some time ago and have been using her to pinpoint where you are. As long as she’s alive, I don’t think you’ll ever truly be safe.” Now Emiran was even more in shock. She thought everyone in her family was dead, and as far as she knew, her family was the only one with the ability to see through time.
So who could be using their power to locate her? “What is this seer’s name?” she asked. Aurelius opened his mouth then closed it again. He did this several times without saying a word. Emiran was getting antsy as the seconds passed silently, wishing desperately that she could pry into his mind. She stopped walking and stared at him, studying every detail of his figure, trying to distract her whirling mind while she waited. His dirty blonde hair fell in a swoop across his forehead, obscuring the mark as he looked downwards. He was taller than she was, if she had to guess with no measurement, she’d say he was somewhere around 6’2”. His hazel eyes were close enough to brown that he could probably pass them off as such.
His giant muscles made the sleeves of his t-shirt tight around his arms. He could have been a male model pretending to be a bounty hunter for all Emiran knew. Finally she could take no more and she grabbed his arms and shook him hard. “Tell me what her name is! You clearly know, you just don’t want to tell me.” Aurelius looked in her eyes now, and they dripped with guilt. Finally he spoke “Her name is Elanore. I captured her myself, upon COLO’s orders. Then we staged her death for your benefit, so that you’d never come looking for her.”
Emiran let go of him, desperately trying to make sense of this. She had seen Elanore’s body though! It made no sense. How could she not have recognized that it was someone else entirely? She had a hard time believing that they had been able to find someone that looked so exactly like her that it would fool Emiran. “You’re lying.” She seethed “My sister is dead. I saw her myself!” Aurelius shook his head. “No she isn’t dead. The woman you thought was Elanore was actually a clone made specifically for the purpose of making you believe she was dead. COLO hasn’t perfected the cloning process yet, otherwise they would use the technology on the regular to further distinguish between humans and ‘unnatural’s’ like us. They didn’t need a perfect clone though. They only needed her to look like Elanore, since she was immediately killed, she didn’t need to function correctly.”
Emiran couldn’t see through the rage she felt and she instinctively curled herself into a ball to contain the feelings. Leaned over and hugging her knees a low growl of fury started in her throat and before she could contain it, it became an unearthly shrieking sound. She flung her arms wide and continued the unearthly shriek into the sky. Aurelius covered his ears; a look of terror came across his face as he watched Emiran. She continued the unearthly howling until she thought her lungs might burst. Finally she stopped and started taking deep inhaling breaths. She looked at Aurelius now, who remained in his hunched up position, covering his ears and terrified.
She touched him to get his attention and he fell over, clearly dead. His hands were covered in blood and it was obvious that it was coming from his ears. Emiran stepped back in shock. She had no intentions of killing Aurelius, even as furious as she was at him. But obviously, she’d wanted to on some level and used her empathic abilities to carry her touch of death to him while she was trying to get her emotions under control. “Fuck!” she shouted throwing her hands up to her head. Now how am I supposed to get back to camp? She thought. Her head was spinning and all she could think about was the fact that Elanore was alive. What had COLO been doing to her for five years? She shuddered to think.
Her stomach turned as she looked at Aurelius. She definitely had to figure out how to get her emotions under control. She had no idea that her empathic powers could be so dangerous. Now she knew, not only could she feel other people’s emotions, but that she could also control their emotions and make them feel what she wanted. No wonder Meredith had been so dangerous after she’d gone crazy. She closed his eyes and whispered “I’m sorry.” before she grabbed his backpack and the map. She looked inside the bag, to find a bunch of supplies, including the viciously curved blade she’d stolen from Dratholik. Then she slung the backpack over her shoulders and took off walking in the direction they had been heading before he’d revealed the shocking news to her. She just had to hope that it was the correct direction.
As she headed off into the thicker trees, she grew more and more restless waiting for Traevin. She knew he had to have heard her, and it had been several hours since her initial encounter with the bounty hunters. She began to wonder how far away the nearest village really was from wherever they had been hiding out. She tried to find a clearing in the trees so she could look at the sky. If she could just find some familiar star patterns she could be sure she was headed in the right direction. Surprisingly a compass wasn’t one of the supplies Aurelius had stashed in his backpack. They must have a better sense of direction than she did.
She found a tiny hole in the treetops and stopped to look up. Taking the backpack off her shoulder slowly she set it down and grabbed the animal skin flask from it. Her mouth still felt pretty dry and she knew she shouldn’t push herself too hard, but she was on overdrive now and she couldn’t let herself rest. She drank heartily but sparingly as she tried to see through the tiny hole. It really wasn’t enough to identify any kind of stars. She didn’t want to continue walking in the wrong direction, so she saw no choice but to try and climb up a tree and get a better view of the sky.
She put the flask back in the backpack and found the nearest tree that looked even mildly climbable. Most of these trees she was walking through were very tall with super thick trunks, and branches that started well above her reach. She eyed the tree she stood in front of for a few minutes trying to determine the route least physically intensive. After she’d decided which way she wanted to go, she jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch she could get to. She had to do it with her left hand, because her right arm was still severely wounded and she didn’t have a ton of strength in it.
As she grabbed hold of the branch with it, she could tell just how weak it was. She pushed her feet against the trunk quickly trying to get the rest of her body onto the branch without falling. After a pretty intense struggle she managed to get a leg hold on the branch and swung herself up the rest of the way. Once safely on the branch, she examined the next branches. Most of them were too small or broken and wouldn’t support her weight. They were all fairly close together though so at least now it wouldn’t be as much of a struggle. She found the best branch and continued up the tree, continuing without rest until she was as close to the top as she could get.
One thought had occurred to her as she climbed that she couldn’t shake. She looked up at the sky and tried to find a familiar star pattern and continued thinking about it. If COLO had Elanore this whole time, then why hadn’t they come after her before now? If they knew who Elanore was then they had to know who she was. Why not come after her when she was weak and defenseless because she had no idea what was really going on? It nagged at her incessantly. Then something clicked in place that hadn’t before. If it was fairly common knowledge, or rumor, at COLO about who she was, that might explain the strange suspicious looks she’d gotten the last day she’d set foot inside. It still didn’t make sense why they hadn’t tried to kill her before now though. She was missing something huge.
She finally found a star formation that she thought looked similar to what she’d been staring at before the bounty hunters had shown up. It wasn’t quite in the opposite direction of where she was headed, but she could tell she needed to make a course correction a bit to the east. She rested against the tree branch and trunk for a few minutes trying to regain some strength before she started her climb back down. Thankfully the climb down was much easier than it had been going up. When she reached the bottom branch she tried to estimate how far down she’d have to jump. Her leg was feeling mostly better but the climb up had definitely aggravated the injury and she didn’t want to push it farther by landing wrong.
She decided it would be best to swing down and fall rather than jump down from where she was. Hugging the branch as tightly as she could with the little strength she had remaining, she swung her body downwards and slowly let her legs come down. She tried to position them quickly so she’d land more on the left side than the right, as she lost her grip and fell downwards. She landed roughly and it knocked the breath from her but she pushed herself back up quickly, unwilling to give herself a rest. The urgency in her brain now was hard to ignore. Some part of her knew that she shouldn’t rush headlong into COLO’s deepest bowels to find Elanore and Lenora but it was hard to ignore the fact that she needed to save them.
She made the best course correction she could, and grabbing the backpack she ran as fast as her tired legs could carry her. After what seemed an agonizingly long time to Emiran she finally stopped to let herself breathe and take a break. She was warmer because of her intensive physical activity, but it was still pretty chilly in the woods and she knew she needed to warm up soon. Once she’d caught her breath she set about finding dry twigs and stuff to get a fire started. There was plenty of undergrowth and leaf litter where she had stopped, so it didn’t take her long to amass a pile big enough for her purposes. She dug around in the backpack until she found some matches. She was thankful that Aurelius had prepared somewhat for trekking through the woods for extended periods.
With the fire lit, she sat next to it and looked her arm over. She ran her fingers over the stitches Aurelius had given her and a hint of guilt crept into her. She felt terrible; she really hadn’t meant to kill him. Now she was terrified of what she might do if she didn’t figure out quickly how to contain her emotions. Holding her hand over the deep wound, she closed her eyes and took several slow deep breaths. The tingling energy began to cover her lower arm and it almost made her laugh because of how much it tickled. She kept her eyes closed and focused on healing the wound. When she felt that she’d done enough she opened her eyes to look it over. It was definitely smaller now, though a scar remained where the wound had closed.
She took the viciously curved blade from the backpack and cut off the stitches that remained in place. With the wound closed in those areas there was no need for them. She was curious just how quickly she could heal with this power. If she continued working on it she was confident she could close it completely, perhaps even get rid of the scar. She didn’t want to push it though. Knowing she needed to eat quickly to restore her strength, she dug through the backpack until she found the jerky that Aurelius had been chewing on. It was pretty bland tasting, but it was nutrition and she really couldn’t be picky right now. She chewed on it slowly while she stared into the fire trying to get her whirling thoughts under control.
She had a nagging feeling that COLO hadn’t tried to kill her before now because they wanted her at full power before she showed up. If Elanore was providing them with information about her, and been for five years, then they probably knew what she was supposed to become. What Aurelius had said about the gate they’d built stuck in her mind and she began to question whether they were intending to make her power it somehow, possibly by threatening Elanore and Lenora. As far as she knew, other than through visions, she couldn’t travel through time. But if that was a power of Traevin’s family then it was only a matter of time before she could. She called again for him and idly chewed on the jerky. She tried to focus intentionally on blocking Elanore out of her mind, hoping that was enough to stop her from locating her again.
She pulled the map from inside the backpack and unfolded it carefully. She spent the next several minutes studying it and committing the passageways to memory. The map didn’t tell her where Lenora or Elanore was, just where the gate was. Even though the only thing she wanted to do was rescue them, she knew that she couldn’t focus on that. As much as it pained her to think that way, she knew that rescuing them had to come second. She had to find a way to destroy that gate and stop COLO if she truly wanted them to be safe. Once she felt that she’d sufficiently burned the map into her memory she tucked it back inside the backpack and grabbed the flask. It was more than half empty and she had yet to see any kind of creek or stream to refill it, so she took a few sparing sips and swished it around her mouth.
With her thirst quenched enough, she put the last of the strip of jerky in her mouth and zipped the backpack shut. Slinging it over her shoulders she quickly kicked some dirt into the fire until she was satisfied it was out. She set out in the direction she’d been heading before and continued thinking about the map committing each potential path to memory. There were at least three different entrances to the bowels of COLO but the map only showed sector 5. She had no way of knowing where those entrances started from, but she had to assume they started from within a different part of COLO’s headquarters. As it stood right now, she had no idea how she was supposed to get that deep into headquarters without getting caught.
She also wondered how she was supposed to tell who was in on this plot and who was just blissfully unaware and doing a job, like Tariah. There was no way she could stop and read everyone’s mind, she was sure to get caught that way. But she also didn’t want to kill innocent people. Killing the higher ups and the people who’d been torturing Lenora and Elanore was bad enough. Maybe a combination of her powers would provide a quicker answer and save her some time. She called out to Traevin audibly this time, starting to get concerned as to why he hadn’t shown up yet. He was perfectly capable of defending himself, she knew well, but it seemed like he’d been gone now for almost a day. He must have truly hidden them in the middle of nowhere to be taking so long just to get to the nearest village and back.
As she finally stumbled into her camp the sun was cresting over the horizon and the sky was a brilliant mix of pink and orange. She wished she knew that Elanore and Lenora weren’t suffering but she couldn’t afford to let that thought slow her down. She was terrified to let herself get angry now after what she’d done to Aurelius. Emiran heaved an exhausted sigh and pulled the backpack off her shoulders. Combining the contents of both backpacks into one she discarded the empty backpack and quickly scrambled onto the back of the horse setting the backpack in the saddle between her legs. Grabbing the reigns tightly she urged the horse forward and held on for dear life as it trotted away from camp. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but she knew their camp was no longer safe and she couldn’t rest until she was far away from it.
Luckily going by horse was a lot quicker than traveling by foot and it wasn’t long before she felt she was a safe enough distance away that she could rest. As the horse trotted along she noticed a fairly decent sized cave nestled into the rocky cliffs they were riding past. It didn’t look like it would be hard to get to and it looked big enough to house the horse too. She urged the horse quickly up a narrow rocky path that led right to it holding her breath as its hooves sent rocks flying down to the ground below. She made it safely up the path and into the cave, which wasn’t as big as she’d originally thought but still big enough for her purposes, and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Sliding out of the saddle, she led the horse into the back of the little cave so it would be out of sight. Once the horse was settled in she pulled the bag out of the saddle and put it on the ground to use as a makeshift pillow.
Pulling the blanket out of the bag first, she curled up quickly underneath it and lay her head down on top of the bag. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was good enough for now. She closed her eyes and sleep came crashing over her almost as soon as they were shut. Her sleep wasn’t peaceful though. She found her dreams disturbed by thoughts of Elanore and she could swear that she wasn’t just dreaming. What she was seeing seemed so real, she could feel Elanore’s pain and taste her fear. But she could do nothing to stop what she was seeing. She was a bystander nothing more. By the end of the dream she was convinced that what she’d seen had been Elanore’s memories of the last five years and she sat bolt upright heart pounding.
She did her best to contain the emotions that were threatening to spill out of her and curled into a ball, as if that position would keep everything contained. The horse nickered quietly and nudged her head with its muzzle as if it could tell how hopeless she felt. It was enough to finally make her burst and the tears spilled out of her before she could stop them. She curled up tighter and just let them flow freely, content to be sad rather than angry. Being angry meant scary things, being sad didn’t as far as she knew. After she was sure she had no more tears to cry she quickly put her stuff back in the bag and mounted the horse with haste.
If she truly had been in Elanore’s memories, then it was very likely Elanore had been connected to her too, which meant her hiding place was no longer safe. Carefully picking her way down the narrow path, she made it safely to the ground and kicked the horse into high gear, riding swiftly away from the cave. Not entirely sure where she was going, Emiran rode into the distance hoping eventually she’d come upon a village or some semblance of humanity. The horse didn’t seem to mind the speed and she patted the beast gently on the head to thank her for her kindness and service, a small smile creeping onto her puffy wet face.
