Throwing his hands up in the air, Viktor began to lead the group further into the forest. "What do they even want with village folk like us? We've been tucked away here for years and none of us have even ever touched a well, let alone the essence of all nature itself." The marks. Shut up. Turning backward, his brow furrowed, he closed his mouth abruptly as Fjalda began to speak.
"Er.. that's not entirely true."
"Fjalda, what're you saying?" Eliza gasped. "You used magic?"
Nodding, her amber eyes twinkling in the growing moonlight, Fjalda, turned to look at Viktor. She's sad. Why? What does her using magic have to do with me? "It was out on Lake Bereint. Three years ago. It was the hottest day of the year and we were all playing hide-and-seek in the woods." Of course. How could I have forgotten?
"And I almost drowned," Viktor added in a rush, then forcefully closed his mouth again, realizing he had interrupted her. "I used it that day," Fjalda said, shifting her gaze across each of her friends, "after Viktor slipped, hit his head on a rock, and fell into the lake. I couldn't get there in time to stop it from happening. When I reached the top of the rise, he was out of sight and I sat there, trembling, imagining that he was still with me and then... Then I was lifted off of my feet, just a bit, and at the same time, Viktor rose from the water and onto the hill next to me."
"You told us you swam in and grabbed him," Kellen whistled and Marialena gasped, running her hands through her long locks, while both of them moved up to stand abreast with Fjalda.
"I lied," Fjalda shrugged. "Why..." Eliza began but a terrible roar like a tornado rushing closer and closer cut her off. Spinning backward as a collective, they watched as the entire building of the inn seemed to inflate and a terrible moment passed where they all stood in stunned silence until it exploded, shards of wood and flame flying every which way and catching innumerable trees alight.
Death.
"Now there isn't anywhere to go back to," Eliza whispered, though her voice seemed to carry an innumerable distance in the silence that followed.
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