Liz opened her blue eyes, sore and crusted from poor sleep. Her dreams had been haunted by visions of creatures twisted in darkness, their elongated limbs reaching out at her, desperately grasping with razor-sharp claws. Their burning eyes, no more than specks of light emitted from the complete darkness of their partially corporeal bodies, stared through her mindlessly as the claws dug deeper into her flesh.
Wiping her eyes clean, she shook her head vigourously as if to shake the haunting images from her brain. She was drenched in water, the cold of the air causing her to shiver. Her legs were nearly fully submerged in mud and water, a result of the heavy rains during the night. A gentle drizzle still trickled down from the cloud-covered skies like a veil, saturating everything in a thick layer of moisture.
A small grunt nearby caused her to freeze in panic as she tried to escape from the mud-filled hole. Her mind raced for a moment, but she forced herself to calm down, remembering yesterday’s events and her interesting guest. Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself up over the lip of her burrow, peeking out at the source of the sound.
Mist was struggling with a thick wool shirt over his head, trying unsuccessfully to pull it down over his amputated shoulder. It had bunched up around his neck, and he swore under his breath as he tugged at it.
“Hang on! Let me help!” Liz jumped out of her hole and started moving towards him.
“Don’t!” He exclaimed loudly, “I don’t need your help.”
She giggled. “It’s okay to ask for help sometimes, Mist.” She took another step towards him.
“No!”662Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlZaec9mXTi
The force of his protest stopped Liz in her tracks. “I just wanted to help…”
“I don’t need your help.” Mist grumbled, finally managing to untangle the bottom of his shirt. He pulled it down hard in frustration and stretched his arm.
Liz bit her lip as she watched Mist kneel down to pick up the shirt he wore the day before. It was dripping with rain, and he balled it up in his fist and squeezed, trying unsuccessfully to wring it out. He tried for a short time, but gave up, sighing deeply and rubbing his temples.
“I’m sorry, Liz.” He mumbled, “I’m just irritated today.”
Liz nodded and released her lower lip, leaving small red depressions in the dried skin. “It’s fine.”
Mist shook his head and stepped forward, offering Liz the soaked shirt. “It isn’t. I’m sorry I snapped like that. Bad night.”
Liz accepted the shirt with a fake smile, wringing it out aggressively. Water splashed down onto the muddy ground, splashing her already filthy legs. “I barely slept either. The rain was horrible. My hole turned into a puddle.”
Mist nodded and solemnly bent over, picking up his pack and sighing at the water dripping from it. “Well,” he grumbled, pitching his bag forcefully to the ground, “there goes my stuff.”
“Your bag isn’t waterproof?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well mine is.” Liz motioned with her foot to her pile of supplies resting nearby. “We can use mine to carry things.”
“What’s the use…” Mist leaned heavily back against the fallen tree, sliding down to the ground dejectedly. “There’s nothing worth salvaging.”
“How about your clothes?”
He waved his hand dismissively, grumbling. “Nah, this is fine. We don’t have time to dry them out. We may as well get going.”662Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7hoTXuLQi
Liz covered her mouth to stifle a laugh at his attitude. His frustration seemed over-the-top and comical to her as she watched him try to roll up the sleeve dangling from his missing arm.
“Here,” she said, kneeling beside him, “let me.”
Mist dropped his arm defeatedly beside him and allowed her to roll up his sleeve for him. He glanced at his discarded rucksack disappointedly. He knew he was right – there was no time to dry his clothes, especially with the rain still trickling down, but he wished the shirt he was wearing was looser. Thick and constricting, the heavy woollen shirt was warm, but difficult for him to get on and off without help.
Liz finished rolling up the sleeve and flashed him a smile. “There, see?”
Mist rolled his eyes and grumbled his thanks, upset that he had to rely on this girl for something as simple as getting dressed.
Standing up, Liz looked around the camp. “We should gather what we can and head out,” she said, offering her hand to Mist.
Mist ignored it, standing up on his own. “We should.” He agreed, brushing past her and walking towards her pile of supplies.
She watched him walk briskly past her and couldn’t help but feel guilty for nearly laughing at his frustration. He absent-mindedly fiddled with his shirt as he walked, trying to adjust it more comfortably over his missing shoulder. “Wouldn’t something looser be more comfortable?” she asked.
He shrugged his one shoulder, cocking his head to the side to emphasise the movement. “Don’t have much choice, do I?” He leaned down, swiping at her medical bag and trying to swing it up. It was heavier than he expected, though, causing him to grunt and lose his balance for a moment. “What in the name of the Gods is in this thing?!” he asked.
Liz moved over and grabbed the bag from him. “Some medical supplies, a little bit of food, and my book.”
“Book?”
Nodding, Liz pulled out the huge book just enough for him to see the embossed lettering on the side.
“Oh, yeah,” Mist nodded slowly, “I remember that thing. It weighs a ton!”
Liz giggled and put the book back in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. “It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
Mist chuckled. “Yeah, I guess not.”
The rain finally stopped as they ransacked the small camp, scrounging any food they could find. Before long, they were ready to head out.
“We should follow the river North,” Liz explained, “it’ll lead us towards the Capital.”
“We’re going through the Keep?” Mist asked, trying to keep the nervousness from his tone. "Through the mountains?"
Liz shrugged. “I can’t think of another way to get to the other continent.”
Mist gave her a thumbs-up and a wide grin. “Lead on, almighty navigator.”
Liz giggled, her blue eyes twinkling. “Glad to see you’re in a better mood.”
“It’s still early,” Mist joked. “Give it time.”
They made good time with Liz picking their path carefully through the undergrowth. Before long, they reached the bend in the Fae River and followed it North. Mist’s mood improved as the day wore on. He was tired and hungry, but the exhaustion and hunger seemed to distract him from the dull throb of his residual limb.
It was midday when Mist decided he could no longer stand the gurgling in his empty stomach. “Liz,” he halted in his tracks, “I’m starving.”
Liz grabbed her stomach. “Me too. Maybe there’s somewhere around here where we can stop and eat.” She kept walking forward, searching around for a good rest spot.
“That’d be great,” Mist admitted, his mouth watering at the thought of finally filling his belly.
Liz froze suddenly like a startled deer as a small sound caught her attention.
Mist didn’t seem to notice her caution, and he continued to walk forward obliviously. “I mean, I know we can’t eat much cause we've gotta save it, but anything would be better than nothing.”
“Shush! I hear something!” Liz crouched down, her senses straining to catch the mumbled whispers through the dense forest.
Mist crouched down beside her. “What is it?” he whispered, louder than she liked.
She shushed him again harshly and crept forward, her heart thumping hard in her chest. The smells of cooked meat and smoke wafted on the breeze, making her mouth water. As she approached the source of the tantalizing smell, she could hear the voices growing steadily louder, like the deep rumbling of a babbling brook. Mist followed close behind her, leaning in beside her as gently shifted a low hanging branch from their field of vision.
Two human-like figures knelt on the ground in a small clearing, seemingly in prayer near a small fire, oblivious to the girl and the amputee watching. Both figures were well-muscled and large – even kneeling, Mist could see that they were taller than him by nearly a foot. The fire’s light outlined darker tattooed designs covering what was visible of their dark blue-grey skin. Curled horns the colour of dried blood rose from a shock of white hair on their heads, accentuating their elongated, pointed ears. Various weapons lay piled nearby alongside heaps of discarded armour.
“Eyyliks!” Mist hissed.
Liz bit her lower lip, her mind racing. Carefully, making only a whisper, she moved the bough back into place, obscuring their vision of the kneeling figures. She looked over at Mist and smiled weakly. “Maybe we should go around them,” she quietly suggested with a shrug.
Mist raised an eyebrow and looked her over. She was crouched low, one arm clutching her midriff as though in agony. She was shaking like a cornered animal. “Nervous?” He teased.
She looked away from him, flustered. “Of course not! I just don’t want to disturb them.”
“Right…” He gave her a wry smile.
“I mean it!” She stood up carefully, her knees feeling weak with panic. “I have no reason to be nervous.”
Mist stifled a laugh. “Alright, fine. Let’s go around them, then,” he said, starting to walk back the way they had come.
Liz followed carefully. “What do you think they were doing?” she asked, her voice still a whisper.
“Praying.”
“Not that,” she giggled, a smile creeping into her features. “I meant what are they doing here? In the Fairy’s Forest?”
Hunting for Shades, probably,” he answered her, his eyes trained directly forward as he moved through the woods. “Or Sorcerers.”
They continued to walk for a few moments in uncomfortable silence, Liz following Mist with her head downturned and both arms clutching her midsection so tightly it hurt. She felt dizzy and discombobulated as she followed her amputee friend through the forest as though she were in a dream.
Mist looked back and saw her face, disconnected from reality and pale from fear. He stopped, causing Liz to bump into him. She looked up at him with wide eyes, confused and scared.
“Liz, it’s fine. You don’t need to panic.” He put his hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down.
She shook his hand off and looked down at the ground again. “I’m not afraid of them, okay?” she mumbled weakly, her voice cracking.
“It’s fine, Liz,” he began, “we’re going around them-”
“You don’t understand!” Liz cut him off, looking up at his tall frame. She felt so small and so helpless next to him, with his tired brown eyes and seemingly endless optimism.
“I understand more than you know…” Mist went quiet, taking a deep breath.
Before he could continue, the sound of heavy footsteps near them snapped them both back to the reality at hand.
Gasping sharply, Liz grabbed Mist’s hand and tried to pull him along, away from the sounds in the woods. Mist, however, stood frozen as a figure emerged from behind a tree in the distance. It was an Eyylik, shorter and younger-looking than the other two and lacking the tattooed skin of his counterparts. In his arms he carried a bundle of firewood, which fell clattering to the forest floor as he spotted Mist and Liz. With a startled cry, his red eyes narrowed to slits as he reached for a small dagger at his belt.
“Mist! We have to go!” Liz pulled on his arm, overbalancing the man, who nearly toppled over.
The young Eyylik approached steadily, brandishing his dagger. Mist gritted his teeth, scoffing in annoyance as he heard more movement through the forest.
Liz tugged on his arm again. “Mist!” She screamed at him. He didn’t budge, keeping his eyes trained on the Eyylik in front of them, weighing his options as they approached cautiously.
Cursing his stupidity, Liz tried to let go of his hand and make a run for it.
Feeling her hand start to slip from his grasp, Mist tightened his fist, stopping her from running.
Liz squealed and tried to pull herself free, her mind racing in the throes of panic. She looked at Mist in desperation, to see that his expression had changed. His eyes were closed tightly shut, his lips moving as though in the middle of a prayer. The air around his feet seemed to shimmer.
The young Eyylik said something in a language Liz did not understand and lunged forward, rushing to attack. Liz screamed and closed her eyes.
She felt Mist move, taking her with him. She could hear sounds of confusion coming from the deepened voices of the Eyyliks. Daring to open her eyes, she found that a thick fog had engulfed the area, so dense that she couldn’t see a hand in front of her face. She couldn’t see Mist, but she felt him moving through the fog confidently, dragging her behind him. She began to question him, but he shushed her harshly.
Soon, they made their way through the fog, and Liz could finally see the one-armed figure leading her ahead, deeper into the forest. He released her hand after a while and slowed down his pace, comfortably walking. She rushed to walk beside him, his features coming into view through the thin mist that lingered around the trees. He was breathing heavy, the circles under his eyes appearing darker than before.
She walked beside him for a moment silently, waiting for his breathing to return to normal, before finally speaking up in hushed but angry tones.
“What the hell was that?”
Mist sighed and rubbed his temples. “That was my spell.”
“Your spell?”
“I think.”
“You think?!”
Mist sighed again and shrugged his one shoulder. “I mean, I think so? But it’s different.”
“You’re a Sorcerer?” Liz asked, annoyed.
“Yes. I mean, no. Maybe? The Eyyliks seem to think I am.”
“Mist, they can see magic! They’d know if you are one.”
“I know, I know…” he trailed off, looking up at the cloudy sky and sighing.
Liz looked away from him, unable to keep her anger in check. “Were you even going to tell me how dangerous it is to travel with you?”
“Oh, please!” Mist scoffed, “like you were going to tell me you’re a Sorcerer?”
Liz bit her lip and looked down at the ground. He had a point.
After a moment of walking in silence, Mist sighed dramatically. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t know if you’d believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t I have believed you?”
Mist did his one-shoulder shrug again. “I didn’t awaken like everyone else, so my ‘magic’ is a little… different.”
“Like how it didn’t summon the Shades?”
Mist chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Oh, noticed that, did you?”
Now it was Liz’s turn to shrug. “You told me when we first met you knew how to stop the Shades from appearing.”
“Right,” Mist said. A long silence ensued. Eventually, Mist coughed deliberately, clearing his throat and breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Look, Liz,” he said, “I’m sorry for not telling you.”
Liz simply nodded, and the two Sorcerers travelled on in silence until they could not stand the hunger that threatened to consume them.
“Liz,” Mist finally broke the silence, rubbing at his stomach, “We need to find food.”
Liz nodded. “Is it safe to stop?”
“Should be,” Mist said, “as long as we don’t linger too long. It would have been hard for them to track us through the fog, and they needed to don their armour and whatnot.”
“Then I guess we can rest here for a bit.”
Relieved, Mist leaned against a tree and slid down it onto the soft ground. “Thank the Gods.”
Liz took off her pack, dropping it on the ground beside Mist. Groaning with exhaustion, she sat down on the ground next to him.
Mist had already started sorting through her pack, searching for something to eat. As she joined him on the ground, he pulled out a small bundle wrapped in paper. Handing her rucksack back to her, he unwrapped to paper to reveal a coarse, dry bread.
“There might be some dried meat in here still…” She said idly as she shifted things around in the bag, searching for the food.
Mist made a disgusted face. “No thanks, I’ll stick with this.”
“You don’t like meat?”
Mist tore off a small hunk of the bread and tossed it into his mouth. It was stale and coarse, but he hardly cared. “Axris the Wildling Goddess says that every life is sacred, including those of animals. She insists we treat them with respect.”
Liz cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re really religious, aren’t you?”
Mist continued to devour the bread, speaking between mouthfuls. “If we don’t have faith, then what do we have? I believe in all the Gods and Goddesses, and in exchange they believe in me.”
Liz found some of the meat at the bottom of her pack, and leaned back against the tree, chewing on the tough salty treat. “It’s going to be tough, not eating meat on the road.”
Mist shrugged awkwardly with his one shoulder. “It’s not like I haven’t known suffering before.”
Liz looked at the man sitting next to her, chewing half-heartedly on the dried loaf. His brown eyes were downcast, the lines in his face appearing deeper with exhaustion and something else. Sadness?
Liz flipped her blond hair back over her shoulders and adjusted herself to sit more comfortably on the cold ground as the sun began to descend over the horizon, painting the clouds with colourful swathes of oranges and pinks. “Mist,” she said, “if we’re travelling together, there probably should be no secrets between us, so…”
Mist looked at her curiously as she composed herself, her blue eyes looking down at the ground, her arms clutching her stomach as though she has trying to hold in its contents. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she raised her gaze to meet his, a determination he had never seen before in her eyes.
“I am a Sorcerer.”
He nodded, acknowledging the strength it took to admit her weakness, and she continued.
“When I was 11, a snake bit my little sister. My dad was a healer, but he was too late to stop the poison from spreading through her body. She was convulsing. It…” Her breath shuddered as she took a moment to compose herself, tears streaming down her face. “It… It was horrible. We were going to lose her.
“I don’t know what came over me. I needed to help her. I didn’t even know what I was doing, I just…”
Her voice trailed off and she mumbled incoherently. Putting the last chunk of bread on his lap, Mist placed his hand on her shoulder. She was trembling uncontrollably, unable to stop the tears as the memory of that day came flooding back to her. He watched her expectantly until she composed herself enough to continue.
“I just wanted to help. I don’t know how I did it, but I cast a spell. I thought – no, I knew – I could heal her. And she’d be better. But…”
“But the Shades came, right?”
Liz clenched her eyes tightly shut and put her head on her knees, curling up into a ball. Mist’s comforting hand remained on her shoulder, patiently waiting.
“Yes.”
The word was barely a whisper under her breath, but Mist heard it. At a loss for what to do, he squeezed her shoulder gently, hoping to bring her some comfort.
“They killed everyone,” she continued between hurried breaths, determined to finish her story. “Mom, Dad, Amy… Everyone died… I just wanted to help them…”
As her voice was lost to her crying, Mist watched her shoulders jerk from the heavy sobs and could not help but feel pity for the poor waif. He sighed quietly, leaning his head back against the tree behind him, and felt guilty for his secrets and mystery. The girl next to him was broken, her family killed as a by-product of the magic she used to try to save them. How much damage had he caused her by keeping his own magic a secret?
“Liz,” he began, carefully choosing each word, “I’m sorry for what happened. I had no idea you had gone through something so horrific.”
He could feel her calm, her breathing regulating as she forced herself to relax and listen.
“And I’m sorry for keeping my magic a secret,” he continued, still feeling her trembling. “Seeing me use it must have brought up some memories you’d rather forget. I should have told you, and I’m sorry.”
Liz shrugged, breathing deeply, and Mist continued.
“You’ve gone through something terrible, and nothing I can say or do can ever change that. But I honestly believe that you found me for a reason. I believe that Iana brought us together so that we can make sure that no one will have to suffer as you did.”
Liz looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot from crying and tears streaking the dirt on her face. “You really think you can stop them?”
Mist nodded, bringing fresh tears running down her face.
“But how do you know?” she pleaded.
He smiled warmly. “I have faith.”
She inched closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He brought his arm around her, bringing her into a sideways hug. Mist leaned his head back and gave a sigh, looking up at the sky. The clouds had dispersed enough to allow a tiny tendril of light through the thick covering.
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