Chapter 28

Autumn's heart pounded in her ears as she stood in front of an open doorway. Blood was splattered on the walls and puddled onto the floor. Her blood.

A knife flashed in front of her eyes, the tip gleaming in the dim light and aiming for her eye. She yelped, bringing her hands to her face.

"Autumn!" Ember's voice called out to her, "Snap out of it!"

Autumn blinked, her hands touching the bandage on her left eye before dropping them to her sides. "I-I don't know what-" Autumn started with a shaky voice.

"We took you here because Ace said this was where your pendant was. If I knew you would be so affected, I would've kept you away."

"S-Sorry," Autumn cleared her throat, clasping her hands behind her back to stop the shaking. "It's affecting me more than I thought it would. Losing my eye, I mean. And getting tortured in the same room probably didn't help."

'Eclipse would have been stronger. She wouldn't have let something that already happened bother her…but Eclipse wouldn't have let him take her eye in the first place. I'm still Autumn, through and through.' Autumn shook her head, 'I can't be so negative. Since we're going to be traveling with the adventurers, I can take the time to slowly get stronger.'

Ace patted her back sympathetically, "Well, at least we got your pendant back."

"Mmhm." Autumn touched the pendant around her neck, "Thank you."

Ace nodded as he gestured them to follow.

Soon, they left behind the musty air of the dungeon for a crisp, clean breeze.

Rui, Lapis, Khrona, and Ace had them surrounded as they walked.

Even though they had come to an agreement, it was clear they didn't quite trust them. What if it was all a ploy to agree with them and then run once they had a chance?

"We are not able to give you free reign of the area until we arrive at Arkas," we're their exact words.

"Arkas? Where is that?" Autumn tilted her head, "I thought you guys were stationed at Greyrose City?"

"Greyrose is the capital of Silversky and has teleportation branches to many cities. One of which, is Arkas."

Autumn and Ember stayed quiet after that. Talking of their destination was a clear reminder to how they were willingly accompanying adventurers, and to one of their cities too.

…

Evening had set and the adventurers deftly set up camp in a small valley. The nearby stream provided fresh water and attracted plenty of prey, so food was not an issue…or shouldn't have been.

The adventurers had forgotten just how annoying the pair of wolf cubs could be when the set their mind to it, such as when Azura was sent hunting the entire evening just to find prey that suited their taste, and it seemed they were getting a reminder of that.

'We may have agreed to come with you, but if you violate the terms that we agreed on, you'll have to let us go,' Autumn thought, 'Food was a term, but if you can't find food we deem edible…' Ember had quickly caught on to her idea, only throwing Autumn a slightly resentful look as she was forced to abandon the tasty looking prey and call it smelly.

"It looks like a blob of slime."

Ace sighed, "I'm guessing that's a 'no,' then?"

Ember's eyes lit up, "Wow! It's like your reading my mind!"

Ace took a deep breath. 'In and out,' he thought, 'They're just pups, just pups, cute and tiny little pups,' he repeated.

"Let me handle this," Lapis smiled as she walked placed a hand on Ace's shoulder.

Autumn and Ember exchanged a glance, just what was she up to?

They would soon find out. Lapis disappeared for almost an hour when she went out to hunt, almost as if she was waiting for them to grow so hungry that they couldn't reject anymore food. Too bad for her though, that they were determined to hold out.

Leaves rustling informed Ace and the others of Lapis' return. She wore a small cloth bag on her hip, one they hadn't seen before on her all black assassin gear.

Upon further inspection, Autumn noticed a storage item in the form of a small black earring.

'All of the adventurers had them, so it turns out they give it to their contracted beasts too? How extravagant.'

Lapis was unaware of Autumn's disdainful thoughts and walked towards her and Ember.

'I wonder what took her so long to get.' Ember's eyes betrayed her curiosity, and Lapis grinned.

"Here," she said proudly, "I think you'll recognize this."

She reached into her bag and pulled out two grey stones lined with neon blue runes.

"A soul stone!" Autumn gasped. Ember's reaction was not far behind, her jaw agape.

"There's two! One, two," Ember counted, "two!"

Ember turned towards Autumn, locking eyes. Their gazes seemed to hesitate between freedom, and food.

Lapis snickered, "There are plenty of shadow haunters on the way to Arkas. We can't exactly leave them be, so we end up with an abundance of soul stones."

Ace raised an eyebrow at Lapis' blatant lie. Sure, there were many shadow haunters on the way to Arkas, but the adventurer's guild regularly dispatched teams to clean them up. Even then, soul stones were quite scarce and not commonly used as a food source.

Autumn and Ember's eyes seemed to glow. Forget about freedom, free food, shelter, and safety was enough to forget about living in captivity for a while.

As if a spell was broken, the two Spirit Wolves shifted and sunk their teeth into the soul stones.

Autumn closed her eyes as she swallowed the last bit of food. With a content sigh she remarked, "I haven't felt this refreshed since I first met Ember!"

Autumn's eyes grew heavy as her head decided that a full stomach meant it was time for a nap. Well, seeing as it was nighttime, her nap would be quite extensive.