Chapter Ten

By afternoon the following day, the three girls had reached the border of the territory where the separate, independent few lived on farms in between the vast dense forests.

It had started getting colder the closer they came so Nayana had distributed some of the bigger of her scarves among them and they wrapped themselves up in her blankets.

When they had stopped for lunch, Gwanwyn volunteered to sew the warmer blankets and scarves into sweaters and Nayana agreed.

The ashy was very skilled with the needle and they soon had three very colorful new sweaters that they wore as they continued their journey.

Nayana and Gwanwyn followed Istelle through the thickening forest, unsure where they were going or what Istelle was looking for.

As a trained stalker, Istelle moved silently through the forest, and with her half-wolf instincts, Gwanwyn didn't make much noise either. Nayana on the other hand, couldn't help snapping every twig she came across, snagging things and tripping occasionally. The noise she made sent the birds around alarming and taking flight from their perches in the trees, and every sudden noise made the poor girl flinch, as if afraid a monster might jump out at her.

Gwanwyn kept casting looks of concern in her direction, seeing how uncomfortable she was, and put a warm hand on her shoulder.

They had just passed a thicket and were heading towards a pile of boulders when Nayana suddenly screamed and took off to her right. Istelle whirled around, searching for whatever it was that had frightened the panicked girl, but saw nothing "It must be her Kapworky acting up again!" she exclaimed and bolted after Nayana. Gwanwyn followed.

"Nayana, come back!"

They chased Nayana through the forest, Istelle was soon right behind her cut couldn't figure out how to cut her off.

"Nayana, what is it? Stop running!"

Nayana ignored her, rounding a bend, disappearing behind a forest of tall bushes- Istelle heard a thump and followed by a small gasp "I- I'm sorry."

Istelle checked for Gwanwyn behind her, then hurried around the bushes.

She stopped short.

"Are you all right?" A centaur in a white shirt and a furry black coat was extending his arm to help Nayana, who was on the ground, to her feet.

He was a young man with wavy golden hair that grew down to the middle of his neck, arching eyebrows, a locked jaw and piercing amber eyes. Really quite good looking, and projecting an heir of quiet strength.

Nayana's face was scarlet red. "I- I am all right, thank you." She stood up just as Gwanwyn arrived.

The centaur surveyed them, Istelle in her Lette warrior uniform, Gwanwyn in her plain dress and wolf parts, and fragile Nayana with all her scarves. All of them in light sweaters with bright colors and detailed patterns. "do you three come together?"

"Yes," said Istelle, "I am Istelle, this is Gwanwyn and this is Nayana. We are here on a mission."

"And I am Talion," he introduced himself. "I come here to hunt," he gestured to the bow and quiver of arrows slung over his back, "what is this mission of yours about?"

After meeting Altair, Istelle was cautious about talking to strange young men she met in the forest, but Nayana answered before she could say anything "we are going to invite and train creatures and people from all around to help us help the Lette win and end this war that killed my father."

Talion thought for a moment, looking at them, then turned to Istelle, "you are a trained warrior?"

"I am."

"As am I. Might I join you then?"

"Please do" Nayana smiled

"Of course" Gwanwyn nodded

"Yes," Istelle agreed.

Before Istelle and Gwanwyn had left together, they had left Arin and her friends instructions to

'find homes' for the creatures who might join the Ennell.

For different creatures this could mean swamps, fields, under rocks, caves, forests and rooms so they would need to make sure the training grounds, which they had decided would be in the circle of hills below the cabin, had as many different kinds of terrain as possible. And if there were really going to be a lot of them, they might need to stretch the boundaries just a bit and make homes in the hills.

It was a difficult task, and they began at once, each carrying a bundle of strips of bright cloth that they could use to flag possible homes they found that they would go over and evaluate together later.

They went in pairs, Lina with Liz and Arin with Jude.

Of her new friends who were now staying at Greene's Cabin, Arin's favorite was Jude.

He was bright and energetic, quick and clever, and was always very kind to her. He talked a lot about anything, though his subject always changed, and while the others didn't seem to care, Arin liked to listen with wrapped attention.

While Liz and Lina took to the left side of the cabin for home searching, Jude and Arin took to the right.

They started with the hills, from the bases to the tops looking holes and crevices or places where the earth was soft and good for digging dens.

Then they moved to the land in the hill circle, finding hollow trees and logs, more deep holes and dens, shelters under rocks and other little spaces, all of which they marked with the pieces of bright cloth tied to little sticks stuck in the ground next to each potential home.

They finished their scouting and met back up with Lina and Liz at the base of the hill beneath Greene's Cabin and started their home-evaluation-tour, but were not able to finish; not even a quarter way through, it began to rain, sending the children indoors as fast as they could scramble up the hill.

It rained hard for hours with no signs of stopping. Evan went into the Sky Room. Alistair took a nap on the rug, the pounding of the rain on the roof seemed to soothe him. Linaria and Liz sat down to play a game together, taking turns writing on a paper. Jude borrowed some pieces of paper from the girls and started folding them to make little paper figures, he called this 'origami' and Arin watched with fascination, carefully inspecting each of them when he finished.

Eventually, Jude tired of origami and stretched out on the rug next to Alistair, hands behind his head, legs crossed, staring at the ceiling.

Arin took the origami figures and went into her bedroom, closing the small, Arin-sized door that Evan had made just for her, behind her without making a sound.

Arin's room was a special room Evan had made just for her. It was cozy and round, with a round bed that hung on ropes attached to the ceiling in the middle of it so that she could climb right onto the bed (it was about two feet off the floor) and swing on it if she wanted to. The walls around had 'floating shelves' on which she kept her things, and a little round table with three round stools, all Arin-sized, stood to one side of her little chamber. Everything was the color of the wood it had been made out of and her bed was covered in a warm quilt of many colors that Gwanwyn had made for her.

Oh Gwanwyn.

How much Arin missed her. After setting the origami on one of the shelves, she curled up in the quilt, wrapping herself in it like in one of Gwanwyn's warm hugs, oh how much she wanted one of those hugs right about now. But no, Gwanwyn was away with Istelle, and Arin was alone here in her round room with her origami's and her quilt with the rain pounding hard outside. She could see it out of the one, big, round window Evan had made sure to put right above the round table in the only big spot of wall without shelving.

She got out of bed, still wrapped in her quilt and closed the curtains. Then she got back on her bed, buried herself in the quilt and cried herself to sleep.

"Arin?"

Arin was in a state of half-consciousness when two light knocks on the door and the sound of someone calling her name brought her out of her sleepy state and back to reality.

"C-come in…" she called back, horrified at the choked up sound of her own voice. She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve and dove back under just as Jude entered the room, squatting to get through the little door.

"Nice room. Really cool bed. Want me to swing you?"

Arin peeked out from the quilt, eyes red and swollen, and shook her head.

"What's wrong?"

"...I miss Gwanwyn."

Arin scooted over in her quilt so that Jude could take a seat on the bed. He did.

"Want me to get Evan?"

"Not yet"

Lina entered the room, Liz ducking under the door behind her.

"You have a really cool bedroom Arin," said Liz, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"She misses Gwanwyn" Jude answered.

"Aw," said Lina, patting Arin sympathetically, she must be like a mother to you."

"Yes." Arin agreed, "she makes me things and plays with me and talks with me and always takes care of me—" she covered her face with the quilt as she started to cry again.

The three exchanged glances "You know Arin, we're all here away from our families too" said Liz gently, "our parents are in a whole nother time in the future and there's no telling when we'll see them again."

Lina looked at the ground, suddenly sad, "our siblings and friends and pets are all very far away."

"We know what you're going through," said Jude, putting his arm around her. "Now let's take you to Evan."

After burying Muriel, Jake and Alkezavier set out in the direction of the Akeefa warrior town Atzigul, which was about half a day's walk away.

This time, they carefully avoided the swamps, not wishing to encounter the little elves again.

They hiked in silence until they could just barely see the lights from the town, then decided to get ready for the night; using magic to make little ditches in the ground just the right size to fit each of them lying down, filling the ditches with leaves, then using magic to stretch and thicken their cloaks to make them suitable blankets.

Jake was the one to perform most of the spells since they were verbal and Zavier could not speak ever since performing Servadem.

They snacked on some berries they found but not enough to satisfy them. Jake suggested they go to the village and get some bread the next morning to which Alekzavier agreed with a nod.

They spent the night there under the trees in their ditches, and in the morning Jake shrunk their coats back to normal and they set out towards the town.

From the outside, the town looked like many stone buildings stretching in a line far to the right and left. On some parts, it was also surrounded by broken down pieces of what was once a wall.

As the mages got closer to the town, Alekzavier nudged Jake, then pointed to something low to the ground several feet in front and to their right. A brown rope poking out of a bush and going back into another. A trap.

The boys stepped over the rope and kept going, more cautiously now.

Soon, they found an opening in the row of houses with two wooden columns on either side of it. An entrance to Atzigul.

The mages looked at each other, then entered the town.

Atzigul was a small town, most of the houses were along the edge, with lots of free space in the middle.

It wasn't a very busy town since the people who stayed there were Akeefa warriors. They never stayed at the town for very long because they rotated from war to Atzigul to training and back to war.

In the open spaces around the middle of the town, the mages could see clusters of trees and bushes, the occasional firepit or well, and many scattered old crates and barrels.

The food and supplies of the Atzigul stayers were delivered to each house in crates and barrels once a week, so there was no need for shops, nor anyone there to tend them.

The only non-warrior building in the entire village was the tavern that stood off to the mages' left.

"So...I guess we'll just walk around and knock on doors 'till we find the girl?" Jake said, looking at Zavier. He shrugged and crossed to the first house on the right. It was round, and like all the houses, was made of grey stone with a wooden door.

"Uhh okay," Jake followed Zavier.

Though their first two knocks yielded no response, on the third, someone appeared from around the house. A tall, thin young man with blonde hair and brown eyes in a long black summer cloak similar to that of the mages. He looked a little surprised to see the mages. "Friends or foes?" he asked.

"Uh, friends. We're just here to ask if you know anything about where we might find a redhead named Istelle?"

The blonde man frowned at them, a mix of suspicion and disapproval, then opened the door and went into his house, closing it behind him.

"Jeez," said Jake, as Alekzavier did a facepalm next to him. The silent mage walked a little ways off until he found a stick under a tree which he used to write a word in the dirt. Manners.

"Man, we're going to be stopping and asking at every house in the entire dang village, we don't have time for manners!"

His friend looked at him, still kneeling on the ground, stick in hand. His message was clear on his face. And only have results as good as this one each time.

"Fine."

And so they continued.

Knock.

"Friends or foes?"

"Friends. We are neutral mages Jake and Alekzavier."

"And I am Czerainha. What brings you here?"

"We would like to inquire about the whereabouts of a certain red-headed young woman by the name of Istelle?"

"I do not have answers for you."

"All right, thank you for your time."

After three more such exchanges, Jake rolled his eyes "this is getting us nowhere," but followed his friend to the next house anyway.

This time the door to a large, rectangular home opened on its own and a young woman in her early twenties with straight, light-brown hair was coming out when the mages got to her.

"Friends or foes?"

"Friends. I am Jake and this is Alekzavier, we are neutral mages."

"Good Morning. How may I be of use?"

"We'd just like to inquire about the whereabouts of a red-headed Akeefa warrior Istelle?"

The woman frowned. She seemed to know who they were talking about.

"And why is this?"

"We have a message to deliver to her."

"From who?"

"...I don't know her name. An Akeefa warrior who also had red hair. We uh, found her dying. Her left hand was sliced off and there was a poison dart in her leg. She didn't tell us what happened, just that she has important information that needs to be passed on to her best friend with the Mark of Fire on her hand. So Alekzavier performed Servadem with her, that's why he's so quiet, or else he wouldn't stop talking. We need to give the information to Istelle. So where is she?"

Alekzavier shook his head at his friend, while the woman looked positively alarmed.

"Well you see," she answered slowly, "that is a problem."

"What is?"

"I...do not know where Istelle is. She disappeared many days ago. And because she is the daughter of the Chief, the bearer of the mark of fire, and an amazing warrior, we have been sending out mini search parties ever since the third day she didn't return. Soren, her lover, vanished as well."

"Oh...well thanks…"

The two mages headed for the nearest exit from the town which they'd passed one house ago.

So Istelle wasn't in the town. She could be anywhere. Or she could be dead.