A Heart Of Fire

After riding for another five minutes, they slowed down their pace since the soldiers were now out of sight and they needed to put less stress on their horses. After that, they rode for another half an hour before finding a river while a bunch of trees. They stopped at the tiny paradise and let their tired horses rest and quench their thirst while the rest of them took cover under the shades of the trees to get out of the sun.

It was just the beginning of the afternoon and yet it is already hotter than what they felt yesterday when the sun was at its highest peak. Yep, they were definitely making progress. They still had a long way to get to Otane, but now that they have horses, the trip will be much shorter.

"How did you get so far from Otane anyway?" Kies asked the three. The distance wasn't something they could cover in one day so they had to have been on the run for several days at the very least. He was interested in how they managed to make it that far by carriage when they were getting pursued by so many soldiers.

Iris made an innocent face and explained to Kies, "We first borrowed a couple of horses from the stable to get out of the castle and Otane. Then we borrowed a wyvern from the army camp outside. After that, we flew across the desert and landed on top of a merchant's carriage and scared him into running away. Then we 'borrowed' the carriage and then we met you."

"Huh." In other words, they stole a bunch of transportation and made it that far. Since they took a wyvern, that explains how they managed to cover so much distance while having almost no supplies on them. The wyvern likely took them across the entire desert and then partially through the plains before dropping them off on some poor unfortunate merchant.

"Do you guys have wyvern riders?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, we do."

Wyverns were creatures that resembled dragons but were much smaller. They had a bunch of major differences with the biggest being their size and wings. Wyvern has their wings attached to their front arms while dragons have them on their back. Anyhow, wyverns are only found in Otane, on its high rocky cliffs and deep ravines. They are infamous for their nasty tempers and it was only recently with the help of the elves that they managed to tame a few to add to their forces.

"Anyway, why do you talk like you don't know these things? What village are you from? You look old enough to know about the war and yet you don't know anything about Otane. Are you one of the survivors from Siverfield?"

"You can say that."

Iris frowns at Kies' response. "Why do you never give me a clear answer? You do know that girls don't like guys that like to beat around the bush right?"

"What makes you think I care about that?"

Iris walks up to Kies until she is just an inch from his face. Kies didn't flinch or take a step back. The hood of the cloak hid Kies' eyes from her and Iris couldn't his entire face. "You really are a weird one..."

"Is there something wrong with being weird?"

"No... There's nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I'm far from being ordinary as well."

"I can see that."

"But..." Iris leans in and whispers in Kies' ear, "There's one small difference between you and me."

Kies nudges her away, not understanding why she was getting so close. "And that is?"

"I pay attention to my surroundings." Iris jumped away while spinning something in her hand. It took Kies a moment to recognize what the thing was and once he did, he tried to snatch the object back from here.

"Nope!" Iris jumped back again to prevent Kies from snatching it back. Kies tried again but Iris didn't give him the chance to and nimbly climbed up to one of the lower branches and sat down, dangling her legs over on top of him.

"..." Kies was tempted to knock her out of the tree with wing magic and it took all his willpower not to. He was pretty sure that she would be able to land safely on the ground if he did considering how she scurried up the tree just like a cat, but it was better off not doing it in case he did hurt her. Plus, it would expose the fact that he can use magic and he didn't want that to happen.

"Is this a magical tool too?" Iris asks Kies as he examines the thing that she took from Kies. It was the dragonskin pouch containing the moonstone and letter written in demonic that Kies has yet to decipher. He didn't encounter many demons on his adventure and whenever he did, they mistook him for a human and attacked him. Kies would try to explain his identity to them but they would never listen and therefore, he never had the chance to figure out what the letter read.

Iris tried opening the pouch but couldn't. "What material is this?" She tugged on the dragonskin but couldn't get it to pry open. Kies had replaced the old string with a magical one that could only be unzipped and zipped with magic. In other words, normal people couldn't open the pouch. In other words, he had nothing to worry about.

Or so, that was what he thought, but Kies heard her go, "Oooo!" as she somehow opened the pouch. She peeked into the pouch before reaching in with her fingers.

"What!?" Kies quickly grabbed a stick lying on the ground and threw it at her, hoping to hit her or the bag and have her drop it.

"Wooah!" Iris tilts her head back and loses her balance on the branch.

"Princess!" Sirks runs under the branch to catch her. For a moment, they all thought that she will fall off, but she does a 360 around the branch with her legs and sits right back up.

"Woo, that was close." The close continued to go through the contents of the bag while Kies just watched her from down under with the rest. Kies really thought that he might've injured her there and had been ready to catch her with his wind magic if she did fall, but luckily it didn't happen. Now, he could only watch as she took out his things from the pouch. "Aha, so you did have more magic items," she announces out loud to everyone as she takes out the moonstone and folded letter.

"So, what does this do?" she asks Kies while tossing the moonstone up and down in her hand.

"What makes you think that rock is magical?" Kies asks her. She shouldn't be able to feel its aura unless she was a mage herself, which Kies pretty sure she wasn't.

"What makes me think that? Well, this is why." Iris places the letter in her other hand along with the moonstone and holds out her free hand. She extends out her index fire and shouts, "Spark!" A tiny flame appears on top of her index finger.

"..." So she turned out to actually be a mage.

She then flicks her finger and sends the small flame at Kies. It hits his cloak and disappears immediately. "Wow, even your cloak is enchanted! It dispelled the fire!"

"..."

"By God, just how many magic items do you have!?" Sirks asked him. Now all three of them were staring at him and waiting for him to tell them. Kies kept his lips sealed and didn't say a word.

"Looks like you don't want to tell us. At least tell me what these two things do," Iris points at the moonstone and the letter. "Is this some sort of a magic scroll?" she asks while unfolding the letter and looking at it. "How do I cast it? Explode! Activate! Start!" Iris shouted random words in an attempt to activate the not-so-magical piece of paper. "Argh! How do you use this!? Actually, why am I asking you? Do you even know what these items are?"

"What do you mean?"

"This pouch requires magic to open and close. I don't sense a trace of magic on you which means it could be one of two things. One, you're a mage too and your cloak is blocking out the magic, or two, you're not a mage and couldn't open this and so you kept this around," she deduced it had to be either of those two options.

Iris had hit a bullseye with the first guess but Kies lied and told her, "I'm not a mage."

"You're not? Oh, that makes sense why you want this necklace then. This rock can store magic power, and you probably knew about this beforehand. And because of this rock, you want this necklace so that you can use magic, right?" Iris asks while taking out the fragment from underneath her shirt. Kies looked at the fragment. This was his first time seeing it. It was clear as the sky and rather big compared to the others he has found so far. "Not a bad idea-"

A strong wind slammed into her and she had to lift her arm to protect her face. "Hm? Why is it so windy all of the sudden?" Iris cluelessly looks around. The wind was rustling the leaves of the tree and blowing some of it off. Her fiery red hair looked like actual flames as the winds lifted them up from her shoulders.

"That was weird." The winds died as abruptly as they appeared. Iris fixed her hair and went back to messing with the moonstone and the letter.

That was close. Kies felt the fragment calling out to him and it subconsciously brought out his wind magic.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Iris continued where she left off before the winds so rudely interrupted her. "It's not a bad idea, but there's limited magic in this stone. You can only use a few spells with the necklace before it becomes useless. And also, to use this magic necklace, you need to be a mage. It's not like your sword where you can call it out of... wherever it is that it comes out of."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, I tried giving this necklace to Wompa to use, but she couldn't use it since she isn't a mage."

"I see." That explains a lot of things. From how she managed to open the pouch to how she is able to use the fragment's powers. She was channeling her own magic into the objects to activate them. She was a magic user this whole time and a fire mage at that...

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