~ 61: The Night of Blessings and Curses - Part 6 ~

I couldn't make out how long it had been, but the stars in the night sky seemed to have dimmed out a little. I could tell that we had spent at least three hours in this arena just by looking at them. There was only one large gap amidst the thicket where there were no leaves of trees to hide the sky. Lucas must have walked all the way here, carrying me away from the heat.

I got up slowly from the top of his body, where I had nestled in quite comfortably without realisation. His face looked slightly haggard, yet never less admirable under the twilight. I shifted the hair from his forehead to check his temperature as I feared he had caught a fever.

All of a sudden, he caught my wrist as my fingers whisked underneath his fringes. I gasped in a short second he had frightened me. I was afraid that the poison he had sucked out had caused him to be exhausted. I still wasn't affected by it except the immediate effects. Perhaps the venom of Salvita was a slow-killer.

"You have no idea about my resistance to poison and venom," he said as he sat upright and looked at me through the gaps between his fringes. "Life gives you more agony to build some strengths. I am only afraid of how your body is going to respond to the insignificant amount of it present in your bloodstream."

"If it is a slow-killer, it might kill me," I said in a tired voice as he slipped into my head yet again. "It's not like life was meant to be a long one, anyway."

"You won't die so easily. That's all I can say at the moment. Let's get going. There's still one more to cross before we take a good rest."

"Also, you entered my head again. I thought magic wasn't allowed."

"We didn't communicate at all through telepathy. So we haven't used any magic. Besides, your face is rather readable for me."

I gave him a small pout as he pointed at my so-called "readable face". His snicker had me smack his arm lightly, although my palm smarted from the force I received from his strong bicep.

We trudged through the thicket before the heat hit my face as we had arrived at the last trench. My heart felt heavy and queasy as I took one look at the ropes.

"What if this time all the ropes fall into the flames?" I asked as I watched the lava bubble and split into fiery tiny balls in horror. "There's no way we would be able to prevent death this time."

"Don't think too much," he answered. "If that were the case, the few people wouldn't have been able to pass through this."

"After seeing all the bones below, I dare say they passed through this trial."

"You wish. Even if that were the case, we would find a solution. A trial is only tricky as long as it can't be solved. So this time, I will go first for your sake."

This trench, unlike the others, had quite many branches that had grown into trees. From the top, one could make out that the reason for so many trees could only be possible if the people, who tried to cross it, had plummeted to their deaths.

Just to be on the safer side, we both created four ropes. One was hung to the tree before the takeoff, and the next two were to keep us company. It was to avoid the situation where we would get stuck down there, as I did before, and needed to attach it to the nearest tree before the ropes and us would burn in the hell lying below. The third was attached to one of the stout small trees on the earth wall, in case we couldn't cross at all.

Lucas climbed up the tree on the left. He said that he preferred the left more as he could see the surroundings better with his right eye, which was normal and open. He didn't want to depend on the left one as the usage of magic was forbidden.

I saw him takeoff, causing my heart to drum against my ribs at the danger lurking in the swinging hangings. He had hardly touched the left rope when all the vines started to fall, despite them having maintained the five oscillations time.

I yelled out in fright as he fell. His next leap had gotten him to catch the safety rope we had installed there just in time. I heaved a sigh of relief as he readied himself to catch the middle rope.

The second try was no less successful and he had to use the safety rope again. The third trial proved futile after which he just climbed up the safety rope. I hoisted him up with my arm and then we sat on the ground.

"What are we doing wrong?" he questioned. "I believed you when you said that the three ropes would be a hard try. Never did I want to believe that we couldn't get to the other side. Yet how are we supposed to solve this riddle?"

"Let me give it a try," I answered and readied myself for the spring. "I believe what you said about people having crossed it to be true. So there has to be a solution."

I climbed no tree and simply did what we had been doing all this time. I ran and made my leap, caught onto the middle rope and landed softly and skillfully on the other side at one go. That was the first time determination had hit me hard and fear had completely disappeared. I had found the answer to the puzzle.

"What is the answer?" screamed Lucas amidst the roaring, bubbling lava.

"To believe in your abilities," I shouted back. "You can do it."

The next moment, the dark figure outdid himself by landing beside me in less than ten seconds. We sat beside each other, with our legs hanging down the edge as we watched all the three ropes fall.

"All this time, I had feared the time when the rope would snap," he spoke as we held each other's hands, glad to still have the other with us. "Your intuition was certainly right that the three of them would fall. But who would have known that what the heart felt was to interfere with reality?"

We huffed a laugh as we retraced the memory together.

"Perhaps, it is to teach us a life lesson. The fact that we are faced with uncertainties must not make us fear what we can do to change it. Let's hope that this little tool shall help us in the future against all odds."

"Every little thing is a value earned. And this one I earned today was thanks to you. I would proclaim before the whole world that my allegiance to you shall never break in the face of any difficulties."

"And I can promise you that I can't let someone like you go away too soon, in spite of all the annoying things you do."

We laughed merrily as we thought of all the things that had passed. A few minutes later, we walked hand-in-hand, with the two ropes still bound around our waists for we knew not what adventure lay ahead of us.