Burning Blood (Zeal)

Tilly should have been here by now, Zeal sighed.

While lying on his makeshift bed, he looked at the map he had spent two days obsessively dotting over on the table in his tent.

Zeal had studied the area between the Ash Lands and Dark Lands. At this point, he knew the geographical layout of these lands like the back of his hand.

His hair was a mess. He had not left the tent in two days. If it weren't for Bellemy bringing him food and water, he would have looked more like a ghost at this point.

While two days was not enough to make a person die, two days without sleep is another matter entirely.

All he could think about was the weakening veil into the Ash Lands, but now that he had planned for all probable outcomes, he was ready to explore the area further.

"Hasn't Bell brought breakfast yet?" Zeal thought to himself.

He was getting a little hungry, but first, he decided to get some much-needed sleep.

"Commander, there is a fire in the village. Should we assist?" a soldier said from outside Zeal's tent.

Where's Bell?

"We haven't seen the captain since last night; his intelligence unit is also missing."

"Then he must know something about what is happening, or did he do this himself?" Zeal thought.

No, I will go to the village. You have the men stand ready to follow at my signal.

He thought it best to assess the situation himself. He wouldn't want to unintentionally ruin anything Bellemy might have been planning.

"What will the signal be?" the soldier asked.

You will know it when you see it.

He pushed his luxurious white porcelain box behind his makeshift bed with bags under his eyes and grabbed his white coat.

Upon exiting his tent, he could see the fire that burned and the smoke it produced being pushed downwind with the feints screams in the distance.

"Well, that explains why I couldn't smell any smoke from here," he thought.

Bring me a horse.

He wondered if it was indeed something Bellemy would plan. After all, it seemed a little crude and not his typical style. Well, there could have been other factors that influenced his decisions. It was too soon to rule him out just yet.

Another culprit could be whoever was in the woods two nights ago, but that person had yet to make their presence known, so probably not.

Zeal's eyes closed for a few seconds.

"Oh, that's bad. I'm starting to doze off; I'll finish this quickly," he thought.

His soldier returned with a horse. He told them only to follow him once they had seen the signal and no sooner. He noticed the soldiers looking at the large black phoenix boldly printed on the back of his white coat as they confirmed that they had received the order.

"Yes, sir!!!" the men shouted.

He rode toward the village, his thoughts clouded by sleep deprivation. He thought it best to see things up close before making any decisions.

As he approached, he caught sight of a villager on the ground, and the screams he had heard from afar were more vivid and sounded more like scared people who had no direction.

Oh, that is interesting, Zeal said to himself.

What he was watching was a creature in transition, not exactly a Touched but not entirely human either what was truly fascinating about it was it had remained undetectable. Typically, when humans turn, their screams carry the sorrow of their fleeting memories, but more than that, Zeal should have been able to smell the blood that smelled of a metallic rotting flesh. He can smell this on the fully turned Touched as well.

This one was practically invisible. To him, if he had not seen it with his own eyes, he may not have believed it.

But why is a turning Touched even here? The reason no one knows the true nature of these vile creatures is, for whatever reason, they are drawn to the Ash Lands like a moth to a flame. And only rarely do they find their way out of that place in a desperate attempt to return home.

Poor bastard, who are you here for? Zeal said to himself.

Zeal watched from afar as the creature tore through the village, his vision obstructed by the fires that burned their huts to the ground. He deduced that it somehow found a way out of the Ash Lands, perhaps due to the weakening veil or perhaps it was never stuck to begin with.

His ears perked as he heard a voice that sounded like Annabelle's own voice.

He rode into the village toward the voice he heard; he passed fleeing villagers and those asking for help alike.

He saw Amelia with her tiny body trying to pick up a large burning piece of oak that pinned Annabelle's legs down.

The villagers scrambled around with some trying to pick Amelia up so they could escape. Amelia forced herself out of their hands and ran toward the burning oak.

Zeal took out his clean cloth and held it over his nose. The metallic stench of blood in the village became more and more sickening.

He watched as they all tried to save the child and escape, men and women, both young and old, with only fear in their eyes.

These are the people you call family! Zeal shouted.

Amelia turned as she heard him and ran straight toward his horse with a hand out as if she was asking for help and her other hand pointed toward the burning oak as if to say my mother is trapped; please help her.

Zeal dismounted the horse after noticing that Amelia's hands had severe burns. She had not even cried out. Did she not feel the pain, or were the shock and adrenaline masking it?

Your mother will die here. That was her wish, Zeal said.

He tore a piece of the dress shirt he wore and tried to wrap Amelia's hands with it. However, Amelia thrust her whole body into Zeal, and the first tear on her face appeared.

Zeal held her and spoke. If I save her now, how would she suffer for the choices she made?

Amelia pushed herself out of his hands and ran toward the burning oak.

So, you, too, choose death?

He could not understand why everyone seemed to choose death. If they would just do as he says, death would not find them.

Zeal stood and watched as Amelia failed to move the burning Oak, Annabelle seemed alive, just unconscious, but she would die soon enough. The burning oak was the trunk of a tree that fell on her, crushing part of the hut.

Should she not be freed soon, the hut would collapse on her. If that didn't kill her, suffocation would.

The creature ran past Zeal and toward a fleeing villager in front of him.

As Zeal mounted his horse, he told Amelia she could come to the woods and find him if she were to survive though he would not be surprised if she passed out from her burns or died from shock.

He heard Annabelle coughing,

"Amelia, run!"

Amelia began to cry silently and became more frantic.

"Zeal nu Zabek, save my daughter!"

Zeal's eye suddenly changed to a deep orange without consciously or unconsciously gathering the void mist himself.

He could feel the pull of Annabelle's unconscious release of void magic known as Zero-Sense. The magic only his mother could use at least in the last two hundred years or so.

This magic allowed one to eliminate all senses Sight, Touch, Hearing, Taste and Smell by opening a void where they could feel everything and nothing simultaneously.

His mother explained it as being able to physically touch someone's soul from anywhere in the world. This magic was so potent that she was heralded as the second walking natural disaster since the primordial Zynovia.

Zeal walked toward her as if an invisible string was pulling him.

After tearing a few fleeing villagers apart, the creature turned toward Zeal and began its flurry of attacks.

It was far more agile than any human, dashing from hut to hut in the blink of an eye, trying to land a hit against Zeal with its undeveloped claws.

Perhaps it was because Zeal could not smell it, making it unique somehow, but when Zeal raised his hand to grab it, it dashed around him.

A sudden feeling of displacement washed over Zeal as he sank into the floor, the morning skies rapidly darkening.

What is this? Zeal thought.

"How could I miss a creature moving that slow? Wait, where am I? I can't feel myself."

The image of his white porcelain box and the dual pistols it holds was right in front of him. He reached out and touched the artefact level items created by his late mother. "How can this be? I left these in the tent. Did I fall asleep?" he thought.

"Save my daughter, Zeal!"

Zeal heard that plea in the echo of the dark void he found himself in.

"This must be Annabelle's doing," he thought. "Is this what it feels like."

Quiet Annabelle, I heard you the first time, but I don't need those weapons for insects.

Zeal grabbed the black void before him; he pushed his fingers in and tore through it like claws through a curtain.

As the black curtain of void disappeared, the creature appeared in front of him, torn into five parts, one for each finger on his hand.

The villagers had frozen in place, and the silence loomed as the creature fell to the ground, having been torn to pieces in the very literal sense of the word. The amount of fear the villagers had cumulatively generated at that moment far surpassed their fear up until this point.

Zeal's vision clouded in a deep orange, the colour of his turned eyes as he looked at the villages washed by that same deep orange. He saw all their fear manifested above them in the skull of death directed toward him as clear as day.

Annabelle screamed for the first time since she regained consciousness hard enough to burst her lungs if she had not passed out from the shock; no longer was she raving on about her daughter. Zeal knew that the terror she felt was from all the villagers.

As his mother said, that magic allows one to feel everything and nothing simultaneously. Right now, the villagers were looking into the face of death, so death was what she felt.