The Vale

C25

"Are you almost done it do I have to wait another hour?" I ask Nate, not bothering to hide my irritation. It's like he's trying to rile me up because he's annoying the shit out of me. It's a good thing that he can't read my mind because what's going through it right now isn't pleasant.

He snorts and rolls his eyes playfully at me. "You are no fun, Cami." I glare, which makes him raises his hands up in surrender. "Okay. Okay, okay, play time's over, let's get to work."

Finally.

I sigh in relief and raise my leg over the bench before sitting opposite Nate. "What to do now?" I ask, eyeing the map.

He drops his elbows on his thigh and rests his chin on his fist. "That depends, who are you trying to locate?"

"My parents." I answer.

"Easy," he removes his chin from his fist and dips his hand through the pocket of his short, for someone that told me he had class. He brings out a pocket knife. "You aren't afraid of blood, are you?" He asks as he drags the controller up, revealing the blade.

"How long have you been carrying that with you?"

He shrugs. "Give me your palm, all I need is a little blood." He says.

I mean it's easy, I get it, since they are my parents and we share the same blood. It's better that no one except the headmaster knows that I'm adopted. That'll save me load of questions.

I stretch my palm out and Nate drops the knife in it, not cutting me himself. "If you're going to bleed then do it yourself," he answers like he can hear what I'm thinking about. "Why do a location spell? Why not just call them?" He doesn't sound curious.

Ignoring his question, I take the knife, not thinking twice as I proceed to cut my palm with it. The blood rushes out as the knife tears my skin. I put the knife down and look at Nate for the next thing to do.

"Just squeeze like two to three drops on the map, and make sure not to turn it into a bloody sheet," he warns and picks up his knife.

I do as he says, squeezing my hand above the map and watch my blood drip on it. I pull away and see Nate whisper something, his knife becomes clean after that. He returns it inside his pocket and stares at the map.

"Oh, great. Now, let's begin." He wipes his palms on his short and cast the location finder spell. "Lass dess locoso."

The blood begins to to spread around the map. I smile and wait anxiously. This is the moment I've been waiting for. The moment I find my biological parents, I–

The trails of the blood begins to circulate the map but that's not the only thing weird, it's spreading everywhere.

"Is it supposed to be doing this?" I ask and look at Nate, who seems like he doesn't have any idea of what's going on.

My red blood begins to turn black. I stand up and ask, "what's going on? Nate, what is happening?"

He shake his head. "I don't know, I–"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence as the a surge of power releases from the map, the energy pushes both of us away. I groan as my back slams against the wall but that's not the only part of me that's broken. My eyes finds the bench or what's left of it. The surge must have ruined the map.