Searching for the Key

Chapter 29

He smiled down at her and ruffled her already messy hair.

"Are you going to be okay though?" He asked.

"Yeah I just have to rest. If you were watching your back and didn't get that bad of a wound I wouldn't be this tired," Katia joked weakly.

"Hey! For your information I was fighting off ten at a time," Jason protested while trying to keep a stern face, but a smile kept breaking through, and he ended up laughing. He really missed Katia and still couldn't get over the fact that she was okay.

Nathan picked Katia up bridal style and carried her to Jason's tent with the rest of their friends following. They mended their wounds and helped others. Katia, Nathan, Celia, and Damien stayed in the tent resting while the others went back out to help the injured and gather the ones who died.

After a little while, someone peeked their head into the tent.

"Asher!" Katia exclaimed.

She jumped up and hugged Jason's best friend tightly. He had some pretty nasty cuts, but he was grinning as always.

"Hey kitkat! You scared me quite a bit back there," Asher told her sternly.

"Yeah sorry about that," Katia apologized with a shrug of her shoulder. "Wasn't really my choice though."

Asher rolled his eyes and then turned to the rest of them. "Saladin wanted to see the four of you."

They exchanged a look before exiting their ten and heading over to Saladin's. He was sitting alone in the middle of the floor and looked like he www meditating.

"Good Asher relayed my message," Saladin said as he opened his eyes. "I wanted to talk to the four of you."

"Sure we happen to have some questions of our own," Nathan told him.

"Especially me," Katia said.

Saladin gestured to the floor which was filled with pillows of all sizes. They each took a seat on a large round pillow. Saladin looked at each of them with his usual energy back and a huge smile on his face.

"You did it!" He said gleefully. "Against all odds!"

"And there were a lot of odds," Celia mumbled.

The four of them let out small laughs as they thought about every moment that went wrong but they were able to get past. It still all seemed impossible when they thought back on the crazy events they went through the past few days.

"Yes the biggest one I'm guessing is what Katia went through," Saladin said gently.

They all sobered up and nodded. Katia avoided everyone's glances and just looked at the ground. She knew it wasn't her fault she attacked her friends, but it didn't stop the feeling of guilt that rushed through her.

"What happened to me?" Katia asked.

"You had a powerful ancient curse put on you and broke it," Saladin said simply and then began to explain in fuller detail. "Akur put a powerful curse that alters your soul and makes it evil, filling the person with hatred and darkness. They also forget all memories from their life as the evil takes over. There are others in history who have had the curse put on them but they weren't able to break it. They had to be killed. But you, Katia, were the first person to break a curse thought impossible to be broken."

They were all staring up at wonder at him. Nathan, Celia, and Damien couldn't believe Katia went through all of that and lived. Even Katia didn't know how to feel.

"That's why it hurt so much," Katia said quietly but everyone heard her. They looked at her sympathetically, and her three friends reached over and gave her a huge hug. She gave them grateful smiles and took in a shaky breath. "But how was I able to break it?"

"You're a fighter," Saladin said. "You fought and remembered, and from what I saw, Nathan helped a lot with that."

"Yeah he helped me remember," Katia said. She thought back and recalled how she was trapped in a column of rock and flame with Nathan. How he held her and told her about every moment they spent together. She glanced at Nathan and blushed lightly.

"But I think it was too much," Saladin continued as if he was never interrupted. "Breaking the curse required too much of you, and the effort killed you. The curse was broken but you were gone."

"Then how did I come back?" Katia asked.

Saladin raised his hand and pointed directly at Nathan with a smile. Nathan's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

"This young man right here is the reason you are with us now."

They all stared at him in shock, but Nathan looked the most surprised.

"Me? How could I have saved her?" Nathan exclaimed in shock.

"You, Nathan, can control the air, and it turns out you possess a rare power, the breath of life. You can bring a person you truly love back," Saladin told him with a smile when he saw Nathan blushing.

"Look Nathan is blushing!" Celia joked and pointed at Nathan's reddening face.

"Stop it!" He said and blew a wind that made her collapse on to the pillows. Celia normally would've fought back, but she couldn't stop laughing. She was doubled over and clutching her stomach. They all began to crack up when they saw Celia's rolling figure.

"Is that all the questions you have?" Saladin asked them with an amused expression as he watched them joke around.

"Yes," Katia laughed. "Thanks Saladin for everything."

"No thank you," Saladin said. "We suffered losses and lost good people, but the outcome could have been a lot more catastrophic. I'm proud of the four of you. Now go be with your friends and family."

Katia, Nathan, Celia, and Damien stood up with pride in their chests and walked out of the tent laughing and throwing pillows at each other the entire way.

They helped everyone pack up their camps and met up with their friends. Saladin made his tent into a portal to take them back, and by the time they returned to Aevria, it was already early afternoon.

Someone laid the Elictis that died in a row in the city circle and laid colored fabric over them. In total about thirty died, some older, some younger, and some were Katia's friends. Mason fought hard but died along with Philip, along with people she became close with during training.

Funerals there were sad but different from the ones Katia usually went to. The people were mournful, but they had smiles on their faces. Even though the people they loved were gone, they would still be with them as long as their memories lived on. That's why they would just spend the time sharing their favorite moments with that person and doing things that they loved. There were people painting for one of the moms that died and soccer games going on to honor Philip. After dinner, they had a game of battle forts for Mason. Katia's team fought hard to win it for him. They strategized and worked perfectly together. Soon the fort was theirs. They raised a flag with a picture of Mason and screamed his name, not wanting to blow up their tribute to him.

At nightfall everyone met up for a giant campfire where people shared more stories and ate s'mores. Then in the light of the moon, they buried the bodies. Everyone went down to the fields together, friends and family. Fires were lit beside each person's grave in their favorite color and burned through the night, dotting the field with multicolored lights that represented life rather than death.

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Author's Note: Only one more chapter after this! Please vote, comment, and fan! I also posted a new story I'm working on if you guys want to check it out. It's called The Light in the Dark.