Fate and Destiny (The Fated Series, #2)

Chapter 85 - Branka - Barrier Breaker

Eleven days.

Eleven days we've been walking up and down, up and down, sleeping in the fucking cold either in clothes that don't hold in heat or no clothes at all. Don't even get me started on the latter.

Neither of us was particularly excited about the first day it snowed and soaked our clothes in the bitter frost. It pelted our faces as we walked up the first mountain top, a rope connecting us to the waist so we didn't lose each other in the storm. We found the smallest indent in the mountainside and huddled there for the night. Even with the wood I summoned and the quick work of two rock's friction didn't bring us solace. The wind blew the heat away, resulting in us begrudgingly sharing a bedroll and what was left of each other's body heat. I will admit, I didn't mind snuggling up to his large form, but he seems to have something against me.

For eleven days I've bugged his large ass. Pelting him with questions after questions about the forest, the land, the shoreline, where we're heading...pretty much anything that I could possibly think of. He tried staying silent for two days, but that's about as long as he lasted before threatening to cut the rope and leave me behind.

We've had to share a bed six more times since then, and I haven't missed the fact that his arm always ends up around me come morning. I pretend to be asleep when he wakes, liking how he so quickly removes himself from me as if I were a lion about to chop off his head. But at least I've gotten something out of it. Well, two somethings. Warmth, and information.

He finally gave in a cycle ago when we hit our third mountain top, answering my questions after I, myself, took a vow of silence for three days. I didn't ask questions after the previous five days of nonstop self conversing. I'm pretty sure he hated the silence more than I did, and that's saying a lot.

On our ninth morning about an hour since we had woken up and continued our journey, he told me about the forest. I didn't ask questions for a while, letting him talk for a chance and enjoying just how much he seemed to not only know the landscape, but love it. Odd for someone to love a place that seems keen on killing us, but he pretty much confirmed what - who I had then known as Kairos, and now know to be Draven, the leader of the Fiend - had told me. The forest moves at a slower time than the outside world. The Fiend are the creatures of the night, ruled by the anger they walked into the forest with. The Roamers are the spirits of lost souls, not dangerous to anyone.

The new information I gleaned from him would've been twenty times more helpful at the beginning of my long-ass stay in this cursed place. The Fiend, for example, are creatures of the night because they're stronger at night. They draw strength from the moon to gain their speed, strength, and intensive sense of smell. They have no eyes because that is who they've chosen to become. Their anger burns their eyes, leaving them unable to see the world or any family, friends, or loved ones they once were able to see.

The Roamers are as they sound. They roam the forest in search of their souls. Spirits without souls, as he put it, cannot leave into the afterlife. The poor things never know that they lost their souls the day they gave up trying to get back to their other life. It made me regret being unable to help all of them, and for throwing stuff at their heads, or rather through them. I'd apologize, but it's useless in their case.

Now the forest is a labyrinth of its own making. Anyone with the wrong intentions or without a clear mind will forever walk upon its ground in a neverending circle. It's why I could never find mountains before. Apparently, I wasn't clear-minded - which, mind you, is rather bullshit. I walked into this place with one purpose and one purpose, alone. To deliver a message and seek aid in an upcoming hell war. The fact made me hate the damn forest more.

Anyone with a clear mind and one who has accepted their fate to live the rest of their days within the forest is free to walk about it as they wish. It's why he was able to find food and shelter and survive for so long. He accepted his fate and the forest provided him with what he needed. The forest is now an enemy of mine. One which I plan to conquer once this whole mess is over with. I will not have a section of trees and bushes tell me that I'm conflicted and incapable of accepting shit in my life. I already have my mother for that.