Children of Fyre

Chapter Ten

Damien dismissed me quickly, telling me to go rest, but I was too excited now to see what the scrolls said. I could nap later, hopefully. Heading into the woods, I made sure my necklaces were still tucked in, then pulled out the first of the scrolls. 

The first thing I noticed was the language. It was written in Xueptic, a language I knew how to read, luckily, but definitely not a common language for most people to know or understand. Few spoke it, even fewer could read or write it. Xueptic was an older language, one that used to be quite common many, many moons ago, but these days, Zhufali was the commonly spoken and written language. 

The scrolls, by my translation, seemed to discuss the origins of the Children at first. I'm sure Acacia expected me to know all the details when I saw her next, but I merely skimmed over it for now. I wanted to get to the juicy bits first, which I knew Acacia would not approve of, but she wasn't here right now to yell at me for doing it anyway. 

The next section was a bit harder to read, despite knowing the langauge. Some of it was ancient words, words we no longer used or that had been adapted in some way. It seemed like a guide to meditation, which didn't sound like fun. Alas, it was more interesting than the history, so I decided to give it a shot for the time. 

Sitting down, I read the instructions carefully and slowly. I sat cross legged, my back straight, looking down at the scroll to see what I needed to do. It said to close my eyes, focus on the power within and breath in. Then breathe out and gently release the power. 

I rolled the scroll back up, gently set it in my pocket, just in case anyone wandered close, they couldn't try to take it. I was still a little uncertain of the group I was with, especially since one of them seemed to potentially be spying for the Guard. This way, no one could even know what I was doing either. 

Quietly, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and focused on finding the source of my power. Everyone's source is unique. It matches the person, their spirit within, I recalled Acacia once telling me a long time ago. My source was similar to that of a boulder. It was solid, steady, but also very strong and determined. I imagined it in my mind as I slowly breathed out and released the energy within me. 

After a few heartbeats of deep breathing, I re-opened my eyes to a shocking sight. There were flowers completely surrounding me, fully bloomed and colorful. It was as if my energy bled out and went into the ground, encouraging their growth and speeding it up. "Huh," I murmured, standing up. The flowers only went about two arms lengths out, but they were past my ankles tall. They looked sturdy and I was surprised to see so many flowers. There was even a variety of them, not that I knew most of their names, but I definitely recognised each as I had seen them before. 

Carefully, I waded through the small field of flowers without stepping on them, and journeyed back to Aston from the forest. We were starting to lose light, dusk fast approaching. Tonight was my last night with Acacia before I started a journey with Damien and his crew. This would be the first time apart from her and as nervous as I was, I was also excited. 

I spotted Acacia talking with Seymour, so I let them be while I sat down to eat. Someone had caught a few deer some time during the day, so we all got to enjoy Acacia's cooking. She made roasts from the deer and found some still good veggies from the farmland that Aston had, cooking it all together for a nice hearty meal. A meal I greatly enjoyed. 

After I finished eating, I approached Acacia and gave her a hug. "I'm gonna miss you," I say sadly. 

"It'll be okay, we'll see each other again one day. I won't be leaving here, so you know where you'll find me. Send me letters when you can, okay?" She smiled, looking at me lovingly. "I will miss you though. Stay safe and remember what I've taught you." 

I nodded. "Thank you." 

"Oh, I almost forgot. I made you some more jerky to take on the road, I also salted some of the spare meat, so you guys can have a full meal for a couple of days without needing to stop to hunt for food." She scurried off, but came back quickly, carrying an assortment of food with her. The jerky was wrapped tight in thin reeds, while the rest was wrapped with thick, sturdy leaves. "Here," she said, handing it over. "Spread it to some of the others, share the weight. The jerky is just for you though; I know how much you love my jerky."

I do love that jerky, so I quickly hid that in my pouch before anyone else could try to nab it. "Thank you," I repeat. That jerky was hopefully gonna last me a while, maybe I'll get to see Acacia again before I ran out. I doubted it, but one could wish. 

Acacia smiled, then asked, "How did your reading go?" 

"Flowers bloomed all around me," I said. "It surprised me, I didn't know I was encouraging their growth."

"You have a good heart," she mused. "That's wonderful. Did you enjoy learning about our history a little more?"

"I, uh, skimmed that section," I admitted. 

Acacia scowled, though she seemed a bit amused as if she knew I was going to do that. "You know, sometimes the facts are important, it can give you insight as to how we got to this point," she reminded me. "Please read through it, I may quiz you on it later on if I think you haven't read it still."

"Okay, I'll read it soon." I pulled Acacia into a hug and held her tightly. "We're not going to have time to train more together, are we," I murmur. 

"Sadly not, I should think. But that means you better keep up on it. Help Damien with it too. He should have his own scrolls, but aspects of it should be the same. Damien seems a little rough around the edges, despite being younger, and he needs the soft heart to help him, I believe. He's grown up rather quick and I'm not sure that's a good thing right now." 

"I will, and he'll keep teaching me to use the sword Lif gave me." It felt weird to use the nickname Damien called Lifvia, but it sounded better than his full name. Definitely sounded better and was much easier to remember. I should work on learning everyone's names, I thought to myself. 

"Just be careful. Now get some rest, you'll have a long journey ahead of you the next several days." Acacia pushed me slightly, teasing, but I could feel the exhaustion setting in. Waking up after only a little bit of sleep had me drained even though dusk had not completely gone yet. 

I unroll my portable bed a little distance from everyone and drifted off to sleep.