Cipher Code {complete}

Chapter Sixty Two: Homecoming.

Mentally exhausted, Esau sat languidly on a low tree branch, trying his hardest to keep his heartbeat steady. He had run out of arrows and he had lied to Philip.

Not everyone had retreated back into the treeline. Edythe was still out there, sending beasts back and acting as a lure for the massive one he had seen months ago.

Esau's eyes raked the scorched battlefield, his lips quirked up in amusement. Who knew it would be this easy?

He heard a pained roar and automatically his hand reached for his empty quiver. He had not actively participated in the battle, not like his sister and the soldiers had. But he had been up here the entire time, shooting down flaming arrows and causing mass panic among the horde.

His job had been to provide cover and it would be an understatement to say that his arms were sore. They ached.

But still he had to be prepared. He was waiting to get Edythe's signal, the one to charge.

Normally, he would be worried about her, concerned for safety, but tonight things were different. Edythe was wasn't fighting for her life, she was dancing on the battlefield.

This wasn't like the times of uncertainty in the forest or the wakeful nights listening to the roar of beasts hoping they didn't get too close. This was different.

For a moment Esau let his gaze find her, weaving in between rabid beasts and driving them into each other, guiding them away from the house with quick stabs of her dagger.

She was having fun, and for a moment Esau saw their mother in her. His mouth soured at the thought of honey-gold eyes and he averted his gaze. Ma was definitely not having fun when our house burned down.

He didn't need to think about it and so he didn't. He liked it that way. What he really needed at this point were more arrows and so right now he was making them.

Esau stared at the long, cane-like twigs he had gathered, his brows furrowed.

Making the arrows would be easy, especially since they didn't need to be sharp but that wasn't what he was concerned about.

By the side of the sticks was a jar, its glass dark and opaque with a lid smeared with grease screwed on tightly. It was to keep the fog out.

Esau frowned and crossed his legs, a thoughtful look fleeting over his expression for some seconds. There were only a few ways to go about this without setting fire to himself.

Normally, he made the arrows in his father's workshop and the gritty mixture had usually dried long before it came in contact with the fog. For the first time in years he was grateful that his father had made all the fuss about setting up all their property with shields. Who knew how long he and Edythe would have survived without them?

Esau sucked in a lungful of the fog laced air. The milky fluid was thin tonight, but he wasn't taking any chances.

It still amazed him how after a while the ache in his lungs had dissipated and the itch in is throat soothed in inexistence. The fog hadn't managed to kill him and Edythe yet, but he worried for the soldiers. They had masks but they seemed not to realized that slowly they were getting poisoned.

They didn't seem to know the signs, which was strange considering that the fog had been around for a long time now.

Maybe later I'll give them some herbs or something. . . he thought back to the brew that kept Philip alive for the time being then decided not to bother. The capital would have better drugs than he could ever make.

Taking out three large pieces of blazestone, Esau surrounded himself and the twigs in orange light, hoping the natural heat was enough to irritate the fog around him into leaving.

Taking a deep breath of fog-free air, he began, twisting off the lid of the jar and immersing each stick one at a time, end to end, making sure every inch of bark was covered. Of course there was still more to be done, but till then he had time. One more fight and he'd be home.

†

Edythe kept away from her childhood home just as she kept the beasts away from it. She couldn't remember the flames that fell from the sky or the beast her brother sometimes whispered about in his sleep, but just looking at the burnt remains of where she spent over six years of her life sent chills up her spine.

She should have remembered by now, how exactly their world had ended. But she didn't, and Esau wasn't eager to tell her.

He wasn't eager to tell her a lot of things and she could play the game as well as he could.

The beast she had been fighting made a roar of protest, seemingly dissatisfied with her lack of attention towards their death match. Edythe let out a scoff and let her arms fall, staring down the golden eyed tiger as her own eyes flashed.

It growled for a moment then let out something that resembled a pitiful mewl before walking off into the forest. The real fight hadn't started yet so Edythe wasn't in the mood to spill blood. Ma had always said I never could be brutal.

The thought made her choke down laughter. If only she could see me now.

Edythe sheathed her daggers and watched the golden striped tiger as it slowly retreated. Her curious side had stopped wondering where all the exotic creatures that her mother's forest was now home to came from. She just accepted it as it was, weird.

A part of her wanted to remember a time when she wasn't always reeking of iron, always wasn't washing blood off something or sharpening her daggers till they gleamed. But it felt like she had been living like this for an eternity.

Had she always had parents? Had she always eaten warm meals three times a day? Had she and her brother always been killers?

She couldn't remember.

Sometimes it felt like she could just close her eyes and when she woke up she'd be in bed—in the room she and Esau shared—with the smell of freshly baked bread wafting up the stairs, prompting her to wake up and go into the kitchen, leaving a drowsy Esau behind.

She'd see her Ma sitting on the table, her nose buried in a new book on herbs. And her Pa would be washing dishes, ready to have the table set before he rushed off to the capital—sending Edythe a conspirational wink just as Esau stumbled down the stairs in time to say goodbye.

He had told her about the teleportation pad in the basement, so when Esau asked how Pa never managed to be late despite it taking months to get to the capital, Edythe would laugh.

It was our dirty little secret. Edythe sobered up and focused on the beasts prowling towards her, the memories slowly being buried behind thoughts of new life at the capital.

Freshly baked bread, books on herbs, conspirational winks, those were all pieces of home she would never have again. Like the house itself, all the memories buried within each piece was burned to ashes, never to be returned to its former glory, ready to be forgotten.

†