Half Magic | Book 2

Eighteen: A Storm of Souls

The sandstorm raged, much like the last one. I was under a tarp with Kai who was still wide-eyed and breathless from running. Puko was somewhat calm but fidgeted in my arms. 

I was burning with questions. What was Kai doing, running to the holy site he wasn't allowed at? And why was he with Puko? But I couldn't ask anything because we couldn't talk over the wind of the storm.

The wait was long, and when the wind finally started to die down I tried to speak.

"Kai," I got his attention. "Why are you here?"

"The night bird demanded I come!" he yelled back. 

"The night... Puko?" I looked down at the raven in my arms. "Puko demanded you come?"

"He flew down on us, squawking and attacking everyone. He found me, and with his claws and beak he pulled at me. Pulling my hair and clothes, he nearly got my eye patch off. He's a large bird, he nearly dragged me out of camp when finally I started running after him."

"Puko, you beast," I scolded him. 

"Caw!" The fat raven looked up at me innocently. I snorted and turned back to Kai.

"Anyone who followed us was chased off, they stopped trying to follow pretty quickly. But he didn't take us directly here, he flew east of here, and then to the Stone of Souls. It was brilliant, none of the Khusuru cared since I wasn't heading to the stone." 

"I still don't understand how you got here so fast," I said. "It took us about twice as long to walk here as it took you to get here after Puko left us."

Kai shook his head. "He didn't find me at camp. A few of us went foraging for a kind of plant that grows this far south. They let me tag along but I could only keep whatever plants I found for myself. I'm assuming I would get the last pick of ground to search in, but I had nothing else to do until you were done with the curse so I tagged along."

"So Puko came and found you there? He last saw you at the camp, I wonder how he found you," I murmured.

Kai looked down at Puko with something like respect. "And you're sure it's just a normal bird?"

"No," I admitted. "We're not really sure about him. He's a witch's bird, and he surprises me all the time."

"An aoyi'ka then," Kai said grimly. 

"Is everything magic in nature aoyi'ka to you?" I asked.

Kai just shrugged and we sat in silence again, except for the angry wind whipping over our tarp. After a while, I frowned and peered at the edge of a tarp.

"I thought it was dying down, does it usually do it so slowly?" I asked.

"No," Kai said slowly. "I was just thinking the same thing."

"I'm going to look," I said.

"Watch that the sand doesn't scour your skin off!" Kai called as I deposited Puko in the indent I left on the sand.

I crawled to the edge and stuck my hand outside the tarp, holding my breath. Nothing was striking my hand, it was all wind. 

"There is no sand," I said, turning back to face Kai.

"What do you mean?" he called.

I decided I'd just show him, and proceeded to stick my head out from under the tarp. There was indeed no sand, but there was plenty of something else.

A blur in the air was whipping over the Stone of Souls in angry circles. I could almost make out the shape, a long ribbon of some kind, the front almost shaped like a cluster of human heads. Angry ones. How it didn't disturb the sand beneath us was a mystery since the wind was so fierce, but the desert floor remained untouched. I looked to the sky, the storm had long since passed us and moved west. The remaining fury in the air was all from this spirit.