"They're there-they must be!" a voice boomed louder than the thunder crackling outside. It was the commander leading the group of Dark's warriors; I could recognize the bellowing, roaring voice from before, at our very first battle.
They'd broken through the house looking for us! I thought in alarm.
The leaves and twigs underfoot crunched loudly as suddenly footsteps abruptly roared towards us. Through the trees blurred by pounding, bullet-like raindrops, I glimpsed a flash of brown. A sack.
Another squinted glance revealed the sack was filled with some lumpy shapes.
Our home, I thought bitterly, and my heart ached with a frigid cold, spreading-half from the rain, half from my inward pain. They're stealing every little trinket that has molded our very lives.
Tears stung my eyes; for the first time, I was grateful for the rain-it blended my tears with the storm wrenching behind us.
"Duck!" whisper-shouted Brooke as the footsteps grew louder, and suddenly, reality struck: the Dark were heading towards us. In a flash, we'd all fallen to our knees and struck the ground, lying down with our sides pressed against the cold, murky earth. Wet, cold mud slipped and grinded against my cheek as I pressed the side of my face onto the ground, and I kept my mouth clamped shut just in case it oozed into my jaws-ew.
Footsteps roared, growing noisier and noisier along with my heartbeat as the Dark approached our clearing. But a few moments later, they had faded, running straight past our clearing and missing us.
A few more seconds later, Zara whispered dully, "We can get up now."
There were the slightest rustles of movement as we rose, quietly as possible. I grabbed my elbows and in my hands shivered, shaking the slick, damp mud off my frigid body.
Phew, I mused inwardly. A second later, I hesitated only slightly, before speaking up. "...So, what's your idea? You know, your plan..."
"Our families have to go north," explained Zara briskly, her eyes twinkling brightly with radiating energy. "Just...you know, walk. We'll catch up in a second, after we rescue Eve."
"Um..." began Edera, and then clamped her mouth shut, abandoning her non-spoken words.
"You're getting all that excited about such a small plan?" I asked, genuinely confused, not trying to act mean or anything. Still, I flinched at how hurtful it sounded as the sound came out of my mouth.
Zara shrugged, apparently not allowing herself to feel hurt. "It's all we have, for now." Her words echoed ominously, and suddenly I realized how much at loss we were at.
"Okay-fine-sorry," I murmured, holding my arms in my hands and rubbing myself up for warmth, my teeth chattering like horse hooves smacking against cold pavement. "I'm just..." The rain beat down in my mouth and I forced myself to swallow the cold, powerful water droplets, but luckily, I recalled, I hadn't seen lightning or heard a lash of thunder in quite a little. And the rain was simmering down a bit, so we were much more...well, we were much more safe and less vulnerable.
"It's okay. We all are." Zara turned briskly back to our families and the Chosen Ones, fixating her gaze on them. "You guys are...okay for the plan? I know it has a lot of holes, but...it's...all we can do for now. The Chosen Ones can use their powers and our families can use their weapons just in case a monster appears...and you guys are all packed, right?"
Maple patted her soggy backpack, a light spirit in her eyes that I was glad was fading back after her brother's death. "Yeah-just everything's wet."
Mrs. Silverwell nodded, triggering trembles through her earrings. "Everyone's is," she agreed lightly and sympathetically, adjusting the soppy backpack on her back and batting the raindrops out of her long, curved eyelashes.
There was a moment of silence, before finally Mrs. Starcatcher broke it with an awkward question. "And you and Stella are coming with us, right?"
Zara jerked her head back, as if startled, but shook her head coolly enough. "No, we're going to rescue Eve, of course," she countered.
"By yourself?" her mother demanded. "No way-I know you have bows and arrows, Zara, but-"
"And light," I interrupted, before smoothing the hem of my rain-encrusted skirt and ushered to her, "continue, please." Meanwhile, the necklace glowed indignantly, lighting up the dark clearing as if waiting to prove itself.
Mrs. Starcatcher sighed only slightly and raged on: "And light, of course, but it's dangerous, and it's not good for you. Just the two of you-no way."
"You guys are going north," Zara argued, digging through her pack and pulling out a compass to indicate to her mother the four directions and where they were; which geography each arrow pointed towards. "We know where you're going. We'll catch up, and it'll be fine."
Mrs. Starcatcher crossed her arms, refusing to accept the compass. "I'm your mother, Zara. I can't let you do this alone."
I felt a slice of pain, sharp as a knife, run through my soul, drilling an empty void into it. My mother's face, eyes, and sparkling twinkles in her bright, ice-blue eyes flashed through my head, each memory streaking down like falling objects through space.
Suddenly, the rain was much colder than before. Much, much colder.
My back bent under the weight of the storm.
"I promise we'll be fine." Zara unlatched her mother's arms gently from their stubborn cross position, and pried her mother's palm out from their fists. She then placed the compass gently in the middle of her mom's hands and curled each of her mother's fingers around the compass' cold, wet and slick glass.
"Northwards," I struggled to say, to regain myself.
"We'll meet you there-and don't you try to stop us," Zara added, and then grabbed my elbow. Her cold fingers curled around my arm.
"No!" her mother cried, squeezing the compass so tight her knuckles turned white.
But in a second, she was dragging me away, and we were tromping through the soaked leaves that were drenched like water-filled sponges.
The rain beat mercilessly down on our bent-in-guilt backs.
Darkness and shadows crawled into my vision, as I lowered my head against the pounding rain and forged forwards, best I could. Drooping grasses pricked my jet-black leggings and withering flowers bent under the rain.
Finally, we made our way towards the caves, two lumpy dark shadows brimming the dark, following the winding secret path. The blood-red-petalled flower, the emptied hollow and log. I felt a shiver crawl down my spine at the small signs; once, they could have been meaningless, but not anymore.
"Like this." Zara's whisper brought us to halt in our procedure. I glanced at her movements, and copied them: crouched in the mud, behind a large, towering boulder. Two hands set on our weapons, just in case we needed to fight. Eyes squinting forwards.
My eyes, however, darted between Zara's cave and Eve's cave, and then back again; I tried my best not to slip in the slick mud.
Eventually, I decided to fixate my gaze on only Eve's cave, and pierced through it with my gaze, focusing hard. Eventually I thought of tapping my moonstone necklace, bending and attracting the rare shafts of light from the sky towards us.
As I sucked them towards me, they illuminated the hut, clearing up all the smudged, dark blurs from the rain. With that, I could definitely see more than one shadowed silhouette marching through the cave, and it also helped me hear the rumbling footsteps and furious shouts of struggle.
"Okay...," I started slowly, my chin quivering. "So. What's the plan?"
"We first escape with our families northwards. Then we track down the Dark's main base and break into it. After that, we locate the leader of the Dark and...," Zara said.
I hadn't expected her to answer the general plan, but that felt good to hear, anyway. Soothing.
"Boom," I finished it off. "But we first have to find Eve."
Zara nodded brusquely and turned her head towards the direction of the caves, the motion making her two braids tussle up and down on her shoulders. Tugging at my sleeves, she urged a soft, "Come on."
Rain poured down on us and slickened our backs as we rose to our feet stalked straight towards the lumpy form of the cave, dashing and sticking towards the shadows to stay hidden and discreet.
"The front door is open," I whispered, my voice hushed, into Zara's ear. "And there are really, really big and muddy footsteps...the Dark is still in there, for sure."
"Then we take the door of the secret path," Zara figured aloud, whispering quietly and snapping her rain-wet fingers. "Follow me." She rose and then dashed off into the mud that swashed our ankles and coldened our feet. I winced as I felt the half-liquified mud splash into my shoes as I tramped through it, and felt the murky waters plaster my socks with the title of "soaked".
I followed her forwards and saw a few other signs of the secret path, squinting my best through the pouring, dribbling rain; here and there, chilling signs of evacuation and desertation.
Zara, however, ignored it all like she'd been through this all the time and rushed forwards, not bothering for the world to catch up with her. Here and there, if she rushed too far ahead of me, I would make some kind of distress signal: a splash of rainwater at her ankles, even a small, risky whisper to call out to her.
Finally, we made our way to a small trapdoor that was only about the height of my waist, engraved at the back of the lumpy form of the cave. A way into the house to locate Eve, while sneaking into the home and letting us slip in undetected.
"Here," Zara instructed, pointing a steady, shadowy finger into the air and at the dull door. I felt a gasp whisk inside of me as I reached out and rattled the doorknob: locked.
Well, then we'd just have to improvise. Confidently plucking a hairpin from my hair and letting my drenched silver hair flop freely down onto my shoulder, I flicked the pin into my fingers,twirled it around, and stabbed it into the lock.
I fumbled around for about twenty seconds, before the lock finally opened with a satisfying click!
"Nice work," Zara remarked, a pleasant surprise coiled in her voice and a small smile rested on her lips.
I winked at her, though I wasn't sure if she'd be able to see the movement with the shadows and dark lurking in the air around us.
"Come on, let's get in," Zara urged, continuing, and we crouched down on all fours in a baby-crawl so that the mud-water soaked me up to my elbows, and all the way to my thighs.
With the slightest push, the door creaked open as if it had been opened millions of times before, unearthing an abyss of black shadows.
"Get in," I instructed lightly, and took the lead, forging firstwards (that was tough) towards the darkness. Zara followed, baby-crawling as well, at my heels.
My limbs were frigid cold as finally I entered the freezing, musty smell of a basement that hadn't been entered in for quite a long time, and that I could definitely tell from the dust everywhere. As I finally allowed myself to stand up and shake the small beads of water from my body and allowed them to dampen the rough rug curled under my feet, I shuddered from the cold.
But Zara didn't take the time to dry off, only rushing ahead of me and locating the dusty staircase that led out of the basement and onto the landing above. I swerved to follow her as she crept soundlessly forwards-
"Do you think they're dead-all of them?" a woman's voice cut through the air like a knife, from the first floor. Her voice was hard and edged with something that sounded like millions of needles.
"Nah," a young man's voice replied. "They're still alive, they must be. They have the powerful weapons, those families. Right now, however, I found this interesting...trapdoor in the library. There's an empty desk and some bookshelves in the hidden room I found that the trapdoor led to..."
An empty desk...I struggled to contain my panic. Once, Zara and Eve had told me about their exploration to the "forbidden room" and about the diary they'd found...
But, the desk had the diary on it, I thought to myself, confused, and then remembered Zara's other words: Then, Eve's mother came and took the diary away.
Did that mean the diary was safe from the hands of the Dark and with Mrs. Silverwell? Or did she leave the diary behind when she evacuated the house?
"Is that so? Then let's check it out," a grouchy, mid-aged man's voice replied, strangling my thoughts away from me. I heard a sound of the knife plunging into a table with a treacherous thunk.
I shuddered at the thought of imagining the scene playing itself right above my head and suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
"Yes," I heard the captain's voice agree, a sickly noise.
I turned around to Zara with a panicked look that seemed to penetrate the darkness of the basement. He was still alive!
Deciding then and there to act quickly at this thought, I quickly shot glances all around the basement, assessing the landscape, and then dashed across the room and towards the staircase in a tiptoe. A risky choice, but that was also our only choice. Zara also ran across the room as quietly as she could, following me, and we both gazed up the stairs, at the dangers awaiting above them.
The door to the basement door was open, and there was a soft golden light glowing from the landing utop us.
Then we fixated our gaze on each other, locked eyes, before dashing quietly up the stairs.
We stuck to the walls, sticking to the shadows and creeping towards the door of the library, step by step, little by little. Zara then held up her palm to stop me from dashing in, and we both peered cautiously over the door to the library.
Guarding the forbidden room as hard as they could, was a line of guards from the Dark. Dark, obsidian-black cloaks and silver masks etched with ebony diamonds flooded my view. The bookshelf that had once covered up the trapdoor had been shoved to the side, and some of its books had tumbled to the floor, scattering across the rugged library grounds in a display of papery white and the other bright colors of their covers. However, the door to the forbidden room was so thickly guarded that I couldn't even see the entrance.
There was no going in now.
As Zara and I huddled together, considering what to do, I heard a voice, quiet and hushed, but clear enough, along with the tussle of commotion. "Stop that or I will-your face looks like a pigs' right now."
It was Eve.
"Won't you just shut up?!" a guard screamed into the closed door of the forbidden room, and then came the rattle of commotion.
Zara and I shared a flinch at his noise.
"Anybody out there? Help me! I'm in the forbidden room, captured by the Dark, and they look like pigs when they scowl, I'm just saying..." Eve's voice was thin and frail, but persistent.
"Shut up, you-," the guard yelled, and spat out a curse. Zara and I shared yet another cringe.
"Not now, I'm still, like, trying to save myself-if you're not smart enough to know that, then that really proves my pig theor-"
"SHUT UP!" A second later, there was a loud clank! and a massive crash! The sound of two blades crashing together, clanking into battle.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" came the captain's voice, the same sickly sound from before. A moment later, the crashes of blades stopped, replaced with heavy, livid breathing and panting. "We need her alive," he snarled, his voice a little bit smoother than before. "You know...she could be a good bribery to others, and a great source of knowledge. Did you try retrieving her weapon yet?" I could hear the oozing malice in his voice.
"You just try," I heard Eve mutter darkly. Then there was another crash of clanging blades.
"Sir, she is activating her sword's magic! There's no way we can take it from her, the magic is too powerful!" retorted "shut-up-guy".
"Oh, yes you're right," Eve growled as an emerald glow began to hum to life in the room.
"This is too much-knock her out!" the captain ordered fiercely.
"Yes, sir," growled the guard that Eve had been arguing with, and there came a storm of footsteps. I glimpsed more and more guards crowding around something in the forbidden room, and heard Eve yelling along with the crash of swords.
Emerald sparkles-Eve's swords magic-twinkled all around, but they were a dull, lichen green-Eve was definitely struggling.
Zara grabbed my shoulder, shouldering an arrow into her bow. "We have to go-now!" she hissed. With a grim nod, we both rushed to our feet. I cupped my necklace in my palm, and Zara got her bow nocked and ready to shoot.
In a second, we had fled towards the entrance toward the forbidden room, ready for battle. A caterwaul erupted from Zara's lips, drawing ourselves to full attention-and Eve's, too.
And then the battle began.
Just like before, my heart smashed in my chest, blood roaring in my ears. The shimmering glow of the moonstone necklace simmered brighter and brighter, until it glowed like a miniature sun.
I gritted my teeth, and bit my lip hard. But all the things the Dark had done to me-taken my parents, my tribe, killed so many, slayed Wind-all gained up on me. The feeling and need of revenge for their darkness rushed to my mind faster than the reality of who I was; the reality of how normally peaceful and mild I was.
I was that person who walked the streets trying to ignore the taunts and derision that always followed me around like a shadow.
I was the person who didn't take those treacherous comments to mind and that person who forged in without a single word.
But that kind of me was forgotten when my feelings exploded like a shining light; all these years, walking alone, all these years, without any friends, all these years, drained to only the love sparked between me and my mother, and nobody else.
And with that thought, the pain and energy bubbled and fizzed up inside of me, gathering and igniting-
BAM!
...Silence.
I can't say I meant for it.
I can't say I wanted it.
I can't say I liked it, either; this part of me, this shadow of my former self, had always been unwelcome. But I would be lying if I were saying this weren't helpful. In fact, it was exactly helpful.
A massive blast of light had erupted from my necklace, striking the entire room and covering it in an abyss of golden-white light. Mumbled moans were passed around, and I heard a few from my friends, even though most of them were from the Dark.
Luckily, I could see in the blinding light, part of my necklace's powers, and I fumbled around, finding Eve and Zara; both of their eyes were closed, and they had fallen onto their knees, pressing their hands against their closed eyes. Finally, I managed to grab each of them in one of my hands and dragged them away, after some convincing I was Stella, their friend.
In a few moments, we were out; out of the cave, the home, the house, out of the life that Eve and Zara had formerly known-
And we marched straight into the mist towards the north; straight into our new lives.