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Chapter 20 - The Next Step
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It was a struggle for Cayden to run with the dead weight of a barely conscious Nazine, but he managed to make it to the edge of the thick woods that ringed the temple's grounds relatively quickly.
He was hesitant as he set Nazine down in a hard-to-see alcove of trees, though still distinct enough to find again with ease. The forest had a heady scent of ley, one strong enough for Cayden to find his own strength replenishing and his hair growing a few more inches as he inhaled it.
Ancient trees, he thought, scanning the surroundings for any immediate dangers as the phoenix's head lolled to the side against a branch. Hopefully, they'll protect him.
Cayden stood up, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts. "Nazine, if you can hear me, stay here. I'm going to get your key ba—"
"There will be no need for that," said a small, feminine voice.
Cayden whirled around, his hand on the hip where his sword should have been. He found himself looking at a young girl with silvery hair and eyes too old for her body.
"You shouldn't be out here alone, oracle," said Cayden.
"She isn't," said a second voice. The shadow at the base of the tree beside the oracle appeared to split, moving of its own accord in complete disregard of the wilting sunlight until it took on a human shape, solidifying into a dark haired girl a few years older than the oracle herself. Cayden recognised her from the Mythics they'd been escorting to Leristith. "She has me."
"A shadow Mythic?" asked Cayden, his guess confirmed with a nod. "Fine. If you two can watch Nazine, I need to—"
The oracle cut him off. "I already told you, there is no need. The kitsune will be bringing the phoenix's key along shortly, although you may not like the cost that she obtained it for."
Fear spiked through Cayden's chest. "Is she hurt?"
"She... will live," said the oracle slowly, like she was trying to remember.
"Well if you don't mind, I prefer to take matters into my own hands. Oracles are not infallible, pardon any insult."
The oracle sighed. "As I knew you would insist. Allow me to show you the way." She turned to walk, and when Cayden hesitated, she added, "The phoenix will be fine for now. Do not fear."
Realising this had been his plan before the oracle had showed up anyway, Cayden followed her.
She led him to the open field he'd run through with Nazine earlier, crossing about a third of the way before she stopped. Cayden, true to his word, continued forward, only to find some kind of invisible wall he couldn't cross a few metres later.
"When the heart of a temple moves, it generates a defensive shield to protect its occupants," explained the oracle before he asked. "It will continue to shrink until it encompasses only the heart, and then it shall move, taking anything inside it with it." Apparently sensing his next question, she continued. "The barrier is only one way, to allow its occupants escape if they wish. They may pass through the inside, but once out, they cannot cross again."
And so, Cayden waited a breath from the barrier, resisting the urge to reach out and strike it, to break it. It was torture standing here, watching the temple door, knowing that his eyes were lying to his brain.
Somehow, he forced himself to remain still.
A minute or so later, movement caught his eye. A dark haired figure fleeing from the temple, clutching something precious to their chest. Tails. Ears. The gifted tunic and that ridiculous wooden stick she insisted on carrying around.
Rena.
Cayden couldn't stop himself. He reached out and slammed his palm on the barrier. "Rena!"
Her ears pricked as she looked up, stumbling in her run. Seeing Cayden, she redoubled her efforts until she reached the barrier.
"I have it," she managed in between breaths. Not the desperate, gulping breaths of someone who never ran, but those of someone whose heart was pounding inside their chest. "I have his key."
Rena opened her hands, revealing the deep, royal blues and reds twined in the gold of Nazine's key. Cayden's heart sank when he noticed the cracks, the twisted seals that held it together. Damaged.
Rena held it out carefully, her eyes flicking between it and Cayden, wanting him to take it.
"You hold on to it," he said. "If we need to fight, I need my hands clear. We have to get back to Nazine."
Rena closed the protective cage of her fingers back over Nazine's key, once more holding it to her chest as she glanced back over her shoulder. "But I have to go back—"
"If you left something inside, it doesn't matter," said Cayden. "There's a barrier, we can't cross it from the outside."
Unexpectedly, the oracle spoke as some emotion tore Rena's expression, like for whatever reason, she wanted to be back with the djinn.
"He will open the barrier to you, Rena," the oracle said quietly. "But he will not give you what you seek. The first part of your choice has been made, and it is not too late to back out. However, without you, the phoenix will not survive the journey to Leristith. He will starve."
Rena closed her eyes and swallowed whatever her conflict had been. "I know, I'd just hoped that..." She trailed off with a shake of her head that bent her ears over. "Let's just go."
Cayden walked, trying to figure out if he'd missed something, some reason why Rena would want to stay with the djinn. Give her what she sought? He'd been under the impression that Rena was terrified of the djinn.
Maybe she was scared to return to the cities, the places the Order controlled, where Unbounds were treated as criminals. In her new kitsune form, it'd be hard to believe that she'd achieved that perfect balance between human and Mythic when she'd been clueless when they'd left.
That had to be it. Cayden couldn't figure out another reason why. But surely, Unbound or not, if she were responsible for saving the life of the phoenix, one of the most important Mythics in existence, it'd be enough to excuse her nature.
Excuse her nature, thought Cayden. Like she can help it. I'm starting to sound like the Order, deities help me.
The group remained quiet as they reached the alcove and Nazine, exactly where they'd left him. Cayden wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but the phoenix Mythic's face was already losing colour, his cheeks a little more hollow than they had been before.
He knew what it meant if Nazine's key was damaged. If he were any other kind of Mythic, he'd have a secondary source, a way to obtain ley from the ouside world. But as an energy Mythic, Nazine had no other way to generate ley to feed himself. He needed that key like he needed his lungs to breathe. Without it, he didn't have long.
Rena knelt beside Nazine, gently taking the golden chain and placing it over his neck before resting the crystal across his chest.
The phoenix didn't respond.
"What's the plan?" asked the shadow Mythic.
Cayden half expected the oracle to take command. Was this why she'd come along? Had she known the outcome of their kidnapping all along, known that without her guidance, one of the last Mythics capable of cleansing the portals would be lost?
But the oracle remained silent, looking to Cayden with solemn eyes as she waited for him to speak.
Feeling out of his depth but treading water nonetheless, Cayden drew breath.
"The only way to heal a Mythic's key is to immerse it in a portal," said Cayden. "For a phoenix Mythic with this amount of damage, any portal isn't going to be enough. It has to be one of the larger ones, and the only one even relatively close is Leristith's. Unless anyone else has a better idea, I propose we make that our goal."
The oracle nodded. The shadow shrugged.
Rena's ears sank, her tails limp on the ground beside her. "That's a week and a half away, isn't it?"
"Around that, unless we find a quicker mode of transport," said Cayden. He looked to the oracle. "I don't suppose you see any wind spirits in our future, do you?"
"Not of the kind you're hoping for," replied the oracle.
"Right," said Cayden. He glimpsed sun through the tree canopy and made a guess. "We have a few hours of sunlight left, though I'm not sure it'll make much difference in these trees. We'll start moving now, make camp when we tire. Shadow—what's your name?"
The shadow Mythic flicked a piece of hair aside with a smirk. "You can call me Kat."
For whatever reason, that rang a bell in Cayden's head, like he'd heard it before and it was important. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why. "Kat, can you scout ahead for us, ensure the way is safe?"
She winked and disappeared into the shadows, her voice ethreal. "You got it."
Cayden picked Nazine up and placed him over a shoulder, ensuring the phoenix's key was in a safe position. The last thing he wanted was for it to shatter completely because he'd been careless. Keys were hard to break by physical means, but a damaged one became infinitely more fragile to non-magical sources.
"There is no need for a scout," said the oracle. "We won't get attacked in these trees."
"Call me paranoid," said Cayden. "If you're so sure in your abilities, why not warn us before the Unbounds attacked our camp?" The oracle remained silent, so Cayden pressed home the point, even if it speared him in the chest. "If you knew we would be attacked, if you knew we'd be captured, then the lives of Andre, Freya and Brianna are on your conscience."
"It was a necessary sacrifice," whispered the oracle.
"Nothing was necessary," said Cayden. "Look where we are now! In the middle of some ancient forest with a dying phoenix, walking to one of the largest portals he was supposed to cleanse in the hopes that it hasn't done so already!"
The oracle set her jaw. "I should think that—"
"Unless anyone has the ability to rewind time, can we not argue over things we should have done better?" said Rena. She folded her arms. "I could have done more too. I could have stepped in, saved the other ley guards."
"It wouldn't have worked, Rena," said Cayden. "He wouldn't have—"
"Like I said," said Rena. "Unless anyone can rewind time, there's no point arguing about what we could have or should have done. We're here now. We deal with it."
The walk was silent after that.
*+*+*+*
Rena fell into a trance as they walked.
One foot in front of the other kept her moving, tails dragging along the ground behind her. She didn't have the will to keep them up.
Every part of her being itched to turn back towards her key, knew exactly what direction it was it. She felt it as the heart teleported, knew it'd shifted northward to some other ancient hotspot. She swore she could feel the djinn's ley through the invisible string that tied her to her key.
But when she needed a reason to stay, she looked back to where Cayden carried Nazine, remembered what it meant for the portals if he didn't make it.
Cayden had started catching onto her glances. She wasn't sure how he'd react when he realised she didn't have her key, or if he already had and just didn't care enough to mention it in their current situation.
As Rena looked back for the hundreth time and found Cayden staring at her, his eyebrows slanted into a frown, she forced her gaze back to the ground in front of her.
She didn't know how long it'd take before she turned feral. That thought alone drove her imagination to new extremes, every thought over analysed and worried about.
Was her lack of care about her appearance a sign? Her sensitivity to the ancient trees around her, excreting the same ley as her sceptre? The hollow feeling growing inside her chest, or had that seeded when she'd run out of the temple clutching Nazine's key?
Rena had no idea, and to stave off the worry, she decided to ignore it all.
Focus on what is now, she told herself. Focus on what you can still change.
It was another hour before Cayden called for a stop, at which point Rena had acquired several new scratches across the backs of her hands from pushing the undergrowth aside. Her tunic and leggings seemed to have protected her from the worst of it, which was something to be thankful for while her tails were now threaded with leaves and twigs.
The shadow Mythic, Kat, found a small clearing that felt safe. From the outside, the clearing didn't appear to be one, almost entirely walled in by thick trunks that protected the interior from the chill of the evening breeze and anything that might be looking for them. There wasn't much room, but it was enough for their small group.
Cayden took charge of setting everything up, keeping Nazine as the focus. Only one viable entrance to the clearing, Nazine was placed as far from it as possible. Two others would take the spaces next to him while the third kept watch.
"And no fire," Cayden said finally, much to the oracle's annoyance. "Not unless Rena sustains one, because that won't produce smoke and has a smaller chance of setting the entire forest on fire."
"I doubt the trees would appreciate it either if we used them for fuel," murmured Rena, almost without thinking. When Cayden gave her a strange look, she shrugged. "The djinn said the only branches these trees have ever dropped is the one my sceptre is made of. These are ancient fae woods, and I'm sure you know the stories about what happened to people that walked into them without pure intentions."
"Elaborated, but Rena's right," said the oracle, Tia, if Rena remembered. She gave Rena a sideways, hopeful look. "I don't suppose you'd want to hold a fire for a little while? The light from your sceptre is nice, but the warmth would be appreciated."
Rena looked down to her sceptre. The crystal was giving off a silvery white light that seeped into the carvings, something she felt like she probably should have noticed before someone pointed it out. Among the other thoughts in her head, she hadn't bothered to question why the light was following them.
The sceptre is reacting to the ley these trees are giving off, Rena guessed. Good thing I can choose not to see the ley clouds or it'd be like walking through fog.
From the shadows, Kat stepped out, swivelling Rena's ears perfectly upright.
"Fire is probably good for the phoenix too," said Kat, joining the conversation. With a gesture that looked like she'd peeled back a shadow from her palms, berries appeared in her hands. "Found a few berries, but that's about it. Fae trees apparently don't like a dae Mythic running around in their midst. Leaves too, but they have to be cooked first."
"We aren't doing anything until Nazine's fed," said Cayden, standing up from where he'd been placing Nazine. He dusted off his hands and looked to Rena. "The sooner the better, I'd think. The damage to his key didn't do him any favours."
Rena approached Nazine chewing her lip, thinking it over.
"I can't do it with five tails," she said after a deep breath. "I need seven. I need to feed off someone."
"What?" said Cayden. "Kitsunes have energy abilities, Rena. You can use your key to transfer the ley to his, even if it's damaged. You don't need seven tails for—"
Cayden trailed off as Rena remained staring at the ground, digging her nails into her palms with prickling eyes.
"What's going on?" asked Cayden.
Rena couldn't bring herself to voice it, so the oracle did it for her.
"The djinn kept it, Cayden," said Tia softly. "Rena doesn't have her key."
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A/N - If any of you are still reading after the long-ass wait, I'm really, really sorry. In short, I had allergic conjunctivitis for literally 4 weeks straight. I got no writing done during that time, mainly because I was trying to not claw my eyes out the entire time.
It was hell.
Aaanyway, if you're still with me, hopefully the chapter isn't crap. Might even be another update tomorrow since I have a few hours to kill while out and about.
<3