Chapter 28
He Was Pulled Into A Courtyard. On any other day, Miles could tell that it was beautiful. Despite the fact that it was a city, the surrounding grass had a lustrous green hue. It was as if every blade of grass stood straight, like soldiers waiting for the captain’s orders. He supposed that was the advantage of having the Natural Keeper as your gardener. The field stretched out for yards, getting cut off by the looming wall that enclosed the city. It was a virtually happy place, but the guillotine ahead gleamed in the sunlight, casting his mood into a dark place. They’d lied to her―Sarah Lumen. Even when she had begged, even when Tern had accepted her terms, Miles had known with absolute certainty that he would die.
So he did what any fairly normal person would do.
He cried.
He cried as NK appeared with a man that wore a dirty woven mask that only had two holes for sight. He cried as the guards shoved him onto the tiled square, in front of the guillotine. He lay sprawled on the hard ground, sobbing his Shifter name. “Amandril, Amandril, Amandril.” Like many Shifters, he saw his monkey form as another person entirely. Not exactly like a fractured person, but more like an alter ego. He continued to whisper the name, as an odd prayer while he stared at the boots of the executioner as he walked up to his curled form. “I’m sorry, Miles. You were an okay companion. But honestly, don’t tell me you didn’t suspect anything.”
The funny thing was, Miles had suspected something. Ever since they’d first met the Keeper with the bi-colored eyes, he’d suspected that NK stood for something terrifying. Most would expect the Garal to be scared of Death, but no. They chose to be terrified of the thing that was tearing their world apart. Weird, right?
The executioner grabbed a fistful of his dark hair, making him meet the eyes of NK. The Natural Keeper wore a pristine suit―how he got it from Earth without raising red flags was beyond him―a golden watch that wasn’t ticking and a pair of tinted sunglasses.
“Goodbye.” NK murmured, squatting down to meet Miles’s deep brown eyes.
He nodded and the man holding Miles’s hair hauled him to the guillotine. Miles thought about what to say. He knew that Rose wouldn’t go out without a grand exit to match her entrance. He knew that Kate wouldn’t go down without a fight. He knew that Lucas would say a joke, or forgive NK. He knew that Archer would have some witty remark, and that was if he didn’t die in the fight like Kate. He knew that Sarah would cuss everyone out. But that didn’t matter, what would Miles do?
Then he realized what he would do. He settled his neck onto the open half circle, closing his eyes and smiling softly. The tears stopped running as he said four words: “I’ll see you soon.” His glasses had cracked when he’d been slammed into the ground. They weren’t broken, but a diagonal line ran through one of the lens. He reached around the wooden posts and took them off, setting them gently to the side. The executioner was nice enough not to say a word. He merely took Miles’s hands and tied them behind his back. The other half of the circle touched the back of his neck.
Miles braced himself, biting his lip as he waited for the pain. He heard the rustle as the executioner’s gloved hands grasped the rope. He pulled―whoosh.
The blade came down, cutting cleanly through the bone and killing him quickly.
Funny, I always thought that when I died, I’d here the din of New York. But that wasn’t what Miles heard. He’d expected car horns, cuss words, even church bells that sang their loud tune. But there were no church bells, there were no car horns.
He saw endless black, and now that he thought about it, he’d felt nothing. Suddenly, a pinprick of light appeared. It grew larger, soon engulfing his vision. Then pain, unbelievable pain that faded after a long moment. Miles realized that his eyes were closed. When he opened them, he found that everything was blurry. Cocking his head, he looked around and saw his glasses laying on the stone. He reached for them and put them on, smiling as the world cleared up, everything crisp save for whatever lay in the path of the crack. Then he looked down and gasped.
Fur, russet fur covered his entire body. He was a monkey? He looked up and met the eyes of NK, who was frowning in shock. Miles worked his tiny tongue in his mouth, remembering how to speak English. “What’d I say? I said that I’d ‘see you soon’. I just didn’t know it’d be a minute later.”
Before the Keeper could get his guard up, Miles sprang from the air, monkey claws outstretched as he latched himself onto NK’s face. Take this! He scratched the Keeper’s face, tossing the sunglasses onto the ground as he worked. When he was finally thrown off, Miles scampered off, through the legs of the guards, and back into the castle. He ran under the skirts of maids, onto platters of food that were prepared to celebrate his death no doubt, and on top of heads. Finally he reached the throne room, where the door that led to the dungeons was. He wanted to go down badly, but knew that that was the first place the Natural Keeper would look. He eyed the tendrils of golden thread that hung from the tapestries.
Miles ran over to them, climbing the one with the iPhone easily. He stayed behind it, hidden in the shadows as he rested on a ledge. Tomorrow he’d look for the others, maybe they were in the city. For now though, he slept.
☽
A day after Dar had died, I still hadn’t seen him. I figured that he’d show up eventually, as a ghost or whatever, but no such luck. Ridge stayed silent as we walked. I guess it was easier knowing that I might seem him again as a ghost. Knowing that, with the Void, no one really stayed dead.
Note-to-Self; it might take a little while until ghosts show up from the Void.
The Shifters in the group changed form halfway as Wren pulled ahead on her ice sled. I sighed and half-shifted into a Griffin, feeling my muscles grow as I easily caught up to them. We ran like this for a couple hours, not saying a word―when it started.
It wasn’t like the other times, where I just lost control of my body. No this was worse. The pain came from my gut, where I usually felt the tug when I commanded water. It spread out into the rest of my torso and intensified. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep running.
But I realized that I couldn’t when my skin began to glow.
So I fell back, sweat forming on my brow. The others didn’t notice that I wasn’t there, which was probably for the best. Just in case somebody looked back and saw me kneeling on the grey grass, I moved behind a large hill, leaning against the grass as I willed the agony to fade.
My skin stopped glowing, which I took as a good sign until bands of silver light began to wrap around my entire arm. They burned and traveled up towards my face, the pain growing until I was biting my tongue to prevent myself from wailing.
My eyes glowed silver and I heard myself say an odd prayer. It sounded like, “Hae talta mert lakept” but in my head I heard, A change needs to come, now. The words pounded in my head and flowed out of my mouth. Somehow I knew that this was a dead language of this new world. One that probably shouldn’t have been spoken again.
After a little while, the pain faded and I could practically feel another lock of silver form. I rose unsteadily, shifting back into my normal form. The others weren’t even in sight. It kind of ticked me off that no one had noticed that I was gone, but that didn’t matter. I sighed, feeling slightly drained. My eyes closed briefly, flickering open for a quick second before closing completely. My body fell against the hill and I dreamed of nothing.
When I awoke, it was early afternoon. I could hear my name being called, but no one was in sight. I hadn’t been sleeping, not really. Usually the Moon filled me with energy, but I guessed that I couldn’t count on that. I got up, shifting my eyes into an eagle’s and climbing the hill. In the distance I could see the others among the hills, calling into the sky. They were small dots, and I knew that I couldn’t catch up to them by simply running.
Time for Plan B. I realized and closed my eyes. The change was relatively quick. When I opened my eyes, bestial energy coursed through my veins. I was a Griffin, and it was awesome. My limbs tensed as I flexed them, looking down at my greyish-brown feathers and fur. I grinned, as well as I could with a beak before bolting from the hill. I zoomed over the ground for a little before leaping into the air and unfurling my wings.
They caught the air and soon I was zooming through the sky, my limbs tucked closely to my body as I flew. I flew higher, reaching the clouds. I found that I could still control the water in my beast form, so I shaped the clouds into a sort of sled that went under me. Closing my eyes, I willed the molecules to cluster together. They did, and soon I was standing on a cloud and soaring through the sky.
I half-shifted into a Griffin boy with wings, crouching on the fluffy sled. Soon I was right above the others. I willed the water molecules to loosen a little so my landing could be soft, but then I lost my hold on them.
The cloudy sled jolted back and forth. I let out a scream as it suddenly dispersed and I was falling through the air. My yelling was snatched by the air as I came tumbling down.
Then all at once, I realized my problem.
The molecules. Damn, I’ve been thinking molecules. I can’t do that. Not here. No, in the Realm, water is water, nothing else. Got it, Archie?
Suddenly the clouds up above formed together into a hand. The white mass reached down towards me and grabbed my body, stopping me abruptly. I groaned at the sudden whiplash, but was thankful for the help. “Thanks, guys,” I muttered and willed the clouds to gently take me the rest of the way down. They did and I landed behind a hill that Kate was near. Shifting into a human, I emerged, rubbing my eyes. “What―what?” I had to yell over her. She turned to me and charged.
Her fist connected with my stomach, stunning me. Kate was strong when she needed to be. She grabbed me by the shirt and shoved me backwards, into a hill. I gasped for breath as she kneeled down in front of me, glaring.
“A little extreme, don’t you think?” I gasped.
Kate rose, extending a hand. I glanced at it, but scoffed. I wasn’t accepting any help from someone who just socked me. I got up myself, using the hill to steady myself. Already, I was gaining my breath. Way faster than I would have before I was Chosen. I staggered and Kate rushed to catch me, supporting my weight.
“Probably.” She replied slowly.
“I’m fine,” I said honestly.
She pulled back, laughing hysterically. “Where the hell did you come from?” I thought about telling her that a giant cloud set me gently down on the ground, but laughed off the idea.
If there were any insane asylums close by, Kate Raytone wouldn’t hesitate to put me in one and save my mother herself.
“I came from the sky.” I pointed upwards. “Used my wings to find you guys.”
“Why’d you go of on your own? We’ve been looking for you!”
“I needed some alone time.” At least that part was the truth.
But Kate didn’t really like that answer. She shoved me into a hill, which instantly caved in from the impact. I let out a yell of surprise as I fell into the mound. It was dark inside here. “Kate,” I growled. “You need to work on being less physical!”
“You know, that’s exactly what the guidance counselor said after I beat up Jimmy Prater.”
“I remember that,” I said as she pulled me up. This time I accepted her offer. “You ended up cussing her out. And that was in sixth grade! The only cuss word we knew was ‘damn’, yet you managed to make the lady cry.”
She led me back to the others, who had given up the search. I waved away the barrage of questions, looking at Ridge only. I think it’s getting worse. I said lamely. He focused on my hair, where the other silver lock lay.
We began to walk. Wren continued to say that we were closer and closer. When she said another, “We’re almost there guys.” I walked up to her and snatched the map away. Apparently the Oracle was in the desert; funny thing was, we were still in the plains. We’re almost there, my ass. I rolled my eyes and began to lead. Pandora walked up next to me.
“Pan, where does our stuff go?” I asked her, my eyes still on the map. Any moment now we’d hit a village.
She must have known what I meant because she answered, “When a Shifter…shifts, their crap travels to an unknown plane of existence. No one’s been there, or at least been there and come back sane. The stuff is tied to our person, so when we shift back to normal, it appears. It’s pretty useful.”
I whistled at this, adjusting my bag. I closed my eyes and shifted them. One was my normal shade, the other an eagle. My muscles became tougher and my hair grew a little lighter, the streaks of silver still prominent. Suddenly my bag melted away. Thankfully my clothes stayed, though. I grinned before looking at the map again. Pan fell back and I led us in silence.
At some point, the odd feeling in the air that I’d been ignoring came back with twice as much odd. I put away the map and pulled my Badge off of my neck. Pandora and the others clustered around me as the Moon was covered by the drifting clouds overhead.
“Lunar,” I said loud and clearly. The silver blade appeared in my hand, pulsing with a silver glow as we continued to walk. I knew that Ridge was glowing with life energy―I could see the green light dance on the grey grass―and the sound of an arrow being nocked told me that Pandora had her bow ready. Kate didn’t have a weapon as far as I knew, but I knew that she was ready as well. Pandora and Ridge flanked me as we came upon the stone ruins of some old graveyard.
The gravestones stood solemnly, like long forgotten warriors in a large battle of the plains. I knew that I wouldn’t get any energy as long as the Moon stayed covered, so my confidence wavered slightly as we hopped over a fallen wooden fence. The graveyard was too large for us to skirt around it. No, we’d have to go through it.
Once my sneakers were planted on the cobblestone ground, I felt the ground rumble. At first I thought that it was some beast, but then I realized that it was just the Realm doing its thing. There was a hole in the middle of the graveyard, covered with stone columns of destroyed mausoleums. “Hey,” I whispered. “Are there zombies in the Realm?”
“Not that I know of,” Wren whispered back. She had picked up a piece of the fence from before. I saw that Kate held one too. Disrespectful.
There were crypts and mausoleums scattered throughout the graveyard, each with their roofs caved in and their inhabitants no doubt disintegrated. Some of the gravestones looked scorched as we maneuvered through them. That made me shiver.
With the light of my Badge and Ridge’s life energy, we saw the hole in the middle shudder clearly. We froze immediately and I let out a curse. “Alright,” I said. “We’re going to do this slowly, okay? Ridge and Pandora, watch your step, but also watch that pile. You’re the only ones who can shoot from far away.”
“Why do you think we’ll need to shoot from far away?” Kate asked.
“C’mon. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
She didn’t answer, and we forged forward. There was a fallen section of a roof in front of us, and we had to walk around it. The rest of our journey through the graveyard was fairly calm as we neared the hole. As far as I could tell, we were about a hundred paces from it when Pandora let out a sneeze that would have made the gods of the Realm laugh with honest hilarity. The sneeze echoed through the night air, and for the second time we all froze. I slowly looked at Pandora with a narrow silver gaze as a loud rumble coursed through the stone floor. The hole shifted once, and I knew that I might die today.
“To the crypt!” I yelled, pointing my silver sword at the large collapsed building nearest to us. Sadly, it seemed that only Ridge and Wren reacted well under pressure. As he ran to the crypt, the rest of my friends scattered. I watched in dismay as Kate and Pandora headed over to a statue bearing the likeness of a man with a chicken head. They hid behind it, lucky for them, it was pretty wide. I realized that I was just standing there as the contents that had been in the hole were thrown into the air. I narrowly avoided a flying gravestone as it shattered on the ground next to me.
Let me tell you, the oddest creatures were in the Realm. Seriously.
A thirty-foot beast appeared where the dust had been just a moment ago. With fur as black as the night and eyes as red as my blood, I felt a strange foreboding. His pelt was stained with dust and stone clung to him, but he didn’t seem to mind. No, he just looked around the graveyard as if he were the giant looking for the thief who’d stolen his treasures.
I half expected him to yell, “Fee-fi-fo-fum!”
I recognized it as a wolf, though I didn’t remember seeing this kind of wolf at the zoo. Its lips pulled back to reveal massive canines and strings of slobber. For a moment, I wished I couldn’t see so clearly with my eagle eyes.
The wolf’s red eyes hadn’t found me. I quickly regained control over my muscles and sprinted for a statue of a large dark eagle. I dove behind it, just as the wolf began to speak.
Who is here? He said, but I heard his voice in my head instead. It was loud and grating. Show yourself! I am Hati, the Bane of the Moon! None can hope to defeat me!
I wasn’t too far from Ridge and Wren. “Hati?” I mouthed to Ridge, and he shook his head in dismay.
Hati is of Norse mythology. I didn’t know he manifested in the Realm. His brother Skoll must be somewhere too. What are the odds that you’d run into one of your Reality’s enemies? Ridge said in my mind. I jumped at the sudden answer, but cursed at the fact that I’d managed to meet a new enemy.
Note-to-Self; avoid graveyards at night.
I peeked from around the statue’s pedestal. I was crouched right now, but the base was tall enough for me to stand if I wanted to. Hati had begun to poke at the cobblestone ground as he sang in my mind, Oh, please let me kill you. My brother is out looking for more food. Father has yet to form! Why does it feel like the Moon is here? It can’t be! Mani is hiding behind that cursed cloud!
I stifled a groan as Hati lumbered closer to my statue. He paused and scanned the graveyard, turning around as a bird let out a shriek from overhead. I looked back at Pandora and Kate. Kate was staring at Hati with something in her eyes. For a second I thought it was admiration, but then I realized that it was admiration. With Kate, I always mixed those two things up. Pandora didn’t have her arrow pointed at Hati. That was good.
Looking around, I started to form a plan. By the time Hati had begun to walk away from my statue, my plan was a half-formed thing that was barely passable. I grabbed a loose stone on the ground and stepped out from my hiding spot. Hati’s back was facing me, so I hurled the rock at him as hard as I could.
My aim was off by a couple feet. The stone clattered harmlessly off a gravestone and I was left standing there like an idiot. Hati whirled around―for a wolf the size of a giant, he could move fast. His red eyes narrowed at me and he let out a howl that seemed more like a roar. Moon Guardian! I haven’t seen one of you in a long time. Interesting…
He was a dozen feet away from me, yet I knew that he could close that distance in no time. He inhaled deeply, and I barely managed to crawl back to the stone statue as a torrent of fire coursed through the air. The flames swept over the gravestones and towards my statue. As they touched the monument, the flames split, appearing on either side of me and singing my jacket. “Holy shit!” I yelled as the flames suddenly stopped.
I stayed there for a moment, slowly looking at Ridge with wide eyes. “You never said he could breathe fire!” I hissed.
“Don’t blame me,” Ridge shrugged. “The Germanic people of Earth’s northern regions got shit wrong.”
Part of me found that explanation unacceptable. I left my shelter, glancing at Pandora. She had her bow and arrow pointed at Hati, who was looming over me now, just staring. “Now!” I yelled as I dove to the side. An arrow pierced through the air, choosing the dark wolf’s eye bone as its mark. Hati let out an irritated howl, but was quickly silenced as a barrage of green energy shot through the air and into his eyes. Ridge had climbed onto the crypt’s roof―he was lucky that this one was more intact than the rest. He was firing his life energy in quick successions. Hati shut his eyes and stumbled back, clearly distracted. I took that as my chance attack his legs, which were crushing gravestones without too much trouble.
I didn’t know where this bravery was coming from. The Moon was still shrouded, and being near Hati made me feel more drained than usual―probably the whole bane of the Moon thing. Yet somehow I found the courage to attack his left forepaw. I sprinted towards the black thing, holding my sword high. As I neared it, I jumped into the air and onto a gravestone. Pushing off, I climbed higher into the air and flew for his paw.
As I slammed into the ground, the point of my sword was impaled into Hati’s paw. He let out a howl and kicked out. I nimbly backpedaled out of the way, but my sword was still in his foot. I knew that calling it like I did water was out of the question. I was too weak right now, not to mention tired. I looked up at his face. Despite the fact that he wasn’t able to see, I could see him inhaling.
“Ridge, get down!” I yelled as I hid behind a gravestone.
The roar of the flames was enough to send me into a fit of panic. I turned to Ridge, who was standing on the roof as an open target. He tried to jump down from the roof, but was too fast. His foot caught on something, and the flames pushed him off the roof like a gust of wind. Wren let out a cry of shock. Damn. I thought. With Ridge down, I was the only Guardian that had a hope of beating Hati’s ass into the ground. The flames died out, though some of it caught on the wood that lay scattered in Ridge’s section of the graveyard.
I rose quickly, glancing at my sword for only a second before jumping into the air. I landed on a gravestone and pushed off again, this time with my Guardian strength. Despite the fact that I was slightly weaker, I was thrown into the air with surprising force.
Hitting the dark fur of Hati’s right leg, I grabbed a lock of hair and hung on for dear life. Hati had turned his full attention to Pan, who had come out of hiding from what I could tell. I began to climb Hati―a hart task, mind you. It was mostly an upper body task, which was why it took so long.
Where are you, Knight of the Moon? Where are you? Hati continuously asked. Apparently he couldn’t sense him. That was fine. It made climbing him just a little bit easier. I finally reached his shoulder, and once I climbed over that mound, I was on his back. There were still stones from when he’d been sleeping, and I grabbed one that was a little bigger than a basketball. I balanced it in the crook of my arm as I made my way to his skull. He continued to growl and roar as Pan’s arrows hit his face, some bouncing off, and others sticking inside his flesh and fur. His back was about ten feet wide, and that was about how long he was too (from nose to tail), so climbing his nape was hard as well. It didn’t help that he was thrashing and moving about. And it certainly didn’t help that I had a basketball-size rock in my arm.
When I’d finally worked out a system to climb onto Hati’s skull, I was so relieved. It was simple. I just had to wait for him to blow fire at my friends. When he did that, his muscles tensed in his neck, and his head lowered, so it was like running up a small knoll.
Reaching the peak of the figurative mountain wasn’t something to cheer about though. He smelled like sweat and dust, not to mention the veins of red that traveled from his eyes and ran around his ears like rivers. I found a way to balance, and held the rock up high―I was about to see what happened when a twenty-foot wolf got brained by a rock.
I slammed the rock down on Hati’s skull and winced at the blood that flowed from the impact site. It ran silver, like ichor. I was about to let out a triumphant shout as Hati’s legs buckled, when he suddenly found some strength. “No!” I yelled. “Hell no!”
One of Pandora’s arrows were still embedded in his eye bone. As Hati was regaining his sense of orientation, I reached down and removed the arrow, almost losing my balance.
But I didn’t, and that’s what mattered. I flipped the arrow so the stone point was facing down. Then I turned to one of the rivers of red that ran through his skull, and stabbed it. Silver ichor mixed with red goop gushed out, but I wasn’t done. I scrambled to the other one and punctured its surface. Then I slid down, onto Hati’s nose. I slipped on the sweaty surface, but caught myself on the black skin.
I was hanging twenty-feet high, staring up at the pained red eyes of the Bane of the Moon.
I didn’t have time to think about the eeriness of the situation. Hati was beginning to fall again, but I had to make sure he stayed dead. So, with a faint groan of anticipation, I hauled myself up onto his nose once again, this time being more careful. I looked at his eye, which was now flooded with silver blood. I jabbed the arrow’s point into his eye.
His howl of pain shocked me, and I was already reaching too wide. I lost my balance completely and fell off of Hati. I shut my eyes as I waited to hit the ground. Twenty-feet wasn’t that high, right? I wouldn’t die, right?
Suddenly, I felt like I was being slammed into a truck. Fur surrounded my body, soft and warm.
Then the jarring impact of the cobblestone ground. I opened my eyes and stared up into the blue eyes of a wolf with brown fur. It was larger than a normal wolf on Earth, so I knew it was Kate. “Thanks,” I coughed weakly.
She Shifted into her normal form and pulled me up. Hati had fallen completely. His chest moved slowly, then stopped. He was dead.
I walked over to his head, scrunching my nose at the acrid stench that was coming off of his corpse. At first I’d thought that I’d killed it, but then I saw the statue sticking out of his chest. I looked around, carefully approaching the statue. It was the eagle one, the one I’d been hiding behind. The point was embedded into Hati’s chest, which was spurting silver ichor. The blood dripped onto my feet, and I sighed in annoyance.
Note-to-Self; monsters bleed silver.
My eyes found Ridge, who was standing where the statue had been a moment before, panting and holding his ribcage tightly. I saw that he wasn’t burned. Kate was next to me, and even she let out a shocked gasp. “You’re alive?” I asked impulsively.
Ridge, followed by Wren, approached us, glaring. “Yes, I’m alive. Now, let’s watch the Norse wolf give us our gifts.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but Pandora arrived and turned me around. I widened my silver eyes as Hati’s body began to melt. It was a quick process, which made me feel odd. His flesh began to liquidate and sink into the cracks of the ground. His eyes were the last to go, two red pools, one a silvery mess, the other contorted in anger and agony. I stared at them until they disappeared. I blinked when his body was completely gone.
“Alright,” I said. “We’re done here―”
“Look.” Kate said.
On the ground, there were four objects. They lay on the ground like, Well? Are ya gonna take us? One was a fur cloak, the exact same shade of Hati’s fur. The next one was a scabbard, about three-and-a-half feet long and made of beaten black leather. There were whitish symbols running through it, and when I picked it up, I saw that they were the same color of Hati’s teeth. The next object was a leather quiver full of thirteen arrows, made of the same leather as the scabbard, but with no white runes. Inside there were quivers, so naturally, Pandora picked it up. There was another scabbard, with similar ivory runes. Ridge whistled as he strode towards it.
“Spoils…” he murmured.
“What?” I asked, not sure I’d heard correctly.
Ridge looked at me while the hand not holding the scabbard began to glow. It travelled to his chest and I realized that he was healing himself. “You’ve heard the term ‘spoils of war’, correct? Well, that same principle occurs in the Realm, but only when someone kills an infamous creature that is known on both Earth and the Realm. Hati, here, is one of those infamous creatures. The god of Valor, Fenway, oversees all spoils. He must have seen something he liked about this battle and given the main offensive players―us three―offensive tools.”
I wasn’t sure that I liked this Fenway guy. “What, so Pandora here gets a quiver and new arrows, but I get an empty scabbard? I climbed that guy’s back and brained him with a rock. I deserve some recognition! Like, some armor, or something!”
The sky thundered, followed by a rumble of the ground. I froze, looking at Ridge uncertainly. “Um…”
“I’d stay quiet. No one insults a gift from the gods. And besides, I’m sure that the scabbard will come in handy later. What kind is yours built for?”
“I dunno.” I handed the leather sheath to him and he examined it.
“It looks like it’d fit a broadsword. Mine too. Would your Badge fit?”
I shook my head. “And I can’t change the sword type either. The weapons seem to be set already.”
“Alright, then it looks like you’ll find a new sword in the future. Kate, how’s that cloak?” He gave me the scabbard back and I took of the one that Pandora had given me earlier. I unwound it and put it into my mouth as I tied the leather strap of my new one around my waist. Then I tossed the dagger sheath to Pan, who caught it. She’d already discarded her old quiver. Maybe some new group of people would find uses for it. I jogged toward my sword, which was just lying in a puddle of silver that hadn’t sunken into the ground. Picking it up, I melded it with the leather string around my neck and turned to the others.
As I approached them, Kate was talking about how she deserved something better than a cloak. I had to agree, the cloak did seem useless. It was just lying on the ground, so I picked it up.
Hati’s fur had never felt this soft.
It was like touching a billion feathers and wrapping them around you. I felt the spun cloth and scoffed. This thing would keep anyone warm in cold weather. For a second, I was tempted to claim it as mine, but I knew that it rightfully belonged to Wren or Kate. “Actually,” I said loudly, “It could be pretty useful. Which one of you want it?”
This started another argument, which caused me to smile. Wren began to pelt snowballs at Kate after a rude comment about her being an ice witch. Soon they started throwing insults at each other, obviously forgetting about the source of the argument. I Shifted my muscle just a little and the cloak faded away. I’d bring it back later. We began to leave the graveyard, this time without caution. That oppressive feeling was gone now.