My life couldn't be any more complicated – and more of a headache than it already is. I'm cleaning again, though it isn't because I'm a nervous wreck. Oh no, this time is worse. Roseia threw up. Again. For two days she's been sick with a fever. Siscilla's doing her best, but she herself can't find the cause of the illness.
"It's like a – ghost virus," she said, waving her hands angrily over her head when I asked her about it.
"So what do we do?"
"Same as those without access to a skilled healer."
And that's what we've been doing. Reynald stays at her side day and night, Siscilla tries to ease Roseia's stomach, and the rest of us keep our distance and help where we can. Since I seem to have the strongest stomach – and the iron tough assassins are busy with not wanting to do the dirty work – I'm stuck cleaning up the mess. I'd prefer her gag reflexes were a little stronger so that she could've made it more than three feet from the bed, but I don't have such luck. It'd be nice if I did.
It's mostly water that I'm picking up since she doesn't eat. There's not much odor to it either, but it's still making my head spin every now and then.
It's sometime in the middle of the night, likely early morning based on the moonlight. When you stay up all night for as long as I have, you begin to learn to judge the time based on the moon's position. Odd skill to acquire, but handy if I ever get lost. Then again, I'm lost now and don't find the time of almost three bells to be a comfort. Everyone else – even Roseia, sleeps soundlessly now. I got a glimpse of Melody outside earlier. The only other living thing in our group awake.
Done with cleaning, I grab the towel and bucket now full of murky colored water, and walk outside to dump and hang them. It's not like it could make this barren forest smell any worse, though Melody seems to cringe when I walk past her and toss the water. She's become a warm presence in this cold world. Winter's still in full swing, and it should be calming down, but there's been no indication that it will.
The cold sometimes makes me wonder if Lance and the others are warm. I mean, Darius can control fire, and by the way Ella's been explaining what, exactly, he could do with it, he could warm their coats in a matter of seconds. It's more of a constant cold breeze here than anything. There's no snow, no hail, nothing but the dead trees to tell you the season. And they're like this year-round, or so Lance claimed. I haven't been outside of the castle since I arrived fifteen years ago.
There are more times than not that I pluck the sheathed dagger from my pocket and try to get it open. I scratch, tear, push and pull the hilt, and scream at it to let me succumb to the blade. There's nothing of height to launch me off of here, which I suppose is a good thing, though I already tried scaling the wall of the cabin, but it's impossible. I dared Blight to do it – with a little encouraging and brutal words from Julyan - and she was on the roof dancing her victory within the next minute. I tried memorizing where she placed her hands and feet, but she moved like a damn spider and I couldn't do it.
The trees were just as much a hopeless attempt. I have zilch experience with the tall, nimbly bastards, and every tree has some kind of thorn-filled bush in front of it. You'd have to take a running start and jump to the lowest branch to pull yourself up. Been there, failed that. You can't imagine the idiotic story I had to come up with to explain my bloody legs and arms. At least my face came out unscathed. Every other body part had some kind of scratch or thorn lodged in it. Took Siscilla an entire day to get them all out. She muttered her discontent the whole time.
I honestly have been secretly wishing that Roseia would explode again if only to throw me against another tree. I ended up with blood oozing out of my nose and ears, and a blue and purple back that wouldn't let me move a single muscle until Siscilla fixed it. That took a whole day as well. I tried getting her to leave it alone, thinking that the pain and spinal injuries would soon let me sleep in peace, but she had Blight trick and drug me so I wouldn't attempt to fight as she waved her magical healing hands. I couldn't have fought either way, but I sure would've cursed up a storm if I weren't unconscious.
We still don't know what the fuck happened. All I remember is seeing the girl sitting on a rock, light beaming from her hands, and then a flash of light before darkness. Honestly, if that isn't how everyone sees death, then I don't know what in ten hells they see before death. Sure, I'd prefer that I left the living peacefully, but that's not how I'm wired. I'm all knots and different colored lights spinning around the room at different paces. It's not fun, but I do what I can to keep some comedy in my dark, cold soul.
Pulling the dagger out now as I stand at the tree line's edge, there are too many thoughts running through my head. Fauna, Lance, Darius, Roseia, me...every person has a train of thought running in my head, and every train has more trains that split into all kinds of directions. It's a bloody, bruised, near dead to the bone, mess. It's both annoying and soothing to have one quiet thought muffling the others.
It's not worth it. Ending myself.
Speaking of the God-gifted woman...she comes out of the cabin, stomping right for me with angrily pumping arms.
"Katarina Riona Devika Benoldi, you put that back right now before I do something worse than slitting your wrists." At least she knows my name, though based on her frantic hair and wrinkled clothes, she just woke up, so maybe it's a late demon wake sort of thing. Great.
"Oh, hold your horses." I glance to Melody, wondering if that was perhaps a bad choice of words. "Even if I could, the sheath is impossible to open."
"Nothing's impossible. These past cycles are evidence of that."
She snatches the blade from my hands, and a jolt of pain floods through me. Not once since Lance gave it to me has it been out of my possession. Lance may be gone, but the weapon weighs me down. Most days. Even as I attempted the roof and trees, the weight kept my feet on the ground. For the most part, that is.
"Oh, Katarina." She hands me back the dagger, and I instantly feel better. "Promise me you won't go making this whole situation harder on the lot of us. Especially on that man of yours who will likely follow you soon after."
The thought has shivers running down my spine, but...
"I can't promise you anything I cannot promise myself."
She stays quiet, and I find myself wishing she'd shake me and force me to say the vow. Then, at least, I'd have something to remind myself every time I look at her. Instead, she just looks at me with tired eyes. We're all tired. Aside from Levi and Mira who run non-stop, the rest of us could use some good news by now. Otherwise, I don't think I'll end up being the only one with strained thoughts.
"Come here. I want to show you something." Groggily, I force my legs to move and follow her. Melody stands as well, and I feel a little better now that I have her warming presence towering beside me. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but her eyes remind me of Fauna. It's more reassuring than not.
She leads us to the back of the house, stopping at the center of the wooden wall. She turns, then looks at me with expectant eyes and her hands on her hips. Am I supposed to know what to do or...
"Si non mens?"
"What-" Melody lowers herself to the ground, but she has her legs beneath her rather than angled like when she's resting.
"Get on."
"What?"
Siscilla hikes up her dress skirt, throwing one leg over Melody's back. "Get on – but leave space between the two of us."
I don't let myself think about it and climb up behind her, leaving a body's width between us. Before I can ask her "now what," Melody shifts and stands. I really hope she's too focused on standing steadily that she doesn't feel my nails digging into her back, or how my thighs clench to the point of shaking. This is the last time I get on a horse without a saddle. Or at all. Well, at least it couldn't get any worse.
"Okay. Time to stand up."
I spoke too soon.
I gape at the woman as she puts her hands beneath her and steadies herself to stand on a horse's back. "You can't be serious?"
"When have I ever been one to crack a joke?" she counters swiftly.
"Touché."
I don't move and go completely tense when she pulls her legs up and shakingly stands up. I'm going to be one hundred percent, completely, brutally honest right now. If she fell, I wouldn't catch her. I'm not even sure I'd get off of Melody's back unless she laid back down. If not, then I'd result in screaming for help until someone ran out and helped me down. They'd have to pry my hands from Melody's back, but I'd be down...eventually. All this fear, and yet none of it's there when I decide my life isn't worth keeping.
I force myself to watch her just in case someone asks me what happened. I'll be helpful in one way – even if it'll be of no use to healing her injuries.
She reaches above her head and that's when I notice that by standing on Melody, the roof reachers her chest. With a grunt and push off of Melody, she pulls herself up and rolls onto the top of the cabin. And here I was trying to climb an unscalable wall. This is going to lower my self-esteem.
"Hurry up girl. She won't stand there forever."
"How the fuck do we get down then?"
"Oh, quit your fussing and put your big girl panties on. If an old hag can do it, your young teenage ass surely can."
This is really going to lower my self-esteem - and she's not an old hag.
"Please don't let me fall," I whisper to Melody.
Right, like a damn horse can understand me.
Still, she doesn't move more than her breathing, and it takes me a minute to muster up enough confidence to move my lead legs. I manage to get my knees under me, then my feet, and the next thing I know cold hands grab under my shoulders and pull me up the rest of the way.
"How can you possibly eat so little and weigh so much?"
"By sneaking cookies when no one's looking."
She snorts, then stands and walks to the edge, peering down as I lay flat on my back trying to slow my beating heart. I swear to the Gods and their Saints if she makes me do that, I'm going to push –
"Come here you scaredy-cat."
Heathens burn me to ashes.
Okay. I can do this. Without jumping.
Hopefully.
Gods is that why she brought me here? To push me over the edge and end my misery? No. She's a healer – the Anevay – she's vowed to only do good, not harm. Then again, trusting people isn't my strong suit at the moment.
Screw it. If I die, I die.
I come up to her side and do my best not to latch onto her arm as my toes' tips line up with the roof's edge.
"Do you see that? There?" She points to the ground, where I can no longer see Melody.
"You mean the way down? No."
"I'm in a forest full of imbeciles," she mumbles, rubbing her temples with her pointer finger. She does that a lot more often nowadays. "The rocks, Katarina. Look at the rocks."
Adhering to her tone, I do as she says, but I can barely see them in the dirt and long dead grass. If it weren't for the still dancing lights in the sky, I wouldn't see them at all. And there's no way to notice their peculiar placement of them from on the ground. You'd just trip over one of them, curse at them, then go on with your life – which you may also curse at. Up here, however...
"What is it?"
"A symbol."
I refrain from rolling my eyes and earning a slap to the shoulder. "Of what? What does it mean?"
"The meaning is protection."
"That's what you wanted to show me," I demand, standing from the crouch I went into to get a closer look. "A symbol made by rocks that Lance or his father likely drew?"
"It's an ancient symbol – one I've only seen in books. From Thralia."
"Then his mother drew it."
"Don't you ever use those eyes for something other than crying?" Ouch. "The rocks were recently placed. Which means someone here put them there."
"Ella's perfectly capable of doing it. She was born and raised in Thralia."
"That's what I thought until I saw the others."
"Others?"
She doesn't answer and walks to the edge adjacent to this one. I don't feel anymore fear as I follow after her, too curious to care anymore. When I get there, I trace her gaze to another symbol made of – not rocks – but cut grass. It's like someone burned it in the shape of the twisting lines, leaving only blackened dirt beneath it.
"It means trust," she supplies. This time I do roll my eyes.
"How is 'protection' and 'trust' suspicious?"
Again, no response and she continues to the third side. We're at the front of the house now, and this time, there's no symbol on the ground. I open my mouth to question Siscilla, but her eyes are glues to the trees. I look to them, finding nothing but –
Is that...
Another marking. This time formed by some kind of string tied around three tree's branches. It's significantly bigger than the other two and easy to miss since it's formed several feet off the ground. Unless you were looking for it, you'd completely miss it.
"The strings are opalescent, and they only shine when the lights in the sky are out."
"How do you know?"
"I've been sitting up here since we've got here. I'd stare at those trees hoping..."
Hoping she'd walk through them, I finish in my head. Odd that I've never spotted her out here before.
"Then the lights showed, and the symbol appeared. After that, I noticed the others. Loyalty. This is a symbol of loyalty."
Protection, trust, and loyalty. Still don't see a problem.
"I'm assuming there's another one?"
She nods once. "Unity."
The unity symbol is hard to find at first, as it's made out of shifting light the same colors as that which dances above. I look up and find that the light is traveling at an angle through some broken and woven together branches. How it's nearly clear on the ground, I don't know, but that's the symbol.
"I don't mean to be a buzzkill," I say, keeping my voice to a whisper. "but none of these symbols point to Sibella wrongfully. If anything, they say otherwise."
"Look down."
Squinting at her, I let my head slide forward and look back down to the ground. There's the Unity symbol, but that's it. She grabs my shoulders and turns me around so that I'm now looking down on the flat roof.
How many of these are there?
This symbol is entirely different. It looks like it was painted on the roof with some kind of red paint. Unlike the flowing, smooth lines of the other four symbols, this one has zig-zag lines and edges that come to a defined pint. At first, I think it's some kind of symbol for strength, but then I see the two lines that jut out like horns, and my stomach twists.
"What-"
"Traitor. It means traitor."
I'm afraid to ask, but, "What's it painted in?"
"Blood."
"Sibella's?" My hands are shaking now, and I'm praying to the Gods that it's not hers.
"No" Oh thank – "But it's got her initials on the bottom corners. All four of them."
S. A. V. C.