Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (2 page)

He grinned.

“I guess I would have said sorry and
turned around and pet you instead.” I laughed and looked past him
to the mouth of the cave. “When did it stop?”

“About an hour ago.”

Brice stretched out to his full length,
the toes on his paws spreading and showing his claws. His jaws
snapped shut after his yawn. He shifted and sat up.
“Morning.”

He reached up and brushed some straight
blond strands of hair out of his eyes.

I smiled. With his hair sticking out
everywhere first thing in the morning he looked quite a bit younger
than his twenty years which was a big contrast to when he was
fighting or standing guard.

He took in our surroundings, looked
toward the mouth of the cave, and the quick glimpse of the young
Brice I had gotten disappeared.

“Do you think we should head out?” He
looked at Jasper who nodded.

“The sky is clear. It’s
over.”

There was a snort from outside of the
cave.

Jasper translated for Dodge. “He thinks
we should head out.”

It was my turn to grunt. “Of course he
does.”

We packed everything up and I gave my
horse a hug before swinging on. “Hey, Buddy. How was your
night?”

He nodded his head and I looked to
Jasper for the rest of it. “He said it was fine; a bit
windy.”

I laughed and gave him a pat on the
neck. “Funny.”

I looked back once toward the cave and
we moved off into the white world that stood between us and the
Northern Regions.

We had been trudging through the snow
for three days when Dodge stopped short, his nostrils
flaring.

“You’re right,” acknowledged Jasper. “I
smell it too.”

Brice turned from one direction to
another. “From where?”

I tried to smell what they smelled. Of
all of us, I had the worst nose and Dodge had the best. He turned
his head toward the smell.

“I’ll go,” volunteered
Brice.

Jasper shook his head. “We’re too close
to the border. It might be humans. You know what they will do if
they capture you.”

Brice grunted, either at the thought of
what they would do, or at the fact that Jasper was even considering
he would let himself be caught.

Jasper started off again. “We’ll detour
a bit. They don’t know we’re here yet. If it was us they were after
they wouldn’t have lit a fire.”

We traveled away from the smell of the
fire for the better part of the day then turned north
again.

“So what’s the story between the humans
and the Namaels?” I knew that there were humans in this world, but
had yet to see one.

“They think we’re possessed,” stated
Brice. “You know, demons or something of the sort.”

I started to laugh. “You’re
kidding!”

Jasper glanced up at me, but didn’t
look amused. “It’s true. Not too many come this close. They have a
colony where they choose to live in the Northern
Regions.”

“So were they always here?”

“No. They come from where you were. For
some reason, certain humans can cross over here, but once they are
here, they can’t go back. They have just enough magic to cross, but
then it leaves them.”

“How do they know where to go once they
get here?”

Jasper glanced in the direction of the
fire. “They send scouts out to watch some of the crossings. Those
that are found are brought up here to live in the colony. Those who
aren’t found usually manage to get themselves killed or poisoned by
something they try to eat. Some are lucky enough and manage to
drift into a being from this world and are shown that being’s way
of life.”

“So not all humans think you’re demons
then.” The Wedelve half of me was scowling at my human
half.

“Just the ones in the colony.” Jasper
looked up at me and smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Shlova.
You can’t pick who your parents are. Besides, I doubt your father
thought like that. He never did live in the colony. The ones that
are brought to the colony are brainwashed and the rest are raised
that way.” Jasper shook his head.

“So what happens if they catch one of
you?”

Brice looked up at me and shivered.
“They separate you from your animal. They call it exorcism, I
think.”

“What?” My mouth fell open.
“How?”

Brice’s eyes were opened, but I didn’t
think he was seeing the trees and snow ahead of us. “He has a
staff. It’s made of this queer black stone. I’ve never seen
anything like it anywhere else. And when he brings it close, you
can hear it scream.”

He blinked and looked at me. “I was
thirteen. I had thought to follow my dad on one of his patrols. Dad
sent me home, but I didn’t listen. I tried to keep up, but after a
few days I was completely lost. I wandered too close to a crossing
the humans had been watching and got captured.

“There were three of us put on trial.
I’m not sure why they call it that. They don’t plan on letting you
go until they separate you.

“We were tied to posts with our arms
behind our backs so we couldn’t shift.

“Their leader, they called him Braw,
touched the first man with the stick. I could hear it screaming and
then he was screaming. You could hear them separate. It was this
horrible ripping noise. Both of them were bleeding from their eyes,
nose, mouth; even their ears. Both him and his lion. They shot the
lion with three arrows and the man screamed again.” Brice wiped his
arm across his face and stared straight ahead. “And then he fell.
They shot his lion and he just died.

“The man with the staff said that this
man had been possessed by his demon for too long; that that was why
he had died.

“The second man was a Maj. I hadn’t
realized until they ripped his wolf away from him. I guess he had
been possessed for too long as well.” Brice swallowed
hard.

Jasper’s face was white and I wondered
if he had heard this story before.

Brice took a deep breath. “They all
left then. It was late. The man with the staff told me to pray for
my soul. That it be strong enough to banish the demon without
killing me. They left me tied to the post. I remember feeling so
helpless, wondering how much it would hurt if I shifted to try and
get out of the ropes. I wasn’t brave enough to try. That and I
didn’t think I would get far with two broken arms. I just stood
there and cried, and when I had come to terms with the fact that I
was going to die, an angel came.” A small smile touched his
lips.

“She had brought me water. She helped
me drink and asked me my name and how old I was, so I told her. She
said that she was nineteen and that her name was Sonia. She said
‘with an ‘i’, not a ‘y’’. And then she laughed because everybody
messed it up. What I remember the most about her was her eyes.” He
looked up at me. “They were exactly like yours. That deep green
with the gold and grey flecks.

“She asked if I knew what kind of demon
I had in me. I told her I was a jaguar, but that it wasn’t a demon;
that it was just who I was. She looked at me for a long time. She
said they thought I might live because I was young.

“I told her I wouldn’t. If my jaguar
died, I would too. It felt so strange talking as if I was two
beings. But she needed to understand.

“I’m not sure if she did, but she
seemed to think I wasn’t much of a danger and she cut me
loose.

“She travelled with me for four days
and never said another word to me. I shifted in front of her a few
times before I went hunting, to see her reaction, but she never
seemed scared.

“On the morning of the fifth day she
told me how to get to Candense, which is about three days from
where our home was. She said ‘stay safe, Brice’. And then she
left.”

We were all quite for a few
moments.

“So if that stick is in the Northern
Regions, why in the world are we going in that direction?” This was
turning into a terrible idea.

Jasper glanced up and smiled. “The
Northern Regions are enormous. It takes a good month to cross them
no matter what direction you are heading in. We will be on the
opposite end of the territory, where the dragons are. Not too many
beings go there. The Winged Ones, that’s about it.”

Dodge snorted and I looked at
Jasper.

“He said if you see a dragon,
hide.”

I started laughing. “That was the
plan!”

Jasper frowned at me. “It’s no joke,
Hayden. I can protect you from cats, dogs, and the sorts. There’s
not much I can do if you burst into flame or turn into
ice.”

My felt my eyes bug out of my head. “I
think you’d better explain dragons to me.”

Jasper smiled. “Not exactly what you
read about in story books?”

I stuck out my tongue at him. “The fire
breathing yes. The ice stuff no. What else do they do?”

“Dragons are all born with the power to
manipulate one of the elements. Earth, water, wind and fire. You’ll
find the earth dragons just about anywhere. They can move boulders,
turn the ground into quicksand, turn you into stone, that sort of
thing.”

Brice was laughing at the look on my
face.

“Water dragons stay close to water.
They need an existing source of it to do things. They can make it
rain, or throw it at you and turn you to ice, or make tides shift.
Wind dragons manipulate the air currents. Fire dragons can throw
fire.

Water and fire dragons are rarer than
the other two.” He paused, trying to think of what else I might
need to know.

“How do you tell them
apart?”

“Their eyes. Their scale colors vary
but aren’t specific to their type. The eyes are always the same.
Earths have brown, waters have blue, winds have grey, and fires
have red. Matches with your color waves, no?”

I nodded. That was easy enough to
remember.

“It is said that all dragons come from
one egg layer who possesses all four powers.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I swear! Why would I make it up,” he
laughed. “I didn’t lie about the Burries, did I?”

I smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t
actually seen a Burrie tree yet, and the thought of little people
being born on trees still seems like make belief.”

“Well, the Burrie trees I’ll show you
when we go home. As for the egg layer, I’m just repeating what I’ve
been told. I haven’t gone out of my way to go searching for the
truth and I’m hoping I never get close enough to find out. I’m told
not too many beings get that close to the nest and make it out
alive.”

Dodge snorted.

“Really?” Brice’s eyes were wide.
Obviously he had had his doubts as well. “He said it’s true. Some
of the Winged Ones have had to get that close to get their
stone.”

“Hmm. One big momma dragon.” I tried to
picture it. “Do you know where your stone is, Bud?”

Dodge nodded his head.

“The steam beds? Well, Shlova, at least
you’ll be able to have a hot bath.” Jasper grinned at
me.

We travelled two more days with no more
signs that we were being followed. Up ahead, I could hear the sound
of running water.

I felt Dodge gather himself to take a
leap over a particularly tall snow drift and braced myself. One
second I was looking between my horse’s ears and the next I was
covered in snow.

Jasper was beside me in an instant,
pulling me out of the drift. “Are you alright?” I could tell he was
trying not to laugh. Brice wasn’t being as discreet.

I nodded and looked at Dodge. “Are
you?”

He nodded and nuzzled my
face.

Jasper brushed the snow off my back.
“He says sorry. There was a fallen log under the snow where he
landed and he tripped on it.”

I patted Dodge between the eyes. “Not
your fault, Buddy.”

Brice was still laughing. “I think you
did a full flip and a half before you landed! And then you
completely disappeared!” He had to wipe tears out of his
eyes.

I made a quick snowball and threw it at
him.

“Hey!” He brushed the snow off of his
shoulder where it had hit him. He grinned and slowly made a
snowball of his own without taking his eyes off of me.

Jasper had already started walking away
and Brice gave him a quick glance before looking back at me and
jerking his head toward him in silent question.

I smiled, nodded, and proceeded to make
another snowball. We wound up and let the snowballs fly at Jasper.
Both of them hit their target and Jasper stopped short.

“Oh, shit!” I stepped behind Dodge and
Brice shifted before bolting into the trees. Jasper was an orange
streak as he bounded after Brice.

I watched, laughing. Brice had time to
have a quick glance back before Jasper tackled him into the deep
snow. The jaguar managed to roll away and stood to face the tiger.
The two of them reared up on their back legs and launched
themselves at each other. Jasper had the size advantage and knocked
Brice down again. This went on for a few minutes until they seemed
to come to a truce. They both shook to get the snow off and two
pairs of blue eyes turned towards me.