Splintered Fate (15 page)

The night provided little rest.

It was before dawn when Lana woke
panting, her cloths sticking to her sweat licked skin. Dreams of
the Rami she had killed with the face of her father haunted her
throughout the night. Rolling over to her side, she looked at the
camp, everyone seemed to still be asleep near a burnt out fire
where dusts of black smoke drifted up. The rest of the night Lana
laid still, not sleeping for fears of the dreams
returning.

Instead Lana thought of the past
day. She had lost her father, the last of her immediate blood
relatives. After his death a wave of numbness came, keeping her
from falling apart, allowing for her to act quickly. First she
found Flynn, her General, and put him in command in her immediate
absence.

Flynn was tall with brown hair, a
pail complexion, and a great attitude. Valdor trusted him and so
did Lana, plus he was like an uncle to her. He always followed
orders and had a love for his people. The only disadvantage he had
was a lack of an Aorra, but he made up for it by becoming a skilled
fighter with a very smart and logical head on his shoulders. His
heart was so incredibly warm and true. Lana’s people and army would
be willing to follow him in her absence.

At first Flynn was reluctant to
let her go anywhere without telling him where she was heading and
without protection, but he had no choice. Where in the past his
orders came from Valdor, now they came from Lana. She was now the
first in the Selvirian council and her words, his
command.

At first sign of light over the
horizon, Lana got up and walked to the small camp. Ardin raised his
head as she approached while the others still slept. Donn rested
with the two children curled together for warmth. Nila, the little
fox, sandwiched Nadina from the other side. Lana glanced to Kaiden,
letting her eyes linger for just a moment. His face was smooth,
serine as he slept. Even in his sleep his hand rested on his
sheathed sword. Her foot touched his torso, waking him.

Kaiden woke with a jolt. His
fingers moved smoothly, wrapping around the hilt of his blade
before his eyes registered that she had woken him. His hair was
mused from his sleep. It was somehow attractive the way it
unkemptly stuck up every which way.

“
Time to get going.” Lana spoke
when he sat up. Ardin stretched and released a howly yawn, waking
everyone.

“
We must get going, we have a long
journey ahead. I fear war is breaking out. I would like to stay
ahead of the wave of destruction.” Lana spoke as she began loading
up the horses.

“
Are there safer roads we can
take?” Kaiden asked, trying to fill the silence more than anything
while gathering his things.

“
No, if we go too far inland you
will be at risk and in return we all will be. We must travel next
to the border, where few travel.” Lana replied with lifeless words.
Her demeanor was cold towards Kaiden, part of her irrationally
blaming him for what had happened.

“
I know of a few small towns
scattered along the way, we will be able to get a few supplies as
we go.” Donn added with a friendly smile. Lana returned the smile,
not wanting to be rude, though it did not touch her
eyes.

“
If we travel along the border do
we not risk running into the Shade?” Kaiden asked.

Lana turned to him, surprised by
his concern of the Shade, most people believed the stories of her
to be a myth. The Shade was more of an entity than a Madonian or
Rami. They said that she had the powers to haunt ones dreams and to
tell one’s fate.

A few men in the past went to hunt
her down, only one ever returned and when he did he was not all
there in the head. He would say how she was indestructible, her
skin made of stone, her eyes yellow and bewitching. She haunted his
dreams after that, torturing him until one day he had killed
himself. Afterwards, no one really spoke of the Shade. It is said
that she lives in spaces between the Rami and Madonian lands, and
because most do not venture into those territories to begin with
she wasn’t heard of again.

“
Oh, I think we will be okay.”
Donn replied to Kaiden with a laugh.

“
You don’t believe her to be
real?” Kaiden questioned somewhat defensively.

“
No, I didn’t say that. The Shade
is a selfish creature. But we mean it no harm. It doesn’t want
trouble and so it will stay out of our way if we happen to travel
close. Such as a deer would if it heard us coming.”

“
Alright then, now that that’s
settled, we should get going.” Lana spoke, sending everyone into
action.

Kaiden was given Alex’s horse, a
chocolate brown steed with a blond mane, to ride while the boy
shared Donn’s dapple-gray stallion with his grandfather. Nadina got
to keep her brown and white horse, which she named Patches. Lana
continued riding the pure white mare that Donn had first given
her.

The five of them traveled the
entire day, in a palpable silence that spanned between them all.
Misery was a friend of the silence, and it wrapped its talon around
Lana’s throat, following her like a cape. There was nothing she
could do to rid herself of them, so she just rode on without a
word. They only stopped long enough to let the horses rest and
graze before continuing on their silent journey.

Once the sun began setting Kaiden found a
small valley amongst the wooded area to make camp for the night.
Ardin caught two rabbits that Lana skinned, as her father had once
taught her, and began cooking them on the fire Donn and Kaiden had
built.

The warmth of the flames felt good
on Lana’s skin, with the cool night air that surrounded her. She
watched the fire, lost in its dancing flames of war. A small Aorra
was sitting next to her, watching her with large wondering eyes,
pulling Lana out of her fiery trance.

Nila, Lana wondered how long the little Aorra
had been watching her.

“
Nila wants to learn how to hunt
rabbit too.” Nadina broke the heavy silence around the campfire.
The darkness that currently surrounded Lana seemed to not faze
Donn’s granddaughter.

Giving the girl a kind smile, Lana
felt sorry for what she and Alex have been going through. “I am
sure Ardin would love to teach her.” She answered, looking over at
her Aorra.

I would be most
honored.
He replied, happy to see some
form of humanity come from Lana. The group fell into silence once
more, only to be again broken by Nadina a few minutes
later.

“
Where do Aorras come from?” She
asked, her large brown eyes full of wonder.

Lana smiled at the question. It
was a question that had been the center of many debates in her
life. “Didn’t Donn or anybody share stories with you?”

Nadina glanced at Donn as he
replied, “I don’t like teaching things I know nothing of especially
when it relates to Aorras. I like to consider my words very
carefully and never give false information. It may seem strange,
but it is just how I am. But I do not forbid another sharing their
thoughts.” He spoke casually.

“
Well, what does Nila think?” Lana
asked, genuinely interested in what the small fox thought. Nila
raised her head at the sound of her name, tilting it ever so
lightly to the side while looking at Lana.

“
She doesn’t know.” Nadina
replied, waiting for Lana to tell her more.

“
I don’t know either, Madonians
believe different things and there are many theories and stories...
But I like to believe that they are the spirits of our ancestors
and when we are born the spirits watch out for us, protecting us.
They bond with us and eventually when we are a little older some
choose to be born into our world as animals to better protect us,
as guardians. That’s why if we pass away our Aorras go with us,
because without us they have no purpose.”

Nadina stared at the ground, her
brows pulled together. “But then why doesn’t Nila remember being a
spirit?”

Lana turned and looked at Ardin with that
question, pondering how to answer.

“
Ardin too doesn’t remember
anything from before, but he doesn’t remember having a mother or
father either, his first memories of this life are of seeing me as
a little girl in the woods.”

A small smile broke on Lana’s face
at the memories, the first positive feeling she had felt since her
father’s death. “I think it’s for protection that they don’t
remember there past life. That way they bond to only us. So that
knowing things from their past lives don’t get in the way and cloud
their thoughts while they are with us in our realm.”

After a moment Nadina smiled “I
like that theory.” She stated with a nod of her head.

Alex, who was sitting in a space
between Nadina and Donn, suddenly got up and walked away a small
distance from the fire before kicking a rock and plopping to the
ground. He began picking at the blades of grass on the
earth.

Lana turned to Donn,
questioningly.

“
The boy gets all sensitive about
not having an Aorra every now and then. He will get over it soon.
Some day he will learn that he is capable of more than he now
knows.” The old man said with a shrug.

Kaiden silently got up from the
fire and walked over to Alex. Lana watched him kneel next to the
boy. Even in the darkness she could see Kaiden’s lean muscles
underneath his shirt, flex as he reached out for a stick Alex had
created. It was strange seeing him like this.

She used to be taller than him but
now he towered a full head above her. His body had been honed over
the years they had been apart, he grew into his strong jaw, his
shoulders broadened, his hands were still capable of the energy
control she had taught him. He was the same and yet
different.

He is being kind
to the
boy
. Ardin
mentioned when Lana turned away, turning back to the flames of the
fire. Indeed, he was. She sat in silence for a short while before
Nadina asked her another question.

* * *

Kaiden strolled over to the blond
little boy with the big brown eyes. He thought about what to say
but the boy spoke first. “I don’t want to talk about stupid
Aorras.”

“
Fair enough,” Kaiden kneeled next
to the boy. “I don’t have one of those pesky creatures either, good
riddance I think.”

“
Your Rami, I am Madonian, it’s
different.” Alex said very matter of factly. He yanked up a few
more blades of grass from where his hands fell on the
ground.

“
Donn mentioned you had really
awesome abilities, even without the help of an Aorra,” Kaiden
stated.

“
Yea, well all I
can do is make sticks and twigs. How
awesome
.”

Kaiden let out a small laugh and the boy
looked at him with such fierce eyes that it shocked him a moment.
“You remind me of myself a bit. My brother was always the more
powerful one when I was little. Then I went to Ucu where I learned
how to use my strengths.”

“
And now you are better then your
brother?”

“
Is that what you want? To be
better than your sister?”

Alex shrugged and Kaiden
continued, “In some ways yes, in others no. We each have our own
strengths. He was always stronger, able to generate more raw energy
at one time, but I am now good with control, better than him in
that way.”

“
Great, I can be the king of
making sticks.” The boy replied bitterly.

“
Can you make them any shape or
size?”

Alex shrugged, making a convoluted
stick with twists appear in his hand before tossing it to
Kaiden.

Kaiden observed the stick, it was
brown, the color of wood, which in its self was impressive. Usually
Madonians couldn’t create things in color, everything they made was
silver. It was rare for a Madonian to be able to make things so
life like, which in itself made Alex special.

Kaiden looked up as a thought
entered his mind. “How close must you be to this before it loses
its form?”

Alex shrugged, “I don’t know… I
used to make them and build forts in the woods and then I’d forget
about them till running across the forts again.”

Kaiden’s eyes grew large. He
stared at the little boy who really had no idea how amazing he was.
When Lana came to the school it took her a huge amount of practice
before she could keep the form of something without physically
touching it and even then she had to have it within a few feet of
herself. But Alex could do it with ease, without a second thought,
and he was younger than Lana had been.

“
Can you make a straight one,
perfectly straight? And pointed at one end?”

Alex formed another in his hand and gave it to
Kaiden to examine. He held it in his hand, pressing his thumbs on
it, testing it. The stick had a good give to it without being weak
or flimsy. Alex silently watched, interested in what the Rami was
doing.

Kaiden looked around a moment
before he found it. A tree with a soft bark, soft enough that a
sharp stick could stick into its flesh without needing too much
force. He threw the stick Alex had created at the tree. It whizzed
by, cutting the air before landing in the tree’s flesh.