Awakening (Born From Shadows #1)

“I’m going to go with Nylif to find a shop and buy some food, can some of you look after the horses and other go find water?” Tatianna asked of her friends. They still had a journey a head of them to prepare for.

“You’re going of alone again,” Nik pointed out obviously not happy with her plan.

Tatianna patted her hand against Nylif’s head, “I’m not alone.” Nik’s green eyes looked down towards Nylif’s grey body, a frown still etched upon his face.

“Fine, but don’t take too long,” he gave in.

“I won’t,” she replied but before she could dash off Nik wrapped an arm around her waist and placed a delicate kiss upon her lips. She savoured every moment of it, closing her eyes as his lips moved against hers, until he pulled away from her. Without saying another word she walked away from them, feeling Nylif’s fur brush against her leg as a constant reminder that she wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

“Come on girl, which one of these looks like a shop to you?” she asked the wolf. Language foreign to its ears yet she treated Nylif as a person.

The wolf padded in front of her, moving slightly a head which made her wonder if it could actually understand her question. None the less she followed it, as if both Nylif and her was being drawn towards something in the village that was located in the middle of nowhere.

She started to be able to smell something that was somewhat like food and focused on it. Followed it as well as followed Nylif. The large wolf ceased its movements outside the door of a small wooden building. Tatianna went to pear through its windows, but they were blocked by layers of cascading linen.

“I guess we have got to go in,” she told the wolf and reached out to the door handle. It was unlocked which was her first sign that this could well and truly be the villages shop. Very few people would leave their homes unlocked for intruders to welcomingly invade. Peaking around the room she noticed shelves with bread and other baked goods, and she questioned where someone would farm such things in such a desolated un-fertilised area.

“Hello?” she called out wondering where the owner was. She grabbed some of the products and placed a few coins on the counter, not wanting to steal from a village undergoing the struggles that this one was. Tatianna turned around to leave when the shops door opened again.

“Sorry, I had some things to attend to,” a woman appeared into the store, approaching the counter. “I see you have already attended yourself,” the woman noted Tatianna’s money the laid resting on the bench.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she told the woman.

The woman waved her hand in front of her face, “it’s fine. Is there anything else you want?”

“Um…no thank you,” Tatianna replied looking down at the food in her hand as if it was going to disappear at any second, counting the amount that she held.

“I see very few Elves around here but you…your something else,” the woman said leaning uncomfortable close to her. Staring straight into her eyes, analysing their peculiarity. Tatianna immediately looked away to avoid the woman’s piercing glare.

“You do not wish for anything else, but I will give you this information for free,” the woman told her, peaking her interesting significantly. What could this stranger tell her? What information was important to her?

“You have a black soul, but a bright heart, child. I fear the darkness within you will take over. The clouds will fall covering the ground with white ash. The sun will die, the invisible light you didn’t know was there will be gone. A princess has ascended the throne. The world will weep, the gods no more, the rivers turn red. Eyraka will come.” The lady burst into laughter, “and many will die. Oh, it will be beautiful to see the beast awaken.” She said in a daze still laughing at her. “Perhaps when we meet again, I will tell you your end.”

Tatianna pulled away from the women, deeming her insane as she laughed at the thought of death. Tatianna stepped out of the shop leaving the woman to keep laughing. She hoped they never met again, that Lilyean did not wish it so, but you could never tell what the goddess of fate’s plans were.

“Tatianna!” The woman called out to her. She immediately spun around wondering how this stranger learnt her name. “You can run. Hide. Scream. Nothing can save you now,” the woman said in a deadly calm voice, a smile on her face, “for you are already lost.” Laughter erupting from her mouth once more. This woman appeared so nice before yet now she was lost in madness, it still amazed Tatianna how well people can appear to seem as something else. How even she had pretended that she was not just a piece junk at the ball.

Tatianna breathing accelerated and she ran back towards the designated rendezvous. The supplies she carried rattled as her feet pounded against the ground, her heartbeat increased at every thought of the stranger. Who she was? How did she know who Tatianna was? Why did this journey keep getting even more complicated?

She had heard of prophets, children of Lilyean, but never believed someone could see the destiny that the goddess planned for each person. But doubt settled into her as she once again had to question everything, she knew an believed. She had thought the other woman mad as well, yet the words she spoke of were true. If this stranger she just met was also speaking the truth, then who was going to die? What was this Eyraka she spoke of? None of it made sense, but the truth is never clear unless you know everything about it, and she knew nothing. She couldn’t even read let alone figure out what the words of a suspected prophet meant.

The meeting place that they had designated was filled with her few friends by the time she rushed back, her trip taking a longer amount of time than expected. That conversation was not something she had prepared for, even if she had known it was coming no one can be prepared for the words of a prophet.

“We were about to go looking for you,” Nik said and paced towards her. His height towering over her small figure as he suffocated her with his tight hold.

“I ran into a slight…complication,” she explained.

“Are you hurt?” Nik immediately asked as his gaze swept her body for any sign of injury. Yet you can’t see emotional damage on the outside.

“Not that sort of complication,” she tried to reassess her wording. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

She looked at the colourful sky, a gradient of colours as the sun began to fade beyond the horizon slipping away from their world. Every day it got to escape, but inevitably it was brought back no matter how hard it tried.

“What are you guys still doing here?” a frantic male voice called out to them. Tatianna looked towards Clay’s beaten down face and worried eyes. “Run, get out of here!”

She looked back at the vanishing light in the sky. It was time for them to go. Clambering onto Ida with Nik behind her they broke off into a trot. By the sun was down they were far enough for the humans to not hear a whisper from the town but she could here everything. The screams of men women and children, mixed in with the screeches of something far from human. Gods knows how desperately she wanted to run around, to help them. But she couldn’t, some people you can’t save no matter how hard you try but that didn’t mean she felt any better for it. Freya and Riley were riding together on the other horse, Nylif running beside Ida. She may have had to leave those poor souls in the village but she knew if she had let herself be close to any of them, her feet would never have left that village. Her black lined eyes eventually drifted close, and her body fell asleep against Nik’s chest. Only a few more days than they would be safe, then she wouldn’t have to sleep to the cacophony of children screaming for an emancipator to free them from reality.