The Raven & The Wolf

Chapter Seven

For the next several hours, Gedric moves at an agonizing slow pace. I say agonizing because my power is still spiking, and it’s causing my body to get hotter to burn it off. What happens if my power gets too high? I explode and wipe out anything within several leagues of me. What is worse is that it creates basically a black hole in the earth. In reality it’s a really big pit. Anything that gets near it falls in and doesn’t come out. Sheiks and the like have tried exploring them, but all we get is a scream before they die. I really don’t want to die this way. I don’t like the idea of exploding.

When it gets too dark, and I start chattering my teeth, because I’m at my near death stage again, Macy stops. I use the light from the full moon to see what she is doing. She starts sniffing the air and pawing at the dirt. Annoyed Gedric stops and turns around. He pulls on Macy’s reins, but she won’t budge.

“There is nothing wrong. Come on. Before she dies.” He tries again but gets nowhere. I reach my hand out to stroke Macy’s neck, but she bites my glove and pulls it off. A white light flashes bright.

I find my voice. “Get down!” I scream as I roll off of Macy. She takes off with Gedric’s horse, Mayter, right on her tail. A black ball smacks against the tree, causing it to die in seconds. The intended target was Gedric. Quickly, I grab my glove to cover the light. Once my glove is back on, a fire ignites between Gedric and I.

Dark chuckling sounds as people approach the ground. “Look who we found.” Ari says as he becomes visible in the red light. “I was just expecting the Hunter. So I could kill him for his little distraction ploy. But I didn’t think you’d be with him.” He snaps his finger, freezing Gedric as he was reaching for a knife he hides on his belt.

Ari grins as he takes in my state. “What is this? My little raven is going through a power spike that is overpowering her. Now would be the perfect time to milk you for your magic.” He raises his palm, making the wolf glow white this time. I scream as I feel as if a snake has bitten my hand.

A bright green light shines and a little evil giggle fills the air. Shocked, the pain goes away as Ari turns toward the culprit. Gedric stands, the stone is shining bright around his neck. “Leave her alone.” He says with a firm jaw, which is impressive considering he’s trembling.

Ari chuckles. “A power stone? Boy you don’t even know how to use it.” He flicks his hand, sending Gedric flying into the tree, shattering bark. He takes a step towards him. “I’ll just take that off your hands.”

I hear a stick snap as Gedric’s ears twitch. He moves his hand as if slapping someone. Ari goes sailing into the fire. It’s a good thing for him that it’s an illusion. He grunts as he gets up. I can see blood. Ari claps his hands, sending Gedric flying backwards and halfway through a tree.

Ari claps again, making the tree break and freeing Gedric. He smirks. “Now are you going to give me the stone?”

Gedric gets up, his face twisted in pain. I can see red on his back. “No.” I hear another crunch. I look behind me and see Macy coming towards me. I watch her, wondering what she is doing. She’s doing all she can to remain quiet. Gedric removes the stone and throws it towards her. She catches it with her teeth and drops it on me.

The hot stone touches my skin. I almost grab it in time. Their only warning that I didn’t, is that I scream as more power comes into my body. Green erupts from my body, sending everyone flying, horses included. All I am aware of is that I have to get rid of the power before I kill everyone. Without thinking about it I lock onto all of Ari and his men’s lifelines. I picture the middle of the ocean where it is a popular shark zone. Ari screams in rage as he and his men disappear. The last thing I am aware of is Gedric running towards me as the stone is causing me to grow hotter. And that I am slightly rolling down the hill of a six foot deep crater I had created.

The next thing I am aware of is faces of Sheiks. They’re taking me off of Macy. Once off they start racing me into a building. They lay me on a thin wooden cot and get out sharp instruments. A clear glass tube is in the lead assistant healer’s hands. The lead healer cuts into the clearest vein on my red wrist while the others hold me down. He takes the tube from the assistant and holds it under my wrist as blood pours into it. Soon he makes the hole slightly bigger and folds my skin back with one hand. He inserts the tube into the hole and puts his finger on the tip of it, causing blood flow to stop.

An elder comes in and cups her hands. Red magic pulses and forms a bowl. Once that is done the healer removes his thumb and turns my arm, so it is facing the ground. Gold lines flow in my blood as it is directed into the magic bowl. The lead healer spins my blood while the elder catches the gold magic. Every few minutes the elder has to make the bowl bigger. Soon just the gold comes out and my blood stops. She cusses when she has to make the bowl bigger. Finally the continuous stream mellows to drops. The process took six minutes for it to stop.

Once that is finished, the elder raises the bowl and holds up her finger. She touches the blood the healer is spinning and lifts her finger. It follows like string as her hand guides it into the tube. My hand begins to grow warmer while my body cools to a normal temperature. Reflexively, I gasp in relief, causing them to relax. While the healer repairs my skin with stitches manually-because if my skin even touches magic, I will go into magic overload again-the elder raises her hand and moves it in delicate motions. The gold follows her directions like string, just like my blood had, and starts turning and making itself into something that resembles a ball of yarn. Once the final strand is laid, it turns emerald green and clatters onto the floor. The elder picks it up and compares it to my hand. It’s a fourth of an inch smaller than my palm.

“Shit,” she mutters as the healer pours a sleeping draft down my mouth. I sigh in relief as my world turns black.

I wake to the sound of people murmuring. I catch the topic. My latest magic overload. Apparently I created the same amount of magic that most Sheiks have in their entire body; that was just the spike. So the stone holds the power of a person. That means I have added that amount of power to my previous level before the spike. All but two of them are surprised my body is sustaining this much abuse. The two who are just laughing at their disbelief are Stanya and Halthin.

“We really should keep her in the city,” Mary, the elder that had created my new stone, whispers. “She nearly died this time.”

“She nearly died because Ari invaded her body, trying to get to her mind.” Halthin argues back. “We do not need to keep coddling her. She’s doing just fine.”

“After this last time, how can you say that?” Mary snaps back. “She left a crater that was six feet deep, Halthin. She was close to overloading and killing us all.”

“Only because that idiot human put that stone on her.” He argues back.

“If he hadn’t of done that, Ari would have stolen her power and we’d all be dead. And everyone else enslaved.” Stanya argues. “That was are only chance of survival.” It falls quiet while they consider that.

“We’ll let Natasha decide what she wants to do. She’s twenty. She needs a life. You can’t keep sheltering her.” Stanya sounds firm as she says this. No one is about to argue with her. I’d be locked up in a box if it wasn’t for her.

“Well either way,” Mary says, “she’s not leaving the city for at least a week. Not until she gets her power back.”

“Agreed.” A lot of voices say at once.

“You know, I hate it when you talk about me.” I say as I open my eyes. Immediately faces start appearing over me. Out of the eleven of them, I don’t see Gedric. That’s a little concerning. “Hey,” I say as I smile at them. My voice rasps, making me wince.

Stanya hugs me as she sees me smile. “Thank the Fates that you are alright.”

Halthin hands me a clay cup filled with water. I take it and drink it slowly, so I won’t vomit. I learned that lesson the hard way. “Just thank fate that you were able to fend Ari off in that state.”

I hand him the cup back. “Agreed.”

“What happened?” Mary finally blurts out.

I laugh as she reddens. “Which part?” I know which part. I’m just hoping she won’t say it.

“Start from where Brin died.” They all fall silent as I try to sit up. I feel so weak. Especially because all of my magic has been drained. Again. Stanya helps me up. Once I am sitting up I tell them everything. Even the gifts Brin had given me. They touch and stroke the new marks on my skin, when I moved my hair and lowered my shirt just enough for them to see.

“So all you need is the wolf?” Halthin asks as I pull my loose shirt back over my shoulders.

I nod. “But I think I’m supposed to keep them separated. Master Brin said I cannot allow the wolf to reunite with the pack.”

“What do you do with that?” Stanya demands for the fourteenth time we had this discussion.

“How should I know?” I snap back at her.

“Well you know everything. Like how to attract dangerous Sheiks.”

“Hey,” I say as I glare at her. “That was not my fault.”

She smirks. “And how do you know this?”

“Because I don’t have that kind of luck. You on the other hand-”

“Oh yeah right.” She laughs. “Like you have better luck than I do.”

“I do!”

Halthin puts a hand over each of our mouths. “We’re not doing this.” Stanya and I start laughing. He relaxes and pulls his hands back. “Okay. The elders and I are going to go to a meeting discussing what to do about Ari. Then we’ll have a hearing tomorrow for your little guardian, Gedric. You’re expected to be there.”

That strikes me as odd. I look at him to see if he’s serious. He’s serious. “On what grounds?” I demand.

He sighs. “I knew you’d react like this. It turns out the Forest People have an order out for his head. He killed his grandfather.”

My mind absorbs that as I feel a chill run up my spine. “Why?”

His eyes soften. “He was dying of an infection in his lungs. Something was growing on it. They took him to a healer and said he could do nothing to save his grandfather. And that it was going to be more and more painful for him to keep on living. Unfortunately the Forest People do not believe in humane killing of their people. Once he started coughing up blood he begged Gedric to kill him. He did.”

I didn’t get it. Though death is a horrible thing to inflict, I can see where Gedric was coming from. “So you’re going to hand him over to the Forest Folk?”

Halthin shrugs. “That I do not know. That is what the hearing is for.” He takes my hand in his hard and callused ones and looks at me with penetrating, sincere, eyes. “I will do what I can to prevent that from happening Natasha. For saving your life, I will try.”

I smile at him and squeeze his hand. “Thank you.” I touch my forehead. He smiles and starts walking off, the others following, except for Stanya.

She grins at me. “Here.” She hands me a box wrapped in a soft yellow cloth. I unwrap it and open the velvet box. Inside is my latest magic stone in the shape of a star. It’s about an inch in the center though. Mary must have tried really hard to get it into this shape. I must remember to thank her.

I grin as I take it out on its gold chain. The magic in it is swirling inside, trying to find a way out. It’ll take a while to settle down. New magic tends to be wild. If it’s a small amount you can handle it. If it isn’t, it can kill you as it seeks an escape. If I hadn’t drained my power, I could have controlled it a lot better. But it looks like it was Ari’s magic that triggered the new source to erupt, when he sought to break my mental barrier.

Carefully I put it on. One time just the touch of one of my stones sent me into overload. It starts pulsing when it meets my skin. My body wants so badly to absorb it, but I keep my mind focused. Eventually the desire settles down, and I smile at Stanya to show that I am okay. She smiles back and watches the necklace just to see if it’ll start going silver like the last one. When it’s silver, that means it’s dangerously close to breaking through the glass and creating a lot of wild magic. Wild magic can be used by anyone. Even humans and animals. That is why it is dangerous.

Stanya stands up with a serious look on her face. “Do you want to see Brin?”