Origin: Rooted Within

CHAPTER EIGHT

Castar had refused to leave his room since he learned what had happened to him. He had already lied to them. None of them knew he had healed the huntress. They all believed him when he said her blood fought the poison and suppressed it.

Isher had doubts at first, which got him nowhere, because it was not as if he had evidence that Castar had actually cured her. Zyra had always been blind to Castar's lies. She could have known about his magic long ago, but since she never wanted to doubt him, not even for a second, she remained ignorant of everything that was happening under her nose.

The burning in his hand had not stopped. His fingertips were blackened, and he had not stopped staring at them since he'd found out. He looked out the window and saw that the sun had already disappeared from the sky and the moon had risen.

The stifling silence made the situation worse. He was alone with what he had brought upon himself. He knew he was doomed, even if he could not tell what lingered in his fingertips and flowed through his veins. He saw what it did to Era, he saw how it nearly killed her, and for some reason, he could not rest. What if he had taken someone's place? What if he had died because he had chosen to save a stranger? He could not get that thought out of his head, and along with what had happened with Isher, the whole day was one he did not wish had a twin. Such days were not to be like other days to come.

He was surprised at how quickly noon passed. Zyra had to take dinner to his room, because he stayed in his bed until evening.

She thought he was trying to avoid his brother, and she respected his decision, but that was not the case.

He could not come out, knowing that otherwise he would not be able to protect his secret. There was no way he could stay in the same room with them without them finding out in the end that he had something to hide.

Isher spent the afternoon in the living room, remembering everything Castar had taken from him.

He remembered the moments when things were withheld from him because their parents felt they should be given to his brother. He sat there without saying a word, wearing a grim look on his face.

He tried to speak to Zyra several times, but was ignored. Zyra was so disappointed in him. What he had done to Castar broke her heart, and she refused to speak to him or listen to a word he had to say. She had given him the condition of going to Castar's room and apologising to him if he ever wanted forgiveness. Isher, the man that he was, was not yet ready to admit his wrongs. Instead, he was willing to maintain the wickedness and even build on it. With everything Zyra did to resolve the crisis between the brothers, she ended up fuelling the strife on Isher's side. Isher blamed Castar for every hurtful word Zyra said to him,  he hated Castar even more the more she pushed him away.

Castar found a pair of gloves and pulled them over his hands. Only his right hand was affected, but it would not have been any good if he had only worn them on one hand. That would raise so many brows. The night passed, and he was thankful that no one knew.

Even though he had no intention of going out, he wanted to be sure that no one burst in on him and discovered what was going on.

KIN HILL

A day had come and gone. The blue sky was streaked with grey clouds that grew old as the moments of the day passed.

Baraka was no longer out of clothes. He was dressed - he had put on a pair of woollen trousers. It started at his waist as a huge black belt and ran down to his ankles.

Its structure was jagged, and it had some spots, and it was twisted in some places, and it seemed like a rag because he had obtained it by force.

 What clothed him was that of a man lying dead beside the decaying remains of the wolf he had devoured. He was not wearing the man's pair of boots, nor did he think to throw on his shirt. 

The great wind came from the west, and it alerted Baraka. This was a sign, that was all. He lived by signs that showed him the way. He depended on their instructions. That was one of his special abilities. To every wind that passed, he assigned a meaning, not only a meaning, but sometimes instructions on what should or should not be done at those particular moments.

He rose and looked at the dead wolf. His gaze was averted, and he also looked at the dead man lying beside the wolf, and he turned to fix his eyes on the horizon. He looked to the left, and after a while, he let his eyes wander to the right, and then he looked ahead. He waited for another signal before descending from the mighty hill on which he stood. 

The sun slowly rose and cast its light on his pendant, which he looked straight down at and stroked. The pendant glowed,, and that was the sign. He believed that at that very moment he should go down and leave the hill to get to the place where he was supposed to be.

Baraka was about to go on his way. He stood at the edge of the hill, looking at the land before him. Metrá was one of those lands, and it was indeed the nearest. He looked down at his chest and stroked the psychís once more. His reptilian eyes glowed red, and he leapt from the hill and landed on his feet without losing his balance or breaking a single bone.

He moved, and as he took 3 steps forward, "Let the earth on which I kneel feel my absence," that line manifested. He disappeared from sight as he turned invisible...

He became invisible to the human eye and the possession of the earth, and even the young man who was gathering rocks at the base of the hill could not see him as he stomped by.

M E T R Á

The sun had fallen once more, the moon had taken her place. It was a chilly night, and in a cold land at that. 

Era had not stopped travelling since she had left Ritorà. She was determined and wanted nothing more than to find an explanation for what she thought she had seen that night at the top of the hill.

The man who had a luminous mark on his head and had such pointed ears. As much as she had forced herself to see him differently, she could not. In her mind it was the same. It never changed when she remembered it. How could that even be possible? Who in their right mind would go to rest on the top of Kin Hill at this hour? These questions never left her mind.

She could not get the image she had seen on the top of the hill out of her mind. She could not stop wondering if it was possible that what she had seen was real.

She had just crossed Cartà. She did not stop travelling. She continued until daybreak.

That morning, she stopped at a forest near the border between Cartà and Metra. She had stopped only to rest and regain her strength before setting out for Metrá. She stopped at a lake and washed her face after sitting under a huge oak tree for a few moments, basking in the refreshing wind.

That was it, and she travelled on. Resting well and giving her horse time to regain its strength, her journey through the other villages was soon over. But the moon came out to meet her even before she reached Metrá.

When she reached Metrá, her pace quickened. She could not imagine losing this thing, whatever it was. The only thing that spurred her on was curiosity, which would not let her go. She raced through the forest, even in this dense night, until she left Metrá behind and arrived at Kin.

                             ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The night wind whistled around her ears as she jumped down from her horse. It was a rocky area. She would have preferred to cross it on horseback, but since the horse had neighed... it refused to take another step forward. 

She stroked her horse's fur and fed it an apple. All the while, she still had her eye on the nearby hill, and thought of ending her quest on foot, since her horse would not go any further.

The top of the hill was surrounded by the haze that left her with no visibility. A sound reached her ear and startled her. Her fingers scrabbled over her shoulder and encircled an arrow from the quiver.

She held on to it, even though she could not see what was making that noise. Her hunter instincts quickened and her eyes scanned the surrounding darkness. She wished she had a third eye, but she was not in a world of fantasy. She wished she had more than two eyes to make sure nothing caught her off guard, and also to make sure she did not miss anything.

The sound rang out again, and she was startled. For some reason, she felt the darkness tighten around her. It was probably just playing in her head, but the sound definitely was not. It sounded in her ears as if someone was breathing slowly behind her ears. She quickly turned around and found no one. It went on and on like this, and she had to keep turning around.

"Fer!" she called to her horse, who neighed and ran off, hearing the wolf's howl. Era did not mind. That had been her job for many years and still was. She paid more attention to what or who caught her eyes at the top of the hill.

There was something else that aroused her curiosity. Forgetting everything else, she stood there like a pillar and gave her undivided attention to the one she saw at the top of the hill.

Through the haze, she saw a figure moving as if it was carrying something. She became so aware of everything around her that even the sound that came from the cracking of a flimsy stick beneath her feet startled her.

This mysterious figure kept dragging something with him, the sight of which sent a shiver down her spine. At that moment, several thoughts ran through her mind. She wondered who it was, what it was dragging around, and why. She found it really creepy and strange that someone was up there at this time of day and was apparently very busy and active.

Her eyes lit up like never and were wide open as she gripped the bow tighter. Her heartbeat quickened, and she felt her own heart pumping so fast it felt like it was about to burst out of her chest. It was a strange feeling for her, because she could not remember what it felt like to have one's spine chilled up in fear of the unknown.

She had not stopped walking down the rocky path that led to the hill.

It was a long walk, but she made it as fast as she could and climbed the hill. Before she even reached the top of the hill, she heard a voice, a raspy voice that belonged to a man. She thought it came from the person whose figure she had seen earlier.

The courage she had to face whatever it was at the top of the hill came from the curiosity swirling around in her head.

"Cika! Direspà tehehu, mé lata indica," she heard the voice announce.

It was a language she had never heard before. It belonged to none of the tribes in all the regions of the world. To her ears, it sounded strange. She climbed on, still unable to make out who it was that was speaking in a strange dialect.

She tore away from her last hold on a rock and dragged herself up the hill. She was startled at who or what she saw. 

It was a man clad in black leather. He was kneeling beside the corpse of a man whose clothes had been torn from his body.

Era saw him reach out two fingers and place them on the dead man's eyelids - stroking down to cover the eyeballs.

She was up and the first thing that came to her mind was to shoot whoever it was.

She drew out the arrow, which she held between her lower and upper teeth as she climbed the hill, and took off her bow again, after carrying it across her breast, to have her hands free for climbing.

She pulled her fingers back and took aim. Seeing that he had a hood over his head, she did not have to worry about being seen, and it was night.

She let go. The sound of the arrow flying through the air caused the man to react. He turned towards the arrow and his eyes flashed. A flash of blue light. It was a reaction, a reflex of his that caused the arrow to shatter in the air without colliding with anything.

Era froze in terror. She could not move. She was paralyzed by what she saw. It was incomprehensible. The flash of blue light from his eyes and the effect it had on the arrow she aimed at him. 

"Rel ki anta, ceco mekata?" He said to her as he straightened up. His jaw clenched and his eyes blazed blue with flames. She had never seen such fierceness.

She took a few steps back, and as she took those steps, the hooded figure took just as many steps towards her.

"I do not understand what you are saying," she stammered, startled.

She had just tried to kill him and failed.

"You want to kill me? Why?" he said, clutching his spear with his hand.

She tried to take another step backwards and tripped over a rock. She fell on her back.

"Speak! And perhaps I will spare you. I have heard the people of this realm likes to spill blood," he said, and his voice made her tremble.

"Those who kill deserve to suffer the same fate," she said. It took so much effort for her to let those words leave her mouth.

"You killed him and you think it right to kneel beside his corpse. Have you no respect!" She spoke, not minding where it could lead her.

"Speak no more!" He said, shouting, and his voice thundered over the hill. It felt as though the air had become still. There was absolute quiet.

"I did not kill him. I did not kill any of your kind," he said to her. His voice was calm, his hand pointed at the dead man behind them.

Era still had doubts. She did not know what to believe. Her gaze sank into the deep blue light in his eyes.

"Who are you?" she asked, staring into the darkness beneath his hood. All she could see was a flash of blue light in his eyes. She could not see his face.

"You know nothing about me," he told her, and she swallowed.

"You are mistaken. I know what you are. I think you were the one I saw here days ago. Pointed ears, claws..." said Era.

"Tell me what you saw!" he said. He was so eager to know what she had seen.

"I saw you. Who else are you talking about?" she asked.

"ka'ah loy ito! You have never seen me before, not on any other day than tonight," he said.

Era stood up without saying a word. She was convinced that he was the one she had seen.

"You are full of doubt. I can smell it," he said to her, and she said nothing, but only wondered if there was any truth in what he said. 

He took off his hood, and her eyes widened. Her mouth fell open when she saw he did not have pointed ears, but ones that a human would have. And lo, it was a complete man, atleast, by appearance.

"I only laid him to rest. I had nothing to do with his death," he said to her -and the light in his eyes went out to show his natural eyes.

"I am sorry! I guess my eyes played tricks on me," she said apologetically.

"No, you needn't blame your eyes. They did indeed see something. Who do you think killed him?" he said, pointing again at the dead man.

"Are you saying that what I saw is, in fact, alive?" she said, and he nodded slowly.

He turned his back to her and took a few steps forward.

"He's here!" He exclaimed.

"Who?" she asked.

"The one you saw."

"What was it that I saw?"

"The one I chased into this world, Baraka. His name is Baraka," he said.

"Whoever it is you speak of, from where did he escape?" she asked.

"Nero Spiliá!"