Terra Praeta, Northern Hemisphere
Csala
The Itakars were waiting outside the cave for them when they arrived. Nia turned to Csala and gave her a knowing smile. She quickly caught sight of the other two women with him and schooled her expression.
Selene nodded at Sheela who gave her a bow. Sheela guided Tara to do the same. “Light be with you young lady Selene,” she said.
Csala smiled lightly to herself. She never knew the proud and haughty shifter could show deference. She hadn’t known Sheela for long but she knew she was full of pride — in a positive way though. Tara on the other was as lost as a newborn chick in a storm.
“Let’s do away with the frippery, shall we?” Selene reached out to bring them out of their bow. “Any friend of Jerome’s is a friend of mine.”
“This is Ms. Tara, Selene, and her teammate, Sheela,” Jerome introduced them.
“I know Sheela,” Selene said. “She was named by the first matron of the Royal Academia of Sanctum whose name is also Sheela.”
Jerome raised an eyebrow at the mention of Sanctum.
“Light be with you, Ms. Tara. How do you know Jerome?”
Tara cleared her throat but refused to meet Selene’s eyes. “I took care of him in Farryn, young lady Selene.”
“She’s like a mother to me, Selene,” Jerome interjected.
Csala watched as Selene’s eyes turned serious as she nodded. Jerome had made sure to communicate Tara’s importance to him and everyone had caught the meaning behind his words.
“I’m happy to meet you, Ms. Tara. These are my teammates.” Selene gestured at her team. “I know very little of Jerome’s childhood. We can discuss it at a later time, right?” she winked at Tara who smiled lightly, meeting her eyes for the first time.
Jerome groaned. Then Selene turned on her.
“Look how your skin glows, Csala. Might I ask what you’ve been up to,” Selene asked with a whisper. What was with the formal speech? Didn’t she say to do away with the frippery?
Csala coughed, going red instantly. The two human girls giggled at her causing her to grow a shade darker. “I’m not telling you,” she mumbled.
“Awwn, come on,” Selene said with pretend hurt. “You’ll hurt our feelings.”
“Details, Csala. We need to hear it,” Nia whispered from beside her leader in glee. “And ye said ye don’t want him.”
Csala watched them taunt her playfully, a smile forming on her lips. She’d never had friends before so this was all new to her. But she knew that they were being sincere with her. She could sense it. They weren’t jealous or anything. Selene was in love with the tallest Sprout in their group, the one called Trudhorn. She looked over at the other members of Selene’s team. They were doing their best not to look her way.
Jerome bumped fists with them before heading into the cave to bring down the barrier. The boys on Selene’s team all turned to face away from her the moment Jerome left them. Something they weren’t doing the day before. Csala knew the girls must have talked to the boys about it. Or perhaps they were deliberately looking away from her because they thought — no knew — she was Jerome’s woman.
Csala sighed. If only that were true. She’d be deceiving herself if she said she didn’t love Jerome. She thought about how she had fallen head over heels for the troublemaker who barged into her life with the force of a whirlwind and stole her heart away.
But alas, she couldn’t have sex with him. Not in the way that mattered. She refused to give up her freedom for love. For the kind of love that would put her in shackles. That was not love, it was slavery. She also couldn’t let Jerome live that kind of life. Thankfully he had someone waiting for him back home.
“Well, let’s move a ways away from here.”
“Ajax!” Selene called out. “We’re going for a stroll.”
Selene’s brother gave her a knowing smile but quickly looked away. Csala was still fascinated by their hair and appearance. She’d never tell Selene that though. At least not yet. The girls saw her as a mystery. A bit similar to the way men see her, but without the lust in their eyes. It made it easier to keep them attentive to her. She wouldn’t want to become a regular female around them.
Weird, she thought. When did I start concerning myself with how other people see me?
She had no answer. Or perhaps she did. It was when she started to care about what Jerome thought of her. And now she was concerned about what his friends thought of her too.
What an exhausting way to live, she thought.
They walked away from the boys, climbing up the cave to give themselves some privacy.
“Er, where are we going?” Csala asked.
“To get cleaned up. And I’m starving,” Selene said.
“Me too,” Nia chipped in.
Sheela nodded vigorously but said nothing. Tara only smiled.
“Er, we could have just asked Jerome to make us a bath inside the cave. And I think he still has some frozen meat in his—” She stopped herself from revealing anything about his weird storage space that can hide a living person away. Storage rings couldn’t do that.
Selene stopped. And began racing back. “Hurry!” she screamed. “Before he brings down the barrier!” They all raced after her.
~~~
Jerome watched the Itakars as they grilled the deer he had been keeping in his void space. He’d forgotten all about it. He’d had to kill it remotely and used a weak preservation rune to make it look like it had been in his storage ring for a while like that. Squeals of laughter came from inside the cave as the girls bathed and wasted precious water playing. He sighed. They should be on their way already. The Feis were already camped near the dark forest.
Soon the smell of grilled meat reached him. This time it was different as he smelled seasonings and spices. The Itakars had come prepared to Terra Praeta. He remembered his time in Solon’s tower and how Ajax had lent him his tent. Jerome chuckled.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The ladies came out soon after, looking clean and shiny. They also looked relaxed and happy. Good for them. He hoped the boys wouldn’t ask for a bath. They were sacred artists and could clean themselves with their mental energy. No need for such conveniences when they had miles of snow and ice to cover.
Jerome went into the cave to bring down the formations that he had set. He came out of the cave soon after and the Itakars mounted their wolves, the deer was all gone except for the bones and his portion. He looked around, seeing that everyone was set to leave. Sheela was rubbing her bulging stomach and the boys gazed at her with terror. She and Ms. Tara were putting on fluffy winter coats he had provided them.
At his questioning look, she shrugged. “Shifters eat a lot.” He could imagine. She hadn’t eaten too much when they sat down to eat before. Right. He remembered he hadn’t told his friends about where he and Csala were going.
Csala walked up to him with slow steps, hips swaying beautifully. Selene was right behind her. Trudhorn too.
“Now that Muna has been dealt with, Selene and her team would like to come along with us to this ‘oh so secret place’ you haven’t said anything about,” Csala said.
“...yet,” Jerome interjected. “I haven’t told you about it ‘yet’. But now that I think about it, let’s make it a surprise.”
“At least tell us what to expect,” Selene said and Trudhorn hummed his agreement.
“Well. It’s going to be dangerous.” Jerome looked around, seeing that the rest of the team had gathered around them. They looked like a motley crew of pirates with their armor all torn up in places. At least they looked clean.
“Danger ain’t gon’ stop us, Jerome,” Bram said. “This is the North and we are masters of the North and her cold.”
“Aye, we are not weaklings. We survived the monsters of these mountains,” Nia said.
“No, no. They are a bunch o’ smelly pups, nothing more,” Bram said and the Itakars chortled happily.
“Very well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Jerome said, spreading his arms. He commended their bravery and willingness to charge into the belly of the beast. However… “The creatures that inhabit where we’re going would make the unbound look like pups for real. And the unbound were apex predators — at least in this habitat. And just so you know, we would be restricted in our use of essence.”
Selene nodded as he stopped talking, taking that as a sign he was ready to leave. “Ms. Tara and Sheela would ride with us.” Her teammates were already mounting their wolves.
He nodded, held Csala to himself, and unfurled his wings before taking off into the sky with the Itakars following behind. There was no need to let them know he could fly without his wings.
~~~
Fei Lin
“It’s simple, Yan. Just as Mother said, the forest creatures would scatter during the Alignment. And we would have the chance to enter it safely… well, as safely as possible. It’s still a given that not all of us will survive,” Fei Lin said to her friend and teammate as they wiped themselves off with wet towels.
They had been camping near the forest of shadows for days now and had taken the time to set up camp. A few tents stood around hers to keep her in the center of their camp. They created a small training ground and made sure they had adequate food and water to wait for the Alignment. They had just finished today’s training as well and were freshening up. But the wait was killing them with boredom.
“We’ve just been here for so long, that it’s getting on my nerves,” Fei Yan said. “Exactly when would the alignment be? And how long would it take?”
Someone else put their head into their tent. “It usually starts on the last day of our stay in Terra Praeta. And it would last for — I don’t know, a quarter of the day?”
“Shut up, Aila,” Fei Lin said. “It’s not going to take that long. This means we’ve got to be very fast so we can reach The Waters of Irithiya as fast as we can. All we need to do — why are you all here?”
All the girls had snuck into her tent to listen to her tell this story, even though they had heard it from their arms masters back at home. They snickered when they heard the change in tone but none answered her.
Home. Fei Lin missed home. And she wanted to go back as soon as possible. Away from this gods-forsaken place.
“Anyway. All we need to do is dunk ourselves into the Waters of Irithiya.”
“That’s it?” one of the girls asked.
“That’s it, Ruiwen. You just need to dip yourself into the water,” Lin rolled her eyes at the girl’s unbelief. “It’s like a baptism of water.” She’d probably not heard it from one of the arms masters back home and heard it from a teammate. That’s why she was so unbelieving.
Fei Lin had heard it from Mother, the Matriarch herself.
Someone coughed just outside the tent, a male from the tone of voice. She quickly reached down to pick up her wrap and cover her fair skin.
“Princess it’s me, Lang. We’ve got company.”
Fei Lin’s eyes went round as saucers. “How is that possible?” She quickly got dressed and exited her tent to join her teammates outside the camp.
They all exited the camp to see the intruders, or supposed intruders since the Feis couldn’t lay claims to the land here. Terra Praeta was no man’s land even though the Sovereign of Vorthe held power over it.
Getting closer and closer to them was a team of Sprouts she was not expecting. But she quickly reasoned how fortunate they were that it wasn’t the Royals. If it was the Royals, she would have ripped her own hair out of her head in frustration because they would have made things unfavorable for her teammates.
“We can use this to our advantage, right Lang?” Fei Lin asked.
“No, Princess,” Lang said from beside her. “Look up.”
She did. And wished she hadn’t. The cur of the Royal family was here and if he left Terra Praeta intact, her family’s secrets would follow him and be revealed to the Royals.
“We can’t allow him to leave here alive,” she said tightly. “What should we do?”
“Simple,” Lang said with a smile. “He’s definitely the most powerful person among them and from what I glimpsed from before, he’s friends with them. We’ll duel for the right to enter the forest. Trust me, he’ll take the duel.”
The Feis moved closer to the team of House Itakar that had stopped a few paces away from them. Two others were with them that didn’t quite fit in with them but they were irrelevant. They watched as Jerome landed lightly in the snow with a new figure. Someone they’d never seen before.
“Don’t you think that’s absurd?” Fei Lin heard one of her teammates whisper. “Doesn’t she know the color red would only attract predators to her?”
Fei Lin smiled. If the other team could move around with dumb people, then they weren’t prepared for Terra Praeta. It’s a miracle they survived for so long.
“You are not welcome here,” Lang began.
“And what authority do you have over the dark forest?” the Royal cur said, walking toward her team, which surprised Fei Lin. Did he know something? Wait, he called it the ‘dark forest’.
“Forest of Shadows, Jerome. That’s what it’s called,” Lang said as they walked toward their team so they could meet in the center.
“That’s what you call it, not the denizens of Terra Praeta.”
What? Fei Lin almost faltered.
Lang shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You will not be going in.”
The cur chuckled. “And who’s gonna stop us, you?”
Lang stood up straight as menace began to ooze off him. “I propose a duel,” his voice boomed all over the clearing where both teams stood. “Whoever wins will have the chance to enter the Forest of Shadows with his team alone.”
This was almost perfect. They could silence the Royal cur and keep the Itakars from seeing what was inside. Perhaps they could swear the Itakars to an oath of secrecy, and get them on their side — that was one very good way to form a political ally. Maybe.
No matter what they did though, the Royals must not find out about the Waters of Irithiya.
The crowd of Sprouts backed up with Jerome and Lang in the center. Things were going smoothly. Too smoothly in fact, that it felt a bit weird. The cur agreed to the duel too easily — with a smile at that. As if he had any chance of defeating someone who was at the threshold of the Spirit Realm. Fei Lin watched the robed Sprout materialize a crude-looking spear from his storage ring.
That wouldn’t hold up against Lang’s katana, she thought with a chuckle. He wasn’t even wearing armor, only furred robes. And she admitted, his robes were of great quality, albeit strange. But they wouldn’t stop a blow of sword force from crippling him. Or even killing him.
Lang charged.