In just a handful of minutes, we made it all the way to the canyon. A ride that would probably take the others over half an hour.
Thankfully, on the way there I didn’t see any signs of the wolves, but I did manage to pick up her horse's trail. After following it, sure enough, I found her horse too.
We rode up and I jumped off, walking up to her horse and looking at it more closely. ‘Sadlbags are empty, the tracks lead off this way.’
Once again, I was actually more thankful than not that there was snow on the ground. “Let’s follow on foot.”
The short path led down a small hill and into the canyon where a large overhang created a ceiling for the path. ‘She has to be here…’ My heart started racing faster and faster as I walked down the path, making sure my eyes didn’t miss anything.
There still weren't any signs of wolves, but I couldn’t shake this bad feeling I had… Especially not after I saw her corpse in that vision.
Finally, on one of the rocks… I saw blood. My breath stopped, but my heartbeat only accelerated further. My vision went to tunnels, and I had to take a knee.
“Siya?” Finlo’s voice reached out from behind me and I felt his hand rest on my back.
“I’m fine, just… Give me a minute…”
As I caught my breath I looked at the rock in front of me. There wasn’t nearly enough blood for it to be from a real fight. ‘Was she scratched while running away? No, she’d rather die than run… There weren’t any wolf tracks in the snow either. It's more likely she cut her hand on one of the sharp holds while she was climbing.’
Finally calming down, I slowly stood up and continued down the path. ‘At this rate, would I even be any good in a fight? Well… Finlo’s here, so I guess that’s something.’
Suddenly I heard a loud scream.
“LU!” I yelled, rushing over. Just as I turned the corner I saw her punching a hole through a rock with her bare hand, leaving a bloodied knuckle mark on the remaining stone.
When she saw me the only expression I could read on her face was confusion before I was already hugging her trying not to break down.
“S-Siya? What are you doing?”
“Didn’t Mara tell you not to come out here alone!” I yelled, refusing to let go as my heart continued to beat out of my chest.”
She groaned. “It's not like I’m doing anything dangerous. Even if I miss a hold and fall there's no way I’ll actually end up going off the cliff from here.”
“That’s not what I was afraid of you idiot!”
She stiffened up, still not hugging me back. I knew she must have been even more confused, but after realizing everything was ok I started feeling too tired to even speak.
“This is where Siya was attacked by the dire wolf pack. They gave her a pretty nasty scar.” Finlo explained. Of course, that alone wouldn’t have made me as worried as I was…
Lu chuckled. “Awe so you were just worried about that? Come on, Mara’s already taken care of them. Even if one or two got away I could take that many with my bare hands, much less with my sword here.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She gently wrapped her arms around me, whispering in my ear. “You can stop crying now, I’m fine aren’t I?”
“I’m not crying!” I protested, but I could hear from the way my voice changed that I probably was, even if I couldn’t feel it.
‘I guess somewhere along the way I just started assuming that the worst-case scenario was always going to be reality…’
“Right, well, uh… You can let go now…”
“No, I can’t…”
“What, why not!” I could hear she was starting to get annoyed. I guess I couldn’t blame her since I showed up out of the blue, doubting her ability to protect herself, and then started crying right in front of her…
Still… If I really was crying, “Finlo’s still here…” I mumbled, trying to make my voice quiet enough so that he couldn't hear it. I didn’t know what he’d say, but I felt so unstable that I was sure if cracked a joke I would probably just start crying more. Ever since my father threw me in the freezing water it was like every little thing started to set me off, and the threshold just kept getting lower
She let out another groan, slightly pulling me away from him. “What are you staring at?” She growled.
“Alright alright, I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll be back with the horses when you're ready to leave.”
After his footsteps began to trail away I finally relented, taking a step back and wiping my eyes. “Sorry… I should have known you'd be fine.”
She flicked my forehead. “You’ve got that right. I’m not so weak as to get taken down by a few weaklings you know.”
I kept trying to wipe my tears, but instead, it just seemed to make my eyes hurt. ‘This is so annoying… The cold is just going to make them dry out even faster…’
“Geez you look like a mess, did something else happen before this?” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “How’d things go with Dad?”
I tried to let out a laugh, but it didn’t sound very convincing. “Well I learned the third technique so I’m done with my training.”
“Thats… Good…” She said a little confused, clearly expecting more to the story.
“Tomorrow morning we leave for a dungeon…”
I practically heard her grit her teeth. “I see…”
“I guess I’m just a bit overwhelmed… I thought I was finally done you know? For once I felt like I was in the clear, that maybe I would finally be normal, at least by some sense of the word.”
She clenched her fists, only seeming to grow even more angry.
“I just… Want to be done… There is nothing I can do though. I tried to talk him out of it, but whether I want to or not we're leaving tomorrow morning.”
She turned around, hitting the same rock as earlier, breaking it in half with a swift kick that sent the detached earth hurling through the air and sending a shiver down my spine.
“It’s not fair…” She muttered.
“Lu?” I hesitated to say her name. I wasn’t exactly sure who she was angry at… and if it was me, for what I said. Well, I was more than a little intimidated. ‘I guess for her… I’m living the dream right now…’
Her anger only seemed to grow fiercer, but I still couldn’t tell where it was being directed. “It’s not fair.” She said again, starting a boxing match with the nearby wall. “Why is he sending you to the dungeon… You don’t even want to go!”
She slammed her fists into the rock one after another, each strike rattling the whole overhang and echoing through the canyon.
‘I should have just kept it to myself, bottled up like everything else…’
“It doesn’t make any sense! They're always so hard on you and you always just take it! You even go out of your way to make sure it’s all directed toward you and no one else!”
Her strikes started hitting louder and louder. “While they won’t even care if I take a whole week off of training!”
Her sweat started to steam into the cold air as she held her final blow dead center in the rock in front of her. “Now they're throwing you into a monster’s den that they won't even let me go near, no matter how many times I ask…”
She turned her back to the wall and sank down, breathing heavily. Her knuckles were cracked, but not nearly as badly as the wall behind her.
I wanted to try and sympathize with her, but I was too in awe to even speak. Starting to realize there was a pretty big difference between her strength when she was truly mad and when she was “Trying her hardest.”
“It used to really piss me off how you never cried you know… It made me feel weak every time I did… But somehow I think seeing you cry pisses me off even more…”
I chuckled, unsure of how I was supposed to react. “I… guess we all have our own problems…”
A loud crack suddenly split the rock face behind her in two. Part of the wall crumbled down to the side and sunlight split through the roof.
‘It’s not going to cave in right?’ I pointed to the crack, starting to get a bit nervous, even though everything still seemed steady. “If it makes you feel any better, I can’t split rocks with my bare hands. My bones would break first for sure.”
She flinched as the wall split behind her, before trying to casually sweep her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah… We should probably get out of here… If the overhang comes down on us it would be a pain.”
‘A pain… wouldn’t it like, kill us?’
She quickly grabbed my arm and dragged me back toward the horses, her nervousness coming through in her speed, even if she didn’t show it in her voice.
“You should work on controlling your anger…”
She spat on the ground. “People should just stop pissing me off.”