Isla

It was just supposed to be a simple race. Shaymie had started to fly off, prompting me to chase her, and there was no way I was going to let her win. I’d run through the trees after her, pushing the snow out of the way with the strange force I could exert over water. I called it magic, since there was simply no other way to describe the powers that the animals and I had in this world. It was sort of like having an extra, invisible limb that was only able to move water around. I’d tried to move other things, like rocks or trees, but I’d only feel a stabbing pain in my chest when I did so. So, I only ever bothered with water.

Shaymie zipped away, her ghostly form flying deeper into the forest. I followed, arriving at a clearing that I was all too familiar with. It was the lake at the peak, a place I tried to avoid due to the many ice bears that came here for water. She flew away again the second she saw me, speeding over the water of the giant lake and over to the sole island in the middle. I sighed, then ran after her. She wasn’t going to escape me.

I reached out with my magic, feeling for the water between me and the island. I remembered watching someone do this before. The group of people that came here every summer, using their magic to split open the water and walk over to the island. I’d seen them climb up the mountain so many times, and watched them split the water over and over again. I’d wished they’d stop and just leave me alone up here, but part of me missed watching them from across the shore. They all seemed so… happy.

I followed my memories and split open the water, but only a small part of it. There was no way I could do what they did, opening up an entire path with a single motion, which irritated me, but I could at least do this. My magic wobbled as I walked forward, part of the barrier I made between the water and myself coming apart, but I reinforced it quickly. That was strange, but I was probably just overexerting myself.

Soon, I found myself on the island, and caught up with Shaymie. She was dancing underneath the tree, speeding around a red fruit that was the same size as her. She pushed against it with her stubby arms, the appendages seeming to fall apart as she did so, but her power began to shake the branch. Eventually, under the slight wind that Shaymie had caused, the fruit fell out of the tree.

I caught it in my hands, almost falling over to do so, and examined it. It looked like an apple, but I knew from experience that it wasn’t one. The taste was incredibly dry, like I was eating a handful of sand with every bite. I held it away from myself, and Shaymie flew down to take a bite out of it.

“This is why we ran all the way here?”

Shaymie nodded as her ghostly mouth slowly expanded to bite off a third of the fruit.

“We seriously need to talk about your eating–” my speech was cut off by a sharp pain in my chest.

I fell to my knees, dropping the fruit and Shaymie, and clenched my hands to my heart. I tried to breathe to mitigate some of the pain, but it only seemed to grow with each exhale. I fell face first into the ground, not even feeling when my face slammed into the hard rock. All my focus was on the pain in my chest. Then, a bright blue light filled my eyes, and everything went cold.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed with my writhing in pain, freezing to death from an unbearable cold within me, but eventually I started to feel a strange warmth. It wasn’t comforting, not in any way that would drive off the cold. Instead, it felt like a flame that gave off no heat. I knew warmth was there, but I couldn’t feel any of it. It was like someone had put a cup of water in front of me when I was dying of thirst, then tied me down, unable to reach for it. The feeling was unbearable.

Then, slowly, the warmth started to go away. I wanted to cry. It felt so close, and now it was being taken from me. I tried to reach for it, even though I couldn’t move my own body. I didn’t even know if I was awake or within a dream, but I pulled on it as hard as I could. The warmth didn’t listen, and drifted away. When I finally gave up hope, releasing whatever loose hold I had on the warmth, I realized the pain had gone away. In an instant, my eyes opened.

I awoke and jerked up into a seated position, suddenly very light headed and my vision blurry. A red light illuminated the world around me, and I could make out two shapes in front of me. The first was a fire wolf, my focus going to its mane as my vision began to clear. It was long, but calm, flowing down the wolf’s back and quietly licking at the air. It was lying on its stomach, but the wolf stared directly at me, its red eyes intense. I should have been more afraid, but I knew that fire wolves were usually docile. Plus, I recognized this one. He was a good boy.

What really scared me was the boy sitting next to him. He wasn’t looking at me, his eyes staring off somewhere into the forest, but that didn’t matter. He was too close, and I didn’t want him near me. He turned to me, his eyes widening, and I pushed myself away, trying to hide myself with my arms. I shut my eyes, waiting for whatever came next. I knew it wouldn’t help, but what else was I supposed to do?

“What’s your name?” a calm voice asked, and I opened my eyes.

I didn’t look back at him, but I responded. “Isla.”

“Isla. I see. Sorry, I know you're tired, but we need to get out of here.”

I heard him stand, and my eyes moved to see what he was doing. I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face, it was much too dark, but I was sure he was a child due to his voice, definitely no older than my body was. However, when he stood, I realized I must be mistaken. He was very thin, almost to a sickly degree, and he towered over me. There was no way someone this tall was my age.

He knelt down in front of me allowing me to get a closer look at him, even though I really didn’t want to. He was young. At least, partially. Some parts about him reminded me of a child, like his cheeks and nose, but everything else looked old. He held himself up with a cane on his right side, and his head was covered in snow. The small amount of his hair that I could see was almost the same color as the white fluffy powder. His eyes were sunken in, with dark rings underneath them. They were the color of a beautiful emerald, but they didn’t shine like a gemstone. Instead, they looked dull and lifeless. His lips were chapped and his mouth was shaped in a frown, but it quirked into an awkward, empty smile when he reached out his free hand towards me. I pushed myself away from him again.

He sighed, then reached out his hand again. “Please. I’m not going to hurt you, but they,” he pointed towards the forest, where I could now see a few red lights within the trees, “They are. We have to get moving.”

“Why… Why do they want to hurt me?” I asked. “I’m not doing anything out here. Why would they come after me?”

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I understood why they would search for me, they had done so for years. To them, I was a simple lost child out in the woods, desperately trying to survive on her own. It wasn’t far off from the truth, but that didn’t mean I wanted to go back to Dousin with them. There was nothing for me there. It just didn’t make any sense that they’d want to harm me.

“I– I can explain on the way. They're really close. We need to move now.”

I hesitated for a long time. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. I didn’t know this person and he didn’t know me. However, he was a child. Getting away from him would be much easier than getting away from a couple of adults. That, and what if the boy was telling the truth? What if those people really did want to hurt me? I took the strange boy’s hand, and he helped me to my feet.

He was stronger than I thought, lifting me all the way up himself before I even got the chance to help. He really was tall, my head only coming up to his shoulders, even when I tried to straighten my back as much as possible. The flame wolf walked up, his massive bulk reaching up to my shoulders even on all fours, and started rubbing his head against me.

“Ronan, leave her be,” the boy said.

The wolf, Ronan he was apparently named, gave a quiet huff, then continued begging to be pet. I gently rubbed his head, the warmth of his skin reminding me of how cold I was. I let out a shiver and moved closer to the animal. Then, a heavy cloth was thrown over me. I looked back over to the boy, who was putting his backpack over his shoulders, preparing to thank him. I completely forgot to do so, however, when I saw the large owl resting on one of his shoulders.

He turned to it and spoke softly, “You remember Nayu’s cave, right? Take us there, okay girl? Last trip of the night.” The owl let out a ‘who,’ and its eyes narrowed. The boy sighed, then scratched under the bird's beak. “There. Are you happy now?” The owl didn’t respond, instead flying off his shoulder and into the air.

The boy started hobbling over to the shore, Ronan following closely behind him. It looked like the wolf was watching him, waiting for the possibility of the boy falling in case he needed to catch him. I spoke hesitantly, slowly following behind him, “You make friends with the animals too?”

He turned to me, but I didn’t hear if he answered. I reminded myself of why I was even on this island, and suddenly became very worried. “Shaymie!” I yelled, looking around the small patch of land. “Shaymie, come here!”

There was a short silence, then a whistle like a morning bird’s song rang from the lone tree. Shaymie popped out from behind one of the branches, her ghostly form blending into the gusts of snow falling from the sky. She was almost completely invisible, her light gray form, a crude representation of a human with three dots on her head that resembled a face, blending into the night sky, but I could feel her presence. She flew down from her perch, resting herself near my shoulder, the faint gust of wind she produced letting me know she was there.

“Is that everyone?” the boy asked.

“Um… yes. Sorry,” I responded, a bit embarrassed by my outburst.

“Good. We're going to the opposite side of the lake from the soldiers, but they're still pretty close, so let’s keep our voices down from now on. I’m not very mobile at the moment, so I’d prefer not to have to run.”

“Right, I'm sorry. It’s just… I didn’t want to leave her. She’s family.”

The boy paused for a moment, and he started to rub his free hand against the side of his pants. “I– I get it. Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait, how are we–” I tried to say, but my voice cut off when I saw what he did next.

The boy reached out his hand towards the water, then swung it to the side. The water split in front of us, opening like a curtain for us to walk into. His arm fell limp at his side after the feat, but the water stayed spilt, leaving us a pathway off the island.

“You’re one of them,” I said as we walked.

He looked over at me, confused. “One of who?”

“You come up here every summer. I’ve seen you. You always split the water like this.” I started to remember him as part of that group. I could see him clearly now, but not just in those memories. “You also came up here with another man recently. You were being chased at one time. I– It was terrifying.”

“I didn’t expect you to remember. Thank you. You saved me back then. Winter too. You didn’t have to, but you did.”

“Winter? Who’s Winter?”

The boy pointed to the sky. “She’s the owl, my Soul Bind.”

“Soul… Bind?”

The boy stopped, then turned to me. He sighed, then continued walking. “You asked me earlier if I made friends with the animals. It’s a bit more than that. Winter and I have a Soul Bind. We traded a piece of our Soul with one another. I have a piece of hers, and she has a piece of mine. It’s sort of like a contract, or a promise. I thought you would know, given…” he trailed off.

“Given what?”

“Given that you’ve made so many of them.”

“What? I haven’t…” my mind stumbled for a moment.

I remembered what it felt like when I had met Shaymie. She was running from something, and slammed into me as I tried to get away from one of the guards trying to bring me back to Dousin. She felt like a sudden gust of wind, and whatever was chasing her started going after the guard. We ran away together. Soon after, Shaymie stopped and I could feel a different kind of wind coming off of her. It felt lighter, and warmer. Then, I felt a piece of myself, something I couldn’t describe at the time, leave me, and the light wind took its place. I’d done it so many times that I just thought it was normal in this world.

“You’re not supposed to make more than one Soul Bind. Giving up so much of yourself is dangerous. It– it drives a person, and any beasts around them, crazy. Their Soul’s go wild and they start taking in so much Nex until they… until they die.”

Some of the things and some of the words he said didn’t make sense to me, but I remembered what had happened on the island. Itr had hurt so much, and my body felt like it was going to break. “Is that why those guards are after me?”

“Soul Fiends cause every beast around to go insane. They attacked Dousin, and the only way to get them to stop is to destroy the source. They still think you're a Soul Fiend, since no one has ever come back from being one. Until now.”

“How… How did you save me then? You’re just a kid!”

“No, I’m not,” the boy paused, thinking for a moment, then continued, “And neither are you.”

“What? What do you–”

“I hope I’m not wrong, but you were reincarnated, right? Just like me. I couldn’t just let you die. Plus, I owed you for saving me.

“I– wait, what?” I tried to ask, but the boy kept going.

“I overpowered your Soul with my own, I guess. Stopped all the Nex from entering your Soul and pulled it into mine. Without any power, I assume your Soul was able to stabilize or something.”

“Wait, stop. Please, I don’t even understand what you're saying. You were reincarnated too?”

“Yeah. I was. I figured out that you were too, since you were able to survive out here all alone. Plus, we have the same birthday. I wasn’t completely sure until now, but I guess it's confirmed.”

“Why– why would having the same birthday mean anything?”

The boy hesitated, “It– It was just a hunch.”

I had too many questions. There were so many things that I couldn’t understand. Things that I'd probably never understand.

“When we get somewhere safe, I’ll do my best to explain it all to you. I’m still a bit foggy on all the details myself, to be honest. Reincarnation, why it happened to us and how we ended up here, it's all still a mystery to me, but I can at least tell you what I do know.”

All of it had to be a lie. I wanted it to be a lie, but it couldn’t be. If he knew about my reincarnation, then he was the only one who could understand me. The only one I might be able to trust. Still, I had so many questions, and one thing didn’t quite add up, my eyes drifting to the flaming wolf named Ronan at the boy’s side.

“If you’re only supposed to have one Soul Bind, why do you have two?”

The boy paused and started to rub his hand against the side of his pants again. “Ronan was my father’s Soul Bind.”

I swallowed some air, trying to choke down my next question. It wasn’t right of me to ask him about why he said ‘was.’ I could see I wasn’t supposed to clearly on his face. Instead I asked, “What is your name?”

“Right, I forgot to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Sean.”