CHAPTER FOUR—AURA LOST
Jessamine lay against Shiro’s chest, looking up at him with a smile on her face. She leaned up and kissed him as he caressed her shoulder with his hand.
The relaxing sentō made him want to sleep—to forget their responsibilities and duties and to simply stay here, camped out among this amazing hot spring of fresh water. But we cannot.
She stirred slightly, clearly aware of his thoughts. The samurai was in love with her, and even though they shared of their bodies, her wheedling into his mind was an annoyance, one he hadn’t gotten used it.
Jessamine was no jealous woman, searching through his thoughts for signs of interest directed toward another woman—she simple liked to do as she pleased, and no one could tell her otherwise.
She smirked, and he knew that she was aware of his subtle tinge of annoyance just thinking about these things.
She lifted her hand and turned his face toward her with a demanding thrust of his chin toward her. “You think too much.”
He scoffed without words.
Something suddenly was missing. Shiro hadn’t known when it had happened—and indeed it could have happened a long time ago during their love making and he simply hadn’t realized it, but now he had.
He tensed.
“It is the Mar’a Thulian, yes?”
“I do not sense him,” Shiro said, and he glanced down at her.
“He can take care of himself.”
The samurai nodded. “Hai,” he said. “But…”
“But you want to make sure,” she said, stressing the words sulkily. “Why can you not relax, Shiro—my love.”
Normally he would have moved the heavens to stay right where he was, but he could not. “He could be in danger, Jessamine.”
She sighed and lifted herself off of his bare chest. She stood, completely naked before him. “Very well.”
Then she she whirled and disappeared, leaving only a twirling wisp of blue mist behind. Once she appeared again—when she appeared again—she would be clothed and completely dry, her hair perfect and silky, and her jewels adorning her ivory skin.
It would take Shiro much longer to…
“Where are my clothes?”
There was a long pause.
“Jessamine?”
Something flopped onto the dry rocks outside of the water, and the isekai realized they were his clothes, folded and dried. He almost gasped like a fish. Did she just…
“Oh please,” she said aloud, her voice completely disembodied from any physical form. “It’s not like I sat there and rung them dry for you.” She sighed, her tone bored, and yet playfully intent all at once. “Magic is a wonderful thing.”
He laughed. “Arigatou!”
Grabbing the lamp from under the water, Shiro stepped back up onto the rocks. Once he was dressed, he buckled his scimitar around his waist. The hilt was of black ivory and the blade, strangely red, but it was Jessamine’s sword, given to him after he had killed Darius.
The samurai set out, his direction heading south where he had last sensed Debaku’s aura.
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Shiro stood atop a ridge, a long stretch of cascading cliffs under him, and below that a white-sand beach. Upon the black waters of the night, a silver bar of reflected moonlight shimmered over the waters.
The breeze was cool on his skin and the sound of the water far off a constant breath on the horizon. Shiro saw no signs of Debaku—felt no signs of his magical aura.
In a luminescent whirl, Jessamine appeared beside him. “Well I don’t sense him either,” she said curiously as if they were doing no more than playing a game of seek with a group of children in the Sultan’s Palace.
“I am worried,” Shiro said. “He could be in real trouble. We should go back and get help.”
Jessamine laughed melodically and mirthfully. “He is fine, Shiro.”
“Yes,” said Debaku from behind, “I am.”
Shiro whirled around, and upon seeing Debaku standing there, he smiled.
“See?” said Jessamine. “You should trust me, Shiro.”
“Yes,” said Debaku, “you should—but I am warmed for your concern, my friend.”
“You are covering your aura,” said Shiro.
Debaku nodded. “I am. There was a woman…”
A pause followed.
“A woman?” Jessamine finally said, her tone an undulating river of suggestive curiosity.
Debaku’s lips turned into a wry smile, but then his mirth fell immediately. “As much as I would welcome a woman in that context, venerable jinni, I am concerned. She seemed to know that we have ‘men with us.’”
“Who was she?”
The Black Cobra shook his head. “I do not know—but she helped me. I was caught by the leg by a strange creature with tendrils—it wrapped itself all about me. Once I was free, we exchanged some words, and then she left.”
“Was this creature a Majja Vyne monster?”
“No,” said the Mar’a Thulian firmly. “It was something else entirely—something I have never seen before. I sensed a great aura in the direction it pulled me into—a subtle, yet expansive presence.”
That sent a shiver down Shiro’s back.
“Mmm,” Jessamine hummed interestedly. “Now that is interesting.”
“But what about that woman?” asked Shiro.
Debaku nodded. “She helped me escape, but I what she said… she knows of the army.”
“This is concerning.”
“I think we should regroup with Ali and Raz,” Debau said. “We need to decide what to do next.”
“Wait,” said Shiro. “Did you not find anything? Jessamine and I, we found water. Fresh water.”
“And much, much more,” said Jessamine, her full pink lips quirking into a suggestive smile.
If Debaku caught onto her hint by the tone of her words, he didn’t show it. Stop embarrassing me, he conveyed to her.
Amusement flooded back.
“I am sorry to say, but I have found nothing. When that monster attacked me, it my priorities were changed.”
“Of course,” said Shiro. “Let us go back to Ali and Razul, then.”
Razul laughed so hard he fell from his sitting position atop the rock and into the sand. He cried out stupidly as he fell, and Ali slapped his leg as he guffawed. Hashem, clearly surprised, snorted his turtlenut milk and it came back out of his nose.
He coughed and the two brothers broke out laughing again.
Raz got up and took another cracked turtlenut and drank the liquid down. “It is so good.” Suddenly he glanced up. “Hey… do you sense that?”
Sense what?” asked Ali.
“An aura—magical, coming this way.”
“Of course not, you fool, do I like like a magicker to you?”
“Oh right,” he said, and laughed. “It is very feint—definitely approaching, though.”
“It is probably just Shiro and the Mar’a Thulian, yes?” asked Hashem.
“Ah,” Razul said, stretching out the sound very far as he raised a finger. He could barely think, and yet the tingling sensations all throughout his body felt wonderful. He felt as though his feet were lifting off the ground. “Yes, yes of course it is them.” He waved the thought away with his turtlenut and some of it spilled out.
“Hey!” barked Ali, “do not waste it, brother.”
“Sorry.”
Thunder rumbled on the horizon and cool wind began to blow in toward them. “Ah,” said Ali, enjoying that cool wind on his hot flesh. “That is amazing. Do you feel that?!”
“Say,” asked Hashem, “are we going to collect these turtlenuts for the army?”
“What?” asked Raz through a hiccup. He covered his mouth with his fist and belched. “Of course not! Think what could happen if the whole army became as drunk as we are right now.”
The way the words came out, one might have thought he perceived that to be a splendid idea, however in their inebriated states, probably not, and the thought barely touched upon Ali’s own mind.
“Agh,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “I am so full of this milk, and now I have to piss.”
“Then go piss, man!” barked Raz. “There, behind that rock.”
Ali ran to the rock perched above the drop leading to a shallow straight between the two islands. The water was bright and clear. He jumped atop it and started to relieve himself.
Turning, he laughed.
“You fool!” said Raz. “Is that as far as you can piss? Let me show you how it is really done, eh?”
“I want to play!” called Hashem, and Ali made a face, but then said nothing as Raz tried to get his stream farther than his own.
“Hey!” Razul said indignantly, pointing. “That’s not bad. Ali, look!”
“I see,” he said with a grunt, then he finished and went back to the turtlenuts and looked around. “Where is Captain Ushtan?”
Hashem shrugged. “He went that way.”
“Oh.”
“I feel drunk,” said Raz.
Ali cocked his head.
“But I can speak perfectly.”
Ali knew this to be true. “That is interesting.”
“I know, right?”