Waking up was weird. When I opened my eyes I felt like something was wrong. Looking down on myself I couldn’t see anything different and was stumped for a little while. It was only when I thought about the past that I figured out what had happened. My presence had been limited. It was the only explanation. The herbs that I had been given must have limited my presence. Picking up a pillow close to me I tried to use my presence to have my hand go through it. It took quite a while of intense concentration before I was able to do it. It was clear now that I had been right. The herbs they had given me right before I had fallen asleep had limited my presence. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I now completely understood how Darius was feeling. It felt like a part of me had been torn away from me and was now being held barely out of my reach. Hugging myself I noticed that everyone else in the house was fast asleep. Grateful for that, I tried to get it together. Who knew when anyone else was going to wake up and I didn’t want them to see me like this.

Taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down, I felt the tears come closer to falling. Frustrated with myself for being so weak, I decided to focus on the good. I still remembered what had happened when I had been under the secret revealing herbs. They were a little out of focus and small parts of it I couldn’t remember very well, but I was still aware of most of it. Continuing to list the good things that were going on right now, I was amazed by how many things I could think of. Maybe things were as bad as they seemed. I only wished that Milo, his guards, my guards, and my maids were here as well. Then life really wouldn’t be so bad. The creak of the door opening caught my attention and I watched as several people walked in. In the darkness I couldn’t tell who they were, but there was something familiar about them. A torch flared to life and woke up everyone in the house. I stayed in my same position until I saw the faces of the people who had walked in. Shooting to my feet I rushed into the arms of Hazel and Sophia. The tears I had been holding back now flowed freely and Hazel and Sophia tried to figure out what was wrong with me.

Scanning me for injuries, my guards also hovered around me anxiously. “Are you alright Ari? Did they hurt you? Why are you crying?” I just shook my head unable to answer. It felt really good to be held and helped me feel more whole. Like my presence wasn’t limited. Figuring out that they weren’t going to get any answers from me, my guards turned to Darius and his guards to try and figure out what was going on. Darius’s guards explained in low voices how both Darius and my presences had been limited by herbs so that we couldn’t really use them. Everyone hearing about this for the first time was stunned. “How were they able to figure out what your presences were?”

Darius answered this time. “I had not been aware that they had been watching me and used my presence to give us some light in this house after we accidentally attacked Ari. We didn’t hurt her though.” He said this quickly once he saw the concerned looks on my guards faces. “She anticipated our attack after she saw one of our forms in the dark.” They nodded in understanding and I saw the proud looks they sent my way. Managing a nod of acknowledgement I felt my tears slow. “I would tell you how they found out about Ari’s presence, but I actually don’t know. They took her away a while ago and when she came back she was basically unconscious and her presence was limited. Our captors told us that they hadn’t hurt her, but I am not sure if I believe them.” Dark look appeared on everyone’s faces. I realized that it was time for me to tell them what had happened before they attacked our captors for something they hadn’t done.

“I can tell you how they found out.” My voice was stronger than I expected and I stepped out of Hazel and Sophia’s arms. “They took me to see the old man,” I saw the confused looks on Milo’s, his guards’, my guards’, and my maids’ faces and elaborated. “The old man is the leader of our captors.” They showed their understanding and gestured for me to go on. “Once I got there they asked me several times to tell them what my presence was. Of course I told them that I wasn’t going to say. They then brought in a girl who looked a little younger than me. Her name is Holly and she is their herbalist. She gave me an herb paste that tasted horrible and it made me confused and light headed. While in this state, even though I resisted it for a while, I eventually told them what my presence was. Once the secret revealing herbs had worn off, they gave me the herbs that limited my presence since I was half asleep. I guess once the herbs wore off they took basically all of your energy with them, and then I was carried back here.” I turned to face Darius and his guards. “Sorry for worrying you. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer once I got here and didn’t have the energy to tell you what had happened to me.”

They all shook their heads and told me not to worry about it. They were just glad that I was alright and hadn’t been hurt. Darius gathered me into my arms and kissed my forehead. “You don’t have to apologize. I do.”

Pulling away enough to look at his face I frowned in confusion. “What do you mean? Why do you have to apologize?”

He lowered his eyes in shame. “When they limited my presence I cut myself off from everyone and didn’t even really talk to any of you. I should have turned to you for comfort, instead I forced all of you away.”

I lifted his chin until he had to look at me. “That is not something that you have to apologize for. When I woke up and remembered that my presence had been limited I had been so grateful that everyone had been asleep. I curled up into a ball and got lost in myself.” He finally looked into my eyes. “So you see, I did the same thing that you did. There is no shame in taking some time for yourself occasionally as long as you come back to me eventually.” A smile creased his face and he lowered his forehead to touch it to mine. Our moment was interrupted by several of our captors coming into the house. Facing them while keeping our hands intertwined, we waited for them to say what they wanted. Instinctively, my guards and maids had gathered around me and my guards had put their hands where their weapons had been before they had been confiscated. It was pretty crowded in the house now with our captors in there and I hoped that they were only here for a short visit. My expression fell a little when I noticed the two mortars in the leading stranger’s hands.

“Is it already time to take our herbs? It couldn’t have been a day since the last time that I took them.” A trace of desperation sounded in my voice. I really did not want to take another dose of my herbs again. They were so nasty and I wanted to feel my whole presence again. Darius knew for sure that one of the mortars was for him so he let go of me with one hand to grab it.

The lead stranger looked at me with sympathy in his eyes and I knew what he was about to say. “We are having you take your herbs now so that we can take both of you your mixtures at the same time instead of having to come in here twice a day.” I sighed sadly, but grabbed the mortar. Facing each other, Darius and I scooped up a spoonful of the paste and took a deep breath. Placing the spoon in our mouths at the same time we swallowed as quickly as possible and then began gagging. It tasted even worse this time than it had before. We both took several moments of gagging before we recovered fully. My guards patted my backs while my maids murmured comforting words to me. Handing the mortar back to the lead stranger gratefully we watched as all of them left our house. Now that it was a lot less crowded in the house we spread out a little more and separated into our different groups. I went with my guards and maids, while Darius went with his guards, and Milo went with his guards.

We talked and caught up on what had happened to us while we had been apart. It seemed that I had the most exciting time of all of us. The others hadn’t even met the old man and since they didn’t have a presence no one had been bothering them to try and figure out what they could do. My retelling of what had been going on with me lately took longer than everyone else’s combined. “No matter where we go Ari, you are always the one who gets the most things happen to them. Why are you so popular? The only difference between us is that you have a presence and we don’t.” Casey said this in a teasing tone and I knew that he wasn’t serious. My guards had known as soon as they had seen my eyes that their job of guarding me wasn’t going to be easy.

I grinned at him. “I know it is so odd isn’t it. People really need to straighten out their priorities.” Laughter erupted from around me and everyone, including our captors watching from above, stared at us in both amusement and confusion. None of them came over to us though and I knew that they were all quite absorbed in their own conversations. We quieted down and sat in a circle. All of us were doing the same thing, keeping everyone in our line of sight so that our brains could finally register the fact that we were all together again. I really hoped that we weren’t separated for a long time. It had been harder than I had thought to be away from all of them. Darius and his guards may be my friends, or more than friends in Darius’s case, but this was my family. I had been with all of them for way longer than anyone else. I wrapped my arms around the two people beside me and everyone followed my example. It felt good to be physically connected, even if I wasn’t technically touching everyone. Several minutes passed while we were in this position and I was so content that I didn’t want to move. It felt like if I moved that something was going to happen that would tear us apart again.

Eventually though we had to move and we reluctantly let go of each other and stood up. The other groups were starting to disperse as well and as Hazel and Sophia grabbed their loves, I went over to Darius. “What did you all talk about? For us we were just catching up. They don’t know anything more than we do about our captors and they have no plans of escape.” Darius nodded. He had been expecting that, but it still disappointed him all the same. It had disappointed me too. I had hoped that they would be able to answer all of our questions and have a foolproof plan to escape. It had been an unrealistic hope, but that had been my hope. We embraced each other and shared our strength with each other. We also shared a feeling of safety. Any fears, hopelessness, weaknesses, or tenseness drained away. We relaxed into each other and felt peace for the first time in a while. That moment was shattered when shouts were heard outside. We all rushed over to the door to look out and see what was happening outside. A smile came onto my face when I saw women and children rushing into the village with a few men. Couples were running into each other’s arms and tons of tears were being shed.

Looking at each other we were all glad that the women and children had all arrived safely. I had been worried that something had happened to them. Backing back into the house we looked up to see that all of the people who had been above us were looking anxiously out at the crowds of people. “Go ahead and greet your wives, children, or whatever they are to you. We will not try to escape while you do that.” Their uncertain faces greeted me and I knew they needed a little more convincing in order to leave their posts. “I promise on the lives of all of my friends in this house that we won’t leave this house during the time that you are all away.” Their eyes narrowed a little as they noticed my clarification at the end, but it seemed to work for them because they all slid down ropes and hurried out of the house to see their loved ones. Knowing that we would never break a promise, we all sat down and resigned ourselves to just planning our escape instead of actually attempting one. No one blamed me for letting our watchers go out or promising that we wouldn’t leave the house. They had all been planning on doing the same exact thing.

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We were much too nice to our captors. That was just who we were though. Something that was never going to change no matter what happened to us in our lives. Our discussion of what we were going to do didn’t go very well. By the time that our watchers came back, around an hour later, we hadn’t gotten anywhere. Quieting quickly when they came in, we stifled smiles at their wary looks. It was clear that they were aware that we had been discussing our plans to escape. It didn’t appear that they knew that we didn’t have any actual plans though. Which could be a good thing. They would be on their toes and expecting us to try something which might give us an opening and help us get a plan to escape. The village outside of our house was very busy over the next few days as the newcomers found out which houses were theirs and everyone tried to find and fall into a rhythm. Inside our house it was pretty quiet. The only thing that interrupted our boring days was when some of our captors would come in and give Darius and me our herbs to limit our presences. The herbs were just as awful tasting as they had been the first time we had taken them.

Nothing had happened with our plans to escape. We had a couple more group discussions about what we could do to escape, but it was looking pretty hopeless right now. Without Darius and my presences we were just not strong enough to escape. The days passed slowly and while we had developed a routine for each day, that just made everything so predictable. Everyone knew what everyone else was going to be doing at any time of any day. Even our watchers got bored of watching us and their fear of us having a plan to escape faded away as days went by and we did nothing. One day, several days after the women and children had arrived, we heard more raised voices outside. Some of the others’ curiosity caused them to walk over and open the doors. I wasn’t really that interested, I figured that it was just a bunch of kids yelling or something close to our house, until I looked up. Our watchers were all staring outside and they looked quite concerned. Pointing this out to Darius we both stood up and ran over to the door to see what everyone else had seen. What we saw was mass chaos. People were running all over the place and weapons were appearing in everyone’s hands other than the children and a few women who were all going into Brendon’s old house.

Watching their faces closely I could see that fear was on each of their faces. Closing my eyes I listened intently to what they were all shouting. The few words that I could make out made it sound like there were intruders coming, and that they knew who the intruders were. Walking right under where all the watchers were gathered I yelled up to them, “Who are the intruders that are coming? Please don’t tell me that they are the people who took over your original village.” The fearful looks that got sent down to me confirmed my own fears. The people who had taken over the last village that these people had lived in were now coming here. Instead of fleeing this time though, they seemed to want to fight. “We can help you fight if you let us. Once Darius and I are off our herbs then we can make a big difference in this battle and many in our group are very skilled with a sword.” The considering looks that I saw gave me hope that they might actually let us help. They huddled together to talk for a moment before one of them ran to their ropes, climbed down, and then sprinted out of the house. Wondering where he was going, I went back to the door.

Spotting him running into Brendon’s old house I smiled when I realized that he was going to talk to the old man. I had a feeling that if it was left up to the old man then he was going to allow us to fight. Telling the others what I had done and what was now occurring, they all had the same faith. “They will let us fight. They have to if they want to win this battle. Afterall, they have even fewer fighters now than the first time that they fought these intruders and lost.” Alex sounded slightly desperate and as I saw his hand close over the air where his sword used to be, I knew that he missed having it there. Even if it meant fighting with our enemy, it was better than staying in here and wishing for the best. We all waited anxiously for him to come back and tell us what the old man had said. Several long minutes passed as we continued waiting. Most of us had started pacing back and forth to try and work off some of our stress. I was one of those people. I had just completed a circuit around the room and had come back to the door when he finally came back out of the house.

I stopped in my tracks and shifted from foot to foot in anticipation of what he was about to say. I hoped with all my might that he would say what I wanted him to say. All of us were huddled back around the door and as soon as he was in shouting range, even with everyone else outside shouting as well, we asked what the old man had said. No answer came from him and we groaned in exasperation when we realized that he was going to come all the way to us instead of just yelling back at us. While it only took him a few more moments to reach us it felt like an eternity. He arrived slightly out of breath and took a second to catch his breath before he spoke. We all concealed our impatience but if he took much longer then we might all lose it. He seemed to sense that and began to talk as soon as he had caught his breath. “My Master says that you will all be allowed to fight with us. If we manage to defeat these intruders and drive them off then he hopes that we will be able to return to our original village. He suspects that they will bring at least most of their soldiers with them and we will easily be able to retake our village even without your help. So you will all be able to have this village back if we win. If we lose though, we will probably all lose our lives.”

The way he said that so matter of factly startled us a little. Thinking about how they had already faced these people and lost however, I realized that he probably wasn’t anticipating winning this battle. That knowledge just made me even more determined to win this battle. Not just for my friends and I, but for the people whose lives had already been upended by these intruders. “How long until they arrive? Is there enough time for Darius and my presences to come back after the herbs wear off?”

“Yes. They won’t be here for another day or two.” Seeing the question rising in my eyes, he answered before I even asked it. “We have several sentries in the forest that ran back to us as soon as they caught sight of them. Thankfully they are fast runners so we got enough warning to prepare fully for the attack that is coming.” Extremely grateful that we would be able to use our presences during the battle, I pulled Darius aside and started talking to him about the best ways to use our presences. Darius couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, use his presence if there was any chance of one of our allies getting injured. We would have to figure out a way to get him alone with a bunch of enemies. It would not be an easy thing to do. On the other hand, I would be most useful running through the enemies ranks and causing tons of confusion. Kissing each other for good luck we left to go speak to our own guards.

Pulling all of my guards and my maids away from the huddle they were in with everyone else, I began talking strategy with them. They weren’t super excited about the idea of watching me run into battle alone, but they could all see the advantage it would give us in the battle. After a bunch of compromises on both of our sides we finally came to a decision. I would be allowed to run wild and create confusion in the enemies ranks until they started to anticipate me. As soon as they weren’t surprised by me running through their allies then I had to come back to my guards and fight alongside them. I also had to go back to my guards if I felt too weak to continue using my presence. I really hoped that I was strong enough to keep going as long as it would be helpful, however I still hadn’t used my presence all that much so it was probable that I would get tired pretty quickly. My maids now spoke up. “What are we going to be doing while you are all fighting? We want to help too.” After another long discussion we decided that Sophia would find out where the healers for the strangers would be and help them out as much as possible. Hazel would find out where the strangers archers would be and help them out. Now that we had figured out our various plans, we left the house and headed over to where the armory appeared to be. In order to be prepared for the battle we had to have weapons. We couldn’t just have any weapons though. We had to have our weapons. Other weapons might have a slightly different grip or feel to them and we couldn’t afford to be adjusting to using a new weapon when we were in the middle of fighting someone.

All of the strangers parted as soon as we got close to them and we were soon inside of the armory. Hoping that the old man had told them that we could retrieve our weapons, I held my breath a little as we walked up to the armorer. Before we had even opened our mouths to tell him what we were there for, he pointed us to a far wall and then proceeded to turn to the person behind us. Getting the clue we headed over to where he had pointed and were happy to see that all of our weapons were hung on that wall. Quickly grabbing each of our individual weapons we put all of our sheathes on and relaxed for the first time since our weapons had been taken away from us. A warrior could never fully be happy and relaxed without a weapon on their person. It was a fact that I had learned pretty quickly once I had gotten a weapon. Resting my hand on my sword I took a deep breath in and let myself enjoy it for a brief moment before I forced my eyes open and led the way out of the armory. It was way too crowded in there and we now needed to come together as a group and discuss our various plans so that none of us interfered with another’s plan.

By habit we went back into our house and sat in a circle to talk. First I told them the agreement between my guards and I, and what my maids were going to be doing. Then Darius spoke. “My guards are going to attract a large group of the enemy, as large of a group as they can get and then they will disappear into a side alley. While the enemy is trying to decide where they went I will come out of my hiding spot and use my presence on them. I will just be trying to hurt instead of kill so then my guards can come back out and we can either knock them out or tie them up.” He spent a second thinking something over in his mind and then made a final decision. “We will knock them out and tie them up. That way we can be sure that they won’t reenter the fight.” Turning to his guards he asked Ethan if he could find enough rope to tie up at least 20 peoples’ hands and feet. Or as many as he thought that they could gather in one place. Ethan nodded and hopped up to his feet. He then proceeded to run from the room. I nodded approvingly at Darius. Ethan was a smart choice because he would be able to figure out for himself how much rope he would need. We wouldn’t need to figure it out. Milo now began to tell us his plan.

“My guards and I are planning on a pretty straightforward approach. We will stay back for a little while and the first area that seems to be struggling we will go join them. That way we are like reinforcements. As soon as we get that first area under control then we will go to the next struggling area and on and on until the battle is over one way or the other.” All of the guards and Darius nodded.

“It is a good plan. With all of us following our plans we have a good chance of helping our captors win this fight.” Alex nodded approvingly at Tyler when he said this so we all knew that he agreed with him. I laughed internally at Tyler’s words though because it had sounded strange stated like that. Who in their right mind would help their captors win a fight? Apparently us. Either that or we weren’t in our right minds which was possible after all the craziness that we had been through lately. I shrugged. It didn’t really matter because either way we were going to do it. I ignored the weird looks that the others gave me because of my shrug since I didn’t feel like explaining why I had done it.