Chapter 5

A Chapter by fayriii

*Miria*

“I’m telling you, it’s faster if we go this way!” she fumed.

“Yeah, if by ‘faster’ you mean taking us at least another week to get to Helmfirth, then sure, we’ll go that way,” Terrin replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Miria sighed. “This is getting us nowhere. Going across the river is just going to put us at a huge disadvantage. Who knows who could attack us while we’re crossing?” Terrin’s snarky disbelief showed on his face, and she turned to Zared, her patience growing thin. “What do you think, Zared?”

Zared gazed at her for a long time and she resisted the urge to squirm under his stare. Being her best friend since they were five, he knew she was holding something back and she swallowed, hoping he’d choose her route over Terrin’s. He turned to Terrin. “In this scenario, I agree that the fastest way to get to Helmfirth is through Zalfari, meaning crossing the river is our best way to go.”

Terrin shot her a triumphant glance. “See? Now we’ll only spend a few days at most getting to Zalfari, not a few years.”

Humiliation caused a red blush to spread across her face, and she bit back her reply as she stalked forward, leaving the two of them to follow after her. The crunching of leaves sounded Zared’s presence as he caught up to her, his eyebrows lifted in concern.

“Miria, what’s really going on? You know that we’ll have to cross the river at some point, whether it’s here or farther up north. I dislike Terrin as much as you do but there’s no need to cause trouble,” he said quietly.

Miria agreed with him. She knew she was being unreasonable, yet the dread in her stomach took over her sense of logic. “Nothing’s wrong, Zared. Let’s just hurry up and get to Zalfari.”

After about a couple hours of walking the sound of rushing water reached their ears, and the dread in Miria’s stomach grew. Hopefully they’d find a good place to cross. The sound of the river grew closer and closer until it was all they could hear, and a break in the trees ahead of them allowed her to see . . . more trees.

“Huh? Where’s the river?” she asked.

She watched Terrin step forward until he stopped at a certain point and looked down. He turned back to her, excitement lighting up his gaze. “Down there.”

She and Zared stepped up to where he was, and she looked down to see a rushing torrent of water about twenty feet below their feet. Her heart sank into her gut, beating uncomfortably fast and causing her body to waver slightly at the edge of the cliff. Her throat became too dry, and she tried swallowing to make it go away but her body wouldn’t obey her wishes. The height yawned in front of her and she took a shaky step back, turning her back to the boys so that they didn’t see how pale her face was.

“Well,” she said, her voice pitching up a bit. “L-let’s find a way to get down there so we can cross.”

She heard Terrin’s voice behind her. “What are you talking about? There’s a bridge over there we can use.”

She whipped around to stare at him, then looked in the direction he was pointing. Roughly ten meters away she spotted a huge tree that’d fallen, it’s roots sticking up in the air from their side of the small gorge. She swallowed as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and attempted to look confident. “R-right. I didn’t see it.”

She faced the others, trying to stop her legs from feeling like jelly. “Let’s go, then.”

Terrin nodded and started walking over to the tree, his expression filled with excitement. Lucky him. She tried to follow him but found her legs wouldn’t move, and Zared gave her a strange look.

“Is everything okay, Miria? We don’t have to cross the tree if you don’t want to,” he said, concern in his voice.

She didn’t want to cross the tree. She really didn’t want to cross the tree. But her pride reared its ugly head, forcing her to ignore his offer. “Everything’s fine. I can cross the tree just fine.”

Zared’s face was doubtful as she turned away from him and headed over to the tree to join Terrin. Once they got there Zared made his way to the front. “I’ll go first,” he said. “Since I’m the tallest it’ll be a good sign if the tree can handle my weight. You guys can follow after.”

Terrin let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to lie to try and make yourself look cool, Zared.”

Miria let out a shaky laugh, trying to calm the storm raging inside her. Her heart was beating too fast, her stomach was twisting in ways she didn’t even know it could twist, and her she could feel her legs turning to mush at the thought of crossing that tree.

Zared gave Terrin an irritated look and turned back to face the tree. He climbed up to the top of the trunk, testing his weight a few steps at a time as he started to make his way across the river. The tree didn’t make one creak of protest, a fact that calmed Miria’s racing heart a bit. Zared straightened a bit and started to walk more confidently along the tree, slow but steady.

Terrin nodded. “Looks good.” He flitted up the tree’s roots and onto the trunk without hardly making a noise, and Miria marveled in his stealth. Then she realized that years of living as a thief probably conditioned him into being that agile.

Terrin stood at the top of the trunk, his body posture showing him completely at ease at the height that repeatedly caused fear to flip Miria’s stomach inside out. She gulped and climbed the roots to join them, her legs shaking every time she moved. After what seemed like years she reached the top and slowly stood up, her knees all but knocking together.

Terrin’s eyebrow quirked. “Are you alright? You look like you’re gonna be sick.”

Crap. She didn’t want Terrin to know about her fear of heights. But there wasn’t much she could to stop her body from quivering except deny it over and over again. “I d-don’t know what you m-mean. I’m f-fine.”

His expression said he obviously didn’t believe her, but he shrugged and started walking along the tree, his back to her. Miria let out a shaky breath and tried following him, stopping every time the wind blew at her side. She continued forward, her heart hammering in her throat.

They’d made it about halfway across when a strong gust of wind slammed into her side, causing her to gasp and crouch low to the tree and wrap her arms as far as they would go around the trunk. She waited until the wind ceased before getting up again, her legs even shakier than before. She looked up from her feet to see Terrin eyeing her with a teasing, lopsided smile, her fear causing her irritation to escalate to anger.

“What?!” she cried. “What’s so funny?”

Terrin just chuckled. “You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”

Miria’s cheeks grew hot as the embarrassment rose to her face. “I am not! I’m just not feeling too well.”

Eager to prove him wrong she took a seemingly confident step forward when her foot slipped on the bark, the world started tilting around her, and she felt a rushing sensation whip around her body. She heard someone yell her name and cried out in fear, feeling herself hurtling towards the river as she closed her eyes.

She suddenly felt her arm jerk in pain, and opened her eyes to look up at Terrin’s face scrunched in concentration and fear as his hand gripped tightly to her wrist. “Hang on,” he grunted as he strained to pull her up. She gripped her hand to his arm as well, pulling her weight as he lifted her. She saw Zared rush over and her started to bend down to reach her other hand, but by that time Terrin had pulled her up enough to get her torso on the trunk of the tree so he pulled back. She swung her leg over and laid on the trunk, breathing hard.

After a while she sat up and locked eyes with Terrin. “Thanks.”

His forehead was beaded with sweat and he was breathing hard as well, but he shot her a lopsided grin. “It wouldn’t be right of me to let you fall when you had saved my butt from those thugs yesterday.”

She smiled at that and they both started laughing. They both got to their feet and she tried walking forward again, this time looking more carefully where she stepped. Zared had stopped in front of her and was gazing at her in concern.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Miria? I can carry you the rest of the way if you’d like,” he suggested, his eyebrows pulled together in worry.

She shook her head and gave him a small smile. “Thanks, but I’m fine. I’ll just try to ignore the height for now, and I’ll let you know when I need carrying.”

The concerned look didn’t leave his gaze, but he nodded. Ever since they were little, Zared had been overprotective of her, even more so after his sister died. She understood and appreciated the sentiment, but he had to understand that she didn’t need protecting. She wanted to be independent, and that couldn’t happen with him jumping to her defense all the time.

Although it was a good thing that Terrin had jumped to her defense this time. She’d been so far behind Zared that if Terrin hadn’t been there she was certain she would have fallen into the river. A wave of gratitude swept over her, and she reminded herself to thank Terrin again later.

*Terrin*

Once they reached the other side they quickly found a clearing to rest for a bit, as they clearly needed it. He glanced up at the sky and noted that the sun wouldn’t be going down for another few hours, so they still had a ways to go before they stopped for the night. They divided up some food and ate in silence, and Terrin thought about what just happened on the tree.

He’d kind of enjoyed teasing Miria about her fear, remembering the funny expression she’d made as she adamantly denied her dislike of heights. That enjoyment had disappeared quickly though. He hadn’t even been thinking when she feel. He’d just reacted. He thought about that as he chewed into his food, glancing over at Miria.

She certainly was attractive, he decided, looking over at her now. Even though she was small she was fierce, and his respect for her grew. He’d been in awe at the way she’d fought those thugs yesterday, taking their blows without so much as a grimace. Then he smiled as he remembered the flustered look she’d had when she’d crossed the bridge, her eyebrows pulled up and together as she tried to convince him that he was wrong.

Terrin then looked over at Zared. He was also quite handsome, from an objective stand point. Terrin could tell that he cared a lot for Miria, but whether it was romantic or not he didn’t know. He could also tell that Zared was way too concerned with Miria’s safety, although the incident over the river probably gave him the right to be concerned. He wondered idly what their history together was, and why Zared seemed to be so overprotective.

Maybe he’s like you, a voice in his mind said. Like him? Oh, yeah. Terrin thought about the sketched picture in his locket. If Emota were with them Terrin would probably be just as worried about her as Zared was about Miria.

The thought of Emota darkened his mood, and he stood up after he was finished eating. Miria and Zared glanced at him from where they sat. “I’m going to scout ahead,” he said, averting his gaze from them. “I’ll be back in a bit, so don’t worry about getting to leave just yet.”

He purposely left his stuff there and headed into the forest in a different direction than the one they were traveling. Emota’s face kept flashing in his mind, and he felt his chest grow tight. D****t.

After a while he stopped at the base of a large tree and sat down, resting his folded arms on his knees and slouching forward as he stared out into the woods. He sighed, mentally trying to shake the cloud of guilt hanging over his head. He’d been down this road before. It was no use bringing it up again, especially since he was already taking action to fix his mistakes before. Finding the Excidium Sect was his number one purpose right now, for Emota’s sake. Nothing else mattered.

The sound of leaves crunching alerted him to someone’s presence, and he looked to the left to see Miria standing there, her gaze curious.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

Terrin hesitated, then thought that talking to someone would probably be the best way to get his mind off of Emota and the guilt gnawing away at his stomach. He force himself to smile at her. “No, not all.”

Miria took a seat next to him, leaving about two feet of room between them. She was fidgeting with something a little bit below her neck that he couldn’t see, and he became curious. “What’s that?”

She started a bit, obviously not aware that she had been playing with something. She reached into her shirt and brought out a small pendant, the slowly swirling colors of deep purple and blue hypnotizing.

“It’s a pendant,” she replied. “It’s from my mom.” She looked like she wanted to say more about it but stopped herself, her expression conflicted. He understood. It wasn’t like he was ready to offer up his past on a silver platter.

She turned to look at him instead, putting the pendant back in her shirt. “I wanted to thank you again for saving me at the river. It would have been easy to let me fall but you didn’t, and I’m grateful for that.” She gave him an easy smile and his eyes widened in surprise. It’d seemed that she hadn’t been his biggest fan yesterday and earlier today, and he certainly hadn’t been looking for her to be, but now a light smile spread across his face.

“Like I said, it was my way of paying you back for yesterday. Those thugs didn’t stand a chance,” he replied, speaking truthfully.

Her eyes lit up and her smile widened at her praise, and he felt glad that they seemed to be more like friends than traveling partners. Then he frowned as Miria’s expression grew serious.

“Why did you come here by yourself? You looked like something was bothering you earlier,” she said, her eyes curious.

He blinked. He hadn’t expected her to notice that he’d been upset. He turned his gaze to his hands, hesitating to answer. He decided to tell her a little bit of why he was with them. “I was thinking about my reasons for joining you, for wanting to take down the Excidium Sect.”

She tilted her head to one side. “What are they?”

He avoided her gaze, his eyebrows furrowing. “A few years ago the Excidium Sect took someone very important to me away. She was alive when they took her, and I think she’s still alive now. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to look for her, using these last few years to get stronger and more independent. Hopefully I’ll find her at the fortress past Helmfirth.”

Miria looked away from him and rested her head against the tree, her expression unreadable. “Huh. You’re a lot like I am.”

“They took away someone important to you?” he asked, shifting his sitting position to face her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She took out her pendant again, gazing at it with a troubled expression. “My mom gave me this pendant to look for my father. He’s been gone since the day I was born, though my mom told me that he didn’t leave of his own accord. This pendant shows me which direction to travel in order to find him.” She shook it and Terrin watched as it glowed, the light around it retreating into a single line that extended slightly into the air, pointing to their left. She closed her fist around it. “I don’t know if the Excidium Sect has him or not, but if they do then I won’t hesitate to do what I have to get him back.” She gave him a warm smile. “Your friend, too.”

Terrin’s eyes widened in surprise, a warm feeling settling in his stomach. He all of a sudden felt very exposed, and his mind went blank as he tried to think of a joke to break the mood.

Miria stood up and brushed off her pants. “Let’s head back, then. We’ve got a long way to go if we’re gonna achieve our goals.”

Terrin nodded, a smile pulling at his lips. “Yeah.” He pushed himself to his feet and followed Miria back to the clearing, hope flaring anew in his chest. He would find Emota. Definitely.

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