Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Aine

Áine sat leaning against her horse’s warm side, the evening chill creeping in around them. They were camped, if you could call their huddle a camp, in a bowl of sand. Their position, at least, blocked some of the wind above, but it wasn’t great. Until now she had always had a tree to climb into. But here there were no trees. Just sand, miles and miles of awful sand.

“And where exactly is here?” she muttered into the frigid air as she glared at the walls of her sand bowl. Her horse snorted, the sound rumbling against Áine’s back. 

“Like you know?” She directed her glare at her horse. Another snort, as if to say yes actually. “Hmph,” Áine turned back to the sand, ignoring her cocky steed. She shivered as chills scampered up and down her arms. Even with her cloak and the warmth of her horse at her back, she was still cold. She pulled her cloak tighter around her, trying to make it cover her legs in addition to the rest of her. It stretched and shifted but never quite covered everything. If it covered her arms, then her knees poked out, if she covered her knees then, a gap open up at her torso. She gave up trying to make her whole body fit under it. She would have to get warm by other means.

She had been avoiding this since they entered the desert. Out here there was little to no greenery, mostly existing in the form of wimpy shrubs and the occasional cactus. Besides that, she wouldn’t dare make a fire. A fire and the ensuing smoke would only serve as a bright beacon screaming here I am! to all those who searched for her. So warmth by fire was out of the question. But after not sleeping at all last night due to the cold wracking her body with shivers and chattering teeth, she had no other choice. Carefully she coaxed a ball of light to grow in her open palms, blowing on them as her mother had taught her. She hadn’t intentionally attempted to conjure her light since her mother’s execution. Her bloodless execution on that sun forsaken day. 

Rain had saturated her thin clothes as she sprinted for the castle. She hadn’t stopped running since she had overheard a few men chatting about the heavenschild woman’s execution in the dining hall of the inn. Her legs screamed and her heart pounded but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop running. Not now. Not yet.

The kingsmen had taken her mother as she snuck out through the trap door under her parents’ bed. There was only one place she could think they would have taken her, so Áine had traveled from town to town trying to reach the castle where she hoped her mother was being held. It was only a day ago that she had finally made it.

Made it too late. She hadn’t known exactly what she was going to do once she got there, but she hadn’t imagined watching her mother die on the list of possibilities. 

The shifting of her horse behind her pulled Áine from her memory induced trance. Glancing back, she saw her horse peering at the orb of light resting gently in her palm. Returning her gaze to the orb, another memory swept through her.

So bright, gentle, and beautiful. She touched the ball in her mother’s hand. 

“Its soft” she said reverently, “but not quite there.” She giggled and her mother smiled down at her.

“Remember, the light will always guide you, and if you listen closely it will speak to your soul.”

“Mama, I don’t hear anything.” 

“Someday my beautiful girl. You will.”

Peering incredulously at the bright ball currently warming her hands, she asked, “What do you think girl, is it speaking to you?” 

Her horse seemed mesmerize by the light as she bent her muzzle closer, gaze glued to the softly pulsing light. It had been so long since Áine had been able to call the sun without fear. Now that she was deep in the desert, lost really, she figured she didn’t have much to lose. Still a trickle of trepidation slid down her back. 

As lost as they were, she was mainly depending on her horse to guide them to civilization. But after a day and a half without food or water and five without seeing another soul, she wasn’t sure they would live long enough to find out. 

Recalling her mother again she gazed at the ball of light and began passing it back and forth in her hands. Suddenly she dropped it and it rolled off a ways. Groaning from stiffness she got up to retrieve it, slightly surprised it had held form beyond her hands. As she bent to pick it up, the light literally jumped from her hands. Whoa! She didn’t remember the light ever having a life of its own… or had it… Again she reached for the light and again it rolled away. Lunging for the mischievous orb, she landed face first in the sand. Looking up she watched as the light rolled just out of reach, taunting her. Fine she thought. You want to play this game, then let’s play. She chased the orb blindly until she made her way to a narrow rocky outcrop. Finally, it stopped, hovering over a patch of sand. A darker patch of sand. Bending down she reached for the orb, picking it up in one hand as she felt the ground beneath it. The damp ground beneath it! 

She had heard of this type of mystery--springs of the desert you can only find at night. Forgetting about her light orb, she clawed at the sand and rocks until a shallow depression began to collect life giving water. 

Praise our Celestial Father she thought bringing her cupped hands to her lips to drink. Cool liquid wet her lips and glided down her throat. Despite its soothing quality as it slid down into her stomach, it did little to ease the hot cracked feeling of her parched throat. 

She reached down for a second drink, dying for more, when the whisper of a sudden breeze warned her of danger lurking nearby. Jerking her head up she scanned the darkness. Someone, or something was here, watching her. She could feel their eyes on her skin, the breeze continuing to whip around her, wanting her to run. Clearly they weren’t friendly. Her light extinguished of its own accord and everything went blacker then before as the air stilled. She didn’t dare move for fear of giving away her position. Not that her light hadn’t already done that. She could only hope that the sudden absence of light had temporarily blinded her company too.

Muscles tensed, she quietly unsheathed the long knife at her belt and waited. Finally, her eyes adjusted to the starlit darkness, the moon conveniently absent from the sky. A moving shadow to her left caught her attention and she slowly pivoted, keeping the shadow within her line of sight. She stayed low, crouched over the now pooling spring. A smaller target was harder to hit and she definitely didn’t want to make it easy for whomever, or whatever, staked her now. 

Abruptly, the shadow split in two and a crunch behind her informed her of a third entity. S**t, she was surrounded and their constant shifting and swapping of places made it hard to keep track of them in the dark. 

Well at least she knew these were people. Otherwise her horse would have warned her. Speaking of, she had left her horse a few meters away while following her light to the spring. So escape wasn’t going to be easy… but not impossible either. Okay, enough of this waiting.

“So are you going to show yourselves or are we just going to wait around all night?” With that the moving shadows came to a halt. They appeared crouched like her before they simultaneously rose to standing. Cautiously she completed one full rotation, counting five individuals surrounding her. 

“What’s a little girl like you doing out here with one of my horses?” a richly accented female voice answered from her left. Áine couldn’t be certain, but was pretty sure the voice didn’t belong to any of five standing around her. Then a larger shadow started to take shape and she recognized the muffled gate of a horse. They were approaching form the direction in which she had left her horse. Wait… she squinted. That was her horse… and a figure riding a top her. 

“Your horse? I don’t think so. She’s mine,” Áine growled. “So get off.”

“Oh?” the female chirped amusedly, “Did you raise her from foul-hood? Train her endlessly? Love and cherish her?”

“Who are you?” Áine asked suspiciously. 

“Who’s asking?” the woman retorted. 

These weren’t normal people. These were desert dwellers, and if what the woman claimed was true, then these were Nahati, people known more for their deadly skill and no nonsense attitudes rather than their compassion and trust. 

“Just a passerby” Áine replied as coolly as possible. Which was getting hard. The adrenaline that had surged through her body when she first noticed her company was now waning. She could feel her legs shaking and her throat cracking from dehydration, her meager sip not nearly enough to replenish her. Her soaked soles only serving as an additional reminder of the two days she had spent without water. She needed to get out of here, with her horse and her water skin refilled. But how?

“And where might you be headed, passerby?”

“None of your business,” Áine snapped, her patience and strength both unraveling quickly. Damn, she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. On top of lack of food and water, she had yet to sleep and all of it together was catching up with her. Fast. 

Not now she thought desperately as blackness began to creep in at the edges of her periphery. The woman, most likely the leader of this pack, dismounted.

“Oh I think it’s very much my business, heavenschild,” she said coldly. 

Not good. It was never good when people knew what she was. If she didn’t go now, Father Sun only knows what would happen. This was the only chance she would get. Using her crouched position as leverage, she sprung forward, dashing for her horse. At this point, escape was more important than water. 

She didn’t get far before she felt something thwack the back of her skull. She stumbled, the darkness rushing in as she plummeted towards sand face first, again. The last thing she saw was approaching boots, her horse just beyond, so close and yet so far.

Author's Note

WIP, would love feedback about content; characterization, scene vs summary, and anything you are left wondering as a reader. I plan to finish this book and then go back in for my 2nd draft revision.
Thanks!!