Chapter 2 Auria
Ikept my eyes wide open as I ran through the portal. For a brief instant, I couldn’t see anything besides a silver haze. Magic washed over my body with a tingling sensation, and my feet hit a rocky ground that was harder than the forest I’d just left. A blinding white replaced the silver around me.
I blinked a few times, and my eyes adjusted to the brightness. It wasn’t a white cloud, it was afternoon sunlight reflecting off snow.
I’d landed in a mountain forest covered with snow. Bits of evergreen trees peeked out from under mounds of ice, and an eerie stillness—like the forest didn’t want to disturb the wintry scene—chilled my skin.
Or maybe that was all the snow and ice. I had dressed for a cool autumn day, with a sturdy linen skirt and leather jerkin, but the portal must have moved me far north. I rubbed my arms. Very far north.
A beautiful chortle brought my attention away from the weather. Rat had survived, and we’d both been brought to the same place. Was that how portals worked? Did they always take you to the same place?
I turned around. Could I return to the cottage through the same portal? I didn’t love my life, but at least it was familiar.
A tall white tree with peeling bark marked the direction I’d come from. It had a tiny silver circle on it. I almost reached for it, wanting to test if the portal would grow back to the cottage in Hemlit, but then I stopped. What if the soldiers were still there, debating if they should follow me?
I did not want to encourage them by showing them I’d arrived safely.
Rat flew in a circle twenty feet ahead of me and squawked impatiently.
I sighed. “Fine,” I called to the bird. “I’m coming.” He squawked again, as if I was risking danger.
And maybe I was. Maybe those soldiers would burst in here after me, open a portal with the silver magic on the tree, and all this would turn into a nightmare of prison and torture. I ran to catch up to my cockatoo.
Yes, mine. He might choose to stay with me all on his own, but I absolutely claimed him.
He chortled more happily when I caught up, and then flew fast enough that I had to run. Stony boulders and rocks riddled the uneven ground, but I had enough practice running and hiding that I managed not to slip on the frozen dirt.
Rat led me up to a cliff face and then slowed, coasting around its edge. I rubbed my chest where my lungs burned from the rushing cold air that I’d forced into them. I rounded the front of the cliffs and froze.
I should have been used to gorgeous scenery. The hills around Hemlit had lots of rivers and waterfalls, but the way the frozen water surrounded a flowing stream before me took my breath away. It was too beautiful to not stare at.
A small stream cut a bed through the frozen ground, framed by stones and ice, flowing down the mountain and disappearing around another set of boulders.
I turned to see where it flowed from, but its head was hidden by stony walls.
Instead of a big river, I saw water rushing through a crack in the cliffs.
The crack was big enough for a person to slip through, but only barely, and I couldn’t see anything on the other side of the stony walls. I grinned at Rat. “Another brilliant hiding place.”
The bird bent his little head in an adorable bow, as if acknowledging the praise.
I gathered up my skirts and lifted them so they wouldn’t drag in the water while I climbed over chunks of ice along the bank, and I hopped onto a stone at the edge of the stream.
A series of big steps and small hops from one rock to another finally took me to a stone directly in the middle of the stream, facing upriver.
I kept hopping from one random rock to another, making my way up to the stony entrance that hid the rest of the stream.
But then I hit a problem.
There were no stepping stones where the water rushed out of the cliffs. If I wanted to hide behind those walls, I’d have to step into the water. And that would be really cold.
I balanced on the rock and debated. I was right in front of the cave-like entrance, and I still couldn’t see what was on the other side.
If I stepped into the water and hid on the other side of those walls, nobody out here could see me.
It might be worth the time to hop back to the banks of the stream now, take my boots off, and wade up the stream so I could get behind the safety of those stony cliffs with dry boots.
A shout stopped my heart. “There!” I looked over my shoulder. Two elf soldiers were just close enough that I recognized their shape and armor. One pointed at me.
That did it. Cold was better than dead.
I hiked my skirts higher and plunged my boots into the stream. Freezing cold water soaked through the soft leather, but the stream water only came up to my knees. I pressed against the shallow current, splashing into whatever safety the cave-like cliffs held for me.
Every step splashed water up on my arms, but I was too frantic about the soldiers following me to care.
The world darkened as I stepped between the two cliff walls, and I realized why I hadn’t been able to see anything past the cliffs: The cliffs formed a slot canyon, camouflaged as another pile of stony boulders.
I couldn’t tell if the illusion of a simple pile of boulders was created by the shape of the mountain or magic, but as I marched into the illusion—sloshing through the stream that filled the bed of the canyon—the reality unfolded in front of me.
A short slot canyon twisted away from the cave entrance.
I rushed along it for fifteen or twenty seconds, hoping the elves would not find the entrance I’d used but fearing they would, until the little canyon abruptly opened up to reveal a waterfall.
Like walking from a dense thicket of trees into a meadow, the stones’ layout shifted from a slot canyon into a stunning grotto. Cliffs a hundred feet high surrounded me with a waterfall cascading down one wall.
The waterfall explained the stream. The water poured down the rocks, landed in a pool, and then rushed out in a little stream controlled by the slot canyon and other stones along its path. The waterfall glistened with magic so strong I felt it dancing across my skin.
So much magic! The only magic I’d felt before, as a human, was magic an elf was directing at me. And that had always been awful magic. This magic, though…
This magic sparkled. I wanted to touch it. I would have run up to the waterfall and thrown my hand into it if a giant bear hadn’t been standing in front of it.