Chapter 12 Looking for Answers
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
Lark maintained her vigilant watch as the afternoon sun cast long shadows across the rural landscape.
She let Hardin’s attempts at conversation wash over her like persistent rainfall, responding with terse nods and single words while her eyes swept the surrounding hills for any sign of their bearded pursuers.
The hours stretched on without sight of them, but their absence from view brought little comfort. She sensed they were still out there.
A sudden warmth bloomed against her chest where the necklace lay, urgent in its warning.
Her pulse quickened in anticipation of Nix’s appearance, but when no familiar spark manifested, Lark’s gaze was drawn northward toward the Everburning Forest. She expected to see the telltale anvil-shaped clouds that heralded a firestorm, but the sky remained a peaceful tapestry of azure and white.
A flash of gold caught her eye, brilliant as the sun, before vanishing behind a cloud that drifted along a lazy yet constant path.
“Are you looking for the thunderbirds?” Hardin’s voice pierced her concentration.
Lark kept her eyes fixed on the patch of sky where the golden figure had disappeared, as if she could will it back into existence through sheer focus.
“You probably won’t see one until there’s a storm. My father says they’re native to this region of Lamar.”
Before Lark could respond, a shower of orange and red sparks materialized beside the wagon.
Nix appeared, her red dress of flames lapping in the air.
Lark felt relieved and let her muscles relax for a moment.
Then she straightened and watched as Nix dipped below the edge of the wagon, her form floating ethereally just within Lark’s line of sight.
“Hey, did you see that?” Hardin’s sudden movement sent the wagon boards creaking as he leaned across her, trying to peer over the edge. The scent of leather and road dust clung to his newly acquired clothes.
Lark’s arm shot out, pushing him back with more force than she’d intended. Her mouth twisted into a frown. Can he see Nix? The thought sent a chill down her spine.
Nix remained silent, but her presence felt like a held breath. Lark could almost taste the tension in the air.
“I think it was a fire fae!” Hardin said, his voice tinged with wonder and fear.
Lark made a show of searching over the edge. Below, Nix’s orange-red hair danced as living flames in the wind. Nix pressed a finger to her lips in a gesture of secrecy before risking a quick glance at Hardin. In the next breath, she vanished in a pinwheel of sparks.
“I didn’t see anything,” Lark said, but the lie tasted sour in her mouth.
“Nobody ever believes me when I see them. You know that it’s a bad omen to see one?” Hardin’s voice carried an edge of superstitious dread.
“No.”
“Oh, it’s bad. Really bad luck,” Hardin said, his fingers nervously working at the hem of his sleeve.
“How is seeing one bad?”
“Fire fae are of the dark court. They usually appear when the veil between our worlds is the thinnest, most commonly, when a mage is using forbidden magic and drawing it from the fae realm.”
“Nobody here is using dark magic,” Lark said.
Hardin’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, as if speaking the words too loudly might tear that very veil. “Strong natural phenomena can trigger the veils to thin as well. Something bad always follows whenever I see one. A disaster, an attack, someone dying…”
“That can’t be true. Bad things don’t happen just because a fae being is nearby.” Even as she spoke the words, memories flickered through her mind like shadows cast by candlelight.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen them a bunch of times and nothing bad has happened to me.
Well...” The words died in her throat as images flooded back.
Since the firestorm that had heralded Nix’s arrival in Lark’s recent memories there’d been some events that happened to her that were less than good luck.
Now that she thought about it, the attack in the forest had come almost instantly after seeing her.
Then there was Paq showing her the Hyalite, and the soldiers.
Now, that Hyalite was the key to her understanding who she’d been before the amnesia.
That’s why I need to bring the Hyalite to the Vermillion Keep. Paq said they’ll know what to do. They’ll know who I am and why I have it.
“See,” Hardin said. “Now that you think about it, nothing good happens after you see a fire fae.” Hardin leaned forward, his brown eyes bright with conviction. “Most people don’t see them. People back home in Doran say seeing one means you’re marked for death.”
The wind whispered through the tall grass alongside their caravan. “You’re being ridiculous,” Lark said, but uncertainty gnawed at her now.
“Yesterday, I saw one right after...” The color in Hardin’s bruised face turned pale. “Well, after I had run-in with some trouble.”
The wagon wheel hit a rut, sending a shudder through the wooden frame that seemed to emphasize the gravity of his words. “That doesn’t mean someone died,” Lark insisted.
“Someone did die. They said it was going to take someone’s soul. I saw the sparks of a fire fae coming through and heard the person’s death cry. I’m sure their soul was claimed for the conjuring. People were calling for help, but I knew it was too late for them.”
“Nothing strange happens to anyone else whenever I see her,” Lark said.
“You see a fire fae often?” Hardin’s voice cracked, his eyes widening until they ringed with white. “Are you sure nothing strange has happened to you?”
“No,” she insisted.
The memories she held sped through her mind.
Her fingers found the familiar weight of her weapons, remembering with disturbing clarity how naturally she struck down the Nordraven soldiers.
The blank void where her past should be yawned wide and empty.
Then she thought of the dragon’s gleaming scales in the woods the day before.
Its presence was both terrifying and somehow right, like a piece of a puzzle she couldn’t quite see.
“Wait, you saw someone use forbidden magic yesterday?” Lark asked, Hardin finally piquing her interest.
“I didn’t see it per say, but it happened,” Hardin said. “A girl I was spending time with was taken by Nordraven orcs and, they disappeared. Things like this always happen to people I get familiar with. That’s why I’m going to Astral City. I need help from someone at the Keep.”
“Someone was kidnapped right in front of you?” she asked.
Hardin recounted his tale, each word carrying the weight of fresh wounds. His story of Sasja spilled forth, the pain of loss evident whenever he spoke of this thief. The bruises on his face were a physical testament to his truth.
“So, yeah, she was kidnapped, which was right before I saw the fire fae. The fae was drawn near, I think, because a Northern mage used dark fae magic to conjure an illegal portal. Someone died because the orcs needed a person’s life energy to create a portal.
I was just lucky it wasn’t me they grabbed for the soul energy.
They stole Sasja away to who knows where,” he finished, his shoulders hunched in defeat.
“That’s why you’re,” Lark gestured to his mottled purple-yellow face.
“Hurt, tired, and pretty spooked by the thought of seeing another fire fae,” he nodded.
“Why don’t you try to find your friend?”
“I can’t. They used a portal. That kind of magic shouldn’t have happened in Lamar.” He glanced to the side, as if ashamed. Then said, “Also, Sasja didn’t seem to be taken so much against her will as I made it sound earlier.”
“So, she wasn’t kidnapped?”
“She was taken but, also, went willingly once she was caught.”
“You believe she’s being forced to work for them against her will?” Lark surmised. “Didn’t she trick you and then steal from you?”
“Yes, but she only stole so the orcs wouldn’t kill me. They have some pact that requires payment if they’re attacked. Either blood or money.”
“It sounds like your bad luck could’ve been avoided, and it’s not the fae’s fault.”
“Sasja is so lovely though. I want to help her,” he said.
“I don’t know if you should go looking for this Sasja again. Maybe let her go and focus on whatever your initial mission was,” Lark suggested.
“Maybe you’re right, but I can’t stop thinking about her...” Hardin’s voice trailed off into the wind before he turned his questioning gaze upon her. “Enough about me, why are you going to Astral City?”
Lark tensed up immediately. She searched the deepening sky, hoping to glimpse again that massive golden form that had disappeared behind the clouds. When she spoke, she chose her words carefully. “I’m going to Astral City to find some answers.”
“Answers?”
“Answers that I can only get from the Vermillion Keep.”
“We have that in common.”
“I thought you were trying to get help for your people?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Hardin said, his words carrying the same mysterious weight as the secrets Lark held close to her own heart.
Lark let the conversation fade into contemplative silence.
Though Hardin’s recent trials matched her own in intensity, she couldn’t shake the feeling that their paths, while parallel, were fundamentally different.
Her fingers ghosted over the hilts of her daggers, remembering the inexplicable precision with which she’d wielded them against trained soldiers.
Above them, the sky deepened toward evening. Clouds gathered like conspiring courtiers as Lark searched for another glimpse of that mysterious golden form. The necklace remained faintly warm, a reminder of her connection to Nix while the fae was elsewhere, possibly off in another realm.