Anju and Tia succesfuly ran away from the powerful strangers. But they knew that they had been following them. That"s why one evening, Anju told Tia who was sitting at the campfire "You need to be able to protect yourself when I"m not with you. We have lots of enemies." she turned around and looked at his face."I can cast some spells but they are not strong enough." she stood up. He was curious.
"Show me some attack spell of yours." she stretched her hand and said "~Fireball!~". Small orb of fire materialized in her hand and hit the tree in front of them. But it was too weak to leave any damage. Anju carefully observed it and when she finished he said. "You don"t use your magic power. You just cast a spell that you learnt somewhere. Close your eyes." She did what he said. "Now concentrate. Try to focus on the magic power inside you." then he became quiet so he wouldn"t disturb her. Firstly she didn"t feel anything. But after a two minutes she sensed some weird energy flowing through her body.
"I think I can feel it." she said.
"Good. Now try to use that power to cast that spell." Although she didn"t open her eyes, she stretched her hand again. She gathered from her body.
"~Fireball!~" much bigger ball of fire materialized in her hand and when it hit the tree, it left respectable damage on the bark. Anju was surprised.
"Good job, but it still isn"t enough." she was already exhausted.
"I think I had enough for today." she said as she sat back to the fire. He sat next to her.
"Keep training every evening. You will see the results soon. And once you completely learn how to use the power inside of your body, you can use the power of the world around you."
"You can use different powers than your own?" she asked him.
"Yes, but you will have to train hard to achieve that." she looked into the fire.
"How about you? Are you strong magic caster?" he smiled.
"I know some powerful spells but I mostly use my sword." she was confused. She remembered that she had seen his red sword but he didn"t have it with him now.
"Where do you have your sword? You don"t have it with you." he stretched his arm. Red glow appeared and a strange sword materialized from the air. Then he gave it to Tia so she could have a better look.
"I have my reasons for not showing this sword in public." she was enthusiastic. It was red sword which looked more like a katana than normal swords she could see in her village. There was a weak light glowing inside the blade.
"Does it have a name?"
"I call it Daybreaker. It was a gift from one person close to me." Tia kept observing the sword in her hand and gave it back to Anju after a little while. "That person must like you a lot."
"She did." he answered. She was surprised.
"Did? She doesn"t anymore?" he looked away.
"She is not in our world now." Tia felt stupid. *Why the h.e.l.l did I ask him that? It was obvious!* she shouted at herself in her mind.
"I"m sorry I didn"t know that." she said regretfully while she was playing with the necklace she got from Eric in her hand.
"It"s okay. It happened long time ago. We should try to sleep now. We still have a long way in front of us." she lay down on gra.s.s next to the campfire. She could see stars above her, glowing and forming all kind of shapes.
"I want to ask you something." she said.
"Go on."
"Why are you helping me? You don"t know me and we have nothing in common. So why?" it was more like a whisper. He was quiet for a moment.
"Actually, we have something in common. The life you had lived got taken away from you. Something similar had happened to me. I"ve been running away from my past, but it still follows." he looked at the stars above. "But when I saw you in that vision... It was actually a hope for me. Maybe I will get over my past if I help you." his voice sounded weird. She knew that he didn"t say the whole truth. There was a silence between them. She wasn"t sure if it would be okay for her to keep asking him. *I can ask him again tomorrow* she told herself and closed her eyes. He didn"t say anything else either so she slowly fell asleep in that embara.s.sing silence.
*
*Where am I?* she asked herself. She appeared in a strange room. *I"m inside a.. castle? Don"t tell me it"s the same dream I had back in my village.* her heart started beating faster. She carefully looked around. The room she was in was dark and cold, on the stone walls were four torches but the light from them was really weak. More light got into the room from windows. She went to one of them and looked from it. She saw a courtyard below her so she had to be few floors above the ground. The sun was quicky setting down. Suddenly the door opened. One girl walked into the room but she didn"t pay any attention to Tia. *What"s going on? Why hasn"t she noticed me?* The strange girl walked to the window where Tia was few seconds ago. She had sad look on her face as she stared outside. "Where are you, master?" she asked herself.
"Don"t worry. He will come back." said another voice. It was a well-built man in his forties. He walked into the room, not reacting to Tia, and stopped in the middle of it. His clothes were made from some black leather.
"I hope you are right, Derixus."
"Crows told me that Vail is on his way to our master"s castle. I think you should leave before his arrival." he said with worried voice, she turned around and looked at him.
"Do you think I will be in danger?"
"Well let"s say that he doesn"t like humans. And since you are the only human in this castle..."
"I guess you are right." she interrupted him. "But I have nowhere to go."
"You are strong enough to protect yourself. And Dax could use his teleportation magic to get you into human"s kingdom before Vail gets here." his last sentence made her think about something. Tia was confused. *So teleportation is possible?*
"But what if our master comes back and I won"t be here? It would be such a disrespect towards him."
"I"m sure our master would forgive you. And I guess he would be glad that his brother Vail didn"t do anything to you." Suddenly strange feeling ran through Tia"s body. *What"s going on?* she asked herself. The room and people in front of her disappeared. Now she was in some kind of bas.e.m.e.nt. The air was cold. She was standing in front of the wooden doors.
"Tia.. are you okay? Where are you?.... What should I do..." she could hear boy"s voice behind the heavy doors. It was Toby"s voice.
"Toby!" she shouted and begun to knock on the door. But there was no response. "Toby! I"m right here!" but her friend still didn"t answer. Then the door opened. He was standing there, topless with iron collar around his neck preventing him from escaping. She wanted to run to him and hug him, but her body wouldn"t move. "TOBY!" she begun to cry. "What"s going on? Why can n.o.body see me?" Toby grabbed a strange elixir on a table next to him.
"Tia. I promise that I will do everything I can... to protect you." he said as he opened the elixir. Then he begun to drink it. Tia was watching him. She had no idea what the strange liquid was nor what it would do to her friend. When Toby finished drinking, he threw the empty bottle on the wall, making the gla.s.s shatter all over the room. Then he felt on his knees. He was screaming, the pain was unbearable. She was just hopelessly watching him.
"Toby? What"s going on? What did you drink?" she cried as she asked him those questions but she got no response. Toby was on the ground, writhing. It looked like if he was dying. Then strange black spots begun to appear on his body. Bones and muscles were transforming, abnormally long and sharp claws grew on his fingers. The screaming stopped after a while. His lifeless body was laying on the cold floor. Toby was no longer a human. If it still was Toby....