Aurelie left her fire burning on the field behind the Inn. It would have taken too much out of her if she were to consume it and they still had to flee. If she collapsed now, someone would have to carry her.
Aurelie and Kirin followed Daerious uneasily. She dreaded seeing Sasha but had to keep going. Kirin's face was blank and his eyes distant. A moment ago, he reached for her hand but then seemed to have thought about it and decided not to touch her after all.
"Is it clear now?" Aurelie asked. "Did we get all of them?" The others were attacked from the front.
"Yes, but Shaelyn and Orken are injured. Catherine is trying to do her best with what's left of Sasha's herbs but there's hardly any," Daerious said with a panicked jitter in his voice. Shaelyn was a name she had not heard before. They must have been the people Kirin spoke about. What a time to show up at the Inn.
Orken staggered into view, from the back of the group. Evelyn, the morning cook, tried to keep up with him, looking both terrified and concerned.
"I told you that I am fine. The bastard caught me off guard," Orken said, his expression somber and bleak. The front of his shirt had been covered in blood, most of it coming from the side where it had a large slash. "Isn't there someone else you can help?"
They walked around to the entrance of the Inn. Bodies lay spread all across the field in front of the Inn. One lay on the stairs, his eyes open but the spark had gone. Aurelie averted her eyes and hoped that someone would close his mouth.
She wanted to feel nothing for the men and woman who had come to attack them, but she couldn't. She mourned each and every death that had occurred on their field. The blame was not on the attackers. No sane man would refuse the King's guards and her people had attacked their town just a couple of days ago. She had set their homes on fire. Whatever their cause might be, a newly homeless and hungry man would not be sympathetic to it.
Shaelyn lay just inside the door, her feet poking out through the door frame. Her mother and father sat beside her, holding her hand.
Tears welled up as her eyes moved from body to body. The shock of it all came crashing down like a wave of iced water.
No one had touched that man whose mouth was open. She had to close it. Aurelie climbed the steps, and halted, her body rocking from the tremor.
Sasha lay just outside of the door of the inn. An arrow was stuck in her heart and her knee. A cloth had covered her face. Aurelie's knees weakened and she down where she stood, clutching for something to hold on to as she dropped and turned from them. She kept her eyes high to avoid looking at the last expressions that the sea of corpses had been cursed with.
"It hurts," the new girl cried, as people gathered around her. Her hand was pressed into her side, and blood seeped through the gaps between her fingers. Her mother's dress had been torn at the hem, and the cloth rolled around the girl's body.
"Let's get her inside, we will see better there," Aurelie suggested, craving the hollow inn. There her eyes could wonder, and she could breathe without sucking in the stench of charred flesh.
"We can't, we need to move. They already know our location; it is only a matter of time before they come for us," Orken said, a gash spread from his cheek to his ear. Blood ran down his neck.
"She'll die if you don't get her now," the girl's mother cried. A panic rose in the others, their eyes drooped with worry as if one by one they realized that the same fate could fall upon them at any moment.
Orken wiped at his cheek and rubbed the blood off on his shirt. "We have no other choice, tie it around her wound as tightly as you can, and then we have to keep moving. More are coming you can be sure of it, if we stay we'll all die," he told her.
Aurelie could only imagine what was going on in his heart and his head. Orken looked a foot shorter and ten years older. His head seemed to be locked in place. He wouldn't turn to the rightâwhere Sasha's body layâeven when someone on that side spoke to him. Whether it had been friendship or love that had the two of them bound, her loss crept over Orken like a dark cloud. Aurelie bit back the string of tears and tried to direct her mind toward something else.
"Move her from the steps. We have to pack the inn," one of the residents, Vel, said. He had never spoken much and kept to himself, but his misshaped nose made him a hard person to miss. The bone had grown back at an angle after an apparent injury. It created a funny zigzag shape right on its bridge.
Though the fire was not visible, she felt it crawl closer to the Inn. If they stayed much longer, she'd either have to use up the last of her strength to extinguish it or have it burn through the Inn.
Shaelyn's father lifted her from the steps. She grunted in pain, and her mother's disapproval echoed throughout the entire group. "We should never have come with you, we would have been better on our own."
Kirin's jaw clenched. "Yes, because you knew the King was coming for you, right?" Kirin asked her, his eyes waking from the fog that had been set on them. "You would have been dead if it was not for me. You can be grateful that your stupidity and denial hasn't gotten your family killed already."
The woman shuddered. "How dare you speak to me like that?" She stood up, and walked up to him, raising her hand. Amber light shone within it.
Aurelie's gut cartwheeled and lurched up to her stomach.
Kirin raised a shadow behind Shaelyn's mother, mimicking her exact shape, and size. It grabbed her hands and locked her in a tight grip. She winced, and moaned, kicking and shuffling. Aurelie knew that move all too well. She smiled and relaxed her nerves a little now that the woman had been bound. There was, she thought, a slight irony in reliving her first meeting with Kirin, through a mother that had been trying to save her child.
Her husband got up from his daughter's side and came between them. "Drop this nonsense, Arietta. The boy is right, this would have happened sooner or later," he told her attempting to calm her down. She glared at her husband, her temper only rising. He waved a hand dismissively at her and set his daughter down.
"Let me go, you demon!" she cried. Her legs were above ground kicking so much that, at times, it looked as if she was flying.
"It'll stop, once you do," Kirin said, and walked off.
Orken muttered something under his breath and shook his head. "Let's get going, people," he shouted, and the witches gathered around him. "We need everyone's help here," he said, his eyes darting to Kirin. The shadow holding Arietta turned to shadow dust. She gave him one last venomous glance and then stepped in line with the other witches.
Shaelyn moaned, the sound barely a whisper, and rolled onto her side, digging her hand harder into her wound. Tears stained her face, but she remained strong, gritting her teeth through the pain.
"Right, form a line," Orken instructed, and the wizards moved around him. "Minuo, is what we're chanting. Mi-nu-o," he repeated for clarity.
Arietta's brow rose at Orken.
"You have your spells, I have mine. Now, Mi-nu-o," he repeated again "Spread out, spread out." His hands twirled, and the witches shuffled, into a straighter line.
Aurelie went to Shaelyn's side and dropped down. Her dress was soaking. Aurelie doubted that she had much more blood to lose.
"Take your hand away so I can see," she said and made sure that no one had their eyes on them. Whatever it was that got her had slashed through her side and came damn near close to tearing the girl in half. Her skin was split in an oval shape, and blood prevented Aurelie from seeing any further. Aurelie took a breath, her throat filling with sick. She swallowed two large breaths of air, and spoke, "I'm going to burn it."
Shaelyn's eyes widened, and she bore her head into the ground, whimpering.
"It'll make the bleeding stop." All the reading she had done in the cabin had finally come to some use, fiction or not. She was not sure for how long she had to burn her, or if it was a good idea at all, but they had to try something. Her mother was right, she wouldn't last long.
A crack sounded from the inn. "Woah." Shouted Orken, the right side was shrinking too quickly, cracking the wood, and making the left stand crooked. "Minuo! Minuo! Who is not able to pronounce a single word?" His head tipped forward, as he searched for the rascal who was messing up. "Right, again, all at once."
The wood cracked again. "Stop." Orken roared. "You're breaking it! Use your head!" he scolded them. "Stop what you're doing, and listen. Left side, shrink, right side hold your position," He ordered.
The left side shrunk into place. Small chunks of wood fell to the ground but they avoided major damage and the inn looked to be in proportion at all sides again. "Alright, now all together."
Aurelie's hand sparked. She tore a bigger hole in Shaelyn's dress and stuck her thumb to her lips. Shaelyn shuddered, her nose wrinkling. "You'll need it, trust me. Bite as hard as you need, just don't tear it off." Aurelie gave her a nervous smile.
Shaelyn's teeth gripped Aurelie's thumb.
"Get ready," Aurelie said.
Aurelie's hand pressed against Shaelyn's would, her fire burning through her fingertips. Her flesh sizzled, and bubbles of blood popped against Aurelie's palm. Shaelyn's teeth ripped into her flesh, and bone, sending a shock through Aurelie's body. She roared through gritted teeth, counted to three, and released her hand.
"Okay," Aurelie whispered, caressing Shaelyn's head. "Okay, it's over."
A roar echoed through the inn, and the chanting halted. Leila raced outside in her tiger form, her fur raised, and her tail wagging with anger. Leila let out a puff and stared directly at Aurelie. She strolled over to Aurelie, pressed her nose to her cheek, and bared her teeth.
"Sorry," Aurelie said. Leila sat, her tail wagging, and tickling Aurelie's back.
The witches continued their chant. The Inn shrank into the size of a dollhouse, and then shrank again, mimicking a house built for a bird. Orken fetched it and placed it into Sasha's suitcase.
Aurelie swallowed. Next, came the hardest part, burying Sasha.