✧The Earthe of the Elves✧

36

Mia's POV

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The sound of stone scraping against stone and earth fills my ears as the towering portion of the wall surrounding Bhailewood opens up, just as it did when I first came here. I was on the other side of the doors back then. I glance over at the four older elves. They all look no older than 30, but there's no way of knowing with elves. A few of them catch my gaze and give me, like everyone else has been, a reassuring nod. I give a tight smile in return.

"Good luck, be safe," Rose says to us all. The four older elves bow slightly. I nod at her.

The doors open fully, and like we're just walking off on a hike, we head out. I tell myself to calm down many times over as we leave the stone walls behind us and walk over the snow into the woods. I don't know why I'm getting so worked up over leaving. Probably because I've been in Bhailewood for the last two-ish months, this is a mission, so to speak, and we have to get the stone. We have to.

I resist the urge to look back as we enter the woods, heading to the river.

"What was it you told me this was going to be earlier?" Knox says as we walk, snow crunching underfoot. "Easy something..."

"Easy peasy," I finish, smiling and looking over at him. Knox smiles and looks at the ground.

"Right. Easy peasy."

-

Most of the walk is uneventful, and the ember stones keep us all warm even though it is pretty warm today, maybe 35 or 40? Which is warm for Earthe winter. I don't hear any birds or anything, and Knox stays quiet. When I glance at him he's staring at nothing in particular, so I decide to leave him to his thoughts and preoccupy myself by thinking about what could happen after we get the Heartstone.

If we get it easily, which we will, all that does is prevent the Cin from getting it, right? The war is going to happen because we won't tell them where the stone is. And they want to gain the power of both worlds. So once we get the stone and come back, then what? We tell the Cin we have it? That sounds dumb. Would we somehow use the stone's power to destroy the Cin? All of them? I haven't been around elves too much, but they don't strike me as the type to solve a problem by genocide. So what would we do? Force them to surrender? Even then-

Okay, stop. Preoccupy yourself with something else. That train of thoughts is starting to make my head spin.

I pucker my lips and blow out a surprised breath as a chilling breeze hits us out of nowhere. We must be closer to the river than I thought.

My last train of thought leads me to another. If the Cin want the Heartstone, and made a meeting with me just so I could tell them where the Heartstone is, wouldn't that mean the Cin don't know at all where it is? Or they were just doing that to make me feel like a traitor no matter what I chose, but that doesn't seem like their style. So that means they want the stone, but don't know where it is. So how would they get a head start on finding where it is if they're so eager to get it?

"Oh my god," I whisper, almost smacking myself in the forehead. How could I not have thought of this before? The Cin have one easy path to find the stone. To follow us.

"Knox-" I start, but I'm cut off as the world blurs and I end up on the ground, my face smacking the snow. With a groan, I quickly push myself up, my head on a swivel, my face throbbing. Four Cin, noticeable by their black hair, are around us, fighting the four older elves on our team. Knox is double teaming one of the elves, and when I look behind me I notice an arrow stuck in a tree. Knox must've pushed me down so I didn't get skewered. My heart races with adrenaline at the thought that I could have died that easily, that quickly. Quickly refocusing on the issue at hand, I see one of our elves drop to the ground, unmoving. Red leaks into the snow below him.