Selection (Book 2 of P.O.E. chronicles)

Chapter 11 The circle of life

“We will camp here tonight.” Ho shouted back and a wave of relieved sighs and cheers erupted across the group. I dropped my over-sized backpack onto the ground with a grateful sigh; it landed with a loud thud creating a dent in the snow-covered ground. Thank the gods!

“Come on Gwen, let’s pitch the tent quickly so we can get started with dinner!” Kailey said, moving with surprising energy as she pulled out the parts of the tent that we shared out of her bag. Emily was supposed to share with us as well; that was until she ran off to a different boy’s tent every night.

Laughing at Kailey’s eagerness I complied. It was the second week of our mission and we were in the mountains now. Our bags were already heavy from the spoils of animals and Legres that we hunted; but mainly of the more commonly found wild herbs, fruits and vegetables we gathered. So far it was an easy mission. Legres ran away from us whenever we went and game was only procured if small groups of us went out. I heard that we were meant to hunt down herds of wild boars but that wouldn’t be until we were deeper in the mountains.

“Let’s hope they catch a chicken tonight!” Jeremy said, his eyes sparkling and I could practically see him drooling. Because of his power he was always on gather mission; poisoning your game would really be an idiot’s thing to do. I got to go occasionally, but they tend to send John, Vladimir or Emily as the representative from our group; and I wasn’t going to complain. The less exposed I was the better.

“I am going to get some water.” I declared to the rest of my group after Kailey and I finish erecting our tent. Before anyone could protest I slipped between the tents and into the main part of our campsite for the night.

Tonight we were camping on a ridge that dropped steeply down for a hundred meters; there were some snow on the rocky plain, since we were rather high up now. I meandered through the maze of tents; the campsite was rather noisy, with people setting up their tents and the smell of cooking drifted through the air.

We had to collect water from the main point, where a water elementalist summoned clean underground water into a common tap. I got to see it one time and it was pretty cool, the middle age lady put her hand on the ground and water gushed out, ripping through the ground like a rocket.

“Hey.” A familiar voiced called behind me and I turned to see Owen smiling behind me, holding a bucket as well. I smiled back at him, happy to see him after so long.

Evanna was right behind him as well, looking happier than I had ever seen her. “How are you?” I asked them, moving forward to join the queue waiting for water. Owen moved into the queue behind me as well; I could tell he wanted to tell me something, but he kept hesitating.

“What’s…” “We er…” both Owen and I started talking at the same time and Evanna laughed nervously. Owen scratched his hair timidly and I gestured for him to talk.

“We.. er, wanted to stayonwiththeguard.” Owen spilled out the words; I struggled to understand for a few seconds before the information finally sank in. they wanted to, stay?

Evanna smiled apologetically at me, whilst Owen looked at me guiltily, like he did something wrong. I sighed, everyone was entitled to his or hers own choice and it wasn’t my position to judge. I wanted to get back to my family; but that was a long shot. Who knew what we would face even if we managed to get back to POE Academy.

“Are you sure?” I asked; it would be sad to see one of my best friend go. Owen nodded, exchanging a happy smile with Evanna, their fingers laced together. I raised an eyebrow at them. So that’s why…

Owen gave me a sheepish look and I rolled my eyes jokingly in return. “We are happy here.” Owen said, sharing another loving look with Evanna that could blind. “With Evanna’s power we would be quite well off in the guards. Both of us don’t really have a family to go back to…”