Becoming Cognates||Sophitz

Chapter Five

Prentice's blocking was formidable. When I pushed on it myself, it wouldn't budge. Fitz joined me, and together we pushed on the blocking in intervals, losing track of time. 

Try a brain push, Soph. Fitz transmitted. I reached for the energy in the back of my mind, and pushed it outwards. The blocking disappeared, and his thoughts were all numbers. 

2 minutes passed. Was the last thought I saw before I withdrew.

"2 Minutes passed." I declared, and Fitz nodded. Prentice's eyes widened, and he nodded. 

"Once again, record." Prentice muttered. Emery stood up and took both of our hands, and murmured something under his breath. After he was done, and let our hands go, I felt a rush of energy in my mind. Fitz seemed to feel it as well, his eyes darting to me. 

"Congratulations, you are now full cognates and most definitely the strongest ones in the elven world." Prentice announced. We thanked them and left the building, finding a cliff. I nodded to Fitz, and pulled us off the cliff, surprising the elves that were around us. I opened up the familiar void and we entered it. I thought of the campsite and appeared right where Fitz and I were standing when we left. Keefe and Tam, having returned, stumbled backwards. 

"Hey." I said, smiling slightly. 

"Did it go well?" Linh asked.

"We're full cognates." I said. Fitz had gone silent again, and I sighed. 

"Congratulations." Dex said. We ate a relatively small dinner, and the others settled into their blankets and fell asleep. Fitz and I laid down, but neither of us slept. 

"You should get some rest." I said, turning to Fitz.

"I can't sleep." He said. I started to hum softly, as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer to him. Soon enough, he fell asleep, and I closed my eyes. 

When I woke up, Fitz was still there, his arms around me. He was still asleep, and I smiled when I realized that he hadn't woken up in the middle of the night and had gotten a full night's rest. I let him sleep for another minute, before shaking him awake. The others were already outside and ready to go. He grumbled but got up, packing up. Within ten minutes we were on our way again and eating on the go. We reached the edge of the woods, and I sighed. I liked plains better than the woods. Then, I spotted two specks in the sky. As they got closer, I realized that they were the two alicorns. They landed, Silveny coming up and nuzzling me. 

Ride! Silveny said, transmitting a picture of Fitz, Linh and I all on Greyfell and Dex, Tam and Keefe all on her. 

"You want to take us to the hideout?" I said. She whinnied, moving her head up and down. 

"Alright." I said. "Keefe, Dex, Tam, you three are on Silveny.  Linh, Fitz and I will go on Greyfell." I said. They all nodded, and climbed onto the alicorns. They took off, flying low to the ground. Keefe pointed to a spot on the ground, and the two alicorns glided down and stopped. We all got off, thanking the alicorns for their help before they teleported away.

"I figured arriving to the hideout with two alicorns wasn't the best idea." Keefe said. I nodded, and he led us the rest of the way to the hide out. I could see groups of people roaming around, all with the telltale band around their arms. 

"Alvar told me that they normally put the prisoners in the middle of the hideout. This was in general, so I'm betting that Biana is in that tower." Keefe whispered, pointing to the tall tower that was clearly the middle of the hideout. I once again searched for her thoughts, and found weak ones. Very weak ones, but thoughts all the same. Keefe was correct, she was in the tower. Luckily, she was on the ground floor.

"She's in the tower on the ground floor. I could hear weak, very weak thoughts." I whispered, confirming Keefe's speculations. We hid in the shadows, to make it easier for Tam to hide us. Making our way from shadow to shadow, we got to the tower unopposed. Getting into the tower would be a different story. There was only one entrance. This entrance was guarded by two elves, both of which had melders. If I inflicted on them we would be caught and that would cause even more of a problem. Anything we did would get us caught. Then, Dex put something in my hand. It appeared to be some sort of device. 

"It can blow up." He whispered."I was working on it for the past couple of days and brought it with me." I handed it back to him, letting him to the work. It was so tiny that it wouldn't be noticed until too late, and it was able to get to the place we wanted it to go on it's own. Dex fiddled with some things, and then set it on the ground. The little device rolled towards the door, before stopping in the middle of the guards. Five seconds later, it exploded. As soon as the fire was bearable for all of us, we sprinted into the building and Tam disguised us in the shadows again. We moved away from the explosion sight, towards the middle of the tower. Surprisingly, the door that led to Biana was unguarded, but I could see the dropped weapons of guards. They must've gone to check out the explosion. We hurried in, as Tam gathered the unconscious Biana in his arms. She was beat up, blood staining her dress. Fitz shook, and then collapsed. The last thought I heard from him was "It's all my fault".  I held back a scream, catching him. I fumbled for his Everglen crystal, holding it up to the light and leaping away with the others right as guards came back. They tried to touch us to leap with us, but failed. As soon as we reappeared in front of the gates at Everglen, Fitz let out a scream and started to thrash.

"No, no, no." I screamed, slamming my hand down on the grass as Alden and Della came rushing out. 

"Telepath. I need a telepath." I mumbled. 

~~~~

Uh that happened.