Eliza had shot me a yes and frankly i feel she agreed a little two quickly. But I saved her skin, the least she could do is help me on my quest. I wanted to take down the king. The sooner I do it the better.
I felt an imaginary hand grip at my stomach. Am I scared? Of what? Most people who knew my mother feared me. Almost everyone. Except Eliza. She must not of realized who my mother is. How could she not though. To every other person in this forest and even the towns saw me walking on some sort of podium. A podium of fire and skulls and death. But not Eliza. She's different. She seemed to embrace the fact I am magical. Who is she? Dressed as a commoner but presents herself as royalty. Her parents couldn't possibly be merchants. Not even traveling ones at best.
The two of us find a place to set up camp. It was a small open area surrounded by a couple of trees with low hanging branches. That was the plan. If anyone planned to attack us, we'd definitely hear them coming.
"You wouldn't happen to have a camp under your cape would you? Eliza asked.
I gave her a light chuckle shaking my head. I pulled the string of my cape down letting it gentle fell to the floor around my feet. My fiery red hair fell lightly over my shoulder. My belt sat slanted on my hips, wanting to fall but not big enough to do it. I could feel Eliza's eyes scanning and studying every feature that had hidden under my cape.
I placed my palm faced up and with a shimmer of green sparkles dancing in my palm. A medium sized brown leather ancient book appeared in my hand. The writing on the cover was a faded golden color that read, 'Magi in libro de cantaminibus et ueneficiis'. Latin. It meant "The Magi book of potions and spells."
Eliza appeared over my shoulder trying to read the pages as I flipped through it. "How could you read any of this its all symbols." Eliza noted pointing to the page I had landed on. My fingers fiddled with some of the marking on the side of the book. Markers I had placed on important or useful spells.
"That's cause it accent mage. A language all young magi must learn along with English. This is how we survived for centuries." I informed her.
She leaned closer to me.I felt her heartbeat against my back. My breathing staggered.
"But why put it in another language? It just seems like more work."
"It's a safety precaution. Everyone is born with a bit of magic. Magi just have a better gene to hone it. Once you mortals find out about that, your species likes to get ideas. Each spell needs a certain level magic. Mortals don't have enough to even do a bread summoning spell. It will kill you."
All she did was nod. Once she stepped away from my shoulder my breath steaded. The page I had stopped on had exactly what I needed. Down to the letter. A camp spell. I skimmed over the page. Nothing too big. Just some liquidized doxin and Carvel. Luckily I had that stuff on my belt. Well some of it among others on my belt. I grabbed the smallest bottle of dark red liquid and the caramel colored liquid and poor a tablespoon of each into my hand and whispered the incantation and threw it into the air. The liquid turned to dust and scattered around the area. In the once empty area was now two camping tents with sleeping bags, pillows and extra blankets. There was a fire pit with logs in the pit and once to sit on.
"Eliza is amazing!" Eliza exclaimed. "You did it so fast."
I gave her another chuckle. "All magic happens instantly. You haven't seen any magi using their powers have ya?"
"Only when I was a baby. Then soon after your species-"
"Magi," I corrected.
"Right, Magi." She repeated. "Magi were banished. So your the first I've seen in a while."
The sun had set about half-an-hour ago. Eliza and I had finished eating so we decided to relax for a bit by the fireplace before going to bed. The light of the fire gave Eliza a golden glow. She was beautiful.
"So, where are you heading Athena?"
"The kingdom of Wildflock. We were wrongfully imprisoned and most of our elders were massacred."
She sat in shock. Had she not heard of the massacure? So much of her confused me. She knew nothing of what was going on. Who really was she? Was Eliza even her real name?
"What are you going to do? Once you get there, to Wildflock?"
"Get the Magi freed. Change who's in charge."
Eliza seemed a bit uncomfortable with what I said but sucked it up. "Let me help you." She said confidently standing. I smiled slightly, for some odd reason I felt as if I could trust her. I hope I didn't make the wrong choice....Hopefully.
Two days of walking. Two nights of uncomfortable sleeping and setting up camps. This seemed like a simple quest and with the lack of sleep I've had, I'm beginning to run out of energy. We began to give up hope that we would be able to confidently complete this mission, until we came upon one of the low-class traveling guard camps. We didn't have enough time or energy to react fast enough because once we stumbled into the camp, before I could even register the fact that we were in the camp, before we could hide or take out our weapons, they turned and saw up.
The leader spoke. "Well...Well...Well... If it isn't the escaped Witch Athena Diana Wi-"
"Don't try it Lily. The only reason you lead this group is cause Henry and his rat guards couldn't decide if you were considered lower-class or a normal human. But we all know you've cheated your way up."
"At Least I'm not locked up."
Lily folded her arms against her chest seeming satisfied by the steam pouring out of my ears.
"Would the great and Powerful like to explain why she has a low-riding mortal with her?" Lily Spat
"She looks like nothing more then a merchant's daughter." One guy is the back noted. I placed my hand on the staff handle. With the cape covering my body no one could see.
"She's so fragile I'm surprised the Wartting Brothers didn't break her the moment she stepped into the forest." Another added.
"She might not have come from Cardona"
"The girl looks like Wildflock scum. Maybe Valdon."
"Enough"
Word count: 1131
