Myka had tried to run after her, but he couldn’t give chase for long. Though worried, he wasn’t willing to leave the children alone at the camp.
Two hours passed, and he remained at the fire, waiting. He kept his eyes on the trees, looking for any sign of her. He had tried to use his ability to listen for her, but Moonguard was different than other places. It was more difficult to pinpoint individual sounds.
Finally, he saw her approaching from the sa direction she had gone. Myka stood up and hurried over to her.
“Ashleigh!” he called. “Are you all right? I was worried.”
She remained quiet as she walked over to the fire. Finally, she sat down without a word. Myka took his seat and waited patiently for her to say anything.
After a few minutes, Ashleigh took a deep breath.
“It’s not here, is it?” she asked softly, her eyes still focused on the fire.
Myka furrowed his brow.
“What’s not here?” he asked.
Ashleigh swallowed. She licked her lips and then looked up at him. Her eyes were red and swollen. It was obvious that she had been crying. Myka felt a tug at his heart. He didn’t know what had happened, but she seed to be struggling alone again.
“The ley line,” she whispered.
Myka’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, his expression fell as he took a breath and lowered his gaze.
“No,” he replied honestly.
On their arrival at the mountain, Myka felt that it was a different place than most. The sound was unique. After Ashleigh spoke of Leshy, sothing in him said this was the reason for the difference. This land was connected to that being in a very intimate way.
Though they had yet to reach the village or the mound, Myka knew the ley line was not there.
He tried to listen to the song of nature through the trees, in the earth. Myka began to see a story play out in his mind. Leshy had made an allowance for the Goddess, allowing her mound to exist in these lands. But the ley line had only been connected here for a short window.
Long enough for the Queen to die and her mound to form. Long enough for her Lunas to spirit her away inside the ley line. But once she was gone, Leshy severed the connection which had bothered its rest.
“I’m sorry, Ashleigh,” he said. “I was going to tell you… I just...”
“It’s all right,” she interrupted with a gentle smile. “I wouldn’t have believed you before seeing the mound and village myself, anyway.”
Myka felt as though he had let her down. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he wasn’t sure about it until they had hiked up the mountain. As they made their way up, his connection to the land grew stronger until he could finally hear the entire story.
He knew she would have difficulty accepting his word, so he had planned to tell her after her visit to the village in the morning.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Ashleigh looked back at the fire.
“Am I all right?” she asked herself.
She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly as she turned to look up at the stars above.
“I don’t really know,” she sighed.
Myka felt a pang of guilt in his heart. He sat forward and tried to reassure her.
“Just because it’s not here doesn’t an—” he began.
“I’m not giving up,” Ashleigh interrupted, still looking at the sky. “He’s out there sowhere. But he’s not here.”
She lowered her gaze back down to the fire.
“He can’t be here,” she said.
Myka furrowed his brow.
“What do you an?” he asked.
He knew, of course, that the ley line was not active in Moonguard. But he could tell that there was so other aning behind her words. Just as before, he felt uneasy about what she said but without any way to explain it.
“Because if he was here,” she whispered. “He would be so disappointed in , and I don’t think I could bear it.”
Myka wanted to ask what she ant, but the shine in her eyes and her painful expression made him hesitate.
But ultimately, the sound of Sadie crying out from her tent pulled him away from the conversation. Her nightmares were a regular occurrence, and Myka was used to comforting her. So it didn’t take long to get her back to sleep.
When he returned to the fire, Ashleigh stood waiting for him.
“Thank you,” she said. “For indulging with this trip. But it would be best if we left the mountain tomorrow.”
“What?” he asked with surprise.
“I would like to visit the village in the morning,” she continued, “but we should be heading back down before midday.”
“We still have a few days left, and the kids—”
“They’ll be disappointed,” she nodded. “But I need you to indulge my selfishness one more ti.”
Myka wanted to object. It wasn’t just for the kids that he wanted to stay. He truly believed that Ashleigh was suited for training and teaching the troop. He wanted to help her see that.
But looking into her eyes, he saw sothing he had not expected. She looked defeated. But why?
“Please, Myka,” she said, swallowing. “I know it’s unfair. But, please, just do this for .”
“Okay,” he sighed. “All right, I’ll tell the kids sothing ca up after breakfast.”
Ashleigh nodded.
“Thank you,” she said. “Again, I’m very sorry... for all of this.”
Myka was left confused as Ashleigh turned and walked to her tent without another word.
***
The blood loss had been more severe than he realized, and he had unintentionally fallen asleep shortly after treating his wound. He considered himself lucky to wake up late the following day. He took the ti to note what he had seen and experienced in his journal before he gathered his supplies.
Before he was ready to attempt to walk out, he looked carefully out the window of the old house for any signs of movent in the village.
It had only been a few days since he had spotted the creatures here. But as he looked out, he saw no sign of them now.
Cautiously he opened the door. He peered out and breathed a sigh of relief when the nothing he had seen was confird again. He moved slowly between the buildings, and though it took a long ti, he finally left the village.
As he returned to traveling through the trees, he couldn’t help but wonder where they had all gone. Those creatures were unlike any he had seen or heard of before. From what he had observed, they were also hostile to the other fae. In fact, he was almost sure that the bats that had been chasing him the night before had first been chased by them.
He paused and looked in the distance as he suddenly rembered sothing.
“Maybe they all returned to the lake…” he whispered aloud.
After he had sent the report and found a safe place to hide, he followed from high in the trees as one of them made its way to the lake. The creature had entered the water and did not return even after several hours.
He might have stayed to observe it longer were it not for the other monsters that had co from the mound and found his hiding place.
He sighed to himself. It was ti to go ho.
As he started to walk again, he wondered if the group he had seen the night before had left the mountain. He hoped they had, but just in case, he would try to find them on his way down.
At least, that had been his intention. Before, the root wrapped around his ankle and dragged him into the bushes.
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