THE UNFATED

CHAPTER 13:THE DETOUR

Everyone silently watched Casten cry. Exhausted and confused, none of them could find the words to comfort him. The illusion had long died down, and Bianca was doing her best to comfort her brother.

Cassandra cautiously approached Raphael. She slowly peeled away the herbs that covered his wounds and replaced them with fresh ones, all the while trying not to retch. The wound was festering—overnight, the infection had spread from his shoulder to his underbelly, and the stench was becoming impossible to ignore.

“We have to help him before it gets worse,” Kyle commented as he knelt next to Raphael to feel his breath.

“Oh! It talks,” Cassandra snapped and glared at Kyle.

“The only tolerable person here is almost dying, and you’re saying before it gets worse?” she shouted, frustrated, but Kyle did not even flinch.

“This was not supposed to happen—only an ancient spell could diffuse my illusion,” she was almost frantic.

That caught Cornelius’ attention. Walking closer, he said firmly,

“No one alive still wields ancient magic.”

“Then how can you explain Raphael’s wound?” Cassandra was almost hysterical.

“All this is because of you—first at the pack house, and then yesterday,” she continued and held Kyle by the collar.

“I had nothing to do with any of it,” Kyle explained calmly.

“You are—” Cassandra shouted, but Casten’s hoarse voice cut her off—

“Please, this is not the time for that. Raphael needs our help.”

His whole face was bloated from excessive crying, but he seemed not to notice. His entire attention was on the man he had not wished to even look at just recently. No, this could not be their last encounter. They could not end like that.

“He is right. If we do nothing, he will not survive a third night,” Kyle stated, and Casten felt the air being knocked out of his lungs.

Cassandra slowly let go of Kyle’s collar and muttered while pulling at her hair,

“Something is very wrong. We must go to her.”

“We are going to the Barrens,” Cornelius objected strongly.

“The worst that could happen is that more of those things track us down after finishing you off,” Thalia shouted at him. She knelt next to Casten and Bianca and said,

“Come on, let’s go.”

Cassandra was almost delirious—muttering to herself and at times glaring at Kyle, who was still observing Raphael as if trying to breathe life into the grey beast.

“Those wolves were too organized to be mere rogues,” Thalia pressed. She had already lost too many people to add another one to the list—not even Cornelius.

Cornelius still glared at her, but as if thinking better, he quietly passed by her and walked toward Raphael.

“It’s unfortunate that it was not any other of you,” he said and eyed all of them grudgingly.

Roughly but not carelessly, he hoisted Raphael on his back and started walking away—confident that the rest would follow him, although he did not know where they were heading.

“Where are we heading?” Bianca asked, helping Casten up while glancing at the dull, muttering Cassandra.

Hearing her question, Cassandra stared at her with bloodshot eyes and said,

“To someone I hoped to never see again.”

The journey was sombre and uncertain. Following a still-delirious Cassandra meant taking abrupt turns and standing for minutes in one spot as she inspected an ordinary-looking tree.

“She has to be here somewhere,” she mumbled when they returned to the same spot for the third time. But no one complained—they were too anxious to say anything.

When night fell, Casten said almost robotically,

“One more night left.”

“Do not say such things, Casten,” Bianca reprimanded him sternly. Her eyes looked wild, but Thalia could not blame her. She too felt exhausted.

“Mira, these games are not funny,” Cassandra shouted at the same tree she had been treating like a door since morning, and Thalia flinched. What if Cornelius had been right and only the Barrens held the answer to helping Raphael?

She did not know how she could ever face Casten again if her resentment for Cornelius led to Raphael’s death.

“Don’t blame yourself. Everything will be alright,” she heard Kyle’s warm breath in her ear and involuntarily flinched. She turned to face him, but he was already walking away. Accidentally, their fingers brushed, and Thalia felt her whole body jolt—this exhaustion was starting to take a toll on her, she thought, and wrapped her hands around herself protectively.

Cornelius was broodingly glaring at Cassandra, but she was grateful that so far, he had kept to himself and diligently carried Raphael around for over a day now.

“Maybe we should look for a place to spend the night,” Bianca suggested and looked around suspiciously. She would appreciate any kind of roof above her head at the moment.

“No, we are not leaving until this old hag lets us in,” Cassandra objected firmly and continued hitting the tree.

If anyone had told Thalia what happened next, she could have never believed it.

She felt the ground below her feet shift, and everything around her started spinning until she felt dizzy.

Carefully, as if being pushed by an invisible hand, the trees shifted and the leaves spun around until they formed a cottage. Too stunned to speak, she stared at her companions—and all looked as bewildered as her. Even Kyle looked a bit dizzy, and Cassandra looked better than earlier with a wide grin plastered on her sickly pale face.

“What has you stepping all over my sitting room since morning?” a sultry voice sounded behind them, and Bianca jumped from fright.

Thalia looked around, but she could not see the source of the deliberately enticing voice. Actually, she could see very little because the whole room was almost pitch black, with a prominent scent of earth and roots.

Cassandra disappeared into the darkness, and they heard her irritated voice say,

“This is serious. You better stop playing around, Mira.”

The room finally lit up, and Thalia’s eyes landed on a woman. Her features perfectly matched her voice—she was an olive-skinned woman with long black hair almost reaching the floor. She was closely examining an unflinching Kyle. Her long bony fingers carefully traced invisible lines along his face and proceeded down to his shoulders.

Her full breasts looked like they would spill from her tight-fitting red dress into Kyle’s face. Thalia swallowed uncomfortably and decided to distract her eyes with something else.

Other than Mira, there was really nothing much to see. The room was barely occupied, and Thalia wondered how she could call it a sitting room. The only things in sight were some odd-looking rags and old covered pots placed delicately on the wooden floor.

“You have to help us, Mira,” Cassandra insisted. Mira smiled—more to Kyle than Cassandra—and said,

“Mother would sound nice.”

Her smile was almost taunting.

“You are not my mother,” Cassandra declared defiantly, and Thalia felt a shiver run through her. She hoped they would at least get what they came for before Mira threw them out.

“So you say. But fate says otherwise,” Mira replied unbotheredly and then finally turned to Cornelius.

“A power-hungry one. I love your kind,” she said with a wicked grin.

Everyone pretended not to have heard her. She leisurely approached Casten and Bianca.

She studied them with an almost sincere smile, then whispered,

“When the time comes, trust the bond you share.”

She paused a finger along Bianca’s face and laughed merrily when she flinched and tried backing away.

“It is not me you should fear, child. But you should all be afraid—very afraid—because now she stirs awake.”

“Who stirs awake?” Kyle asked. Something about her statement made him remember Cassandra’s prophecy and almost make a mental note to tell them about it when Raphael had been helped. He had a feeling that Mira knew more than she was letting on.

Instead of answering Kyle’s question, she just walked toward Thalia and looked into her eyes.

“Stronger bonds lay dormant, waiting to be awakened. Your journey is about to begin.”

Without giving Thalia a chance to ask questions, she said in her ringing voice,

“You are all still standing? How rude of me.”

Without even saying a spell, red couches materialized into the room, along with a simple bed.

“Lay him there,” she instructed Cornelius with her back turned against him. She was inspecting something in the crusty pots.

Cornelius’ jaw clenched. He hated being ordered around, but swallowing his anger for now, he carefully laid Raphael onto the bed.

Steadily, like a hawk tracking prey, he watched Mira’s every move. He had something to confirm.