Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

Chapter Five: Sol Sanctum

Jenna glanced behind her. "What was that?" she asked nervously.

"I don't hear anything," said Isaac.

"A scraping noise."

"It's your imagination."

Apart from that exchange, the three teenagers stalked silently through the dark hallways of Sol Sanctum, their way lit only by the eerie phosphorescent glow of the stone itself. Here and there were rooms jutting off from the main corridor, but something about the spiked walls in one of the first rooms had discouraged them from entering any of the others. The hallway changed directions every so often, but one thing was unmistakable: they were always traveling slightly downhill. The air became colder and smelled more earthy the further they went, too, indicating that they were progressing deeper and deeper underground.

"I hope this tunnel isn't much longer," said Garet eventually. "This place really gives me the creeps, guys."

"You're not the only one," Jenna replied with a shudder.

"Yeah, me too, but we have to do this," said Isaac. A cold breeze was blowing from ahead of them now. Somehow it felt like that meant they were close.

As they turned the next corner, the hallway abruptly ended in a large room that starkly contrasted everything they had seen so far. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and ornate abstract carvings decorated its luminescent surface; where the wall met it, the carvings suddenly turned into heavily stylized relief images of people, telling a story that apparently started at one corner of the room and wound its way around, though it was impossible to tell at a glance what that story was. Four nearly identical statues of a beautiful maiden stood in niches in the four corners of the room, each holding a long, stone scroll.

On the far wall from the hallway was a filled-in doorway, which was the first thing Isaac investigated. The young earth adept ran his fingers over the delicate foreign letters inscribed on the jamb and lintel. "This has to be the way in," he decided aloud.

Garet stood beside him, looking quizzically at the door. "But it's solid rock." He tapped the inside of the door with the toe of his boot. "Can either of you read that stuff around it?"

Jenna was leaning over the scroll of the maiden to the right of the door, but now turned her attention to the letters around the doorframe instead. "Are you sure those are even words?" she asked after a moment's observation.

"I don't know. That's what they look like," said Isaac, abandoning them for the moment to look at the statue Jenna had been at a moment ago.

Jenna eyed the markings quizzically, following them around the door with her eyes. She stopped at the top as she noticed something that had escaped her eyes at first glance. In relief over the door was the head of another woman, like those of the four statues. But this one was different; a pair of hands covered her eyes. Something about it looked a little off to Jenna, and she held up her hands in comparison, then covered her own eyes, then held up her hands again. "What're you doing?" said Garet after a moment.

"That's it, her hands are on backwards," said Jenna. "See? The thumbs are on the inside, but they'd be on the outside if she was covering her own eyes."

"Maybe someone else is covering them," said Isaac.

"That's what I was thinking," Jenna agreed. Then a hunch struck her. "Hmm… I wonder." She approached one of the maiden statues, the one to the left of the door. It was a couple feet taller than her, so she had to reach far up to lay her hands on its eyes.

The instant she did, something happened. A clear voice sounded, not in her ears, but resonating in her very skull. What she heard of its message echoed with strange sounds, as if it were speaking in several languages at once. "Greetings, truth-seeker. Are you prepared for—"

That was all the more she heard. She let out a shriek and tore herself away from the statue, almost falling backwards in her haste. Garet caught and steadied her. "What happened? Are you all right?" said Isaac.

"It talks!" shouted Jenna, pointing a quivering hand at the statue. "It talked in my head! Is it supposed to be able to do that?" she added timidly as Isaac crossed over to the statue.

"What'd you do? Just cover its eyes?" he asked.

Jenna nodded. "Be careful."

Isaac returned the nod, faced the sculpture, and laid his hands over its eyes. He jumped at first, then calmed himself, listening to what the statue had to say. After a few tense seconds, he put his hands down and turned back to his friends. "It's a riddle."

"What'd it say?" asked Garet.

Isaac was apparently already formulating an answer as he quoted the message. "'Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thine ears; what lies within and what shines above?'"

Garet looked upward at the vaulted roof. "The ceiling's more glowing than shining, really," he observed.

"What lies within…" Jenna pondered the question, tossing it back and forth in her mind. "What lies within what?"

"I don't know. Let's try the second part. What shines above?" tried Isaac.

"Sun, moon, and stars," said Garet.

Isaac snapped his fingers. "Stars! What lies within the inner sanctum are the elemental stars, and then there's the regular stars at night. The answer is the stars."

A brighter glow rippled across the room with a slight hum and concentrated itself in one of the glyphs that adorned the four corners of the doorframe. The three friends looked at each other triumphantly, and Isaac went and covered the eyes of the statue to the door's right.

"'Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thine ears; he died by the sword he made of his brother,'" he repeated.

Jenna's eyes lit up. "I remember this! Kraden told a story about it once. Kane the Sinner, the first alchemist."

Another pulse crossed the walls and gathered in the second corner of the door. "Right answer," said Isaac, impressed, and went to the third statue.

"'Hear thee friend, yadda yadda; the world of heaven on earth.'"

This one was harder, and no one spoke for a while. Finally, Garet remarked, "Man, I wish I'd bothered with those geography lessons now."

"Wouldn't it be down south?" said Jenna.

Garet shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just gonna take a stab at it and say—"

"GARET, DON'T!" Isaac yelled. Garet shut his mouth instantly. "You moron, do you have any idea what'll happen if we guess wrong?"

Garet shook his head mutely.

"Neither do I," said Isaac. "But I don't want to find out."

"But we don't know the right answer," said Jenna.

Isaac thought for a second. "Actually, we just might. That's the thing. I'm starting to think it's a trick question." He paused a second to organize his idea. "The world of heaven on earth… a perfect world… but there isn't any such thing. There's no answer."

Garet opened his mouth to denounce his friend's pessimistic remark, but as he did, there was a third pulse and the third corner of the door lit up. They all stared at it for a second.

"That's depressing," said Jenna at last.

"Three out of four, guys," said Garet, grinning.

Isaac put his hands over the eyes of the final statue. This time he didn't say anything, though, even after he had lowered his hands and backed away. "What is it? What's wrong?" said Jenna worriedly.

Isaac swallowed. "I think … you'd better see it for yourselves."

Jenna glanced at Garet, and he gestured that she should go first. She nodded and laid her hands on the statue.

Instantly she felt herself being roughly pulled upwards, though her senses still told her that her feet were planted firmly on the ground. A wind that wasn't there whipped at her face, and she squinted to see beyond it. The echoing voice rang in her mind again. "Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thy heart."

She found herself standing in a barren plain, with dark clouds obscuring the sky. Rain pounded against her, and the gale grew even stronger. She heard the deafening CRACK of lightning close by. "Storms you will suffer," said the voice, somehow audible above the unholy din.

Now the wind carried a piercing scream of utter, terrible anguish that penetrated her eardrums and sent a shudder through her bones. "Madness appears in your eyes," the voice continued.

"No," said Jenna, her own voice quivering.

A ring of flames erupted around her. Panicked, she whirled to seek an escape, but apart from the small circle in which she stood, everything was burning. The voice spoke again: "Trial, pain, and death will follow you on the path to restoration!"

Then, as suddenly as it had all started, the flames died, the storm cleared, the noise ceased, and within seconds, the sun had broken the horizon, and rose into the clear, azure sky. "But fear not," said the voice, "in the light of the golden sun there is rebirth."

Jenna blinked a few times, and then she was back in Sol Sanctum, standing before the statue with her hands over its eyes. The voice spoke one last, quiet phrase. "Do you accept this?"

Slowly she withdrew her hands and stepped back, shaken. As Garet went up to repeat what she had just done, she exchanged a look with Isaac. "I don't know about this, Isaac."

Isaac took a deep breath. "No. It's a riddle. It's a test, like all the others. It's just something we have to get past before we can enter. That's all it is."

He didn't sound convinced. Jenna suddenly found herself wondering if he had seen the same things she had.

Half a minute later, Garet broke away from the statue and turned to face them a little dazedly. "Well? Do we accept this thing or… what?" he asked, waving at the statue.

They stood in silence for a while. Finally, Isaac nodded. "Yes. We accept."

A fourth pulse lit up the final corner of the doorframe. With a low hum, at the very bottom edge of their hearing, the blue glow from the corners spread through the lettering on the frame, and from there into the stone blocking the way. It converged in the middle with a bright flash, and when the three looked again, the stone had taken on the appearance of luminescent water, rippling hypnotically.

Experimentally, Garet approached it and touched his hand to it, then withdrew quickly when it passed through. "I guess we go through that?" he asked.

"You first," said Jenna with a scowl.

One by one, Garet, then Isaac, and finally Jenna walked through the shimmering portal and disappeared.

Outside Sol Sanctum, Felix was struck with a sudden realization.

"What am I doing?" he exclaimed out of the blue, disgusted with himself. "Jenna is inside that building, and Saturos is going after her!" He sprang up from beside the wall and made for the door.

By instinct, Alex jumped up at the same time out of surprise. "Your sister's with them?"

Felix nodded. "And Saturos doesn't care if he accidentally-on-purpose hurts her. Or worse."

"Aren't we supposed to keep watch?"

"Keep watch against what? No one comes up here." He shook his head. "You can stay and keep the chipmunks out if you want. I'm going after them."

"You'd leave me all alone against those awful chipmunks? I'd rather take my chances inside," said Alex half-jokingly. "Let's go." He led the way inside, Felix close behind.

As they walked quickly down the glowing corridor (both figured it might not be a good idea to run), Alex turned and started walking backwards. "What if you covered your face?" he suggested.

Felix looked confused. "Why?"

"Well, your sister, see. It might be too much of a shock for her."

He hadn't thought about that. She would be more than surprised to see him, and he still wasn't sure what he'd say to her when he saw her again. After a second, he fixed the thick collar of his cloak so that it hid his face from the nose down. "How's this?" he said, though the cloth muffled his words.

"Perfect. I hardly recognize you."

"Great. Could you turn around and walk normally now?"

"No, I enjoy fraying your nerves," Alex said impishly. He turned anyway.

If the door room was beautiful, the inner sanctum was breathtaking.

Jenna stepped down from the entryway onto a rough stone platform. What she noticed first was the sky. The ceiling, she corrected herself, they were underground. It was pitch black, but dotted with bright specks of red, blue, violet, and golden light. The stone beneath her feet was what provided most of the light, though; the general atmosphere was a soothing bluish-green.

Garet was also awestruck; Isaac's face seemed more contemplative, as though he were already trying to piece together a plan for this room. The layout of the floor, where there was a floor and not just empty space, was relatively simple; it was basically a large letter "X," with the door platform in the center. Interestingly, the door they had just come through was not connected to anything, but stood independently on one edge of the platform. In the corners of the X were four statues similar to those in the preceding room, but slightly different; it was hard to make out the details from this distance, though. The statues were connected to the central platform by a series of columns, which were linked to one another by thin, ladder-like projections of the same stone; it looked like they had all been hewn from a single piece of rock.

Below the platforms and the ladders was a bottomless pit. Isaac separated out a stone from the smooth ground and tossed it over the edge, listening carefully for it to hit bottom, but no sound came back up. After a minute of waiting, he grimaced. "It's pretty deep," he said.

"I could've told you that," said Jenna, leaning timidly toward the edge from about three feet shy of it.

"Well, no time to waste," said Isaac. "We're just going to have to be extra-careful."

"You're joking," Garet protested.

"You're not scared of heights and you know it," Isaac groaned.

"What about depths?" said Garet.

Isaac rubbed his forehead in aggravation. "Okay, fine. Jenna, you coming?"

Jenna glanced again at the maw beneath them. "Um… actually, why don't I stay here, and cheer on you big, strong men?"

"By which you mean me," said Isaac, "since Garet's too much of a girl to come along."

"Hey, take that back!" Garet puffed out his chest. "I never said I wasn't going, you dork." Without waiting for a response, he crossed to the nearest horizontal ladder, put his foot on the first rung… and slipped.

All three shouted. Isaac lunged for him and caught him by the back of the collar, then pulled him back to solid ground with a thud. Garet rubbed his throat where the shirt had caught him and wheezed. "Don't try and walk it, stupid," Isaac rebuked. "Hands and knees. Like this."

To demonstrate, he knelt and crawled across the ladder to the first pillar. "Come on, Garet, we don't have all day!" he called.

"All right, all right, I'm coming," Garet snapped. "Geez!"

As they reached the larger platform at the end, where the statue stood, they finally got to their feet again. From the other end of the ladder, Jenna could now tell that it was about two feet taller than Garet. Its cupped hands were held out in offering, but as it had its back to her, she couldn't tell what they contained.

"Got the bag?" said Isaac. Garet gave a gruff affirmative and opened the rough bag tied to his belt. Isaac nodded and reached out to take whatever the statue held – then jerked his hand back and shook it, as if burned. "OW! Geez! That went right through my gloves!"

"You okay?" Jenna called.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Isaac called back irritably. "Garet, give me the bag, maybe we can take it off there without touching it."

Using the bag, they scooped their prize out of the stone hands. They stepped back a little when the statue began to glow violet, but once it appeared that turning purple was all it was going to do at this point, they relaxed a little, tied the bag back onto Garet's belt, and crawled back across the ladder to the central platform.

"Here we go," said Garet, and he upended the sack before where Jenna was standing. It spilled out a translucent, fiercely glowing purple gemstone that looked like it would fit comfortably in her hand, but she didn't want to try touching it after what she had just seen.

"Why are you just leaving it here?" she asked as the boys made for the second ladder.

"I don't want to risk dropping them if we can avoid it," Isaac explained. "You know how trapped-out this place is."

So they left the first of the stars there, with Jenna watching it to somehow make sure nothing undesirable happened to it, and together proceeded to the next two statues, the same way each time. The first one turned bright turquoise, and the second gold. Jenna watched her friends' progress anxiously, tensing every time one of them made a misstep. But they made it across the whole sixty-odd feet and back safely each time. Still, she was just as nervous watching them cross the ladder to the final statue.

Just as the boys were about to stand up on the final platform, Jenna heard something make a tap on the ground behind her. She whirled around to see, stepping through the door, a man with blue skin and rough, scaly shoulders – the man Isaac had seen—! – but she didn't have time to think about it before he rushed at her. He already had her by the wrist by the time she screamed.

Hearing her, Isaac (who had just gotten safely to his feet) spun to face them. "Jenna!" he and Garet shouted simultaneously.

"Let me go! Let me go, you—" Jenna shrieked as the man pulled her in front of him, clasped her back firmly to his metal breastplate and clamped his other arm around her shoulders. She kicked and struggled to get free, but only for a second, before she felt cold steel touch her neck.

"Stay where you are," Saturos said frostily.

Having no other choice, Isaac and Garet didn't move from their platform. Menardi entered by the freestanding door. "We really owe you kids some thanks," she gloated. "You opened up the inner sanctum, and I see you've already collected three out of four stars for us… saves us a lot of work." She smiled cruelly, gesturing at the three stones at her feet.

"Yeah, thank you," Saturos agreed. "Go ahead and get that fourth one, too, won't you?"

"As if we're going to help you!" snapped Isaac.

Saturos frowned, and pulled his knife a tiny bit further into Jenna's neck. It drew no blood, but she let out a loud gasp. Across the chasm, Isaac and Garet froze in terror.

"I said, please go and get the fourth star for us," Saturos repeated with a sickening grin.

At first Isaac didn't move, but stood there shaking with rage and indignation. Then Garet tapped him on the shoulder and hissed something in his ear that those on the main platform couldn't hear. Menardi tapped her foot impatiently. "We're waiting," she called.

Finally, Isaac pulled his glare away from them and snatched Garet's bag from his hand. Wordlessly he threw it over the final star and scooped it out of the statue's outstretched palms.

The statue turned bright red, as expected, but at the same time there was a small tremor in the ground beneath them, which had not occurred with the other three statues. After the first jolt, the ground continued to rumble, and only stopped when four pillars of light shot upwards out of the statues' heads. The beams stretched upwards as far as the eye could see, as if there were no ceiling at all, and the bright pinpricks of color began to shine even brighter. Everyone stopped short, trying to reckon whether this was a bad sign; Jenna felt the pressure of the blade on her neck lessen a bit.

It didn't last long; Saturos pressed it back into her skin as soon as he had decided they were safe. "Good. Bring it here," he demanded.

Just then, another voice rang out from behind him. "SATUROS, NO!"

Saturos turned enough to see who it was. "You're supposed to be on watch!" he yelled at the two men who had just stepped through the portal.

"There's nothing to watch out there and you know it," retorted Alex.

"Put her down," Felix said, slowly and severely.

Menardi roughly grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him aside. "This is neither the time nor the place for your little insurrections," she hissed.

"When is? Once he's killed her?"

She glanced at Saturos for a moment, then turned back to Felix. "He won't," she replied, too softly for anyone but them to hear.

Isaac and Garet sensed the tension brewing on the other side of the abyss, and at last made their decision. "Hey!" Isaac called.

Everyone by the door turned to look at him. He was holding up the Mars Star, separating it from his hand with the thick cloth of the bag. "You want this?" he said threateningly.

"Oh, God, he's going to throw it," Menardi groaned, and strode quickly to the very edge of the platform.

Jenna watched him helplessly; and for a second, his eyes caught hers, questioning. She hesitated, then nodded. If it were her or the whole world, she'd rather it be her. Isaac returned the nod and continued. "Go get it," he challenged, and tossed it lackadaisically into the chasm.

For a few seconds, it fell through a disbelieving, horrified silence.

Saturos withdrew the knife and threw Jenna harshly to the ground, bolting to the edge. "You idiot! You goddamned idiot! Do you have any idea what you just did!"

Felix instinctively darted to his sister's side and tried to help her up, but she swatted his hand away and stood on her own. Then she rushed to where the other three stars lay and kicked one of them, trying to make it clear the brink, but it stopped a foot short. Menardi restrained her. "Alex, get those! We have to get out of here before—"

A sudden tremor shook the cavern, quite nearly throwing everyone to their knees. Unlike the first one, this continued for several long seconds, increasing in magnitude until it petered out quickly at the end. As soon as he could do so without falling over, Alex took the pack they'd brought for this purpose and swept the three remaining stars into it. "I agree with Menardi, let's get the hell out of here," he said.

Garet was about to crawl back over the ladder when the second tremor hit; he pulled back quickly as, with the unsettling grinding of stone against stone, the eight-foot section of ladder nearest them snapped off and plummeted into the deep chasm. But it did not plunge into sheer blackness; there was a growing orange light rising up from beneath them. The heat of the magma could already be felt wafting upwards through the chamber. Garet shouted a curse.

"Isaac! Garet!" Jenna screamed, wrenching herself free from Menardi's grip and rushing to the edge. Menardi didn't seem to care, and was the first one out the doorway. Saturos followed her. Alex stood anxiously by the portal as Felix grabbed his sister by the wrist and pulled her away. She broke his grip and returned to the edge, shouting, "Isaac, Garet! You can make it! Come on!"

Felix tried to take her by the arm again, but again she broke away. Finally, he gruffly wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She struggled to get free, but he was stronger; within a second he had disappeared with her through the door.

Alex was about to follow after them, but then he heard a shout over the increasing roar of the volcano's rising flame. "You're just going to leave us to die?" Isaac yelled.

Alex hesitated, then sighed apologetically. "How do you suggest I save you?" he shouted back, and then exited the room before they could respond.

The company fled Sol Sanctum with as much speed as they could muster, despite the continually worsening tremors. When they passed through the door from the dark underground into the bright light of the sun, they immediately veered off the road leading back to town and staggered as best they could into the cover of the trees lining the path, heading eastward with the slowly reddening, steadily dimming sun at their backs. The violence of the shaking earth destabilized their footing, but it was even more dangerous to slow down or stop so close to the volcano.

Felix dragged Jenna along by one arm as they ran. "Let me go!" the latter cried. "They're going to die, damn it! They're going t—aaah!"

They encountered a terrace unexpectedly and skidded down the steep incline. Felix stretched out his arms instinctively to keep his balance, but in the process he lost his grip on his sister. Jenna took advantage of this and, as soon as she was back on her feet, bolted away toward the village; but not two seconds later, a different hand gripped her arm, yanking her backward with a yelp. Alex handed her off to the waiting Felix, who nodded in thanks and continued after Saturos, pulling Jenna in his wake.

And then, with a massive BOOM, Mt. Aleph erupted. The whole peak of the mountain shattered and then exploded, spewing out prodigious amounts of rock and black soot. The force of the explosion rocked the earth, sending the entire party sprawling. From behind them came a chorus of terrified screams from the village. Red lava dribbled over the volcano's lip and oozed down its eastern face like foam from a pot boiled too long.

Saturos was the first to regain his balance. "What're you waiting for? Keep moving!" he bellowed over the roar of the earth.

Felix got up and reached down to pull Jenna from where she sat on the ground, unmoving even to tremble. She sat there among the grass and twigs, leaves in her hair, and stared up at the mountain through dead eyes. In her mind, there was no longer anyone else on earth but her. They were gone. Isaac and Garet, who had been her friends since before she could walk, who had held her when her parents were lowered into the earth, who had taught her how to whistle, were just … gone.

She didn't respond when Felix finally pulled her to her feet and continued through the woods. I'm asleep, she tried to convince herself. I'm asleep. In the waking world, it was impossible for a single mountain – a stupid, unthinking hunk of rock – to take from her everyone she had ever loved. Branches scratched at her arms and face as she ran mechanically after her captors, but she hardly felt their sting. Compared to what she felt in her heart, falling into a bramble bush would have been a pleasant experience.

The party only stopped when it could go no further, as the combined effects of sunset and ash fallout turned the sky pitch-black. They had found a small clearing and that was where Saturos decreed they would make camp. He himself took the liberty of building the fire and igniting it with a thought, and for a while afterwards, everyone sat around it eating the dry biscuits that constituted their provisions at the moment. Alex offered some to Jenna before Felix got a chance to, but she flatly refused it.

Felix ate slowly, watching his sister; she sat outside their circle at the base of a tree, curled into a ball and sobbing quietly into her knees. Every so often she would glance up and meet his eyes, but each time he turned quickly away and concentrated on his biscuit for a few seconds.

Saturos also glanced over at her a few times, though his gaze was irritated rather than troubled. As soon as he had finished the last bite of his meal, he leaned forward into the circle and voiced a concern that had been bothering him for hours. "The girl knows too much," he said. "We have to silence her."

Felix abandoned what was left of his dinner, throwing it to the ground. It impacted with more force than he had intended and kicked up a cloud of dust. "You're not going to kill her," he declared unambiguously.

"You shut up," Saturos ordered. "Stop begging for everyone's life like they're your kin. If she goes back, we suddenly have everyone and their sixteenth cousin looking for us. I don't want to have to deal with that on top of everything else."

"Well, that much is obvious," Alex interjected diplomatically, "but it might actually be better if we kept her alive with us."

Saturos stared at him as if he'd just suggested they bury themselves alive in anthills. "You've got to be kidding. I'm not going to spend my money feeding a useless tagalong."

"But she isn't useless."

"We already have earth and fire adepts, Alex."

"No, it's not just that." Alex shook his head. "If Vale somehow finds out what we've done—don't look at me like that, it is possible—like you said, everyone and their umpteenth cousin will be after us. But they might not give us so much trouble if—"

"If we played the hostage card," said Saturos, adjusting to that line of thought. "There's an idea. But—" he pointed harshly at Alex and Felix "—her food's not coming out of the common purse."

"I'll pay it," said Felix, glancing at Jenna again. Her tearful eyes were already fixed on him, glaring over her crossed arms, but this time he didn't look away. He couldn't; it tore at his heart too much to just sit by the fire while she suffered. But what could he say to her?

After a moment's thought, he decided it didn't matter whether he said anything. With all eyes following him, he got up and knelt down next to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Jenna—"

In a sudden rage, Jenna lashed out, swatting his hand hard into the tree trunk. "Get away from me, you creep! Who do you think you are! You think I haven't noticed you staring at me all night? I'm not stupid!"

Stunned, Felix rubbed his wrist in silence.

"You've been dragging me through the wilderness all day, you blew up my home and left my best friends to die in Sol Sanctum, and now you can't decide whether to kill me or not! Well – well why don't you!" she sobbed.

When no one answered, she buried her head in her arms again. "Go ahead. I don't even care," she murmured softly.

"Don't talk like that," said Felix, touching her shoulder again. "Jenna, please… it's me."

After a moment of pretending she hadn't heard him, Jenna raised her head and met his gaze. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes went wide as she made out his face through the flickering light. "Oh my god!" she whispered. "Oh my god!"

Felix managed kind of a smile. He pulled gently on her shoulder, but a second later she dove into his chest on her own, weeping disconsolately with her arms wrapped tight around his ribs.

"Why didn't you come home?" she choked out between sobs.

Felix pulled her head close and stroked her hair reassuringly. "I came as soon as I could," he replied, trying to hold back his own threatening tears. "Don't cry, Jenna. I won't – I'll never leave you alone again."

On the other side of the campfire, Saturos tossed aside the reed he'd been absently chewing on and stood. "Disgusting. I'm going to go over here and be sick," he muttered as he left the circle.

"Don't be an ass, Saturos," Menardi groaned.

Felix looked up at the rest of his companions, but Alex just smiled and waved dismissively. "Take however long you need, Felix."

Felix nodded his thanks and turned back to his sister. He didn't let go of her for the rest of the night.

… Merry New Yearsmas?

Um… go ahead and review it then (cough)