A/N Hi there! Sorry for the tardiness on posting this new chapter. I had planned to post twice a week but I'm currently on my pre-exams week and things have been a little bit hectic at the uni for me ^^''

Either way I'm back here. Thank you so much to all of you who reviewed and comments as much as those of you who favorited or left kudos. (To those who did neither I also hope you are liking the story so far and thank you for giving it a go!)

So... I will make this quick. If you guys have a preference for longer or shorter chapters just let me know! I don't bite, (mostly XD) and reviews always make me happy. Any doubts or things you would want to say I'm shadowdianne on Tumblr and twitter ;)

Also, I'm sorry for the slightly less trepidation in this chapter, I promise that things will start to happen soon (next chapter probably) but I needed to get Eretria settled and there is too many things I need to write about her!

PS: italics are either for whenever Amberle is contacting with someone or for flashbacks and thoughts.

Aaaaand, let's get started!

Two

Darkness surrounded her, her movements slow and heavy, almost as if her body was covered in tar. A dull ache on some place in her body, too disconnected of her conscience to know where it was, made her cringe. Blood, screaming, pain.

Eretria gasped as a tendril of something that wasn't her mind caressed the silhouette of her own conscience. A movement that caused the pain she felt around her to intensify, a choking sensation clogging her throat, worry and need for something nagging the back of her head, closing on her, writing on the shadows that seemed to grow thicker.

"Eretria"

The voice who spoke was soft but urgent, holding a timber the rover girl found herself smirking at, her beaten up memory producing the name even before her lips managed to form it.

"Amberle?"

The elven girl, however, didn't seem to have much time, the sudden pull below her stomach had the human girl gasping again, the fuzzy corners of reality starting to seep between the dream.

"Eretria" Amberle repeated "You need to wake, now"

-.-

Eretria woke to a rusty room, the only producing light one bubble that hung above her head, the dim light no better than any dying fire of a fireplace but suffice enough for the girl to distinguish the room she was in and the made-up bed with scraps of clothes she had been sleeping in until now. Frowning, she tried to straighten herself, wincing when both the back of her head and her right palm protested at the movement, a soft yelp escaping from her lips as she looked at her injured hand, the light and the caked blood that covered some parts of her skin didn't helping her at all but enough to make her distinguish the poorly bandaged gaping hole she had inflicted on herself by opening the portal of the bloodfire.

That idea alone had the girl looking frantically at her sides, fragments of her last minutes in the cold swirling room before she had understood what those old whispers had meant coming back to her mind; the macabre laughter of the two women who had tried to protect the fire ringing on her ears, making her shudder. The walls of the room she was in looked suspiciously the same that the ones they had walked through to get to the room with the bloodfire, the chipped paint and dusty corners making her gulp as she tried to understand the fuzzy images her still aching mind was sending her.

Trolls, the tunnels, Amberle reappearing with the seed... the fight.

Her eyes widened as she started to remember what had happened, the severed muscles on her hand protesting as she clenched it.

-.-

The smell of trolls was one Eretria had never liked; swamp and mud. The trolls that tended to live in the forest had that particular odor that made her gag and this time, as fury and worry ate her up about both her herself and the others, her body response was the same, a deep nausea that made her stumble, probably also due to the loss of the blood she had suffered earlier. Gasping while trying to kick the two trolls that escorted her under their heavy clothes she found herself forcefully kneeled in front of one of them, slightly shorter perhaps, whose eyes seemed to shine under the mask. She didn't need to wait however to know what kind of interest she could hold to a pack of trolls though since the troll pulled off his mask, showing the human features of someone she knew very well.

"You?"

One of Cephalo's best men grinned lewdly at her, his blue porcine eyes seeming for a second so close to the ones of a troll Eretria shuddered, her whole body aching as she tensed her muscles, ready to jump.

"Hello kiddo"

The rover girl growled under her breath; it hadn't been that long since she had been sleeping in a tent, trying to pry off those man's hands from her body and the gagging feeling returned; this time with thinned lips and worried eyes to match.

"What are you doing here?" She demanded, chin high, voice far stronger than what she really felt. The man grinned smugly at her as he removed the gloves that covered his hands, dirty and muddy as he approached her. One of them getting close enough to her chin to lift it, the smell of fermented alcohol hitting Eretria's nose as he did so.

"I think the most appropriated question is what you are doing here"

The rover girl was about to snarl some response she would probably have get her killed when a voice she could also recognize came behind other two trolls, the pack silenced and curious around the circle they had created for her and the man. Eretria turned though, her shoulders protesting when the trolls that restrained her didn't budge a millimeter, the pain making her back to arch.

"I think you are right on asking what are we doing here though" The owner of the voice said, small smile on his thin lips, small cuts and bruises covering his face. He had one arm wrapped up, wounded by the angle he hold it around his body and as he walked towards her Eretria recognized a limp that it hadn't been there last time she had seen him.

"I thought..." She started, angered with herself as she let her guard down, Tye's smug smirk growing as he positioned himself in front of her.

"I know what you though, that I had died" Venom seeped between his next words as he continued talking, voice spiteful and vengeful. "Like the many ones who died in Utopia"

Eretria held her chin high at that, refusing to feel guilty about it, the memory of a talk, a bonfire, Amberle's quiet questions about the whole situation back in the human settlement returning at her though, making her set her jaw as she watched at the suddenly morphing face of Tye from one of hatred to one of almost gleeful curiosity.

"Fortunately for me" He started conversationally "Someone like me doesn't get killed in the first night of a conflict, not when you have lived as far as I have done in Troll's territory and so when I was captured instead of being killed I managed to make them carry me to their chief"

"They can speak?" Eretria asked, eyeing the two mountains at her sides. Trolls weren't precisely known for their ability to talk, or even to be civilized. Out of the four races they were definetely the most dangerous ones.

"They aren't able to speak as we do" Tye replied with a shrug "But I could get past that. They are currently tracking and either killing or making prisoner as much food as they are able to for the winter so when I started explaining why we couldn't have provided them with meat this time, a failure your friends are responsible for, one of the prisoners listened to me talking about this rover girl with particular markings on her skin"

"And I recognized you" Her father's man intervened, a cruel smile on his face.

"Interesting story except it doesn't explain why they didn't kill you like the rats you are" The girl replied, the dizziness she had been fighting against until now growing momentarily as the rover approached her once again, his foul odor reaching her nose again, sleepless nights returning to her memory, the shuddering step back she made making the man to grin at her.

"They want food" Tye added, a shrug making his shoulders to tremble "And it happened that my friend here remembered that one of your... friends, is not only an elven girl but a princess. Trolls went crazy for that one"

"So now what?" The words came out slurred, Eretria feeling her body starting to falter, the blood loss too much for her body to be able to keep up.

She never heard the answer though, since before Tye could say anything her world went black.

-.-

The sound of a key on the beaten door that stood on one side of the room made her come back from her reverie, the same urgency as before, as if someone was screaming for her to wake up, make her jump, her features completely schooled as Tye entered in her room, his own face darkened by the different torches that light up now the tunnels Eretria, Will and Amberle had used hours before.

"Please, be okay" She thought seconds before the door was closed with both herself and Tye inside the room. "Both of you"

Sound didn't matter as it was only a figment, but Amberle found herself smiling softly at the vague idea of the waves of the sea, reluctantly licking the shore of her aunt's refugee. The idea left her frowning though, Eretria's face overlapping with the soothing image, making her thoughts to tremble, the shapes and silhouettes that had been until now painting their shadow in front of her eyes moved a little, letting her see... and listen.

Ander touched the tree's trunk with his left hand sighed, the other hand caressing his temple in where the weight of the crown seemed to have taken hold of him. Closing his eyes as he gulped down he almost smiled at her niece's new form, his pupils unfocused when he opened them again.

His body felt twice as heavy as his head and for a second the knowledge that he had a flask full of alcohol under his robs made him feel grounded, safer. Which he knew was a mistake, it always had been. Taking a step backwards she glanced at the leaves, their crimson color standing against the almost white sky due to the early hour. Which didn't matter of course since he had barely slept since his coronation.

It didn't matter how much he tried to, the look on his brother's eyes, the knowledge that he could have been him, the knowledge of so many deaths piling up against his conscience kept him from sleeping, afraid of his dreams.

His thoughts were cut short by Allanon's deep voice resounding on the room, the druid looking at him somberly once he turned, hands clasped in front of him, the markings he possessed along his face and neck seeming to stand even more these days.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Ander snorted at that; the inanity of the words making him want to cry. Something he had been very close to do so in the past few days. Which he didn't want to, not with everything he still needed to do, for him, for Arborlon, for Amberle.

"The gnomes have asked for lands" He said "Which is a petition I can't exactly refuse since they helped us against the demons"

Allanon didn't say anything at all, not surprised in the slightest with the politic game Ander was telling her. If something came from the wars apart from the deaths were treaties and pacts, pacts that almost never were followed through and led to even more loss.

"The council doesn't want to give anything to them, they say that what the gnomes did was a duty for the four lands. Still the federation didn't send us any help and we have yet need to hear something about them"

Ander voice was now rougher, sharper, his words full of tiredness as he kept his hand on the tree's trunk, almost as if he was asking for its strength as he kept talking, frowning, bright eyes dulled due to the rage.

"And everything I can do is to keep myself from falling" He continued and the druid was sure that a part of the elf's mind had forgotten about his presence. "I was never the one in line to be a king. Everyone was aware of that"

"And yet you decided to pick up the crown" Allanon said, his voice strong and powerful, ricocheting on the walls of the place as he approached the now startled king. "That says a lot more about you than anything else"

The elf settled his jaw, turning back to look at the Ellcrys.

"You said she would speak to us" He said instead of answering to the druid's words.

"In time" Allanon replied, taking another step and positioning himself next to the king, his eyes focused on the trunk's knots.

"How much?" Ander's voice was deep, almost a growl and Allanon looked at her, noticing the bump from the flask under his clothes.

"That's something I can't tell, is up to her"

Ander let out a joyless laugh at those words, his teeth flashing as he stared at Allanon, hair obscuring his eyes. "You can't say an estimation?"

The druid sighed and shrugged "When something like this happens… there is just one druid who wrote about the process before. Is not the whole process and so there are things we… I can't understand"

"She will be okay?" Ander asked impatiently, not liking in the slightest the tone of the human.

"There is a chance that there isn't a she anymore once Amberle decides to talk" Allanon finally admitted, regret flashing on his pupils, remembering what Pyria had told him before her death. About how they will inevitably lead all those who confide in him to their own destruction.

She hadn't been wrong.

"What are you talking about?"

"Amberle's conscience is linked to the Ellcrys, is her the one who is keeping the tree alive. That kind of symbiosis… can take its price"

"By turning my niece into what?" Ander demanded, his voice rising, his fists clenching.

"I don't know"

The punch was quick and precise and even if Allanon would have been able to stop it- which a part of him doubted- he would probably have let it hit him. The pain was bearable but still he winced as he felt blood starting to drop in slow rivulets from his brow, his whole body shaking due to the strength Ander had used.

"I'm sorry" He said as the king exited the room, completely enraged. The room fell silent after his words except from one quiet murmur from the trees leaves, something that made him frown before he shook his head. Too soon, it couldn't be.

Tye smirked as he sat next to the girl, Eretria narrowed her gaze and moved as furthest from him as possible, tiredness making her slower than what she would have wanted.

"What do you want now?" She asked sullenly, remembering all too well the short-lived sensation of perhaps having found a place where she could call herself at home.

Tye was holding a thick book, one Eretria remembered all too well and as he put his sane hand on top of the cover Eretria's eyes went to her own hand, the one she had used to open the door, her blood sipping between the poorly taken care of wound.

"Sorry about that" The man said, making Eretria look at him suspiciously "Without my instruments that was as far as I could go, you will perhaps have phantom pain from your muscles once the wound heals but…"

The rover hummed, not entirely sure of what to say to that. Last time she had woken up and had found the man she had in front of her she had had a knife. Now she had only the sensation of being lost. Which she hated.

"I will need to pay you by being offered as meat to the next troll that happens to be near?" She deadpanned instead, hiding her frustration behind her anger "Because last time it didn't work well"

Tye's eyes flared and Eretria had the satisfaction of seeing him flushed, book still on his lap.

"Don't you speak of things you will understand"

"Funny because as far as I'm concerned the one who is playing with fire and trolls are you"

The man smirked cruelly before looking back at the book. "You know, when Hebel returned talking something about destiny and prophecies and magic I didn't believe him" He started and Eretria remembered the man, his voice, echoing in her. "Magic is extinct, just as much as the old humans. Extinct and dead. Still, the information interested me and when you arrived with a map of the exam place I had send him… I just decided to see if I could know more about this, about that so called destiny"

Eretria settled her jaw, not wanting to give anything to Tye who was still looking at the book, voice so soft the girl needed to make an effort to understand everything.

"And then you started saying the same things he had said, about how you needed to go there, about demons and things no human have seen. You, a human, talking and being with elves, calling them your friends"

"They are my friends" The girl growled at which Tye raised a brow, cruel and cold as he looked at her.

"And yet every time we found each other you are alone. I'm wondering if that's how friendship works…"

Eretria swallowed, not wanting to let him win that time, remembering the way Amberle had talked to her next to the entrance, remembering Will's insistence of not being able to leave her behind, on Amberle's relieved eyes when they had found each other.

"At least I have them, whereas you are living with the trolls, guess who is the pet in that part"

Tye merely hummed at that, not answering to the jibe.

"You know Eretria" The name rolling off his tongue, making the rover girl want to smack him just by using it "Better if you get used to this place, I don't plan on losing you, not again"

With that he stood and left, the book safely clutched against his chest, his smirk widening when the door closed behind him.

Amberle saw the bubbles, the other her she had been feeling ever since… what? When? She couldn't quite place the idea of time, not when time and space seemed things that didn't quite matter for her. She didn't follow that other conscience though, for now, even if it was strong, far stronger than the one she could call as her own.

She needed to be there though, she needed to be. A promise perhaps, a name. She had the feeling that there was also another name she should be remembering, another kind of feeling. Still, she refused to dwell on that.

She had things she needed to finish.