Chapter 60: I Didn’t Come For Them (Part 1)
"Where are you?" Amory asked when she crossed her arms. Frustrated at his attention?
She answered him, her lips moving, but no sound reached his ears. He growled and took a step closer, wishing to be able to take hold of her shoulders. "Where are you?" He said and she shook her head slowly then shrugged.
"You don't know?"
She shook her head in confirmation. He sighed and after a long moment of silence he raised his eyes to meet hers again, "You're safe?"
He saw more confusion enter her eyes, along with a hint of warmth. She nodded and he nodded back. His mind began to go through all the places where he knew witches resided, Tralkin, Viland and Nothad.
"Can you smell the ocean?" He asked and she shook her head. "Are you in Viland?" She shook her head again, a crease forming in her brow. "Then…Nothad?"
She shrugged. And said something but he still couldn't understand her. He sighed heavily and covered his eyes for a moment. It would likely take years to find her and…he didn't want to wait years. He didn't want to leave her there for years. He didn't want to lose a gentle woman. An innocent woman.
When Amory finally raised his eyes she wasn't there. His breath was torn from his lungs. "Yavanna?" He breathed harshly. A hollow feeling ripped at his chest and he clawed at it. Why did he feel so empty? So desolate?
He hadn't felt this when he never used to see Yavanna at the castle. He had never felt this in the moments Mirella was gone, only a want to see her again. Now, he had a suffocating need to make sure that the discoloured part of her arm was a patch of dirt, to make sure that she was warm each night and that she wasn't starving to death.
She seemed oblivious to how he felt. Amory sighed heavily and leaned against the stone when he noticed that she likely hadn't thought of him in the past month.
It was her innocence. Those wide eyes that stared at everything with a curiosity or fear. He strained his memory to try and find an image of her smile in his mind. But…there was none. He had broken her, hadn't he? He had treated her horrifically and likely left some sort of irreparable damage in his wake.
The air around him abruptly became charged and the breath in his lungs seemed to bubble. He choked and looked up, startled, at a haunting, whispery voice.
"She is the one." It sighed and his bubbling breath thickened further when he saw a ghoulish creature before him.
Its skin was transparently pale and its face was shaped like no face he had ever seen. Its eyes were pitch black with glowing pupils and its hair was the colour of the mist surrounding him and draped along its thin shoulders like webs.
Its spectral voice reverberated around him yet its thin, dark lips never once parted. "She is the one. She is yours…" It hissed.
Amory felt the strange atmosphere ripple around him and he nearly gagged when his oxygen became even more toxic.
"Free her from the King of Deceit and fulfill your destiny."
"My destiny? My destiny to use her and kill her?"
The spectre before him tilted its head unnaturally, its unsettling eyes staring directly into him. In a way no one ever had.
"This is what fate has written for you. Uttara simply told you."
Amory frowned, trying to breathe through his nose, only to find that he became even more strangled. With his strength being as low as it was, he knew he couldn't hold out much longer.
"Who's Uttara?"
"You've met her. She revealed herself to you to set you and the vessel into motion."
"She's not a vessel." Amory snapped, his mind distracted. The witch? The one who had possessed Yavanna's body only a month ago? The one who had cursed him.
"Where is she?" He asked, the words barely leaving his mouth.
"The caves. Deep within the Whistling Mountain Range." It whispered and Amory felt the fog that had unknowingly enveloped him disappear and the bubbles left his throat and he gasped for breath.
'Pathetic.' He thought morosely. But he had more important things to do than focus on his weakness.
He vanished from the stone circle and the mist curled back into place, as though Amory had never been there. He reappeared in the Outborn Pack. It was set in the Whistling Mountains, though he doubted Niran would choose a hideout so close to Rune.
Moving as quickly as he could, he scanned the mountain range, trying to find any opening or crack that could be a cave of some sort. When night fell he had still found no hint of a cave. Of Yavanna.
He sat on a moss-covered log and realized then how exhausted he was. The hope that had surged through his veins had died. He sighed and stood, deciding he would eat what his cursed body craved to sate his restlessness.
Glancing around the area, Amory prepared to leave it when something moved beyond the treeline. He lowered his eyes and shifted his stance, preparing for an attack.
He spun when he heard the snap of a branch. His eyes landed upon a cloaked figure and his eyes followed it as they carefully waded through the mire of trees and moss. His nostrils flared and his eyes flashed up.
Disappearing, he emerged near where the figure was heading and stepped out from behind the tree. The figure stopped and he heard a sharp inhale, positively female. He grasped her shoulders, he could already recognize her scent, but he was afraid to believe it.
Tearing the hood off of her face he swallowed when Yavanna stood before him, in his hands. Her eyes were wide with panic, her face flushed, her lips parted from panting.
"Amory…" She breathed and he felt tension both leave and yet surge through him at the sound of his name on her lips.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone