Chapter 32

Aeole scanned the area from the top of a large sand dune. Off in the distance she saw smoke filling the sky from her forest home. Tears sprang up in her eyes as she thought about all the history she and her people just lost. Hundreds of years of history.

Priceless personal treasures. Rare, historical, Terraquois artifacts. Homes. Lives. An entire culture.

All of it was gone.

"What do we do now?" Asher asked. He was looking at what used to be his home and was crying too. He slammed a fist into the sand. "What are we supposed to do now!?" he raged, yelling loudly. "They destroyed everything!"

"Hush, Asher. There's no point in yelling about it now. All we can do is finish this war, win or lose. We'll get to your father and help him there. It's all we can do now, " Aeole responded.

She turned away from the destruction of her homeland and slid down the sand dune. Asher and the rest slid down after her. She got to the bottom of the dune and met a group of three to four thousand Terras. As they were leaving the forest, other refugees found them and were taken into their rapidly expanding group.

In the chaos, getting supplies had been nearly impossible to do. Some people had taken some vegetables, grains, and water with them but there wasn't enough food and water to keep everyone alive. The only choice Aeole had was to rely on her abilities as a Caller to make vegetation grow and water spring up out of the ground. The effort was taxing and even with the aid of more than a hundred other Callers, she knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand of the people.

They had to reach the main Terra army. Not only for their own survival, but for her husband and the other warriors as well. She was positive they would be running low on supplies too and there was no way the Callers there would be able to keep up with the demand of an entire army.

"What did you see?" a Terra from Yowil asked.

"The end. I saw the end," she said sadly.

Everyone started shouting at once. There was fear and worry on their faces and a lot of people were crying.

Aeole felt bad for them but she knew there wasn't anything she could say or do to change the way they felt. She felt the same grief and sadness they did and she knew nothing anyone said would make her feel better.

"Back up people," Hert suddenly said. He stepped in front of Aeole protectively. "She's gotten us this far hasn't she? Leave her alone so she can keep us alive long enough to get to the others."

"Thank you, Hert," Aeole told him. She laid a hand gently on his shoulder. She knew he was hurting too.

In the aftermath of the escape from Vitari and when the other refugees from the various tribe-cities joined them, Hert managed to track down a group from Ledun. When he asked them about Fowler, he was told various tales of his son's heroic death. He didn't want to believe it at first. He rejected the fact that his son was dead. It hurt him so much to know that Fowler was gone. It hurt so much more than he could've possibly imagined. But even so, Hert couldn't help but feel immense pride in what Fowler had done. It didn't help his loss in the long run, but the knowledge of his son's bravery and that Fowler saved so many peoples' lives eased his pain a little.

"Why are the Rooks doing this?"

That question or some variation of it was asked a lot. Aeole did her best to answer them but the real truth was a hard thing for them to swallow even with the other Callers there to corroborate what she said. Most flat out refused to believe her. A lot of others just went into denial. They couldn't come to grips with the fact that their world was on the verge of complete destruction. It didn't matter that the proof was all around them. It didn't matter that most had seen the blank eyed Rooks with their own eyes. They just wanted to believe that the Rooks were attacking of their own volition and after centuries of fighting, they could hardly be blamed.

"We need to keep moving," Barthin said. He came up to Aeole. "They will be coming."

"Agreed," Aeole told him.

She gathered everyone together and they started trudging through the desert on a seemingly endless journey. She set a hard pace. The chaos and evil Blak was spreading was getting stronger by the minute. She had to do what she could to help.

Everyone did.

**

They spent days in the desert and Aeole's strength was starting to wane. Her face looked a lot older than it did the day before. She knew she was using her Caller abilities too frequently. Magic came at a heavy price and despite the fact that she was stronger than almost any other Caller did not negate that. She was going to have to ration her remaining strength or they would never reach their destination.

She was sitting next to a campfire in the dead of night, unable to sleep. There was a cold breeze in the air that chilled her to the bone. The warmth of the fire felt good but she barely noticed. Her mind was on her daughter and the prophecy. Things started making more sense to her now.

Heari's unusual interest in Keiara.

Keiara's inability to change her form.

Her insatiable need to explore every last inch of Purga.

Her reasons for saving Rone.

She wondered why she hadn't seen it before. Especially when Keiara saved Rone. The Prince.

She knew, though, why she'd overlooked all the facts that had been staring her in the face practically since her daughter had been born.

Denial.

She didn't want to admit to herself what her daughter was and so she blinded herself to it. It was probably the worst mistake she'd ever made in her life. Now Blak had his foothold in their world and Purga was close to being destroyed. She felt like her denial had caused all this. She knew logically that wasn't true. The prophecy had been fated since time in Purga began. There was nothing she could've done to stop it. Nothing.

But she couldn't help blaming herself either.

"Are you okay?" Lord Guilder asked. He sat down next to Aeole.

She was staring at Asher as he slept a few feet away but her thoughts were still very far away. She barely noticed Lord Guilder sitting next to her.

"Are you okay?" Lord Guilder asked again.

Aeole heard him this time and turned to look at him.

"No. I am not. And I shouldn't be. No one should." She looked down at her hands and wondered briefly how many more lives she would be forced to snuff out in order to protect her family, her friends, her people, and herself.

She'd killed once before, a long time ago when she lived in Ledun with her parents. The Rooks had found them and attacked without warning. She remembered the details perfectly, like it happened yesterday. She saw her mother and father consumed by fire. She remembered trying to save them but she couldn't. Her power couldn't help them because they were already dead.

After she found them dead, she was lost to a haze of anger and the all-consuming need to get revenge for what happened to her parents. She didn't know if she killed anyone else in that time or not. What she did remember was the events that happened on a bridge high above the forest floor. That's when she saw him. A lone Rook.

There was a second when time seemed to stand still. Fire raged all around them. She remembered the heat. It burned her skin but at the time she barely felt it. All she felt was hate. Anger. Fury. She shifted into her animal. The tiger. It was a graceful, strong, and beautiful creature. And extremely deadly. It was easy to see why that was the spirit she embodied most.

She ran forward without heed. She didn't care that the man was dangerous. She didn't care that he would kill her without thought. She only cared about causing him as much pain and misery as his people caused her. The same pain they had caused her parents before they were ruthlessly burned alive.

She caught the Rook off guard and jumped on him. She bit down on the flesh of his arms while her claws ripped into his chest. She was lost to the wild fury of her animal form. To its instincts and strength. She was sure at the time that she wouldn't have been able to pull herself out of that state but hot pain in her side suddenly snapped her out of it. The man managed to get his gun out and shoot her.

She jumped backward after that. Then she roared loudly before she shifted to her human form and stood there, breathing heavily. Her eyes were alight with wild ferocity. Her hair was frizzy and looked unkempt. To an outsider, she must've looked more animalistic in her human form than her tiger one.

The man struggled to get to his feet. She watched him cling to the railing as if holding on for his life. She didn't give him the chance to fight back. She rushed him before he could defend himself and pushed him over the side of the bridge. She yelled hysterically the whole time.

She sank to her knees after she watched him fall through the burning trees to his death. There was a sick, disgusted feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew what she did was necessary but she still hated herself for it. Callers like herself were connected to life and she just ended one.

It went against everything she believed. Everything she was taught.

She stayed on that bridge for a long time. She wasn't sure how long though. She was there but not there. She was aware but not. The fires raged harder and hotter. They felt closer now.

But she wasn't moving to safety. She was content to stay and die.

That, it seemed, was not her fate though. She was found by Arvin, the Terraquois chieftain at the time and some of his men. Tarvo was among them. In fact, he was the one that carried her to safety. He was the one that saved her life.

And he was the one she ended up falling in love with.

Now they had two beautiful children together she would die to protect.

Or kill to protect.

"I've killed. I've ended the lives of human beings. People with history. With loved ones. People that had thoughts, passions, and ambitions. But they will never see those through now because of me." She cried softly to herself as Lord Guilder leaned in and hugged her. He was a big man and his embrace was slightly crushing.

"But you have also saved lives. Your son's. Your peoples'. Mine. We would all be dead now if it weren't for your strength. My people have been taken over by darkness. They're polluted. The only way to save the rest is to keep fighting. People will die, on both sides, but in the end their sacrifices must be made. It's a hard truth but it is still one we must all accept," he told her. "Now sleep. Get some rest. We still have a long way to go I imagine."

Aeole looked at him and nodded. She thanked him and went to sleep.

**

Lord Guilder watched over her and her son for a while. He was mostly alone. There were two guards that watched over him with wary caution. He thought back to his own pathetic life, wondering how he was ever going to gain redemption for his sins.

But he wasn't sure he could.

"All I can do is try, " he whispered quietly.

**

The refugees from the Terra homelands wandered through the desert for seven more days. The heat was often debilitating and people (especially children and the elderly) kept coming down with heat exhaustion.

There were more than a few people that didn't make it.

The Callers did what they could to help but there were too many others and not enough of them. The sick just got worse until they died. Aeole did her best to keep her composure. People were looking to her for guidance and leadership. She wasn't sure if that was because of her husband, Tarvo, or because of the power she had as a Caller. She didn't relish the thought of being a leader. In fact, ever since that day in Ledun she actively avoided leadership of any kind. If she could kill the way she had murdered that Rook, then she was unfit to be a leader. Other Terraquois, including her husband, wouldn't agree with her sentiment but it was how she had always felt since that day.

"We need to stop," someone said from behind her. It was Yaowe, Gar's daughter. She carried a small child in her arms. The child looked very ill.

"We're not far," Aeole told her. "Can the child make it?"

Yaowe shook her head solemnly.

"Ok, we rest here for fifteen minutes and then we proceed. We're less than two miles from our main body of troops. I can feel their presence. This trek will soon be over." Aeole walked up to the child as everyone set their things down and took a much-needed break.

She watched as people tried to help the sick and weak. Asher was walking around with a water pouch. He gave water to the people that needed it most first. When it was empty, he went back to a hole in the ground a novice Caller created to pull the ground water to the surface and refilled it. Then he went to the ones he missed and gave them water too. Even Lord Guilder was helping. He used his remarkable nanos to create as many giant parasols as he could. Most people were too relieved to be out of the hot sun to bother with the fact that he was a Rook.

Aeole noticed that no one thanked him, however. The hostility towards the Rook was understandable after what happened to everyone's homes but it still saddened Aeole. She knew it was that kind of attitude that allowed Blak to take control so effectively. The chasm between the two races was a cesspool where the chaos god thrived, and he used it ruthlessly in his quest for power and destruction.

We need to end our centuries long hate, Aeole realized. Or we are all dead.