Page 27 of Blood Red Woes

“Either,” I say. “Both. If he’s as smart as Frederick thinks, if he was researching the woes, what if he found a way to fight them?”

Rune counters me with logic: “If he found a way to do just that, wouldn’t he have returned to his son? It’s been years, Rey. I doubt anyone could live outside the main city with everything that has been plaguing the kingdom. And as for his research… I don’t know if we’ll find anything. We are taking a lot on faith here, following the supposed trail he took while trying to reach the castle of Acadia.”

Faith. That word sticks out to me the most out of everything Rune says. Maybe because I need to keep faith that I’ll somehow get back home and be able to fix everything that was going wrong in my life. If I lose faith… if I lose hope, then what’s the point in all of this?

I can’t make a life here. I need electricity. I need indoor plumbing and guys that don’t look like they came out of a fantasy movie. It wasn’t like I had the chance to meet everyone in Laconia while I was there, but literally the only guy around my age I saw was Frederick himself. If I have to guess, I’d say that not many children survived the initial woes.

So, no, I can’t stay here, in this world. Magic is neat, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not everything. I’d gladly give it up to go back home, where I’m a nobody instead of a demon to other people.

I lay there for a bit longer, and then I heave myself up. No time to wallow right now. I have a mission, a trail to follow. Whether or not I find anything on this trail is anyone’s guess, but I don’t want to make it last longer than it already has to be. I surf backwards against the current to grab my bag.

If I feel myself falling again, I’ll have to think fast. Whip off the bag and try tossing it ashore so the food inside doesn’t get wet. I think smoked meat, in order to stay good, has to stay dry—but then again, what do I know? I never took a survival course. Iwas never a Girl Scout. My dad didn’t teach me any of this stuff before he…

No. I won’t think of him right now. I can’t. If I think about him, about the fact that I left his picture on my bed—a bed that might not be there when I get back—I’ll then start to think about how I’ll have nothing.

Not an education. Not a place to stay. No job. No picture of my dad.

So I don’t think about him. I don’t think about everything I could lose as I balance myself atop a magical surfboard and zoom along the countryside. I don’t let myself think about what’s at stake here if I come across something I can’t handle.

I’m not ready to die, and I sure as shit ain’t going to die here. I’m going to fight to get home as long as I can, as hard as I can. I’ll find Frederick’s dad’s stuff, bring it back to him, and do whatever else I can to help him so he can help me. Right now, that man is my only hope.

I do pretty well. Surfing, I mean. I don’t trip and fall into the water again. I pay attention to the rocks breaking the river’s surface and I avoid them. Sometimes I get a little unsteady, but I’m able to re-balance to stop myself from tipping over.

I don’t care what Rune says. I’m pretty damn good at this shit. I’m a natural. Even if the magic comes from Rune, it’s basically mine now. As long as he’s on me, as long as we’re connected or whatever, it’s my magic.

And I’m going to kick so much ass here, mark my words.

The scenery moves by faster than I can blink. The river courses along rolling fields of wildflowers and gentle hills. A few smaller trees here and there, but nothing like the forest where I first woke up. Nothing eerie or creepy about this part of Laconia. It’s just beautiful. Nature in its finest, even though the land has been plagued by the woes for so long. You don’t get places like this on earth.

Not anymore, at least.

And that’s why, even though I’m on a mission, I take it all in. I memorize the fields and the weird-looking flowers as I zoom by. I devour it all mentally so that, eventually when I’m home, I can remember what it was like.

Hours pass, and I see a settlement coming into view in the distance, a few miles away, if that.

“Vermyr?” I ask.

“I believe so,” Rune says.

Wow. This magic really did help me cut the travel time in half, huh? Too bad I didn’t realize it the first day. If I had, maybe I could’ve been to the tower already.

The river brings me right to the village, and I hop off my magical surfboard when I reach the edge of it. Vermyr is supposed to be a larger settlement, the closest Acadian village to the center of Laconia. I can already see it’s bigger than the village where I encountered that crazed dog-like creature and the dragon.

It’s built differently, too. Everything is made of stone. The homes, the three-foot tall wall that surrounds the entire thing. Even the roofs are made of stone slats. I walk through the archway and officially step inside the village on its main dirt road, and I look around.

It is a ghost-town, very much like that first village. My ears hear nothing more than the rustling wind reminding me that nothing in this kingdom is safe or good.

“Well,” Rune harrumphs, “I suppose we best start looking. House to house might be the smartest way. We have no idea where he would’ve stayed if he reached Vermyr.”

I didn’t see any abandoned camps or skeletons on the way here. I know that doesn’t mean Frederick’s dad made it here, but it’s a good sign, at least. Rune is right; I’ll have to look in every single house for a makeshift camp just to be sure.

I start at the first house on the right. Small abodes; single-story houses, they’re quick to search. What rooms there are in the homes are tiny things. Most are empty, too—and I take that to mean the people in this village were able to pack and run instead of just, you know, dying.

The first two houses turn up nothing. It’s as I’m about to walk into the third house that I notice a single black bird sitting on the ridge of the stone roof, watching me. Though it’s fifteen feet away, I can see its red eyes, and they look completely unnatural. It doesn’t attack, though, so I ignore it and continue my search.

House to house I go, dirt road to dirt road. I find nothing—but that might be a good thing. The more I search through this village, the more hopeful I am that its people got out alive, that they’re some of the people crowding the lower district of Laconia.

“I don’t think he ended up here,” I’m busy saying as I’m walking out of a house. There are still a few more to search, but each one is turning up the same result. I’m seconds from saying more when I stop.

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