Page 65 of Crowned A Traitor
“Can you see the Fae?” He asked, looking at her suddenly white eyes. All she saw was the vibrant blue aura in the distance. Klara saw his unease as she revealed a part of herself that she didn’t even understand.
“Can you not stare?” Klara asked, and Wolfgang opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “I can’t sense them, but that could be the potion.”
“Heat sensor, I can see it when your eyes change,” Wolfgang said, and his eyes flashed amber, “I can do the same.”
They both looked at the tree line and saw nothing.Heat sensor, she had never considered it before. It was the ability of a Creature, and yet she wasn’t born of the divided lands. At least Wolfgang’s eyes were beautiful while she looked like a soulless Demon.
“I’ll follow you up, make sure I can’t see you either,” Klara ordered. She watched the trees as Wolfgang climbed quickly. Klara could hear the barking of orders as the Fae grew close. She leapt halfway up the tree just above Wolfgang hearing him curse quietly as she frightened him.
Wolfgang climbed up beside her, “you scared the shit out of me. I could have fallen.”
“Use your claws, and you won’t fall,” she snapped being unreasonable. She’d practically leapt on top of him.
“The Fae were getting too close they would have spotted me,” Klara admitted.
They climbed in silence until they reached the top. They sat on the second-highest branch, and Klara tried to peer down to the Forest floor to see if the Fae were passing through. But the branches and leaves were too thick, and she wasn’t going to risk climbing back down. If she couldn’t see the Fae, it meant they couldn’t see them either.
Klara gripped a branch and snaked her mind through the tree to see the Fae below flustered and arguing. The tree would mask a small amount of magic. Klara watched the patrol head in the wrong direction. She was about to release her grasp when she saw him.
Frendall is in the Forest, but it was all wrong he was blurry and distorted. She gripped tighter, knowing she shouldn’t use so much magic, but she needed to know how close he was, if he was real.
The branch cracked and splintered in her hand, and Frendall’s blurry face disappeared. Her pounding heart settled as Arthur’s hand found her shoulder and Frendall evaporated entirely.
“Are they gone?” Wolfgang asked. Klara nodded, unable to talk of whom she’d seen. Klara tried to use another branch, but Arthur grabbed her wrist, “don’t.” He was trying to protect Klara from herself. Arthur dropped her wrist and went to sit with Lottie perched on the highest branch. Lottie stared out at the magnificent view, and Klara followed her gaze.
This plane was a lie itself; one moment, swamps and mountains surrounded them, and then seas and lakes appeared. There was no natural order. Every natural element had been created and placed by magic for the furthering and protection of the land and its inhabitants. Unlike the Human World, where magic was so low in concentration that Mother Nature shaped the land. Klara would like to see the Human plane, walk amongst the Humans and see what it would be like to live in a society with no magic. She had hoped that one day she would accompany her Father on one of his trips.Fine chance of that happening now.
“It’s beautiful,” Lottie’s teeth chattered in the cold air. They stared at the Northern parts of Malum right into the mountains of Kalos and the ocean that divided them. “Yes, it is.”
Klara heard as Wolfgang’s eyes drifted from her to the ocean.Had he meant me?She ran a hand over her bald head. Different, yes but beautiful she wasn’t sure. She thought of Eve’s feminine beauty and Lilith’s hard but gracious edges, they were beautiful.
Klara noticed the tension in Wolfgang’s body as he watched the skies. She felt a stirring in her chest. The same stirring, she felt when Frendall’s hands had found her waist in the pantry. She turned her attention to Arthur, who watched her with a smug smile.
“What?” Klara said, and he shrugged his lean shoulders. “Nothing just admiring the view,” Arthur winked, and she hated the guilt she felt as Frendall’s shadowy figure filled her mind.
Is he hunting me or searching for me?Klara asked herself, needing to know either way.
“We’ll stay for a few hours after nightfall. They won’t patrol this deep into the Neutral Lands at night. They’ll concentrate their forces close to the border,” Klara said. She figured there would be little danger in any roaming nocturnal Creatures. Wolfgang didn’t argue to her surprise.
“What about Abadan and Mila? They won’t stop for night or patrols,” Arthur said, readjusting his position on the branch.
“It was your idea to make camp. Sure, we can leave right now if you want me to slaughter a whole heap of Fae in front of a child and have both the Fae Queen and Abadan come down on us.”
“That’s not what I was suggesting,” Arthur scrubbed his lined forehead.
“We’ll have to risk it,” Klara said. “You three will go ahead, and I’ll remain here for a time. By then the potion should have worn off. They want me, not you.” Klara knew it would be harder for the Hounds to track separate sources of energy.
“No, we aren’t leaving you behind. We have gotten this far because we were together,” Wolfgang argued.
“The three of you can pass through without me, and if I am not dead then I’ll catch up,” Klara reasoned, and Wolfgang winced at their reality. There was a long silence as Wolfgang looked at Lottie.
“We will wait for you.”
Klara ignored him knowing he had his sister to think of.
“At the end of the Forest, you’ll reach the field and will be exposed in the open. You have to pass through the gateway as quick as possible.”
“We can help you fight. We stay together. We still don’t know how close the others are.”
