Origin: Rooted Within

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I am still surprised to hear you have never tried an orange drink,” she said, and Castar chuckled.

“Why would I have tasted them? We just grow them for windbreaks and shade,” he said, and she laughed at him for his odd choices.

Myrid and Castar were both walking down a narrow path along a flat forest in Cartá. They were not just taking a walk. The previous night, Castar had told her he had lost something before he was attacked. He could not trace the path where Mafik dropped it, and since he did not know his way around Cartá, Myrid insisted on following him. At first he thought he could resist the urge to go back and seek for the pendant, but his attachment to it was beyond his control.

After their last words, there was silence between them as they walked on. They were not the only ones silent, it was as if they were the only ones who had lives on the path they had just walked.

The grasses stood stiff, the faint sound of the wind was all they could hear, and what gave them courage to