Rune Bearer

#10. The flame of hope

    She depicts her gaze to her this time looking so close that you think they were in a duel.

    

    "We have to get out of here, or maybe go back," Elrond whispered into Aurora's ear, he had no idea where to go from here, had he. . . he would have followed his thought.

    

    "You really think it will be easy?"

    

    "You can have Cain all to yourself, you should not have followed down the tunnel when you should be warming his bed."

    

    Her lashes are long, and Elrond finds the two ladies somewhat a cool challenge that the lady will be having the world thrall at her feet.

    

    "With a human boy? I can't wait for you to tell me why you're here. Finding him attractive?" Curiosity gets the better of her. "Why are you travelling to the forest? Eloping is it, love, I can't believe this." She scoffed.

    

    "If that is the case can you back off now?"

    

    "You find a human boy attractive?"

    

    "You can have Cain all to yourself, " Aurora winced.

    

    "No that will be super stupid, Cain would have wanted this, I'm making it easy for him by making sure you don't ever get to smell the flowers in the garden again." She folded her hand, Elrond felt a tie on his throat, gasping for air she found pleasure in what she was doing.

    

    Aurora soaked in her blood, her white garment turned red with blood and managed to lift a pebble and hit the back of the lady's head.

    

    "Sara, stop all this insanity!" She yelled.

    

    But her eyes turned black where they should be glowing. She cracked her neck closing the distance between them, she gasped at the suddenness of it. But then her face hardens and the shell feels steel in her throat.

    

    "You will not touch me, you will not think about taking me anywhere without my leave."

    

    Aurora is a little breathless but holds the blade Elrond threw to her steady. She knew it would do no good against the rage that sweeps over her. That if she's not successful and should Sara devours her she would be done with.

 

    Elrond stepped forward to drag Aurora away, but an invisible knot was wrapped around his neck, this time more ferocious.

    Magic twinged a something stirring in the eyes of the rock sensing her. The wolf's face appeared howling into the night.

      

    It drifted through the cave in awe of the silence and the sound, the light and the redolent earth. In the ignorance of the beast that hovered over Aurora, Sara, and Elrond set the cave alight.

    

    The whole of the cave danced from shadow to light, he stepped brightly, disturbing the creatures.

    

    Aurora's hands rubbed across her face downward. She looked and saw the light shining brightly again.

    

    "What in the heck am I supposed to do now? "

    

    Fragile, yes but with a spirit like the great Elderwood long-lived and strong, when they have lost hope the spirit finds a vessel of its own, many will be awed at how it got to find a vessel so small of the lower creature—humans to contain it.

    

    The light to see Sara to the wall, her back hitting it hard. Aurora forced herself to Elrond.

    

    "Elrond you have to stop now." She called out to him.

    

    The vessel was so small, if of course Elrond uses it, tapped from the sap of his fire any longer, Aurora was. . .

    

   A moment later she screamed so high that no human that heard it would stand a chance. "My powers were ever a struggle. Elrond you need to stop!" 

    

    A flock of stars exploded from behind them, the soldiers watched the event exclaim at their murmur, and the flame deepened. Sara cringes and tries to retreat, the magic was too powerful for the first or second proceeds, Aurora held him still with her magic.

    

    Aurora collapses, her eyes looking down in horror at her wrist which is encased in a thin chain the colour of clothed blood.

    

    Her power fired, with a magical glowing chain made of her blood—only liquid could make it and tied Elrond.

    

    When Elrond's fire had died down she removed the chain and put them back, he trembled uncontrollably and cringed back.

    

    They turned to look, now it was another search group, slowly they walked with noise. Aurora crawled to Elrond tapping with her palm on his cheek. He woke up holding his hand to his head, he wanted to talk but was not given a chance. They drift through the cave on an updraft.

    

    A moment later Aurora shouted for Elrond and clutched her mouth, the rock cracked and fell into the pit beside them as she regained herself back on the path her cries transformed into a gasp.

    

    "The worms dare no light, they will swarm over us, should I light one."

    

    "A thank you would do," Elrond said with a sentiment.

    

    "It's a dice, I saved you, you saved me." She corrected.

    

    They continued walking. "We are almost close, if we don't get out here, the guards will come and try to breathe life into the worms and we will be dead. Mind you, humans, and elves alike have no control over the worms."

    

    "Yet you keep feeding those poor miners to them. Are they still creatures you have no leverage over?"

    

    "It's no doubt, they're kept there, vanished to keep the balance between them during the war that broke the first darkness, worms sprout from the ground like grasses. They started destroying villages, covens and anything you would say." Elrond surprised but not convinced, gave her a side look and she continued. "Fire lured them where they should be burning them. The damage they caused was going out of hand and they kept fighting us. Do you know what they were called?" She glances.

    

    "I wouldn't know."

    

    She chuckled and Elrond kept walking, in front was another barrier unseen to him.

    

    "They were called the second army of the dark, adaptive to light and the flesh of blood but nocturnal to darkness."

   Aurora's wound reopened again and blood started dripping freely down her hand into the floor unknown to them they heard a ticking sound. She grits her teeth against the pain as they walked through.

   Elrond looked and the sound started real hard, soft tissues grinding against each other. The cheese-like rock under their leg started collapsing into particles as the disintegration continued, Elrond compelled Aurora.

    "Light now!" He demanded he owes this to their survival for all the days that it had been for their escape and their mission. Overhead was lurking darkness, moonless, the rock kept falling, and there were powers stronger than the worm and spells that Aurora will use to save them, he told himself.