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Boo-yah! I'm soooooo amazing! 50183 words! Read-em-and weep! =D Yes! I bes so amazingly proud of myself!

Okay, so before I post the chapters, I have a few things to admit, xD

1. I've decided that I shall be nice and give you guys a real ending instead of a wth? ending, where everyone dies and is very sad.

2. The first part that you read before chapter 1 is gone, I had to take it out in order to give you the good ending, so its going to be less dramatic but a better ending overall I think. I'm not sure, maybe it will be just as dramatic, I'll have to see how it pans out. So yeah, now you know! XD

Chapter 21 Kera
“Adelle, have you ever seen a blue cat before?” Kera inquired curiously, walking over to the blue cat with white ears. The cat was the strangest thing she had seen, it was a dark royal blue, almost black, but it was still easy to tell that it was blue.
“A blue cat? What’re you…” Adelle’s voice trailed off as she saw the cat too. “What do you know…?”
Kera moved closer to the cat, reaching her hand out tentatively for it to smell, but as Kera got closer the cat backed away, pulling its head further from Kera’s hand. The other cat meowed at it indignantly and the blue cat seemed to understand something from that as it moved up to carefully smell Kera’s hand. The blue cat’s nose twitched and it suddenly sneezed, losing its balance and falling flat on its stomach.
Kera laughed and extended her arm over the other cat for it to smell. The black cat sniffed her fingers then backed away nudging the blue cat to help it up. “What’re you guys doing out here in the middle of a forest?” Kera asked, turning to look at Adelle for an answer.
Adelle shrugged a confused look on her face, “I don’t know maybe Sarila and Devlin brought them along for company, Petula said that the two didn’t get along very well, whenever she looked they were never talking.”
“They must’ve forgotten and left you behind…” Kera cooed her face sympathetic. “Should we take them with us?”
Adelle shrugged, “I don’t know, it’s probably not a good idea for us to be carrying around to cats, they can be noisy. But, if we find Sarila and Cavan they can take care of them.”
Kera nodded, moving around the campsite to check things out. There was a bucket half-filled with water sitting by the fire, and the branches were wet, Sarila and Cavan must’ve heard them coming in the middle of cleaning up the campsite. Why couldn’t we have been quieter? We would’ve caught them right away! She chided herself silently, of course they hadn’t thought to have stumbled upon them so soon, and they were just planning on stopping for a short lunch.
Just as Devlin was setting Petula down Sherwin came back leading the horses, laden with their master’s belongings, “They got away, they must’ve let the horses go and ran off into the forest, we need to keep moving if we want to find them, but we can use their horses.”
Kera knew that if she went along with them she’d have to use magic to track the two down, and she wanted to minimize her magic usage as much as she could. “I’ll stay behind with Petula…” she suggested.
Devlin looked down at Petula and then over at Sherwin, “We need someone to stay behind with her…” Devlin agreed slowly.
Sherwin sighed, “Fine, we’ll be back soon, try and make food while you’re here.”
Kera nodded, “I will.”
“We’ll be back soon, hopefully with Sarila and Devlin in tow,” she winked and followed Sherwin and Devlin into the forest, all of them running and casting spells for tracking.
Kera sighed as soon as they were gone, moving to sit on a log near the used campfire. She ran her hands through her hair, all this would be much easier if they had Petula, but because of her Petula couldn’t do anything. It was stupid Kera didn’t even know how she had managed to hide from Petula’s sight and it had cost them majorly. Kera pulled the stone out from under her shirt starting at it intently she had noticed that ever since that morning, the stone’s usual glow had dimmed. She wondered if that meant it had come to an agreement with her, they were only together for as long as they had to be.
A yowling from the cat’s caught Kera’s attention, she looked up at them. They appeared to be having a very detailed conversation, and the blue cat’s gaze was riveted on Kera’s stone. “Here kitty, do you want to see it?” She asked twirling the stone and watching it sparkle in the sun’s rays.
Both cats came forward slowly and cautiously, they didn’t seem to trust Kera, but the stone seemed to draw them in. Kera pulled the necklace over her head dropping it down lower to the ground so that the cats could see it better. “Shiny huh?”
The cats nodded in agreement, their eyes following the movement of the stone.
The blue cat began swiping its paw at the stone, trying to catch it; Kera began twitching her hand to make it harder for the cat. After only a few minutes the blue cat managed to catch the stone, and as soon as it did, Kera felt a small shock travel up the chain to her hand. Startled she let go of the chain, “What was that?” She asked looking at her hand. The cat seemed to have felt the shock as well, but it got over it and pounced on the stone, lying on top of it.
Something very strange happened then; the cat began emitting a dark blue light and Kera saw its form changing. “What the…?” Kera murmured her eyes wide.
The light faded, and in front of her, lying on the ground with Kera’s stone in her hand was Sarila, the girl from the castle and the exact person they were trying to find. “You!” they both accused at the same time.
“How did you change into a cat?” Kera demanded.
“Why does that matter, why are you hunting me?” Sarila demanded in return.
“We’re hunting you because you’re trying to destroy everything light!” Kera said, standing from the log.
“I’m not doing any of that stuff, all that’s my mom!” Sarila denied.
“I don’t believe you; I’ve seen what you’ve done!” Kera said her eyes narrowing, if only she could remember the spell Adelle had taught her that morning just in case they found Sarila. There was just one part that she didn’t remember, and if she could remember it she would be able to trap Sarila until someone came back, she just needed to stall her….
“You’ve seen what I’ve done? I haven’t done a thing, why won’t you believe me?” Sarila jumped up from the ground, clutching Kera’s stone in her hand.
Kera was caught off guard, she hadn’t remembered that Sarila had her stone; thankfully it was still close to Kera, but if Sarila made a run for it… “Where’s Cavan?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Did he run…because he couldn’t stand the sight of you?” Kera asked, her mind whirring, what was that last part of the spell?
“How dare you! You have no clue what you’re talking about, what is it with you? We just met and you’re already trying to push my patience!” Sarila said her face furious.
“I’m just asking a simple question, you’re obviously insecure about it if you’re reacting this strongly…” Kera shrugged, a few words coming back to her.
“For your information…” Sarila stopped suddenly, looking down at her leg, the cat had just scratched her, she stared at it meaningfully before turning back to Kera, “you’re planning something…”
Kera felt the blood drain from her face, “What’re you talking about, I’m not planning anything…”
Sarila’s eyes widened, “I can see it in your face!” She picked up the cat and started murmuring words to herself, her hands making odd movements, Kera recognized the spell, it was a traveling spell.
“No!” She yelled, but it was too late, Sarila was already fading into thin air, taking the cat and Kera’s stone with her.
Sarila was gone, and the pain came to her in tidal waves.

It was only a few minutes after the pain became so unbearable that she had to start screaming before Sherwin came shooting out of the trees. His eyes were wide and fearful and he rushed over to her. “What happened?” He asked looking her up and down for any significant injuries that would be causing her this much pain.
Kera took several shaky breaths, trying to distract herself temporarily from the pain, “My….” She twitched, her abdomen squeezing with pain, “…stone!” she began shaking, everything becoming blurry as her head exploded with pain. This pain was about three times as worse as she remembered it having been. On top of the pain she also felt a strange feeling of betrayal that she couldn’t place.
Sherwin’s eyes widened and she felt him leave from next to her, searching fruitlessly for it before coming back a few seconds later. “Where is it?”
Kera opened her mouth and closed it several times her breath coming in gasps, curling her hands into fists and biting her lip she managed to stutter, “S-Sar-Sarila.”
His voice was ridden with panic, “She was here? Do you know where she went?”
Kera screamed again with pain, weakly shaking her head back and forth.
She heard Sherwin muttering a few words and then she felt his cold hands pressed on her forehead, suddenly the pain lessened slightly, her vision slowly clearing. “What…did…you…do…?” She asked panting.
He cringed, “I’ve taken part of your pain, but that’s only going to help for so long, I need to go get Adelle and Devlin.”
“Thank…you…” she muttered as he stood and took off into the forest. A few more minutes passed and she felt her head becoming lighter and lighter before she passed out.

“Kera, can you hear me?” A voice whispered at the edge of her hearing.
Kera groaned, her throat throbbing from the effort. She tried to move her hand to rub her throat, but she found that she couldn’t feel her hand, or her arm, or her legs, they felt disconnected.
“Kera, I think you can hear me, so…” the voice sighed, “you’re not going to be able to move for a while, we’ve cast a spell to dislocate you from your body so you can’t feel the pain, we need to figure something out before we can fix everything.”
Kera grunted, that wasn’t such a strong argument, she couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.
“There’s nothing else we can do, you won’t be able to stand the pain, you were screaming earlier and you were unconscious.”
I can’t be left here forever! She screamed silently.
“We’re going to be leaving Kera, we’re seeing if Sarila is still close by. We think they might be, we still have their things so they’re bound to come back eventually.” Adelle said her voice fading.
Kera began to freak out; she didn’t know how they could use a spell like this on her without even asking! As Kera lay there her mind buzzing she realized something, Adelle had said that she shouldn’t feel any pain because she was disconnected from her body, but a part of her still was. Her throat was bothering her, it was sore and dry she could feel it, so did that mean she had a chance? She began focusing on the pain, trying to pull it closer to herself, not feeling anything was much worse than the pain, she wasn’t going to live the rest of her life this way, she was going to get through it.
“What’s going on…?” Kera heard Petula’s voice ask sleepily. “Where am I…?”
Kera tried to make some noise, but nothing would come out, she couldn’t even manage a groan now.
“Kera…? Are you okay?” Petula gasped, “Who cast that spell on you, they practically paralyzed you!” Kera heard her urgently muttering some counter spell and a few seconds later the blank whiteness of the spell protecting her from the pain shattered. The protection from the pain was gone, so the pain came flooding back, but Kera gladly welcomed it, she was relieved to feel again. Kera opened her eyes blearily, clutching her abdomen where the biggest source of the pain was. “Hey…Petula…” She grunted.
Petula stared at her startled, “What happened to you?”
Kera smiled grimly, “Nothing too big, I’ll be fine…”
“You don’t look or sound like you believe that.” Petula looked around, “Where did Devlin go?”
Kera dug her fingernails into her hands trying to ignore the pain as it began to get worse. “He went to find…” she coughed, her throat sore and dry, “Sarila and Cavan…”
Petula took a better look at the forest around her, “They’re here? But why aren’t we with them?”
“You…” Kera flinched a wave of pain shooting into her head, “passed out before we left, and you just woke up…”
Kera watched as the memories came flooding back to Petula, “Oh…” her eyes became dull and lifeless, “I don’t know why they brought me along then….”
“Because….Devlin needs you….”
Petula stared at her, laughing hollowly, “Me? Devlin doesn’t need anyone, I don’t even think….” Petula’s voice trailed off and her eyes became blank and cloudy, milky whiteness invading the icy blue. “Sarila! I see her, she has a cat with her, and…” her voice suddenly became fearful and sympathetic, “Kera…she’s got your stone….” Petula’s eyes returned to normal, and she appraised Kera with worried eyes. “That pain is nothing! Kera what’s wrong with you!” Petula shouted, hurrying over.
Kera managed another small painful smile, “I’m…fine, really….”
“You’re not fine! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! This is bad, how long has she had it?”
Kera shrugged painfully, “I don’t know….”

Chapter 22 Sarila
When Sarila finally opened her eyes she saw that she was in the middle of some dry desert, the sound pounding its rays down on her. She looked around surprised; she had actually managed to cast the spell! Reciting the traveling spell had been completely instinctive, the words had come to her lips naturally and the hand movements had practically moved along to their own will. Sarila looked down at Cavan, still in cat form and realized that she was still holding him tightly to her chest, and carefully loosened her grip.
He stared up at her wide eyed, and meowed, but since she was no longer in cat form herself she couldn’t understand him. She shook her head, what were they going to do now? They were out in the middle of now where as far as she was concerned, and all of their things were back at that campsite, the most important thing back there being her mother’s spell book! Sarila knew that she would need that spell book it was her only way of keeping track of the people chasing after them.
Cavan meowed at her and she looked down, startled by the sudden blue glowing of her skin, it seemed that Kera’s stone was reacting to her. Sarila didn’t know why she’d taken the stone; it was yet another instinct in her that told her to take it. She had seen the stone and suddenly something took over drawing her irrevocably closer to Kera and the stone, Sarila had been gripped by an insatiable wanting of the stone. Yet, now that she had it, all she wanted to do was throw it away and never look at it again, but she knew that she had to hold onto it, and her keeping the stone would be important for something later.
Sarila was startled by the malicious happiness she felt by knowing that Kera’s separating from the stone was causing the girl great pain, she recalled her mother’s exact cruel words, “It’s very important to remember that the greatest weakness of the stone holders is their stone, if you can destroy it, they are powerless, and the pain will render them useless for the rest of their lives.”
Was that what Sarila was supposed to do with Kera’s stone? Despite her sudden hatred for the girl based on her actions back at the camp, Sarila couldn’t quite bring herself to inflict that kind of damage on her. Sarila was awakened from her thoughts by the sandpaper running across her fingers, she looked down and smiled at Cavan licking her fingers. She lifted him up and looked into his eyes, “We’ll figure out a way to get past this, I promise!”
He inclined his head towards hers and nudged her face with his nose as if to say, “I know, I believe in us.”
Sarila nodded slightly setting Cavan down to walk next to her, “First things first though, we need to find out where we are!”
As they walked Sarila wondered how she had managed to change back into human form, both she and Cavan had become cats at the same time, yet she had changed back first. Could it have been the contact with Kera’s stone that had reversed the spell? She wondered, she decided to test it by stopping to drape the chain around Cavan’s neck. When the stone touched his black fur it began glowing dully and a few seconds later there was a slight popping noise and Cavan was sprawled on the ground next to her. “Whoa…” she murmured, “It worked!”
“How did you know that would work?” He asked his eyes wide as they examined his human fingers.
Sarila shrugged stupefied, “I don’t know, I just remembered that when I touched the stone it changed me back…”
He smiled, standing up, “I’m not complaining, I’m just glad to be back in a form that I can carry you for a change!”
“That’s the only reason?” She teased, her eyes twinkling.
He smiled, “Would you like me to give you another good reason?” His eyes flared and bored into hers passionately.
She felt the heat rush to her face and she turned away from him walking down the path, “Well now that you’re back you can help me look for somewhere with people….”
She heard him chuckle behind her, “You’re going to ignore me? That’s almost depressing, but I know you’ll come back sometime….” His voice trailed off, but she knew exactly what he was talking about. She wasn’t going to admit it to him though….
Several hours later they came upon a tiny shack that was falling apart, but it was still like an oasis to dehydrated travelers. It was the only house around for as far as the eye could see, it was the only substantial thing around that they eye could see in fact. “Do you think someone’s there?” Cavan asked, it was the first words they had spoken since Sarila had refused to answer his question and his voice surprised her.
“I hope so…” she answered quietly, squinting ahead to see if she could see any signs of life in the house.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Cavan shrugged.
Sarila nodded silently and followed Cavan down the path; now that they were here she wasn’t so sure she trusted this place. It was giving her an eerie feeling of mistrust and she felt like she knew the place from something.
When they at last reached the house Cavan tentatively rapped on the door standing back a bit so the person inside could see them, and know that they meant no harm.
Several minutes passed and no on came, the house was silent of any noise. “Hello?” Cavan called. They waited again for a long time, but no answer came.
Sarila glanced at him and shrugged, extending her hand to check if the door was locked. It wasn’t so she gently pushed the door open, feeling the wind rush through as the room equalized in pressure with the outside. They tip-toed into the house looking around they were both on their guards with nervous apprehension. “Hello?” Cavan called again, his voice echoing around the house. No answering call came, so Sarila assumed no one was home.
“What should we do now?” She asked Cavan quietly.
He shook his head, “Something about this doesn’t feel right, we need to make sure with our own eyes that this house is empty.”
Sarila nodded in silent agreement, but she didn’t much feel like exploring this place…
“I’ll check downstairs,” Cavan spotted the stairs, “and you check upstairs okay? Call me if you see anything.”
“Okay…” Sarila managed in a small squeak. Breathing deeply she moved over to the stairs and sprinted up them, listening to the hollow thump of her shoes on the stairs.
The upstairs was quite small, only a tiny bathroom and two bedrooms. Sarila checked the bathroom first, but there wasn’t much in there, not even any visible soap or source of water. There was a tiny window up high above the tub and Sarila couldn’t see the point of it, it would be impossible to see out such a window, and it was much too tiny to climb in and out of if necessary. But, the hairs rising on the back of her neck Sarila knew she didn’t want to dawdle and investigate further so she moved on to the first of the two bedrooms. The first bedroom was almost barren, all it held was a beaten down wardrobe that was shorter than Sarila and barely half as wide as she was tall, a broken desk and chair, and a hay stuffed mattress, the window revealed sights of dry cracked ground. Somehow this clear showing of poverty struck chords in Sarila, she had never known people to have so little possessions and even the ones they had in such poor qualities. Sarila backed out of the room and carefully closed the door, even if this was the only house around for miles Sarila knew she didn’t want to stay.
The second bedroom was slightly more cheerful, and Sarila could tell that it had been owned by someone her age. Ragged clothes were strewn across the floor and various papers containing scrawled letters of anger at the absence of food were covering the desk. A tiny cot with a red wool blanket sat in the corner, the make-shift bed neat and tidy looking as if it hadn’t been slept in for weeks. Sarila found it odd that this room contained no window; it was just four blank wooden walls surrounding her, no paint or drawing to brighten it up.
“Sarila, did you find anything?” Cavan’s voice called up the stairs.
“Um…” Sarila took one last glance around the room, her eyes straying involuntarily to the bed, “No…nothing…” she then turned and left the room, running down the stairs too fast and tumbling down unexpectedly. Cavan, who had luckily been standing at the bottom of the stairs calling her, caught her easily.
“Careful, I don’t want you to get hurt,” he smiled compassionately, and Sarila felt unknown warmth surging through her.
“N-no…” she mumbled, avoiding his eyes, and instead distracting herself by looking around the room.
Cavan pressed his fingers to the bottom of her chin, prodding her face gently so that she would look at him. “What’s wrong? It’s something other than the house that’s scaring you…” his eyes bored into hers.
She tried to ignore the way her stomach began fluttering at his holding her and staring at her, “It’s nothing…I think I’m just tired is all….”
He frowned but seemed to believe her, “Well me too, we need to find some food, but we should probably rest a little for now….” He swiftly swept her legs out from under her and carried her easily over to a nearby tattered couch that wasn’t quite big enough for the two of them and sat down, setting Sarila in his lap. Sarila felt warmth surge to her face and looked ahead of her to keep Cavan from noticing.
This was stupid, why was she having such strong feelings about being in such close proximity with Cavan; there was no basis for it. She couldn’t remember ever having felt more embarrassed, and they were just sitting in the only way that would work on this couch. Yet, underneath her embarrassment she detected a small sense of glee at being able to sit this close to Cavan, and her heart fluttered.
After a while Sarila realized that Cavan’s breathing had slowed and become more relaxed, and when she turned around to look at him she saw that he had fallen asleep. He looked peaceful and happy as he slept, Sarila couldn’t fathom a reason to wake him up just so that they could leave to continue their doomed travels. So smiling to herself she turned slightly so that her side now rested against him, instead of her back and she leaned her head against his chest, settling herself into a position with her legs curled close to her chest that somehow felt right. Then, she closed her eyes and let the darkness of sleep take her as well.

When she woke Sarila felt so warm and comfortable, all her worries and fears were gone, and she felt only happiness. She almost didn’t want to open her eyes and let all the things chasing her come back to her present. But, her stomach growled vigorously, and she knew that eventually she was going to have to move to get food from somewhere. So, she slowly opened her eyes expecting the normal sunlight that she had gotten used to, to blind her, but there was no light, it was completely dark save for the tiny beams of moonlight showing through the edges of the curtain. Sarila then remembered that she and Cavan had fallen asleep in the strange, alienated home in the middle of the afternoon, had they really slept so long?
Sarila shifted a little and felt Cavan’s arm move slightly from where it had been resting around her waist, “Are you awake now?” He whispered.
“Yeah…” she answered quietly realizing that she felt so warm because she was so close to Cavan.
“Good, I didn’t figure you’d ever wake up, not that I hated waiting.”
Before, Sarila knew that she would have been embarrassed, but such was the situation that she only felt warmth from his words, and a new confidence in being happy in someone else’s presence. “What are we going to do now?” She asked, blinking in the darkness of the room.
“I’m not sure, I checked earlier, but there’s no food in this house, so we’re going to have to keep moving if we want to find any.” He said, confirming what Sarila had assumed.
“Yeah…we will….”
“Then let’s get going.” Cavan said, shifting to lift her out of his lap so they could leave.
“Wait,” she stopped him.
“What?” He asked confused, his eyes gleaming at her in the darkness.
“I want to stay like this for a little longer…” she smiled, snuggling her head closer to his chest. She felt the rumble of his chuckle before she heard it.
“Really, I never thought I’d hear you say that. Especially with how you’ve been acting the past couple of days….”
“Me either…but I think I’ve learned better…” she murmured.