Chapter II : From Exile to Eternity
A nervous jolt rushed through Hero's body, her skin prickling with invisible barbs. In her ears, as they strained against the bonds of deaf dreaming, the whispers came to her. They were almost too soft for her to hear, laboring to break through the heavy veils of sleep that bound her. Still, the constant murmur, a choir of whispers, probed at her dreaming mind, thrusting through the layers of sleep to force through their message.
Wake up!
Hero Lansing's pale eyes burst open as she shot forward in her bed, her heart hammering to get out of her chest as her lungs screamed for air. Her vision blurred on the corners, darkening as if she would faint from the pressure of the furious blood shooting to her brain. All around her the other girls making the long voyage from Atticus to Eternity slept serenely. Not even one stirred in their innocent slumber. Hero brought a shaking hand to her brow, wiping away a cold sweat. She shook the wild crimson curls from her face, tucking the unruly strands of hair behind her ears. Only the creak of the ship's timbers and the soft huff of the girl's steady breathing could be heard around, and yet…
Hero shook her head again, rubbing at her eyes vigorously. It was silly to think she had heard anyone call to her, miles out to sea. And yet she could of sworn she'd heard a voice, a woman's voice calling to her, urging her to wake. The questions of who and what had stirred her so early in the morning and for what means sat heavily on Hero's young mind, unwilling to allow her to sink back into sleep. With a heavy sigh, the red haired teen tossed aside her bedding and started dressing as quietly as possible. The last thing she wanted this early in the day was to wake even one of her resting companions.
The upper decks of the Astolat were still fairly deserted as the first inklings of daybreak crept along the horizon. The upper crust of the sun hadn't even peeked over the horizon, but already Hero could see the crimson fringes of dawn. The teen smiled to herself, ambling across the deck on sea sturdy legs towards the forecastle.
"Ahoy!" a young sailor crowed, swing down a long line of rigging and dropping to the deck only feet from Hero. His feet touched down with boneless grace, a roughish grin plastered to his youthful face. Hero smiled sweetly to Sorley of Pearlscale. The copper headed youth ran a hand over his sparkling blue eyes, flicking the sweat from his brow.
"It will be a hot one aga'n," he drawled in the distinct tones of the Faerian, her father's tribe. Hero's own coppery locks and pale, pale eyes reflected the traits of her father's people, much like Sorley, but her ivory skin and slender, willowy form was that of her noble-blooded mother. Sorley's stocky, compact body and nutshell colored skin was all the set the two apart.
"Aye, I've heard Eternity's been under a hot spell for a month now," Hero replied easily in the twang common of the Faerian language. The Faerians were a sect outside of the Orion people that ruled Ends Land, Hero's homeland. It was uncommon for her to use the lower classed dialect, but it came to her as easily as her high-breed orations among her fellow noblewoman. Sorley's mischievous smile and faint nod seemed approving of the drop in formality. The young sailor looked eastward towards the white, glistening city the ship was sailing towards. Even in the near darkness it glowed with an inner luminescence reminiscent of a pearl. Eternity, the Pearl of Ends Land. A fitting name for the beautiful city.
Sorley jerked his chin towards Eternity as he gathered up a line of rope and coiled it aimlessly.
"A strange, foul mood been hov'ern over Eternity with the blast'd heat," Sorley murmured absently, his eyes glancing over Hero as if to see if she caught the coded message. Hero's red brows peaked slightly, her face remaining well masked as she leaned casually against the ship's rail.
"Oh? A bad heat tends to boil men's senses, makes them do funny things," Hero replied with the same undertone. Sorley snorted, shaking his coppery head.
"Watch your back, kid'ling," Sorley warned, using the Faerian's term of endearment to a child, "Many a feller's senses is corrupted on shore. Almost like the heat's a mag'iked evil." Sorley shot her a superstitious look from the corner of his cornflower blue eyes, but Hero ignored it.
Hero's eyes turned instead towards the thickening swath of bloody red light covering the eastern skyline. A dreadful feeling crept into her stomach as the crimson sun started to rise from the sea, painting everything it touched in shades of blood. Even the sparkling white spires of Eternity started to take on a bleeding sort of look as the first rays of dawn touched upon them. The city appeared to be showered in a battlefield's worth of gore and destruction. Sorley cursed quietly at her side and made a sign against evil over his chest. Hero felt her stomach sink lower as the wind stirred her bounty of scarlet locks, the whispering choiring in her ears again.
Danger…
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