I opened my eyes to the sound of the fire crackling outside and people chattering. I looked around to study my surroundings and found myself in a log cabin. 'When did she finish it?' I thought to myself.
I was laid on a cloak made from the bearskin with a pile of leaves under it to act as a cushion. I slowly sat up so as not to make any sound and tried remembering what happened. I remembered being hanged and feeling cold, then just darkness, until I woke up here.
I still felt cold, which was the most concerning thing. I looked at what I was wearing and didn't find much. My shirt and pants were gone, leaving me in just my underwear. I looked around for my clothes and couldn't find any of them.
Feeling cold, I got off the bear cloak to put it on. It went all the way down slightly below my waist, covering my but, and it had a hood made from the head of the bear. I was little bit warmer after putting it on, but still unbearably cold.
With the bear cloak now on I stepped outside towards the people talking by the fire, I saw my sister talking to the boy we had saved. She looked up and saw me, then started crying. She quickly got up and ran up to me and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.
I finally felt warm again when she hugged me, but just as quickly as I felt warm, I felt cold when she backed away from me. She took me by my hands and sat me down across from her and the boy by Earless.
"How long was i out?" I asked her, needing to know how much time had passed. She looked at me and said, "It's been six months." Hearing that number, my heart nearly stopped until I saw her lips curl upward into a smile, and she said, "Just kidding, it's only been six days." That was still a long amount of time but way better than six months.
I sighed and said to her, "You're such an ass," before breaking into a fit of laughter. As my sister and I laughed, the boy and Earless sat there, confused by our hysteria.
After I stopped laughing, I turned towards the boy and asked him, "So do mind telling me who I nearly die for?" He must have thought I was angry with him because he shrunk about twenty percent when I asked him who he was.
"Don't worry, he's not mad at you. That's just how he looks," Anna told him to calm down while it annoyed me. "What do you mean that's just how I look?" I asked her with my brow twitching in annoyance.
"I just mean that you have a bit of an angry face. Wouldn't it be nice if you smiled more?" she said smilingly at me. As we argued over my appearance, the boy spoke up, introducing himself.
"M-my n-name i-is L-l-loyd," he stammered, looking down at the ground, avoiding my eyes. "Calm down; I'm not going to hurt you. Don't be afraid, and tell me your name properly," I told him.
He looked up at me this time and confidently introduced himself to me. "My name is Lloyd, the smartest man you'll ever meet," he boasted.
"The smartest man? Can you prove it?" I asked him, now greatly intrigued by him. He turned towards Earless and began conversing with him with great ease. He then looked back at me, expecting that to impress me.
When we first met him, I already thought that he could greatly help us as a translator, so seeing him talk with Earless while impressive was something I expected him to be already able to do until Anna spoke up.
"Lloyd couldn't speak Earless's language when they first met." As those words left her mouth, I turned back towards Lloyd and found him smiling, proud of himself.
"What other languages can you speak?" I asked him. "I can speak the language of the travelers, empire, desert, sea, and now forest," he answered, making me wonder how many languages there were. "What other languages are there?" I asked him.
"I don't know, I've never heard of any other languages," he replied, stupifying me. He claimed to be the smartest man I'd ever meet, yet he didn't even know what other languages there were.
"What do you mean you've never heard of other languages?" I asked him. That reverted him to how he originally was: shy and nervous.
"T-the L-librarian t-taught m-me all t-that h-he k-knew," he stammered as he answered me. "B-but I c-could l-learn a-anything i-if y-you j-just g-gave m-me s-some t-time"
Lloyd continued to talk about what he could do and his strengths, desperately trying to convince me to let him stay. He seemed like a kid trying to convince his parents to let him keep a dog they found off the street, except he was the dog in this scenario.
As Lloyd continued freaking out, Earless spoke up and talked to him, grabbing his attention.
The last time I saw Earless, he looked a mess. Now, he was cleaned up. He wore clothes made of deer pelts from the deer he had caught. His skin was now clean, devoid of paint or dirt, and revealed to be a handsome tan color.
After Earless finished talking, Lloyd turned to me and said, "My name is Arild, and I am a member of the Athol of the Asar Forest. I apologize for attacking you and your sister. My comrades and I attacked you because we believed that you were night hunters, or as you call them, wraiths, because of your pale skin."
After hearing Lloyd, I looked towards Earless and saw him bowing his head to me. I told Lloyd to tell him, "I forgive you, and I think the best thing for all of us is a clean slate. I don't know if Anna has already told you, but you are free to go; you don't need to stay here or help us anymore if you don't want to."
Arild said, "I am grateful for your forgiveness, but I am obligated to help you now that you have the mark." That raised questions for me. I looked down at the mark on my chest and touched it. It felt ice cold, but I didn't feel anything else.
I still felt cold even with the bear cloak and fire before me. "What is this?" I asked Arild. "It is a qualification for the worthy; those who bear the mark have the right to venture to the heart of the forest," he said, thinking that was enough explanation for me.
"What do you mean 'venture to the heart of the forest'? What does that mean?" I asked him, now getting a little scared. "To be able to enter the heart of the forest is a great honor that few receive. It is an opportunity to better oneself; that is all I can say."
After he gave another vague answer, I asked the question I wanted to know. "Why do I feel so cold?" I asked him as we locked eyes. "Because you have tasted death and forgotten the taste of life. If you wish to change how you feel, then you must venture to the heart of the forest," he said while pointing in the direction I had to go.
As I looked in the direction that Arild pointed, I felt something pulling me in that direction. Before I knew it, I was walking in that direction until Anna stopped me and sat me back down.
"What is the heart of the forest?" I asked him while I kept looking in the direction where the heart of the forest was supposed to be. "I do not know; if you wish to know, you must see it yourself. I will assist you in whichever way you require," he answered while dedicating his services to me.
I couldn't live with this cold; it was strange. It wasn't cold like I was in a freezer or outside in the night breeze. It was like all the heat around me barely touched the surface of my being and reflected off of me.
"How long would it take to get there?" I asked Arild, now set on venturing to the heart of the forest to cure whatever this mark was doing to me. It will take multiple weeks, but it greatly depends on you how long it will take to get there," Arild said, explaining the journey's difficulties and dangers.
He told me that he had never been to the heart of the forest or anywhere near it. The forest had layers, with the wraiths existing only in the first outer layer, which was the first challenge.
You had to face all of the challenges the forest gave you to get to the heart of the forest. I asked him what the other ones were, and he said, "It is not for me to reveal the workings of this forest; you must prove yourself. If you fail to complete the challenges the forest gives you, you will not find what you are looking for when you arrive at the forest's heart."
That made me worried about the other challenges. "How many are there? Can you tell me that, at least?" I asked desperately for an answer.
He looked at me and said, "No one knows how many there are; you can know that there are at least three that I know of. The rest have been lost to time."
I looked at Anna to see what she thought of all this. "This is that big quest we were expecting when we got here, no, so why the hell not?" she said, smirking.
"Plus, I want to see what this heart of the forest is about; maybe we'll find something cool, like an overpowered weapon, along the way," she teased, hyping herself up for the adventure.
I looked to Lloyd to see how he felt about all this. He relied on us to protect and care for him, and heading deeper into the spooky forest seemed contradictory.
"My teacher told me that while I could learn almost everything I needed to know from books, there were things I wouldn't be able to learn in a library. I… I think this is one of those things," he said, scared of what might happen to him but hungry for knowledge beyond what the pages from books could tell him.
"Alright then, Arild, let's head into the forest's heart."
And with that, we prepared to venture into the forest's heart. Anna to fill her sense of adventure, Lloyd to satisfy his hunger for knowledge, Arild to fulfill his duty, and me to feel normal again and rid myself of this coldness in my heart.