Scars of Legends

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝑰 - 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅'𝒔 𝑩𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒔

The voices faded away as Des led Ismene through one of the windows. Ismene kept her hand on the hilt of her sword though, the people back there could've been distractions. A real ambush could've been waiting for them, hiding behind the treeline. One of her hands was in Des's even though she repeatedly told him he didn't need to drag her around. His hands were smooth and warm, different than her rough and calloused ones. It would've been more comforting if someone she knew was holding her hand. She wished it was her father holding her hand.

"Do you see anything?" Des asked, looking back at me.

"I'm not an eagle," Ismene answered, "I can't see every little thing Des."

Des rolled his eyes but didn't protest as she pulled him into the treelines right before whoever was chasing him ran by. She kept him against a tree trunk, covering his mouth with her hand in case he decided to say something snarky about the position she put him in. Most clients did that. Ismene could hear his hard breathing and watched as he started to fidget with his hands again, playing with the hilt of his dagger.

"Don't play with that," Ismene scolded him like a mother telling her son not to play with his food, "That's how a dagger ends up in your eye."

"You're a real ray of sunshine aren't you?" She heard Des mutter under his breath as she walked off.

She smirked, laughing as she looked over her shoulder to look at him, "You don't even know what a ray of sunshine looks like."

"I will when I get to the sword. We all will."

Ismene bit her tongue again and continued walking, "That's what they all thought. You're not the first 'prophecized' boy I've met. All of them end up dyin' sooner or later."

"Then they weren't the chosen ones. I am," He told her, causing her to laugh again.

"Quite full of yourself, aren't you? And the prophecy isn't a thing."

"So you believe in curses and not prophecies?"

Ismene froze for a second, her sword stopping mid-swing as it was about to cut through a few bushes, "What?"

Des grinned like he knew he caught her in some sort of lie, "Obviously, you don't believe in prophecies, and I doubt you believe in fairytales and myths either. Thyrialis is cursed, so how could the prophecy not exist? There's always good magic if there's bad magic."

Ismene took back everything she thought about the boy before, he wasn't an angel. She had only been with him for 20 minutes and she already wanted to run him through with her sword. He was asking a simple question, and there was logic behind the question. It made it worse that she knew exactly how the curse happened: her mother was the one who cast it.

She knew her dad was stretching the truth when he told her her mom disappeared. Kidnapped, murdered, or wandered away. He never specified it. Ismene saw her mother the night before. She saw her sneaking out of the house and followed her, she saw her hiding in the shadows, her cloak pulled tightly over her head so no one except her daughter could recognize her, and Ismene watched as her mother chanted, moved her hands, and her body like she was swaying with the trees, and then her mother ran into the forest, the fog hiding which path she took.

Ismene didn't know what happened at first, but the 7-year-old felt that something had changed. She only figured it out when the sun never rose again.

"You've read too many fairy tales," Ismene hissed out through her teeth, wearing a bitter smile, "where are we goin'?"

"The mountains. According the the prophecy," Des said, pulling out an old-looking piece of paper, "'𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒚𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉, 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒆𝒕, 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒍𝒔, 𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒌𝒚. 𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅, 𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒔, 𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒖𝒏𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒅.' That's where we'll find the poet."