Faetality |✓|

Chapter Fourteen, Part Two - Blown Away

And as I turned in a slow one-eighty degree spin, I realized that indeed, we were surrounded. The eyes, creeping every closer and getting larger all the wall, formed a large, wide, perfectly circular bubble around us. And a bubble that was rapidly shrinking. 

"They aren't just gathering – they're closing in," Lana whispered, walking backwards and bumping into me in her fright.

"Slaughs create Plasmaliks and I have a feeling I know the one that these belong to. And he works for the Ice Queen, which means she probably sent them."

"But-but-but you can't die in the normal ways, and I'm an Innocent, so they can't really do anything... right?" Lana said. I turned to face her, ignoring the creeping eyes, and focusing instead on her own which had turned round and bright with fear.

"You're helping me which means you're helping Westley. Technically, you aren't innocent to them. And even though I can't die, I'm pretty sure I can still be eaten."

Lana paled, and immediately I regretted my tactless words.

"Hey, it's gonna be ok," I said, putting an arm on her shoulder. "Trust me. Westley's been teaching me a few things."

"I think I might puke,"

"Not yet. Here, hold this," I instructed and handed her my flashlight.

Not entirely fearless, I returned to our original spot on the path and took a very deep breath. Westley kept telling me the key to controlling my power lay within my undivided attention. And here I was with the chance to put his theory to the test.

I closed my eyes and thought only of the wind, of the feel of it against my skin, and through my hair. Slowly I raised my hands and the wind picked up, disturbing the trees and the debris of the forest floor.

"Ohmygosh! Tamsyn, is that you?" Lana called above the noise of the rising wind, bringing her hands to her face in an effort to keep her hair from her eyes.

I didn't answer, instead I grit my teeth, gathering more and more wind. I didn't feel one with the squalls, and neither did I feel in command of them. It was more like I called to them, and they answered, swirling about my mind as fiercely as they did the air around us.

Feeling confident with the air I'd gathered, I now imagined it forced outward, cutting through the trees like angry, invisible knives. Beside me I heard Lana's cry of surprise when it actually happened. The red eyes were blown back – far away into the distance, along with sticks and snow and dirt and what sounded like several small animals. And though there small, weak cries were pitiful and very much guilt-inspiring, I knew that it was a very small price to pay for having just saved our lives.

"Are you alright?" I said, turning to Lana once I was sure that not a pair of red eyes was left to be seen.

"Not even remotely," she replied in a croak of a voice. "Wow..." she said, looking around us in wide-eyed wonder. "That was..."

"Intense,"

Lana and I were standing alone in a clear, perfect ring of clear forest floor – except for trees and dirt, there was nothing at else at all. Everything else had been blown clean away.

*  *  *

            We could smell the fire before we actually saw it. The saccharine fragrance of burning logs and wood-smoke came wafting towards us through the trees, like invisible, beckoning hands that drew us forward. Once we broke into the clearing, the small tongues of red and orange flames we had seen flicking through the trees revealed itself to be a small bonfire, roaring within the center of an equally small clearing. And on the opposite side of the fire, familiar figures were illuminated by the firelight.