Fan Fiction ❯ The Keeper of the Orbs ❯ Purpose ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter Four

Purpose

 

Please come back

To me

I can't live without

You to guide me

 

Come back

To me

And all will be right

With my empty world again

 

"Singing won't help." Sathin said simply.

 

Sala closed her eyes and tears slid past her dark eyes lashes. How could it not help her family, but it could help plants?! Why did it have to be this way?!

 

"You'll understand one day." Sathin said softly.

 

"Someone sent that dragon." Sala said, staring at the charred remains of her home.

 

Sathin nodded, unable to tell her anything to comfort her. He watched her sift through the debris. She couldn't mourn like she wanted. Their people were dying and his granddaughter was the only one who could save them. How could he convince her to do it?

Sala bent in the ashes and moved a chunk of burned oak out of her way. There was no way any of the instruments had survived. Nothing was left of her old life except ashes that the wind could and would carry to every part of Ravika. Sala looked up at her grandfather. He was staring at her in silence.

 

"Tell me who and why." she ordered.

 

"I don't know who, but I do know the why part." Sathin said. "The only clue that I have as to who could have done it that he is a Srakta. Shapeshifter. As to why, they stole the four Orbs from our village. It was said that if my people ever lost those Orbs, a horrible disease would spread and we would slowly die off.

 

"Whoever took the Orbs must know about you." he continued. "He knows that you are the only person who could ever find, retrieve, and reunite the Orbs as one."

 

The wolf woman nodded. "Anything else?" she asked.

 

Sathin nodded and pulled something out of his cloak. Sala rose out of her crouch and moved towards him. When she was close enough to see what he held she smiled slightly despite the grief eating at her innards. There, in his wrinkled palm, lay her very first instrument. It was a tiny reed flute that sounded like a phoenix's song.

 

"This is the root of your power." he said. "All mages have one. It is all a matter of finding out what that is."

 

Sala took it into her hand. She had made it to fit her hands when she got older and from the way her finger tips fit over the holes, she'd done very well of judging. Tears welled up in her eyes. Who would have thought that the one thing that she had excelled in all her life was the thing that held her root of magic.

 

"Now come." Sathin said, walking to the east.

 

"Where are we going?" Sala asked, breaking from her trance.

 

Sathin turned to smile at her. "Home." he said softly.

 

The young woman tossed one more glance at her home before following her grandfather. She tucked the flute into her pocket as she trotted after him. Despite all her agony, a tiny flame of happiness flickered to life. She would finally get to see her mother's home and the place of her origin. It would be like a homecoming for her.

 

For a fortnight they traveled through wild lands. They shifted from human to wolf as the lights of day shifted from light to dark. They slept from dawn to midday and hunted along the way. Finally, they came to the Draegan village.

 

Sala gazed at the huts. Some were in shambles and others were very well kept. The smell of death, decay, and burnt flesh. Her eyes and nose took it all in. This village and its people were dying. Sathin closed his eyes, taking in the scent of death around them.

 

This is what you'll fight to save." he said. "These people are your purpose for reclaiming the Orbs."

 

Sala's stomach twisted and bile rose in her throat. "Tell me what to do and I'll do all I can." she said, gulping down the vile mucus threatening to pass her lips.

 

"Follow me." Sathin said. "We'll talk in my hut. Where it's safe."

 

The wolf woman followed him. She forced herself to look at these people. They were what she would be fighting to save. They were her purpose for living. She had to fulfill what ever destiny had been set before her.