27

Jason felt like his body was being stretched from eight different directions. It felt absolutely horrible; like his bones were breaking and reattaching themselves every second. It probably lasted for about five seconds but those were the most excruciatingly painful five seconds of his life.
He landed on his back in a grassy meadow and had to take some deep breaths to gather himself. His body was burning and his breath was short.
“What was that?” he wheezed, “That was absolutely awful.”
Through his hazy vision, he could see Jaye a short distance away leaning on his knees and gasping for air.
“I almost forgot how bad that is,” he said, gaining his breath back, “I didn’t even know she had the strength to do that.”
“She had the strength to do what?” Jason asked, feeling a little bit better.
“Teleport.” Jaye answered, “It takes a whole lot of strength and magical energy to be able to teleport for the few who can.”
“Oh.” Jason replied.
He looked around and saw that they were now in some sort of meadow. If a meadow could be stripped of all life and made barren. The grass was an unhealthy yellow and the trees looked thin and estranged’ their braches were crooked and void of all leaves, except for one.
Wondering why one tree was looking much healthier than the others, he studied the tree better. And there, right at the root of the enormous tree, Jason saw Zema face down and she wasn’t moving.
As fast as he could scurry, he moved over to her and noticed that even the grass around the tree was a vibrant shade of green, stopping just where Zemar’s foot was. Jaye was already there, putting two fingers to the side of Zemar’s neck.
“She has a pulse. But I guess she’s very tired. I knew that teleportation would take a lot out of her,” Jaye said, “We will just have to wait for her to wake up before progressing forward. I know we are in Irewood but I don’t know exactly where so I'm going to scout a little bit to find our location.” James said.
He was about to leave the meadow and disappear into the darkness of other decrepit trees when Jason stopped him.
“Wait!”
Jaye turned and cocked and eyebrow in question.
“Zemar said the vegetation on Erogon was suffering, which I can clearly see. But how come this tree looks as healthy as ever?”
Jaye sighed but answered.
“Zemar is the true heir to the throne of Erogon,” he explained calmly, “the vegetation draws its life from her. The mere fact that she’s so close to that tree allows it to suck energy from her and be fruitful. If she leaves this meadow, the tree will go back to the way it was and everything will be like that until she is on the throne again.”
With that, he disappeared into the woods, leaving Jason alone with his thoughts and Zemar.

Jaye showed up again about an hour later but met Jason alone.
“Where’s Zemar?” he asked, panicked but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why he felt panicked for a woman who could probably take care of herself better than he ever could. Still, his protective instincts of his soul mate were sharply honed.
“Calm your tits. You’d know if she was in any danger, wouldn’t you?” Jason asked, getting the hang of thing in Erogon little by little, “she woke up and said she was going to get food for us. I tried to follow her but she said that if you got back and didn’t find any of us, you’d be a real bitch to deal with.”
Jason took crude satisfaction in the way Jaye glowered but decided to ask, “Where are we?”
“We are a safe distance away from The Capital to be tracked by scent but if we were discovered to be gone at the time we heard those footsteps, Firgewan will surely have sent his brutes to look for us.”
Jason felt something crawl up at his spine at the thought of the strange men handling him again. He wished they would get moving before Firgewan’s men had any chance to catch up with them. Luckily, Zemar decided to show up at that point holding several fish in a pouch made of some very large leaves.
“Jason, would you be so kind as to help me collect a few twigs? Everything here is so dry, I'm sure it will make for a good fire.” she said politely and Jason set about the small task.
Jaye watched Zemar bring out a small but wicked looking knife and started to remove the intestines of the three fat trout in her pouch. He found it amusing that only she could get fish so easily in a place void of animals and vegetation.
She looked well, he thought. Being outdoors was good for her and she seemed to look healthier by the minute, her dark skin was glowing and he could practically see the power that surrounded her. The stronger she got, the stronger he felt as well and he could feel her magic filling him. He continued regarding her with a small smile as she made a fire by setting ablaze the twigs Jason brought with the tips of her fingers, picked up the fish with telekinesis and started roasting the fish.
Contrary to what Zemar had earlier on told Firgewan, her powers were not limited by neither capacity nor ability. She had raw magic which meant she could turn her powers into anything she wished it to be; her powers were a lump and clay and she was the expert potter. Through their soul bond, Jaye also had a fraction of her raw power but his was limited in capacity and clumsy as he hadn’t learnt to master it yet and she sure as hell wasn’t going to teach him. Jaye also knew that Zemar had refused to tell Jason about her magic while they were in the cell in case Firgewan was somehow listening in on them.
“The smell of that fish is going to attract bandits, my queen,” he observed.
“Would you rather go hungry?” she snapped.
He stayed silent.
After a few seconds, she added quietly, “I’ve altered the winds. No smell will leave this place.”
He nodded, it had been silly of him to think she wouldn’t have considered a menial thing such as the smell of cooking fish. However, the fact that she had thought to explain herself to him made his heart rise.
“When do we start to assemble your court?” he asked while they ate the delicious fish.
“Tomorrow,” she replied immediately, “we cannot afford to lose any more time as it is.”
Sensible, thought Jaye.
“Whom do you plan to start with?” he asked.
He could tell he was pushing his luck with the questions by the way she looked at him but she answered anyway, “Barine. She is here in Irewood and she is alive so we will start with her.”
Jaye didn’t bother asking how his beloved knew that Barine was still alive. Zemar was one with life and nature itself. She was deftly attuned with every movement in the forest and the sun, moon and sky answered to her. It was truly remarkable.
Jason had no idea what they were talking about. All he knew was that they were going to start looking for someone named Barine tomorrow and she was part of Zemar’s queenly court.
With very little effort, Zemar made three beds out of soft leaves, grass and sticks that seemed to appear out of nowhere, along with blankets an small pillows made of intricately woven leaves. Jason didn’t realize how tired he was until he fell asleep staring at the back of Zemars head and wondering how it had all come to this.