As Iriel slowly opened her eyes, she felt her body shaking slightly and gently slamming against what felt like wood.
She carefully sat up, looking around her to see that she was surrounded by the wooden walls of the carriage.
Across from her, Aksa sat quietly, looking outside the small window as the carriage traveled along the rough dirt. Then, he caught a glimpse of her looking at him with her eyes still half closed. He turned his head to face her and said with a smile, "Good evening, Iriel."
"Uh, huh? Good evening," Iriel answered as she rubbed her eyes, still not fully awake. Then, her eyes opened wide before she grabbed her head and started breathing heavily, frantically looking around. "A-Aksa? Where is that guy? Please keep him away from me!" she uttered as a look of horror filled her face.
Aksa rushed to grab her hands, looking her straight in the eyes as he spoke, "Iriel, calm down! He's not here anymore. Everything is going to be okay."
A look of belief filled Iriel's eyes before they started tearing up. "T-that wasn't a dream?" she said with her lips shaking.
"Unfortunately, no," Aksa replied as he wiped the tears off of her eyes, "but it's gonna be fine now, okay?"
Iriel managed to give a slight nod before Aksa let go of her. He then went back to his seat and let her calm down for a little.
"I wonder if maybe I got more suspicious of his behaviour in the past, would any of this have been prevented?" Iriel muttered as she wiped her eyes with her palm.
"What happened had happened," Aksa quickly replied, "feeling guilty or regretful will only make you suffer more."
Iriel simply nodded before she asked, "Where are we now?"
"We are going back to take another road that Kael seems to be more confident in," Aksa explained, "He said that he didn't trust where that guy was leading us, and I don't really blame him."
For a few moments after that, they sat in silence. Then Iriel hesitated before she asked, "H-hey, Aksa. Can I ask a question?"
"Ah, yeah sure," Aksa replied as he looked at her in confusion.
"When you attacked that guy, your eyes were glowing with a bright golden light. Do you know why?" Iriel added.
"They were?" Aksa said as a look of shock and puzzlement filled his face, while Iriel nodded, but he quickly realized that Zephyr had something to do with it. He then stared at the carriage floor for a bit in silence, contemplating whether he should tell her the truth or not.
After thinking for a few seconds, Aksa realized that telling her might cause her even more trouble than what she is already experiencing, since Zephyr might drag her into his mess.
And he also didn't want to tell anyone at the moment since he himself didn't know the true identity of Zephyr and what he could possibly be capable of doing.
So, Aksa simply shook his head as he shrugged and said, "I don't know, really. All I was thinking about was getting his hands off you, so I didn't even notice it."
A wide smile crept up her face as she looked at him, then she lowered her gaze and mumbled, "Oh, I see..."
"Also, Iriel. I think you should, you know, cover up," Aksa added as he turned his head to look away with his cheeks turning slightly red.
Iriel looked at him in confusion for a moment before she lowered her head, only to see that the cloak covering her had fallen off her when she sat up, and her chest was completely showing.
Her face flushed bright red as she covered herself with one arm and quickly grabbed the cloak, then she mumbled under her breath as she turned her body away, "You could've said something earlier..."
"I did..."
"...Idiot"
***
After a few days of traveling, they finally reached the border of the crystal kin district, or at least what remained of it.
You see, the Crystal Kin district is separated from the human kin by a long and broad river that started forming only a hundred years ago, and to connect between the territories, long wooden bridges that stretched though the entire width of the river were built.
However, they all collapsed after blood moon shards started falling and the constant violent earthquakes started hitting the water, which only left them with one logical solution, and that is to follow along the river edge and hope that there was at least one bridge that was still holding together, otherwise, they would have to make waste so much time by going around the entire river.
"What are we going to do now?" Aksa asked as he approached Kael, who had hopped off the carriage before them and went to check one of the bridges.
"We can't cross the river swimming since it's quite long, and even if we could, I can't just abandon Feye here," Kael explained as he inspected one of the bridge poles that were now leaning to the sides, barely planted into the ground like they used to be.
"I also don't think any of the other bridges are still intact, so we don't have any way other than going around the entire river." He added.
"I don't think that's necessary," Iriel suddenly spoke up as she appeared from behind Aksa.
"What do you mean?" Aksa turned his head to look at her in confusion.
"There is a tunnel system that leads directly to the other side of that mountain there," Iriel explained as she pointed her finger at a long mountain range in the distance. "It's swarmed with abnormalities and mutants since it became a dungeon after the first apocalypse, though, so we're gonna have to move with caution."
"Oh, then it should be fine," Kael uttered as he looked at her in surprise, "why didn't you mention this earlier?"
"I assumed that you already knew about it since you were leading the way, so I stayed silent." Iriel replied, "Everybody from the crystal kin knows about it since it was used to transfer supplies three hundred years ago in the great war of dividance, so I assumed everyone else knew about it."
"No, I've never heard of it," Kael replied, "were your kind the ones that built it?"
"I'm not sure, actually," Iriel said as she rubbed her chin, "we were only taught about its existence, and I wasn't that much interested in it, so I didn't really research any more information about it.
"Hmmm. Well then, that doesn't really matter right now," Kael nodded slightly before heading back to the carriage. "Can you tell me where it is?"
"We're gonna have to go back inside the forest and head north from here," Iriel explained as she looked at the dense forest that stood behind them, or at least what remained of it, as some of the trees had collapsed and the others were barely holding to the ground.
"It should be easy to spot since the entrance is under a cliff," she added.
Kael simply nodded before he gestured for both of them to get inside the carriage.
Iriel then led them through the forest road until they reached the entrance that stood at the base of the cliff.
It was a large hole that was surrounded by an archway made of cracked stones, with moss growing and filling the cracks.
From the top of the arch, a shattered lantern was hanging, slightly swaying in the wind. It was obvious that it was meant to light the way inside, as no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't see anything inside since it was nothing but darkness.
"Is this it?" Kael turned to ask Iriel.
"Yes," She quickly nodded, "It hadn't been used for years, so proceed with caution."
"Well then, shall we go in?" Kael said as he looked at AKsa and Iriel, before they both nodded in unison. Quickly, Kael freed Feye from the carriage and grabbed her lead before stepping inside.