And so the story continues…
Day 51: Anna wondered if the protections covered that great a distance and why she hadn’t felt them before.
Anna wondered if the protections covered that great a distance and why she hadn’t felt them before. Anna thought about it as she walked, her steps feeling lighter and her mind somehow unburdened. ‘Maybe it is because I haven’t lifted the other spells.’
No matter what she told herself, Anna couldn’t let herself drop the extra spells. She knew that she would have to sooner or later, but for some reason it felt right to have them still on. Something inside told her to keep them.
‘I wonder if it is my wards working in response to the spells on the city.’ Anna wondered. It seemed likely that there would be other spells she didn’t know about as the details were deliberately obscured.
‘And it isn’t the first time my wards have acted oddly.’ Anna reminded herself. Realizing the wards she carried with her when she left could easily be traced, Anna let them fall. It was almost like losing a piece of herself as they were something she ware most of her life. When she was younger she wore the wards her parents placed on her. Then, when she was old enough to create and maintain her own wards, she built her own and wore them.
Shedding them was hard and even though it was necessary, she cried the night after she removed them. Without them, she felt vulnerable and exposed. Once she discovered her signature changed she created new wards that couldn’t be traced in the same way as her old ones. They not only used different ingredients and had a different signature, but she had to use a slightly different spell. Sometimes it behaved differently. She would feel the need to do something or to not do something. The impulse seemed to be a warning from her wards that something was needed. She was never able to get more details or to figure out if it was the slight shifting of the spell or the use of different ingredients or some combination of things that made her wards behave in this way. Anna did know that listening to them was always the right thing to do.
‘But I am out of the mountains and no longer feeling weighed down,’ Anna thought. She concentrated on how she felt about removing the extra spells she used in the city from her and found herself still reluctant to do so.
Anna shrugged and left the spells in place. At the moment the only thing they interfered with was the scrying. ‘And that will be of more benefit when I get closer to home.’
Anna continued on. The days bled into each other and Anna walked for as long as she could each day. She was out of the mountains now, but it felt like the cold was nipping at her heels as winter followed her back to the city. Anna found herself waking just as the first hint of dawn silvered the horizon and continuing on by moonlight. She was warmer when moving and the road was somewhat smoother. The moon was also brighter now and lit her way clearly.
She was walking by moonlight when she first saw the outline of the city in front of her. The taller of the walls and building rose above the tree line and she could see the man-made shapes against the sky. She had seen the city by moonlight before as she arrived in the city when it was dark. She marveled at the play of shields and protections shimmering in the night. As Anna looked at them now, she realized there were subtle differences between the city protections now and those she remembered.
Ten til Midnight 