Chapter 57 - The Long Road [2]

Of all the things Noah had been expecting, Liora's fib… whatever that was, was not high on the list.

Jaafa coming with Caina on the carriage was another. Noah hadn't even computed the mans appearance before he'd moved with Liora and Caina to collect the cherries from Serris. All of which had been collected in a dozen or so vine wicker baskets.

Serris had tried to speak with him but that flew right over his head, he was even pretty sure Liora and Caina had tried talking to him but his mind was stuck on autopilot only able to respond with 'yeah,' 'okay,' and 'really?'

To say Noah was an idiot, was something he was abundantly aware of himself.

It was only once they were getting settled in the carriage when Caina took seat on the drivers box with Jaafa and his blade that Noah started to lowly reboot. That of course lasted as long as a few moments when he saw Liora nestled against the opposite wall with the baskets off to the side just a bit deeper in like a barricade stopping anyone from getting to them.

A heartthrobbingly warm smile was plastered like a masterpiece painting gave her an almost ethereal appeal that only made her sparkle evermore in his eyes.

In the hours proceeding they'd travelled with clacking hooves echoing with gusts of wind. The odd whisperlike whimperings of women in his ears every now and then drew his gaze out the back curtain of the carriage to see ghostly forms just watching the carriage.

"Wind nymphs." Liora spoke startling Noah her direction. "They don't normally come out around here but they're also not very uncommon. I see the more often during storms when the winds are hard, that's the only real time they're dangerous as well."

"Right." Noah responded looking back to the nymph only to see it gone with the wind. "Do they normally whisper in peoples ears?" he asked.

Liora's brow perked then lowered when her head shook dismissevly, "In wind like this not really. Normally has to be quite breezy for that but I'm guessing this one is attracted to you."

"Attracted to me?"

He didn't like the sound of that.

"Mmm, it's said otherworlders tend to attract monsters to them because they've got some type of blessing by the demon god Typhania. Some type of eye mark somewhere on their bo-" her words halted on point and she stared daggers Noah's ways. Something had perked in her mind, a thought, a way to prove if Noah was truly an otherworld or not.

"You, Noah you don't have anything shaped like an eye on your body? Something like a birthmark?"

His head tilted with confusion, "an eye? No, not that I know of. Least, not anywhere I can see." Hand lifted he turned it over, scanning his pale complexion finding only the odd brown freckle lacing his gaunt digits.

"What about on your back?" a revelation blared loudly like a lions roar in her mind, if he had a mark… wouldn't that mean the church had seen it? "Noah turn around and take your shirt off!" she shot into a hastened crawl towards him.

"Huh?"

He was half tempted to say something and try to refuse the notion but from the imposing fire in her eyes he could only bow his head and accept her request. Sighing he slowly inched off the wall and turned his back to Liora and lifted up his shirt up to his shoulders. Not quite removing it as he saw no point to that.

Liora's piercing gaze scratched near physically against every inch of his back as she scanned from his lower back and up. Never once blinking until she saw it, three circles inside eachother connected by intricate archways finally ending in a slitted golden pupil.

Life drained from her face. She didn't want to believe it but how could she after seeing it in person? Typhania's mark, her accursed touch. Pressing two fingers against the mark Noah shivered from her cold fingertips. Rubbing it softly she tried to reason that it was fake, a falsity, something merely painted on but even as she rubbed harder, nothing changed. It was there, buried in his skin never to disappear. Find authorized novels in , faster updates, better experience, Please click #%5B2%5D_52235800896655592 for visiting.

Shrinking in her hand dropped and she slumped backwards.

"Can I drop my shirt now?"

"What? Yes, yes." Distraction evident in her tone.

Redressing himself and straightening his blouse Noah turned back to Liora and caught the true extent of her aghastment.

"Take it I've got the mark?"

Liora shook awake and weakly replied, "you do…" her throat rolled swallowing down a clump of saliva, "did… do you know if mother Camelia saw it?" her voice desperate and eyes pleading him to say no.

But, he couldn't lie and as his head shook, Liora's expression glazed with a dismayed blend of hopelessness and horror.

Then as suddenly as it appeared, she lunged for him. Her hands clasping his shoulder and eyes billowing wide to stare with the determination of a wolf into his own, "you have to be careful. If-if the wrong person see's that, I'm scared what will happen to you. If… if mother Camelia saw that and she knows what it means then paladins are going to come soon." Her jaw quivered as if she wanted to speak more, to fully convey her distraught yet nothing could show it more than the fear she showed.

While he may not know what these 'paladins' are, nor why Liora was fearful of them. He trusted her.

Restings his palms on her sides Noah trailed them higher up and soon gently held her own upper arms. "I understand, I may not know what these paladins are but I'll be careful from now on."

"We can never go to the church either again so-so you can't be purified so we have to find another way to purify you or you can just not have s.e.x with monsters anymore. Which knowing you you will, so-so-so we'll have to find anotherway." She rattled off without pause.

"Liora," realizing this Noah cupped her cheeks and forced her wandering eyes to still onto his. "Breath." She did, she her chest heaving and quailing as it came out. "It will be fine. I'm mostly not an idiot. I may have done stupid things before but I will refrain as much as I can. Okay?"

Quivering her gaze gradually stilled and her breathing softened. Bobbing her head she muttered, "yeah, yeah. I-I know you will. All the stupid things you've done have been for me. I know you wouldn't do it on your own."

A rough patch of turf bounced the carriage causing Liora to yelp and fall backwards out of Noah's hands and onto her bottom. Catching herself from falling completely over by reaching her hands back and propping herself on the wood.

As the carriage trembled further into the distance, crossing rough dirt pathways flattened by heavy use, they soon came to a steady stop by the side. The moon rising in the distance and the sun setting in the other. Night was quick to arrive after that. Jaafa was quick to collect a bundled tent and set it out with swift, experienced motions. A fire joining not long before where Liora was already field prepping a simple meal with help of Caina. Noah unable to do a thing but sit on the lip of the carriages backing and staring out over the darkening space surrounding them.

'Never thought I'd be scared of being outside.' Back on earth, back where the most dangerous thing you could experience in the dark forests surrounding his home was particularly ornery deer, things seemed so much easier. Now though, with knowledge of monsters, he couldn't even trust the creeping darkness.

In the flicker of the four oil based fire pits Jaafa had set up surrounding them, Noah could see them. They crept along the earth, squirming between the darkest portions where the flames couldn't lick, each drawing closer only to shrivel away when a gust spatter flames their way. The Almanac, the only one he'd brought with, it called them duskworms. A common, subterranean wormlike monster that burrowed free at night and with its many tentacles would seek out prey and ensnare them, dragging them back to its main body where it would sap them of ethos for all eternity. Finding them was a nigh impossible when they weren't hunting, even when they were, they could just as easily shrink back into the earth and dissipate from all existence like ghosts.

Common thought apparently told that they travelled with the night, roaming all of Minas living for all eternity within the confines of darkness seeking out men and woman to rip into another world to meet the queen of darkness, Mordi.

Other things Noah had spotted in his rudimentary scans of the surroundings were three feminine forms perched in a tree not far away. They sat shoulder to shoulder, hunched with their scaled, three taloned claws clasped around the tree limb. Wings that were their arms laced thickly with feaths and downy feathers coating most their upperlegs and lower bodies. Their eyes were beady, staring me down with dulcet, wanting red eyes. They were a type of bird monster, harpies I remembered them being called. The almanac I'd brought with only told me of a single harpy species and that most certainly was not those, though similar they seemed to be.

Sliding from the carriage Noah turned to Jaafa and the girls and began to walk towards them. Rustling of bushes drew his stride to a still his head turned to meet the feline eyes and features of a young girl. Her expression morphed with a Cheshire grin as she sat at the apex of the firepits just staring at Noah, yowling like a cat in heat as if to attract him towards her to feed her hungering belly with his s.e.m.e.n.

Noah of course spun and marched closer to Jaafa and his sword, putting as much distance as he could from those waiting harpies.