The sanguine sun was just rising up over the hills, bathing the frosted earth in soft sunlight. I found this rather aggravating. How could nature continue its course, oblivious to the harm that was about to come to it? But then I paused, and realized that I would not be as confident as I was now if it were not for the faith that the earth had in me.
My fingers tightened around the frozen, splintered wood fence. I would have liked to feel the roughness beneath my fingers. But, as it was, I still could not feel. My breath was just a cloud as I breathed out, and I was trying to restrain from shivering in the chilly, early morning. What was taking him so long? Surely when a sovereign lord commands you to meet him in an isolated cattle field interspersed with beds of weeds, you would assume he would be there waiting for you, not the other way around.
Just then, my thoughts were cut off as that familiar, ominous, thick fog began to unfold upon the summit. I felt completely inert now. My heartbeat began to hammer like the rapid pulse of a metronome.
The sun passed behind a dark cloud threatening to storm, and abruptly I was washed of all my audacity and poise. My last effort to save Diya was going to be a failure because of the omens that I believed in. Sunlight gone, warmth gone, fog approaching, confidence lost. I no longer felt displeased with my weakness. If I were to die, I wanted Diya to come with me.
And then, so swiftly, a ray of sunlight broke through the gray barrier and blinded me for half a second before retreating. This was a good omen. I knew it was.
Fortitude regained just as quickly as it had been lost, I stood up a little straighter and shoved my hands in my pockets.
That was when I realized that the tip was missing. I buried my hands deeper into the wool, searching for that (what I would have guessed it to be, since I could not feel) acute, cold metal tip. But it was not there. Goosebumps shot straight up on my arms, replacing the minuscule ones.
Did it fall out of my pocket when I was running? There was no other explanation. I solemnly remembered placing it in that pocket. There was no other place to put it. If the people of Caradoc glimpsed it in my hands, they would be sure to scratch my eyes out next. Having the inability to feel was bad enough, even if I had lost that sense doing something I regretted.
What would I tell Lord Cevero? I couldn't bear to imagine what he would do to me if he saw that I had lost the last piece of Curtana. The most powerful blade in all the world was blunt and useless for drawing blood of enemies without its tip. I had never questioned why he wanted the weapon. It was apparent that all men, whether righteous or evil-spirited, that this sword had its own execrable personality – a personality that drew matter over the mind and want over common sense. A personality that aroused a hungry desire for blood in the bearer.
No, there was no question why Lord Cevero wanted it. And I was impotent and timorous enough to agree to bring a malicious man to power to save Diya.
He was wearing a long, hooded traveling cloak that shadowed his piercing eyes. The fog swirled around him like snakes as he sauntered towards me, the trembling, cowardly man trying to save a woman who seemed unimportant in this situation. I would have given it to him. I would have. Was this another omen? Did a seraph from heaven rescue me from a life of guilt and remorse?
------This is not over. There is still more that I will post if you like it.---------
