They came to a stop shortly after as they entered a large cavern, and Jaden allowed the endobraces to go dim. The cavern was alight already, without need of his power. In the centre was the source of the light, glowing blue with silver sparks bouncing up and around from the floor, as if it were made of an icy lava. Jaden felt a shiver go down his spine even in the heat of the strange pool of blue. There was something not right about it. There was a mist that was familiar, but the sound was of something bubbling over fire, and despite his better judgement, he suddenly had the urge to walk into it and bathe.
Raquel knelt down and put her hands over the top of the substance, closing her eyes and it began to retract. It flowed back into the centre as if it were water, and then seeped into the ground until it was all gone, leaving the cavern in darkness.
Jaden ignited the endobraces again to see Raquel now standing where she had knelt.
‘What was that?’ he asked.
‘Something I do not understand,’ said Raquel, biting her lower lip and closing her eyes a little. ‘There is more the further north I go.’
‘You are following it?’
Raquel nodded slowly, and then asked herself, ‘Why is it coming back?’
She paced the room, studying the walls, the roof, and then the floor, which showed no sign of the blue substance or where it had gone. There was no hole or mark, as if it had simply vanished beneath the rock.
‘That was the power,’ said Jaden, knowing she was not going to volunteer the answers. ‘I could feel it.’
Raquel did not seem to hear him and she sat down where she was, in the same meditative pose she had first been in when they had met in the clearing. He joined her as the hours went by and noticed the rock had become freezing cold where it had been warm before. As he sat in silence, he wondered what Raquel was thinking. He had so far been unsuccessful in asking the right questions for her to tell him much about her. All that he thought he knew was that she was a woman who spent a lot of her time outdoors and did not seem to have a place she could call home. She had no friends or relatives, and she always seemed to be near him, no matter where he was, as if she were following him somehow, even though he couldn’t think how she knew where he would be.
She was on a mission of a sort, something to do with the power he had just witnessed seeping into the ground, and there was nothing that could deter her from it. She was not Daijuarn yet she did possess great abilities, but this was not the reason she had not cared for the Alliance being so near. To her, the lure of whatever calling she had was far greater than the wars of the nations. This much, he felt he truly understood about her, and it left him wanting to learn more, about her life and who she really was.
‘If you tell me, maybe I can help,’ Jaden offered.
Raquel opened her eyes to regard him in the little light he emitted from the endobraces. ‘How much will you learn?’ she asked, suddenly interested in him.
‘I want to learn everything,’ he said, doing his best to contain his enthusiasm.
‘How far will you walk before the end?’
‘I will go where I need to.’
Raquel stood up and made her way out of the cave as if that was all she had needed to hear. Jaden followed closely behind. Once outside, they saw a storm brewing over the mountains, the sky almost as dark as the cave had been but with lightning strikes crisscrossing it. There was thunder rumbling in the mountains and wind making the trees sway to the point of collapse with strong gusts. This storm was no ordinary storm, and Jaden was cautious in his steps.
Raquel led him to a cliff; there were trees far below and an open view of the mountains in the distance to the left, and the tip of the mountain that hosted this cliff was to their right.
‘The edge is never far from the path. Will you stay?’ she asked.
Jaden looked at Raquel, confused as she walked away from him before he could give his answer.
‘What can you feel?’ she asked.
Jaden closed his eyes, attempting to reach out into the world as he would reach into his own body to use the endobraces. He now knew what she was asking him to do. Whatever happened next, he knew it would be part of a test.
As his concentration intensified, Jaden began to feel all that was around him. There were animals everywhere in hiding; in the trees, under rocks and in the ground, but no humans aside from him and Raquel. The sky was alive with power as the storm approached, and he sensed that it would soon be raining upon him. He started to relay what he felt to Raquel.
She considered what he had to say, but did not seem to get the answer for which she had been hoping.
‘What of your life?’ she asked
Images from Callibra flashed by; of the waterfall he often sat near, of his mother helping Tommy, and then of the attack. He began to watch the bloodshed play out again, and the storm seemed to increase in its power with each Callibrian that he saw fall lifeless. Lightning was striking more often now, closer to him, and the wind seemed to threaten to push him backward and off the cliff. He stood as still as he could, attempting to grip into the land with no more than his feet. He then thought of how far he had travelled and the reason he had. He had been going to fight in the wars by joining the Resistance at Corsec. Then he had joined with the Daijuar, and now he was training to one day protect as they did. The two Daijuar, Adonis and Blair, had requested that he take a message to the great cities. His craft had been shot down, and now the journey that he had been assured would take no more than a few days was in its third week.