✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALL THE SIGNS LEAD ME TO YOU

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

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RANDVI HAD DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE SAFER FOR ALL OF THEM TO CONTINUE THROUGH THE TREES RATHER THAN STICK TO THE ROAD. They were on the main pathway which shared routes from Gramaire, the Abbey, and into the Minotaur Mountains. Needless to say, the pathways they were following, was a dangerous route. It was a risk, but a risk they were all willing to take.

After Randvi and the group of Fauns she had managed to rescue, had gathered all they could salvage from the wreck of their trashed caravan. They couldn't hide the mess she had made, that was for certain but she could take whatever was useful, and lower the Paladin's supplies. It wasn't much but it was something.

They made sure to pack the leftover food that had not been scorched by Randvi's conjured fire. The fauns managed to salvage what they could through the wreck, and under the ashes were their bows. They were now ready in case they were attacked, along with Randvi's own magical powers, Eldan was sure they could take care of small parties of Paladin's. Randvi also got a sword but it was uncomfortable and unnatural in her hand. She had never carried one before but she supposed now would be a better time to learn than any.

"I have to admit, I have not seen any fey wield the powers that you command." Eldan glanced towards her. They had been traveling for more than two hours through the magical forest of overgrown trees, and moving flora, and Randvi was very quiet.

Randvi looked over her shoulder for a moment, her eyes glancing upon Eldan's wife traveling behind them. She had been helping the smaller child who Eldan had introduced her as Jun. She was a pretty girl with hair just as wild as her older sister, but her horns had not sprouted yet.

"I wish I could tell you this fascinating story of my powers but I'm afraid I was born this way." Randvi told him as she returned her gaze towards Eldan. Her hand lifted some vines out of the way, and she walked through them. "My mother used to tell me that I was the Hidden's chosen one; whatever that means."

Eldan nodded as she continued on explaining her magic. He had been curious about her, for he had seen no such thing as someone having purple eyes, and how they shone with white magic when she called upon the Hidden for their help in aiding.

"What about your parents?" Eldan questioned as she mentioned her mother but Randvi had been traveling alone, as far as he could tell.

"The Red Paladin's attacked our village at dawn..." Her voice became quiet as she looked down at the mossy pathway they had been following in the forest. She hadn't talked much about her parents and their death, perhaps it was because she didn't have anyone to talk with. She would have turned to Astrid for these things but she was gone too. "..They didn't make it."

She hadn't even had the time to properly grieve her losses. Randvi had been running ever since her village went up in flames. Whenever she did have the time, something would go wrong. Something would happen and she has to run again.

Eldan slowly removed his eyes off of Randvi's face as her eyes shined with tears, and her mouth curved downwards at the memory he had unintentionally put into her head. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Randvi turned her head to deliver him a weakened smile. She wanted to thank him for giving her his sympathies but the more she thought of it, the more she questioned how her life was before. She wondered if she would have ventured beyond her village walls if she wasn't forced. She wondered what her life would be like if her parents did survive: Would her mother still try to shelter her from the real world? Would she still have this distance in her relationship with her father? Randvi couldn't blame him for it, not really. Myror was one of the woodcutters for the village, and the man worked all hours, everyday.

She understood that he had demands, and he couldn't be there for her through everything. Now that she did have the time to stand back and understand things, Randvi wished she would have spent more time with her father.

But what could she do now? He was gone. They were all gone and she was alone in the world.

Eldan noticed she didn't say anything else and the conversation slowly started to dwindle as they continued to trek through the trees. Randvi's eyes studied the path forward, the fallen logs on the ground were starting to rot from the rain that had fallen a few days prior.

Her eyes lifted towards the horizon and that's when her gaze fell upon a strange vine, weaved together in an intricate symbol. Her lips parted slightly in realization when she recognized the symbol and the language it stood for.

"The symbols . ." Randvi muttered under her breath and picked up her pace through the forest, Eldan following closely behind her while waving towards his wife and children.

A swirl made out of vines weaved together to make the symbol inside of a circle that had a point at the top, and Randvi quickly studied them closely. "We have to go west," Randvi turned her face to glance at the family she had been accompanying when her eyes landed on another high in the tree. "There's another." she spoke and brushed past Eldan's wife and studied the next one.

This one was more complicated in design, the weaving done with a smaller branch that had tons of limbs, sprawled out in a swirl but the ends facing the same direction. ".. follow." she muttered out while gazing at the design.

She had studied these exact symbols and their meanings when she was a small girl. Her mother had taught her every symbol of old fey, and the language. Sora believed they were important to learn, always telling Randvi that she might need to understand them someday, and perhaps her mother was right. She did need them, in this exact moment.

Randvi reached into the tree to touch the symbol. The pad of her fingertips touched the branches lightly and her mouth parted as her magic sputtered like flint against steel. The tiny fey symbol caught fire and Randvi gasped out, pulling her hand away quickly.

She watched as the symbol turned to ash before her eyes, sadness overcoming her features as she was reminded how uncontrollable her magic could be. Eldan glanced at her but then turned his attention towards his hungry children.

"We're getting closer but night will be upon us before we know it." She pulled away from the trees, "How far is the sanctuary?" she questioned him as her hands crossed in front of her chest, a gesture to keep her hands away from anything that was flammable.

Eldan noticed her body getting smaller, as if to shield herself from the world. He didn't say anything, afraid she would shy away from him trying to comfort her. Instead, he looked up ahead. The trees were in his line of vision, like an umbrella of leaves protecting those below from the sun and sky. The peaks of the mountains could be seen through the trees, but he wasn't sure how much longer they had yet to trek.

The forest had inclines and even steeper drops, and taking children along was a task all on it's own. "It's hard to tell without a vantage point, perhaps half a day? Though, we wouldn't make it before dark."

Randvi nodded and looked around the forest. The pathway they were following just inside from the treeline was just a foot from where they were standing. They would have to venture further into the forest to set up a place to sleep, and prepare a fire to keep warm throughout the night, "We should find somewhere to set up camp."

He was about to agree with her when the sound of horses hooves hitting the dirt pathway entered his ears and made him pause. Randvi heard it as well but when she opened her mouth to question it, Eldan held up his finger, "Do you hear that?" he whispered towards her and Randvi turned her head to look towards the road.

She didn't see anything at first until they were right in front of them. Randvi's eyes widened as she reached out to grab Eldan's coat. "Get down!" She whispered, pulling on his arm.

Randvi couldn't breathe. It felt like her lungs were afraid to even attempt to suck in a breath, terrified that the sound of her breathing would be enough to give them away. Her shoulders hunched forward as the large carriage came into view. Dragged by two horses while two Paladin's protected the rear, and two more sat to steer.

"Papa, I'm scared." Over her shoulder one of Eldan's daughters, Aerilyn, spoke out in a high pitched voice. Randvi turned her head to glance back at the small child, her eyes softened as she saw the frightened look on the small girl's face. Eldan reached out to hold his daughter's hand and hushed her quietly.

"Let us pass, brothers." Randvi's heart rate increased as two more men on black steeds came from the opposite direction, and stopped in front of the wagon.

"Turn around." Another Paladin said with no emotion, as he stood in front of the pathway, blocking to wherever they were going. "We're to shut off the roads to Gramaire." he announced and Randvi looked back towards Eldan. "Orders of the Weeping Monk. Seems the Fire-Born Witch has been hiding at Yvoire Abbey, and she brought a friend."

Fire-Born Witch? Randvi didn't know any other fey species that commanded fire unless one of her kind had escaped. There was a probability that Astrid made it out of the slaughter alive, but it was slim. Could the Red Paladin's be speaking of her, calling her the Fire-born witch? She was rather confused about the nickname she had gained. None of the Paladin's had escaped her wrath, except for the man who had been wrapped into the vines from Nimue.

"Did they get her?"

"Not yet but she won't get far." The red brother spoke smugly, "They don't have the sword." The Paladin pulled out a large sword, the pummel decorated with ruins at the base as he uncovered the blade from it's burlap sack.

A dull ache in the back of Randvi's head began to throb as she stared ahead. She watched him pull something, and set it down beside him but the wagon prevented her from seeing the blade in the flesh. Randvi wanted to focus on what they were saying, but she couldn't with the whispering. She wondered if anyone else could hear it? It was awfully loud, she thought to herself.

The dull ache turned into a full out sharp throb, and a ringing sound started in her ears. Randvi leaned forward slightly while touching her temple with the pad of her finger. A pained groan erupted from her mouth as she tried to focus on the Paladin's but she couldn't hear anything with the sharp ring in her ears.

From beside her, Eldan began to see the white threads that grew on Randvi's skin before she even noticed they began their climb. It started with each fingertip, illuminating her temple with her white magic and then crawled it's way downwards to mark her body with pathways towards her sleeves and over the curve of her cheeks.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Eldan whispered towards her, trying to keep hush but the situation with her magic began to make him feel nervous. "You'll get us killed." He didn't mean to sound as harsh as he did, and Randvi didn't take it that way anyways, but his tone was more snappy.

Her eyes opened to reveal a blinding white where her usual purples eyes resided. Her teeth were clenched while her nails dug into the earth next to her knees. "I don't know what's happening." Randvi hissed out in pain while holding her head down towards her knees. "Can you hear the ringing?"

Eldan shook his head as his eyes never left the Paladin's in front of him, standing a few feet just ahead. He knew that just a slight use of magic, of Randvi's magic, would reveal their location to the Paladins. There were six of them standing in the pathway, and Eldan knew that Randvi wouldn't be able to fight them all off, even with his help, not without the cost of their lives.

Randvi began to focus more on her breathing than what the Red Paladin's were talking about. Her fingertips started to tingle as her magic came forth, the hidden whispering in her ears of words she could not understand. Her eyes fluttered close and without warning, she saw a glimpse of a sword. Blood was dripping from the tip of the blade and a hand holding a cloth, cleaning the evidence of bloodshed from the steel but it wouldn't take the stains from the hands who wielded it.

A glimpse of black, another of red. White hair and skin. Material descending from the skies, glistening like falling snow. A hand stretched out, shaking, bloody and bruised.

Randvi's eyes rapidly moved behind her closed lids and Eldan looked down at her, her raven locks bent down between her legs as she whimpered. Her fingers dug into the Earth below her, fingers bent unnaturally as vivid pictures of things she didn't understand flickered before her eyes.

The ringing began to finally dull into a more normal headache, something Randvi could continue with but the flip of her stomach caused bile to rise in her throat. When her eyes opened, Eldan noticed the dazed expression softening out her hardened features. The girl looked exhausted, not just mentally but physically as well.

"We'll bring it to Father Carden." Without the ringing in Randvi's head, it was easier to hear the Paladin's ahead as they continued to fight. "You stand in the road all night." The Paladin who spoke left nothing to be debated as he flicked the reins, hitting the horses on their rears to make them move forward.

Randvi's eyes moved towards Eldan with a frightened look on her features. There were now patrols on the roads where they were headed, ordered by the same man she had been running from. Randvi knew they wouldn't be able to stay close to the road from now on, in fear they would make too much noise and alert the paladin's right to them. Eldan sensed the same concerns as Randvi, and turned his attention to his wife's widened gaze, a hand clamped over her child's mouth out of fear of making the tiniest noise.

Eldan placed his finger on his lips, gesturing towards his children that they needed to remain quiet as they carefully moved through their hiding spot. Randvi kept her head low, creeping slowly away from the road and further up the same way the carriage was heading. They needed to cross the paths to head into the mountains and the pathway to their salvation just grew a little harder.

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THE GREY MONK had left the Abbey after finding no lingering signs of Fey. But he did manage to uproot the start of the problem before she had a chance to save more lives of those who couldn't be saved without the cleanse of the sword. Father Carden quickly ordered the removal of Abbess Nora with no hesitation, after learning from another that she had lied about having another girl in the Abbey.

The brunette haired girl, quick to bring the situation to the Weeping Monk's attention. He remembered the hatred in her gaze as she spoke about the new girl, Alice, and how she wasn't present when the alarms sounded. He remembered the look on Abbess Nora's face, the clench of her jaw and how her eyes fell with a silent plead.

The Monk had asked her questions but her answers were different than he had hoped for. He had questions about the girl, about the color of her eyes and he was slightly disappointed to learn that this... Alice did not have the striking purple eyes.

Regardless if the description of the fey matched the same woman from his nightmares, he had ordered the roads to be closed. He had set up patrols to survey the areas from Gramaire and the path leading towards the Abbey, and the Mountain.

The Red Paladin's worked on small illustrations of the fey women who managed to infect the Abbey with their sins, and the Monk asked them to be hung in every town, on every carcas they slayed on the way, and the trees. The cloaked monk looked down at his drawing, the details of the woman fresh in his mind. The shade of purple that colored her eyes were mesmerizing, the look of terror in her eyes that slowly turned into confusion as he loomed over her frame, trapped between him and the slab of rock underneath her.

The way her tiny hands fit over his neck, and the marks she had left on his skin that had not healed. He had hid them under his cloak, unable to stomach the look of them as he would remember the look in her eyes, the confidence. He should have known. He should have seen it coming but he was so caught up in her gaze that he didn't see.

The Weeping Monk swallowed the lump in his throat as he held on tighter to the reins attached to his horse, Goliath. He had left the Abbey with the task of finding the fire-born witch, the same witch who left her mark on his body. She had stained him that day with her touch, and he had tried to beat the stain out of his soul, but as he pleaded for mercy with his god - there was no answer. Only darkness. Only hums of the devil's work.

His mouth pursed as a small caravan approached his front, and his lips parted as he stopped his horse along the path. He couldn't see the driver's face from the distance but he saw the way his body tensed upward once he started to dismount Goliath.

His blue eyes glanced back towards the caravan as he walked his black horse towards the trees, tying the rope around one of the branches as his gaze flickered back and forth towards the wagon and the rope.

The Weeping Monk pulled back the cloth concealing the back of the wagon, six pairs of eyes stared back at him. Alarmed and afraid as the monk glanced upon the tusk. He paused for a moment before reaching his hand in and pulling the grey haired man out by force before thrusting his sword through his stomach. Screams filled the forest as the monk disposed of the fey smugglers, blood splattering over the scenery around him. The monk approached the driver who was on his knees, and begging for his life. "No! No!" he cried while the monk continued forward, each step more threatening than the last.

"Who runs the caravans?" he questioned as the man started scrambling backwards at the sight of blood dripping from the monk's sword.

The monk watched as the man's lip trembled as he choked out, "I don't know!"

His jaw clenched at the words of the Fey smuggler, his nostrils flaring out of annoyance. He was starting to waste the Weeping Monk's time, and everyone knew how that played out for those unlucky enough to cross his blade. His heavy boot pulled upwards and planted itself right onto the man's knee. A vile cracking sound filled the Monk's ears while he looked up at the sky, a wave of sickness coming up through his stomach at the man's bones breaking.

He looked back down, his eyes piercing through the smuggler's frame. "I'll ask you one more time: who runs the caravans?" His voice was stern, which made the driver look up from his broken leg, eyes full of tears as he breathed out his answer.

"His name is Dizier!" The man cries out, "He runs a wagon filled with leather goods!"

The Monk's eyes narrow down at him, studying his face if any hint of a lie would cross his features. When he didn't detect that he was lying, he questioned him once again. "And a woman: purple eyes.. Have you seen her?"

The man's eyes squinted in confusion, rapidly searching the monk's stone cold exterior as he waited. "I haven't seen anyone like that! Please, I've given you everything you asked for!" he cried.

He sucked his cheeks into his teeth before delivering the final blow at the sound of horses approaching his rear. "Please, Please! Have mercy on me!" The smuggler cried a final time before the Weeping Monk thrusted his sword up through his belly, coating his blade with more blood of the sinners.

He turned around after pulling a cloth tied around his sword belt, and cupped the blade into his palm. His eyes followed the movements of his hand, cleaning the blood off of his sword as he continued to walk towards the approaching brothers.

His eyes looked upwards as he stopped in front of them, "These caravans are run by a man named Dizier." His voice was low and quiet as he fed the brother the information, "Drives a wagon full of leather goods." He then gestures with a turn of his head, "Go."

He sheaths his blade inside his belt and continues to clean the blood off his fingers, trying to scrub them clean as Father Carden takes a look at the scene in front of him. "How many?" his voice is hoarse as he approaches his son.

The monk lifts his eyes, "Just one. A Tusk." the word lingers in his mouth as he continues to pick the blood out from underneath his fingernails.

Father Carden looks at the wagon, his voice sounding slightly displeased. "Still, another smuggler off the road."

"I found something else," the Monk spoke as he began to walk deeper in the forest. Father Carden wasted no time on following behind him as the monk approached a moss covered stone. "There in the trees . . and on the ground," he gestured towards the symbols hidden in plain sight.

The monk's eyes followed the swirls written on the ground. The dirt had been uprooted, as strange symbols made of branches had been woven in the trees. He stopped alongside one, reaching out to touch the singed branch with wonder in his blue eyes. "What are they?"

He didn't take his eyes off of the symbol that looked like it had been burnt by something, "Directions."

"To where?"

Father Carden watched with curious eyes as the monk touched the branch and his breath caught in his throat. He felt the tingles in his fingertips and quickly drew his hand back from the symbol before his hand could expose his true nature. "I only have pieces," he answered him quickly. "Somewhere North. Toward the Minotaur." He turned his head to gaze at Father Carden's aged face, "A sanctuary."

"The caravans, they move one, two at a time, but . . . this.." he gestured back towards the symbols. "This is where we'll find them all." The Weeping Monk looked back at the branches that had been touched by fire, and had been touched by her. 

A/N: Yes folks, it will be what you all have been waiting for. Randvi will be meeting Gawain and a certain someone next chapter. I'm VERY excited. It's about time I get over all these stalling chapters lmfao, but they were necessary for Randvi and for Lancelot. Very happy to finally get into the thick of the plot now.