"He is in a new confusion of his understanding;

I in a new understanding of my confusion."

- Robert Graves, "Broken Images"

*****

Songof the chapter: Whispers in the Dark by Skillet ( just check out the lyrics, it fits Casper PERFECT! :'))

Media: The attacking Decanate

*****

Chapter Twenty-Three: Distance Home

Cady didn't run. Instead, she charged at the beast.

Zoroth flared up within her at once, filling her with his presence.

"I thought you are still mad at me," she whispered, happy that Zoroth had emerged.

"I won't let you die, little one," he said.

As Cady merged with her Consort, Jasper was already giving the Decanate a lot of trouble. All seventy eight leaves of the tarot wove and slashed through the air with such ferocity, even the monster took several steps back. Limbs fell and regenerated. Jasper threw up his hands, sending all cards shooting into the air before it rained down.

The Decanate decided not to remain static as a huge target. It lowered its massive head and charged at Jasper with its fluted horns.

Cady extended her wings to their full length and took off, Celestial Blade at the ready.

The sharp blade designed to slay Decanates cut out a sizzling chunk of flesh from its side. Silver blood spurted everywhere as it roared in pain, its former target long forgotten.

Jasper regained his balance. "Cady, I thought I told you to run! You can't handle this beast!"

She ignored him. This was her chance to test out her training, to see if she could put them to practical use.

Zoroth's energy hummed through her. It was wild and uncontained, the power of the higher Decanates. She felt like she could conquer anything. Nothing would stand in her way.

She scanned the vicinity at low level, doing mental calculations of the shadows she could use.

Too tiny, she decided. Tree shadows won't do.

Cady grabbed the entire sheet of shadows beneath the mountains and tugged. The shadows stretched and moaned, unwilling to break free. Furious at their obstinacy, she gave them a greater pull.

But the shadows of the mountains were far too great and heavy for her. Zoroth screeched in protest as Cady strained her powers to its breaking point.

"Cady, this is too much for you. You're not trained enough."

Beads of sweat ran down her face. "I can do this! You have to believe me!"

"But now is not the time to experiment!" he roared back. "Use the lesser shadows!"

"CADY!"

Jasper's scream snapped Cady back into reality. She gasped as the great Decanate reared up before her, acidic spittle flying everywhere from its mouth. Jasper sent an entire armada of his cards flying toward the Decanate, but it was too late.

Hot pain blossomed from Cady's stomach as the Decanate slashed her with its long, jagged claws. Her screams went wild in her ears, as did Zoroth's. Something gold flashed by her sight and severed the claws from the Decanate's hand. She fell onto the ground with a horrible thump.

Dots swam before her vision. She tried to move, but each little movement she made sent horrible pain slicing through her. From her blurred vision, she saw golden lights dancing in front of her, lost in a rhapsody of battle.

When the last ounce of energy left her, Cady flopped to her side. Her eyes slammed shut and one final surge of agony shrieked through her body. Everything blacked out.

*****

Cady dreamed that she swam in a pool of blood. Boiling, sticky, suffocating.

The pain was the first thing that registered in her mind when she woke up. Her eyelids fluttered open, and the blurry image of Jasper sitting beside a small fire came into focus.

"Shhh," he silenced her when she tried to speak. "Don't say anything. You've very screwed up right now."

She ran her tongue over her parched lips. Cady tasted metal, coppery and weird--the taste of her own blood.

"What happened?" she croaked. "There was a Decanate..."

White hot pain laced through her, so much she thought her lower body was going to drop off.

"You've got some deep gashes in your stomach. I need you to cooperate as I clean and stitch it up," said Jasper.

Cady was nauseated. "Wait, what?"

She lowered her gaze to her abdomen, as much as her position would allow her. Jasper had flipped her to her side. Through watering eyes, she saw a mess of blood. The length of it travelled from her abdomen and up to her chest (which remained concealed under her torn shirt), a profusion of red staining the ivory white of her shirt. It looked horrible. Jasper's expression confirmed her doubts.

"This is very bad, is it?" she murmured.

He nodded. "I've got good and bad news. Good news is: I have an emergency first aid kit. Bad news is that the Decanate destroyed our camp along with a lot of our supplies when I took it down, including morphine."

Cady's blood ran cold, registering his words.

"You're going stitch me up...without pain killers?"

"I'll hurt like a mother. I'm not going to lie," he said.

"Can't you heal me with your Affinities?"

Jasper looked scandalized. "Are you kidding me? I'm a Physician, not a Healer. No, I can't glue flesh together unless it's some form of curse. Here, bite this."

He stuffed a piece of rag into Cady's mouth. It smelled noxious. She almost gagged.

"I'm going to clean your wounds. Don't worry, I will be as gentle as I can. Luckily for you, there is still some alcohol left."

He dripped some water onto her wounds, cleaning out the dirt and earth stuck to it. She cringed, but didn't move. Jasper then swabbed a clean piece of cloth with some alcohol and dabbed at injury. The agony was shattering. Cady wasn't even sure if she screamed, but she bit down on the cloth so hard, her teeth almost dislocated. Her breaths came in ragged and shallow, her entire body was drenched in blood and cold sweat.

She never knew so much pain to be possible...until now.

A few minutes dragged on like forever until Jasper finally finished cleaning the wound. She clawed at the earth, uprooting grass, trying to transfer some of her anguish to the ground.

She knew that it was only the first step. In the wilds and the mountains, there were no other medical supplies, as all theirs were crushed. Her wound needed to be stitched or else her guts would spill out.

"On the count of three, I will put in the first stitch. Bite down as hard as you can, scream, whatever, just don't move too much."

Cady did as she was told, and braced herself for the process.

Jasper inhaled, the needle poised and ready. His other hand rested on her shoulder, holding her down. "Hang in there, Cady," Jasper encouraged her.

"One, two, three."

She squeezed her eyes shut and Jasper ran the heated needle through her flesh.

The pain was exquisite. It rocketed off her scale of sense and threw her into the murky depths of nightmares and shock. She wasn't aware of her surroundings anymore, only the fierce and hungry torture brought by every stitch, dragging a thread through her flesh behind it.

She welcomed the darkness. It soothed her and took her away from the torment of pain.

*****

Cady woke up to the smiling morning sun. Her mind was mush as she tried recalling the past events. Fire, a needle, pain, a battle. She groaned.

A head poked through the patched up tent.

"Yana's pants! You're finally awake!"

Everything came back in a whirl of colors and sound.

"Jasper," she croaked. "How long was I out?"

"One day, you had a bad fever. I couldn't leave you."

He propped himself beside Cady and helped her sit up. Her stomach exploded into a whirl of pain, as did her head.

Jasper handed her a sheepskin bag. "Take it easy, I don't want to clean up your guts."

She grabbed the bag and tilted the contents into her mouth. The sweet water spilled over her mouth and drenched her clothes, but she didn't care. The liquid made her feel like a human again, but only quite.

Cady wiped her mouth and placed it aside. Her eyes fell onto her shirt. Much to her surprise, it was a new change, and her eyes swiveled to Jasper.

A faint red tinge spread out from his cheeks.

"I didn't see anything, I swear." He put up his hands. "I just bandaged you and changed you out of your bloody clothes."

She fanned the air, motioning to Jasper that he turn away, in which he did, eagerly and quickly.

Lifting the hem of her shirt, she noticed that the wound was covered by neatly wrapped bandages, pinned to her side. Her bra remained splotched with blood and untouched. He wasn't lying.

Cady dropped her shirt and poked Jasper at the back.

"Hey, thank you."

He turned around, using his feet to shuffle him from his original spot.

"Next time, silly Walker, don't bite off more than you can chew."

She felt her face burning, not from their intimacy, but from shame.

"I thought I could do it. I could feel such immense power inside me, from Zoroth, I thought I could just lift it..."

Jasper made an impatient sound. "Cady, even the most talented Walkers take years to move shadows that large. What makes you think you can weave that with so little practice?"

Hot tears welled up at the frames of her eyes. She fisted them out angrily.

"I'm sorry...I didn't know what came over me."

He patted her on the head. "Well, the worst is over. The only thing you need to worry about not spilling out your intestines. I'm not looking forward to patch you up again."

Cady agreed wholeheartedly. She certainly wasn't looking forward to being sewn up, alive, by Jasper again. Once was more than enough.

Glancing out at the dense woods, she found the question she had wanted to ask since she woke up.

"Jasper, you said there were no beasts in this area. But we got attacked by a monster Decanate on the very first night. Why?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What am I? A diary?"

Seeing that Cady wasn't the slightest bit amused, he dropped his crooked smile.

"Okay, okay. I don't know either. A whole flock of them passed by the other path early morning. It seems that the whole lot is heading toward some destination. We were unlucky to be spotted by a hungry one.

Cady's fingers ran over the cotton blanket Jasper had wrapped her in, feeling the silky smoothness of it. "What happened to the first one?"

"I injured it," he answered. "It turned and ran. But I am certain it died halfway in the woods. The wound I gave it is fatal."

Jasper sighed as he removed several objects from his knapsack: a map, some pens, a ball of string and some candy.

"How the hell did these get in here?" he muttered, kicking the candy aside. "I told the Feorh to pack me something writing utensils, and she gave me candy?"

Cady sniggered before doubling up. The pain increased ten-fold when laughing. She cursed.

Jasper looked impressed. "Your vocabulary of swear words is astounding, milady."

"Shut up," she snapped. "Can't you tell it hurts?"

He shrugged before fanning the map out in front of them.

Jasper circled a little area on the map of Esvanira. On the far north, was a large bowl of mountains which she recognized immediately as the Hall of Games. Where Jasper had marked, was some distance away from the Hall of Spirits, going down South, leading toward the Hall of Shadows.

"We're still a day away from the Hall of Shadows," he calculated. "But that is the approximate time if we are both in full health and riding the whole day. But with your condition, we can only push forward slowly."

Cady crawled forward, cautious not to rip any of her stitches open.

"How long will that take?"

"A few days. We would need to forage the wild for food, our supplies won't last long. I didn't plan for any delay, you see."

Cady slumped backwards, the thought of slow riding already made her exhausted.

Jasper stood up. "We can't go anywhere today. You need a full day's rest. I'll go keep watch in case another Decanate shows up."

She didn't know what impulse took over, Cady grabbed Jasper's hand as he took his leave.

"Don't go, stay with me."

"What, miss me already?"

"No!" Cady said. "Just...talk to me, distract me."

His eyes shimmered, the dark jewels indiscernible. Nevertheless, he sat down beside her.

"What do you want to talk about?"

She shoveled through her mind. This was her chance. She had always wanted to know more about Jasper, other than the facts she already knew: Walker mother, Oracle father, a child living alone in the Darkling Woods with a profound dislike for the Hall of Spirits. Cady discovered she hardly knew him at all.

"You," she said. "I want to learn about you."

Jasper threw back his head, a sigh escaping him. "There is nothing interesting about me."

Cady stared at him. "Oh yeah? There are plenty of things I don't know about you. I don't even know your favourite color! If you can drag me out on this mission for no apparent reason, I have the right to question you."

"White," Jasper said. "My favourite color is white."

She took some time to process the sudden information. "White, that's a beautiful color."

There was a faraway look in his eyes. No matter how much Cady would love to see what was going in his head, she couldn't.

"White is innocence, it's not a color. It remains pure, until you stain it with colors." Jasper hung his head. "Colors are poison, Cady. Once you taint innocence, you can't undo it."

"Let's talk about something happier." She tried to brighten the mood in the tent. "How about, your childhood?"

Jasper was baffled. "There's nothing happy about it either."

"Then tell me the happy stuff. I'm sure you must have some good memories to share."

"You're impossible." He stretched his feet and swept the map and its companions aside. "Alright, maybe I got a couple to spare."

She aimed a friendly punch in his arm. "I knew you wouldn't say no."

He rolled his eyes. "Shut up and listen before I change my mind."

Cady gathered her blankets and snuggled in, waiting for Jasper to start his story.

Jasper took in a deep breath of air, slowly and deliberately, as if the air was heavy metal and he, Atlas, shouldering the burden of it.

"When I was a child, the Hall of Shadows has not yet fallen. I was very young, but I still remember every detail of it. My Oracle father stayed with my mother in the Walker towns. There was a fountain in the middle of our town, a beautiful marble fountain where the Mother Star stood in the middle, pouring endless water from her carved vase. It was the rendezvous point where a lot of the kids would meet every morning."

There was a slight crack in Jasper's voice. He substituted it with a cough, but Cady still noticed it.

"We would play the entire morning, and often I would skip classes and get a beating when I got home. But that's the fun part. Rebelling adds a pinch of flavor to childhood, huh?"

"My house grew in the middle of an apple orchard. My father, like me, had an Affinity for plants. The apples he grew were the best in the town. I would spend my free time helping him harvest the apples. When he wasn't noticing, I would throw some to my friends hiding behind the great trunks, we would then sneak off and enjoy a free meal."

Cady felt tears prickling again. She blinked them away, praying that Jasper didn't see them.

He didn't, being too lost in an old memory.

"There's little Marie, and Luke. Both were such talented Walkers. They would play shadow catch with the apples while I would watch. It was so much fun, Cady."

She didn't want to break the spell of his story. She remained silent.

"When I was five, my dad decided to take me to visit his home town in the Hall of Spirits. I was ecstatic. I've never been to the Hall of Spirits. They told me it was full of Moonflowers, with little faeries peeking out from the windows. Believe it or not, I fell for all those stories. I kissed my mom goodbye, and bragged to all my friends about it. They were so jealous."

Jasper sniffed, hard, his eyes moist.

"That was the last time I ever saw them."

"Oh, Jasper." Cady pushed her blanket aside and wrapped her arms around Jasper's neck. He was shivering. She could tell that he was steeling himself against his emotions, trying very hard not to break down into tears, and the toll of it hammered against him.

No wonder he hated the Hall of Spirits. No wonder he despised Raphine Sanguinis with every inch of his mind and body. No wonder he was so cold toward Eli.

The Hall of Shadows was his home.

Jasper remained rigid, taking a good long moment before he finally returned the hug, being careful not to bump into Cady's wounds.

He then pushed Cady away, gently. He stared into her eyes, unblinking and unafraid. Cady gazed back, taking in the blackness of his eyes, the little mole that sat on his chin, the slight tilt of his mouth whenever he was smiling, the dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep; taking in everything that made him Jasper.

"This is why I took you with me, Cady," he said. "I'm taking you home."

*****

This was such a heartwarming chapter. Jasper is taking Cady home! :') I had so much fun and feels ( I was squeeing to myself the whole time) writing this. Many thanks to MissBookNut whom I kept on texting to get my medical facts right because she's an expert in first aid. 

We finally learned something about the not-so-mysterious-now Jasper! Any opinion changes on him? ( you guys bashed him so hard I cri) Love him so so much.

And for those wondering why I am not posting all the chapters in one go even when I have finished writing it is because I can't. I have to maintain my rankings with regular updates and not all in one go. <3

Chicken broth,

Stef