Elijah and Isaac wasted no time in implementing their policies. 

The first change they made was to reveal Isaac's real identity. Isaac dropped his image as Nichols and came out as Isaac. The magical community under the Trinity Government fell into an uproar at this. But they couldn't do anything about it. We had won fair and square, as far they knew at least.

Now that the Dark side was in charge, there was a social upheaval. Witches and wizards that were previously imprisoned were now set free and were now able to wreak havoc on those that imprisoned them. A new judicial system was initiated, putting Gianna at the position of head judge. Anyone that worked in the Trinity Government that refused to turn over allegiance to Elijah was either imprisoned, tortured, or given the death sentence. Most people swore allegiance to Elijah out of fear of losing their lives or the lives of their families. The atmosphere was one of constant fear and paranoia and it was exactly what Elijah had wanted.

While Elijah put his elite inner circle in charge of the government, he sat back and watched from behind-the-scenes. I half expected Elijah to step in fully and take over, but the other half of me knew better. Elijah didn't have to be physically present in the government to have complete control over it. All of this was his doing. Isaac was only the physical representation of Elijah's power on the community. Elijah, for now, was winning.

The Order seemed to be quiet for the most part. I hadn't spoken to Trey again, but from what Elijah's intel had gathered, the Order was furious and they were cooking up a plan to take the government back from Elijah's firm grasp. As of now, they weren't doing anything about it. Elijah had put forth a policy that no large, organized groups could meet together. We were almost certain that the Order was disobeying this new law and Elijah's main focus was to find them when they were meeting and put an end to the Order once and for all. 

In the mean time, while Elijah was initiating these new policies, Gerrard and I were doing our own research. While Gerrard was busy doing tasks for Elijah, I took to going to the cabin behind Elijah's manor to read what my mother had left behind. I was trying to come up with a theory so that I had something to offer Mikael when I found him.

If I found him, that is.

Gerrard and I decided that our next stop would be the air nation in the mountains of Mongolia by the Gobi desert, since the Sultan said that that was the last place Mikael was seen. I was hoping that he was still there. For an old man, he really knew how to get around. 

Now that I knew that my mother's plan was to do a sacrifice, her research made a lot more sense. A lot of it was historical evidence of different sacrificial rituals. There were animal sacrifices, blood sacrifices, elemental sacrifices. I figured that my mother had tried each one since I found evidence of the rituals scattered all around the cabin. But clearly, none of them had worked. I poured through her books and her notes and came up with nothing new that my mother hadn't thought of.

What confused me about her research was this constant thread of the different elements and the parts of the Trinity. For some reason, she kept coming back to that. There had to be a reason that she was trying to tie in the elements of the Trinity and the elements themselves. I was almost certain that whatever solution that came out of putting those two parts together would lead me to the countercurse. It was important as ever for me to find Mikael now. He would have information about what exactly happened and what went wrong with my mother's plan.

Gerrard and I ended up staying at Elijah's place for a little less than a month. It gave us time to get our bearings together, do some work for Elijah, and figure out our plan from there on out. After a few weeks, though, I felt antsy and wanted to be on the move again. I didn't like being immobile for this long. It was mid-December and we needed to get moving. So when the first week of January rolled around, Gerrard and I packed up our things and we set out to our next destination: the mountains of Asia to find an air nation.

                                                                ~~~~~~~~~~~

"So let's Transport to the base of the mountains and then trek up until we find an air nation," Gerrard said.

"How will we know when we've found it? What if it's hidden like the Sylvanterra and Aghbad were?" I asked. 

"I guess we'll have to expect trouble again," Gerrard said.

"Let's just hope it's not as bad as Anokhan," I replied, thinking back to the torture we had gone through when we had first arrived at the fire nation a couple months ago.

After saying our goodbyes and concentrating on a particular location at the base of the mountains that was hidden by dense forest, we Transported. 

When we landed, the first thing we noticed was that it was bitterly cold. The second was that the trees were not, in fact, dense, but they were rather dried and old. the area we had transported into looked like the plains of Africa, except much, much colder. We pulled the jackets we had worn tightly around ourselves and then looked forward. In the distance, we could see the mountains, half hidden by a thick layer of clouds. 

"Ready for this?" Gerrard asked me as we gazed up at the mountains. I sighed, thinking about the long trek we had ahead of us.

"Ready," I said.

And with that, we started forward.

We walked in silence for some time, stumbling through the tall, dried grass, keeping our sights on the mountains ahead. We would occasionally speak up about how cold it was or how much longer it would take for us to reach the base of the mountain. But other than that, we were silent and lost in the thoughts of our own minds.

My mind was preoccupied, as it had been for the past few weeks, with thoughts of my mother. As I walked through the frigid, dry plains of the Gobi desert, I thought about whether my mother had made this trek, too. Had she walked the same path I was walking? Had her footsteps fallen on the earth that mine were now treading on? What state of mind must she have been in if she had walked here?

My mind kept drifting back to what Jeya had told me about my mother. She had suffered through 17 years of what must have been burning and agonizing pain to keep me alive and to watch me grow. Her love for me was so great that she endured through all of that hardship to make sure I grew up knowing my mother. If I failed to find the countercurse, would I be able to to endure as she had? I was strong, yes, but strength had nothing to do with it. My mother kept going because she knew my father loved her and she had me as a reason to continue living. She only gave up when it became too unbearable. Would my love for Trey be enough to keep me going if I failed? I was full of doubt and uncertainty, but one thing remained strong: that I needed to find this countercurse so that I wouldn't have to test the limits of my strength.

When we reached the base of the mountains, we decided to stop and rest for the night. It was already dark out and it was difficult to see. We decided to call an early night and then get up at the crack of dawn so that we could make significant progress up the mountain during the day. 

Gerrard and I silently set up camp. While he put up the tent and built the fire, I placed protective spells around us to keep us hidden and safe from an unwelcomed guests or beasts. We settled around the fire that Gerrard had conjured and I extracted some canned soup from the depths of my bag. I boiled it and we ate, silence still around us. 

"You ok?" Gerrard finally asked me as we cleaned our dishes and threw them back in my bag. 

"Why do you ask?" I replied. 

"You've been abnormally quiet this whole time," he said.

"So have you," I pointed out.

"I've only been quiet because you haven't said anything. What are you thinking about?" he asked. I shrugged, pulling up the flap to the tent. We both bounded inside and zipped up the flap to protect us from the bitter cold of the wind.

"My mother mostly. And Trey," I answered. "I keep thinking about what will happen if this whole thing fails. What if we don't find the countercurse? Then what will happen?" I asked.

"You need to stop thinking so negatively," Gerrard said, burrowing into his sleeping bag. I did the same, setting up my sleeping bag next to him.

"It's not thinking negatively. It's thinking about my options. My mother was strong enough to last 17 years to take care of me because she had the love of my father and a reason to live. What if Trey doesn't forgive me? What will I have to live for?" I asked. 

"If he loves you as much as you say he does, then that won't be a problem. You're his fiancee after all," Gerrard said. I sighed and stared up at the dark canvas of the tent.

"I've always wanted to have a family. I wanted to have one girl and one boy. And I wanted to live somewhere near a beach, where it's always warm. Maybe California or Italy, even. Then I would take my family to the beach every day and my children would love the water as much as I do. And we would be happy," I said, feeling the sting of tears at the corners of my eyes. "But now I don't know if I'll be able to have that happiness," I whispered. Gerrard reached out and took my hand in his, squeezing it tight.

"We're going to find the countercurse. Don't lose hope yet," he said. I squeezed his hand back and shifted so that my sleeping bag was closer to his. I was glad I had the comfort of a friend with me. I had no idea how I would have made it through this journey without Gerrard's presence. With these thoughts mixed with feelings of sadness and uncertainty, I felt sleep fall over me.

The next morning, we awoke early. The fire we had made had blown out during the night. As I restarted the fire and made a haphazard breakfast for us, Gerrard packed up the tent and the camp. We ate quickly and then took down the protection spells. Then, we were on our way again.

About an hour into our trek, I realized how out of shape I was. Despite the incredible amount of training that Anokhan had put me through, I had been sitting around lazily for the past month and a half at Elijah's manor. The most exercise I did was walking around the large manor. If I wanted to stay consistently strong, I had to keep up my endurance. I kept falling into the habit of training really hard and then becoming too lax. I needed o consistently keep up my training if I was going to be strong enough to break the curse on my elemental line and be strong enough to endure the pain of the Blood Oath curse.

"Can we stop?" I wheezed, grabbing a hold of a skinny tree branch, trying to catch my breath. Gerrard stopped and turned to look at me, a judgmental expression on his face. "Don't you dare say it," I threatened.

"Say what? That you need to man up?" Gerrard asked, a smirk on his face. I ripped off the skinny branch and threw it at him. He brushed it away with magic.

"This is a steep climb," I said.

"Well, we are climbing a mountain," he said sarcastically. 

"I don't appreciate your tone," I said. He chuckled and rolled his eyes at me. 

"I'm ready to keep going whenever you are," he said.

"How much further do we have?" I asked.

"I have no idea. I haven't sensed any traces of magical activity yet. My bet is that they're at the peak of one of these mountains," he said.

"How do we know we're climbing the right mountain?" I asked, standing up straight. My legs were already aching and my feet felt sore. The next day was not going to be a fun one.

"We don't. Let's just hope that we run into someone that can point us in the right direction," Gerrard said. I frowned and looked up. All I could see were tree canopies, but I knew that we were nowhere near the peak of the mountain. 

"Let's get going, then," I said, sighing.

"You sure?" Gerrard asked mockingly. I shot him a dark look and he laughed. Once again, we resumed our trek up.

As we ascended the mountain, the temperature began dropping more and more. Soon, I was able to see my own breath in front of my face. The air became thinner and my ears kept popping. The height became dizzying and my breaths became more shallow. Gerrard seemed to be suffering from the same issues. Now, it wasn't a matter of endurance, but rather, it was a matter of fighting the altitude change.

After another couple hours of climbing, we decided to stop and rest. We started a fire and made some food for us to eat. I warmed my frozen hands over the heat of the flames while Gerrard poured over the maps that we had brought along with us. 

"We're on this mountain," Gerrard said, pointing to a dot. "There's a flag here for an air nation, but the scaling isn't exact. So I'm not sure which peak it would be on," Gerrard said.

"What do you recommend we do?" I asked. 

"I think we should go into one of the settlements here and ask around," Gerrard said.

"We can't ask normal people about a magic nation..." I said. He gave me a look.

"I realize that. We can ask if they've heard of any strange happenings in the mountains. Chances are, they'd be due to magic. It's better than trying to climb every mountain peak in this range. We'd be here for a lifetime if we had to do that," Gerrard said. 

"This is true. I guess it's worth a shot," I said. "Now all we have to do is find a settlement."

With that plan in mind, we set off. Before, we had tried to avoid anywhere that we saw rising smoke, which indicated civilization. There were people living in the mountains, but we did our best to steer clear of them so as to minimize any trouble. But now, at the first sight of swirling smoke in the air, we began walking in that direction.

"Let's pretend we're journalists," I said to Gerrard as we walked through the sparse forest.

"What?" he asked.

"Journalists? You know, like news reporters. We could pretend we're a part of a documentary film that covers mythic legends in deserted regions of the world," I said.

"You're insane," he said.

"It's better than just prodding around! It'll be less suspicious this way," I replied. He frowned, thinking it over.

"How would we sell it, though?" he asked. 

"Let's just transfigure some equipment. Like a camera and a microphone. That's all we really need, right?" I suggested. "I can be the interviewer. You can be the camera guy," I said. Gerrard shook his head, muttering something about me being ridiculous. 

"It's a good idea. Quit being a baby," I said, rummaging through my bag. I extracted our phones, which we rarely used. I set them both on a nearby rock and concentrated. Then, using magic, I transformed one of the phones into a camera and one into a recording set, complete with a clip-on microphone and recorder. At least now we could pretend we were documentary producers. Gerrard shouldered the camera and we continued walking foward.

We walked for a couple more miles until we found traces of civilization.

We heard the sounds of children running around. We followed those sounds until we happened upon a small village of sorts. There were several log cabin houses scattered around in a circle. In the center of the circle was a sculpture of sorts, probably a god. Around this sculpture were several mini piles of wooden arranged in a circle, most likely to be lit by a fire. Currently, there was an elderly woman with slanted eyes and tanned skin wearing a thick woolen coat hanging feathered beads on one of the sculpture's arms. It seemed like she was praying.

Gerrard and I stopped by a group of older kids playing what looked like a spin on kickball. They were kicking a heavy looking leather ball and then instead of running to bases, they chased each other around. Gerrard went up to the oldest looking child, who looked to be about 12 or 13 years old. 

"Hello," Gerrard said. The child said something to his friends in a language we didn't understand.

" 'allo," the kid said with a slight accent.

"Do you speak English?" Gerrard asked. 

"Yes. I speak," the child replied with a nod. 

"I'm Caley. Me and my friend Gerrard here are making a documentary about the history of the beliefs in spirits. We were wondering if you could point us to the right person to talk to," I said, smiling kindly at the child to show that I meant no harm.

"What is spirits?" the kid asked.

"Spirits are kind of...kind of like ghosts. Like, the souls of the deceased. We were wondering if you've ever heard of any strange stories. It would really help with our documentary," I answered.

"Yes. I help," the kid said. He then took hold of my hand and began pulling me towards one of the smaller looking log cabins. The cabin he took us to had dream-catchers hanging from the windows and red markings on the door. There was a faint trail of smoke coming out of the chimney from the roof. Gerrard and I glanced at each other before knocking on the door. The kid didn't wait for an answer, though. Instead, he just pushed open the door and walked into the house, gesturing for us to follow him.

The inside of the house was small, as was expected. There was a bearskin rug on the ground a few feet in front of the door. Off to the side was a small table with two chairs and an empty clay mug. The house was very minimalist, with no dividing walls or hallways. Everything was in one room. There was a bed to one side, a kitchen to the other. A first, I thought there was no sign of life. But then I saw, sitting facing the window on the far wall, a person in a rocking chair. This person had an oversized leather coat on that was lined with fur. His face was aged and his eyes seemed distant. He was simply sitting and staring, completely unmoving.

The child spoke to the elderly man, gesturing towards us and explaining who we were in their language. The man simply stared. He had no response. The child then came up to us, nodded, and then brought us over to the man. Gerrard and I sat down by the man's feet, pretending to set up our fake equipment. When we told the child we were ready, the child again nodded and then pointed to the man. 

"This Master Monkh. He the oldest man here," the child said. 

"Ask him if he could tell us a little about this place," I asked the child. The child translated the question to the man, but he didn't respond. So the child answered for him.

"This village name is Khuiten Khenz. It means..ehm...Cold Fog. This name because at top mountain, there is khenz. Fog. It hard to see up there. Many people lost. People that come back become like this," the child explained, pointing to the man. I glanced at Gerrard.

"You said that many people get lost when they venture to the top of the mountain. Why does that happen?" I asked.

"They say it because the ghosts from soldiers live there. The ghosts show the battle to the people and the people either die or they go crazy," the child replied. 

"Soldiers?" I asked. I wasn't interested any more. Clearly the reason was because there was some sort of magical community that lived up there and they wiped the memories of anyone that trespassed clean so that they wouldn't remember anything. I recalled from my Spells class that one of the side-effects of memory erasing was dementia. But I wanted to hear the legend that the people came up with to explain this phenomena. It always interested me how non-Magia folk tried to come up with answers to things that were caused by magic.

"It go back to time of the dynasties. Many battle fought between China and the northern Mongols. One fought here and was bloody battle. They say the spirits of those soldiers still here," the child said.

"Do you believe that these people were possessed by these spirits?" I asked. The child glanced at the old man, as if asking for permission to speak. The man simply stared back at him. The child then nodded at the old man and then spoke to us.

"There was one many year ago. It was Master Monkh father. He possessed by demon and they pull it out, but his father die because the demon took all his life energy," the child replied. I furrowed my brow. Would the people of the air nation really drain someone of their energy resources enough to kill them? I glanced at Gerrard who seemed to be thinking the same thing. 

"So what happened to Master Monkh?" I asked.

"He go to get revenge for father. Went with prayer curses but it no work. He come back like this. He no speak. He no laugh. He no even blink. He barely live," the child responded. 

I pursed my lips wondering how brutal the treatment of these village people was. I couldn't believe that a nation would go to those kinds of lengths to ensure the safety of their own nation, but then cause so much harm to the people outside of it. It ignited a fear inside of me and part of me couldn't help but think that Elijah was doing the same thing. He, too, would torture anyone that didn't agree with him. He, too, disliked when people weren't loyal to him. He, too, despised the non-Magia folk. 

I thought that the air nation would be peaceful from what the Sultan had told us about them being a monk community. But perhaps they were more vicious than I thought.

After thanking the child and telling him that we got enough footage, he took us to eat something at his house. From there, we thanked the child and then went on our way.

It was time to go into the foggy area by the mountain tip. We had no idea what trouble we were getting ourselves into, but the risk was worth it if it brought be closer to finding Mikael and more importantly, to finding the countercurse.

_______________________________________________________

A/N: Sorry I took so long with this update. At least it was a long chapter! Next chapter will be the Air Nation. 

Like I said with every other chapter, PLEASE STOP TELLING ME TO UPDATE. It pisses me off. It no longer annoys me. It now angers me. I have a life. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my future. When I have time, I will update. If not, then be patient. You should honestly be thankful that I'm writing this story at all. I could have very well just given up on it and left it as is. But the fact that I'm sticking with the story means that I care enough to finish it. All I ask for is some patience. Real authors don't produce books within a week. They write when they are inspired and on their own time. You can't force these kinds of things. 

So I don't want any more comments on updating. And don't think that private messaging helps, either. I will ignore those comments and not respond. And in turn, I will take longer to update. Just because you can't be patient. 

For those of you that are supportive and patiently waiting, thank you. I know it's annoying waiting so long for updates, but I really appreciate that you understand that I need time. When I read your comments wishing me luck with my future, it makes me so happy. So thank you to all of you that leave those kind messages. 

Now that that's said, some food for thought...

What do you think Caley will find in the Air Nation? What will happen AFTER Caley visits the Air Nation? Do you think she'll find Mikael there?

Leave me a comment! And don't forget to vote!

XOXO