Daggers and Roses

Chapter 1



It had been a long, wet, and dreary day. Jay had been asked by Will to come to Werites Beacon for information. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the ducts were malfunctioning and now, to his greatest joy, a potential tsunami was falling from the sky. The weather was taking its toll and had hindered his journey greatly. He had been traveling most of the day and was just now reaching the Forest of No Return. This, for an average person, would have been making good progress. But to Jay, this was an insult to his skill. And now he would have to navigate through this damned labyrinth. Normally, he would have consulted a local and drawn out a map of the area. But unfortunately the only person he could call on with an intimate knowledge of the forest was someone whose name did not belong in the same sentence as the word knowledge. Stopping for a moment to reflect over his previous experiences through the forest, which were unfortunately many due to all the hunts Norma dragged him on in search for the Everlight, he reluctantly entered the forest. Most places Jay visited he could easily find his way around by the second time he passed. But the Forest of No Return still remained an enigma to the purple clad information dealer. Moments later, Jay realized the error of his ways. The forest was hard enough to navigate during the day, but practically impossible during the night. He turned to try to make out the way he came, but it was as if the forest had already swallowed any trace of his being there. ‘Well, looks like there’s no going back’ he thought to himself before continuing deeper into the forest. Occasionally he would get the feeling that he was being followed, but contributed it to paranoia. To tell the truth he was beginning to become scared. When he was around people he masked his emotions well. Even here alone and wet in the dark the only revealing factor would have been the increase of speed as he dashed from path to path, constantly searching for the way out of this forsaken forest. Finally he came across the remains of the bandit camp destroyed by Vaclav’s men. Taking shelter under one of the burnt houses that still stood; he curled himself tightly against a corner to try to get out of the rain. Thanks to the material his clothes were made of, he had kept from becoming excessively wet and remained somewhat warm. He let his hair out of the ponytail he normally kept at the side of his head and lay down against the wall, hoping that tomorrow would prove to be a better day.



Jay was awakened later only to find that the weather had not relented. As a matter of fact it seemed to worsen since he was last awake. Noticing that only a few hours had passed, he stiffened and examined his surroundings intently. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but normally he was a fairly heavy sleeper. Not in the sense as Senel does, but he normally didn’t wake up early without a reason. His grasp tightened around the concealed dagger. His body ached with the strain of his previous traveling. A full on confrontation with whatever awoke him was out of the question, and victory determined on being able to disable the target before it could reach him. He stumbled to his feet, stopping as he heard a rustling from the bushes not too far away. He turned his full attention to the source of the noise and prepared to strike whatever came next. The next moments were nothing more than a blur. A massive black Galf came barreling through the bushes. Jay threw a dagger, barely missing the beast’s throat and embedding itself into its front leg, but the beast was not fazed. Jay reached for a second knife but it was too late. The Galf pounced and Jay covered himself the best he could, but the finishing blow never came. He opened his eyes and the beast was now impaled on a large rock protruding from the ground less than a foot away from him. Possibly for the first time ever he was glad to hear the voice that accompanied that eres. “Guess that was pretty close, huh JJ?” He looked over to see none other than Norma Beatty. Normally he disliked being near the energetic woman, but this time he ran up and gave her a hug. Norma eyes wide from shock looked down at the mass of hair and arms that suddenly assaulted her before ruining the moment. “Aww, JJ! You look so cute like that! You should let your hair down more often.” Hearing this Jay backed off and quickly and tied his hair back up. ‘Killers are not…cute…’ he thought rolling the last word off as if it were poison. The laughter of another person not too far away from Norma followed and in that moment he wished that the Galf would have killed him. “What, no hug for your big brother?” Moses walked toward Jay with his arms stretched wide. “Get away from me, you’re going to make me vomit you oaf!” They all laughed for a moment before Norma interrupted again. “We should get outta here. Teach and the others are waiting for us. Lead the way Red!” she said, not waiting for a response from the two boys. The rest of the trip went by fairly peaceful aside from the occasional argument between Jay and Moses. By the time they exited the forest the ducts were working again and they made their way to the city.