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I was definitely hallucinating.  Where had that voice come from?  I glanced around, but there was no one around me.  No human, and no mystic either.  Just black, black rock.  And the occasional streak of lava.  Was I missing something?

Just then, something touched my shoulder.  I jumped, glancing down at my shoulder.  There was a hand of rock sitting there.  I turned around in a hurry, finding myself staring up at a tall rock man.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  I wasn’t hallucinating.

“I see you’ve come for the rune,” the rock man said, motioning to my necklace.

I glanced down at it. “Oh.  Yes.  I have.”

“Very well.  Make it to the top of the volcano, and the rune I have is yours.”

This should’ve seemed like the simplest task yet, but I deflated at the thought of having to climb farther.  My brain already felt like it was melting in my skull.

“That’s what I have to do?” I asked, the question coming out more as a complaint.

“Yeah.  Would you like to climb to the bottom and try again tomorrow?”

I stared up at him. “No.”

“Great.  Start climbing, then.”

This seemed like a ridiculous task.  More ridiculous than staying with Fannar overnight in his cave.  I turned around and began my climb up the mountain again.  Really, it was mostly just walking uphill and dodging the few rocks that came flying, but I’d had quite enough of being on this volcano.  As I dragged my feet on this quest, I wondered if it was possible for me to roll back down the volcano.  That would certainly save my energy, right?

Each step felt heavier than the last, and the sun in the sky seemed to burn my skin for the first time in my life.  I was near giving up when a hand landed on my shoulder again.

“Watch out.  There’s a hole there.”

I glanced down, jumping back suddenly as I saw the hole I was standing in front of.  I’d made it to the top, and I’d nearly walked right into the volcano!  I turned around, and the rock man was standing there.  I wondered if he’d been following me this whole time.  If he had been, I definitely hadn’t noticed.

“Would you like the rune?”

I glanced down and noticed he was holding a red gem out to me.  I took it, placing it in my pendant with the rest of the runes.  This time as I set it there, I realized there was room for three more gems.  I pulled my map out hastily to check it.  There were three dots remaining on the map, but they were not in the places I’d expected them to be.  The dot that had followed me all through Alba was still in Eira.  The remaining two were on the east side of Maccoy and in the exact middle of the map.  Those hadn’t moved since the day I’d first looked at this map.  So, why had the dot in Eira moved and failed to follow me all the way to Kiran?

I looked up to ask the rock man, but he was gone.  I glanced around, and he was nowhere to be seen.  I sighed.  This question would go unanswered for now.

As I traveled back down the volcano, I realized that moving was a lot easier than it had been on my way up.  As a result, I was on solid ground a lot quicker than I’d anticipated.

I knew that back in Alba, the sun would already have disappeared over the horizon by now.  The Chandian sun liked to stick around for as long as it possibly could, but the Albian sun hadn’t.  I wandered to the village that was made of massive rock formations along the shore of Kiran.  I didn’t feel comfortable staying here for the night, but there was no way I’d make it to Maccoy before nightfall.

“Hey!  Blonde girl!  Come here!”

I glanced up to find an older woman waving to me.  She was seated by a fire, and her dark, wavy hair was the hair that I’d wished I had.  Now, I wasn’t so sure that was what I wanted anymore, but it didn’t stop her hair from reminding me of how I’d once wanted to look like her.  The woman looked nice, so I crossed the sand to greet her.

“Darling, are you the one who came with Blaze?”

I nodded. “That’s me.”

“Oh lovely!  Come, sit down!  I’m Kenna.”

“I’m Odelle.”

“Nice to meet you, Odelle.  I’ve never seen anyone climb the volcano quite like that.”

“Ah,” I breathed, unsure how to respond to that.  I wasn’t sure I could tell her what I’d been doing up there.

“Have you heard the tale of the ice country?” she asked lowly, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear what she was saying to me.

“I have,” I nodded. “What about it?”

“Well, My great-grandmother used to tell me the story of the united lands.  Her mother had always told her that we were not the only land, and that a curse had hit when she was young that had split the lands in two.”

I nodded again, unsure where she was going with this.

“Would you perhaps be trying to break that curse?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

“Well, you see, I’ve heard rumors that there was a prophesy once.  You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

I simply smiled at her, but I could tell that she saw straight through me.

“Those are some pretty gems in your necklace there,” she commented with a smile. “Anyway, are you staying with us for the night?  There generally is no one headed to the mainland at this hour, so you’d have to take a boat yourself if you wanted to go there.”

“I’m staying here,” I assured her. “I’m headed to Maccoy in the morning.”

Kenna smiled knowingly. “Your next quest?”

I nodded, finally giving in.

“You’ve met the magma creature today, then?”

“Sort of.”

“How is he?  He seems very closed off.  He doesn’t like people seeing him up there.”

“I think he’s very protective of the power he holds.”

She nodded. “It seems that way.  Still, I can’t imagine how it is to live in solitude.  I sure would be lonely living like that.”

“I suppose.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to her.  Even though she was far younger than Tae and Lumi were, the way she spoke made her seem far older than them.  In a way, the two of them were still the same young souls they’d always been, but Kenna was past her middle age years now.  That was something I was still trying to wrap my head around.  I’d die long before any of the royals even passed a quarter of their life.

Glancing at Kenna, I wondered if this had ever occurred to her.  Maybe not.  She seemed like a very stable person, and there was no reason for her to even consider this really.  She lived on this island and governed her people, and someday she’d leave them.  That was it.  Unlike her, I’d come to enjoy the company of those that would far outlive me.  In fact, they were few people I’d really felt connected to in my life.

“Would you like some fish?”

I smiled at Kenna, knocking myself out of my stupor. “Of course.”