We made it to the town inn without very much trouble, yet the worry of those people was nabbing at the back of my head. Who were they, and why would they want Tareche? They didn't look like king's men, though they were very far away. I could easily tell they weren't wearing purple, the standard royal color. I had practised a bit more on my magic while no one was looking, but nothing really changed. Yet, I felt something, just, something was wrong, though, and that was what worried me the most. As I laid in by bed I thought about what was happening. I sank into the soft padding of the bed as sleep began to enthrall me.

I couldn't sleep for long, though because of a booming voice that suddenly came from outside. "Alexander Ravos! Come outside immediately!" It yelled. That definitely woke everyone up. I ran to the window and saw the same group of human men outside surrounding the door, almost ready to break in.

"Alexander, what's happening?" Talia asked, running over to the window.

"I wish I knew." After I finished, I saw the door of the inn below open, as a human came out and started arguing with the leader of whatever gang was down there. I looked back and saw Amy was tieing a rope from her pack onto a structural support in the middle of the room.

"Guys, come on, if we're going to do this, we need to do it quickly." We looked at her, as she through one end of the rope out the back window. "Come on! Hurry!" We ran towards the window and climbed out our 5th-floor window. I climbed all the way down, very afraid, but it was all good by the end. I looked up and Talia was still staring down out of the window. She looked terrified.

"Come on Talia! We have to hurry! You'll be fine!" I yelled up. She started climbing down the rope, very slowly. Not half way down, a blast shook the entire building. Talia clutched to the rope, but I could see the top of the rope was starting to fray. "Talia! The rope! It's slipping! Hurry!" Talia began climbing again, this time much faster. I looked over at Amy, and I could see her eyes were filled with fear. Another blast rang through the building. "Talia! Climb!" This time it was a mother yelling for her child. A final blast crashed and and ate the last thread holding the rope up. Talia started to freefall. Screaming, I saw her fall in seemingly slow motion, falling faster and faster, getting closer and closer to the ground.

"Talia!" Amanda yelled. I couldn't think of what to do, I couldn't think of what I could do. I closed my eyes, hoping that something would happen. Almost instinctively, I held my hands up and again, and, they suddenly felt cold. I opened my eyes and saw that a solid stream of blue, ice maybe, was flowing from my hands. It flowed up to the top of the rope and, as it touched, a solid block of ice formed, holding the rope halfway down the side of the building. Talia was clutching onto the rope as hard as she could but was seemingly fine.

I looked down at my hands again as they glowed, and, even though I was doing this for the past few hours, I still stood in wonder. Talia snapped me out of the trance, landing on the ground after climbing down herself.

"Oh, my goodness! I am never doing that again!" She yelled.

"Well, we can talk all about it later, but currently, we have to go, Now!" Amy yelled. I heard people going into the room we were just in, looking for us. One of them looked down the window and saw us. He shouted to other people in there and then boot stomps, lots of boot stomps.

"Run!" I yelled, and took off behind the building, through streets, dodging people as they were walking in the night. We turned corners, ran over cobblestones, but they were still, right on our tales. We turned a road, and we could see the forest on the outskirts, somewhere we see could definitely lose them when suddenly, I heard a scream. I looked back and saw Amy enveloped in a blue light, and floating 3 feet above the pavement.

"Well, you make it too easy to catch you." A figure appeared around the corner, wearing a red robe, yet one that looks like a normal villager would be wearing. It wasn't a royal design, it wasn't an army design, it wasn't even tax collector, it was just... normal. He had one hand up, glowing with the same blue light enveloping Amy. "Ok, I'm going to be brief, my name is Tarran and..."

I cut him off, "Skip to the important part, why are you stalking us?"

"Ooh, you're a feisty one!" He was smiling a sick, twisted smile. "Anyway, whoever here is doing magic, whoever is Alexander Ravos, hand em over to me and I'll let this poor, helpless woman go." He twisted his hand, turning Amanda on her side. I watched her as she struggled and winced with pain, though all of us knew there was nothing any of us could do. I saw his calm, smiling face wavering in the torchlight. The flinching uneasy light was making him seem no more evil than he actually was.

"No, Alexander, don't do it! I'm not worth it, run you fools, Run!" Amanda yelled desperately. I saw Talia eye me, thinking very hard.

"So, what will it be? Her or you?"

"Talia," I whispered, "we have to go, we have to leave." She stood still.

"Talia!" I saw his other hand turn glow blue, as one of the big cobblestones on the ground did the same, both staying very still.

"Talia, look at his hand," I whispered. She looked, then clenched her fists and closed her eyes. She stood there for a moment, then slowly turned around. Suddenly, she took off sprinting, me following close behind. I saw her look back at her mother, tears in her eyes. I looked back just as a stone went whizzing by my head.

"Get back here you punks!" he said, picking up more stones and tossing them our way. We dodged left, dodged right and kept running. We could see the tree line, not 10 feet in front of us. We'd be safe there. I pushed my legs as hard as they could, running faster and faster through the night.

After what felt like an eternity, we got there, the trees, but kept running. I heard rocks smashing against trees and dirt. I heard boot steps as they tried to get through the thick forest. We kept running, using our small agile bodies to our advantage and not theirs. After a while, the boot steps faded in the distance, until we could only hear them in our minds. We kept running until Talia tripped over a stone. I helped her up and saw tears strewn across her dirt covered face, but I knew they weren't from the fall.

"I can't believe she's gone." She sobbed between breaths. "It's, well, it's her! It's mom! She's all I have left!" She collapsed down on a rock, hands on her face. I sat beside her, putting my arm over her shoulder. "Talia," I said, my voice also cracking, "You know I'll always be there for you, no matter what." I felt a warmth on my face. I looked up and saw the sun coming up.

I looked behind me and saw a clearing on looking a lake. Talia looked, too, her view shrouded by tears. "It's beautiful." She forced, finally stopping crying, and indeed it was. There were purples and golds battling with the overpowering force of blue. There was a red stained battlefield in between, getting closer and closer to the distant horizon. Purple was the first to fall, it's lavender shades disappearing under the mountains that lied beyond the lake. Then gold, having no chance but blood staining the horizon as it sank lower and lower. As the blue took the entire sky, we stood and watched. Talia took a large breath in, then, buried her head in my shoulder, crying once again. I closed my eyes, hoping all the pain would go away with the warmth of day. We stood there for who can say how long, and you know, who cares?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After a while of sitting and staring into the rising sky, it started to rain, and we ran to seek shelter.

"Come on Az, we'd better get out of this rain quickly!" A small wooden lake house came into view as we rounded a bend.

"There! We can camp out in there!" We ran and swung the door open, revealing a nice little home, tables, chairs, cabinets, and even a fireplace. We ran inside and slammed the door behind us. As the rain pounded on the roof, we looked around and saw that there were some chairs knocked over, and there was water and hot chocolate in some knocked over cups. I even saw that one of the chairs was slightly charred.

"What happened here?" Talia asked, "It looks like a tornado went through here!" I went over to the fire place and put my hand on a coal.

"It's still warm, but It's been out for at least 12 hours." I creased my brow, very confused, but most confusing was the old, worn book that was laid out on the table. It was open to a page that had a picture of a leph stone on it! On the ground, I could see fragments of red crystals. I looked in the book and saw that a clip out, glued to the paper, was highlighted. It read:

A leph stone is a very common yet powerful tool. It allows you to store magical energy to use when you've depleted your supply or when you need to perform a task that requires more energy than you can build up. Everything has a certain resistance to energy. A leph stone has a very low resistance, which is why it's used so much. Yet, when something else like a regular rock has a very high resistance, which makes it almost impossible to infuse magic into. Theoretically, anything can become infused with magic with enough energy, yet leph stones will probably be the only thing you'll ever use.

Interesting I thought to myself, going into my pocket and feeling the cold stone inside of it. I flipped through the rest of the pages and saw it was almost like a diary. Suddenly, I thought I saw it glow for just a second. Then I blinked, and it was gone. I closed my eyes, feeling there being an answer to all this somewhere, and tried to fit all the pieces together, the war, the crystals, the magic, the Infusion, the book. It was all just too complex, too hard! I opened my eyes and looked around and saw Talia slumped in a chair by the unlit fireplace. I marked the page, closed the book, and put it in my pocket. I then walked over to Talia, she wasn't looking so good.

"How ya holding up, Tali?" I asked in a quiet, yet cheerful tone.

"I'm hoping, yet I'd be better if Mom was here," That was my Tali, always trying to stay optimistic, even in the worst of times. She was looking down at the floor, forehead on her arms. I could see her cold breath as it left her nose. I could see that they were very strong breaths. I saw her close her eyes again.

"It's okay Talia, we're gonna see her again, we're gonna get her back." I put a hand on her back.

"And what if we don't? What if he kills her?!"

"Then she wouldn't have died in vain, we'll defeat them because of what she did. She would be happy with just that."

"HAPPY? WHAT ARE YOU TO SAY ABOUT MY MOTHER? HAPPY THAT SHE DIED, HAPPY I AM GOING TO LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE KNOWING IT COULD HAVE BEEN ME INSTEAD OF HER!"

"Tali, I meant..." I got no chance to finish my sentence.

"AAHHGG!" she yelled as her hands went far apart and a hot ball of fire came flying out of each of them. The house was too wet for anything to catch fire right now, but it was really weird because the leph crystal should have run out by now, yet, I didn't think of that now, I couldn't.

Talia slumped back into her chair, crying once again. I sat down beside her and did the best I could to comfort her.

"Talia, we'll get her back, alive. I promise." She gave a fake, weary smile, then dug her face into my shoulder and kept crying. After a few minutes, we heard someone open the door, yet we couldn't see it because of a wall. We stood absolutely still. As he rounded the corner we saw he was a tall man, maybe 6 feet, wearing a brown smock. He looked at us.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" He yelled, "Get out! Now!" Wiping her tears off, Talia and I got up and started walking to the door, terrified. I saw him glance at the burn marks on the floor, where Talia had blasted.

"Wait a minute," he said, narrowing his eyes and putting up a hand. We froze sold, too afraid to move. He walked up to me and put a firm hand on my chest. The hand felt wet yet, warm at the same time. I looked down and it was subtly glowing. He raised his eyebrows, obviously very shocked, and almost as scared as we were.

"Wait, what? But... that's impossible!" I started walking around him slowly, hoping he would let us by but instead, he grabbed my arm with an iron grip, this time being very, very cold.

"Come with me, we have some... business to attend to."