Life From Ashes

Zayra’s POV

Zayra burst out of the tree line at a dead sprint. She let out a yell of triumph and a laugh as she slowed down and came to a stop, her boots skidding slightly in the dirt. Mila wasn’t far behind her, almost tripping as she realized at the last second that Zayra had stopped running. Mila stumbled forward a bit, catching her balance just in time.

Zayra’s green eyes scanned the town ahead of them, taking it all in from their vantage point. Her face lit up with a huge smile. They’d finally made it!

The town of Emberfall was just in front of them, its stone buildings and distant towers stretching out under the open sky. Zayra could feel her body start thrumming with excitement. The breeze picked up across the open field and threw wisps of her red hair into her face—strands that had come loose from their frantic race through the woods.

Mila adjusted the heavy straps of her backpack on her shoulders as she straightened up, moving forward a couple of steps to get a better view of the landscape.

The distant chatter of excitement from the people in town was already drifting up the path, and it was starting to leave Zayra restless. She unconsciously shifted from foot to foot on the dirt road, ready to leap forward into the commotion and explore.

Zayra suddenly went still as she reached into her small brown leather pouch hanging from her belt. There was just one thing currently holding her back from going into the town already.

She reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of weathered brown parchment.

The edges were worn, nearly frayed away from years of constant use, and the creases were soft and white.

Mila noticed the movement and gently grabbed Zayra’s arm to stop her.

“Please don’t,” Mila told her softly, as Zayra held it up higher, completely out of Mila’s reach.

Zayra stood on her tiptoes as Mila reached toward it, attempting to snatch it away. Zayra quickly swerved her body away with a laugh.

“But I wasn’t doing anything, though,” Zayra told her innocently, widening her eyes.

“But you were about to,” Mila argued back, continuing to reach up and try and get the parchment from Zayra’s grasp.

“I was only checking it! That’s all!” Zayra said as she quickly put the parchment between her lips to protect it and leapt onto a low tree branch hanging right above them. She hurriedly climbed up a few branches further from the ground, moving out of reach. She could practically see Mila putting her hands on her hips and glaring up at her through the green leaves.

“You’ve already checked it at least six times just this morning alone, Zayra! It’s barely hanging on by a thread as it is!” Mila pleaded, her voice echoing up into the canopy.

Zayra swung herself up and over one more branch for good measure and into a comfortable sitting position before proceeding to gently take the parchment from her lips.

“If we’re counting, then let’s at least be right about it. I’ve checked it seven times, Mila. Seven. And, of course, I know how fragile it is,” Zayra told her, not bothering to look down through the foliage to see if Mila was following her up the trunk.

She knew Mila wouldn’t.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t climb. She just wouldn’t.

Not since Zayra’s tenth birthday.

Their parents had taken them camping in a dense area of one of the nearby kingdom’s woods. They had never been to that particular forest before. Zayra had been so excited to see the hidden waterfall ahead of them somewhere down the trail that she had climbed all the way to the very top of a tall tree to see if she could see the water over the canopy.

Mila was still learning her earth skills back then, and she had tried to ask the tree for help getting herself up to the branches with Zayra. Somewhere along the line, though, the tree had misinterpreted the magic, or Mila had requested too much help from the roots, and Mila ended up literally being catapulted straight to the top of the tree.

She had then proceeded to hang onto the thick branch for dear life, terrified, and flatly refused to get down.

Their parents had tried everything to get her to climb down, shouting up instructions, until finally Zayra had gotten tired of waiting around. She had climbed down to Mila’s branch and given her a light push, fully knowing that their Papa would catch her at the bottom. He had the magical power to guide the breeze and wind, and there had been a very strong breeze blowing through the valley that day.

Of course, it just so happened that the exact moment Zayra had decided to do something to help her sister, the breeze had also decided it was time to stop blowing completely.

Needless to say, Mila had fallen a few terrifying feet through the air before the breeze picked back up, and their Papa was able to send up a gust to stop her momentum just before she reached the hard ground.

Zayra had felt terrible about it afterward and tried to explain that she was just trying to help and knew that Papa would catch her, but Mila had never forgotten the scare. To this day, she refused to climb trees under any circumstances.

Zayra looked down through the branches to see Mila’s green eyes staring right up at her. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest in defeat and annoyance, tapping her foot against the grass.

Zayra couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Mila looked just like their Mama when she did that.

They both had gotten their Mama’s striking green eyes, but while Zayra had her bright red hair, Mila had hair as black as night. They both had also inherited their Mama’s feminine, athletic build, strengthened by a life spent on the road. Though Zayra was slightly taller than Mila, getting that height from their Papa, whereas Mila was built more petite.

“Oh, go on then. Read it,” Mila told Zayra, stopping her foot tapping and sitting down in the soft grass instead. She threw her heavy backpack down beside her to wait Zayra out.

Zayra looked down at the parchment resting safely in her hands.

The handwriting on it was old.

Not ancient like a map scroll.

Just old enough to make her chest tighten with a sharp ache whenever she saw it.

Their Mama’s handwriting. It was careful and graceful, each curve of the letter lovingly written in dark ink.

Beside it were messier additions written in her Papa’s script. His writing was always just as quick as the rapid ideas that came to him, as if he was worried that if he didn’t write them down right that second, they would have never existed to begin with.

And scattered between their parents’ notes were little scribbled lines in Mila’s and Zayra’s messy handwriting from years ago.

Some items on the list had been heavily crossed out.

Some had little stars drawn beside them.

Some even had full arguments written next to them in the margins.

Absolutely not.

We are doing this one.

Papa said no.

Papa isn’t here to say no anymore.

That last one had been written by Zayra in a moment of stubbornness.

Mila had nearly killed her for writing it, of course, though they both knew the weight of it.

Zayra’s finger traced down the faded list, barely touching the paper as if she was scared it might just blow away or crumble in the autumn wind.

“There.” Zayra tapped the line gently as she beamed down through the leaves at Mila. “Attend the Autumn Rebirth Festival in Emberfall,” Zayra read aloud as she looked back at the ink line.

Mila smiled up at her with a sudden wave of fondness, the annoyance vanishing as she laid her cheek onto her knees and held them tightly to her chest.

“We made it,” Mila said in awe, her voice soft, speaking more to herself than to Zayra.

Zayra looked down at her from the perch.

“Of course we did,” she told Mila, a strong note of pride ringing in her voice.

Mila pushed herself up from the grass and looked up at her again. “You said that about the Moonlit Springs, though, too.”

“We made it there, didn’t we?” Zayra asked back with a mischievous grin pulling at her lips.

“After getting completely lost for a whole day!” Mila reminded her loudly, throwing her hands in the air with exasperation at the memory.

“Technically, we just discovered a different spring accidentally,” Zayra pointed out defensively as she carefully refolded the paper and put it securely back into her pouch.

“It had a bunch of frogs in it,” Mila told her, entirely unimpressed at the memory as Zayra dropped down from the tree branch and landed crouched in front of her.

“But they were very impressive frogs. Thank you,” Zayra told her with a smirk as she stood up and brushed the loose bark off her clothes.

“It was a swamp, Zayra,” Mila corrected her flatly.

Zayra laughed out loud at the look of pure disgust on Mila’s face.

“It still counts.”