Roun suddenly stopped.
"What is it, Roun?" I was shocked at the loudness of my voice. Roun was looking around worriedly, and he motioned for me to be quiet.
"Something is wrong..." he whispered. I glanced around the shadow-filled lane. Roun took my hand and we crossed the street. Roun kept his back to the wall and continued, cautiously, as I fearfully followed him.
We were opposite a dark alley when Roun stopped and suddenly stiffened. I gasped as a dark figure stepped out of the alley. Roun was ready with his dagger, but before he could do anything, the figure spoke.
"Zia..." Shadowed hands pushed back a hood, revealing a pale girl's face. "It's me." It was Epiphany. She had pulled on a huge dark cloak and had loosely tied back her hair. I was too shocked to move- I had thought that I would never see her again. I would have been happy had Roun not still held his dagger.
"What are you doing here?" Roun demanded.
"Coming with Zia," Epiphany answered curtly. "And you?"
"You can't come with Zia!!!"
"But I am."
"No, you are not! What can you do but get in the way?"
"I can do many things that you do not know of."
"Can you keep wild animals at bay? Do you know anything about surviving in the wilderness?"
"I am coming with Zia! I am all she needs."
"Peh! You'd just attract the attention of things that we do NOT want to attract."
"Nothing will stop me from helping Zia!!"
"I can try!" Roun menaced his dagger, and Epiphany took up a terrible stance that I had never seen before. They stared at each other, daring each other to step closer. The air between them shimmered with tension. I was afraid that one of the two would start something terrible, and so, I stepped between them. Everyone recoiled, as if I had snapped something. I took a quick breath, and began talking very quickly.
"Roun, Epiphany, wait!" I thought. I could not let them fight each other. "You can both come!! Who knows what we'll meet up ahead. You both want to come and help, right? The more help, the better!"
"She will get in the way!"
"He will be nothing but a hindrance!"
"How could she help?"
"I am all you need!"
"Please!" I cried out. I tried to sound authoritative. "I want you both to come. Stop arguing for once! Epiphany, you said yourself that we had no time to waste." My show at authority broke. "Please. I don't want trouble between you two."
Neither was satisfied, but Epiphany relaxed and Roun hid his dagger again. Epiphany took her pack out of the alley, pulled her hood up, and began walking.
"Come, Zia," she said. An icy tinge rang in her voice as she urged me forward. Roun ran to catch up, and we walked three abreast out of the town and into the country.
We walked through the countryside, wordlessly, until dawn, when I was so tired that we had to stop. We hid in a dense thicket, and I immediately fell asleep. I woke to Epiphany lightly shaking my shoulders. It was only mid-morning. We kept walking, through small towns and fields, eating from our packs when we had to, drinking from the streams when we came to them. Hardly anyone spoke, and when we did, it was to comment on the town we had passed through, or to discuss our route. Important things were never mentioned, and I did not think that they would be as long as Roun and Epiphany remained at odds. I was tired, sore, and feeling ill by evening, when we found shelter in a small stand of trees. Roun built a fire while Epiphany and I sat, our backs to a tree trunk. I fell half-asleep even before I had eaten.
Roun began speaking hesitantly. "I say, Epiphany..."
"Yes, Roun?" Epiphany's voice was still icy, one part of my mind heard and noticed, but I was too tired to care.
"If we're going to be traveling together, don't you think we could just make up and be more civil to each other? I know that I will never be your favorite person to have around, but I think that our silence is really affecting Zia." Roun waited for Epiphany's response.
Epiphany remained completely silent.
"Fine. If you want to be cold and unreasonable, I can hardly stop you." Roun angrily shoved a piece of wood in the fire, and then woke me and handed me a piece of bread. The three of us ate in silence.
The next day, the sky was a seamless grey blanket of clouds, and the weather grew horribly cold. No one talked, because we hid as deeply within our cloaks as possible. We had planned to reach the edge of civilization by noon, but I could not bring myself to walk quickly. No matter how many times Epiphany asked me to hurry, I could not break out of a slow trudge. We passed through a few villages and neared the edge of the wilds, that forbidden place about which everyone told the most frightening stories. Around mid-afternoon, we marched wordlessly into the edge of the forest.
I pulled out of my cloak for a moment. "Is it forest all the way?" As I spoke, my breath rose in white plumes.
"No," Epiphany answered in a puff of white. "Meadows too. Patchy."
Everyone retreated back into their cloaks. We ate while walking through the wilderness of wolves and ogres and huge wild cats, and did not stop until we found a stream near dusk. Even though I was exhausted, I took too long in falling asleep. Curled against Epiphany, as close to the fire as I dared, I could not escape the dark and cold.