Someone is in some deep shit, and it's not me for once.

I've been sitting on the top of Hollis Mountain for the entirety of the day. My soul is a cold empty thing that has no room for warmth, which is why the winter's mountain peak is of great comfort to me. Though it's a warmer winter than the previous years we've been here. I suppose that me being here so long, I finally absorbed some of its icy hell.

That's not the point though. The point is that I was laying in a foot of snow when I felt that something was off with two of my sisters. I've been waiting for another hour in the snow for someone to tell me that one of them is shit holed, but no one has, so it must not be that bad. Right?

Great. Now my mind is whirling and I have to get up and go check on everyone because I'm an overprotective hag. Typical.

Standing up, I don't bother dusting off the snow before misting into the mess hall. People are scattered amongst the tables, all smiling or laughing in one way or another. I ignore them and head for the meat whose scent has my stomach begging for its taste. It's easy for me to forget to eat, and I don't recall eating more than an apple this morning. Considering that I'm only on two shifts now, I have more free time than I can bear to take. It's exhausting.

I'm not made to be content with staying in my room for hours on end with nothing but my fingers to play with. Tanith has her paints and brushes to busy herself with, I have nothing. Nada. Zilch. I could train, but that requires energy in which I can't spare if I want to be helpful later on. I'd go down to Histra if I weren't nearly sure that I'd find some of the teenagers making their way into someone's bed and then have to put my own evening plans to rest to drag them back up here yet again. The little pains can have their fun for tonight.

After grabbing my food and filling three extra plates, I find a spot furthest from the crowd and silently summon my sisters.

No training. Come eat.

Within seconds Vanya and Mak are stacking their plates. Considering that they're the ones who do most of the hunting, I'm not going to stop them from taking more than their rations. It's first come first serve in this mountain, hence why everyone's here and taking whatever seconds they can sneak.

The sun is finishing its descent, so Kathika, Tsil, and Tanith should be misting in soon. The other three are already eating as they walk over to join me. It always amuses me how my sisters eat like ravenous pigs. They could care less if they spill half their plate on their clothes or if their face is covered in grease or sauce. They're the ones who wash their clothes and bathe themselves, so why should they care what others think?

"I'd complain about not training-" Inna says, swallowing her bite of potatoes. "-if I weren't still harboring the black and blue bruises that you gave me on my ribs."

"You could've very well blocked my fist," I reply, kicking Mak under the table because she kicked me first.

"Hey!" Dee screams when I accidentally kick her leg instead of Mak's.

"You're all children," Nilsa mutters.

"Says the one who argues like a toddler," Vanya retorts.

"I do not! Ro, tell her that I don't argue like a toddler." I give her a suggestive look, still fighting Mak beneath the table. "Okay, now I'm starting to hear it."

"So we're all hundred-year-old toddlers then?" I ask. Mak's foot connects with my shin and I hiss in pain.

"Sounds about right-"

Three dark veils of mist appear around us, ending all games and conversation.

There's that bad feeling again.

"What's going on?" I ask Tanith, Tsil, and Kathika. They all look at one another, likely trying to determine who has good news, and who has bad news.

"Nothing new with the Mater," Tsil reports first, happily accepting the plate I slide over to her. The other two take theirs I also filled just as greedily. "But the healer seems to be...improving."

That catches everyone's attention. "What do you mean?"

"Her skin is gaining color, she's not as tired as she should be, and her hands are still fractured but they seem to be slowly mending with what power she can spare on herself. She's somehow finding a way to gain energy."

"Could be that Xaxias is feeding her better to keep both girls alive," Inna suggests.

Tsil shakes her head. "I watched the guard outside her cell. No one's feeding her anything more than usual."

"I'll take a shift tomorrow and see what's going on," Mak offers, and I don't argue. Better we know if something is or isn't happening than to let it slide.

"What about you?" I ask Tanith nervously.

"Well," she plops down next to me, and I nearly hug her at the smile that also pops up on her face. "Darius and the others have finally figured out where she is and will reach Fernweh mid-afternoon."

"Oh thank the Gods – I was so close to death from the frustration." I glare at Dee, wondering how in ten hells she of all people was dying from the frustration of having to watch as they ran around like idiots. She can literally see the future, and yet she's frustrated.

"Anyways," I continue, "how did they figure it out?"

"Get this, one of the water wolves from the castle just appeared and told them where she was."

"And they couldn't do that earlier?" Mak relishes.

"I think they said that he said something about it being the right time."

"Well, that's bullshit." I turn to Kathika next, now annoyed with the good news. "How about you?"

"You remember that pirate lady from Fredal?" I nod. "Well, she showed up to the cabin in the woods with fifty men and women that now surround it."

Nilsa's whole body straightens so tight that she could be a bowstring. "Is she going to attack?"

"No – Oh, Gods no. She brought more food and supplies for them. She's an ally of the Rheasydia's, apparently."

"I can't wait to hear that story," Inna mumbles.

"It can wait for now," I declare, a plan already piecing itself together in my mind.

"Why?"

"Because now we have to figure out what our King's plan is, and then aid them without them knowing we're doing so. And if he doesn't make his move by her birthday, then we need to come up with a plan of our own on how we're going to get her back without dying."

*****

We're all in Tanith's room on her bed piled on top of each other like corpses in a mass burial. We came here after eating and Tanith saying that she needed my opinion on the mural she is currently doing. Everyone else ended up following since I canceled training.

Her bed is on the opposite wall now due to her painting the one she used to have it pushed against. I thought that she'd be painting another landscape like the other two, but it turns out this one is of the nine of us. Me front and center and four sisters lined up behind each of my shoulders. I tried telling her that I hated being in the middle, but she pointedly ignored me.

She painted us from the waist up, and everyone's face and clothing look all too real. If I weren't me and I wasn't staring at Tanith's view of me, then I would likely think that my eyes were really staring up at something in the distance while the others look in a different direction, and there are hidden things within our portraits that she's added to tell our story.

One object, one small tiny detail that most people would look over, telling each of our own individual stories. I've never been one for that arts – aside from that of fighting – but this makes me understand why she loves it so much.

One stroke can say a million words.

My object is the necklace I used to keep around my neck. It was my family's house symbol. A dreamcatcher with a wolf's paw in its center. It had nothing of much relation to our house name, my ancestors just really liked the design. Not necessarily a great story to tell when people ask about it.
She depicted it perfectly – so perfectly that I reached out to grab it thinking that it was real, only for my fingers to find the cold mountain wall.

I left that necklace buried with my sister. She wasn't a blood relative of any kind, just another girl who knew me so well that I wouldn't have to say a word for her to already be in the action of making me smile or doing exactly what I would do or wanted her to do. She could read my mind without the bond of the Ginerva running between us. I knew her entirety in return, and even now, looking at the hard to find face disguised in the light rays that Tanith put behind us, I dream of the future where we live long lives and die together. She was never more than a sister to me, but she's the last person I ever allowed myself to truly love.

Like our Mater Natura, she chose to give herself up to save the rest of us. The situation was much worse in the sense that we hadn't seen it coming, and the magic that was involved turned her to ash. We never found a body to bury, but I wasn't about to let that be the end of it.

There used to be ten of us in the Ginerva, and now that we're nine and knowing that we're not invincible, we cling to each other like leeches. Even apart we constantly check that we can still feel our bond humming through us.

No one else saw her face in the light of the painting, too engrossed in their portraits and the detailed work that Tanith spends months on to achieve, but I'm not about to point it out and make old memories and feelings reappear. It was highly unlikely that I'd miss the plates of her face, as I've got them embedded into my heart.

Serephina shifts, moving her head from resting on my stomach to now resting on my shoulder as we now all lay on the narrow bed and silently take in the painting as a whole. Her one shift causes everyone else to shift, and now I have her on my left shoulder, Mak on my stomach, Nilsa's legs tangled in mine, and Dee's head beside mine. Tanith has her head on Mak's stomach, her thigh being used as a pillow for Vanya's head. Tsil and Kathika are having their own cuddle party on the last corner of the bed, though they're still close to the rest of us.

People tend to think that we're all involved with each other with the way that we'll share one couch or one bed, but that's not it at all. Aside from Tsil and Kathika, we all have no sexual desire for one another – though sometimes I do question it. We're just really close, and physical contact doesn't bother us. It's like sharing a bed with your twin. We're nonuplets. In all honesty, we'll probably all fall asleep like this. Though Nilsa, Mak, and Inna will be leaving soon for their shifts.

I would've been raging right now in normal circumstances that they didn't leave right after eating, but with the fifty pirates around the cabin, the wolf with Darius, and our Queen not going anywhere, I'm giving my sisters some leeway on their shifts. Not to mention that the reinforcements will give us all a chance to save up energy for our time to strike.

"Is it just me or is something not quite right with the healer?"

"You already mentioned that she was getting food, Tsil," Mak says.

"No not that. I'm talking about how she feels."

I turn my head to try and look at her, but I don't see more than the top of her head."What do you mean?"

"Tsil isn't wrong," Kat agrees. "The healer feels...familiar. Like we've met before."

"Well considering that we've been in and out of that castle several times, I'd say it wouldn't be much of a surprise."

"No, it's not that..."

"Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe you're right. There's something off with her."

"You think there's something off with everyone, Nilsa," Inna points out.

"Think about it," Vanya continues, ignoring them. She sits up, leaning on her elbow as she turns to face all of us. "We've seen and been near the Anevay several times, and we don't feel more than the presence of her power. With the healer..."

"There's something more," Tanith finishes.

I've never really wanted to bring it up, but all this time having felt the strangeness when I'm on shift for the Queen, I thought that it was her. Not the healer. It would make sense that I sense something off with the person to which I'm connected to by a blood oath, so I never even suspected that the other magic bearing person in the room could be the source of it. Recalling that feeling, I can't help but wonder why it too feels oddly familiar to me. Like a ghost of a thing that I once lost long ago.

I'm immortal, I've lived a century and several decades and lost plenty within those days. My family, my best friends, and a piece of me that stayed on that island. It's hard to trace where this feeling brings me back to, and now it's going to bother me until I figure it out.

"Maybe we knew her parents, and that's why we feel like we know her," Vanya says. No one answers, making it clear that everyone highly doubts it.

"You're not saying much Dee," I note. "Do you know something that we shouldn't?"

"I can't see anything," she whispers in her voice that sounds empty. It's the voice that tells you she's currently searching the possibilities for the answers. I hate the voice, but at least she's agreeing that there's something off with this.

"What, you mean like you see that we've never met her?" Tanith asks.

"No, I literally can't see anything." She shakes her head, ridding of the silver in her eyes and the hollowness in her throat. "It's just all...black. Like someone's blocking me from seeing it."

"Can you see her past?" I ask, grateful that her voice is hers again.

"No. I can't even see her." She stands up and starts pacing the length of the room while rubbing the sides of her head. "As far as I can tell, she doesn't exist in the past, present, or future."

"How is that possible?" We all sit up, all now wide awake and alert.

"It's not supposed to be."

"Maybe we should consult Willa," Tanith suggests.

"Could she possibly be the one blocking you?" Kat prompts.

"No, I'd know if it was her," Dee says with a wave of her hand. "This is someone we're not familiar with."

"So it can't be Xaxias then?"

"Definitely not. I don't even think he's aware of it."

"What makes you say that?" Tsil questions.

"If he was, then she'd be chained up and tortured too," I explain.

"But then she'd be useless in keeping the Mater alive," Inna counters.

"Visha's there," Nilsa reminds us.

"The serpent-eyed witch who likes to drive her talons into any amount of flesh she possibly can?" Nilsa nods, and I begin to feel another headache blooming.

"Visha can kill anyone she wants and bring them back to life, over, and over, and over again," Inna says, reminding us all why we hate her so much. She's a necromancer, only ten times more psychotic.

'I suppose we should be thankful that she has yet to do so," Kat says.

"We would've lost Dawn's daughter long before anyone could've found and saved her," Dee adds. She's stopped pacing, but there's no ignoring the annoyed pace at which her eyes dance around the room. She's anxious, which usually doesn't mean anything good for the days to come.

I look to Mak knowing I don't have to make my eyes hard for her to get the point. "Get to the castle and keep an eye on both healer and Queen. Should Visha show up at any time, you call Willa. She'll be sure to keep the snake from releasing her venom." With a nod, she mists to the castle.

I turn to the rest of my sisters, finding Inna and Nilsa already gone, leaving the rest of us too fidgety to lay back down. "I need a drink. Who wants to go to Histra?"

Five hands shoot up in the air, and I smile at the thought of draining cup after cup of kidzra with them. Sometimes I miss the days when our worst worries were being caught by our Commander at Camp Histra while we snuck into the wine cellars or found ourselves leaping through windowsills to meet yet another lover for the night. Such simple times with simple problems.