6 A Cold Realization

Wendy ran for almost two hours till she was exhausted, then finally started regain her mind.

She realized she was cold... wet and tired. Wendy made her way to a main street and noticed there were a lot more carts racing by then there normally would be in the winter months. Soldiers were marching In larger squads with rifles, and looking at the sky. A few glanced her direction but they were looking for far bigger targets.

Getting her bearings she figured out where in the west side of the Old city she was and trudged towards the cloister. It seemed like an hour later when she approached the wall of the cloister to see... the gate was closed. The huge gate had never been closed in the daytime. her eyes began to fill with moisture as hopelessness flooded over her. Suddenly the doors began to move. Swinging out in unison with a guard pushing each side, and standing just behind it was her Holiness Isabella and Lissa.

"LISSA!" Wendy cried in a hoarse voice.

"Wendy!!" Lissa shouted and they ran into each others embrace.

Both of them began to sob. stopping for a moment to say in perfect unison.

(x2)"I WAS SO SCARED!!!"

Isabella stared in shock. 'She was right again...down to the minute'

'Could this be the opposite of Summers ability? she thought to herself.

'and more importantly when had Gretchen started going by the name 'Wendy'?

Lissa helped the stumbling Wendy over to stand before Isabella.

"Your holiness? I think you believe me now."

said Lissa. "Both of us are witches."

Wendy jerked her head around, to look at Lissa in shock as the realization dawned on her.

Everything that had happened now made sense, but how was Lissa a witch?

"Can you tell me what happened with the demon? and .... aren't you Gretchen?"

Isabella asked.

"Please, your Holiness Isabella," Wendy managed to spit out her voice still sore and hoarse.

"Call me Wendy."

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

Isabella finished the last of the bottle after she'd sent the two girls off to clean up and rest.

They really were close friends. To have their day of awakening on the same day, pretty much.

Wendy's voice was very sore from her screaming so Lissa explained exactly what happened for her.

Both Isabella and Wendy stared at her in shock as she described exactly what happened as if she had been standing next to Wendy when it happened.

After Lissa finished Isabella looked to Wendy to see if it was accurate, and she nodded vehemently.

"What about her ability? do you know what it is?" Isabella asked Lissa.

Lissa's eyebrows furrowed as she seemed deep in thought.

"Um kinda, she can squish stuff together but without squishing either of them?"

Isabella furrowed her brows and thought back to the vivid description of the guards. The demon was part of the wall yet not part of it. Like its very matter had... merged.

However both Wendy and Isabella were looking at Lissa in shock. Because even Wendy wasn't sure what she'd done at the time.

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

Sometime later Lissa was cleaning off Wendy in a huge warm bathroom tub.

Wendy wasn't sure how this was possible, normally only royalty could bathe like this. Even the girls of the cloister took buckets of water and cloths to clean themselves off.

"My power is to see the future a little bit." Lissa said to Wendy. "So I want you to promise me to be very careful with your power." she said seriously. "Its strong, even stronger than... most of the witches that visited us with Lord Roland." she said seriously. "He has a book with great knowledge in it and if you ever read that, you'll get even stronger."

Wendy looked up into Lissa's brown eyes with glistening green eyes and nodded to convey her agreement.

"Also I have good news for you... " Lissa trailed off. "Something else about you has changed, You don't have to worry in the future about these." she motioned with her eyes.

Wendy broke her gaze with Lissa to look down and saw a significant change( in her opinion) had occurred on her chest. What she had intended to be a shout of joy sounded more like a ravens hoarse call.

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

Three days later, many miles away. Prince Roland sat in his office chair facing a row of phones on his desk.

Additionally he was making some marks on a map to chart the progress of the witch sniper unit.

Suddenly he heard an urgent tapping from the huge french windows. He was jolted at once from his concentration. And despite the dim grey clouds making it seem dark outside, he saw a brilliant white hawk. Jolting again he rushed to the window. This very unique bird was from Hermes, the fastest messenger they had.

"What could be happening in Hermes?"

He opened the window after quickly strapping on a gauntlet allowing the hawk to land on his arm.

Closing the window he hurried back to his desk opening the drawer for some fish. Of course it was empty. "Nightingale?" he said looking towards the couch.

Suddenly from nowhere a handful of fish landed in front of the white bird of prey, on the desk, which immediately started to wolf it down.

Roland quickly removed the clasp on its leg and unrolled the message.

Roland read aloud.

"Demon spotted scouting the Old city, killed by newly awakened witches. abilities, short term prediction and melding things together without destroying them."

Roland froze in place in deep thought. Both pieces of information were groundbreaking. The garrison in the New city were busy fighting off demonic beasts at the wall, but a demon had gotten past them into the city. A serious problem. Secondly, these new abilities..

Nightingale appeared and looked at the paper strip on the desk. "What can you do? we're in the middle of a war here."

Roland nodded a look of concentration on his face. "Those two new witches will have to hold the fort there till we can decide what to do."

"Unless it was pure luck," Nightingale said, "At least one of them seems to be a battle witch."

"That's right,"Roland replied, "Isabella can only turn off Gods stones of retaliation, but she has a lot of battle experience." "And should they run into a higher demon, she can turn off its gods stone."

Roland removed a paper from a drawer and quickly wrote across it. "This will have to do, hopefully they won't have too many demon scouts approach Hermes." "Because for now... they are on their own."