Chapter 78

It took Lava an hour of stumbling around in the freezing wilderness before she came to what she was looking for. She had never traveled more than a few miles from her home in Bandalla. She was well aware that she needed to stay away from well-known communities and popular trading villages for fear that her presence would be perceived as strange and prompt an inquisitive do-gooder to inquire about her identity.

In her mind, she envisioned one day returning to the Valley, where Norma had told her to wait for her, and where she was hiding out in an underground cavern beneath the huge shaft of ruins. And today is one of those days. She intends to wait for Norma. And then there's waiting for the Fated One.

Lava proceeded on her journey and, just a few kilometers away from the ravine, she discovered a second clue that she was coming closer. In contrast to the last occasion, this time it was a massive serpentine mound. It looked to be sixty feet above the surface of the earth. This wa