Chapter 5: III. Green Smoke

Inara who has been walking for hours now let out a tired sigh and paused to breathe. She was already at the foot of the mountain and the clouds today were not kind enough to cover the sun. She was already drenched in sweat and was hungry.

"Ha...." she breathed out again and straightened her back. She winced at the sound of her joints getting stretched.

She pulled her basket once more, held it close to her chest, and continued with her journey. This was taking her longer than she thought. She never expected that she'd have to cross a mountain to get one of the ingredients.

No punishment was enjoyable, she thought to herself, contradicting her words of excitement earlier. If she had known she'd go through this, she would have not read the story to her friends.

Along the way, she was grateful to find some fruits that she can fill her stomach with for the meantime. An hour later, she found the farm where saint's leaves and other herbs were being planted. She looked around, comparing each leaf with the saint's leaf in her hand.

She was already at the end of the irrigated land when she realized that the saint's leaves were already harvested. Her heart sank and she fell to the grass together with her basket. 

"I walked for hours to find nothing!" she said out of frustration. 

Aunt Mirayah will kill me this time, she then thought. She failed to get all the ingredients and she would have to face another punishment if she couldn't find saint's leaves today!

'Will I be looking for herbs again tomorrow? What if one of the ingredients turned out to be unavailable like the saint's leaves?'

She was almost weeping at her thoughts. She didn't realize that her hands were clutching the grass too tightly, and when she did, her gaze moved back and forth between the grass and the saint's leaf in the basket. 

A sudden idea came to her mind and she let out a laugh.

"They look similar, anyway," she muttered, convincing herself that she wouldn't be caught faking the saint's leaves. "And besides, Aunt Mirayah would always leave the potions inside the flasks. She would only let us test them at the end of the month."

She grinned mischievously. She planned to make the weeds look much more similar to the saint's leaves and before the end of the month, she'd have to remake the potions with the saint's leaves. In that way, her aunt and her mates will not know that they used weeds instead of saint's leaves.

Using her small knife that she always carried with her to protect herself from attacks from wild animals, she cut the weeds and arranged them to copy the way the saint's leaf looked. When satisfied with her work, she got up and stretched.

The sky was painted with orange hues contrasting the gray clouds as they drift off when Inara came back home. Her limbs were sore from all the walking she did, and so when she arrived inside their house, she went straight to her room and plopped herself on her bed.

Her snores spilled throughout the room, her mind going back to her adventure earlier but this time, she saw red eyes behind the bushes following her as she walked around the forest.

The sun returned after a few hours of rest, and the roosters did their job waking up the Agods on the island. Inara jolted out of the bed, her heart racing and her breaths coming short.

"Inara, you'll be late for your training if you continue to roam around the dreamland!" her aunt spoke from outside of her room.

"I'm coming!" she yelled and though weak from the nightmare she had, she tried to stand and went on with her day.

When she went out of her room, her grandmother and aunt were already seated and the food was placed on the table. She smiled and kissed them both before taking her seat in front of Aunt Mirayah. Her grandmother was sitting at the end of the table as the eldest and the head of their small family.

"Bathala, we thank You for the food and for another day we spend together as a family," Inara led the prayer. "Hela, thank You for your continuous blessings upon the Agods."

They dug into the food after prayer. Mirayah sneaked a glance at her niece while her mother was talking to her. Inara nodded at something that was said by the elder. When her eyes met hers, it was time for her to ask her troublemaking niece.

"Did you get all the ingredients?"

Inara smiled. "Yes, aunt. I already arranged them to preserve their effectiveness."

Mirayah looked satisfied. "Great. I want you to distribute them to each desk of your mates."

And that Inara did. She let out a sigh when she was done placing the set of ingredients on each desk of her mates. She went to the hut a little early to carry out the task given to her. One by one, her mates started arriving at the training room.

Inara could not help but glare at her three closest friends: Jehan, Gul, and Kia. They went to her with sorry faces. Inara couldn't stop the snicker from coming out of her lips.

"We're sorry!" the three exclaimed.

"We didn't know you'll get in trouble for reading a story to us," Kia said.

Their light brown eyes were staring at her to beg for forgiveness. Inara's black ones stared back at them, narrowing her gaze at her friends and when they looked down with guilt, she exhaled and waved her hand dismissively.

"You are lucky to have a forgiving friend," she told them without any hint of humility. 

Jehan saw through her and was having none of her self-glory. "You! Why didn't you come back yesterday? Where did you go?"

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Gul bobbed her head up and down in curiosity. "Did you have an adventure by yourself?"

Kia gasped. "What? And you didn't invite us?"

Inara's lips pulled up for a smirk. "Ah, you wanted to go through what I did yesterday? I will let Lady Mirayah know then so that you three could bask in the blazing sun while looking for ingredients in the middle of the forest!"

The three of them sat up straight suddenly and shook their heads.

Kia let out a laugh. "Never mind. I find reading spells interesting these days."

"Are we perhaps twins, Kia? I'm enjoying the book of spells, too!" Gul said. 

Inara looked at Jehan, waiting for what she would say. And she didn't disappoint.

"Ah, how many months are left until we take part in the Moon Festival?" Jehan muttered, looking away from Inara.

Kia pretended to count using her fingers. "15 months!"

"Oh, I see," Jehan said. "That means we should focus more on the training, right?"

"Right! We got no time for silly adventures!" Gul agreed immediately.

Inara rolled her eyes, shaking her head. Whatever, she thought.

The room was filled with the chitchats of the young ladies. They were waiting for their teacher, Lady Mirayah. Inara only opened her mouth to answer some of her mates' questions about her punishment yesterday. Some were asking about spells that they forgot.

When Lady Mirayah stepped inside the room, the noise immediately died down as they scrambled to their feet to greet their teacher. With practiced synchronicity, the young ladies bowed to Lady Mirayah as her eyes moved around them.

"Good morning, Lady Mirayah."

Mirayah smiled upon seeing her students. "Good morning. Take your seats, young ladies," she told them. "Today, you will learn how to make a potion that you can bring with you for protection against physical harm."

One of the students raised her hand. "What do you mean by we can bring it with us, Lady Mirayah?"

Mirayah nodded to acknowledge the question. "You can put the potion inside a stone and have it designed as one of your accessories."

Inara's brow rose. A charm stone, she thought immediately.

Her eyes glanced at the saint's leaf on her desk. It was the leaf that Lady Rita gave her yesterday while the rest of her mates got the fake ones.

"Is it the charm stone, Lady Mirayah?" Jehan asked with obvious excitement. 

"Yes, it is," Mirayah answered smilingly. "Today, you will learn how to make genuine charm stones. Most of the charm stones that were sold in the markets today were only imitation and empty, thus its lack of effectiveness."

The room was once again filled with the delighted voices of the young ladies. Seeing their eagerness to learn the potion, Lady Mirayah started the class and immediately instructed them to follow what she says.

Inara threw a glance at her mates to see them working on their potion. She grabbed the saint's leaf and following the instructions of Lady Mirayah, she tore it into pieces and ground it to get its juices. She then poured the juices into the mixture of the other ingredients.

She whispered the spell that Lady Mirayah had written on the scroll. Her black eyes watched the liquid boil and turned blue from green. The familiar smell of roses wafted across her nostrils, and she smiled triumphantly.

"Ah!"

Mirayah was watching the students get busy with their potions when suddenly, an explosion took place on the desk of one of the young ladies. The potions exploded one after another, and the room was filled with green smoke. A series of yelps were heard before the students scurried to stand and get out of the room.

Inara couldn't believe what was happening. Her vision was clouded because the green smoke and the smell of the burnt potions suffocated her. 

She waved her hand. "Clear," she muttered amidst her coughing and the smoke vanished immediately.

She coughed and covered her mouth. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see her mates scattered in the doorway, looking scared. If not for their visible fear, she would have laughed at their green faces.

When she followed the direction of their gazes, she found her aunt glaring down at her, looking way, way more displeased with her than she was yesterday.

"Inara!!"

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