“So. You’re setting off,” Ayna said.

Saketa didn’t turn around. Her attention was on a simple wooden box, closed and tucked away on a shelf.

“Yes.”

“This will be the big deciding moment, then? After this I get to witness the big moment. The completion of a Kalero Warden.”

Saketa already had one hand on the surface of the box. Now she placed the other as well. She hadn’t opened the box since returning. It had stayed closed for three years.

“Yes.”

She stroked the veiny wood with the full surface of her palms and fingers. She dearly wanted to open the box, but had decided that it would serve as a reward. She hadn’t earned it yet. And the whole point of her stay here was to master self-control again.

Saketa turned around. Ayna stood in the doorway, bathed in the morning sun.

“I look forward to it,” the Dwyyk said, though her usual good humour was absent. Her true meaning wasn’t subtle. She was worried.

“So do I, Ayna,” Saketa said. “I spent three years convincing myself that this moment would never arrive, and yet here I am.”

She walked over and put her hands on Ayna’s shoulders.

“Remember Ciinto Res. Remember what I did, even while diminished. I am stronger now.”

“Yeaaah,” Ayna said slowly, with a very faint tremor in her voice. “You are not fighting a man this time, though. Really an animal either, really?”

“Not really, no. But I have what it takes for this fight. Have faith.”

Ayna sucked in a long breath of air.

“Yes. I will. I’m not going to mention luck. Be focused, and be smart.”

“Thank you. What will you be doing while I am away?”

“I am going to take a little trip of my own. Into the eastern forests. All by myself. Just the wilderness and me.”

“Even around the Red Peaks, the forest is quick to get dangerous once one starts to penetrate it,” Saketa warned.

“Remember where I’m from, Saketa,” Ayna said, and now some of her normal attitude returned.

“Remember that Kalero is a stranger to you. The wildlife of Dwyyk may be fiercer, but it is a fierceness you were raised to know and understand.”

“And now I wish to test myself against the unknown. Without having peeked at the solutions, like a kid cheating at a test.”

That hidden other side to Ayna peeked through once again. There was something old and mysterious in her bearing, bred into the girl through uncounted generations of survival on a legendarily deadly planet. Saketa knew that there were aspects of the Dwyyk mentality that she would never understand, because culture had little quirks like that. And it was a good thing. What was life without mysteries?

“Well, you know not to rely on luck yourself,” Saketa said. “So be focused, be smart, and remember to account for the unknown. Also, the woodlands east of here tend to be home to krain. Get someone to lend you a knife that can cut through their silk. If you do touch it, it will be your only hope.”

“I will.

Ayna did another big inhale.

“Now go slay a dragon, hero-lady.”

# # #

Normally, the journey was undertaken on foot. But normally there wasn’t the issue of a vorasondu that might strike again without warning. And now that it was officially her task to resolve the situation, she got a lift on an aircar.

The vehicle wasn’t imported, but one of the fruits of Kalero’s now-devastated urban areas. It forewent many of the trivial luxuries she’d seen so much of offworld, in favour of functionality and ruggedness. Saketa was glad for it. Too much comfort would have felt too much like she was cheating.

The ground below was a rare sight, being mostly hidden by the forest. As clear as her previous track was in her memory she’d never seen an aerial view of it, and it was a rather interesting sight. Still, for once she didn’t allow herself too much reminiscing. There was a fair amount of strigas in the air, and they were willing to attack things far bigger than a four-seat aircar. The driver was clearly a seasoned hand, and had a cluster gun on hand, to say nothing of Saketa herself and the powers of a Warden. But that was no reason to be careless.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The driver focused on steering the vehicle, and on staying alert, while Saketa divided her time between staying alert and bracing for the challenges ahead.

As the hours passed, the forest got less colourful and more simply dark green. The ground could be glimpsed in larger patches, as the landscape climbed and got rockier. For the last hour or so, the Valley of Vartana was a near-constant on the horizon; a growing wall of mountains, equally clear to her eyes and her sensitivity.

It was tempting to think of it as the birthplace of evil, but Saketa reminded herself that it was, ultimately, just a potent symptom. The Exiles, after all, had broken before being sent there.

By the time the mountains were a big, ominous wall before them, the engine began to stutter a little, as electronics did close to the Valley.

“Just set me down there,” Saketa said, and pointed at one of the ever-larger patches of bare rock. “I can walk from here.”

He complied, and with some careful management the car did as well. They landed, and Saketa hopped out and took her things. She strapped on a small pack, a sword belt, and took an extra long hunting spear.

“Thank you,” she said. “And as I said, I will go back the traditional way.”

“Fight well, Warden,” the man said, before taking off.

She walked, and once again she had the familiar view of things. The closer one got to the Valley the less life the ground supported. There was an awful stillness in the air: No birdcalls, no insects… nothing but the wind.

She soon left the last of the weak little trees behind, and was simply crossing stone and dry dirt. The energies of the Valley fought her sensitivity, as corrupted places of power always did. It was a familiar sensation now, but during her trials this had been her first encounter with the feeling. That had been the start of her training being really, truly tested.

The Valley was completely hemmed in, by steep walls that were just as free of vegetation as the surrounding ground. Saketa hiked to the eastern part of the south side, where the walls were just about vertical. There one could see a single crack in the wall, between two of the cliffs. A slightly angular cut that started almost two hundred metres above the ground, and widened very gradually on its way down.

There, at the bottom, was the camp. Two fully-fledged Wardens and two Wildwalkers stood guard, outside a set of small but sturdy huts, and a weathered water tank.

“Greetings, Saketa,” said one of the Wardens. The red of his hair and beard was almost matched by grey, and his left hand had been badly burned at some point. A mark of the path.

“Greetings. I see it has not snuck out before I got here.”

“It satisfied itself with the cruelty of that first attack. For now.”

The Warden looked to the crack that admitted trainees. Squeezing through would be quite a task for a fully grown greater skrax. Not something an animal would normally do. But then, a carnivore would normally have no business in a place with nothing to draw prey animals. Nothing natural had drawn the beast into that darkness.

“But I do not think it would be much longer, if you weren’t here,” he continued. His voice held that particular distance of one straining their sensitivity. “The Valley is… restless. It has an agent now, and now a challenger comes. I think it knows this.”

Saketa just nodded politely. Whether such things were actual reality was a matter of eternal debate.

“It has only entered twice, and exited once,” one of the Wildwalkers said. “First about a month and a half ago.”

Saketa didn’t question the Wildwalker’s track-reading. No one ever did.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” the other Warden said ruefully. “We should have been watching the Valley. “But that invasion… the gaps it left will take a while to close.”

“What has happened has happened,” the older one said. “And as it stands, we cannot send ordinary trainees in. I pushed the Council for one more Warden, and permission to enter. But this task was given to you.”

“You are fully equipped, I take it?” the other Warden asked.

“I am.”

Saketa patted her little bag. It contained four dried meat patties, and a skin with enough water to last the journey as long as she drank wisely. She had the spear, a sword balanced not for fighting but for chopping through sturdy bush and the necks of dangerous animals, and a sheathed knife. Aside from that, she had a loincloth, a top, a cloak, and nothing else.

“Then there is nothing for you to wait for. Do you want the markings?”

“I am here for the walk, as well as the slaying,” Saketa replied. “I will do this properly.”

“Good,” the Warden said. “You do yourself credit, Sister.”

The other Warden went into one of the cabins and came back out with a clay and dye mixture in a bowl. He added a bit of water into it and stirred. His movements were slow and deliberate, carrying the weight of ancient tradition. Saketa moved equally slowly as she neatly placed all of her equipment on the ground to her right, then her clothes on the left. She breathed deeply, settling into a semi-meditative state.

Once both she and the mixture were ready, each of the Wardens dipped index and middle finger into the red goop, and began drawing on Saketa’s skin. The marks went on her face, neck, arms, torso and legs, all in an unbroken web. They talked as they worked, speaking in an archaic tongue, about the makings of a Warden, the human soul, duty, light and darkness… all things that the training leading up to this point hammered home time and time again. This was a punctuation mark. This ordeal was where it had all been leading.

There was a comfort in this, in the feel of the cool mixture on her skin, in tradition. This whole process was very, very old, because it had been refined until it worked.

And, of course, she’d done this before.

The web ended with a small circle on the top of each foot. The Wardens stepped back, and Saketa wasted no time. She had already summoned all the strength she had. So she put her meagre clothes back on, strapped on the knife, sword and pack, and picked up the spear.

The older Warden beckoned her into the crack.

“Go. Walk in darkness, Sister. And may your glow endure it.”

“Happy hunting,” the senior Wildwalker said.

Saketa nodded.

“Stand firm,” she told them.

Because if she broke fully in the Valley of Vartana, if she descended fully into darkness, and came back out lost like the Exiles themselves, it was the duty of the two Wardens to kill her.

She walked forward, and entered the darkness.