It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

Pre-Fall Poet

“It took me time to find it,” Peter said.

Johanna managed to avoid swearing too loudly. Part of her did not want to believe Glatteis. But it didn’t make sense for the wendigo to come into hostile territory just for a lie.

“Didn’t steal anything. If they notice it is gone…”

“You did good,” Laura said, squeezing him. “Just knowing is enough.”

“The box was in a dresser. With one of those Ancient symbols that we saw a few times in the ruins, the one with three curves and a circle.”

“Meaning life-based stuff,” Johanna almost automatically added.

“And a printed instruction note saying one dose per day, no more, no less. ‘reduces the rate of conception by over fifty’ it states.”

“Means what he – that wendigo – said is correct,” Tom said, his two hands on Johanna’s shoulders, massaging her. She shook herself a bit.

“Will you stop,” she snapped.

She didn’t need – no, didn’t want – to be reassured.

“Technically, if the war is still ongoing, they can draft us on the next day we muster out, you mean? I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said.

“Then what?”

“We can’t stay,” she replied, stating the obvious.

She craned her neck to look at Tom, before checking the other two.

“We won’t,” her husband said.

She looked at her hand.

“I so want to send one of those fireballs into the Warden’s face.”

“I think murdering the ruler of the Montana is not going to go well,” Peter deadpanned.

“I mean, I can understand getting dumped on the Warden by the council of Valetta. Giving up 3 people that are fit for the levies anyway for 50… makes sense. But, then he does that?”

“We’re not people for those persons. We’re… how they call it? Assets?” he replied.

“Okay. We need a plan. If we desert…” Johanna started.

“We become outlaws. They stressed it multiple times whenever we were complaining during the training. They can hunt us down, and given that it’s war, they execute deserters,” Peter informed them.

“I doubt they’d want to execute us,” Laura noted. “If we’re that important, they will hesitate to do that.”

“Doesn’t slipping that drug invalidates the Warden’s right to draft us?”

“We need a lawyer,” Tom snorted.

“And where would we get…” Johanna stopped.

All the others realized the same thing.

“We need to leave the Marches. That’s the only way. It’s going to be harder to hunt us… and we can get a judge to hear us and clear our names. At least in the legal sense.”

Peter immediately stood up.

“Need proof.”

“Until we run away, leave it in place,” Laura said.

Johanna tried to remember her old lessons in geography.

“We can try for the State of Yellowstone south. Or the Marches of the Dakota east…”

“We need a map,” Tom said.

“We do.”

“Enough food? What else?” he asked.

They settled to plan.

After Johanna forced herself to eat the breakfast and its treacherous drug, she found herself facing Elena Worchester. The sorceress of the mists had a thousand questions about Johanna’s newfound ability, but she could only think of one thing.

Did she know? Was she okay with it?

She kept a careful mask, hoping that her lingering seething was not going to be visible. Even then, exploring the new perspectives on her magic was still interesting.

“Wait, you’ve entirely lost your rooting Talent?”

“It’s gone. Nothing. I’m not faking it.”

“And you throw fire from your hand instead. I’ve been trying to find a trace of that,” Elena said, tapping the Mages of America reference book.

“And?”

“Nothing. No one… absolutely no one has ever seen anything like that,” she replied. “If I hadn’t seen it toward the end of the battle, I would still have problems believing it.”

Johanna thought briefly.

“I’m wondering if that doesn’t mean you can have only four abilities. That might be why I was losing my earthly one. It was being dislodged by the new ability.”

“Well, nobody’s ever had four abilities. Or tried to have five. Who knows. Once again, we’re in completely unknown territory. But it might make some kind of sense, I guess.”

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She almost volunteered the idea that her new ability might translate into an increase in her tier but stopped at the last moment.

Elena Worchester continued, oblivious to the turmoil raging inside Johanna.

“We need to set some kind of testing. Outside, I assume. Range, everything. Do you realize how rare such a thing is? The last sorcerer’s ability discovered was twenty-five years ago, Cormag’s steaming breath.”

Johanna sighed internally. She was going to hate every minute.

Although the celebration spirit was lingering, Captain Devereaux pulled them for training after breakfast. Johanna, Tom, and Laura lined up. Despite the victory, it seemed Generals Pasqual and Adorno were still going to make sure everyone was going to be ready “for the next battle”.

The army was going to push into the tribal territory as soon as possible.

If Johanna had anything to say about it, they’d slip out at that time. It was probably going to be easier to sneak out on the road than from the garrison. Then she realized that hiding their supplies hoard was going to be slightly harder that way.

She temporarily shelved the idea for later and went out to the front of the garrison. A squad was raising targets, planting flags, and getting everything ready.

She spotted Elena just as the Sorceress of the Mists did. Worchester left General Adorno’s side and came immediately over.

“First thing, we’re going to test this… fireball… of yours. Laura’s dreadful gaze is very useful, but this kind of fire…”

The sorceress snorted, “and now, you’re a true Sorceress of the Flame, if your earth aspect is gone.”

“Tom and Laura?”

“We’ll see later how to incorporate them into maneuvers around you. Right now, the idea is to have you just behind a wall of shields, Laura using her gaze to defang your enemies, and your husband as a guard.”

Johanna breathed a little easier. None of them had had time to determine what had changed, but she was sure things had changed. She didn’t have time to mention it yesterday after the victory celebration, and now, she hoped to keep it secret for a bit longer.

Besides, the fact that both of them had changed, mere days after her, was going to raise even more questions, even if nobody knew about Peter’s change.

Recalling the fire was easy, as easy as the flaming hand. She had to cup her hand a little, and a ball of bottled fire sprang, before releasing. She estimated it around 20 oz. worth, maybe a bit higher, but that was hard, as she couldn’t hold it. Once the ball formed, it had to go.

The ball was shot in a perfect line. As she’d noted on the battlefield, it went a bit slower than an arrow, but it ran straight. Where an arrow’s flight would bend the ball’s flight was fully linear, unburdened by gravity, and unaffected by wind. She could aim the ball relatively easily, although she had to cup her hand carefully, lest her fingers throw her aim off. With the right position, it followed her arm’s direction almost perfectly.

“Looks dodgeable,” Tom said at her side.

“Yea. If you pay attention and not too close… it’s not an arrow,” Johanna replied.

“It won’t matter if you’re firing at an enemy formation,” the general said.

“Possibly.”

Finding the exact range took a few shots at various targets. It turned out that her range slightly exceeded Laura’s gaze. She could aim at 39 yards instead of Laura’s 36. Johanna felt briefly smug, before realizing she had no idea of her friend’s potential new limit.

As she’d noted in battle, that was a hard range limit. The ball of fire would blow up upon encountering anything in its path, or it would simply splash mid-air at that 39-yard limit.

“We’ll keep you at the same distance,” the general said, jotting down notes.

“Your earth was limited to 20 yards before, I think?” Elena asked.

“Correct. That was before it dropped to adept level,” Johanna replied.

The flames burned hot. They splashed like liquid fire, flash burning hotter than a pyre, but left no trace of anything. No ash, no unburnt liquid, nothing beyond the flames it started on anything combustible.

Just pure fire.

The training field quickly turned into a smoking ruin, burning targets and blackened rings when she aimed at the ground. The balls didn’t impact as an arrow would, they just burned whatever they hit.

She tried to shoot multiples but hit a limit. She couldn’t throw a second ball until the first had blown up and fully dissipated. It took under half a second to cross her maximum range, but even after that, there was still some time needed to launch a second.

She was still trying to figure out if she could affect the ball’s trajectory, curve it even a little bit because firing it in front of her meant she would have to aim carefully not to hit the shieldbearers protecting her from enemy bows when the familiar pinching sensation came. The ball she’d just launched blew short of the intended range.

“I’m out,” she announced.

“Out?”

She raised her hand, trying to bring up her flame, but nothing came.

“No more mana reserves.”

“That’s 67 fireballs,” Elena announced, scribbling notes for herself.

General Pasqual uncharacteristically whistled.

“I’ll be okay for a few more in an hour or two, but until tomorrow, I’m out,” she informed the general.

“Noted. We’ll have to use you tactically, not shoot everything in sight. Unlike bowmen, we can’t just hand you a new quiv…”

Elena shoved a small, smooth round stone in Johanna’s hand. Johanna’s eyebrows rose, and she felt the lack of mana recede already. She kept rolling it between her fingers, as the general looked.

“Mana recharge,” Elena said.

“What’s that? I didn’t know…” the officer asked.

“Minor sorceress artifacts. Useless if you’re not one,” she informed the general, while Johanna kept the stone rolling.

She handed it back, hoping it had given all she needed, and lifted her hand, ready to fire.

“We need that stone for you,” Tom said as the four gathered in their small bedroom.

“Twelve additional fireballs are serious, but…”

“We may as well steal everything we can use before we leave,” Peter immediately added, pre-empting Johanna’s answer.

She sighed. It was one thing to rob the dead and scavenge ruins from centuries ago. It was another to steal precious items, like an artifact. Even if they became hunted for deserting, compounding their “crime” by stealing unnecessary supplies made it look more opportunistic than justified…

She’d spotted a third mana plume coming this evening. The army was making ready for their unexpected campaign into the savage lands, thus bringing in Siegebreaker for deployment. She didn’t know how rich the tribal lands were. But any tribal stronghold good enough to sport stone walls would be tough to crack without that artifact. Ordinary siege weapons, she had been told, were good against wooden palisades. If you did not want protracted sieges…

“So, how do we go at it?” she said.

“As soon as we’re ready, we run,” Laura said.

“Deserting from a camp will be easier,” Johanna noted.

“Yes, maybe, but we’ll be in tribal lands then. Do you know how to go from there?” she objected.

“Maps?” Tom asked.

“Got one from planning office. They had plenty of duplicates, so it’s not going to be missed,” Peter said.

They pored over the map.

“You have good roads to the south. If we avoid going near New Benton…”

“It also makes pursuit easier. I don’t know for you, but I don’t know how to ride, and they will have horses,” Laura noted.

“We can deal with them. Johanna’s fireballs…” Peter countered.

“I’d rather not,” Johanna said.

“Why?”

“The soldiers who will hunt us aren’t our enemies. Maybe they work for them, but they have no choice. What would we do if… say, we have Franz Nader there? Bertram? Ngozi?”

Peter winced at the idea of having to fight against their neighbors from Valetta. None of the levies were responsible for the Warden’s men manipulating Johanna and her friends.

“So we avoid them. As much as possible. Yellowstone is relatively far away.”

“Once we’re in another State, we should be good. The Treaty of the Union is clear – the laws of the Montana apply only to you while you’re resident in that State. If we’re registered as outside residents, Maistry has no authority anymore.”

“Except through lawyers,” Tom said.

“I’d rather deal with lawyers than soldiers,” Johanna replied.

“We may hope…”

Johanna looked at the map until an idea struck.

“What about the Heights?”

“What do you mean, the Heights?” Peter asked.

“It’s… it’s the perfect way to lose soldiers.”

“Are you mad? It’s a mana zone!” Laura blurted, before dropping the volume of her voice.

“I know. But listen… we do have all those powers. Devereaux himself said we’d probably be good even in the deep parts. And… well, our powers got boosted since we fought that Deep Changed hedgehog.”

“Any monster comes at us, I’ll know in advance,” Tom added, remembering the Narrows.

“They will hesitate to pursue in the wilderness and it will be easier to shake them. And we don’t need to keep to the deep parts. All that we need is to make sure they lose our track. And then we run to the frontier.”