I glanced back towards the Captain but was met with nothing but the white cloud of mist obscuring all but a small section of Echo’s flank. A vague shadow behind us may have been him and his horse, but it was too indistinct to determine for sure.

“What’s an airship?” I asked. I had of course heard of the Ventus Empire and had of course seen some of their ships docked at the port in Windscar, but hadn’t heard of something called an Airship and couldn’t fathom how that would let one see into the forest.

“Oh, you haven’t heard of them before?” Captain Strykar said. “I suppose they are a fairly new invention. Basically the Ventus Empire have made a ship that can fly through the air while carrying people, they have their air magus run them.”

Huh, a ship that can fly?

“How do they work?” I asked, trying to picture such a thing. Did they literally just make an ordinary ship float?

“That’s a heavily guarded secret,” he replied, sounding amused. “They won’t give that out to anyone outside of a few trusted upper families in their own country, let alone anyone outside of that.”

I hummed, conceding he had a point. I was still trying to wrap my head around something as large as a ship flying along in the air.

The day stretched on in near blindness. We continued to talk as it helped make the travelling a little easier to bear. I was surprised to find myself comfortable chatting to the Captain, and that he had a similar sense of humour to myself. I felt it may have been a bit easier since I couldn’t see him, as though speaking to his disembodied voice made it less intimidating.

I feel like I could actually get along with him, if our statuses weren’t so different.

At one point in the day, in what I felt like could be the afternoon but couldn’t tell for sure since the light through the mist had stayed the same as when we’d entered, I remembered a question I had wanted to ask him.

“I’d been meaning to ask you,” I started, before feeling a bit unsure and hesitating.

“What is it?” Captain Strykar said.

“Why did you decide to accompany me through the forest yourself?” I asked. “Not that I’m questioning your capabilities or feeling uncomfortable with you, but it seems like something you could have delegated to one of the other Lycan Guards.”

There was a long pause. I thought perhaps I had offended him, or that maybe he’d stopped walking or gotten lost somehow? A quick check with my magic confirmed that he was still following.

I heard him sigh. “Alright, truthfully it was because of a promise I’d made your father.”

A promise with Da?

I didn’t say anything, and simply waited for him to continue. After a moment, I heard him clear his throat to continue.

“Before your father left Windscar, he pulled me aside and made me promise I would personally ensure you were not harmed either on the way to or back from the capital. He was…insistent.”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach coupled with a flush of embarrassment. I had the strong sense that Da had been more than just insistent.

“Please don’t tell me he threatened you,” I said, rubbing my temple again to placate the headache that was once again flaring up.

“He, uh… He said he’d make me eat a certain part of my own anatomy if anything happened to you,” the Captain said with a small cough that sounded like he was trying to hide a laugh.

Please just let the forest eat me now.

I covered my eyes with my hands, burning with embarrassment and wishing I could just disappear. For the first time today I was thankful that the mist was so thick so Captain Strykar couldn’t see me.

“Oh gods, I don’t believe him,” I groaned. This time I definitely heard the Captain laugh to himself. “I’m so sorry sir. My father can be…protective and a bit ridiculous when it comes to our family. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, he very much sounded like he meant it,” he replied, clearly enjoying himself at my discomfort. “He was pretty specific too, said no noble status would be able to protect me from him hunting me down.”

I sighed deeply, really wanting to scream but holding it in. “By gods, I’m gonna hit him when I get back.”

The Captain was still chuckling to himself. “Don’t worry, my father gets rather intense about protecting the family as well. You’ll likely have heard, but he actually physically fought any noble household head that protested to him marrying my mother.”

“Huh, I thought that was just a rumour,” I said, feeling some of the embarrassment fade a little.

“Oh no, that was real. Lord Fletcher lost two fingers in one of the fights, still complains about it whenever he sees mother,” the Captain said.

I snorted, causing the the pain in my head to flare and send dagger like jabs into my temple. “Ow.” I muttered, and felt something warm begin to slide out of my nose. I cautiously touched the warmth with a couple of fingers, holding them in front of my face to see fresh blood on my fingertips. “Ah shit.”

“What’s wrong?” called Captain Strykar.

“It’s nothing,” I replied, digging into my pocket for a scrap of fabric I used as a handkerchief. I pinched it over my nose, feeling it quickly becoming soaked from the blood.

“Rowan, what is wrong?” the Captain demanded, a firm edge to his voice.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I sighed, getting the feeling he wouldn’t let this drop. “I’m fine, my nose just started bleeding a bit. It’ll stop soon.”

“Stop walking,” he commanded.

I complied, more out of habit from the tone of voice he used than a conscious decision. I felt him walking towards me, carefully passing the horses, and turned to face in his direction. The shadow of his figure loomed in front of me suddenly in the mist, and although I had been expecting it I was still startled. He stopped in front of me, so close our boots almost touched, and frowned when he saw the bloody handkerchief held to my nose.

“Let me see,” the Captain said, gently moving my hand away. Blood promptly began dripping out of my nose, over my mouth and down my chin. He quickly moved my hand back to cover my nose while grimacing. “You should sit down for a while.”

I nodded, wincing when it made my headache throb. “There’s a tree just here I can lean against,” I said, taking a step to the side and putting my hand out to feel the almost smooth bark of the tree I had sensed.

Captain Strykar gave me a look, eyes narrowing a little. “Are you using magic right now?” he asked, voice seeming to deepen a bit.

“Well, yeah,” I said as I lowered myself to the ground with a grunt and leant my back against the trunk. “I needed to make sure we wouldn’t get lost and that nothing was sneaking up on us.”

The Captain had kept a hand on my shoulder and sat with me so he wouldn’t lose track of me. His face looked a little pained. “Rowan, we’ve been walking for hours. Are you telling me you’ve been using magic the entire time?”

“Mmhmm,” was the only reply I could make. My ears had begun to ring and, while it was difficult to tell with the thick mist, my vision seemed to be blurry.

I probably overdid it a bit.

I heard the Captain let out a sight that sounded frustrated. “Have you at least stopped using it now?” he asked.

No

“Mmm,” I said, quickly cutting my connection with the tree at the lake and the area around me. It felt unnatural, being fully blind to my surroundings.

“Blazes, Rowan,” the Captain swore quietly. “You should have said something, most people would have passed out by now.” He sounded genuinely concerned, which was a little touching.

“I’ll be fine, it’ll pass soon,” I said in what was meant to be a reassuring tone, but came out a little slurred.

I felt the Captain shift, feeling like he was settling into a more comfortable spot. “Regardless, we’ll stop here for the night. The last thing we need is for you to overexert yourself and get injured, then we’ll never get out of this place.”

I wanted to protest, but felt too drained to do so, and simply hummed in agreement. The light had seemed to fade somewhat through the mist, so it was probably late afternoon by now, so we would have needed to stop soon anyway.

“Besides,” the Captain said casually as he leant back against the tree. “If this ever made it back to your father, who knows what he’d do to me.”

I coughed out a laugh, wincing when the movement made my head twinge. The Captain must have noticed, as I saw him frowning at me with concern. I waved a hand at him.

“Don’t panic, I’m fine, just got a headache,” I told him, carefully removing the handkerchief from my nose to see if the flow of blood had subsided. I didn’t feel any new dripping sensations. “And I’m not even bleeding anymore, so you can stop worrying about bits of your anatomy going missing.”

He sighed, apparently unamused at my attempt to joke. “How long have you had the headache?” he asked flatly.

I licked my thumb and used it to try and wipe the dried blood off my face. “I dunno, a few hours?”

Captain Strykar sighed again, this time a short puff of air that sounded frustrated. “Rowan, how long into our venture into the forest did you start to feel the headache.”

Jeez, he’s being such a worrywort.

“...Since the start,” I said, still trying to feel for any more dried blood.

I saw the Captain rubbing the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut, before he dropped his hand away and gave me a hard stare. “You should have told me you were almost at your limit back then. We could have rested before coming in here. And you certainly should have said something well before now, don’t you realise you could seriously damage yourself by going too far?”

I blinked at him a few times and began to fidget with the lace of my boot. “But, I’m not at my limit?” I said, sounding more like a question than the statement I intended it to be.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Rowan, feeling a headache when you’re using magic means you’re nearing your limit, and getting a nosebleed shows you’ve gone beyond it.”

I snorted gently, still cautious of restarting the bleeding. “Very funny,” I told him. The Captain had brought a satchel down with him that held some of our food rations, and I reached into it and picked out a piece of jerky to chew on.

He was still staring at me, his eyebrow lowered back down into almost a frown. “I’m not joking,” he said.

I stared back at him. “What?” I said around my mouthful of jerky. “No, no no I’m not at my limit until I vomit and pass out.”

Captain Strykar pulled an expression that looked vaguely horrified. He was silent for quite a while, and I half expected him to relax and laugh and tell me he was pulling some strange joke, but he never did. “Rowan, who trained you how to use your magic?” he eventually asked.

“My father did, he trained both me and my brother. Why?” I was beginning to feel concerned.

Why was this such a big deal to him?

He scratched his jaw through his beard, hesitating for a moment. “I’m just trying to understand something. Could you tell me what your training typically consisted of?”

I swallowed my jerky. “Alright. We had two different routines Da would have us train in. The first one involved making seeds grow magically, Da would throw a ball at us and we had to grow the seed fast enough to catch it. We also had to reattach broken limbs to trees as quickly as we could, Da would time us for that one. The second routine we had to spread our magical sense through a root system in the nearby forest as far as we could and hold it for as long as possible.”

“When you say for as long as possible,” the Captain said hesitantly, “how long was that specifically?”

I fiddled with the lace of my boot again. “Until we passed out, for both routines.”

The Captain rubbed the bridge of his nose again, he looked rather stressed and didn’t talk for a while. I stuffed some more jerky in my mouth, wondering what he was so concerned about. Training with Da had been hard, almost impossibly so at times, but he’d always told us this was how he’d been trained when he joined the royal army in Arbor during his youth. He’d never been aggressive with us during the training, but was always firm and would push us to extend our limits.

Captain Strykar let out a long sigh as he looked at me. “Rowan, I’m not sure why your father would train you in such a way, but pushing past your limit like that can be dangerous. To the point where you may permanently disable yourself or even die. From now on, the minute you start getting a headache I want you to tell me and stop using magic to let yourself recover.” He scratched his beard again, the thick hair looking a bit messy now. “Although, that would explain why you have such a large magic pool.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Pushing past your limit like that will gradually force your magical pool to grow,” he explained. “Few people will do it due to the dangers I’ve already told you about, plus a person’s magic pool will gradually increase as they age.” He tilted his head, considering me. “It is interesting to see that it can be done though. I’d be curious to know how large a pool your brother has as well.”

“So, does no one else train the way we did?” I asked him.

Why had Da put us through that if it was widely known to be so dangerous?

“Not exactly,” Captain Strykar replied. “From what I know, the Vessel of Bolcan is pushed in a similar way in order to be able to manage the pressure of channelling a god’s magic, and I believe the other Vessel’s also undergo training to be able to cope.”