Sunny and Nyx did not, In honesty, fully expect to remain in the twins’ cart. But, here they were.

After the good experiences with Sunny and the merchant and the bad with the farmer, Nyx was ready to roll the dice. Ready to find out off the bat if he could gain more allies who accept him, or if he would experience fear, hatred and another disappointment.

As it turned out, it seemed to be working out. He thinks, at least. He wondered how long they’d be willing to have them around. He got the distinct impression that, while the siblings might be sympathizers, they were moderate ones at best.

The next day, the group decided to stop by a small pond to restock water and all exited the carriage to fill their canteens and stretch their legs.

Nyx noticed a strange movement in the water

“Get back!”

The others quickly jumped back with just as the water began to rise from the pond, forming a hulking blob-like shape.

‘Animated water, fantastic.’ Nyx thought

Nyx’s shadow expanded and from it a shadowy claw shot through the air to slice through the beast, cleaving it in half. It split into two equally animate watery monsters.

His shoulder length hair blew back as a knife sharp slash of wind whizzed past him, originating from a swing of Sunny’s falchion.

There were now three monsters, two small, one medium, no less deterred from attacking.

A spray of water emerging from one of the smaller monster’s amoeba-like “limbs” propelled Sunny backwards until he hit a nearby tree.

Astaria began to rush forwards, prepared to slash one of the monsters with her glaive when Darnal placed a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think it’s working. I have an idea. Distract them.”

With that, Darnal began weaving through the monsters, stamping runes between and around them.

Another one of the smaller ones took notice of him, turning its watery mass to face him before Astaria stabbed it through the middle.

It turned to face her instead, sucking her glaive into its form.

Now disarmed, Astarias formerly blank eyes widened, but she quickly shook off her shock, and jumped back and to the side to dodge the spray of water it aimed at her.

She heard Sunny cry out “Nyx!” and turned to see Nyx trapped inside the largest monster, struggling to free himself.

Darnal hung back, plan momentarily disrupted as if he saw it through now, Nyx could die.

The three of them glanced at each other in panic before, steeling his nerves, Sunny took a deep breath and lept through the air on a strong forewind, burst through the monster and out the other end, Nyx held in his arms.

“Now!” yelled Astaria

Darnal stomped on the rune under his foot, firing a bolt of electricity through it that shot through one runs after the other, creating a chain of lightning that lit up the forest, fizzling the monsters into a cloud of steam and ozone.

Sunny caught his breath, falling to the ground, still sore all over from his meeting with the tree, as Nyx coughed up the water in his lungs.

“Well, Sunny finally said, “Looks like everything worked ou-“

“They’re weak, get them now!”

Four Brotherhood scouts appeared as if out of thin air, having bent the light around them to conceal their presence. It was the same four they had fought yesterday and they had Nyx and the others completely surrounded.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Nyx and Sunny leapt to their feet, both wavering and the whole group got into a defensive stance as the scouts charged at the group.

Darnal drew his saber and placed himself between the guards and Nyx. Astaria retrieved her glaive and did the same with the ones behind him. There was no way they could take all four scouts themselves but they could at least try to help draw them from Nyx and Sunny.

A scout lunged towards Darnal, readying a beam of light but Darnal raised his metal arm, using his forearm as a makeshift shield and reflected most of the light back at the scout, knocking him back.

At the same time, a second scout came charging in with a light encased fist but Darnal took advantage of the open pose to slash a shallow gash into his torso.

Astaria spun her glaive in a wide circle, beating back both scouts on her side. One managed to slide under, positioning himself between her and Nyx.

Darnal turned back to look and in his momentary distraction, the bleeding scout slipped past him as well.

Astaria launched the scout who had escaped her back with the handle of her glaive as Darnal grabbed the one who had made it past him by the shoulder, sending a bolt of electricity coursing through him.

As his back was turned, the scout he had knocked back lunged forward with a knife.

In one swift movement, Sunny lept through the air on an updraft, landing between them with his falchion raised-

Only to take the knife meant for Darnal directly in his gut.

Sunny fell to his knees.

“NO!” Nyx shouted with a ragged cry.

All at once the shadows of all eight fighters spread and congealed into one and a flurry of clawed arms grabbing and hurled all four scouts away, sending them flying into trees, rocks and the hard ground.

Before they could pick themselves up, Darnal ran between them, placing runes, then fired a bolt into one, causing lightning to chain between all of them just as with the water monsters.

The fallen scouts convulsed and screamed.

As soon as they stopped seizing, they got up and turned tail, leaning on each other for support.

“This isn’t over…” one said, looking back as they made their retreat.

“What we’re you thinking, wounding him like that, what if this gets out?” one scolded, voice fading into quiet as the group staggered away.

“No…” said Nyx, dropping to his knees next to Sunny “No no no no no no!”

He summoned numerous shadowy arms to wrap around his middle tightly, both holding him and placing pressure on the wound. Cold black tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

The twins stared in shock.

Darnal steeled his nerves, then looked to his sister. She looked at her brother, then back to Sunny.

“Astaria…” He said

Astaria squeezed her eyes shut before meeting her brother’s “I know. It’s been years but…I know”

She sat down next to where Sunny and Nyx were. “Hold still please. Both of you.”

She started to try to remove the shadows now wrapped around Sunny like a vice.

“What are you doing?” Nyx asked frantically.

“It’s ok, Nyx, let her.” Darnal said.

Hesitantly, Nyx retracted his shadows from the wound.

Astaria took a deep breath.

Her hands began to glow with a warm light. As they did, the wound began to close, the radius of the bloody opening getting smaller and smaller until disappearing.

As soon as the wound was healed, Astaria stepped away, turning from the goup and hugging her chest.

Nyx looked at her with shock that soon turned to something like…offense.

Sunny sat up hesitantly, finding no pain when he did. “You’re a light mage? Why would you hide that?” he asked.

Astaria turned back around to face them. “Do you know what light is? It’s the reason you can’t look at the sun. It’s why your skin burns when you don’t protect it. Light is radiation.” she spat.

Darnal looked down, clutching his shoulder where flesh met metal.

“You’re afraid of yourself..” Sunny murmured.

If Astaria heard him, she chose not to respond.

“Thank you,” said Nyx “for saving him.”

Astaria let out a steadying sigh, “Your welcome.” she said

“We should get going.” said Darnal.

They gathered their water and filed back into the cart, Sunny and Nyx in the back, twins in the front.

As they began to ride off, Nyx could just barely make out Darnal telling his sister “I’m proud of you.”