My eyes were locked on the trees above us, swaying slightly. It was cold, and the only warmth we had was the extremely small fire that we had built. It was small not only because we had to make sure not to start a full forest fire, but because we were only able to pick up sticks from the ground rather than tearing off branches.

“You going to die, leader?” Silva’s mocking tone wasn’t helping with my mental state either.

I slowly made my way to sit up and place my arms over my legs, looking into the fire. It was more accurate that I was looking at the cassoban, which was currently being cooked over the fire by Wanderer.

“You sound like you want me to die.” I muttered under my breath as I extended my hands up to the flame.

Alex groaned as he placed his own hands outwards, slightly brightening the flame. “Could you two stop arguing?”

“This is also your fault as well, Alex. Don’t act like you’re above this.” I glared at him. “You seriously expected me to just go along with Silva? After everything we’ve been through, after everything you and I have done together, you just expected me to throw up my hands and give all of my agency away?”

His sympathetic grin twisted into that of a frown. He’d been trying to hide behind his old veneer of friendliness and attempts at mediation, but it couldn’t last.

“I expected you to have common sense. We’re down in numbers and don’t have a plan, yet we keep going forward like nothing is wrong.”

“We do have a plan. Head south and reach the lake, then take on the camp.”

“But that’s not a plan!”

The group fell silent. Neither I, nor Silva or Alex, could find words to follow up his accusation. It wasn’t wrong in that it wasn’t a plan.

“We have time to work on a plan.”

Sera’s solemn voice snapped us all out of our trance.

“We survived a day. Maybe we can survive two weeks. I mean, we even learned a new rule about the forest.”

Huh?

“And that is?” I impatiently goaded her on.

“Killing the animals of the forest in self defense doesn’t count as killing for sport. I think we’re safe for the moment.”

“How exactly are we safe for the moment?” Ruby, who had been attentively studying the map and toying with her red-tipped hair, suddenly decided she was part of the conversation.

“The cassobans were the initial punishment. Most people don’t survive the first. I don’t know if the forest can feel respect, but it has at the very least acknowledged us. If I had to guess, I think it’s giving us a second chance to leave.” Sera took a bite of cassoban, her eyebrows rising in surprise. “This is good.”

For trying to kill us, it better taste good.

“And that’s not a chance we’re taking. Which means it will inevitably get angry at us again, and we’re going to have to fight more…” My words trailed off.

“Oh it’s still angry. It’s just trying a more… diplomatic solution to us.” Sera spoke even with large portions of cassoban meat in her mouth. “The cassobans were directed towards us as an initial attempt to get rid of us. Remember how they ran off? Maybe the punishments and control of Corith are only temporary?”

Wait… that actually makes sense.

“So you’re saying that while we’re still going to get focused on over others, it's not going to actively send things after us?” Wanderer looked away from the current Cassoban, his interest piqued alongside everyone else.

“Not unless we break another rule.”

I placed my hand on my chin, repeating the sensations and experience over and over in my head. It stung my shoulders and hands, both of which hadn’t started to fully heal yet.

“Does Arlin know any of this?” I muttered to myself. Information was more powerful than ever right now with how few people we had.

Right…

The losses. I’d been shoving them out of my mind this entire time because of how much trouble we had been in. Now that we were all seated and able to pause, I couldn’t help but have my mind drift back to them.

I killed them.

Silva was right about one thing, and that was that my naive outlook on this had left us unprepared for an ambush and meant that we were easily overwhelmed.

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Could I have done anything?

“North?”

Sera’s pensive voice snapped me out of my melancholy. In her hands was a leg of the cassoban, which I quickly took and bit into.

“You were right, this is good.” I said in between large mouthfuls of the bird. If it weren’t for how absolutely horrible they were to fight, I’d consider them a Corith delicacy. “I wonder if all the other animals that are going to try to kill us will be this tasty.”

I wanted to laugh, so I did, even if it was fake. If I was doing somewhat badly with the losses, I couldn’t expect everyone else to be doing better. Simply taking a moment to check on everyone else, I could see Mell and Ruby attempting to console one another. I knew the people in our caravan somewhat well, but Ruby was someone who enjoyed messing around with them. I imagined that there had been a few drawings of them back in the cart when we had been forced to run.

“North, you can drop the tough guy act.” Sera patted me on the back, seating herself at my side.

I shook my head vigorously, causing some of the dirt that had been caked into it to fly off. “No, I can’t. Not when Silva is still looking for an opportunity to oust me and everyone is still reeling from our losses. Hell, I feel like we’re in a worse position now than we ever were back in the camps.”

Now, I was trying to lead everyone deeper into the worst place on Sol and hope that we didn’t die. I didn’t even have my burner anymore, making me basically dead weight.

“We can’t even give them a proper funeral.” I whispered softly into the night. The dead members of the rebellion were now deprived of any form of respect. Their bodies could never rejoin their souls.

“We can fight for them. Isn’t that what you always say? We keep moving forward?”

Can we?

I finally took the moment to really look into Sera’s face. I opened my palm and let a soft light illuminate us both, and I could see that her lip was quivering. She was probably in just as much, if not more pain than me.

“You want assurance from me.” I flatly stated, searching deep into her eyes.

“Of course I do! I’m scared, just like everyone else here, including you. I’ve heard all the stories and tales about the forest, and after today, I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. You’re asking all of us to walk into the place that no one is supposed to return from. I don’t need you to be fearless, but you can’t be the one who gives up hope.” Her hand closed my palm, leaving only the light of the campfire to illuminate her face. “It’s not about being tough. It’s about holding onto the belief that we can keep going.”

“But with Silva-”

“Silva doesn’t matter. If you keep letting her get into your head and build those doubts, she’s going to win just like Nicole.” She placed both of her hands on the sides of my head and forced me to lock eyes with her. “If we keep getting distracted by people like her, there’s no way we can win. We keep hope by moving forward, right?”

For the first time since the ambush, I smiled genuinely. Sera was right more often than not, and this was certainly one of those times. I couldn’t be the despairing, nor could I be the only one trying to create a sense of hope. A leader would help others believe alongside them, and if I wanted to deserve that role, I couldn’t just stop now.

“Yeah. For all of them. For Elric.”

I pushed her hands off of my face and almost patted her on the shoulder before realizing how much it might hurt. Healing the wound didn’t remove the sensitivity of the skin for some time afterwards.

“You two realize I could hear all of that, right?” Silva loudly interrupted our emotional moment.

“Shut the fuck up Silva.” We said in unison before laughing. This was a genuine one, rather than something I had to fake.

“Still…” My voice trailed off as an aged face came to mind. “We don’t know anything about the state of the western group.”

“It’s not something you, nor anyone here can really do something about. Elm is a fine leader, from what I am aware of. If anything, he has probably done better on the roads than we have.” Wanderer added to the conversation, the door to which had apparently been opened by Silva.

“Isn’t that kind of rude to what just happened to all of us?” Alex stood up from the fire, having added a bit of energy to it with his attunement.

“I’m just stating my view of the man. He may be unwilling to share much information about himself, but his skills in leadership are not just conjecture.” The swordsman’s declaration caused a pause around the fire as all eyes turned to me.

This looks bad.

“North, you never made us privy to his full history, did you?” Alex’s slow question made me tense up.

“Yeah, would you mind sharing?” Silva followed up her subordinate.

I groaned in a way that sounded almost exactly like Elm. It wasn’t on purpose, although I could hear Sera snicker to my side.

“Fine. He’d probably kill me if I did it earlier, but it’s not like I can make our situation any more dangerous.” I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the very shortened version of my mentor’s history. “His full title in the Arlin forces was Major Elm Grayson. He was a famous figure who fought in the fourth and fifth campaigns. He later transitioned to becoming a magore researcher who invented technology for the Empire and helped to further the study of the substance. After learning of what one of his creations was used for, he destroyed his projects and killed everyone who knew anything about it. Because the tool was important, they sent him to the camps and had him work while trying to coerce him to return to the empire and resume production.”

I’d intentionally skipped over the fact that his creation was the slave cuff, but the rest of the story seemed to click with Wanderer.

“That would certainly explain a lot of his skills with magore tech. I may recall hearing some stories about a Major Grayson back in Irebor, but all of them treated him as though he had died.” Wanderer scratched at his chin while his other hand gripped tightly onto his sword.

“That’s what was told to the rest of the empire. Apparently they wanted to keep his existence a secret in case some group planned to capture him and use him to manufacture magore tech.”

“Huh. I guess I expected him to have something more mysterious if he was so unwilling to talk about himself. Still, a rather high profile person to have acting as your second in command, no?” Silva said, looking extremely disappointed.

Well, I did leave out one major detail, but I can reveal that at another time when we aren’t in such danger.

“Sir, I have a question.” Mell thankfully switched the subject.

“What is it?”

He pointed at Ruby, who was lying peacefully on his chest, her map still clutched in one of her hands.

“How are we supposed to sleep?”