It was a lunch break on the road, only a week after we had left the camp. The place was now entirely destroyed, without any usable remnants left for Arlin. The air was just chilly enough to make one shiver, but not entirely overwhelming. The trees around us felt looming, every shake of their branches like a reminder of just how close we were to the place that had forbidden our very presence. Silva’s opinion on the forest had shifted greatly after the camp’s liberation, so much so that it seemed she entirely avoided going anywhere near the trees.
Outside of the main group, emotions were mixed. Some were happy to be on the move while others dreading the eventual fights that were going to occur.
Without much to carry our things, we’d had to resort to something that was painfully familiar- our baskets. The ones we’d carried every day into and out of the mines had now been repurposed to carry the many supplies we needed to make our trip.
Food was the major consideration that had many people worried. With the several dead creatures left at the camp, we were able to gather a fair amount of meat for the road. Ruby had made the assertion that it would last us until we arrived at the village midway to the capital. We’d also sent out an entire group the day before we had left to gather white thorns that were located on the lake’s edge, gathering a surprisingly large bounty which we took along.
It was going surprisingly well without any Arlinian interference, raising my hopes that our message we had sent to the capital had actually thrown them off.
A loud “thwap” noise resounded throughout the air as I felt another small piece of the hope I’d been building up die. My cheeks were stinging in the cold breeze, as this was the fifth slap I’d received in a single day thanks to the horrifying new mentor I had gained.
They stung far more than they should have, making me assume he’d been using his wind attunement to make them hit harder.
“Your knee was showing.” Cedric admonished. Cedric had taught me the word admonish because he’d been doing it every single day since I’d accepted his offer.
I intentionally led the invisibility fade around my head just to let him see how frustrated I was becoming. My cheeks were midway through the process of bruising, slowly turning purple like a ripening fruit.
I shouldn’t have told him I heal quickly.
“That was just a flicker.”
“Flickers will be enough for you to get spotted.” He immediately shot back, “I’m sure the others watching saw that.”
Cedric glanced over at Sera who was happily spectating my self-imposed torment.
“I saw it.” Sera casually added as she chomped down on a delicious looking piece of meat. Her face was mostly hidden behind her hair while she ate, which made the accusation sting all the more.
“And that will kill you. A coup requires us to get to the leader, right? From my experience, if you’re going against anyone in a position of power, they’re going to have a wind attuned with them. Unless you’re with another wind attuned who can actively cancel them out, you’re dead. Your attunement gives you the chance to confuse them, but that means you have to remain hidden.”
The ability for wind attunements to track things was something Ruby had previously shown me, but Cedric was on an entirely different level.
The training he’d been doing with me had been fighting with him. He’d mostly been blocking my blows, acting like a reactive training dummy who was extremely good at dodging. Despite the fact that I was usually invisible, he’d tracked me perfectly. Cedric knew my exact location and every single contour of my movement.
I let the rest of my body fade back into the realm of visibility and allowed my body to relax. My cheek burned, and I wanted to let it rest before another training session. I rubbed it and could feel it already starting to swell.
“Are we stopping for today?” Cedric asked, sounding somewhat disappointed.
“Yeah. I need to work on the burners we took from the camp. For how much they got trampled, I’m surprised that even half of them are functional.” I turned my gaze over to the side of the road where I could see Matthias sulking. “Matt! I’m gonna need an extra hand with the burners.”
He bolted up and ran over to my side as I made my way over to the basket where all of the tools I had nabbed were located. I rifled through the tools and materials inside, hastily tossing them over to Matthias as we set up our very basic workstation. I crossed my legs and started sorting through which burners I could fix in the relatively short period of time we had left in our break.
“Hey, king?” Jay called out as he made his way towards me, “You sure about this?”
I didn’t realize what he was referencing until he pointed at Matthias, who was opening up one of the burners which needed a new spring. Jay had been calling me king ever since the position had been forced upon me, and I couldn’t tell if it was mocking or not.
“Oh, him? Matt, are you planning on doing anything with any of these burners?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“No sir. I am highly aware that if I were to try anything, I would die immediately.” Matthias quickly spat out in defense.
“Huh.” was all that Jay said before wandering off.
“If I may ask, why are you letting me do this?” Matthias warily asked.
“Nothing much. You said you had experience with magore tech, and I needed an extra set of hands to work on the burners.” I answered casually, my hands working all the while.
“And where did you get your experience? You’re highly proficient.”
Oh right! I forget that I’m an abnormal case.
“Oh. Elm Grayson, my mentor, was the camp’s magore technician. Back before we got out, I worked under him as his apprentice. He taught me everything I know.” I happily told him.
“Your camp had a slave as its magore technician? I know you’ve mentioned this Elm figure before, but… wait, what did you call him?”
“Elm Grayson. He was a big researcher in Arlin.”
“He’s- But- They said he was… oh. Oh. And you-” Matthias stammered as something in him seemed to break. I continued working as I watched. Every part of him had stopped moving except for his head, which was spitting out an unintelligible soup of words.
“Matthias?” I asked, snapping him out of his stupor. His gaze narrowed on me, his white-blue hair standing up on ends.
“To clarify, you were mentored by Researcher Major Elm Grayson, the greatest mind in magore of the modern day, who trained you as a magore technician. And then you just gallivanted around the Empire with him freeing slaves?”
“Basically. What’s gallivanting?”
Matthias looked at me with awe in confusion, unable to respond or shut his gaping jaw. I ignored him and continued to work.
Hopefully I didn’t break him or anything.
After a few more minutes of working on the burners, I made the call to pack up and got moving again on the long, arduous road to our next destination.
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We made our way fairly casually throughout the next few days, although I could tell there was a general worry about the bet I was making on the village. We’d be in need of supplies by then, and despite the lack of Arlinian presence on the roads, there was a constant dread in the air.
Every day, I was working on the burners, getting the crap beaten out of me by Cedric, and planning what to do when we arrived.
We couldn’t use the forest anymore to attack our targets. That was a risk I’d forbidden for the moment, as it put us in more danger than it was worth and could backfire now that we were outside of the mining camps.
Every step forward I was worried that we would face another ambush like before, with only the guiding and comforting words of my friends to get me past them.
Matthias’s comedic whimpering helped as well.
We officially revealed our plans for the attack on the town once we got there to liberate and prepare for the final stretch of the journey. I’d kept the ideas about the coup to myself, mostly because they were underbaked and needed time to be bounced around with people who were smarter than me.
As usual, I would be using my ability to scout out the area, but this time with the help of cedric as my carrier. His control of noise made us even harder to detect. While that would happen, the rest of the people would be hiding in the threshold.
The forest wasn’t something we could use, but because it had limitations that were pretty easy to gauge for those who understood how the ire felt, you could place yourself in the area between where the road ends and where the true forest begins.
It wouldn’t have been as easy with strigs, but since we were all on foot, it gave us that advantage. The less danger everyone else was in, the more clear my mind could be when using my attunement.
The day was getting late, the sun nearing the horizon. A soft orange glow covered the treeline that loomed all around us. Every small shake in the wind felt like a word of judgment, the forest expressing irritation at my usage of it.
I tightened my body around Cedric’s back, and after taking a deep breath, cloaked us from sight. He ran forward without any trepidation knowing that any sound he would create would be negated.
As we crested the final hill, I looked down and saw what I hadn’t seen in over five years; Corithians, wandering about. Not slaves, but not free either. There were only a few, but they walked around the small village talking with each other and enjoying the air.
A sign, battered, bruised and slightly burnt stood next to the mouth of the road. The phrase ‘Welcome to Midweld’ was readable, although a hole easily identified as one coming from a burner had erased the middle part of welcome.
Something was off as we ran deeper. Despite the peace, there were clear signs of a battle. Burner shots left holes in walls which were in the process of being patched up, and parts of the ground had been torn up. It was a large battle, and yet the people were living their lives fairly normally.
I tapped on Cedric’s shoulder, pointing towards a larger structure with a rounded triangle roof. It was close to the center of the town, and was larger than any of the houses. If this was like Marlisle, it was probably where the village elders worked or lived. Inside, several outlines of individuals could be seen flicker in the flames through the open door.
He moved in its direction, being careful not to interact with any Corithians in our path. We held at the edge, hugging the side of the wall and twisting around to peer within. I stretched myself on his back forwards to get a better look.
We stepped inside, still completely undetected, hugging the walls. Men and women were gathered around a long table, drinking from shoddy mugs and enjoying a simple bread-heavy meal.
Their outfits were mixed, and some of them looked to be in Arlinian guard uniforms. I scanned their faces and landed on the man standing at the head of the long table, papers laid out in front of him which he looked down on emotionlessly.
My invisibility dropped as my emotions got the best of me. The room collectively shuffled as our presence was noticed, some raising up their hands or falling backwards. The man at the end of the table simply looked at me, his eyes widened and his closed mouth slightly hanging open. His black and gray hair flickered in the soft candlelight.
“Kid?”
“Elm?”