Pirin woke up at midnight to the sound of splintering wood and ripping fabric. He sprung upright in the bottom bunk, keeping just low enough to not bash his head on the upper bunk.

The crew quarters should have been entirely dark. But a red light seeped in from above, leaking down from the ladder and the axial catwalk.

Nomad was keeping watch up on the platform up above and Alyus was holding the ship’s wheel. Brealtod slept on a large mound of bedding on the opposite side of the crew quarters, but he leapt to his feet within seconds.

That left only one person not yet accounted for. Pirin spun around to face the cots. The upper bunk was empty.

Letting off a chain of hisses, Brealtod pointed down at the gondola below. He was going to help Alyus.

“Myraden!” Pirin shouted. He pulled his tunic off the end of the bed and tugged it on, then ran to the ladder. Looking up, he climbed. He ascended two rungs at a time, hauling himself up to the axial catwalk.

Myraden stood in the center of the catwalk, a few feet to the side of the opening. Gauntlets of seething red bloodhorn Essence swirled around her fists. There was no sign of Kythen, but she wasn’t an Embercore, and could use her Essence without being in range of her Familiar. She just wouldn’t be able to make more.

“Myraden!” Pirin shouted again. “What’s wrong?”

She spun around and threw a punch out into the empty air. A wave of Essence rolled off her fingers, surging toward his head. He let go of the top of the ladder, falling a few rungs, and the empty blast rolled over harmlessly. It coursed down the axial walkway, splintering the rails and making the gasbags ripple. It dispersed before it could damage anything important.

That was an abrupt change of attitude.

Pirin scrambled back up to the top of the ladder and peered over the rim cautiously. Myraden stared down the hallway with empty, sleepy eyes. She blinked a few times, then spun away and sprinted down the walkway.

She wasn’t herself, and she was going to tear the place apart.

Pirin scrambled up to the walkway and sprinted after her. His feet pounded against the walkway, but she was using a fortification technique on her legs, and she could run twice as fast as him.

Then a brown blur whipped along the walkway. Nomad’s cloak fluttered past Pirin, and he navigated along the walkway in a flash. He dug his heels into the wood right before he reached Myraden, then wrapped an arm around her shoulder, catching her in a tight, immobilizing hold. Dropping to his knees, he pulled them both to the ground.

“Don’t hurt her!” Pirin shouted, sprinting to catch up. He dropped to his knees before he reached them, skittering to a halt.

Myraden shouted something in Ískaben and drove an elbow back into Nomad’s gut. The man grunted but held steady. With a gasp, she threw a free arm up, sending a pulse of rippling red Essence upward. It tore through a rope.

“Myra!” Pirin hissed, waving his hand in front of her face.

“If she keeps struggling, she’s going to hurt herself,” Nomad warned. Pure Essence glittered on his fingertips—he was preparing to use a technique of his own. He had an enhanced body, and he could withstand her struggle for a little while, but eventually he would need something more.

“Myraden, can you hear me?” Pirin yelled. “What’s wrong?”

She gasped, “Fire…”

Whipping his head around, Pirin searched for any sign of a fire. There was nothing.

“Wha—”

“She had a nightmare,” Nomad said. “She woke up and ran, but her mind is still in it.” Even from the upper platform, he would’ve been able to perceive what had happened with his spiritual senses. “She’s trapped in the past.”

Pirin had promised himself that he wouldn’t use the Whisper Hitch on his friends, but…now was an exception. He could use it to help. He held out his hand and looked her straight in the eyes. The Whisper Hitch was one of the most basic techniques he knew, and it came from his Bloodline Talent.

Without his Reyad active, the technique failed twice before it latched on. A little grey orb appeared in his hand, hovering above his palm and representing her mind. Previously, Myraden’s mind had been completely inaccessible to him. She had a strong will, and he couldn’t overpower it. The same went for many people—Nomad, the Red Hand, and most wizards stronger than him.

But right now, he could feel every thought leaking out of her mind. In a state of unconsciousness, her willpower was nonexistent.

Visions of fire and flame leaked into his mind. For a flash, his eyes failed. He blinked, and for a second, he saw himself as a ten-year-old girl running through the streets of a burning city. A burning sprite-man cried for help and screamed in agony, but a Dominion soldier drove a spear through his back.

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Pirin slapped the side of his head, then wrenched his thoughts under control. He radiated calmness through the Hitch, letting it seep into his Essence and out to his hand, where it soaked into the grey orb.

He didn’t think he had gotten powerful enough to alter his companions’ minds, but constant technique practice and using the Gap Millstone Rotation was enough to strengthen his willpower.

But even then, he doubted it would’ve worked against a fully conscious Myraden.

The grey orb pulsed. Her body tried to reject the calmness. Pirin’s Essence destabilized, but he gritted his teeth and held it. “Just a little longer…”

More and more of her memories filtered into his mind, and he couldn’t block them all out. A burning city—the Burning of Ískan—and rampaging Dominion soldiers. Smoke and ash choked him.

Pure, overwhelming grief raced into his channels. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his, but it didn’t make it any better when a Dominion soldier stabbed…his father? A spear peirced through an armoured sprite’s chest.

No, it was Myraden’s father.

The man wore the same armour as Myraden, though it had changed form to fit him better. He wielded the same silken spear, and he fought with the strength of ten men. He was a wizard. A Cursebearer of Ískan.

And the Dominion had killed him.

Pirin clenched his fists, trying to untangle Myraden’s memories from his own while holding his own Essence stable. Nomad shouted something, but Pirin couldn’t hear. Footsteps rattled the walkway behind him. Someone was approaching.

A vision of a stormy sea washed through his mind. A series of disorienting flashes blasted followed, and he slowed his Essence to process them, holding them apart from his own memories. He saw visions of training with Kal, of learning Sirdian martial arts, and training her Bloodline Talent.

Pirin shouted, forcefully pushing the memories aside. At the same time, Brealtod approached from behind, setting something on Pirin’s shoulder. The dragonfolk man hissed, and crystals chittered.

It was the crystal fox.

Pirin didn’t understand what happened. On contact, the fox let off a soothing aura. Half conscious, it nuzzled closer, slipping into the curve of Pirin’s neck. His mind sorted into neat parcels. His own memories fled to a back corner, and Myraden’s memories poured back into his Essence, freeing his own mind.

“Pirin, the fox has a strong memory-aspect alignment!” Nomad hissed. “Let it help you!”

He let the parcels of Myraden’s memories slip back into her mind slowly, but with each memory that he had absorbed, he added his own feelings of calm. It’s alright. We’re here. You’ll be alright.

Again, Myraden rejected the calm. She snatched some of her memories back greedily, taking none of the calm.

Pirin’s arm blazed. The little grey orb wobbled so fast and hard that it spilled over the edge of his hand. Specks of pure Essence blazed in the air around him. He was running out of time. If he didn’t cut off the Hitch soon, he’d do permanent damage.

He pressed his eyes shut. He and Myraden had known each other for a little while. They had to have some shared memories he could draw on, where she was calm and relaxed.

“Let the fox help you,” Nomad said. “You turned it into a mind-wraith when you tamed it with the Whisper Hitch. Draw on its power now.”

He had cut all the anger and rage and fear out of the wraith’s soul, completely neutralizing it. But it turned the little creature into a logical, analytical machine. He needed that power now. He leaned closer, brushing his cheek against its soft crystalline fur. Its aura strengthened.

He searched through the neat parcels of Myraden’s memory and compared them with his own. He drew on the Memory Chain, pulling Essence through the little keyhole below his soul and targeting a feeling that made him think of her.

Confusion, disorientation. A touch of desire—he couldn’t deny that—and a longing for a companion who could understand him.

With the fox’s help, he sifted to the right memory in a matter of seconds. He hadn’t seen it before. It was one of Myraden’s calmest memories, though…for him, he hadn’t been calm at all.

Nearly a year and a half ago, Pirin stood in a cave, hands trembling. He didn’t know the context, or even where they were, but Myraden lay on the ground in front of him, bleeding out from a wound in her shoulder. It shouldn’t have been life-threatening, but she was a normal wizard, and any marginally deep wound could be deadly with how thin their blood was before they enhanced their bodies.

It was the first time he had ever tried using his healer’s knowledge on someone without any guidance from Mr. Regos. His hands shook, his teeth chattered, and his eyes were so wide they hurt, but he couldn’t blink.

But if he didn’t project a sense of calm, there was a greater chance of her going into shock and dying.

“You’ll be alright!” he had told her. “I promise! I swear it on the Eane, you’ll get through this.”

Presently, he latched onto that memory, from both of their perspectives, and parcelled it up with as much calm confidence as he could muster. Then, with one last push, he flung it back through the Whisper Hitch. It rammed into the orb and seeped in.

Myraden stopped writhing and squirming. Nomad released her, and she fell to the floor, panting.

Pirin shut his hand, cutting off the technique before he accidentally damaged her mind, then vented the unstable Essence as a Shattered Palm down the walkway.

Pirin looked at Nomad with an intense gaze and motioned with his hands—Nomad took the hint and stepped back.

Pirin stayed low and approached slowly. “You good? Myraden?”

She rubbed her head and pushed herself up to her feet. “I—I am fine. Just a nightmare.” She glanced around, then ran her hand down the splintered railing beside her. “Nightmares have consequences. I…will sleep on the upper platform from now on.”

Pirin sighed. “Is that—”

“It is fine. Sprites have a natural resistance to the cold. Do not worry about me.”

That was easier said than done, especially given what she’d just done, but Pirin nodded anyway. “Close call.”

“You will still…let me travel with you, yes?”

“Of course!” Pirin said. “Myraden, I said it before, and we promised each other: you are my friend. I told you that in the labyrinth, yeah? I won’t abandon you.”

Brealtod hissed something as well. Nomad crossed his arms. “We should try to catch some sleep before Alyus kicks us all off the ship, though. We’re getting close to the estate, and we need to be as ready as we can be.”