The red-gloved man raised his sword above his head. All it took was one step to close the distance.

Pirin couldn’t step back any further—not without pushing Gray into the spears of the soldiers waiting behind them. She tried to peck at the soldiers, but her beak didn’t have enough range.

But Pirin wasn’t here to die. If he couldn’t fight, he’d have to run. He glanced around, desperately hunting for anything to help him.

Then, he noticed the root he had blasted, only seconds ago. The pulse of Essence had torn straight through one side. Now, the heavy ambersteel deposit weighed it down. It dangled precariously above the path. If he could sever the other side…

No matter how much his hand ached, he had to try. He pulled his arm back, nurturing the technique again.

But, now that he needed it to fail, it didn’t. Just his luck. The red-gloved man’s mind gathered in the palm of Pirin’s hand, but it was nearly a solid sphere—Pirin couldn’t even see inside or feel any of the man’s thoughts.

He tried to take advantage of it. He lashed out with a pulse of Essence, but it shattered against the sphere. The man didn’t even flinch.

Pirin ducked to the side, dodging a heavy slash. But he pushed himself into a corner between Gray and the railing. There was nowhere to run.

Gray swiped at the man with her talons, her good leg. It bought Pirin seconds—just enough time to try the attack one last time.

This time, his Essence did what it usually did—destabilize. A spike of pain raced through his hand. As he pushed his Essence to its limit, the man laughed. “It didn’t work the first time, so you’ll try again?”

As soon as a spark burst out of his fingertip, Pirin pointed his arm upward and locked his elbow. The Essence blasted out, slicing through the other side of the root. A ten-foot section of sodden root and heavy ambersteel plummeted.

It crashed through the wooden planks of the walkway just behind the man. He staggered, stumbled back, then gripped the railing for balance. There was an opening.

“Run!” Pirin shouted. He snatched up his sword and leapt across the gap in the walkway. He landed shakily on the other side, and the boards immediately splintered under his weight. Then, they cracked. He sprinted forward, running from the avalanche of collapsing boards.

Gray jumped across after him. She could jump further, but her added weight didn’t help. The walkway began collapsing faster, and though elves were light, Pirin couldn’t run on empty air. A board snapped under his feet.

He leapt for the chain suspending the walkway from the cave roof. His fingers barely clasped onto it, and the rest of his body thudded against the walkway—injured arm first. A spike of pain surged through his body, but he held on.

Panting, he hauled himself back onto the surviving section of the walkway. He scrambled to his feet, then looked back. The man with the red glove stood at the other side of the gap, watching intently. The soldiers filled the gaps behind him. One threw his spear, but Pirin knocked it out of the air with his sword.

The distance across the gap was too far to jump—for a normal man. Maybe a wizard’s enhanced body could manage it, though.

This man, he wasn’t a wizard, was he? He was fast, and the way he’d swung his sword…

But he hadn’t used any Arcane techniques. Pirin turned away and ran, sprinting along the walkway and toward the cave’s opening. More and more people spilled out of their homes to watch the commotion, and now, they crowded the paths. Most leapt out of Pirin’s way, then filed back into place once he had passed, blocking the soldiers and obscuring their view.

He sheathed his sword and slowed to a walk, then tugged his hood up. By now, the walkway sloped down towards the ground, ready to deposit him back onto one of the roads.

A young man and woman stood near the opening of the cave. They both wore pure white cloaks—perfectly clean, with no pulls or tattered ends. A boar stood beside the woman, and a bobcat with stubby eagle wings and an eagle’s head (a griffon?) stood beside the man.

Wizards, for sure. An invisible bond flowed between them and their animal companions, like a faint wind in the natural auras of the world. An arcane tether, and invisible leash. They could cycle Essence along it, and it helped them stabilize their techniques.

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With their white cloaks? They had to be Aerdian or Dominion. Maybe they were even working with the red-gloved man.

Pirin held his breath, locking his own Essence in place and veiling his spirit and core. Depending on what stage these wizards were, they might be able to sense even a little whisper of Essence flowing through Pirin’s body.

Gray was a bigger problem. If they spotted her, they would know he was nearby. He inched back towards the edge of the walkway, nudging deeper and deeper into the shadows.

The moment Pirin and Gray stepped onto the solid ground, they increased their pace. He couldn’t hold his breath anymore, but he kept his lungs restrained and tight to keep his Essence as still as possible. Every second, he looked back, making sure the two wizards didn’t turn toward him. They seemed focussed on the city and the cave only. Not the roads behind them.

They left the cave and turned to the city outskirts. Pirin walked as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself, until the city—and the wizards—passed out of sight.

They came to an intersection with a simple signpost. Muilren, Muilren…there! Near the top of the post. The road led away due south, carving a path straight through the woods. He broke into a run. Gray kept up, though her gait was unsteady.

They ran for barely a minute before Pirin stopped. Two elves in ambersteel armor patrolled the path ahead. The twilight glinted off their helmets. Pirin and Gray skittered to a halt. Maybe he could use a touch of magic to convince the elves to step aside, but his hand ached, and after forcing his technique to backfire twice now, his channels were sore with a deeper, spiritual pain.

Instead, he led Gray aside and out into the woods. They walked as softly as they could, stepping through the snow and around the pair of Aerdian sentries. Whether the sentries were looking for him or not, he couldn’t tell, but he didn’t want to find out.

Once Pirin couldn’t see their armour through the trees, he walked back to the trail and stepped onto it.He and Gray kept running. Ahead, a bulge of white fabric stuck up slightly higher than the trees. It had to be the ship.

He looked back and forth to make sure there was no one around, then he and Gray took a sharp right turn. They tromped through the undergrowth and trees, until finally, they emerged into a snowy clearing.

The airship rested in the middle of the clearing. Its hull, maybe a hundred paces long, was round and elegant. It reminded him of a stretched-out egg, with the ridges of a gourd. A plain white fabric sheet enveloped the entire upper hull, clinging tight to the lightweight wooden frame. Two spars hung off both sides of the ship, rigged with a spiderweb of ropes and triangular sails. They stuck out nearly twice as wide as the ship itself.

The Featherflight. Pirin approached from the back, where long fins stretched out to stabilize the ship, but he quickly ran around to the bow, where the wooden control gondola hovered—barely a few feet off the ground.

“Alyus!” Pirin called. “Brealtod!”

Both of their heads poked out the rear door of the control gondola. They stared at him. Finally, Alyus yelled, “Well, get on. We’ve waited long enough for you and your snapper.”

They’d done most of the work to get the ship off the ground already. Only a single mooring line still stretched from the front of the ship to the ground.

Pirin jumped up onto the rear platform (a balcony, really) of the gondola then ducked inside the enclosed control room. Gray followed him up, but the door wasn’t big enough for her to fit inside. Pirin said, “I thought you said you had room for a gnatsnapper.”

“We have plenty,” Alyus countered. “Once we’re up and away, we’ll open the cargo hold for your bird.” He leaned to the side, then tilted his chin up. “But we need to get outta here before the authorities catch up.”

Already, Brealtod had unwounnd the front mooring line. The Featherflight rose. Pirin leaned out the gondola’s door and faced Gray. “You can hang onto the back ledge for a little, right?”

Gray cooed softly. Her talons clung so tight onto the edge of the platform that the wood began to splinter.

“Alright, I’ll take that as a yes,” said Pirin. He ducked back inside.

The trees sank past the curved bank of windows at the gondola’s front. The moment the last spiky tip of a pine tree passed the window, Alyus placed his hands on the ship’s front-facing wheel. Once they were out of the shelter of the trees, the wind filled the sails. The fluttered and luffed.

“Shut that door, will you?” Alyus demanded. “You’re gonna let all the warmth out.”

Pirin pushed the door until it latched in place in its curved frame. Brealtod, now finished winding up the last mooring line, walked over to the second wheel.

“Putting us on a course…” Alyus lifted a hand from the wheel and tapped a map—it had been pinned to the frame of the front window. “South, southeast-ish. We’ll follow the Senflow as best as the winds allow, and we’ll reach Tallas-Brannul in no time at all.”

The nose of the airship tilted up, and the floor sloped down toward the stern. Brealtod let out a short string of hisses at Alyus. He twisted the sideways-facing wheel a touch. The airship creaked and groaned, and the fins at the stern adjusted—the elevator fins.

“Yes, I know, I know,” Alyus said. “But we’ll pick up some ballast from the Senflow, and we’ll be balanced again.” He looked back over his shoulder, and said to Pirin, “The Senflow feeds directly into the Tallas-Brannul lake, and it’s the most direct route.”

Pirin nodded slowly. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all,” said Alyus. “We’re just running a little low on ballast water. Had to dump some to rise.” He turned the wheel to the right slightly. “You paid us, and I gave you my word that I’d get you to that library. So that’s what I’ll do.”