The Featherflight sailed south for a week and a half. They stayed in the air the whole journey, except for one night when the winds were especially strong and the only place the airship could shelter was in a wide gorge.

They crossed the rest of the Fieldband, then sailed over a patch of thicker, larger woods. The trees were taller than any Pirin had ever seen in Sirdia. They were shaped like enormous oaks, but their leaves were bright scarlet—and they did have leaves, even in the middle of the winter.

Pirin learned the name of the forest after a day of sailing over it—the Autumnwood. Alyus helped Pirin orient himself with one of the ship’s maps, and Pirin vaguely recalled a similar experience in his past: reading a map with an aging man. He and Pirin had plotting a course, and embarking on an adventure.

Pirin blinked quickly, hoping the memory would stick in his mind. But it crumbled away like dry mud. He cycled his Essence, trying to push it through the faint keyhole in his mind, to feel the faint wind of his memories, but there was nothing.

For the rest of the journey, after getting a sliver of the memory, Pirin went about his tasks dutifully but sullenly. He tried not to sulk, but it was hard not to. The best way to take his mind off it was to cycle his Essence around his body. He consulted the sparrow Path Manual, looking for cycling techniques.

It described a basic, nameless pattern to use at the Kindling stage, both for purifying Essence infusions and for drawing Essence in from the outside, and Pirin adopted it. It was better than nothing, and if there was any unpurified energy left from the manabulbs, he’d quickly deal with it.

On the eleventh day after they left Tallas-Brannul, around mid-afternoon, they approached a city. It was called Vēl Kattaer, according to Alyus.

The city nestled into a large clearing in the Autumnwood forest. It had no curtain walls, only a sandstone keep at the center. Wooden houses climbed up the walls—some made of woven branches, and others from cobbled-together wooden planks and other scraps. They spread across the clearing, creeping up the sandstone keep like vines, or scattering across the ground like moss.

Having travelled south, and simply because they were getting closer to spring, the snow was patchy. When Pirin stuck his hand out the airship’s gondola, a mild wind brushed his hand. It wasn’t warm—certainly not warm enough to melt the snow yet—but it was warmer than he was used to.

Still, the city’s chimneys belched smoke and small fires blazed in the patchwork streets below. Smoke sculptures swirled, advertising goods amidst the colourful glint of lumawhale signs. The bustle of the city reached up to the airship, and so did scents of proper food—not just reheated stews and whatever other travelling supplies Alyus and Brealtod had. Pirin’s stomach grumbled.

“We’ll resupply here,” Alyus said. He turned the rudder wheel to the left, guiding the Featherflight into a lane of…air traffic, Pirin supposed. There were other airships flying toward and above the city. Some were behemoths, twice as large as the Featherflight, and some were only a little larger.

Squadrons of birds dipped and wove between the airships. Pirin guessed that most were short-distance couriers, but there were a few mounted soldiers flying through. He hoped that they wouldn’t recognize the Featherflight by sight if they were just flying past. But if the ship had to set down at a mooring tower…

“Where are we heading?” Pirin asked Alyus. “Specifically.”

“Not to the city,” the ostal replied.

“If we set the Featherweight down at any proper airdock, they’ll identify us,” Pirin said. “And we’ll have to contend with Aerdian inspectors.”

Alyus nodded in agreement. “We won’t bluff our way through them again with daughter stories.”

“It was a good story,” Pirin pointed out. “But…where are we landing, then?”

Alyus huffed, and Brealtod hissed a few times. Finally, the ostal said, “We’re heading to an old friend’s house, just west of the city. We’ll walk back into town to get more supplies—food, ballast, and a little liftgas to top us off—and we’ll be back on our way.”

“An old friend?” Pirin asked.

“You’re nosy, aren’t you?”

“I am paying you for this…”

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Alyus shook his head and exhaled. “She’s an old friend, and that’s all.”

Brealtod let out a breathy laugh, and Pirin glanced over at him. The dragonfolk quickly straightened his face, but it wasn’t long before the smirk slipped back onto his scaly lips.

“Fine,” Pirin said.

They passed over the city, and the traffic thinned out. When the city was just a column of smoke behind them, Alyus steered out of the sky-lane. They turned west and sailed for a few minutes, but Pirin didn’t get any more glimpses of the forest—Alyus sent him and Brealtod to tighten the ballonets and bring them down a little.

Once they were low enough that they could drop the cargo platform all the way to the forest floor, they stopped. They hooked the airship onto the nearby trees and furled its sails, then descended through the forest on a rope ladder.

When they were halfway through the canopy, Pirin spotted it: a hut with a broad, conical roof, raised above the forest floor on stilts. The walls were wattle and daub, and the single stone chimney puffed out a whisper of smoke.

This had to be the ‘friend’ they were meeting.

Pirin slid down the rope ladder and jumped the last two feet onto the forest floor. He set off towards the hut.

Before Pirin could climb up the hut’s stairs, Alyus barged in front. “Please, elfy, let me lead. She’s not known for taking kindly to guests. And…keep your hood up. She might not be too kind to you if she learns who you are.”

Pirin raised his eyebrows, but he let Alyus lead. When he looked over his shoulder, he noticed Brealtod following close behind, holding the airship’s repeating crossbow in one hand. Pirin muttered, “I guess it can come off the swivel.”

Knocking on the door, Alyus called, “Laurill? Are you there?”

The door swung inward. Standing in the doorway was a frail silhouette of an elven woman—more slender than elves normally were. Her limbs, despite her heavy coat and cloak, still looked emaciated, and she supported herself with a pair of crutches.

“Alyus,” she grunted, pulling down her hood. She was about Alyus’s age—middle-aged, not elderly. “Come for more herbs, eh? Or are you going to try bringing me flowers again.”

Alyus gave a sad smile. “It’s winter, Laurill. No flowers.”

Laurill blinked a few times, then ran her hand through her gray-blonde hair. As soon as she lifted an arm, she slipped off one of her crutches. Alyus snapped forward, but she caught herself on the doorframe and shot him an angry look. “And who’d you bring with you?”

Motioning behind him, Alyus said, “Brealtod, my first mate, and Pirin, a new addition to my crew. Used to be a sailmaker on a passenger liner, and…came to join the more profitable side of things.”

“Still running your usual routes?” Laurill demanded bitterly. “Going to get yourself caught by the Dominion, that’s all. I won’t cry for you anymore.”

“Don’t need you to.”

Laurill scowled. “I don’t imagine you’re keen on leaving anytime soon, eh? Let’s get you inside. Maybe if you give me some silver, I’ll put on a cup of tea.” She turned away and hobbled into the gloom of her hut, muttering to herself.

With a glance back at Pirin, Alyus whispered, “You’re gonna spot that silver?”

“Unless she’d take Sirdian coins, this one’s on you,” Pirin said back, keeping his voice as quiet as he could. “Not to mention, it was your idea to come here.”

“Sure enough…” Alyus reached into the breast pocket of his vest. “Fine, fine, I’ve got some Dominion Chains.”

They stepped inside the hut. A bear trap rested beside the door, which Alyus carefully disarmed with the end of his bow, and a pitfall awaited them beneath the thatched doormat—Alyus nudged it aside with his foot, revealing the empty floor below. “Security’s degraded since last year. No angry bear in the trap, waiting to rip our heads off.”

“It died.” Laurill reached towards the fireplace on the far wall and set a pot on top of the flames. She prodded the fire with a stoker until the water inside the kettle began to simmer, then dropped the stoker on the table alongside the rest of the clutter. After a second, she pushed all the clutter off the table, sweeping it clean. There were three seats around it for the visitors.

“Don’t have to tell you to take a seat,” Laurill said. “I know you’ll do it on your own.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Pirin tried, pulling out one of the chairs and sitting down on it. Alyus and Brealtod took the other seats.

“Shut it, sailmaker,” Laurill snapped. “What do you want, Alyus?”

“Just a place to rest while we restock,” the ostal said. “I promise you, I wouldn’t have come here unless I absolutely had to.”

“On the run again?”

Alyus nodded. “Wasn’t trying to be, this time. But we ran into trouble at Tallas-Brannul.”

With a hmphh, Laurill turned to the fire and took the pot off it. She poured the steaming water into a press, then dumped a handful of herbs into it. The water turned green in a few seconds, but she kept it steeping for longer. “Tallas-Brannul. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to fix an Embercore.” She opened a cupboard and retrieved a set of clay cups.

That was a leap. Pirin scratched the back of his head nervously.

When Laurill reached up to a shelf, her sleeves slipped down to her elbows, revealing a pattern of green leaves beneath her flesh. They bulged, like tattoos except with depth. Pirin narrowed his eyes. The pattern wrapped all the way around her arms, and even up the base of her neck. With every shaky breath she took, the leaves shivered—they were real.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, sailmaker,” Laurill complained. “You know exactly what happened to me.”

“I—I don’t really, ma’am,” Pirin said.

“He’s slow, eh?” She hobbled closer and poked him in the back with her finger. “I was almost a wizard. Almost a Kalless-Ost, serving for the Emperor’s glory. But when my time came, I didn’t form a Reyad.”

“You’re an Embercore too,” Pirin breathed.

“Too?”

“I mean, my, uh, my brother is one,” he lied.

Laurill rolled her eyes. She turned back to the tea press and pushed its plunger down, then said, “Alright, boys, let’s talk payment.”