The day after meeting Rana, many people gathered at the warehouse for what I assumed was the beginning of the next part of traveling. In total, there were at least twenty guards, five for each carriage. Seemed like a lot for just moving us, they would’ve assumed that all of us should have our souls sealed, or that we couldn’t use ether. So what did they think we would encounter on the road?

“Ghezin, you notice?” I asked, getting his opinion on this might help clear it up.

“If you mean the number of guards then yes, we are probably in Vari, so we will be traveling near the southern border of Thaloria. They are most likely expecting monster attacks, and with this number of souls, I would agree with their caution,” He informed.

“Are beasts really that bad?”

“Depends on their strength, we rank beasts for a reason. You could probably kill one at the lowest rank, while one from the higher tiers would be able to kill all those guards in a second” Ghezin’s voice was calm, but that made it all the more chilling.

Then I heard a familiar voice, “Well, I guess we have to hope for that not to happen”

“To be honest Rana, the chances of that happening are very low” Ghezin replied while Rana took a seat on the other side of me again. “If it was that common the kingdoms wouldn’t be able to exist in the first place”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know about all this?” Rana inquired.

“In my culture, we learn about these things from our forebearers, later we use this knowledge when leading our settlements” He responded, about what I had expected.

Rana thought momentarily before asking, “Could you teach me more about Kythraxian culture?”

“While on the road I’d be happy to. It would help us pass the time” He responded.

“Well then Arthur,” She said.

“So Ghezin can’t until the road, so the substitute is here. Is that what you are asking here?” I asked.

“Pretty much, so how about it?”

“Alright, what do you have in mind?” Turns out she just wanted to know more about my past, and so we did question for question.

Rana came from Lasa, the capital of Eldora, and was part of the common folk there. Her family wasn’t poor by any means, however, they weren’t a part of the noble class. She hadn’t awakened yet, however, considering her age she should awaken soon.

In the end, I told her quite a bit about myself, and about Serenith. I was just about to ask her about Lasa however, they started to funnel the carriages out of the warehouse. In the end, there were four different carriages all gathered outside.

I heard a woman yell out from somewhere near the front of the carriages, “Let’s get moving, I want to be at Willowdale in two weeks. Guards stick to your cargo make sure none of them get damaged.”

As soon as she mentioned the ‘cargo’ the mood in the carriage got a lot darker. I was certain that if she ever came in here almost everyone would try to kill her. We’ve been couped up for weeks, some of us for over a month, and we’re just cargo?

“So Ghezin,” I heard Rana say, “I believe we have two weeks for you to teach me about Kythraxians” At least there was one bright side. I was around someone who could teach me some more tricks with ether, and another who shared my interest in his culture.

The following week was filled with plenty of lessons, and if I ever made my way to a Kythrax village in Eldora I would easily be able to fit in. My knowledge of ether grew as well, and since Rana could awaken at any time he eventually started to teach her some tricks too.

Most of it was solidifying my control over cycling, being able to do it at any time in any place. I also learned its limits. It could be used to conceal internal ether control, no matter the level you used it at. However, it could not be used to conceal external ether control, meaning it couldn’t disguise someone shooting fire, or any other phenomenon.

The other things I learned were some things to improve how well I could internally control my ether. Everything else was theoretical knowledge that I couldn’t put into practice.

We also passed a town called Abartil, just a bit smaller than Serenith and Vari. We didn’t spend any time there, just passing straight through.

At the end of that week, I was talking with Rana when I saw the guards all start getting into formation.

Ghezin leaned over, interrupting Rana which she wasn’t too pleased about, and said, “In the trees, should be a beast that is about to attack” This had me interested, I hadn’t seen too many fights in my life.

All the guards gathered in preparation for the beast, I assumed they wanted to take no risks during the fight.

It was only a few seconds after they had fully gathered that I had caught my first glimpse at the beast. It seemed to be a deerlike beast, and it dashed in between the trees quickly. It was brown with green highlights along its fur and antlers, and I assumed it had some affinity toward wind ether from the waves of dust it created when moving.

Then I saw some of the guards start to form various spells to fire at the beast, ranging from fire, water, wind, and even lightning. I saw the fire blast towards the beast first, striking the ground in front of it, while some hit it. The beast dispersed some of them with its powers over the wind, but it couldn’t stop all of them.

Before all of the spells hit I saw dust kicking up behind them, the guards had fired their wind spells too. The spells made the fire grow, stopping the beast from approaching the carriages. A wall of fire grew in the forest and with the cover provided the guards fired off their water spells. These soaked the beast, and then the final two guards fired lightning. I heard the crackling of lightning and soon over the cracking of burning wood, I heard it shriek and wail.

I was impressed. It was a very well-planned defensive tactic. While I was considering the ins and outs of it I felt something hit me on the back of my head.

Immediately I turned to the person I knew to be the culprit. “Rana stop hitting me while I’m trying to think” I heard nothing back besides a gasp of breath. “What are you gawking at?”

I turned to follow her line of sight and found myself face-to-face with one of my oldest friends.

“Surogh I swear, if you peck me one more time I am going to backhand slap you” In response he simply turned his head sideways.

“Anyways thanks for keeping tabs on me, but you should probably go before someone sees you.” And so, as quickly as he came he left, regardless I was really happy knowing I didn’t have to say goodbye to him just yet.

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By the time I looked back over to the fight I saw that the beast was already dead and they were harvesting its corpse for anything valuable.

The following week later followed the same pattern of various attacks and learning from Ghezin, and occasionally I would spot a blue bird following us from afar. Before I knew it I spotted a city in the distance, we had arrived at Willowdale.

From where we approached I could tell that Willowdale was a walled city, but the protection didn’t reach the surrounding farmlands. Since it was the most southern city of importance it had to be fortified from beasts that wandered into the country.

The city itself was both impressive and the biggest city I had ever seen. It was easily larger than the size of both Vari and Abartil put together, dwarfing the other two cities I had seen.

We were approaching it from the west, letting us see the farms up to the north. By the time we were close enough, I could start making out markets, streets, houses, and all the like.

However, seeing all this made me think, what was I doing here? This question burned in my mind through the last two weeks and all the answers I had come up with were bad options. The worst thing was that I couldn’t do anything about it, and neither could anyone else here.

“It’s an impressive city, but I think Lasa has a bit more character,” Rana said out of the blue.

I gave her a sideways glance, “How does a collection of buildings have character?”

She flicked me while saying, “Well if you stopped being so cranky I could tell you. You done?” I sighed, then nodded. “Good, well it’s about how they build stuff. Lasa uses more stone while building, leading to a very different… feeling. That feeling is what I describe as character, make sense?”

“I’ve heard weirder things,” She didn’t appreciate my attitude, to say the least, but before she could scold me Ghezin got our attention.

“Let’s not, shall we? We are going to be having a busy day,” He said and then leaned back once more.

Rana looked at me for a few seconds, her white eyes seemed to be drilling holes to directly look at my soul. In kind, I brought my gold eyes level with hers are stared right back.

Eventually, she broke our staring contest by speaking “So?”

“So… what?” I asked

She deflated, then said, “Nothing then,” She proceeded to bring up her knees and put her head in between them.

So I flicked her on the forehead, and when she didn’t bring up her head I said, “Could’ve been weirder and I would know, I talk to a bird all the time” She still didn’t bring her head up but I saw her smile, so I went back to resting against the post behind me.

I woke up to banging and screaming, and the scene around me had drastically changed. There were cages all around, and we were inside of a building, or at least a tent. I was in a cell with Ghezin, Rana, and a few others.

Then I heard voices outside the cell but only caught a few words, “... job … with … food” I was too disoriented to make anything out of it.

Then I heard a male voice say, “Should … started?”

Then the woman from before spoke again, “... waking … selling … announce it”

What were they selling? None of it made sense, but the longer I stayed awake the more the fog cleared.

I noticed that men were gathering around each cell, they seemed to be gathering us in rough age ranges. Everyone else around me seemed to be more tired, and closer to falling asleep at any moment. Not knowing the reason and not wanting them to figure it out I followed suit, keeping my movements sloppy, and slowly following the person guiding me and Rana toward our new group.

There weren’t many of us, around ten, but I couldn’t keep track.

The woman, who I realized was the leader of the group who led us from Vari, came in front of our group and replaced the man who guided me there. She took one glance behind her, then seemingly seeing what she wanted turned back around.

I heard her take a sharp breath, then led us all through a gap in the tent in front of us. I tried to stay behind, already being in the back, but I felt a hand push me forward. Falling in line I followed the others, being right behind Rana.

When I passed through the makeshift door, I immediately felt overwhelmed. Bonfires were lighting up where we entered, and from behind I could make out the shadowy figures of hundreds of people. They were all sitting at different tables which were all positioned on the stair-like terrain. We must’ve entered onto a stage and when we were all lined up in front of the woman she started to yell out to the crowd.

“Welcome everyone, I’m happy to see so many out here for us. As you can see we have already taken every precaution. I hope all of you are prepared, and for those who are not, leave, we have no time for those who waste it,” She was curt and plain with her words, not wanting to spend any extra time wasted on whatever we were doing here.

The longer this charade went on the more I felt as if I had missed something vital. Why were we all here? What was she planning on doing? Yet no matter how frustrated I grew I couldn’t show any signs of it, they were all watching us now.

Wait, did I miss something again? Why was the attention diverted towards us? Why are we being treated like this?

Then it all clicked, the final piece finally falling into this broken reality of mine. We were all taken from southern lands and then ported towards the north. Every single one of our souls was supposed to be sealed somehow. We were treated like we were less than human, as cargo.

Slavery was against the law in almost every country… except two. The two northernmost nations, Avalonia, and where we were, Thaloria.

I felt my ether start to cycle faster in response to the adrenaline I was feeling, but my intake was increasing to match it. My head was growing clearer with each moment. I slowly got myself under control, and by the time I did, I started to listen to the people around me.

“Seventy-five, no eighty-five”

“Ninety”

“... Come around back, next one up”

We were being sold.

I glanced towards Rana who was right beside me and said a silent prayer. “Please, any of the gods, help us, don’t let this happen under your watch. Dai, Dulandir, Ranchiel, Rarnul, anyone… please”

The group of kids dwindled, one, by, one. Each one that was sold off felt like someone had run me through. Over and over I saw each one bought by the hooded figures in the crowd, and then it came down to Rana.

The bidding went higher and higher, eventually, it was the second highest out of the batch. The higher the number went the worse I thought of the person buying her, what they might do.

Then a man appeared, looking like he had just stepped out of the shadows. He handed the slave trader a bag and said a few words but I had only caught a few due to the tone of his voice and the outrage from the crowd.

“This... sufficient..” She nodded, and the man grabbed Rana and simply disappeared, as fast as he had come. The only recognizable thing on him was a symbol, a ghastly green symbol of a Kratt, a beast that did its master’s bidding, whether it be stealing or murdering.

I wanted to promise myself that I’d find her, but that meant I would have to escape myself, and then somehow find her based on that symbol alone, which could’ve just been a decoration common to Thaloria.

Finally, I was brought up to the middle, I wobbled my way there, not barely trusting my legs not to give out from under me. I felt horrid like my insides had been scorched with fire.

When I finally faced the crowd I saw mixed reactions. Most wanted nothing to do with me, it didn’t matter.

“Twenty” The only thing that followed was bitter silence, I must’ve looked as bad as I had felt. They didn’t want their ‘faulty merchandise.’

I swear I could hear the slave trader’s teeth grind before she finally said, “Sold” At least I could cause her some pain before I was out of her hair.