The pies were a hit; Ulyss had made them into culinary perfection as far as my stomach was concerned. Yadalee and others joined us, including Odenn, who mostly sat away and toward the back.

The seamstress was rather pleased when we paid in silver, and I'm sure we vastly overpaid, but it was just some scraps. She even managed to find a clean pair of underwear that supposedly belonged to her son once. I bought the thing and got out of there once her mood turned somber. Admittedly, it was weird wearing a dead guy's underwear, but they were clean and unused—so no complaints.

Come morning, we bid our farewell to the small village and headed off. As usual, the day's trip on the road was spent in mostly silence as Devon rested and Alice and I worked on the ward incantation.

Progress was okay. Not amazing. Something about my mana felt weird, and I didn't notice it until I tried to conjure up a flame. At first, it was an errant thought at the back of my head when I was testing my mana control.

It became even louder when I conjured up the light orb and let my mana change its nature to fulfill the incantation's need. And once the new incantation settled into place, I had to stop and think. It was like my core demanded my attention, like a dog with a bone but refusing to give it up. I poked and prodded until, finally, I found a difference.

Inside my core was a lava pit, a bubbling lake ready to explode in a wave of fire. But deep inside that lake, a different kind of flame held itself together, slowly coloring the mana around it in emerald green.

It felt connected and rooted to me differently than my core.

I pulled, willed it to come to life, and I felt electricity jolt from the center of my chest and toward my limb.

"Oww." I winced.

My hand spasmed, and I clutched my arm as vibrant green flames sprouted from my palm. It was pretty, mesmerizing in its own way, but it burned something inside me beside the mana. The jolts turned into painful scratches clawing at my skin..

I cut the mana off and watched as my veins appeared along my forearm. They showed slightly green rather than blue, and every pulse of my heart made the muscles around them throb.

Sacrifice.

The voice made me pause.

Sacrifice? What sacrifice?

Of course, it didn't answer, and I growled before lowering my arm onto my lap. Devon and Alice were staring at me and my palm.

"So, I can do that now. But it hurts."

"Maybe you're not adjusted to it yet?" Alice offered while holding out her hand.

I extended my arm and she examined my veins that were slowly beginning to fade. She ran her thumb along the lines, eliciting a strangely soothing response from the action.

"Did you do this before? When you were freeing the Keeper?" Devon asked.

"Yes, actually. When I was helping him break free of the golden thread around his neck. My mana connected to his and turned green. Didn't hurt, just a lot of uncomfortable electricity."

"Electricity?" Alice asked, releasing my arm.

"Oh uh, like lightning. Live energy."

"Do it again," Devon ordered.

I raised my arm and this time, I tried to welcome the process by conjuring up the image of a spark. Letting the spark grow, the background thoughts swirled around, but once more, only at the far-reaching corners of the void. I welcomed it, allowing the spark to expand as energy connected, and my core flared excitedly.

My heart began to pump faster and the spark evolved, taking on an emerald hue as I muttered the incantation in my head. Like before, the emerald flames rose from the center of my palm and spread into a flame that lit the inside of the wagon.

Alice and Devon sniffed. While Alice looked confused, Devon watched the flames unblinking. Eventually, the spasming became too much, and I halted the mana, letting the twitching muscles sort themselves out.

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"It smells like…" Alice began.

"Blood," Devon finished. "That's why it hurts. You're burning your blood."

What?

"I guess that makes sense. Rock-splitter's blood burned when he activated his green flames."

Alice held out her hand. "I want to feel it. Is it any different from your regular fire?"

Devon frowned, but he didn't protest.

Rubbing my arm, I held it up for a second time and repeated the process, letting the flames roar to life in my hand. Gently, Alice reached over and probed it with her fingertips. When one of the tendrils flickered toward her finger, she pulled back and rubbed at her finger while staring at the blackened mess at the tip.

I smelled cooked flesh and extinguished the flame, letting my arm spasm again. It left me feeling emptier inside—like a piece of me had been used up along with the mana. My mana pool itself had run through more mana than even the failed light incantation.

"How's your finger?"

"Tingly, it's like a jolt of energy shot up the digit and toward my palm," she explained.

I watched her pull out a small strip of bandage and wrap it around her finger. After testing its mobility, she shrugged and stared at my palm.

"Your hand isn't burnt," she remarked.

It wasn't, but I didn't exactly burn my hand unless I let my mana rampage long enough.

"Experiment more when we stop, but be careful. Sacrificial powers are double-edged. Don't be stupid," Devon said.

"I understand," I said, seriously.

"Good."

The rest of the day ended early because a large section of the road crossed through a river that had overflowed. It would have been a peaceful night if Devon hadn't commanded me to push myself to exhaustion practicing the new magic.

Three things were confirmed after a couple of hours of practice.

One. The flames burned more intensely than my regular flames, consuming wood twice as fast as normal and were harder to extinguish.

Two. The weird connection colored the light orb incantation, but it was mostly normal outside of making the hue a tinge of green.

And three, if I used too much of the special energy, it caused my body to shut down. In a way, it made sense; I was directly burning my lblood to empower the mana.

Devon stuffed me full of fresh meat that I tore into uncaring of Yadalee's discomfort across the campfire.

I was starving. It was a rabid hunger that made me consume pounds of rich flesh before relaxing. And I didn't bother controlling the hunger like I usually did; I couldn't, not really.

Nobody complained as I took more skewers than everyone else. After eating my fill, I slipped into a post-food coma and slept until morning. By then, the river ahead of us had settled down, and we managed to cross without trouble.

It took only another couple of hours before we came to a fork in the road that led in two directions.

***

Releasing my latest attempt at the ward incantation, I collapsed into the box behind me and glanced at the others. Alice had her eyes closed in meditation, and Devon stared at the flap.

Something about his expression made me sit up and examine his body posture.

"What's going on? You look tense," I whispered, not wanting to interrupt Alice.

"Use your nose. What do you smell?"

I sniffed and smelled nothing, so I closed my eyes and tried again.

Ash.

Blood.

I opened my eyes and stood up with Devon. "Freki, explore."

The shadow wolf leapt from my shadow, and Devon held open the flap as the wolf launched himself out of the wagon. Yadalee screamed and jerked on the reins, sending the cart veering, but Devon stepped out and took over, yanking the horses to a halt. From there, he leapt out of view, and I heard startled cries from the guards.

Beside me, Alice stood up and slipped on her hood. "What's going on?"

I tapped my nose. She sniffed the air, cracking her knuckles as she nodded and jumped from the wagon.