Even at dawn, the air turned quickly from cool to warm. The sun transformed from a thin glowing line in the east into a yellow-white globe against a blue sky barren of even a wisp of clouds.

Wilm identified the men they’d caught as the mercenaries who’d formerly been their escort—the same men who’d stolen Wilm’s purse and run off, leaving Wilm and Nana Rette stranded in Utfast to begin with.

“They were trying to steal the hens.” Wilm’s expression wavered, as if he were trying to decide whether he was pleased to have caught the bandits or sorry he hadn’t let them succeed in taking the feathered beasts.

“They weren’t acting alone,” Brin quickly and grimly pointed out. “And they tried to kill us.”

Nearly succeeded.

Galen sat on his bedroll—stained liberally with his own blood—and tried not to cry out as Danto patched up his shoulder.

“Sorry,” Danto mumbled, not for the first time. His leather satchel sat on the ground alongside Galen, herb packets and cloth strips spilling from its interior. The arrow Danto had removed from Galen’s shoulder sat beside it, broken and equally blood-coated.

Healing in video games and even in TTRPGs was usually a far less agonizing ordeal. Galen had the passing thought that just as the game’s initial blood splatters had been shifting toward more realistic wounds, the early and relatively mild pain inputs had also become way, way more accurate.

A wave of nausea rolled through Galen. He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

I will not pass out.

In the darkness behind his eyelids, Galen tried to process all the things which had just happened.

He’d already used his downtime to peek at his character sheet, curious about the new ability he’d apparently learned. But nothing called Wrath of Nature was listed. Nothing about his character sheet had changed at all.

So once again, he’d used powers he didn’t really have. Either someone was fucking with him, or the game was broken.

And Danto—Galen couldn’t even begin to understand what had happened, other than that Danto had likely saved Brin’s life. Whatever power Danto had wielded hadn’t lasted, apparently, since he now treated Galen with mere herbs and bandages and a Voshellian healing prayer which summoned the scent of grass and flowers and warmth. The prayer eased some of Galen’s pain, but it was nothing like the void-laced brilliance Danto had used during the fight.

But that different aura had been there.

I saw it.

Everyone had seen it, Galen imagined, but no one was talking about it. Other than Wilm’s alternating anger over the attempted thievery and strutting pride about shooting crossbow bolts and waving his rapier around, no one was talking very much at all. Even Danto, aside from his repeated muttered apologies as he patched up Galen, seemed quiet and brooding in comparison to his usual chipper self. All kinds of unspoken things simply hung awkwardly in the air, waiting like small traps to be set off.

Danto finished his bandaging. Galen heard his friend stand and the rustling of the satchel being repacked and closed and lifted. He kept his eyes shut a few moments longer, noting the tightness around his shoulder and the center of hot pain throbbing with a promise of getting worse as soon as Galen moved it. He felt…

Different.

Not himself, but some other person inside the skin of the boy he’d been. But of course, even the skin wasn’t the same, either. Nothing was the same. A sense filled Galen’s chest of wanting to shout, of wanting to cry, of wanting to burst to his feet and run until he got to someplace where even he no longer knew who he was or what he was expected to do.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Galen?”

He opened his eyes. Brin stood over him, frowning down. Galen just stared up at her, helpless to decide what it was he was supposed to do now.

Brin offered a hand down to him. With his good hand, Galen grasped it, gritted his teeth, and managed to stand without passing out. His shoulder hollered in objection, but after a second, it wasn’t unbearable. A core of numbed sensation spread out from whatever Danto had packed inside the bandaging.

“The bowman you… stopped?” Brin murmured close to Galen’s ear once she’d pulled him to his feet. “When I went out to look, I couldn’t find a body. The bolt Wilm grazed him with was there, with blood on it. But the body was gone.”

More strangeness. It flowed through Galen and out the other side, too much for his already-overwhelmed mind to deal with.

“Maybe he ran.” Brin let go of Galen’s hand but remained close, her hands held up as if to catch him in case he fell. “The other two ran. Maybe he did, too.”

“Maybe.” According to the game’s messages, the man had been dead. But maybe he’d only been unconscious.

Or maybe the snake of earth devoured him. Maybe he’s buried out there in the woods, just like the snake that brought Danto back buried him. Except, hopefully, without the bringing back to life part.

“According to our two captives, the archers were hirelings from a local band of bandits.” Apparently reassured by Galen’s failure to fall, Brin lowered her hands and stepped back. “He had no personal loyalty to them. He’d have had every reason to run instead of sticking around after a lost fight.”

“That makes sense.” Very little else did.

“Are you all right to ride, now?”

I don’t think I’m all right at all.

But Brin’s gray eyes regarded him from beneath a furrowed brow. Galen thought about the stilted way she’d informed him the bowman he’d killed was gone and thought she’d probably seen at least some of what he’d done. Had Danto? Wilm and Nana?

He didn’t know, and he couldn’t bring himself to ask because he didn’t have it in him to try to explain. He merely nodded woodenly. When Brin turned away for the horses, Galen followed her.

While Galen had been brooding and Danto bandaging him, Brin and Wilm had hog-tied the would-be thieves and bundled them into the cart alongside the hen cage. With Nana Rette awake, the cage was uncovered, of course. As Wilm urged the cart horse onto the road, the hens settled into their constant clucking chatter, but it was now punctuated with screeching outbursts when one of the tied prisoners rolled too close. The chickens scratched and pecked through the bars, and the man being brutalized grunted objections through his gag.

The unceasing noise of the hens bothered Galen a great deal less than it had the day before. Even Wilm seemed less irritated by their very existence.

The day’s heat set in early, scents of hot dust and animal sweat rising with the thump and creak of the cart and occasional whickers of horses. Other than the hens and their victims, no one else spoke for a long while, not even Danto or Nana Rette. Galen had expected his shoulder to hurt a great deal with the jostling of the horse, but instead he found himself struggling more against sleepiness than anything else.

It's a dream, maybe. It never happened.

“Yesterday, I told you about Eve. I believe it’s time for you to hear about Lilith.”

No extravagant waving of her bright blue shawl accompanied Nana Rette’s pronouncement. Her wrinkled hands remained folded on her lap, and she looked directly ahead, not at Danto riding closest to the cart or at Galen riding slightly ahead with Brin. Wilm cut a glance toward his great-grandmother, but he made no irritated objection to her speaking.

“You’ll recall that I told you chaos flooded first into the world, and that the youngest of the destroyer gods opened the gate and allowed order to enter, which in turn led to Eve later re-opening the gate for chaos.” Nana did not make it a question. The cart rattled and bumped along the path, but any jarring from that did not change the solemnity of her expression. “That youngest chaos god was named Lilith. It was Lilith specifically whom Eve was trying to free when she opened the way and allowed chaos to return to the world.”

Nana paused while her words settled in the humid air. Even the hens, for a miracle, had fallen mostly silent, as if acknowledging that important things were being said.

“Life requires both order and chaos, you see. Eve and Lilith, sister-gods who each wanted the same thing, teamed up to provide both. Together, they created true life. So intertwined are they in purpose that they’re nearly one entity. United, they are called Lifebringer.”

Nana turned her head and looked first toward Danto and then directly at Galen.

“The sisters, Lifebringer, have touched you both.” Then Nana faced forward again. Nothing but gnats and hooves and the cart’s wheels dared to speak up.

Galen glanced back at Danto and found Danto looking directly at him, a lost look on a face which seemed paler than it should have.

He has no idea at all what’s happening. Even less than I do.

A twinge of guilt accompanied that realization.

I should have told him when I had the chance. I should have made him listen.

“I saw what you both did,” Nana declared.

“We all saw,” Brin murmured from horseback.

That answered that question. Everyone had seen what Galen did. And what Danto had done.

“You called to the earth, and the earth answered you.” Nana’s gaze fell on Galen. “I know how that works, because I have that touch myself.”