The smell of smoke and burnt flesh lingered on Rylin’s clothes. They were two miles from the village, but it felt as though the village was still just a few steps behind them with its empty homes and dead corpses.

It had grown dark and Rylin was scanning the trees for a place to spend the night. They came to a small circle of flat ground surrounded by dense brush. Rylin set down his packs and the boy stood in the middle of it and looked around.

“Sit,” Rylin said. “I’m going to make a fire.”

The boy sat and Rylin went into the brush with the hatchet for some twigs and deadfall.

***

There was a sound. Rylin put his left hand to the pouch of mist apples and tightened his grip on the hatchet. That had been the sound of a twig breaking. Distant, yes, but distinct. And very close to the sound of a footfall; a sound Rylin had learned to discern in his many years hiding from men who wanted to kill him.

He and the boy were a ways off the road. There should be nobody in the woods nearby. Nobody wandering the forest this late at night. Rylin’s fingers hovered inside the pouch, trembling.

Rylin stood still and listened. He heard nothing. He turned back.

***

The boy jumped when Rylin returned to the little clearing.

“It’s me,” Rylin said, and the boy settled down. “No fire today.”

The boy did not question him and they had a cold meal of fruit and dry bread and salt beef–the fresher foods they had taken from the village.

As they settled down to sleep, Rylin wondered whether he should tie the boy to a tree so he didn’t move while they slept and accidentally touch him. He decided against it. He and the boy would be together for some time, and tying him up did not seem like a good way to build trust. Rylin would simply sleep light tonight.

“Good night,” the boy said.

“Mm,” Rylin said. “Good night.”

The heat from the little furnace was warm.

“Good night, Cor.”

***

Rylin ran through the tunnels. His breath rasped loud in his ears and his footsteps boomed in the long corridor. It was dark and cold. Very cold. It burned his lungs.

Behind him came echoing shouts and the sound of metal footfalls and the clink of weapons. There were many of them, and there was no escape. He had no Life close at hand, and the stone–usually cool and comforting–was hard and stifling. The tunnel seemed to grow narrower as he ran, closing in on him, threatening to crush him. And all the while, the air grew colder.

He tripped on a stone and fell to the ground, scraping his knees bloody. The shouts behind him drew nearer, and red torchlight bounced off the slick tunnel stone. Rylin crawled forward, squeezing through the narrow passageway. The shouts came closer, and he could hear the sound of swords and the crackle of fire.

He wriggled between the jagged stone walls. They ripped at his shirt, tore his skin. Blood streamed down his body in rivulets, all the while the sounds of pursuit drew nearer, louder…

A blast of freezing wind struck him in the face and a flash of light blinded him. He fell on something soft and cold. Snow.

Before him stretched a huge valley of snow bordered by massive crags. Some distance away were several people, and as Rylin’s eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed that it was a group of nine people standing before a single figure. A small figure engulfed in a single blue candle flame.

Rylin pushed himself to his feet and began to walk toward the group. A gust of snow and wind buffeted his side, and he stumbled, but he continued forward. The snow deepened as he walked, going from ankle-deep to knee-deep, and then he was trudging through snow as high as his waist.

The figures were on top of a small hill in the valley, and as he got to the foot of this hill, they seemed to notice him. No, the nine warriors had already seen him. It was the last figure who only now noticed him. The blue flame around him flickered and flared for a moment, and then he turned.

It was the boy, Cor. Except his hair was silver and his eyes were an electric blue. A lifeless blue. Rylin stopped, suddenly afraid. The boy moved toward him, seemingly gliding above the soft snow. And as he drew nearer, the air grew colder, as though the flame that surrounded him emanated cold rather than heat.

You lied. The boy’s voice suddenly became a young woman’s. A young woman he knew. You lied to me.

***

There was fog over the forest in the morning. They were back on the road, and they walked in silence. Rylin had taken off his boots and welcomed the cool feeling of earth and leaves beneath his feet. The boy seemed afraid to get too close and followed a few paces behind him. Rylin kept his eye on him; now more than yesterday he felt they were being watched. Perhaps it was Enir’s men tailing him and waiting for an opportunity to kill him in the isolated depths of the Crimson Forest. It was more than just a passing possibility. Enir was clever–too clever to let someone who had done so much dirty work for the family leave unchecked.

Rylin glanced back at the boy who continued to lurk a couple paces behind him. If it came to a fight, he would be a hindrance. Trying to protect yourself was difficult; trying to protect somebody else was even more so.

It occurred to him that he should teach the boy to fight. And other things besides. If they were to live in the Royal Capital, it would do the boy well to learn something of city life and get some kind of education beyond just knowing how to tend to a village garden and fetch water from a well.

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Rylin remembered how it was before he knew anything; those long years spent running and wandering, knowing nothing but how to kill and hide and eat.

He realized he had no idea how to teach. There was so much Cor would need to know. There was the usual reading and writing, the customs and traditions of the nobility and the peasantry, the practical art of negotiation, of rhetoric, of knowing how to read another person’s true emotions. Then there was the matter of living as a Soulthief. How to manage one’s powers, how to hide them. How to fight quietly, how to kill. How to prevent someone getting too close, either to one’s body, or to one’s heart.

How to let go.

The only teacher Rylin had ever had was that old fool who kept a shelter for beggar children in Yaalih and tried to teach the kids there how to read and write and do sums. His name had been Hense, a foreigner with dark skin and darker hair. A drunken beggar had killed him for protecting a girl. For a learned man, he had precious little common sense.

Hense had changed Rylin’s life. Rylin could never fault the man for that. Without learning to properly read and write, Rylin would be dead by now. Or alive and wreaking havoc on the Kingdom like the Shael in that story. It would have depended on how motivated he was.

For Cor, reading and writing could come later. What would matter was the way he looked. Rylin had begun to form a vision of the character he would play when he arrived at the Royal Capital, and the boy would need to be able to act his part.

The fog began to clear as the day drew on, and by noon, dappled light was shining through the half-bare branches, making the forest glow red and golden and the heart-shaped leaves at their feet gleam like a motley-colored carpet of silk. It was like a scene from a poem.

They stopped to rest and eat against a tree by the side of the road. Rylin gave him a piece of salt beef and a handful of biscuits. The boy took the food and looked back and forth between it and Rylin. Even after Rylin began eating his own food, the boy seemed to be waiting for something. He had done the same thing the day before.

“You don’t need to wait for me to tell you to start eating,” Rylin said.

The boy blinked, then looked down at his food. He seemed to mutter something under his breath, then took a bite of the meat.

He’s used to praying before meals. Rylin remembered now that this was something that people did. After being in a city where the Church of Myor had scant influence, he had forgotten how seriously some people took their religion.

Religion was not a bad thing where they were going. The Royal Capital was also the capital of the Church of Myor, and the idea of posing as a Mage and applying to enter the High Order as a novice was growing on him. The High Order governed the entire Church and its members were revered as the most powerful Mages in the Kingdom. If there were secrets too dangerous to know, they would be kept within the High Order.

But he would need to get a better grasp of what exactly he could get away with. And he would first need to be certified as a Mage.

There was a snap.

Rylin stiffened, but showed no outward sign of it. That snap had definitely been a footstep. Their pursuer had just revealed themselves, whether they realized it or not, and it brought Rylin some relief that whoever it was was an amateur.

He shoved his final biscuit into his mouth, and got up.

He motioned the boy to stay put and crept sideways away from the road and into the trees. He pulled his knife out of its sheath, pressing close to the shadows. Their pursuer came into view, just twelve strides away. A small hooded figure dressed in black. Its back was to Rylin and it seemed to be watching the boy. It seemed to be alone.

Rylin crouched and slunk forward like a shadow, closing the distance between them. Then he lunged. The figure noticed him before he could strike. An old man.

With surprising agility, the old man leapt backwards. Rylin tumbled once and leapt back to his feet, swinging his fist at the old man’s jaw. The blow connected and the old man cried out and fell back. Rylin pounced, but the old man rolled away and began to run.

Rylin gave chase. He was faster and was closing the distance quickly, when the old man tripped on a root and rolled several feet into a shallow depression in the ground. Rylin lunged, and the old man cringed away and held up his hands.

There was a blast of fire. The force of it knocked Rylin back, and he fell to the ground. His ears rang, and his face burned. He opened his eyes, and saw the old man, just a few feet away. His hands were still up, but now they seemed outstretched as though he were casting a spell. There was no apparent source for the blast of fire.

Rylin frowned and tried to get up, but a sudden pressure crushed down on his chest and throat and the air was squeezed out of him. Rylin tried to gasp, but it was as if there was a stack of boulders on his chest. It was impossible to breathe. His heart hammered and he began to panic.

In front of him, the old man got up, a grotesque grin on his face. Rylin staggered back, his vision beginning to grow dark, the world beginning to tip over. The old man stepped towards him, hands outstretched. The air around his fingers seemed to shimmer.

Rylin gagged. Spit spilled from his mouth and tears streamed from his eyes. The pain in his chest grew worse, and a cold panic began to grip him, all the while the world grew darker and the old man drew nearer. He fell to the ground, felt the knife slip out of his hands. His strength was leaving him. He vaguely saw the dim outline of the old man’s foot step near his face. Then he saw nothing.

Rylin grit his teeth and a low growl escaped his throat. He slammed his hand into the pouch of mistleaf apples at his belt.

Power rushed into him like fire, flooding him with strength. It cleared his head and jerked him alert. He leapt to his feet, and the old man cried out and stumbled back. The crushing force on Rylin’s chest lessened for an instant, and Rylin seized the moment and lunged. The old man could not react in time and Rylin’s fist caught him underneath the jaw with a loud crack. The old man fell back and the pressure on Rylin’s chest disappeared all at once. Air returned into his lungs in a sharp rush, and he collapsed in pain, groaning and clutching his chest. The remaining power inside him worked furiously to repair the cracked ribs and internal bleeding.

It seemed an eternity before the pain eased and Rylin could take a breath without a flash of agony in his chest.

He sat up and grabbed his knife from the ground. The old man was out cold on the ground, and a few dozen feet away, the boy, Cor was peering through the trees with wide eyes.

“I got him,” Rylin wheezed. “Stay there.”

Rylin moved next to the old man. A line of blood trickled from the side of his head, staining a patch of white hair red. Rylin was relieved to see the old man was still breathing. He put on a pair of gloves and began to search the man.

There was surprisingly little hidden inside that thick black cloak, and none of the few items Rylin did find were things a traveler or an assassin would have been expected to have with them. There were several vials of clear liquid that, from their bitter smell, seemed to be silverworm venom. He also carried a long length of rope and a tiny knife that would have been of no good use except perhaps to cut thread.

But the man had to be a Mage. The trick he had played on Rylin–pulling air out of his lungs–was something Rylin had only seen a Mage do.

That meant Rylin had questions for him.

With the last bit of Life inside him, Rylin pressed his hand into the ground, and coaxed the earth to rise up around the old man’s feet and bind them there. Then he took the length of rope and tied the old man’s hands behind his back.

He got up and went to the boy who was still standing at the edge of their camp and looking at him. He was still clutching a piece of salt beef. His hands trembled and he was pale. He was staring at the old man.

Rylin looked back. The old man was still out cold.

“Do you know that man?”

The boy looked up at him. “That’s Old Shamon.”