“We are still too close,” Haur grumbled later that night in their newly set-up camp. He was sitting opposite of D’Argen with a fire blazing between them, but he was looking way past the runner and into the distance.

D’Argen looked back over his shoulder. The pillar was nothing but a black line against a dark background. The sky was clouded yet again so that even the full moon’s light could not pierce them. There were no stars. D’Argen focused on where the black line disappeared into the clouds above.

Whatever this pillar was, whoever created it, it was a feat. More importantly, D’Argen had not seen a clear sky for longer than a few breaths since before they left the ship. The weather in this region was horrible. No. Not region. Continent.

As if to confirm it to himself again, D’Argen shifted and stomped one foot down on the solid ground. They had melted most of the snow away and the dirt under it was packed and hard and frozen solid. The stomp reverberated up his leg and settled with a tingle under his jaw. He scratched at it before turning to face Haur again.

“—and just go.”

“Sorry, can you say that again? I wasn’t listening,” D’Argen prompted.

Haur finally tore his eyes away from the pillar and turned a glare at D’Argen. “Do you not feel it?” he growled out, his voice pained.

“I feel it.” D’Argen shrugged and looked down at his hands. He did not remember unsheathing his sword or taking to cleaning it. It looked brand new, the fire dancing on its surface and staring at him. “It just doesn’t seem to bother me as much as you. Whatever it is, it’s clearly affecting all of our mahee differently.” He sheathed his sword and put it on the ground by his feet.

“Yet another thing with a connection to the mahee,” Yaling said from beside him, startling him. She had barely spoken since they left the pillar behind and he had almost forgotten she was there.

Their small campfire only had four people around it. Haur, D’Argen, Yaling, and Abbot. Nocipel had joined another fire to talk with a few of the mortals there, Thar stood alone higher up the hill where they had not touched the snow, and Lilian was… somewhere.

“What do you mean ‘yet another’?” Haur questioned.

D’Argen started twisting on the spot to look for Lilian. As he did, he also noticed that Thar was not where he last saw him.

“Well…” Yaling hesitated. “There is that cursed stone. And gold. And that new communication spell—”

“The spell is not a thing,” Haur interrupted.

D’Argen spotted a long white sleeve just as it disappeared behind one of the larger tents.

“And the flowers,” Yaling said.

D’Argen’s head snapped back to her so fast that he heard the bones cracking and felt it in a chain reaction down his spine all the way to his waist.

Yaling was not looking at him. She was looking down at her hands as she fiddled with a delicate yet simple dagger. It was still in its sheathe though she pulled it out barely a finger to catch the fire’s light then snapped it closed. She repeated the action a few times before Haur spoke up again, drawing all attention to him.

“The three of you,” he started, eyes skipping over each of them in turn. “You are hiding something.”

“Nothing concrete,” D’Argen quickly stepped in before Yaling could say anything else.

“What is it?”

“Hey, I have a question for you. You’re friends with Olov, right? What’s been happening in the Rainbow Fields?” D’Argen quickly tried to change the subject without straying too far from the original topic.

“What?”

“Cana. Issues. Olov said he’d help. What’s happening?”

“I… umm… I do not know what is happening with Cana, not more than you. And Olov, there are no issues with the Rainbow Fields. Nothing is happening there.”

“Not expanding again?”

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Haur suddenly snapped to attention at the question and D’Argen narrowed his eyes. There was something happening to the mahee.

“It has not expanded in centuries. Not since—” Haur cut himself off so suddenly that it actually sounded painful. His eyes danced over D’Argen then away, into the camp. Probably looking for Lilian.

“So you knew,” D’Argen added quietly.

“D’Argen,” Abbot said the runner’s name with a wary tone. “Drop it.”

“No,” D’Argen almost snapped back. “Haur. You knew? About Lilian?”

Haur looked at him then at the ground. After a moment, he nodded slowly.

“Everybody knows, don’t they?”

Haur once more nodded in reply.

“Then why did Acela—”

“Lilian is gone,” Nocipel interrupted them as she slid to a stop right by their fire. She looked out of breath, her hair dishevelled, and holding the skirts of her robes up to run faster. “So are a few of the mortals. Half a dozen maybe.”

“Gone where?” D’Argen shot up to his feet.

Haur followed just as fast. Yaling was slow. Abbot did not get up but he did pull his pipe out of his lips and turned all his focus on Nocipel.

“If I knew where, I would not say ‘gone’ I would say ‘they have gone to wherever’,” Nocipel snapped back.

“The pillar?” Yaling asked, looking at D’Argen first for confirmation then deferring to Haur’s higher rank and facing him instead.

“They did seem oddly fascinated with it,” Haur replied.

“Well, pillar or no, they are not here. I just noticed,” Nocipel said.

Haur visibly hesitated, looking around the camp, then asked, “And Thar?”

“I just saw—”

“He went looking for them,” Nocipel interrupted D’Argen. She looked at him first before facing Haur once more.

“He needs to stay here. If he closes his mahee, at night, everybody could—”

“His mahee has been closed since we started the fires,” D’Argen was the one to interrupt this time. When Haur looked at him in question, the runner shrugged and then said, “The scents are way too strong. Didn’t you feel it?”

The rest all shook their head. Thar’s scent, his mahee, was unique in the sense that it was nothing at all. It was not, however, unfelt. It removed other scents and overlapped them with one that could only be described as cold and clean, but it did not actually have a scent of its own. Thar’s scent was one of the reasons why Acela feared him so long ago – only the most powerful of the Never Born had a scent that could only be described as a feeling.

“Maybe they—ahh!” Yaling suddenly screamed, breaking off her own words, and then she swore.

The scream startled the rest, as it sounded pained, but the swears made D’Argen relax. A moment later, he felt a stab at the soft spot under the corner of his jaw – too sharp to be the regular tingle from a communication spell. It disappeared barely a moment later and D’Argen also wanted to swear.

“Thar found them,” Haur said. It was a communication spell, but one that must have been off as it felt so strange as it rejected first Yaling and then D’Argen as the recipients. “At the pillar.”

They all started moving in that direction before Haur suddenly tripped and fell to his knees. He grabbed his head as if in pain and winced. “My mahee,” he groaned and then turned pain-filled eyes to look at the others.

“I’ll go,” D’Argen said before the others could say anything. “Somebody has to stay here anyway. Abbot, Yaling – you two stay here as well. Nocipel? Are you fine near the pillar?”

Nocipel nodded though her face hardened. She looked like she was ready to stand in front of an oncoming storm. D’Argen did not think about it for too long and swept her up into his arms. In his haste, it took barely a moment to wrap her up in his mahee and then run. He did not go full speed, afraid of what would stop him at the end, but he did run fast enough to feel Nocipel lose her breath.

When he slid to a stop, the snow under his feet was hot and melting, stained dark. He was about to put Nocipel down when she shrieked and clung tighter to his shoulders, refusing. It was only once he shifted and moved her hair out of the way that he noticed the body.

“What happened?” D’Argen heard his own voice asking the question though he could not tear his eyes away from what was once a man. His head looked like a watermelon dropped from too high. His arms were twisted in strange directions. One of his legs had a bone sticking out of it into the air. He felt something inside him clench and climb up his throat, forcing him to gag.

“They tried to climb it,” a cold voice answered him. Nocipel started nudging and pulling at his shoulders until D’Argen twisted around and finally let her down in clean snow. With the turn, he looked at where Thar stood in front of five mortals and Lilian.

“They did what?” Nocipel asked, her voice gaining an edge.

Thar motioned to the stained snow but did not repeat his words. D’Argen followed the motion on reflex until he saw that body again and he snapped his eyes back to Thar. Then to Lilian.

“What did you do?” he hissed out.

Lilian’s head turned so slowly it felt like it took years. When their eyes locked onto D’Argen, the runner wanted to scream. They looked so empty.

“I helped,” Lilian finally responded and the corners of their lips twisted up. It should have been a smile. It looked horrible when nothing else on their face moved.

“Lilian. What did you do?”

Lilian turned, just as slow, to face Nocipel, making the motion seem grand and painful even though Nocipel was standing right beside D’Argen.

“I helped,” Lilian repeated.

D’Argen chanced a look at the others. Thar was staring at the body of the man, his hand pointed out to direct and focus his mahee as he used the cold to stop the blood from melting the snow further. To stop the body from bleeding sluggishly. To try and put the body back together so that—

D’Argen turned to face the others. Five mortals. Not one of them was looking at their dead companion. No. One of them was looking at Lilian like the god they were; as if Lilian was once more worshipped and loved. The other four had their heads craned so far back that they looked like they would fall over backwards any moment. They were all staring at the top of the pillar. Or at least, where the top of it should have been if it did not disappear into the clouds.