“We have to report this back to Vah’mor. Immediately,” said Kassar.

“We don’t even know what to report. I have no idea what we just saw.” D’Argen was still breathing heavily as they walked. They were too close to the village they just left. Definitely not as far as he thought when he closed off his mahee. The fires and lights of another village were even closer. The howls of demons more so.

The two were walking through the edges of a forest, waiting for D’Argen to get his breath back and open his mahee again. At this rate, D’Argen knew it would be faster if they walked all the way back to Vah’mor’s camp. At least then, he would be able to fight as soon as they arrived, and he was far away from that accursed stone.

“Maybe Vain will know something?” Kassar asked and went to unravel the stone from the rips of D’Argen’s robes.

As soon as D’Argen saw the carvings on it, his vision blurred and doubled. Something about the appearance of the stone and specifically those carvings was edging at the corners of his memories. He was not sure which set though.

“Have you seen anything like it before?” D’Argen asked and looked away from the stone. The nausea remained for a moment longer and he breathed through his open mouth. Once it passed, he held his hand out to Kassar.

Kassar deposited the stone in his waiting hand and D’Argen’s knees trembled. He forced himself to look at it and his vision to focus.

“The writing does not look familiar, no.” Kassar bumped into a tree with his shoulder and the scent of his mahee came out barely for a moment before it disappeared. He had a palm open, and a single walnut fell in the centre of it. He cracked it open against the next tree he passed with another burst of his scent and then started eating the pieces.

D’Argen looked around them, waiting for demons to come out any moment because of Kassar’s scent. No such thing happened, but D’Argen was still tense.

“I told you to stop that,” D’Argen hissed out and shoved the stone back at Kassar.

“What? Oh! Sorry. I keep forgetting.” Kassar took the stone. “I am not used to not using my mahee. You know, there are even some who have it open all the time. Zetha, for example.”

“You’re not Zetha.”

Kassar shrugged and chewed loudly.

“They said they came from Sky Mountain? Do you think this stone is from there?” Kassar asked, examining the piece with curiosity. He did not look the same at all as when he had the bracelet on, but the piece wrapped in cloth was obviously affecting him. He had not used his luck once while holding it.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about stones other than their colours.”

Kassar hummed a reply.

“I want to know more,” D’Argen said.

“I would too. But I think delivering this to Vain is our best chance.”

“Or Upates.”

“Or Upates,” Kassar agreed with a nod.

“Or seeing who else has it,” D’Argen added on.

“Or seeing—wait, what? You want to go back there?”

“I do and I don’t. I was more referring to east of the still water.”

“There is nothing east. Demons have destroyed it all.”

D’Argen gave the stone in Kassar’s hand a pointed look.

“Ah. You are right,” Kassar agreed with a nod. “If there is more of this out there, it is likely there are more mortals alive. Which also means, more mortals that hate us. Did you know about that, by the way?”

D’Argen shook his head and said, “No. I know there are some cultures that shun us, some that ignore us, but this is the first I hear of one that actively hates us.”

“Well. We have destroyed a lot of their history and people. Look. As soon as we get back to Vah’mor, I’m sure they will let you go east. For now, gather your strength and we will run again when you are ready.”

“I can’t run with that thing,” D’Argen complained.

“Look, I know it is bad and uncomfortable, but—”

“I thought I ran us halfway back to the camps,” D’Argen interrupted. “Wait. Stop. I need to breathe.” The weight was too much. The headache pounding between his brows even more so. The shaking of his limbs was one he had never felt before. The weight in his chest was both familiar and terrifying. He hunched over and started taking as deep breaths as he could. It felt like his lungs were rejecting every inhale. Then he started coughing.

Once he was done coughing, he felt a warm hand rubbing his back gently. He flinched away from it and Kassar stepped back with both hands raised in the air. Empty hands. D’Argen quickly scanned his person and did not see the stone or the familiar flash of his dark robes on the man.

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“Me touching you while touching it seems to affect you too,” Kassar explained and pointed to where the bundle lay on the ground.

If D’Argen’s mouth was not so dry, he would be spitting out curses and complaints. Instead, his lungs struggled for breath.

“How about this? You run to Vah’mor and tell them what happened. I will arrive as soon as I can.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“You are not. I am leaving you alone. Another day and we will be far enough away that I can use my luck to find me a beast to ride, and I will be there shortly after you.”

“This is not a good idea.”

Kassar shrugged and picked up the stone. D’Argen’s vision blurred again, and he turned away, hunching near a tree as his stomach recoiled and tried to expel itself. A glob of yellow guck landed in the grass between his heaving and coughing.

“D’Argen, you being near this thing may kill you.”

“What if it affects the others at the camp the same way?”

“It is not affecting me like that,” Kassar answered with a shrug. “In fact. It was not affecting you like that until we left. I feel it, I do, especially when I touch it directly. But I feel a headache and an absence of my mahee, that is all. It took a while to get used to it, but I can ignore the discomfort. You look like you are about to die.”

D’Argen glared at Kassar and wiped at his lips. He felt the rattle in his chest from his uneven breaths.

“I will not be running to Vah’mor,” D’Argen finally said.

“What? Oh. Upates then? Smart call. You can—”

“I’ll be going east,” D’Argen interrupted.

“But…”

“If there are any mortals there, whether they hate us or not, I need to see if they are using the same method to keep the demons away. If this is just contained to that region or if their belief spans further.”

“Hmm… I can sell that. Vah’mor likes me better than you anyway,” Kassar replied with a shrug. “Okay. So, I will see you eventually?”

“You better,” D’Argen replied with a grin. He did not move though.

After a moment, Kassar waved at him and walked away. The further he got, the more the weight in D’Argen’s chest lessened. There was also another reason why D’Argen wanted to leave that horrible stone behind though. Since the moment he slid to a stop near that first village they saw where the demons and mortals were together, he felt like something was missing.

Earlier, before they were taken into the jail cell, he knew what. Now, all he could recall was pristine white cloth.

Kassar disappeared from view between the trees long before the final weight inside D’Argen’s chest faded away. Once it did, D’Argen leaned back against a tree and lifted his head, stretching out his frame and creating a straight path from his mouth down to his lungs. They filled like starving animals. He opened his mahee to consume the sounds of the forest at night around him. It tasted like earth and moss. It strengthened his legs so they were no longer shaking and made the last of his headache disappear completely.

Once the sun painted the sky red and orange, D’Argen opened his mahee and ran. A white shade joined him from the corner of his eye, but he refused to focus on it. Instead, he made sure to be slow enough to see other settlements and their inhabitants. Most were empty, but he did see a few mortals. No demons. Once he reached the still waters that split the land in two, he slid to a stop and then immediately regretted it.

The water that was usually shallow enough to wade through and clear enough to see every step had reached the trees on the banks. It had painted the still visible rocks black and red, stained with the blood of both demons and mortals alike. There were bodies bobbing in that water, bloated and stinking and bringing insects and all sorts of scavengers out of the woods, eating both demon and mortal flesh alike.

The stink was enough to make his eyes water.

One of the mortal bodies in the water started bobbing more aggressively then suddenly disappeared under the surface and only black and red bubbles came up. The crow atop another body flew off with a loud squawk. D’Argen stared at the spot in horror. Another body, this one slightly off to the side and with purple skin, did the same. The gaze of racoons on the other end of the shore scattered even faster. Then another body disappeared under the surface and another. It did not matter if it was whole or not, mortal or demon. They sank under the surface in a crooked line that slowly came closer to the shore where D’Argen stood.

The next set of bubbles that rose up were joined by a pair of rounded eyes, sticking out of the water like they were not attached to anything at all. They sank back under quickly and then popped up again even closer to the shore.

D’Argen tried to swallow through a dry throat and propped one leg up on the tree behind him. The eyes swivelled around and focused on him. They disappeared back under. D’Argen opened his mahee as wide as he could and pushed off the tree. The wood cracked but it supported him as he dashed over the water, stepped on the back of a mortal’s body, on a demon’s arm, and then he was over the water and into the trees beyond.

It was not long before he slid to a stop. His shoulders were bruised and his head was hurting, having hit so many trees in his fast dash, but he stopped for another reason. The mortals around a dead fire all had their swords drawn and pointed at him.

D’Argen was wary, looking for an escape without hurting them. A white shade disappeared from between the trees, showing him a path, when one of the mortals let out a heavy sigh and dropped his sword.

“Finally! You came for us!” he cried and then ran at D’Argen. He dropped to his knees right in front of D’Argen and bent over as if to kiss his feet.

D’Argen knew where his feet just were and took a hasty step back. He looked around the others, all with lowered weapons. They looked tired and haggard, bruised, and bloodied. All were wearing at least some sort of armour and were of fighting age.

“You are from the frontlines?” D’Argen asked.

“Yes. We got separated during a skirmish. Have been looking for a way to cross back over ever since.”

“Not through here. Trust me,” D’Argen said, pointing behind him and thinking of the bobbing eyes in the waters filled with the dead. “We are still quite far north. You may have better luck going south.”

“That is where we came from,” one of the women said. “We have been running from demons since the mountains. We finally found a place to take a break.”

D’Argen looked over his shoulder as if he could spot the waters and the demon within them from between the trees. When he looked back at the group, he could have sworn he watched the hope die out in their eyes.

He could run two of them across the water at a time. Maybe three, if he could figure out how to hold them properly.

“I’m going further in.” D’Argen pointed behind them to the trees. “Looking for survivors.”

“Ah! You must be Haur then!” One of the men jumped up with a smile. “We were told you would be doing this and have—”

“Haur is here?” D’Argen interrupted and looked between them as if he had somehow missed the presence of the other god.

“You are… you are not here to rescue us, are you?” The hesitation in his words the man’s smile from earlier fading away were almost painful.

D’Argen hesitated himself. Eight of them. The flash of white between the trees behind the mortals had his mahee itching to follow. The bags under one man’s eyes and the memories of all the dead at the skirts of Sky Mountain made him sick.

“I hope you lot haven’t eaten much. This is not going to be pleasant,” he informed them, resolved to let the white shade disappear and to help these mortals make their way back to relative safety.