A few months had turned out to be long enough not only to carve out some of the tunnels and the tiny rooms where those that wished to be alone could sleep, but also to move their entire culture underground. It was also long enough to block the way they had come in.

As D’Argen had stumbled around the cavern, trying to find a way out, Yaling found him and told him they could not leave. Not until all the statues were done. She also told him that the plan was for them to remain here, hidden from any mortals who may harbour ill will against them and search to break the relics of the dead in their anger. And then she told him that the statues had not fully cured yet – it would take years, probably even decades.

“What about—”

“Stop it,” Yaling interrupted him. The two sat together in front of a small fire where Yaling was stirring a pot of soup. “Whatever ideas you have, it is not up to me or you.”

“So, everybody agreed, and I didn’t get a vote because I was sleeping?”

Yaling scowled at him.

“Did Kassar also miss his vote?” D’Argen prompted.

“You two were not the only ones. And after the stunt you pulled, I am honestly surprised Acela can even look you in the eye without swearing up a storm.”

Apparently, his and Kassar’s trip north had not happened as he remembered it. There were no villages with mortals and demons together. There was no tiny house made of a horrible stone. There was no old woman that berated him for the thousands he killed and waved about her carved staff. D’Argen did not know what the others said happened, but he heard bits and pieces of when Kassar shared the story. He had not sat down with Kassar even once, the other ignoring him or leaving the area as soon as D’Argen approached.

All he knew was that he had almost killed Kassar in his haste to rid the north of the demons. And that he had succeeded in a way that made it hard for anybody to look him in the eye, not just Acela. Even Yaling, sitting across from him, was too focused on the pot she was stirring.

D’Argen got up and left without a word. Yaling did not say a thing. He walked off toward the tunnels that led to the small rooms. The few clusters he passed either quieted or broke up when he neared. The whispers started at his back almost immediately. He tried to ignore them and the absence of his mahee tugging at him to run.

The tiny room he had woken up in was not his own, but a space for someone to sleep in. The barely two dozen rooms were used by everyone. Yet there was always at least one door open when he walked down the tunnel. Now that the story had spread to all ears but his own, nobody wanted him to be near them either. Nobody used the room he walked to. Yaling barely put up with him and though Abbot kept him company, the artist was too often busy. Another statue was almost complete.

When he closed the door behind him, he leaned against it and slid to the ground.

As he had for the past few weeks since waking up, he reached into his robes and pulled out both the tiny vial of Lilian’s blood and the scrap paper that had both Lilian’s and Thar’s names scrawled on it. He did not have a vial for Thar. But Lilian…

After tucking the paper safely away again, he reached into his robes and instead pulled out his recently stolen shares. That was the reason he left the room earlier. He opened the tiny leather patch and was careful not to breathe in the stone dust. The glass utensils Abbot used for shaping the paste were created so to keep from wasting the paste. D’Argen had stolen one of those too. He stretched just enough to reach for the pitcher of water and wooden cup he had collected the previous time he left the room.

The water made the paste finer as he mixed it with the glass stick inside the cup. Once it was smooth, he opened the vial and tipped a few drops of blood into the mixture. He stirred until his eyes were no longer wet. The paste was already hardening.

With clumsy fingers, he tried to shape the small amount he had. He knew he did not have the skills or experience to create a figure of Lilian, but he also knew that their favourite flower was a tulip. It was a simple enough shape though his five petals were uneven in both size and thickness. The extra dollop in the centre looked nothing like a stamen, but it would keep the petals together. It was a tiny thing, each petal the size of his thumb, and his fingers kept trembling as he tried to keep it together. He burned himself twice until the bottom hardened enough for him not to have to hold it over the torch.

He left both the torch and the flower on the ground and watched. Waited.

When Abbot finished Vrianna’s statue, it was moved to the circles with the others. Once there, Acela led everybody into a simple prayer using her mahee. Even surrounded by the stone, with so many latching onto her spell, the magic had gotten through. And then D’Argen had felt it. He felt Vrianna’s mahee as it circled them all and went through him, he felt the piece inside him that represented her and had broken off disappear completely as the mahee entered into the statue and remained.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Once he was sure the stone flower was hard enough, he spoke the words Acela had said. That had been his biggest worry in trying this – what if it was her mahee that guided them. He felt nothing. He left the torch beside the flower until it burned out and tried again in the dark.

Nothing.

Maybe it did not have to be Acela. Just another spiritualist.

But there were so few of them left. Vrianna was gone. Haur was gone. Acela would not do this for him. Kassar would barely talk to him. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there were only half a dozen spiritualists left. This was the one aspect of the mahee that always had the fewest users, but the fact that only six of them remained now, compared to the dozens in the other aspects, was a frightening thought.

D’Argen wanted to question it, to talk it through with someone, to see if there was a pattern in so many of the dead, but he was not sure who to reach out to. Why the spiritualists? He asked himself. Their aspect allowed their mahee to connected with the essence. Users like Acela were able to access the deeper consciousness and reasoning of the realm around them. Acela used it as a way to unite them and keep them in line. Kassar used it so the realm would always be in his favour, providing for him and keeping him safe. Haur’s intuition was second to none, following an inner feeling that always led him in the right direction. Vrianna had—

D’Argen cut off his thoughts when he realized the one spiritualist that could help him.

Olov. His mahee provided comfort and it would not be too much of a stretch for D’Argen to request his presence. So many had died and D’Argen had yet to mourn. He wondered, for a moment, if Olov would become the God of Mourning, helping others through the pain and loss of death. He tried to call on his future memories about the spiritualist but all he could recall was silver hair cut close to the scalp.

With the tiny flower safely tucked into his robes, D’Argen left his room again only to run right into Abbot.

“Where are you off to?” Abbot asked with a quirked brow.

“I was… uh. I wanted to talk to Olov.”

“He is resting. He has been using his mahee too much and it taxes him a lot in this place. You want some comfort?”

D’Argen nodded, unsure what else to say.

“Good. I come with something much better that Olov’s mahee.” Abbot lifted a bottle and shook it. “Alcohol. Come. Let us sit down and have a drink.” Without too much prompting, Abbot led him back into the room where the two polished off the bottle in record time.

With Abbot passed out from both drink and exhaustion in the bed, D’Argen made to leave again. This time, he was stopped by Yaling with a very familiar bottle in her hand. She was not able to wake Abbot from his slumber and kept pouring D’Argen more and more drinks.

Once she too was asleep in the tiny cot, D’Argen swayed to his feet as he tried to leave yet again.

Yet again, he was stopped barely a few steps out the door. Kassar apologized for his treatment and how he had been ignoring D’Argen, but the runner could not focus on his swaying figure at all. He nodded along even though he did not hear Kassar’s words. Another bottle came out.

By the time he was stopped, yet again, by Sa’ab, D’Argen sobered up from fear alone. Something was happening. Something was keeping him from finding Olov and finishing what he had started. He tried to wave Sa’ab away, pretending to be as drunk as the previous three bottles should have made him, but she insisted on him joining her and Asa for a drink.

Instead of going back to his room where Abbot, Yaling, and Kassar were in a tangle of limbs on the single bed, she led him to another room down the tunnel. D’Argen’s feet slid out from under him when Vah’mor exited one of the rooms. He barely caught himself on the tunnel wall. It was not too hard to fake the drunkenness from earlier as the alcohol was still in his system even as his mahee and his fear tried to burn it away. He tried to grin, but was not sure his face was doing the right thing. He did, however, notice a familiar head of silvery hair before Vah’mor closed the door.

Olov.

Finally, something was working in his favour.

Sa’ab excused them both around Vah’mor and they entered the room next to the one where Olov was resting. This time, D’Argen made sure to be the one to pour the drinks and only slowly sip his own glass. Asa’s tiny frame could not hold the alcohol well and they passed out before long. Sa’ab followed not too long after with how much D’Argen was pouring for her. Finally, D’Argen was free.

Even though it hurt, even though his mahee barely responded, he forced it as wide as he could with the stone flower still in his robes and the stone out in the great cavern. Getting rid of most of the alcohol in his system made him sick and left a horrible taste in his mouth.

He peeked out the door to make sure there was nobody down either side of the tunnel. One of the doors on the other side rattled. D’Argen forced his mahee open and it hurt so much, but he was out of Sa’ab’s room and into Olov’s without being stopped again.

Olov was sleeping, but he cracked an eye open to look at him when D’Argen slammed the door closed and leaned against it.

“Not now, please,” Olov muttered and turned over in the bed, so his back was to D’Argen.

“Sleep,” D’Argen confirmed. He needed the man’s help, but he needed Olov to be rested before that. He also knew the exhaustion that came from trying to use his mahee around that horrible stone. D’Argen slid to the floor, leaning against the door, and closed his eyes to breathe. He touched the tiny flower hidden in his robes and quietly tried Acela’s spell one more time.

Nothing.

Olov would help. It was in his nature to comfort those in need and this was something that D’Argen needed.

While Olov slept, D’Argen went over his words in his mind, trying to figure out how to ask him and get the other to not only agree, but keep quiet about it. In the end, he decided it would be best to downplay it. The flower was a tiny thing, just for himself, and he would feel better if Olov said the most common prayer currently in use around them.

Before Olov could awake naturally though, the door at D’Argen’s back shuddered and shook with a heavy fist. Olov startled up in bed with wide eyes and D’Argen got up as well. The door opened and Vah’mor took a single step inside.

“You. Come with me,” they ordered, pointing at D’Argen.