-Below the Towers-

After keeping the towers warm for several days, Ryn Ashten had graciously granted Drew permission to take the rest of the day for his own personal use.

You’d think she was the lineal.

But Drew didn’t hold anything against her. She was clearly the hidden face behind the Forlorn, as bright as she was bold. She wasn’t afraid to stand up to the most senior Forlorn warriors and leaders. Reign, who filled Drew mostly with dread and nervous energy, seemed tame when Ryn interacted with him.

In many ways, she was Drew’s opposite, although ever since the lineal ceremony Drew had felt his discomfort at leading begin to fade. Like he truly had given his fears away to the massive, curling tree on the fringes of Deporta.

He hadn’t said anything to Ryn Ashten, but she was perceptive. She’d noticed his eager need to stretch his legs and spend some time clearing his head and had opened up most of the day for him to vanish.

And he’d vanished like Helm, descending the tower like it was on fire, finally dressed to his own preference—dark, loose clothing and Helm’s shadow cloak. He’d told Drew to keep it, and Drew hadn’t complained. With it on Drew felt all but invisible.

The streets were a whole other world on the ground. From above the city seemed haphazard and unorganized, but with the cobblestone under his feet and the bustling shops and homes all stacked on top of and next to each other, Drew felt like he’d entered a heart, pumping life into the streets and people with a furious passion.

Small, lush gardens and water fountains fashioned like rowders and legendary sulfins sprouted out of the city like nature reclaiming pieces of the tamed land. Trees with stark white bark and heavy green leaves lined most streets, some with roots that threatened to break through the stone walkways. Leaves mixed with dust and scraps of cloth and food.

The waft of something sweet caught Drew’s nose, and he followed it willingly, passing several homes on his way. The thick windows were open, and men and women were working inside and outside of the houses.

A tall, thin man with short brown hair laid a loaf of bread, the precious grain purchased from Trucesan merchants, on the window sill to cool, playfully smacking a child’s hand away from his culinary achievement.

Another man was painting his front door a curious teal color, like the sea. His impressive beard and rugged features made it seem like he’d lived most of his life on the open water. His face was as full of knots and lines as the wooden door he was working on.

A slender woman with the curliest hair Drew had ever seen was cutting back a massive, wild bush that mimicked her thick black mane.

She caught Drew observing her and smiled, waving with her free hand before she returned to hacking away at the plant, a fierce nest of thorns and a few stunning orange flowers. One of the blossoms was tucked behind her ear.

It was surreal—under the shadow cloak no one recognized him as the lineal. He was just another Forlorn on the streets.

I could get used to this.

The source of the delicious aroma was a bakery settled on the corner of two roads. Its wide windows were open, tempting passerby with its various delicacies and treats.

Drew joined several others on their way in, fingering the string of coins in his pocket.

“Good afternoon, madams, sirs, little misses and misters. How can I serve you?” a man called out airily as they entered the bakery. He was one of the shortest men Drew had ever seen, but his large eyes and even more impressive spectacles made up for the height disparity. His thick, curled mustache added to his unique character.

“Three of the sugarbuns and a glass of honeymelon,” a hulking man with dark skin and curly black hair said gently, his voice at odds with his many muscles.

“Course, dear sir. With muscles like that to keep up, I’ll get you the biggest glass.” The shop owner smiled, his mustache twitching with the grin. He had been resting his elbows on the polished, shining wooden bar separating him from the customers, but in a flurry he was scurrying around the various glass cases, selecting pastries by hand and carefully wrapping each in wax paper. A young woman brought the man’s drink, a crisp green color, and left it on the bar.

“And ma’am and little miss?”

“I love the poplicks!” a young girl cried out, her blue eyes almost as bright as the sky on the clearest day in spring. Her hair was almost down to her waist and was a curly blonde.

“How many poplicks for the little princess?” The man asked, looking up at the tall, muscular woman with a sword strapped to her waist standing next to the girl, presumably the child’s mother.

“Let’s try to keep it at five this time, sweetie.” The shop owner met the mother’s gaze with an understanding smile, adding a tall glass of iced purple juice to the poplicks, which brought a smile to the warrior’s tired face.

A couple more orders, and Drew was standing before the shop owner.

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“And for you, mysterious sir? Perhaps a slice of redsun with skyrain?”

“Do you bake everything here?” Drew couldn’t help but ask, eyeing the exhaustive rows of various pastries and sweets, many he couldn’t even name. Everything seemed to be sprinkled with bursts of color, and each baked good was either topped with sugared fruit slices or a sweet, glossy glaze.

“You insult my honor, mysterious sir. I don’t arrive at the bakery before the sun decides to rise just to watch someone else bake my delicacies. When you come to Sur’s Bakery, you get Sur’s baked goods.” The man pointed to the small placard pinned to his well-tailored clothes. “Sur” it read.

“I didn’t mean to insult your good name, Mr. Sur, I only meant to complement the person responsible for such an impressive array.”

“And what would you like to try, mysterious sir?” Sur’s large gray eyes stared up at him, and Drew could have sworn the man winked.

“I’ll have an assortment of whatever you think are your finest baked goods, and I’m curious to try the skyrain.”

In a flash, the little man busied himself selecting a handful of different pastries and carefully wrapping them in a clear paper before depositing the selection into a bright blue sack with “Sur’s Bakery” emblazoned across the front.

The young woman rushed forward with the drink, which was in a tall, thin glass bottle with a cap to keep the liquid from sloshing out.

“Kindly return the glass the next time you visit us and we’ll refill it with whatever you order,” the woman said, her hair such a dark color it almost seemed purple.

Drew nodded and was about to leave when Sur said, so quietly Drew almost missed it, “Thank you for your business, Lineal.”

Stunned, Drew almost dropped his food. He glanced back to look at the man through the open windows of the bakery. Sur was busy helping the next person in line, but he slyly made eye contact with Drew through the window, cementing Drew’s growing assumption that Sur had somehow recognized him, even with Helm’s mysterious cloak.

Maybe there was more to the baker than met the eye.

Drew continued his aimless stroll, taking sips from the bottle in between bites of the delicious pastries. It tasted like the smell of rain atop Mount Solis—sweet, with a clean tang to it.

All around him, the streets were filled with countless people traveling from one part of the city to another. Several children who seemed a little too young to attend the Forlorn Academy were huddled around a water fountain, faint sparks of Orenda at their fingers. They giggled as their untrained Orenda turned the clear water different colors.

Interesting… and their Orenda doesn’t seem like the caged beast Uncle described either.

After looking around the street discreetly to see if any one was paying attention to him, Drew invited a minuscule portion of his Orenda to come forth. He’d been experimenting with his Orenda ever since the lineal ceremony, trying to understand this new facet of his strange power. It complied slowly, as though curious. Picturing a miniature version of Isle in his mind, he felt the familiar warmth on his fingertips as the ruby light gathered, forming a tiny rowder.

He willed the ruby creation forward, to the fountain. The tiny Orenda depiction complied, soaring over the street and into the water fountain, throwing up tiny splashes of water as it flew and frolicked in the stone basin. The children cried out, delighted at the little Orenda creature.

Smiling, Drew continued down the street. The Orenda creation would last a few minutes before becoming nothing more than ruby glitter in the air.

He was still thinking about the bakery and the group of children innocently experimenting with Orenda when he stopped in the middle of the cobblestone street.

Looming in front of him like one of the ancient structures from before, was an imposing, weathered building that looked like a cross between an Abysmal church and an old Forlorn castle.

It lay sandwiched in between other buildings, just like every other section of Deporta, and no one else seemed to notice the hulking edifice but him.

Aware he was drawing attention to himself by standing in the middle of the street, Drew quickly crossed until the impressive building was looking down on him sternly.

It was all spires and heavy, chiseled blocks of stone. The windows it did have were thin and high off the ground, making it impossible for Drew to steal a glance into the building.

Approaching the door, which was as massive as the doors leading into the Hall back at Mount Solis, he tried opening it.

Locked.

The door remained shut as though it wasn’t a door at all, but a solid oak wall.

Drew felt a strange sense of loss as he started to walk away from the ancient building.

“Thorne?” a quiet, intense voice called out to him.

“Who’s there?” Drew whipped around, searching for the source of the question. The source of his name.

There were dozens of people on the street, but none of them were paying him any attention at all. They continued to bustle toward their predetermined destinations.

But then who…

“Thorne, is that you?” the voice asked again, the tone more insistent this time.

“Yes…”

Drew backed away in surprise as the large door to the strange building he’d just been admiring opened partially. Enough for Drew to catch a glimpse of bright green eyes.

The hidden speaker was tall, at least as tall as Drew. Why was someone ensconced in the mysterious structure? The building looked like it hadn’t been inhabited or visited in many years, but the man behind the door was clearly quite alive. And knew something about Drew.

Without even seeing me. Hearing my voice. How is that possible?

“Your uncertainty doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence,” the voice said, somewhat gruffly. “Are you or are you not Drew Thorne?”

“Who’s asking?” Drew shot back, if anything to gather his scattered wits.

“An old friend of the family. You were drawn here.” It wasn’t a question. Just a statement of fact.

Drew opened his mouth to ask the man something, but the question died on his lips as the man said, “Summon your Orenda. I need to know it’s really you.”

Wonderful, exactly what I wanted to do on my day off—show off my Orenda to a strange man living in the corpse of a building from the past.

Orenda light started to seep from Drew’s fingers, ruby light that ate away the shadows until the man’s features were thrown into sharp focus.

“Come in,” he said abruptly, opening the door wide enough for Drew to enter and pulling him in, the door closing with a sense of finality.