Yvette felt a growing unease in her stomach as they walked along the shore. Whatever had left that small trail had disappeared entirely and, despite Gervas’ best efforts, he couldn’t find the trail again. Worse, she could feel that tingly sensation on her skin even when she wasn’t transformed. It felt as if the air itself was pulsing with magic of some kind, warning her to leave. She didn’t even want to imagine what she would see if she looked through the eyes of a troll, but whatever magic had been done here seemed far more recent than her initial assumptions. The closer they got to the settlement, the stronger it became. A part of her wanted to head out into the water and take the form of the dragon turtle again, to head to a different island.
The weather was quickly taking a turn for the worse as well. The thin clouds in the sky were beginning to thicken and grow darker, perhaps a warning of a coming storm to go with the slowly sinking sun. To top it all off, the beach seemed to grow wider as the vegetation seemed to retract, deeper into the island. Along the edge she could see the occasional stump or toppled tree, but it looked as if the beach itself had been cleared out more and more.
Yvette suspected Gervas was feeling the same way she did, as he would occasionally reach down to grip his sword, likely to ensure it was still there. He’d occasionally turn his head towards the trees as well, eyeing them.
“Are you worried we’ll get ambushed again?” Yvette asked. “Or trying to decide if we should hide and keep out of view?”
“Both,” Gervas said before glancing back at her. “Look at you, you’re learning.”
“More like becoming paranoid,” Yvette said with a roll of her eyes.
“Okay then, let’s see how many of my lessons have paid off,” Gervas said. “What threats or signs of trouble can you notice just by looking around?”
Yvette sighed before she looked around again. She felt worry begin to flood her when she realized a few things she had missed originally. “The sand has stuff under it, it’s oddly bumpy. Lumpy? Big? I don’t know the right word. There are some burnt pieces of wood sticking out between some of the rocks too, but old. Like there was a lot of stuff here recently, but it was either buried or became buried,” she said before glancing towards the water. She squinted for a moment before pointing out towards it. “There’s something sticking out over there as well, in the water. I think wood? Maybe it’s just a rock formation, I don’t know.” She glanced around for a few more moments. “I think that’s it.”
“Still no sign of any birds,” Gervas said before motioning up. “No signs of anything coming out of the water, either.”
“Not that I wasn’t already anxious or anything,” Yvette said with a soft sigh.
“That’s probably for the best, anxiety can keep you alive,” Gervas said. “There’s some signs of wreckage here, but it’s very old. Nothing fresh and a lot of it is worn away or almost.”
“Want me to try and look through around with the eyes of a troll again?” Yvette asked.
“Yeah, try that,” Gervas said.
Yvette nodded before once again she tapped her bracer to activate her reagents and then began to slowly change her eyes. Everything was so dark and gray, but the magic in the air was so much thicker than it had been before. It moved in bursts and waves, much like the song of the siren. Except, in this case, it was more wild and erratic. On top of that, there were strange, stronger waves that seemed to be traveling through the air wildly, interrupting the others. After a few moments she ended the spell and the world returned to its normal form. She blinked a few times before shaking her head. “There’s definitely some kind of magic in the air, but it’s not as strong as the siren’s. But there’s new magic as well. Something is definitely going on. Some of it is like the siren’s magic, but not quite the same. Weaker and more erratic.”
“What do you mean ‘like it’?” Gervas asked.
“It’s kind of shaped like it. If that makes sense?” Yvette said. “Like waves in the air, going out. But it’s weak, erratic. It’s not focused and a lot harder to see. It’s kind of radiating from, I think, that way,” Yvette said before pointing towards the direction they were heading. “Identifying magic by sight isn’t exactly something I learned until recently so I couldn’t say what any of it means.”
“So not a consistent spell? Nothing focused?” Gervas asked.
Yvette shook her head. “Not that I could see. No wards, no enchantments, nothing. It was pretty normal for an after effect, I think. It might be that there are just smaller spells being done to go with this.”
“Then let’s be careful and keep to cover when we go forward,” Gervas said.
Yvette nodded and followed after him. A part of her wanted to tease him for being so overly cautious again. But a much larger part of her wanted to beg him to just leave the island and go somewhere else. To even say he wasn’t being cautious enough. While she had originally been super excited to find out about the reasons for the mountain, this was all starting to creep her out. She found her eyes drawn back to the water and whatever that thing was sticking out from it.
It was so far away she couldn’t make it out at all, she supposed it could have been a rock formation of sorts. Or it could be a sunken vessel of some kind. Or something else entirely. It hadn’t drawn the eyes of the troll, though, so it at least wasn’t magical.
Yvette gently reached down and stroked her finger along the grip of her knife, reminding herself that it was there. She had her magic, she had her knife, she had Gervas. They’d be fine. She hoped. But it didn’t feel like it would be fine anymore. Now it felt more like something was wrong and it was sending off every instinct she had that something was terribly wrong and she just couldn’t put her finger on why. She hoped when they finally made their way to the settlement it would all prove to have been an overreaction.
------
Yvette felt like an idiot for allowing herself to get so nervous. The sun had almost begun to set when, finally, the small village could be seen off in the distance. Despite her worry about something going bad or attacking them, everything seemed entirely fine. The village itself was surrounded by walls, likely to keep out animals. She could even see a pier, with three vessels docked at it for the moment. She could even make out a few people through the open gates and on the pier.
The mountain had sprung up a few hundred feet south of it and, even from here, she could see where part of the wall around the village had collapsed and a few of the buildings near it as well, leaving piles of rubble on the ground.
Everything about the village seemed natural. She could even see a banner hanging from one of the ships, a strange golden phoenix over a red background. It looked kind of familiar but she couldn’t remember where she had seen it. Aside from the lack of animals in the area, it seemed entirely normal and mundane, the same as any other village she’d ever seen.
Yvette was a few steps ahead when she realized that Gervas had stopped. She glanced back at him and almost asked why he stopped, until she saw the look of alarm on his face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That,” Gervas said before pointing to the banner. “That’s the symbol of the Eterna Empire.”
Yvette blinked a few times, struggling to remember them. Eterna Empire? The name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite fit it. The sense of dread began to build up once more, only to come crashing down when she realized where she’d heard the name. It took all she had to avoid snickering. “Wait, you’re kidding, right? Eterna Empire? As in the ‘Reborn Empire’?” she asked. “Why are you worried?”
Gervas turned to look at her then for a moment before shaking his head. “Of course. Mage, right. Okay, Yvette. Tell me, what do you know about the Reborn Empire?”
Yvette rolled her eyes, but decided to play along. She already had a feeling how this was going to play out, though. Gervas was, once again, being overly paranoid. Not that she could blame him, she had been getting paranoid herself. She imagined he was rubbing off on her. “They’re a joke,” she said. “They call themselves an ‘empire’, but they’re a tiny little island nation just south of the main continent. At best. They can’t use reagent magic and won’t have anything to do with the Mage’s Association. As such, they’re one of the weakest nations in the world, the fact they even still exist is because of where their nation is located and the many undead threats other nations would have to go through to even come near them. There was also something about a phoenix in their history, but Betan kind of skipped a lot of that part since they weren’t really pivotal in my studies.”
Gervas stared at her for a few moments before finally sighing and reaching a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and shake his head as if trying to remove a growing headache. “Of course. I should have expected this.”
Yvette narrowed her eyes. “Gervas, what is that supposed to mean? They’re--”
“You’re close, but not quite. Yes, they are weaker than most other nations and, while it is true that they do not get along with the Mage’s Association, that is not a good reason for us to go anywhere near them,” Gervas said.
Yvette nodded and turned back towards the town. “Well, we’ll just go in and resupply and--”
“Yvette, you don’t get it. It’s not that they don’t reagent magic. It’s that they see it as a cursed, foul thing. They see mages like you as a curse on the land, to be purged,” Gervas said coldly.
Yvette would have kept going or even laughed at the idea of it, but he sounded so serious she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he wasn’t over reacting this time. “You mean because I’m fallen?”
“No,” Gervas said quickly. “The magic you use is antithetical to everything they do and believe. If they find out what you are, they will try to kill you. I don’t even know how they got an outpost out here.”
Yvette shook her head and gave a soft sigh. “Gervas, are you sure you’re not over reacting? While I understand the caution, I think maybe you’re taking this a little too far this time. So what if they have a little--”
Gervas suddenly charged right at her and lunged, slamming bodily into her, knocking them both to the ground. For a moment she was confused, until she heard a few light thumps and saw a pair of arrows quivering in the ground a few feet past where she had been.
Thankfully, Gervas didn’t hesitate. He was back on his feet a moment later, sword in his right hand, his left grabbing her arm and bodily dragging her out of the way. She heard another light thump when an arrow hit where she had been a moment ago, only for another to graze past her shoulder, only narrowly missing. Gervas yanked her back and away, taking cover behind one of the thin trees.
“Is it them? What’s going on? Why are they attacking us?” Yvette asked, any thoughts of him overreacting promptly destroyed in the wake of nearly being impaled. She made a mental note to never question him for over reacting again. At least, not for a day or two. At least an hour.
“I don’t know, maybe. I just saw a glint before I tackled you,” Gervas said. “They’re over there somewhere, though. I don’t know where.”
“What’s the plan?” Yvette asked.
“Try and figure out where they are before we end up getting killed,” Gervas whispered. “Then get them first.”
Yvette blinked a few times and felt her cheeks going red when she realized how close he was holding her. Dangerous situation or not, she couldn’t help but feel a little happy being protected like this. She tried to push that thought aside, but despite herself it refused to be ignored, instead rising up the harder she tried to push it away. Of all the times for her to feel overly romantic this was definitely the worst. “So, uhhh, what do you want me to do?”
“Do you know any spells that can help?” Gervas asked.
“Only if you want me to be bait,” Yvette said. “I mean, I think I could, mostly, make myself resistant to the arrows. That wouldn’t be too hard.”
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Gervas turned and looked at her as if she was insane. “What have I told you about being reckless?”
“Would you rather wait until they kill us?” Yvette asked before tapping on her bracer. The small dots appeared across its surface, the reagents coming to life. “If I can lure them out, can you find them?”
“That’s dangerous. You could--”
“We’ll die if we just wait here until they find a better position to hit us, right?” Yvette asked. “We don’t even know how many of them there are. Just trust me to be okay and I’ll trust you to find them. Or we could just surrender. Or run away and hope they’re worse shots than they seem.”
“Something tells me they wouldn’t accept your surrender,” Gervas said with a sigh. “Just be careful, okay?”
“When am I ever not? Don’t answer that,” Yvette said when he opened his mouth. She gathered her magic once more, letting it flow through the reagents and whispering the incantation as softly as she could. Bit by bit she felt her skin shifting. For a moment she considered covering her body entirely in scales.
But that would be too obvious. If they noticed what she was doing, they might not be distracted by her. Worse, they might ignore her and go after Gervas. She needed to make herself good prey. She focused on the scales of the dragon turtle, slowly covering her skin with them, as small and subtle as she could over the parts of her body that weren’t hidden by her clothes.
It wouldn’t be perfect, though. The scales weren’t nearly formed thick enough to fully protect her, at least she doubted they were. But it would hopefully be enough to dampen any hits. She let out a silent plea to the heavens that if she was struck, they’d hit her where the scales were thickest and hidden.
Yvette then ran out from cover, fleeing away from where they had been hiding. An arrow flew past her a moment later, narrowly missing her and making her stop short for a moment.
The second arrow cut across her arm, the wicked edge piercing the sleeve of her robe and glancing off the side of her now scaled arm. She could feel the wound across her arm, the edge of the arrow having cut her even through the scales, but it wasn’t nearly deep enough to concern herself with. The arrow had gotten stuck in her robes as well, pierced through the sleeve. Yvette threw herself down behind a different tree, narrowly avoiding another arrow. She then reached down and yanked the arrow out, eyeing the tip for a moment.
It seemed entirely mundane, a simple piercing metal tip without any magic woven into it. No runes either. She wondered if maybe Gervas was correct. What if the empire DID hate mages like her? She’d barely even thought of them as anything other than a joke, how could anyone deny the usefulness of mages?
But it was quickly feeling a lot scarier to have them right here and now, an actual threat trying to kill her, than when they had just been some names in a book. Yvette climbed back to her feet and started to run again, she just had to--
Piercing pain flashed in-between her shoulder blades. Yvette fell forward, landing face first on the ground, her entire body locking up for a moment.
She could feel it. The arrow was lodged in her back. She was going to die. It was the end for her. Yvette closed her eyes and gave a whimper before, after a moment, realizing that while it did hurt, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have. The shock had been painful, but it was quickly dulling down to an ache in the back.
Yvette laid as still as she could, listening for anyone approaching. After a few moments she heard heavy footsteps. “You get her?” a voice asked.
“I think so,” a second said. “There she is. See? Right between the shoulder blades. Easy as could be.”
“What about the other one?” the first voice asked. Two of them, both males it seemed.
“Probably ran. Didn’t have a bracer, though. Probably went to get more of the merfolk,” the second voice said. The footsteps stopped and she didn’t move, hoping they wouldn’t notice she was still awake.
She heard a sudden yell from behind her, followed by something crashing into something else and the sound of rustling leaves. Yvette rolled around, letting out a soft hiss of pain when she felt the arrow tear itself out from her back. Even if the scales prevented it from going very deep, it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Yvette could see them now. Gervas was on top of one, pinning him on his stomach and was trying to bring his sword down into the man’s back. The man was struggling to free himself while the other had a grip on the hilt of the sword, stopping her guardian from performing the finishing blow.
Yvette ran straight at the man impeding Gervas, whispering the spell and causing the scales over her body to expand over all of her and grow thicker. Now that they were finally fighting it didn’t matter if they knew she was protected.
She slammed into the man from the side, sending him stumbling back and losing his grip on Gervas’ sword. Yvette reached down and grabbed her dagger, drawing it free in the same simple motion that Gervas had taught her so many times, plunging it forward.
The blade tip missed, the man managing to narrowly grip and shove her wrist aside. Before she had much time to react, his right hand came around and back handed her across her face. He let out a pained shriek, losing his grip on her wrist. The blow made Yvette see flashing lights for a moment, the thick, jagged scales managing to dampen, but not entirely stop, the blow. She tried to clear her head, but the man recovered first. A second blow hit her in the face and this time it was a closed fist and hard enough to make her topple backwards, her knife falling from her grip.
The moment Yvette hit the ground she rolled back and to her feet, trying to resist the urge to just lay there and regather herself. Thank the stars for Gervas’ lessons as a moment later the man was already on her. She saw the flash of metal and barely managed to pull back in time, a blade cleaving through where she had been. She had to find her knife.
Except she didn’t have time for that. The second slash grazed her robe and it was then she backed into a tree. The man raised the sword up, letting out a victorious cry before he brought it down on her. She held out arms, catching the blade against the scales and managing to deflect it just enough so the tip rammed into the tree. Pain shot through her arms where the scales had been torn off by the blade, blood now dripping from her arms. But she didn’t hesitate this time, locking both her hands together and then swinging them into the man’s head with all the strength she could muster. It sent ripples of pain through her arms, but it also sent the man stumbling backwards.
“Why you little--” The man never got the chance to finish his sentence as a moment later the tip of Gervas’ blade pierced through his chest from behind. The man’s mouth fell open and she could see the confusion on his face before he collapsed, never to move again.
Yvette stared at them for a moment, her eyes wide. She couldn’t believe it was already over, it all happened so fast. “That, they just, I, they--”
Gervas nodded. “I know. I know,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. They, are they, why did we, I mean--”
“Yvette, they tried to kill us first,” Gervas said before kneeling down and wiping the blood off on the man’s tunic. “If I hadn’t gotten there in time, they might have killed you. Don’t do that again.”
“Do what again?” Yvette asked.
“Playing dead like that. It was a good effort, but they had bows,” Gervas said. “If they’re smart they won’t take the risk of you getting up again.”
Yvette glanced towards the other man, trying not to pale at the blood on the man’s back. A bow was resting on the ground near him, an arrow partially nocked. Her cheeks went red. “Oh. I just thought if they thought I was already down, they might not try to finish me off,” she said sheepishly.
“Not the worst plan I’ve heard from a mag-- from you,” Gervas said before getting to his feet and walking to her. “How bad are your wounds? Did the arrow get through the scales?”
“The one in my back only a little, I--” Yvette let out a startled yelp when he gripped her arms and examined them for a moment, before then turning her around. Her cheeks when scarlet when she felt him tugging down the back of her robe. “Gervas!”
“You have a tunic on under it,” Gervas reminded her. “You’re also bleeding. Don’t move. Don’t end your spell, either.”
Yvette nodded, though she couldn’t help wanting to shriek when he tugged the back of the robe all the way down and could finally see her back in its entirety. She did shriek when she felt him lift up the back of her tunic. “Gervas, don’t--”
“Yvette, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “This will hurt.”
“What will--” Yvette quickly covered her mouth with her hands when she felt him do something to the wound on her back, changing it from a dull throbbing to a piercing stab. She tried to pull away, but he quickly gripped her shoulder and held her there.
“Stop moving,” Gervas said with a ferocity that made her go entirely still.
The stabbing quickly went from agonizing to a new, equally unpleasant feeling of burning. She let out a soft, pained whimper, gripping the tree and closing her eyes. “What in the world are you doing?”
“There’s poison,” Gervas said.
“What?” Yvette asked and tried to turn to look at him, but he didn’t let her move.
“Stop moving. Okay, go back to normal.”
“What?” Yvette asked.
“The scales, get rid of them.”
“Oh, right,” Yvette said before letting the spell end. Mercifully some of the pain died down when she did. No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn’t shake the thought that Gervas was watching her. After a few moments she heard him let out a sigh of relief when he let her tunic go.
“You should practice that spell more often, it’s a good one,” Gervas said.
“It is?” Yvette asked. “Can I turn around now?”
“Yes, let me see your arms,” Gervas said.
Yvette turned around and held them out. He quickly examined the wounds, cleaning and bandaging them once he was certain they weren’t poisoned. “You said there was poison?”
Gervas nodded. “I think. When he was lining up his last shot he dipped the arrow into that,” he said before pointing to a small, shattered jar with a dark red liquid spilling out from it. “I don’t know what it is or if he used it on the other arrows he shot. But I don’t think we want to find out, either.”
Yvette nodded, giving another shudder. She’d never even considered that there might be something on the arrows. “I ummm… I’m sorry for that. For playing dead. I really thought--”
“It wasn’t a bad plan,” Gervas said with a smile before reaching out and lightly patting her on the head. “You handled yourself well out there.”
“You saw?” Yvette asked, though she felt a hot rush of shame when she realized how happy she was that he had. “Sorry.”
Gervas gave a light chuckle and shook his head. “No. I was a bit indisposed, I didn’t get to watch your fight. But you didn’t die, you even managed to disarm your attacker. I’m proud of you. I’ve seen a lot of mages who had a lot more experience who would have handled that a lot worse.”
Yvette nodded, though she couldn’t help herself from wanting to squeal at his praise. She then glanced towards the bodies. “What about them? Should we do something? Tell the people in the--”
“We’re going to hide them, then we’re going to leave,” Gervas said firmly, the smile disappearing from his face.
“Leave? To where?” Yvette asked.
“We’re going to keep going. It’ll be harder without an opportunity to restock, but we can fish and try to extend our supplies. There’s more settlements on these islands and, if we’re lucky, we’ll find one without the empire.”
“I like fish!” Yvette said quickly, bringing another chuckle from her guardian.
“Good, because we’ll be eating a lot of it. If we’re lucky,” Gervas said before glancing back towards the village.
“But why aren’t we going there?” Yvette asked. “If I hid my bracer, then--”
“How would we explain being here?” Gervas asked.
“What do you mean? We walked,” Yvette said.
“From the other side of the island. No boat, nothing. So how did we get here?” Gervas asked.
Yvette paused for a moment, trying to think of a good reason. “Our ship wrecked. Or maybe we were left by pirates. I mean, I guess we were left by pirates, but we could say were were attacked and left by pirates.”
Gervas gave a soft sigh before shaking his head. “Do you really want to take that risk? If they even suspect you of doing magic, they might come down like that. If we were on the mainland we could at least cover by pretending to be mercenaries,” he said before walking back to the second body and beginning to move it.
“What are you doing?” Yvette asked.
“Hiding it,” Gervas said. “Are you going to help?”
Yvette stared at it for a few moments, her stomach doing a small jump at just the idea of touching it. She didn’t know how Gervas could do it and make it look so easy, she felt like she was going to be sick. “Do I have to?”
Gervas only shook his head and chuckled. “Just clean up the mess. The last thing we want is for them to find this and come searching for us.”
Yvette nodded, though she couldn’t help feeling a small sense of unease, watching him work. He seemed almost casual about it, how could anyone do such a thing? She glanced to the sword in the tree and gripped the hilt, giving it a few quick tugs. It refused to move. She narrowed her eyes before jamming her foot against the tree and using it to help push off.
The sword finally pulled free and she fell backwards with a shriek, the sword flying from her hands. Gervas let out a yelp, ducking down when the sword flew overhead. “Yvette, what the hell was that?”
Yvette stared up at him and gave a small, nervous smile. “Sorry. It was lodged in there a lot harder than I expected.”
Gervas gave another soft sigh before shaking his head. “You’re going to be the death of me. Come on, back to work.”
Yvette nodded, slowly crawling back to her feet. The sun was already setting, though she couldn’t help feeling a small bit of regret that they wouldn’t be able to rest in the village. Proper shelter sounded wonderful.