“Uhm, I’m sorry,” I said to my team. “I acted rashly. I didn’t mean what I said.”

Our wagon thumped ever so slowly towards the next destination of future insanities. I’d regrouped with the team in the forest not far from the wastes. They came looking for me and Rakash. Everyone, especially Remy, wore looks of pure concern, though the team returned to their regular selves by the time we made it back to the wagon. Our driver was ready to depart after losing a third of his pay to so-called “cheaters.”

Shena sat in the corner of the wagon, reading Rakash’s letter for the umpteenth time. Remy stood around awkwardly, unsure how she should act around me. Some of her earlier doubts and concerns lingered on her expression. The team didn’t fully believe I had changed. The same went for Darko, who sat on a barrel, resting his chin on his hand.

“I am sorry, too,” Darko said. “I got carried away, insulting you. I would like to say I yelled at you for your benefit, but I really didn’t need to be so rude about it.”

“No, that’s wrong,” I said. “Thank you for yelling at me. And please, if I ever fall back down into a moping fit, yell at me some more. I needed the encouragement.”

Darko raised his eyebrows. “What kind of spell did Rakash place on you?”

Compassion, I thought. There was no better way to describe it. Rakash’s spell wasn’t quite omnipotent, but it was certainly effective.

“I don’t sense any magic on him,” Remy said. She pouted at me. “More importantly, Cill, are you ready to learn? If you don’t understand the very basics of magic by the end of today, I fear I have no choice but to cook your mana chords alive.”

“You don’t want that, by the way,” Shena said from the sidelines. “Remy’s cooking skills aren’t nearly as practiced as her ability to bore you with lessons.”

Remy sighed. “Do you have to start insulting me again?”

“Sorry,” Shena said, staring at her letter. “Just as I find one of them, they disappear again…”

“Can’t be helped,” Remy said. “Rakash did have a point. Krose royalty isn’t known for welcoming outsiders. I know with experience, having partied at their damn balls.”

“I hope your family wasn’t as racist,” Shena said.

“Oh, they absolutely were, and still are,” Remy said. “That’s partly the reason why I pursue adventuring instead of marrying for House Ravilles’ benefit.”

Shena placed down the letter and sighed. “All of our efforts so far exist to impress those very royals. Who is to say we wouldn’t have done better by teaming with Rakash?”

“I can assure you, the royalty’s help will be our best bet at saving the Gorthorns, Shena,” Darko said. He turned to me. “Let’s forget these problems for now. Cill is up and walking. I say you girls should stress the extent of his claims before he starts getting too cocky.”

Sorry? I thought. Wasn’t the goal to ease me into the adventuring lifestyle? What was this about?

Remy grinned wide and said, “I went easy on you last time. Will not happen again. You’re learning whether you want to or not.”

“Yes,” I said with a slight bow. “Please teach me.”

The team looked at me as if I was insane. Darko grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’re serious, then? You wish to put an end to your moping fit?”

“Yes?” I said. “Should I not?”

Darko grinned. “This is the best news we’ve heard all week. I’m glad to have you.”

I offered an awkward smile. Making promises was easy. Following through was hard. And currently, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. In all honesty, I didn’t feel any more relaxed than I did on my first day waking up in Huss’s guild.

But I wasn’t moping. I was ready to put in effort. This alone made all the difference.

“What do we do, then?” I asked. “Do I get straight to work? Learning and stuff?”

Remy appeared excited by the idea. Darko, however, shook his head. “You’re both forgetting the most important ritual in keeping yourselves afloat. Before any hard work, is there something you must do?”

“And what’s that?” Remy asked. “I didn’t know you were religious.”

“No, I am not talking about prayers, although those can certainly help,” Darko said. He walked up to the barrels and opened the lid to the bread barrel. “My important ritual involves stuffing this disgusting stuff down your mouths. Shena, cook up the pot. We’re eating.”

***

A puddle of guilt and doubt lingered in my head as I ate. I wasn’t on the verge of losing myself like I was during my last meal, but my head wasn’t brimming with happiness either. I judged this to be a quality of my personality. A strong will could keep me going, but some effort wouldn’t automatically make me happy. Still, I finished my bowl quickly and didn’t offer my thoughts a chance to brood.

Darko was filling his third bowl and munching on his second piece of bread by the time I laid down my dishes. “Then, Arkber,” he said, speaking as he ate. “Our destination. We should arrive within thirty hours. The King’s audience is scheduled to start in thirty-five hours. This is not nearly enough time for the preparations we need to make.”

“And the preparations are?” Shena asked.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Clothes, rumors, lies,” Darko said. “All sorts of nonsense that I’ll take care of. I ask all of you to be ready for what’s about to come. Especially you, Cill. Your presence plays a crucial part in the audience.”

“Do I really have to negotiate with a King?” I asked.

“Not just a King,” Darko said. “But King Xastur—the goddamned Orc himself. The busy man who is currently on his way to lead the front lines in defense of the border. I’m still not sure how exactly he saw us as candidates for the cultist job, but we are to prove he made no mistake. Let me ask you, Cill, how familiar are you with the Xastur lineage?”

“Not at all,” I admitted.

Darko chewed on a spoonful as he spoke. “I probably shouldn’t tell you anything. Any knowledge about the King would scare you back into hiding.” He swallowed, then scooped some more. “But I will anyway. The King is a war master and a fighter first and foremost. He is not a man who commands his army to charge into death. He is the man charging into death. And he always somehow survives. I’ve heard he’s large as a war horse, and as intimidating as the horse’s shit. He didn’t gain the throne by popular vote; he took it by forcing King Brevyll to resign.”

“Stop speaking with food in your mouth,” Remy said with a frown. She had already finished her smaller portion. “Xastur is a controversial figure. Lesser nobility despises him, believing that a brute is not fit for the position of an elegant and intelligent leader. However, anyone slightly more observant recalls that Xastur was always a true nobleman, and a respected one at that. That’s how he got the throne. Not only is he adept at war, he’s a genius at manipulating the royalty’s games. He runs the country like an omniscient crime syndicate.”

Fantastic, I thought. I had to put my all into not regretting my decisions as I listened. The King sounded like a jerk who used his authority to gain his favor in negotiations, throwing off those weaker than him with intimidation alone. His type was the exact one I thoroughly hated during my old job.

He was also the most important man in all of the country. A fucking King. And I was supposed to join an audience with him.

“With that in mind,” Darko said, “I am proud to announce myself as a friend of Prince Vitek Xastur, who happens to be our gateway into this mission. And to remind you girls, I am not seeking the mission for the pay and glory involved. I am serious when I say my plan requires the royalty’s assistance. This includes access to the Royal Treasury and its artifacts.”

He gulped down the rest of his vegetable slop, then placed down the bowl with a questionable amount of force. He stood up and stretched his body. “We will talk more in Arkber. For now, I’m running ahead a little. Arrangements need to be made.”

Remy raised her eyebrow. “You’re running? Where?”

“To Arkber, as I said,” Darko said. “I’ll find the wagon when you get there, don’t worry. Cill, take care of the girls. If Remy stirs you to anything resembling witchhood, report to me.”

“You’re running to Arkber?” Remy asked. “How much is that, sixty miles?”

“A good jog, I’d say. See you there.”

After the dialogue that I presumed was sarcasm, Darko hopped off the moving wagon and took off running, startling the horses as he jolted past. The three of us watched after his figure in silence. His pace was easily double, if not triple, of our wagon.

“Uhm, he was serious?” I asked. “Does he do that often?”

“Men with vigor-fueled muscles are amongst the fastest beings alive, right after mages who learned flight,” Remy said. “We’ll meet him in Arkber.”

“And yes, Darko does this often,” Shena said. “Nobody can guess what goes on inside his head. I believe he picks the weirdest and dumbest possible solutions to his problems and executes the ideas to the extremes, and always without thinking. In this case, he wanted to get to the city ahead of schedule.”

I watched as Darko’s head dipped behind a hillock ahead. I let out a laugh and said under my breath, “Shiela be damned…”

“What?” Remy asked. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said.

Remy looked concerned. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

“I’ll have to keep up, won’t I?” I asked. “My promises won’t be kept easily.”

Soon enough, we’ll be fighting more cultists, I thought. I’ll have to cast more magic, break more laws. Train so I can fight more cultists. And I had to damn agree to all this.

Remy smirked. “I must agree with that. But it’s not Darko who you have to keep up with. None of us can stay behind that maniac’s trail. Who you really need to keep up with is me. And with the distraction of our leader gone, you have no excuses not to pay attention to my teachings.”

“Right,” I said. “I will try my best.”

Remy nodded. She paced around the wagon for a few circles, thinking. She picked up her staff and turned to me. “My old teacher loved to use a spell to force me to pay attention. I wasn’t exactly happy about her methods at the time, but in hindsight, I must admit the spell was effective. So be warned, Cill. You are about to witness the same trick.”

“Okay?” I said, facing Remy.

She pointed her staff at my face. I flinched as the staff glowed. Water spurted from the orb, shooting straight at my face and clothes. I jumped by the sheer cold.

Remy grinned like a little devil. “It’s freezing, I know. And it’ll be cold for a long while. For as long as your clothes stay wet, you’re obliged to pay attention. I will make sure you do.”

I cursed inside my head, rubbing at the spots where the water was the coldest. This wasn’t a spell to make me pay attention at all; it was a fucking attack!

True to her words, Remy didn’t go easy on me. The lessons lasted forever while our wagon rattled its way toward Arkber. I swore Remy had imbued her water spell with some magical nonsense to make it never dry. It got so bad I had to reposition myself under the remaining moonlight in hopes of drying myself faster.

That wasn’t to say I didn’t pay attention. By the third hour, for once in my life, I truly felt as if the concept of magic was starting to make sense as a concrete element of life. Magic in this world wasn’t simply a power that mages pulled out of their asses whenever they wished to do something cool. No, magic, or rather mana power, was a form of energy, kind of like electricity on earth. Difference was, in this world, humans could wield the energy to their will.

The more I learned, the more I came to like Remy as a teacher. But not for the reasons one might think. She tried her hardest to be stern with me, but her methods of discipline were thoroughly useless. What actually made me pay attention was her genuine demeanor. Every time I got something wrong, she thought of how to explain better, sometimes arguing with Shena in between about each other’s misconceptions.

Whenever I finally understood the difficult concept of how mana reactions happened on a basic level, Remy beamed with pure excitement, clearly proud of herself for having made me a little smarter. The sensation was strangely addicting. I wanted to learn more, if only to see how far Remy’s smiles would extend.

This much I can manage, I thought. Magic isn’t too bad. It might be a weapon. But only when used as a weapon. I can do this. I can keep my promise.

Little did I realize, the real counterweight to drag down my confidence showed itself when the daylight moons lost their light, and blackness overtook the skies. It wasn’t monsters in the dark or dead babies. It wasn’t even a cultist ambush coming to assassinate us in our sleep.

It was insomnia.