I gradually wake to a pounding headache and the sound of hushed voices. A fire is crackling nearby and warming my face. I risk squinting an eye open. It’s dark out.

Disorientation washes over me. How did I get here? Why am I at a campfire? Who are these people? What happened?

But as I stare at the strange people sitting across from me, recognition slowly dawns. The human guard with pale skin is Earnest. The arachnoid with a tan shell is Xamireb. They’d been accompanying Captain Darian.

Darian.

Oh yeah. Now I remember how I got here.

I try to sit up, but my arm feels stuck to the ground, and I fall back on my side. The soft talking stops, and the guards look at me.

“You’re awake!” Quell’s voice. “Careful, there, you took quite a hit.”

“I told you it was too hard,” Earnest says. “They’ve probably got a concussion!”

“They don’t have a concussion,” Xamireb says.

Darian grunts. “Had to make sure it took them out in one hit.”

“Or a cracked skull!”

“They don’t have a cracked skull.”

I try to roll onto my side, and find what’s keeping my arm pinned. It’s the Aegis, still strapped in place, refusing to let me go.

As I notice it, the shield also seems to notice me.

Ah! Now I’m awake! About time. It’s been hours without a good fight! And it’s spent this whole time pressed into the sand. Humiliating! It has done nothing to deserve such disrespect! Well, now that I’m awake, we should go out hunti—

[Crimson Aegis added to Inventory.]

I wince, pushing myself upright and rubbing my arm as pins and needles run through my skin. I think it cut off some circulation there for a while.

Darian is to my right, and Quell is to my left. I squint into the dark, blinking the firelight out of my eyes. “The wyverns?”

“Dealt with,” Darian says. “Largely thanks to you.”

“Ah. Yeah.” I rub my forehead, then pull my hand back: it’s flecked with droplets of dried blood. Nothing like the first time the Bloodlust caught me off guard, but I’m still not wild that this is becoming a pattern. I look at Darian. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” The woman turns back to some meat sizzling on a rock at the edge of the fire. “Here. You need to get more iron back in you.” She skewers the meat and slaps it on a thin slab of stone, which she passes to me.

I gingerly take it. The smell is making my mouth water, but the meat still looks rare—bloody, even. My stomach flutters nervously, and I glance back toward her. “Is this okay to eat? I mean, I won’t… you know.”

“It won’t cause a Bloodlust,” Quell assures me. “Only the blood of a living creature can trigger that. Or, that’s what I’m told.”

“Ah, right. I forgot you’re new to this.” Darian nods toward Quell. “The prince is right. Meat from a butchered animal won’t send you into a Bloodlust. In fact, we dhampyr actually need raw and rare meat as part of our natural diet. The risk only occurs when blood is taken from something—or someone—still living.”

Xamireb tips their head. “New to this? New to having a Bloodlust?”

I glance at Quell, and he shoots a look back at me. “They’re trustworthy.”

Earnest sits up straight. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t be daft,” Xamireb says to him. “You heard what they were talking about with the prince that first night they showed up.”

Dammit, I knew they were listening.

Earnest frowns. “They’re from overseas?”

Xamireb looks at him like he’s an idiot.

Darian points to me. “They got transplanted into a new body with weird Life magic. Nye is new to being a dhampyr. They’re also cursed to protect the prince. It’s related to that demon shield.”

While Darian fills the guards in on my cover story, I nibble at the piece of roasted meat. It’s juicy and smokey, and immediately my stomach clenches in hunger pains. I wolf the rest of it down, hardly chewing enough to swallow. That might be the best steak I’ve ever had.

“Where did that shield go, anyway?” Earnest asks. “You just made it vanish.”

“Illusion magic?” Xamireb suggests.

“No, it’s not that,” Quell says. “I think it’s some type of spatial magic?”

“It’s, ah, in my Inventory,” I explain, hoping that’s a normal thing people have here. I glance at the other pieces of meat cooking in the fire and wonder if I can get a second one.

“Your what?” Darian asks.

Yeah, that was too much to hope for. “It’s, um, this place where I can store things…” Helplessly, I ask Echo, What is the Inventory?

[The user’s Inventory is a pocket dimension of space in the Between which allows nonorganic objects to be added and removed at will.]

“It’s a pocket dimension in the Between,” I say, recalling Quell had also mentioned that place. I hope that makes it sound more believable.

“You can access the Between?” Xamireb asks, surprised. “Are you a null mage?”

I blink. “I don’t think so.”

“What are your arcana affinities?” they press.

“Well that one’s obvious,” Earnest says. “Blood, right?”

“I guess so,” I admit with a shrug.

Earnest looks at Xamireb smugly. “Who’s the arcana expert now?”

Xamireb scowls. “Lucky guess.”

“They were literally whipping sheets of blood around like razor blades,” Earnest points out.

“That was the shield, actually,” I say. Damn, that meat smells good. Maybe when there’s a break in the conversation I can ask for another.

“Alright, enough grilling,” Quell cuts in. “All you need to know is that Nye is with me, not just because they’re cursed to protect the royal family, but because we’re helping each other.”

“Debatably,” I say.

“We have mutually beneficial goals?”

“Ostensibly.”

“We temporarily share an inconveniently linked fate?”

I point at him. “That works.”

“Yeah,” Earnest says flatly. “They sound real trustworthy.”

“Look,” I say with a sigh. “I know how it all sounds. I know me showing up when I did looks suspicious. But it’s true I’m here to protect the prince. I’m not the enemy, I’m not a spy, and I’m not a sell-sword. I’m not here to hurt anyone; I just want to get rid of the curse and be on my way.”

Xamireb regards me critically. “It sure seemed like you were looking to hurt us during that Bloodlust.”

I slump. Their words sting. “I wouldn’t have intentionally hurt anyone. And it wasn’t as bad as the first time. I was able to stop, at least. I think maybe I’m learning to control it.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Darian shakes her head. “That’s the difference between blood from animals and blood from people. The more sapience a creature possesses, the worse the bloodlust can be.”

“Oh.” I shift uncomfortably under the group’s stares. “Sorry. Next time—”

“There won’t be one,” Darian says firmly. “It shouldn’t be that hard to keep someone’s blood out of your mouth. Especially if you keep away from any fights.”

Quell sits up. “What are you implying?”

“That the two of you need to leave, obviously,” Darian says. “You’re both liabilities in a fight—in opposite respects. Take your star drake and head back to the capital. Your parents will be worried, I’m sure.”

“I’m not leaving,” Quell insists. “I tracked you down to help find and free my sister, and that’s still what I plan to do.”

“And thank you so much for that, by the way.” Darian gestures to her side; a portion of her tunic and one pant leg is dyed black. Blood from the wyvern fight. No, wait—definitely Quell’s invisible ink tracking device. I guess the invisibility spell finally wore off.

Earnest snickers.

Darian silences him with a glare, then turns to look at me. “Can you forcibly take the prince back?”

“I could,” I say.

“What?!” Quell cries.

“But I won’t,” I add, giving Quell a pointed look. “Don’t interrupt me.”

Darian frowns. “Why not? There might be a mage who can resolve your curse back at the capital.”

“Well, for one, I promised Quell I would help him find his sister,” I say. Quell beams. “But the bigger motive for me is that I want to stay out in the desert a bit longer. Cover as much ground as I can. I’ve lost someone, too, and I suspect they might be somewhere around here.” I hope, anyway. “I can look for him while we look for Quell’s sister, and after that when we’re heading to the Lifespring Oasis.”

“Besides,” Quell says, jumping in before Darian can argue the point. “If you want to catch up to Liz, you’ll be needing a new star drake. You can use ours.”

As I glance around the fire circle, I see Quell’s right; only Poppy is resting nearby. Now that I’m thinking about it, I vaguely recall seeing a dead drake back with the wyverns. “What happened?” I ask.

“A trap,” Xamireb says. “Left by the Moonshade soldiers. They must have suspected we might try to follow. It maimed our drake—the wyverns took care of the rest.”

“You also probably lost a lot of the supplies to the wyverns, right?” Quell asks. “We don’t have a lot, but anything has to help.”

“We’ll be restocking at the next city,” Darian says shortly. “It won’t be an issue.”

“But it will slow you down,” Quell counters. “Besides, I was able to track you down, wasn’t I? I can help find Liz, too. Please, have faith in me.”

Darian holds a glare with Quell that lasts several uncomfortably long seconds.

Earnest slaps his hands on both knees. “I say let them come.”

Darian shoots him a glare. Xamireb appears skeptical.

“You’re not going to be able to talk the prince out of this,” Earnest says. “He’ll follow, whether you give him permission or not. Might as well stop the bickering and accept it. Besides, he’s right that we’ll be slower without a star drake, and we can’t afford to waste much time.”

Xamireb folds their arms. “You make a compelling argument.”

Earnest grins. “Who’s the smart twin now?”

“Twin?” I repeat, shocked. My head snaps between the human and arachnoid.

“What, you don’t see the family resemblance?” Earnest teases.

I can’t tell if he’s serious. They can’t really be twins, can they? I mean, how would that even work? I open my mouth to ask, then think better of it. Xamireb chuckles.

Darian chews on her cheek, frowning into the fire. Finally, she sighs. “Alright—”

“Yes!” Quell cries. “I won’t let you down. I promise we won’t hold you back. We’ll do anything you—”

“My prince, please,” Darian says, and Quell snaps his mouth shut. “Alright, you two can come along. Earnest is right; I can’t stop you from trying to follow, and we do need the star drake if we have any hope of catching up.” She looks to Xamireb. “How much longer until we lose them?”

“I thought I sensed them before we were held back, but they’ll be leagues away by now,” they say. “I’ll need to rely on fauna habits to determine their trail, which is trickier than it sounds. I estimate we can fall no more than two days behind them before I’ll have no indicators of their path and they’ll have vanished into the desert.”

“I can help with that,” Quell says. “Liz has been leaving a trail that I can follow.”

“What do you mean?” Xamireb frowns. “I would have noticed something like that.”

“She’s using illusions to leave occasional markers,” Quell explains. “Like that bracelet of hers you found. Do you still have it?”

Darian frowns, but removes the bracelet from a pouch, handing it over to Quell. He turns the jewelry around in his hands, then waves a hand at it; motes of light scatter away from the bracelet, and what remains has changed color from gold to brass.

“It’s a subtle difference,” he remarks. “One only an illusionist would notice. When we were kids, we used to play these games. Constance would hide a pastry or some such somewhere in the castle, leaving hidden clues to its location to test our illusion magic. Then Liz and I would race to see who could find it first. I never won, but she always split the prize with me.” He smiles fondly.

Darian’s eyebrows are raised. “She never mentioned that before.”

“Our childhood dynamics with Constance were complicated.” Quell half smiles, half grimaces as he looks into the fire, though it seems he’s looking at something much further away. “I suppose it still is. Constance meant well—he only wanted what was best for us—even if the only way he could express that was by testing us and pushing our abilities. Never could seem to meet his expectations, no matter how hard I tried.” He looks up at Darian with a small laugh. “I doubt Liz went around telling many military officers about that.”

“Of course,” Darian says quickly, glancing away. I also shift uncomfortably. I got the feeling their brotherly relationship was strained, but I wasn’t expecting him to put it all out there so openly. “So these markers, then,” Darian ventures.

“Right.” Quell hands the bracelet back over to Darian. “The last day of travel, I’ve been fishing: I occasionally release a pulse of illusionary magic while I go; it’s designed to interfere with other illusions. If I notice such an interference, I can pinpoint where it is and trace it to the source. So far it’s been small things: a rock made to look like sand. A clump of dried plants made to look like sticks. Nothing that would have any purpose to disguise: and they’re only surface level. Simple spells, meant to be found and unraveled. It’s Liz leaving a trail, I know it.”

Had he been doing that the whole day? I hadn’t even notice. I mean, I guess that’s not surprising, given I know nothing about illusion magic. But I’m mildly impressed. It sounds like he did have more to his plan than haphazardly wandering through the desert, after all.

“Why didn’t you bring this up before now?” Darian asks.

For the first time, I witness a flicker of irritation pass over the prince’s face. “Well no one would really let me explain myself anytime I offered to help.”

Oh. Yeah, I guess we didn’t. Darian grimaces, glancing away; I suspect I’m making a similar face.

“I have no doubt in your abilities, Prince Quell,” Xamireb says. “Although continuously using such detection spells will certainly drain your mana. Do you have enough stores to sustain a night of travel?”

“It won’t be a problem,” Quell insists, rather fiercely. Well, fiercely for him, which is to say, somewhat like a kitten arching its back and showing its claws. “Seeing through illusions is my specialty. And this is for Liz. I won’t let her down.”

Darian doesn’t argue. Maybe she feels a bit bad about dismissing him before—or perhaps she’s just beginning to see the futility in trying to stop him. I can related.

“I suggest you all get as much sleep as you can manage,” Darian says. “Tomorrow we’ll be moving quickly and traveling long to make up for lost time. Nye.”

I sit up as she turns to me.

“I’m headed back to the site of the reapers to try to recover some of our supplies. I’ll need help carrying it back.”

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Xamireb, you’re in charge,” she adds as she stands. The arachnoid nods sharply, and Earnest gives me a lazy parting wave.

Outside of the firelight, my eyes adjust to the night, and I realize we’re only a few minutes’ walk from the rock formation where the battle had taken place. We march for several minutes in silence.

“So are you going to tell me why you really invited me out here?” I finally ask.

“Privacy,” she says without turning to look at me. “I know you’re more than what you and Prince Quell claim you are.”

My stomach flips at the accusation. I want to object, but she’s right, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

“I won’t force you to explain,” she says. “I suspect it has something to do with the Champion we encountered that night of the royals’ abductions. Whatever your reasons, I do believe that you’re new to being a dhampyr. You’ve displayed plenty enough naivety to convince me of that.”

“Er. Thanks?”

“I’ll teach you what I can,” she says. Ahead is the dead carcass of the star drake. I try not to pay attention to how good it smells. “You’ll need to practice controlling your impulses. Learn to direct the Bloodlust, though true control might never be possible. Additionally, you should work on developing your blood magic. Covertly.”

I frown. “Why covertly?”

“Certain forms of blood magic are taboo,” she says. “Many will become distrustful of you if they learn of your affinity. It can be used to harm others in horrific ways—but it can also be directed inward and used to strengthen yourself. At the end of the day, it’s still merely a subfield of Life magic. I suggest you work on developing the more constructive aspects of the arcanum.”

Can I really do any of that? I mean, I have mana, I’ve just been using it to feed the Crimson Aegis. But wielding magic of my own… somehow that seems stranger than anything I’ve done yet.

“Can you teach me?” I ask.

Darian begins picking through the scattered supplies, most coated in viscera or shredded by the wyvern’s claws. It seems like a lost cause to me, and as I’m uneager to get near any of the lizard’s blood, I continue to hang back.

“Blood magic?” Darian asks. “No. That’s not my affinity. My specialty is sand and earth.” She pulls a bag out of the mess and opens it, then gives a pleased grunt. “You’ll have to practice that on your own. Perhaps Prince Quell can tell you some theory—I’m sure he’s read all about it. But in the meantime, this will have to do.” She withdraws a strange leather band, and at first I think it’s a bracer. She hands it over, and I turn the device around in my hands. The leather has a design pressed into it; jagged, almost like teeth. Its purpose hits me.

“Is this a muzzle?” I ask, baffled.

“It’s a face guard,” she says. “Designed to keep blood from getting anywhere near your mouth. About one in a hundred dhampyrs are born with a Bloodlust. Sometimes soldiers manage to make it their whole lives without realizing they inherited it, only for it to rear its head on the battlefield. We carry extra guards around just in case.” She gestures for me to put it on. “Wear it around your neck when not in use. You can slip it up quickly if we get into another fight. That should prevent a repeat of the last incident.”

The muzzle—or face guard, as Darian calls it—makes me feel a little uncomfortable. But I can see the sense in the suggestion, too. I don’t want to be accidentally sent into another frenzy, and if that means wearing this during battle, I can swallow my pride.

“Thank you,” I say, hesitating before I clasp it around my neck. It rests lightly on my collarbones.

“I’ll also teach you to fight, when we have the free time,” Darian says.

That perks me up. “That would be great!”

The captain holds up her hand. “I’ll do what I can to help you, because you are helping to protect Prince Quell. But if I catch the slightest whiff you’re experiencing a change in priorities—if I ever believe you’re a danger to his person—I will end you. Do you understand?”

Maintaining her gaze takes all the willpower I have. “Understood.”