If Myrrir thought the road was rough on a wagon, it was worse on the back of a horse. His hands had been bound (as if he had the strength to use them) and wrapped around one of the Moro-ka riders’ necks. He bounced up and down with each step of the horse. With each log they pranced over, his wounds screamed, and with each crevice or gully they jumped across, his head lolled forward and back. They had left the trail, and they didn’t seem to follow any road.

That didn’t help his splitting headache. It was the worst headache he’d had in years. He’d never been this low on mana in decades. There was absolutely nothing in his worn-out and bedraggled channels.

Could he burn muscle and body for mana?

Yes, but…he was in no state to do that. With all the Moro-Ka warriors, surrounding him on all sides, he’d push himself too far. He’d sooner become a captain-grade Ko-Ganall and destroy the planet. He didn’t want to do that.

He passed in and out of consciousness. At some point it started raining. He opened his mouth, trying to catch and drink any rainwater.

He didn’t know how long it had been, but he woke up a few times during the night, when the planet’s three pale moons stared down at him, and the stars sneered at him.

They left the forest after a few days of riding and trotted out across a hilly plain. House-sized boulders dotted the land, and unkempt prairie grass nearly rose to the horses’ bellies.

“Tye…” Myrrir muttered.

The Moro-Ka warrior who carried Tye—not the God-heir, but a mortal—said something in a foreign language that Myrrir couldn’t pick out. It sounded like “shut up”, and though Myrrir doubted that was what the man actually meant, he took the hint and stayed silent.

After about a week, or maybe two, or…

Myrrir didn’t know how long it had been.

…after a certain amount of time had passed, the horses trotted along a bluff, then into a deep mountain valley. It was night, and an orange glow clung to the valley’s slopes. That was all Myrrir could pick out in his blurry vision. It was a village of some kind.

Before they passed the first house, he fell unconscious again.

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_2bcdeab6626a49c1bc2fa21d230a67c6~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_560,h_281,al_c,lg_1,q_85,enc_auto/ship%20better.png]

A needle-wide ray of sunlight tickled Myrrir’s face. He swatted it with his hand, trying to make it go away, but it wouldn’t. He settled on squinting.

He tried to push himself up to a sitting position, but his arm gave out, and he fell flat on his back. It knocked what little air was left in his lungs out.

With a groan, he rolled onto his side and rubbed his eyes. The walls were all plain—varnished wood with lattice windows. The floor was cold wood, and the ceiling was a peaked, thatched roof.

It was the quietest place he had ever been to…in many years. For once, he heard his own breathing as he tried to cycle.

No mana, no Arcara movement. He tasted the pine air, and that was it.

Grunting, Myrrir pushed himself over to the wall, then used it to haul himself to his feet with the strength of his own limbs.

So this was what the Mediator had felt when he had first imprisoned her, huh?

He patted himself down. He still wore his red under-robe, but his armour was gone, as was his sword. His left arm hung in a splint, and a bandage wrapped around his gut beneath his robe. His wounds hurt when he touched them, and he felt the distinct, rigid bulges of suturing wire beneath the bandages. He didn’t dare to take them off to check, though.

His sword was gone. His powder flask was gone.

He looked out the lattice window. As best he could tell, he was in a tiny shed up on the east slope of the valley. The village was where they had stopped.

All along the slopes of the valley, swathes of mid-summer wheat grew between single-story wooden houses with thatched roofs. Horseheads poked out the eaves, and swirling, abstract reliefs had been carved into the sides of chimneys. Not a single building was more than a single storey tall.

Myrrir limped along the inside wall of his shed until he reached a door. It slid open, and he stepped out onto a porch. It was morning, and the air was cool. A fog hung above a river at the bottom of the valley, but otherwise, the air was perfectly clear.

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Myrrir sucked in a deep breath, then dragged himself to the edge of the porch. There was a single guard outside, wearing a simple brown tunic and robe. As far as Myrrir knew, and from what Tye had said, most Moro-Ka had no spirit potential. He wasn’t a God-heir, but he held a Jai in a thick scabbard. It had been chiselled out of lapis-blue stone—Myrrir could see just a thin strip of the gemstone out the back of the scabbard, where the brass rings hung off it.

“Why am I still alive?” Myrrir demanded.

The guard said nothing. He didn’t even look at Myrrir. His shoulder-length black hair fluttered in the wind, unbound by a ponytail or knot.

“Where’s Tye?” Myrrir snapped, walking out to the edge of the porch until he stood right next to the guard. “Where’s the man from the wagon? What did you do—”

The Moro-Ka struck Myrrir in the shoulder softly with the scabbard of his sword, then pointed ahead. “Walk,” he said.

Myrrir expected the man to lead the way, but the man didn’t move. After a few seconds, the man said “Walk” again.

Myrrir took a step down off the porch onto a patch of groomed grass. A trail of packed mud led down through the village, and he’d end up somewhere if he followed it. As soon as he took a single step, the Moro-Ka matched him.

“You’re staying at the perfect range to cut me down in a single swipe,” Myrrir said. “I know. I’ve used one of those swords before. Well, I’m unarmed, and I don’t have mana. You don’t have to worry.”

The man said nothing. When Myrrir took another step, the man matched him.

This was going to be torture. Myrrir rubbed his wrists. At least they had unbound his hands.

He set off along the trail. On one side, a fence separated him from a garden, and on the other, an unprotected slope led down to a bundle of houses. When he reached an intersection, the guard tapped his shoulder again and pointed along the western-leading branch. He didn’t complain when Myrrir set off along it, so it must have been correct.

They passed by a fenced-off pasture of grazing horses. Myrrir limped along, half the pace of a mortal man walking, but he did his best to dodge the leftover puddles from the rain the night before. But it didn’t matter when a trio of horses trotted along the path, bearing Moro-Ka in full armour. They splashed through the puddles, spattering Myrrir with muddy water.

“Thanks,” he muttered. “You couldn’t—”

Before he could finish, a troop of teenagers on smaller horses trotted past. They all cast Myrrir dirty glares as they passed. One of the elder Moro-Ka stopped and turned about, then inserted himself between Myrrir and the teens as if to shield them from him.

“They were the ones splashing me…” Myrrir grumbled, but kept hobbling along. Soon, the horsemen passed out of sight.

As he walked through the valley village, the trees grew thicker again. The trail curved down to the riverbed, then led along the uneven stones of the banks. A few times, it dipped out of sight entirely, and Myrrir had to hobble along the bare rocks. He slipped and fell, and his guard didn’t help him up—the man only remained a few steps back, ready to cut Myrrir down in the blink of an eye.

After a few minutes of walking along the riverbed, they arrived at an old cobblestone arch. It stretched across the river, and its foundations reached deep into each of the riverbeds. At the arch’s center was a building that reminded him of a Frejkvir stave-church blended with a pagoda. It had pale wooden walls and thatched eaves that curled up at the tips. A deep, droning voice rumbled out of it, chanting foreign words that blended with the wind.

“Here?” Myrrir asked.

His guard pointed at a set of stairs that ran up the edge of the archway. Myrrir took the steep stone steps slowly, nursing his leg. When he reached the top, he hobbled to the door of the pagoda-church. The door was already open, revealing an open, broad first floor. Monks in white robes swept the floor or stood at tables. The only light was a single fire, but with how many windows there were, it didn’t need anything more.

“Your friend,” the guard said, pointing the hilt of his sword at the center of the pagoda.

Two men sat side-by-side on the floor, dressed in plain, olive-green robes. One was completely bald, and he carried a ruby Jai at his hip. It was the God-heir from the woods.

The other was Tye. Myrrir would recognize that gray ponytail and wrinkled skin anywhere.

“Tye!” Myrrir exclaimed, limping across the floor as fast as he could. “Are you alright?

“It is good to see you awake again, Captain,” Tye said calmly. He had no guards around him.

“What’s happening?” Myrrir asked. “What happened to the bluecoats?”

“You know what happened to them.” The God-heir stood up. His eyes flickered blue, and sparks of lightning flashed across them.

A son of Krur, God of Storms? Or perhaps a distant relative who still had enough spirit potential to cultivate Arcara?

“Why am I here?” Myrrir snapped, looking directly at the God-heir. Black specks whirled in front of his eyes, and an ache blazed across his forehead. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Take a seat,” the God-heir stated. He bowed to Myrrir’s guard, then said something in their language. The guard nodded and turned away, then marched outside. “I have already been introduced to your first officer. I am Nasyme, on the Path of The Seeing Flash. I know you are a God-heir.”

Myrrir scowled. He didn’t want to sit, but his legs ached, and if he passed out from dehydration, he didn’t want to fall far. As soon as he took a seat, Tye passed him a clay cup of clear mountain water. He drank it in a single breath.

Nasyme regarded him with a curious look. “I have scanned your spirit. You are wanting.”

“Good. I know exactly what I want,” Myrrir snapped. “If you’re not going to kill me, when can I leave?”

“When you are healed.”

“Yeah, alright.” Myrrir rolled his eyes and placed his hands in his lap. “I’m not buying it. You wouldn’t capture me if you were going to let me leave. You want something, too.”

“Of course I do,” Nasyme said. “I spared you, Myrrir—”

“So you do know my name. Tye told you?”

“—because you carried a Jai.”

“I found it. It’s none of your business.” Myrrir sighed. “I’d heal faster on my ship.”

Nasyme kept talking, speaking overtop of Myrrir, “That sword once belonged to someone dear to me. Tell me, God-heir: what happened to my grandson, and why do you have his sword?”