Vayra stepped into the main control room of the greenhouse.

It was dim. The ceiling had been covered in boards and intertwined twigs, and the only light came from a complex formation of roots, where a bolt of vibrant green Arcara swirled around in a pattern.

The entire room was round, but a glass wall still ran through the center, dividing the control room into an eastern and western half. In her spiritual sight, it was nearly as bright as the sun, and she had to look away.

She couldn’t pick out any obvious magical traps, so she deactivated her spiritual sight and relied only on her normal eyes. The entire floor was the same unbreakable glass as the center wall, and it allowed a view straight down through the control dome and to the ground floor of the greenhouse.

She stepped hesitantly onto the floor, her body telling her not to, then spun around in a circle. All along the room’s walls were sloping control panels with rune-lines, starsteel wires, and rudimentary mechanisms. She couldn’t say what any of it did.

‘Controlling some irrigation systems, communicating with the more sentient plants, sending orders to the ground-level workers,’ Phasoné provided. ‘All via Arcara systems, of course.’

But Vayra didn’t need to know how that worked. She ran to the center of the room. She needed to drop the central wall and get out of here.

She peered through the misty sheet. “There has to be a way to drop it. You said there’d be a way to cross it, and Larra wouldn’t have trapped us with no way to get herself out.”

Vayra ran her hand along the wall, feeling for gaps or abnormalities. At the precise center, her fingers slotted into a gap. A complex rune-lock made an ornate mandala in the glass.

‘That’s it,’ Phasoné said. ‘Fuel it, and the wall falls.’

“Seems like intense security.”

‘Safety measures in case anything goes wrong in one half of the greenhouse.’

Vayra set her hand against the bottom corner of the mandala and pushed mana and Arcara out into it. The channels of the rune began to fill up like water rising in an aquifer, but the more mana she put in, the more tiny, thread-like channels that hadn’t been visible before appeared.

Vayra barely filled up an eighth of the mandala before her willpower failed her. Her spirit didn’t have enough strength to push the Arcara and mana through. The light dribbled out of the mandala and flowed back into her body.

Panting, she slipped down to her knees. “We’re…not getting through that.”

‘Not alone, and not without extra strength…’

Vayra blinked. “What do you—”

A set of hands slapped up against the glass on the other side of the glass wall. She took a step back in fright, before a face emerged out of the gloom of the other side of the room. It was rugged, scarred, but faintly kind. It was Nathariel.

Captain Pels rushed to the man’s side. He said something, but the glass muffled his voice.

“Vayra!” Nathariel yelled, his voice barely making it through the glass. Pels stepped away and plugged his ears. “Are you alright?”

She nodded. There was no way she’d push her voice loud enough to pierce through the glass, even if she used a Bracing technique on her voice box.

But where was Glade?

She pointed to her hair, then at her white cloak, then mouthed, Where?

“He fell!” Nathariel shouted. He grimaced and looked down at the ground for a few seconds. “He didn’t make it! He’s gone!”

Vayra’s eyes widened. She swallowed, and her eyes began to sting. Something warm beaded in their corners, but she wiped her eyes and pushed the regret away. Now wasn’t the time. Larra would be here any minute, and Vayra had to get out.

“We need the strength of two God-heirs to open the lock!” Nathariel yelled. “Can you help me?”

Again, Vayra nodded.

Nathariel placed his hand at the top of the mandala on his side of the glass and pushed a wave of his own Arcara, with a flame-orange tint to it, into the lock. Vayra started at the bottom again, pushing up. Nathariel’s power made it about a third of the way through the lock, and she made it a quarter of the way again, before both of their willpowers failed them.

‘You need more pushing strength. You need the raw willpower and Arcara flow that the Mediator Form provides.’

Vayra inhaled slowly. She could try, but she doubted she would—

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Nathariel shouted out an incoherent warning. Vayra spun around. On the other side of the room, a silhouette appeared in the same doorway she’d entered through.

Watery cloak, long coat, three-part staff, and a wolf.

Larra.

“Trapped, are we?” Larra let out a soft laugh. “Then let’s make this quick.”

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]

Myrrir and Tye stood on a ridge. Cannons flashed in the distance, muskets popped, and men and horses screamed. A bolt of lightning shot down from the clear sky—Nasyme’s doing—and blasts of other Arcara aspects shot off in the distance.

The battle took place in the foothills, with the snow-capped mountains distant and the ground smooth. There were a few forests, but the bluecoats had assembled in an open field with a few hills, and that was where Nasyme’s army met them.

Myrrir laid down on a distant ridge, watching from a distance. The Moro-ka horsemen gathered, preparing for a final (and pointless) charge. The bluecoats had set up on a hill, and their battle-lines were thick—and they had cannons to support them. It was suicide.

While the horsemen prepared for a final charge, a skirmish lingered in the valley, still shrouded in smoke and burning debris. That was where Nasyme duelled the First Lieutenants.

Myrrir waited until he had seen at least four different types of God-heirs. He’d seen stone, wind, and sword-aspect so far. After a few more minutes, a tendril of wood chips sheared through the smoke, whipping around before snapping back towards Nasyme.

That was four.

If all the Elderworld God-heirs were all preoccupied with Nasyme, it meant the road was clear for him.

Myrrir slipped down from the ridge and stood back up. “Come on, old man,” he said. “We need to keep moving while we still can.”

“Myrrir, you still have a choice. Go help him. Together, you would be strong enough.”

Not when Myrrir barely had any mana in his system. “No.” He turned away and kept walking, keeping the Stream firmly in his sights. A suicide charge? He still had so much to do. “I am not throwing away a hundred years of advancement to help some backwater primitives kill themselves with honour—or something like that.”

“You could return to the village and live out a peaceful life.”

Myrrir shook his head. “They hate me. I have no life there.”

“Then make amends. Explain yourself. Learn the language and customs, and—”

Myrrir kicked an especially tall clump of grass, then shut his eyes. “No. This is traitorous talk. We still have a job to do, and I can push through it. There’s no ‘cleansing my channels’. I’m scarred, and only when I reach Godhood will my channels be repaired.”

“Myrrir…”

Enough. He was tired of an old man’s nagging and complaining, and he was about to threaten Tye with charges of mutiny, but he couldn’t voice it.

He opened his eyes and increased his pace. They’d make it back to the port soon enough—the road was just ahead, clinging to the side of a hill before dipping into a patch of forest, but a contingent of mounted bluecoats and brown-coated officers waited on the road, sitting on horses. They had an excellent view of the battle, but they were also blocking the way.

Myrrir mustered his seer-core and took stock of his resources. Arcara levels were stable, but he only had whispers of his mana left from the fight with the bandits at the village.

It would be enough to plow through a small crowd of mortals if they caused any problems.

Myrrir increased his pace until he reached the road, then lowered his head and marched onwards. The mounted bluecoats called out to him, demanding that he stop and identify himself.

He didn’t stop, but he did yell, “I only want to pass along this road. Let me and the old man through.”

There were about ten bluecoats. A few of them moved their horses to the side, and one of the Elderworld officers called out, instructing them to let Myrrir and Tye through—they already had one battle to oversee.

But the officer furthest to the back raised his hand. “You two, halt.”

Myrrir spared a glance up. It was Commander Neule. He wore a pristine tricorn hat and a powdered wig, and Myrrir barely recognized him. Maybe he would have forgotten Myrrir’s face as well.

“Mercenaries,” Neule said. “Did you…think I would forget your faces?”

Apparently not. Myrrir sighed.

“You failed me,” said the Commander, “and you are trying to leave?”

“Myrrir…” Tye hissed. “Turn back. You have every sign, every reason. Stop this.”

“Seize them!” Neule shouted to his guards.

Myrrir whipped his hand out, flinging an incoherent, cannonball-sized mass of gunpowder at Commander Neule’s head. It tore the air and blasted a few of the guards aside, before smashing through Neule’s head with a boom. The rest of his body slumped down, falling off the side of the horse in a bloody heap.

All the other officers stepped back, drawing pistols or sabers. Myrrir ripped his jade sword out of its sheath and pointed it at the nearest officer. “Any of the guards take a single step, and I swear on the Stream, I’ll rip his head off too.” In truth, he didn’t want to. It’d just hurt his channels more. But to make the threat real, he called his gunpowder back to his hand.

“Stand down!” the officer hissed. The bluecoats lifted their muskets and uncocked them. “Apologies…sir. What do you want from us?”

“I already told you,” Myrrir said. “I just want to pass.”

“Go, then,” the officer said, motioning with his hand. His fingers were trembling.

“Wait!” another officer called. “Tellisse, how are we going to explain the…Commander’s death?”

The first officer gulped. Myrrir glanced back between him and Tye. Tye opened his mouth to speak again, but Myrrir had finally had enough. He grabbed Tye by the back of the neck and pushed him towards the officer. “Here’s your assassin. Take him. Do whatever you want. I don’t need him anymore.”

“Myrrir!” Tye snapped. He spun around, his face a mixture of shock and rage. “What are you doing? Think about—”

“Quiet,” Myrrir said. “Take him.”

Without waiting around to see what the officers would do, Myrrir walked away—alone. The guards seized Tye, no matter the old man’s thrashing and kicking.

Once Myrrir made it into the trees, he sheathed his sword and returned his gunpowder to his powder flask.

He had a ship to return to and a tournament to enter, and nothing—and no one—could hold him back anymore.