Intrigued by the creatures that Assuine created on Kaltis, Illunia asked if she could assist in birthing more. While Assuine had created the plants and animals of Kaltis all on her own, with the aid of Illunia, she was able to create something great and more powerful. Illunia was new to creation and, in her excitement, put a portion of herself into the creature.
-Unnamed Dwarven Text
—
Kole looked from the two wooden women to his surroundings in awe. He was in a large shaded forest clearing. He’d never really been in a forest before, discounting the river trip to Edgewater a few weeks past. The manicured greens of the academy’s campus were familiar to him, as those existed all through Illandrios as well, but a wild forest, even one as cultivated as this one, was something completely different.
The massive oak he’d stepped through had a twin here in the woods, and it covered an equally large area here as it did on the college green. Not one tree grew below its canopy, and an ankle-deep lawn of flowers and grasses filled the space. Groups of people and animals sat scattered throughout, in conversation, lessons, and games.
A chattering caught Kole’s attention and he recalled the dryad’s words.
Follow the squirrel?
Sure enough, a very impatient-looking squirrel looked at him on the worn path before him.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Lead the way.”
The squirrel took off without even a chitter of acknowledgment, which Kole thought was rude, but who was to say what squirrel guide etiquette dictated?
I should ask Doug.
Kole was led out of the clearing and into the forest. The trees were still massive, though seemed normal in comparison to the monstrosity he’d left. Much like under the canopy of the great oak, people and animals congregated in smaller clearings. He watched as a group of students examined a young deer under the direction of a wizened old halfling, and the deer patiently complied with the prodding of the students.
The squirrel led Kole down a few turns, until leading him to a large wooden building in the forest. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been this.
Maybe beds of roses laid out under trees. He reflected. No, those have thorns.
When Kole looked back down to the squirrel for guidance, it was gone. He walked up the stairs, noting that while the large building was made of wood, it was like nothing he’d ever seen.
The wooden buildings of his home were constructed largely from the salvaged remnants of ships that their long-dead guardian had dragged beneath the waves. The wooden buildings of Edgewater he’d seen were of superb quality, all carved neat and square where they weren’t embellished with carvings. This building however hadn’t seen a single blade set to it in its construction.
What Kole had first taken to be alternating lines of painted wavy lines were actually logs of different woods. The wall looked as if someone had taken trunks of a dozen different varieties of trees, stripped them of their bark, and turned them into clay before stacking them together, smoothing out the seams, and then firing them in place. Inside, the place looked much like any other infirmary. Beds with clean white linens lined the walls, with partitions giving each patient privacy—though the partitions were made of green leaves instead of sheets. Giant green leaves dangling from vines that grew across the room. Lights glowed on the vines, illuminating the room in a soft white light, and when Kole looked closer at one saw that it was a giant glowing fruit.
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“Don’t eat, them,” A familiar voice said from beside Kole, “They taste like old milk.”
Kole turned to see Zale next to the door, dressed in the same embroidered tunic as the night before. Her hair was a mess, and her white face was growing black around the eyes.
“Zale! You look, um… tired,” Kole said, and then mentally kicked himself.
Idiot.
Zale laughed, taking no offense.
“I am. I’ve been here all night. He woke up a little while ago.”
“Is he okay?”
After a pause, Zale answered, “I don’t know. He’s mad, but I think it’s all directed at himself.”
“Should I talk to him? Or would that just make it worse?”
Zale shrugged.
“It could help. It depends on what you’re planning on saying.”
They sat talking a little before Kole ultimately decided to stop procrastinating and go check on Rakin.
“Hello?” Kole said, knocking on one of the thicker vines making up the partition.
“Aye, come in.”
At Rakin’s words, the leaves blocking Kole’s path parted, and he saw the dwarf sitting up in his bed with a stone in his hand, the edges of it warping and rippling as he used his primal magic to contort it.
“How are you doing?” Kole asked after a brief awkward silence.
“Fine, I just suffocated a little bit,” Rakin answered and then gestured around. “Nothing worth all this nonsense. I should be asking how yer doing. I could have killed ye.”
“I’m fine—so is Amara.”
Another pause and Rakin eventually cursed under his breath.
“I should probably explain what happened.”
Kole waited patiently as Rakin garnered his courage.
In a whisper, he continued, “I’m not just a Earth primal. I’m…”
He stopped again, looking around nervously.
“A Fire primal too.
Even though Kole had figured it was something like that, he hadn’t been sure how that would be possible. Now that he had confirmation of his theory, the weight of it sunk in.
“That’s not supposed to be possible,” Kole began.
“’Just because something hasn’t happened before, it doesn’t mean its impossible.’” Rakin said, throwing Kole’s own words back at him
“Good point,” Kole admitted, smiling.
He hadn’t realized he’d said that to Rakin too.
How often do I repeat that? He wondered.
“I can’t really go into the details, but it’s true. The Faust’s madness calls to me through my connection to the Font of Fire. The new runes around the prison don’t do a damned thing to stop that avenue of it’s influence. Torc shields me some, through my connection to Earth, but if I draw upon Fire, I lose control.”
“So that’s what Zale meant when she said you had ‘anger issues,’” Kole observed, connecting the dots.
“Aye. The Hardune didn’t exactly leap at the chance to train a Fire primal, so I was sent to the Order of the Resounding Silence to learn control. You saw how well that worked out.”
“You did save our lives. Without you, those ice people would have killed us all.”
Rakin’s guilt-ridden face scowled further. Kole’s words didn’t have the intended effect—which if he was being honest, was typically the case.
“If ye ask Aunty, if I hadn’t run in ye wouldn’t ta needed my help.”
“Wallow if you want, but we—you—stopped those… people. The Dahn sent us there. It must have known we could handle it, and because we did, we found what happened to Amara’s sister.”
Rakin snapped his attention to Kole, he’d been looking away and avoiding eye contact.
“What do ye mean? They found her?”
“No,” Kole quickly corrected. “They didn’t, but Tigereye said that three primals have gone missing in the last year, and they now suspect it to be a pattern. Maybe those people are Ice primals? Maybe they are the result of experimenting on Primals? I don’t know. We were looking for Amara’s sister and we found these people. It has to be connected.”
Rakin nodded to himself as if he were forcing himself to accept that they hadn’t almost killed his friends for nothing.
He looked back to Kole, and then asked in almost a whisper, “Do you still trust me?”
Kole was taken aback by the question.
“What do you mean?”
The vulnerability in Rakin’s face vanished, replaced with irritation.
“I almost killed ye, ye clod! I kept a secret from ye that coulda gotten ye killed!”
“Oh, that!” Kole said, now following. “No, it’s fine.”
“Bah, yer a moron,” Rakin waved and they both started laughing.
Zale came in later once she heard the laughter and they stuck around talking while Kole ate the lunch delivered to Rakin, which he refused calling it “leafy nonsense.”
As they were leaving, Zale turned to Rakin and asked, “Are you sure you didn’t do all of this to get out of the mixer tonight?”
“You caught me.”