The carriage shook and jerked as its wheels dipped into a hole in the gravel road. If Kaleb’s book had been real, it’d have fallen out of his hands. Even Master Beris grumbled. The road had mostly been like this since the village, unmaintained and nearly ruined.

They were heading towards Grainhold, the closest town to the torched village. Captain Simion had sent out scouts after they’d buried the dead villagers. They’d come back with nothing. The troop that’d torched the village was nowhere to be found. So they’d head to the town, warn them if they didn’t already know, and see what could be done.

Julian, the sole survivor from the village, was coming with them. The captain would hand him over to the town too. He was seated in his place up front with the coachman. Kaleb couldn’t tell if the boy would be okay. He’d been quite pale for a Redskin the past day, though Kaleb didn’t know how pale was too pale. He didn’t know if the boy was numb in shock and would recover or if he would spiral down to oblivion.

Kaleb himself was shocked. A village of more than a hundred people had ceased to exist. It had even had a valuable resource, an arcane grove, or as they were commonly called, living trees. The raiders hadn’t cared. They’d killed everyone, burned the valuable grove, and left. If war were to come to the Archony, could Kaleb guarantee that something like this wouldn’t happen to their camp? To what little friends and family he had left? The violence was so senseless that it was difficult to accept. Even the veterans didn’t understand why the attackers hadn’t robbed the village. They’d just torched it and left. Some of the living wood seemed to have been harvested, but most of it was now charred or in ashes. Would this be the refugees’ fate too someday? They were even less valuable than villagers looking after arcane trees which provided enchanting materials.

No. He wouldn’t allow it, and he couldn’t wait to go back, to set everything right. He’d been thinking too small. If they couldn’t stand together, they wouldn’t stand at all. His goal was no longer to find just his mother, but every relative he could. There was no one he could trust more than family. So he would start there.

Grainhold had had its own portal, though the Arrival there hadn’t been too big. He would ask after his mother there, and anyone else he could think of.

The sun was setting and they stopped to set up camp for the night.

Kaleb got to his tent after it was set up by a pair of Quills. Before he entered, he caught sight of the boy, standing at the edge of the camp, aimless and still. Kaleb would have suspected him dead had he not been on his feet. He hoped he could recover from his suffering one day.

Kaleb soon went to bed, falling asleep easily. It had been a tiring few days, and his mind couldn’t help but embrace the rest.

He dreamt of war. Unrecognizable men, Claytons, Redskins, and even beasts attacked him. They cut him, stabbed him where it hurt but didn’t kill. Again and again. He couldn’t feel the pain, but he could feel the horror each time blood seeped out of a wound, as if his fate was slipping away with the liquid. As if there was no way forward but darkness.

Two of the enemies finally cornered him, one of them hugged him by the shoulders, his brown arms wrapping around him and his hands gripping onto his upper arms. The other was holding an executioner’s axe, ready to behead him where he stood. He struggled against the one restraining him, feeling the unrecognizable silhouette’s fingers digging into his upper arms.

Then he opened his eyes, a hand was on his upper arm. A real Clayton hand was gripping his upper arm like a vice. A deadly vice. He heard a voice, but his mind wouldn’t register it. He was on his feet in a second, heart beating for freedom against his chest. He backpedaled as his eyes tried to adjust to the form in front of him. His back hit the cloth of the tent and he almost tripped and fell but he got himself together as he saw the face of Master Beris, repeating his name.

“It’s me, boy,” the mage said. “I–”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Kaleb growled.

“I have found it!” the mage said. “It’s–”

“FUCK OFF,” Kaleb shouted so loud that he heard movement in the neighboring tents and outside. He’d woken up some people. Good, let them be as enraged at this son of a bitch as he was.

“Calm down,” Master Beris commanded, perhaps thinking he could bring him to heel.

“Fuck you,” Kaleb’s response came grave and deep from his throat. “What’s wrong with your damned head? Coming in here in the middle of the night like some…” Kaleb paused as he ran out of breath, inhaling and exhaling then he glared at the Quill mage. “Get out.”

“Listen, I might have deduced what your node is. Come–”

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“No,” Kaleb said. “Get the hell out of my tent.”

The mage set his jaw, glancing at the entrance, probably seeing some of the regulars getting restless outside. Then he turned back to Kaleb and nodded. “Fine. When you settle down, come to my tent.” He spun on his heel and left without waiting for Kaleb’s response.

Kaleb hyperventilated, his breaths coming fast and shallow at first but getting deeper as he got more control of himself. His heart was still beating way too hard against his chest, and he was feeling nauseous. He took a seat and regulated his breathing along with his thoughts.

It was getting to him. He had to admit it to himself now, rather than wait until he was in deeper shit. It had only been one small battle and an incident, and there was already a possibility that trauma had made its mark on him. He would have to speak to someone, likely Yez. He was experienced. Perhaps he would have some advice.

After about half an hour, Kaleb went to the accursed mage’s tent. He entered, seeing the Quill pacing around his table. He turned towards him as soon as he entered. “Good, you’ve come.” A bit of mirth took his face as he made to continue talking, but Kaleb beat him to it.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Kaleb said as firmly as he could. “Or anything like it. I don’t care how important what you want to tell me is..”

The mage paused, staring him in the eye. Then he nodded softly. “Can we speak now?”

Kaleb nodded begrudgingly, walking to the table where the mage stood.

Master Beris gestured at a stool. “Take a seat.”

Kaleb raised an eyebrow but did as he was told. “What is it?”

“I might have found out what your node is, but we need to do a test.”

“What test?”

“I’m going to imprint a new rune on you. I want you to put it into your book.”

Kaleb gave him a flat stare. “My book is full, as you well know.”

“Yes,” the mage said. “Bear with me, and I’ll explain.”

“Fine,” Kaleb said. It was still dark, but he reckoned the sun would rise soon. Even if it was the middle of the night, he wouldn’t have been able to go back to sleep, so he might as well do it.

He closed his eyes and soon felt Master Beris’s hand on his head. A few moments later, he began to feel the imprint’s assault on his mind. Half an hour in, he was getting a blurry impression of the rune.

“Now!” Master Beris said. “Pull it to your book.”

Kaleb tried to take the rune into his book, but as expected, it failed. “I can’t.”

“I know,” Master Beris said. “But what do you feel as you try?”

“This…” Kaleb was speechless.

“Is it the same feeling you experienced while trying to open the node?”

“Yes,” Kaleb said. So the node had been trying to give him a rune?

“I see,” the mage said. “It is as I expected then. I assume you understand now, yes?”

Kaleb opened his eyes and nodded. “Should I open the node that gives me an additional page?”

Master Beris hummed. “The captain would appreciate improved stamina on your part, so Vitality would come with its own merits. But the page would get us closer to opening the rune node and perhaps discovering one I don’t already know.”

While Kaleb was curious about the rune node too, he preferred to have Vitality since it’d improve his chances in combat. Though he couldn’t deny feeling the urge to expand his book and learn more magic.

“We will go with the latter,” Master Beris continued. “My resistance to new knowledge is as non-existent as the next mage.” He chuckled.

Kaleb nodded, not giving the Quill mage a chance to change his mind. He went into his mindspace and picked the node with the spread of plain color that represented a new page in the book. He opened it and felt as if something inside of him had come together, knotted, and then tightened.

He opened his eyes then summoned his book, flipping the three runed pages until he came upon an empty fourth. He glanced at Master Beris.

“It’s there?”

“Yes,” Kaleb said.

“Good.”

“Can I go back to my tent now?”

“You may.”

Kaleb spent the final hour of the night contemplating his nightmares, for a lack of a better thing to do. He had no energy for something more productive.

The sun rose and with it the company. The camp was taken apart in a short time and they were on the move again.

By the time it was noon, the town came into sight. It was walled, albeit with a wall lower than that of any of the major cities. But the most noticeable thing about it was the expansive fields surrounding it. Grains were being grown there. And it was there that Kaleb saw for the first time such a density of slaves. He reckoned there had been slaves in Whitestone, but it had been so crowded and difficult to parse that he hadn’t taken special notice of any of them.

Yet here, he could see them clearly, toiling in the fields. Grucks, Redskins, Quills…and humans. He had to look twice to absorb the fact. There were human slaves in those fields, bent over the crops, working like every other slave. He observed overseers, holding whips, canes, and other blunt weaponry meant to discipline and punish.

He couldn’t help but feel enraged at the sight of men like him, half-naked and working themselves to an early death in the fields. From the comfort of his carriage, he watched his people’s first successful integration into this world’s society…in the form of slavery.

He closed the carriage window.

They rolled into town, where the captain went to find someone important enough to communicate with. This being an Arrival site, Kaleb decided to look for his mother and ignore any voices in his mind that suggested she might’ve suffered as ill a fate as those he’d seen working the fields.

He would find her if she was in this country either way. And so help him god, or whatever divines lorded over this world, if he found her ‘owned’ by someone, he would make sure another skull broke under his magic.