The numbers changed.

Very, very slightly, they’ve changed. I’m more powerful than I was yesterday. I’ve been mostly sticking to the one training schedule, simmering my æther down at a constant rate and never tiring out.

It’s granted me about 2 veins in each magic, and 4 veins in my adaptive magics, which isn’t much for a week’s work. I can do better than that.

My next technique is going to be burning myself to the edge of passing out and then recovering for a bit and doing the same again. I think it should work a bit better, I always feel like I’m strongest after recovering from being burnt out. I can’t risk pushing myself beyond the limit until we’re safe, but I can still push myself right up until that point and stop.

“It’s not that Adeleya hates you,” he says, gripping my shoulder tight. “She’s just trying to process this situation. It’s heavy, so don’t worry too much about her, okay?”

Adeleya has been avoiding me since I brought Namor and Grey together. I found her throwing up and sobbing afterwards, and I don’t know what to say or do about it.

“Why aren’t you treating Syr…?” I stop talking, losing control of my breathing. How long has it been since I did that, saying my own name like that?

Lothar rests his arm on my shoulders and pulls me close into an awkward hug.

“She’s… Adeleya pushes everything down instead of talking about it openly. She wears a mask to hide her true feelings, and even I’ve only seen glimpses of the person she is hiding back there.

“She’s running away because she’s not confident that that ‘mask’ will stay together when talking with you. She’s scared of speaking her true feelings. I’m not.”

I curl up tighter, feeling his lecture coming.

“I’m disgusted with your necromancy, when you made those dead slayers dance for you, it made me sick to the bottom of my stomach but even that is nothing compared to seeing that girl hugging the corpse of her father. It’s not right, and I want to draw my sword and destroy that corpse right now. But-!”

He looks down at me, not pushing me away, or even directly saying that he’s disgusted with me. Just the things that I do. There’s a difference.

“I was mistaken about you before,” he says. “When we first met I was ready to have you killed just for the chance that you’d become a monster—so please don’t become a monster. I was wrong. You deserve as much of a chance as anyone does.

“So, I’m giving you that chance. Tell me why I’m wrong. Tell me what you’re planning and why I should let this happen. If you can’t convince me, then I will destroy the corpse, and get Adeleya to help me burn it to ash.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

I bite my lip until I’m bleeding, shivering in place as I try to find the right words to explain it.

“You’re not… you’re not wrong,” I say, burying my face and forcing the rest of the words out. “But I have to do this! I don’t want her to be alone, and if Grey is gone then she will be. I know what it’s like to be abandoned and alone, and to have no one to talk to. I can’t let her go through it, too.”

“She won’t be alone, we’re here for her. You’re here for her.” He squeezes my shoulder comfortingly. “You don’t need ‘Grey’ for that.”

“She can’t talk the same language,” I say, shaking my head.

“Then we’ll teach her.”

“No, that’s not it. She can’t.” I say, waving Grey forwards and getting him to speak, showing off his long snout and sharp teeth. He bites his tongue a few times and he makes sounds that are almost recognisable as words. “They can’t make the sounds. They can’t talk like we do.”

“I…” Lothar stops, shaking his head. “You can talk in her language, can’t you? Why can’t they learn…?”

“It’s in the guts,” I say, reciting a few words. “I don’t know why, but they just can’t make our sounds. I can teach her to understand our talking, but she can’t ever speak it.”

Lothar stays silent, slumping further.

“Also, I can’t just learn how to speak her language. I have to get the words from Grey’s mind to talk, and it’ll take a really long time to fully learn. If he dies before that, then she’ll be alone. She looks different, exactly like the monsters that attacked everyone, she can’t talk, or understand us, and she’s still only a kid.

“Without Grey… she has no one. No one but a bunch of strangers,” I say. “I got along with the wolven when I was lost in the wild, but I wasn’t one of them. I was still alone.”

“I get it,” Lothar whispers, swearing quietly under his breath and wiping at his eyes. “But this can’t go on forever, what’s your plan?”

“It can’t go on forever,” I nod quickly, looking Grey over. “One day, Grey is going to become ash, we’ll lose him. It’s why I have to learn to talk, I need to have that in my own head, and I need to teach Namor to understand our language too.

“Until then, Grey can help protect us. He’s still strong, and there are so many things that are trying to kill us, and so many people will try to kill Namor, too. The people bitten will be turning into moon-blessed like her, and also going insane, attacking everything and everyone. People are going to see her and try to kill her.”

Lothar nods, slowly at that, still biting his lip. He gazes at Grey keeping silent while he thinks. I get back to my training, looking at the sheet of paper marking out my strength.

Focusing on myself and my magic, I can feel that Grey is using about 50 of my æther veins, keeping them burning all the time without ever burning out, and Crow burns about 4 when I’m feeding him and rebuilding his damaged parts. That goes up fast when they fight, run, or have to do something taxing.

I can still keep them stable for the most part, even in a long fight, but it means that I have to be careful picking up new puppets in the middle of a fight.

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“Syr,” Lothar, rubs my head. “I… I think you’ve already figured out that I have a history with the undead. I’ve… lost people. I can’t talk about it now, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept what you do.

“I still love you, like you’re one of my own little band of orphaned rats. No, more than that even,” he looks away from me. “I’ll explain this to everyone, Adeleya too, okay?

“You’ll have to be careful with Grey, try to keep quiet about it, and keep it away from us, scouting behind us or ahead or something. Other than that, I won’t say anything else about this unless the situation changes drastically, okay?”

I nod, keeping my head down. He probably doesn’t want to look at me right now. He does care about me, but so did my mother, but necromancy changed that.

“Syr, I trust you,” Lothar says, rubbing at my hair. “I trust you with my life, and I know that you aren’t going to use me like you use them. Just keep your head up, and keep working.”

“Lothar?” I turn up to look at him and he’s smiling, but it’s a sad sort of smile.

“Don’t keep it all packed up inside,” he says.

Don’t keep it all inside, but don’t talk about my necromancy? How am I supposed to do that? These guys aren’t bad, and I do care about them all but they’re not what I want.

I want someone to love me for everything that I am. To accept all my darkest secrets without even a frown, and hold me tight through it all.

I want Rea, and the future we could’ve had. The future we still can have.

Just thinking about it gives me the strength I need to keep going, it’s the goal I’m going to work towards. I’ll make all the numbers go up, I’ll have so much power that even knights will be scared of me.

Now that I have Grey, I can properly learn how to thread new æther channels through him, and I can use this chance to learn new techniques as well. I’m still not very good at necromancy. I’ve used brute force for so long not knowing how to do anything more advanced.

If I can use both technique and power, I’ll be even stronger.

After a few hours of training, waiting with Grey as he moves his tent over the walls to hide from sight, I head back inside the ruins. Namor is sleeping at the moment, she has her own room and I’ve made her as comfortable as I can, but she’s going to be struggling for a while yet.

She startles as I open the door to her room, shivering and baring her teeth at me.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve knocked,” I say, bowing my head to her. “I came to check on you.”

“Did you find the others?” She asks, settling down a little. “Did Dad find anyone?”

“They’re gone,” I shake my head, telling her the difficult truth. “We couldn’t hear their howling last night. We’re not going to find them.”

She slumps down, falling on her butt and rubbing at her snout, holding in her whining, her crying. She doesn’t even look at me, and when I approach she looks at me with suspicion and not comfort.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m here, and you can trust me. You can rely on me.”

“Can you really heal Papa?” Namor says, grabbing my hands and squeezing tight. “Can you help him?”

“I…” I can’t tell her what happened. How would I even explain it? Your dad is dead and I’m keeping around his shadow to keep you company? To teach me language and all sorts of other things.

If Grey leaves then she’ll be alone. She’ll be isolated and scared.

After what she’s been through, I can’t let that happen.

“I can’t,” I admit, biting my lip. “My healing can keep him with us for a bit longer, but eventually he has to go away.”

“He’s still sick?” she asks, sitting up tall. “Can I do something?”

“No, there’s nothing we can do,” I say, biting my lip and shaking my head. “I’ll keep him around for as long as I can, but everything in this world will eventually become ash; even you and I will eventually die. My healing is the only thing keeping him around.”

“Keep healing him forever, then!” she shouts, half begging, half demanding. “Keep him alive forever.”

“I’ll try,” I reach out and rest a hand on her head. She shivers, uncomfortable at the affection, so I pull my hand back. “I’ll try.”

“I’ll help, teach me how to help,” she demands. “I’ll be a good girl, just don’t let Papa die.”

“Then I’m going to need you to learn how to understand our language,” I say. “Also, you’ll have to learn magic. We’re going to find and fight that thing that did these bad things to you and your Papa, you want to be big and strong, because I might not be able to protect you.”

“I’ll learn,” she nods quickly. “I’ll do anything, to save Papa.”

“Then let’s get started,” I say.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The researchers are using strange magics down in the new ruins, things to make the broken things seem whole for a little bit or to turn old, worn scratchings in the walls into proper words and letters. It even works on the words that they magically summon on the walls.

One man, Georgio, even meditates in place for a full hour before waving a hand to summon the outline of a person before him. It walks a few steps before fading away, the light making it up and disappearing.

“It’s always the same,” he grunts, wiping sweat from his brow. “That should have had enough energy to last for a whole minute, but it fades almost instantly. It’s like something is trying to hide what happened to them.”

“Or maybe they all just faded away?” Another researcher suggests.

“There aren’t any piles of ash,” Georgio replies. “The remembrance would settle on the ground if they were instantly killed like that. No, it’s something else.”

Their conversations would be more interesting if I ever actually cared about the ancient elves. It’s an interesting mystery, sure, but I don’t care. Even if it’s what led to Cildr burning down, it doesn’t matter. This is Nadia’s quest, she’s the one who wants revenge.

I just want a family and a home.

I don’t know where Namor falls into that, but I know that I’m not going to let her suffer like I did. Maybe she’ll become a part of my strange new family, or maybe she won’t, but I’m going to do everything I can to help her regardless.

“That should round things up,” Georgio says, looking over his workers. “Pack up your things, we’re moving tomorrow morning.”

The rest all nod, their heads still buried in their notes. I’ll have to tell Namor, hopefully, she’s a bit more used to her new clothes by now.

Rushing through the halls to her room, I look over the girl, unrecognisable in her new clothes.

She’s covered head to toe in thick clothes, a scarf wrapped around her head with a long mask covering her snout. She still looks suspicious, but it’s better than showing her true nature to everyone, especially when there are going to be monsters out there looking just like her.

“It’s heavy,” she complains. “And hot.”

“We’ll figure out something better when we can,” I say, reaching out for her hand. “I know someone that could probably sew together something to make you more comfortable.”

Olive’s mom is pretty good at making clothes, and even without much to work with, she’ll do better than what we’ve done.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I say. “Are you ready?”

She slowly nods her head, following me as I walk from the room.

“Why do none of you have hair?” she asks. “I only see hairless at the big parties, but they become hair after.”

“This is just how we are,” I explain, walking into the main room, with a wide swath of mushrooms everywhere. She raises her nose and sniffs at the air, her grip on me tensing.

“The plants are dangerous, don’t touch them,” I say, but she’s not listening. There’s one researcher nearby, gathering a few of the mushrooms as carefully as they can.

“Dangerous,” Namor growls, releasing my hand and looking at the researcher.

“No, that person isn’t dangerous,” I say, but he’s still not listening. She jumps forwards landing on all four legs and pouncing at the man, I chase her, but I’m a moment slower, not balanced properly for a charge.

“Namor!” I shout as she lands, sinking her claws down and spraying blood everywhere as she pulls them apart, splaying her target open.

I stop a little short as she lifts up her small prey. One of the rats from the new section of the ruins. It must’ve been hiding in the dirt, waiting for a chance to attack someone.

“Good girl,” I say, praising her and smiling wide to show my teeth. It’s how her people do it.

“Dangerous,” she nods, holding out the body for me. “Eat?”

“We’ll talk to Nadia, she should know how to cook it,” I say, walking around the quivering researcher.

“Be careful,” I say to him. “There are still a few monsters down here. You’re lucky Namor was here to save you.”

He nods quickly, his mouth opening and closing over and over without making a sound.