Chapter 42

Six days in, and Riley had gained a new appreciation for the word rest.

"I died. I went to hell," she panted in between the syllables of her inner monologue.

Tobias trudged forward, with Zorna ever snapping at his heels.

A prompt notification flashed in the upper right hand corner of her overlay, numbly Riley willed it forward.

Through continued exertion, your stamina level has increased. Congratulations!

Progress to level 2-1, now at 85%

"Yay me," she sighed, noticing her bar was more than half drained.

The blinking had become a fearful thing, a harbinger of pain to come.

Every time they stopped without orders heralded a beating.

This was not the childish malevolence or selfishness of Chadrick; this wasn't a game. This was the work of an artificer hired to pound sorcerers into hardened steel.

Cid seemed to have more respect for animals than people and had largely left Riley be, but watching him hurt Tobias drove her to rage and despair, hurting her in different ways that competed with the soreness in her paws and the ache in her ribs.

Tobias bore bruises to his midsection. His hands were cut and bleeding from falls, and in spite of her healing magic, he had gained a limp.

There was only so much she could do in the few small hours they were allowed to rest at the end of long and torturous days.

The kraus snarled, snapping Riley savagely from her reflections.

Tobias stumbled. Sweat poured from his forehead, his face a mask of tortured agony.

"That tears it!" Riley was beyond concerns of consequences or reason.

She had to make it stop.

The power leapt up, feeding on her outrage.

She channeled down into the earth.

Pictures began to form in her mind of the vast root networks of trees and other plants.

Plant whisperer.

Up ahead, an ancient and deep root ran under the road. With a whisper of power, she bid it to stir, feeding it with her life magic. It put off new shoots, angling up, pushing through the hard packed earthen road.

"Riley...." Tobias panted, "What are you channeling?"

She seized on the moment, willing it to break from the earth, wrapping around Zorna's back paw just as the kraus pushed off.

Zorna yelped and jerked rudely to the right before she fell, muzzle planting into the dirt. Cid stopped and dropped down off his mount, running back towards his companion in a panic, forgetting all about Tobias as he checked her over.

"That was not smart," Tobias said, whispering through the magic.

"Was this you, boy?" Cid demanded, a look of barely restrained rage on his face.

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Zorna was whimpering, rising up on three shaky legs, favoring her back left.

Regret flashed, only to evaporate like a morning mist amidst the angry sun of her outrage.

"I'm a fire mage," Tobias replied cooly, offering nothing.

Cid, fuming, stalked over to his saddle bags and pulled out a healing potion, feeding it to his companion. Zorna perked almost instantly and sat with her tongue lulling out next to her master.

"That's not what I asked you," Cid stalked forward, his eyes cold with rage, "Was this you, boy?"

"No," Tobias said, his tone flat and emotionless.

"I'm starting to think you don't want to be friends." Cid pressed.

The young sorcerer held his words.

Cid reached out with his hand and patted him on the cheek.

"Well, Zorna here, I think, needs a rest. Are you ready to stop?" As if his rage were a mask, Cid put on a broad smile, looking towards Tobias with fatherly affection.

Tobias, meanwhile, stayed quiet.

"Don't want to talk? Do you think being obstinate will help? Fool," He chuckled.

Tobias stared. Cid vaulted up, balling his fist.

Tobias remained still as a statue.

"That's right, give him nothing," Riley encouraged, silence, so far, had been one of the only ways they could fight back.

"Oh, I like that. Alright, boy. We'll stop for the night, gather sticks for a fire," he ordered.

Riley hopped alongside as Tobias began to forage for sticks and branches.

"You know, it's kind of pretty here," There were no signs of human habitation from anywhere that she could see. For the first few days of travel, they had passed through farmers' fields and green space, passing through concentric rings of ancient walls seemingly carved out of solid rock.

Farmland, wall, farmland, wall; by the third day, they had ventured through a town but hadn't stopped. The further they moved from Ashenvale, the narrower the roads grew and the more wild the country became.

Off in the distance, Riley could see mountains, towering, thrusting up into the atmosphere, cutting a craggy line against the sky, topped with snow, the rolling green hills they currently found themselves in stretched out as if reaching towards them. Thick copses of trees existed in bunches dotting the landscape.

"How are you holding up?" She prompted, pressing against his legs.

"About the same. I'm exhausted, and I'm tired of this. I don't know how my life could have gone this wrong," his voice, even within her mind, was on the edge of despair.

"Every step we take is a step away from him. It's one moment less that we have to deal with his manipulations," Riley encouraged while he continued to gather his bundle.

"Nothing works. No matter what we do, he always finds a way to twist it around and hurt me," Tobias stopped and stared down at the ground.

"Taking Zorna out of the picture got us an early quit at least," Riley offered.

"But we can't do that all the time, and he already suspects I had something to do with it. We've no idea of the consequences; no matter what we do, we lose! This fucker is worse than Chadrick," Tobias, in spite of his sore legs, began to stomp around, from twig to branch, his anger rising and, with it, his power.

"No…" He whispered quietly to himself, "I'm not going to let him get to me. I'm not going to give him the satisfaction. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to out stubborn that fuck!"

Riley could see the struggle underway as his patience and tolerance eroded like an earthen dam in a hundred year flood.

"We're going to be ok. This isn't going to last forever, even if it feels like forever. Get harder, get stronger, but don't let this kill your heart. He's not worth it. We're in this together," she assured.

"Any regrets?" For the first time in recent memory, he smiled wryly as Riley grazed at the grass.

Lately, she was constantly hungry.

"No, I made my choice, and I'm not going to let him take away my sense that I did the right thing. I don't like my life right now, but I'm going to keep moving forward until that son of a bitch is a hundred miles behind me. Rangers roam the countryside, right? Take bounties?" Riley asked. They had had this conversation before.

That wasn't the point.

"They mainly operate alone or in groups of opportunity, yes, elite monster hunters," Tobias replied.

"That's our end game. We go through this hell, we get to the other side, and then we have some freedom. That's what we're fighting for. This won't last, and you've got me to talk to. Let the awful asshat stew," Riley said to herself as much as Tobias. The space stretching out between now and then felt like an eternity.

"It's going to end," he whispered the words like a prayer.

"It's going to end," Riley echoed in response.

Tobias, having his arms full, moved back to where Cid was setting up camp and began arranging some wood for the fire.

"Feel like talking, boy?" Cid asked.

Tobias only stared impassively.

"Hmm, seems you want to be obstinate, so I'll give you a choice. You can talk with me a while and have dinner, or you can head over to that stone outcropping, practice your magic, and starve," Cid said, pulling some jerky from a pouch within his saddle bag.

He chewed it meditatively.

Tobias' stomach growled; still, he turned and trudged over to the rock.

Riley noticed a curious grin on Cid's face as she followed.

"Don't worry, we still have some bread and cookies. It's not much, but it's something." Riley reminded him, grateful for her inventory space.