Everywhere I turned, I faced supply issues. Water was no object; I was far from a master of frost magic, but I had drawn upon the Plane of Elemental Cold for years. I spent many a night casting insecurity into the earth until it became slick to the touch, then condensing mist into the smooth divots and scooping the resulting rain up with a hand. Sure, I'd spied a river wending its way through the Redlands, but those tended to be occupied.

I'd just left behind everyone I cared about hurting. I wasn't going to stumble into a fresh batch of innocents.

Food was a bigger problem. I could hunt—I was even used to Redlands game, after the months we'd spent traversing these lands—but I'd grown used to the convenience of living in Knwharfhelm. Part of the problem was that the spells I knew simply weren't all that great at killing something I wanted to eat. I could hold a bow of memory and an arrow of frost in my mind, but I wasn't actually trained in archery; after an embarrassing series of misses, I'd simply swamped a herd of deer and the surrounding twelve feet with a deluge of sorrow and frost. That was when I discovered that flash-frozen meat turned soggy and disgusting when re-heated, although I forced myself to scarf some down anyway.

The other half of the issue was that I'd grown used to cooked food. The watery bone broth that Knwharfhelm loved so much, the soulful soup Sansen and Jiaola once made, the meticulously kneaded pasta that Meloai made from scratch...

I shook my head, wishing I knew how to banish memories as easily as I could conjure them.

Anyway. Just because I could throw half a dozen flavors of elemental destruction at something didn't mean I was qualified to cook it. I'd settled for hurling meteors of quartz directly at some poor rabbit's soul; being slowed in time didn't ruin the meat, and a high-velocity chunk of rock hurled directly into its soulspace shattered its consciousness as neatly as if I'd wrung its neck myself. Food wasn't the main problem either.

No, the reason why I found myself trudging towards some nameless Redlands hamlet was because I was running out of emotions.

Freedom, I had no shortage of. Sorrow I had in spades. Deserts would run out of sand before I ran out of determination. But cruel experience had taught me that even riftmaws died. I needed more than the ability to eradicate whatever was in my path. Foresight, healing, stealth—they were skills I'd need if I wanted to steal a cure from the Silent Peaks.

But a few flickers of hope or tendrils of forgiveness weren't going to be enough. I would never re-enact the dread harvest of the battlechoirs, but... there had to be an ethical way to skim a little bit of hope off the top of someone else's soul. Worst come to worst, I'd just snatch the leftover sparks from a few villagers, keeping their flame alive until I needed it.

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I could have swept in on a tide of elemental wind, but even this far out from the scar of frost that marked the last decisive battle between the Peaks and the Redlands, I wouldn't be surprised if the war had trampled this village under its thousands of marching feet. So I took the humble approach—in all likelihood, people would look at the emaciated little girl toddling into their homes and think I was just another refugee. It was even true, in a way.

In any case, I felt I'd made the right decision as I limped into the town square. A few children and one lazy cat looked up as I passed through the invisible line where the dirt was packed tightly enough to become a road, and although ingots of silvery suspicion sizzled in their souls, they didn't cry for help or flee.

So in other words, this wasn't an active battle zone. I suspected Knwharfhelm would serve as a stabilizing presence, but it was good to have it confirmed.

"...Is there an inn around?" I asked. "Someplace I can stay? Just for a night, I promise."

The three children glanced at each other, the shortest one taking an anxious step behind the others. Shit, I hadn't meant to scare them. Fortunately, there were some beings who didn't care how dirty I was or whether I could level a building with an exertion of will. The cat's soul, golden and preening, faintly glimmered as it hopped onto a nearby wall and—with surprising force—headbutted me right on my arm.

"Ow!" Dammit, how did the furry little beast know exactly where the sorest spots to bonk me were? To my surprise, it hopped onto my shoulders, forcing me to crouch a little or let the poor creature topple to the ground. The cat rammed me behind the ears with their wet little nose, purring with an urgency that resonated with every hard nodule and odd lump of flesh beneath my skin. "Uh. A little help?" I asked, half-bent and balancing against the wall.

Suspicion popped into tiny, hopeful fireworks, reacting with little dewdrops of joy. The tallest of the three kids let out a tense almost-laugh and plucked the cat like a sack of potatoes; judging by the way the kid grunted, it was about as heavy, too. "Sorry about Euranne. Don't know what got into the old girl; that's the first time she's greeted a stranger with anything more than a flip of her tail."

"Flip of her..." I glanced at Euranne as she wriggled out of the kid's arms and disdainfully hopped away, giving us a lovely view of the rear end of a cat. The shortest of the three kids giggled, and I couldn't help but smile slightly, too. "I see."

"Yes, that would be the problem," the designated speaker solemnly intoned. They stuck out a hand. "Solan. I ain't good for much, but I can fetch and carry as surely as any other boy."

I clasped his hand in mine, and it was clammy and dry but firm enough. "I'm Lucet. And if you need me to kick whoever's been telling you that, I'll put on a pair of steel-toed boots."

Solan's laugh was genuine, and he let my hand go to scratch Euranne on her forehead. "Come on, Lucet. You need a place to stay the night? I reckon we can set you up."

It would do nothing to heal the broken arm's length Cienne had kept me at before I'd left, gave me none of the strength I'd lacked when I'd left Meloai and Jiaola without so much as saying goodbye. But for once, I spoke to someone who didn't know Lucet the soulmage or Lucet the riftmaw—just Lucet, the tired girl who charmed cats.

Flickers of flame danced inside Solan, stuttering and erratic but there nonetheless. And as I walked behind him, despite everything, some corner of my soul couldn't help but catch alight.