{-Tevie-}
Now, he usually liked forests, even before he became Thalis’s Messenger. They were vast spaces filled with all sorts of life—preferably, every kind of life except for mortals’. It was usually calming to be surrounded by them, to take in every aspect of it and appreciate just how wonderful it was. It didn’t matter the season, the weather, or the time of day—he’d much prefer nature over any kind of mortal settlement. The exceptions of that were, of course, few and far between.
And this was one of the exceptions.
There didn’t seem to be any of the familiar aspects here; there were trees and bushes, but no wildlife. The only sound was their own footsteps, the slight breeze, and a random branch snapping every now and again. It wasn’t comforting, it was unsettling. Perhaps the worst part was, he couldn’t even determine how, just that it was, leaving him with no means to fix it.
His unease only got much worse when he noticed a tree whose shadow had practically disappeared.
“Guys—”
But he hadn’t needed to warn them, because they both immediately noticed it as well.
“Is this just another one of those projections?” Kaius asked. The near nonchalance was, in part, mildly annoying, but that was simply the way he wanted to present himself.
Hayze considered it for a moment and said, “Some of them might be, but I don’t think they all are. I can sense some kind of magical object nearby, but I don’t think whatever it is is powerful enough to create all of these Skiá.”
Tevie glanced back at the trees, now clearly seeing a few wisps of shadows move from one spot to another. Instincts and the memories of a mortal told him to run, even if he knew that the Skiá could do little against a prepared Messenger. “What’s our plan?”
“I presume we should do whatever we can to find what’s causing these projections,” Kaius decided. “We’ll be able to navigate through this forest a lot better if we didn’t have the threat of real Skiá mixed in with those illusions.”
“If you give me a minute, I should be able to figure out a more specific location of where they are,” Hayze mumbled. “It’s a little harder to tell it apart from the actual Skiá, but I should be able to do it. Until then, we should see where they’re going.”
“You want to walk through them?” Tevie repeated. “Just making sure I heard you right, because walking right into a bunch of Skiá is rarely a good idea, no matter how many of them are real.”
Kaius shrugged. “Well, consider the range of the illusion. We must be just inside of it, if the fake Skiá have only just started appearing, so it goes to stand that we’ll get closer the further we go.”
“They can’t do anything lasting to us,” Hayze pointed out. “Trust me, the two of us have dealt with worse before. As long as we don’t do anything stupidly reckless, we’ll be fine.”
Without missing a beat, Kaius replied, “I have absolutely no idea why you’re looking at me, dear Hayze. Need I remind you, I don’t take well to those who desire others for saving. Why would I make myself one of them?”
“I can think of a couple examples, at least, of a new Messenger who didn’t even know how magic worked…”
“Ah, but I was but an ignorant Old Seothian. I wouldn’t dare to do such a thing now.”
Tevie sighed. He hated being paired with these two for this exact reason. Even with all their time together, there was still something slightly alienating between the oldest Messengers and youngest of the group. “Let’s just keep going. We’re not going to get anything done if we just stay here.”
As they walked further along, there became more and more Skiá. It wasn’t really a lot; definitely more than what forests were supposed to have, but not enough that would’ve caused a widespread panic in the next three towns over. Maybe it could be considered just enough to make him uneasy. Of course he knew that they could do nothing to him; their missions weren’t always without a fight and they’ve dealt with far worse than a handful of Skiá. But that didn’t erase that mortal instinct to fear them, and the memories he had proving that they were bad news no matter if he was a mortal or a Messenger.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Are you sure these really aren’t all projections?” Kaius asked after they’d walked for a while. “None of them seem to notice us. They’re either all heading in one direction—which doesn’t seem significant, at least from where we are—or just wandering around. There’s no order to their pattern.”
“Order is definitely a bad thing,” Tevie pointed out. “Disorder should be something we want to happen. It means they don’t have a goal—they weren’t sent here by a certain someone.”
“There’s definitely some real ones,” Hayze confirmed. “It’s probably most of the ones who are just wandering. They might not have been sent here by her, but… they didn’t just manifest here, either. There’s a specific reason they’re all here instead of scattered around the forest… something here that causes them to stay here, even when they’ve long since killed any prey there might’ve been.”
“Maybe it has to do with Achadus,” Tevie mumbled. “He has to have had some kind of power, if Orestis doesn’t want him to exist. We would’ve heard about him before now if he was another Messenger of Darkness—she’s only got the two, doesn’t she?—so maybe he was a dreamer. They can control Skiá sometimes, can’t they? And some of those dream-related Ilethera.”
Kaius, after a moment’s consideration, shook his head. “I feel that, whoever we’re dealing with, he’s much older than we think he is.”
Hayze nodded. “These enchanted objects, at least, were probably put here an extremely long time ago. It’s more likely that these projections, at the time, had shown the future, and not parts of the past.”
“Future-seeing isn’t exactly something everyone can do, let alone create an enchantment for,” Tevie pointed out.
Kaius let out a soft chuckle. “Well, perhaps it wasn’t a simple mortal that did all of it. Even if it wasn’t Vaso, any god would easily be able to do something like this. And if this dealt with the gods, it’ll be little wonder Orestis wants him gone. Who knows what kind of information he could’ve hidden away somewhere? What threats he might possess, even if he’s gone?”
Hayze scoffed. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that. What god in their right mind would do something like that for a mortal? That’s blatantly going against practically everything Orestis tells them—and they tell us—what not to do.”
“Yeah, I think we’d have heard of it by now…” Tevie mumbled. “I’m open to a lot of possible explanations, but not that one. I don’t think a god that did that would even be able to exist anymore.”
He assumed Orestis had the power to destroy the gods, anyway. He created all of them. Probably had the power to take all of it away, too, right? Kind of hard to fear someone who hasn’t exactly left his room in a few thousand years…
There was a brief glimpse of something orange through the trees.
“Well, there’s certainly one god that Orestis wishes didn’t exist anymore…” Kaius remarked. “I have a feeling we’re going to start being able to piece all of this together soon enough.”
Hayze suddenly stopped. “Both of you, shut up for a moment. I think we’re around the centerpoint of this projection. I should be able to figure out and destroy whatever’s causing it, as long as I focus.” She glanced at Tevie. “Can you try to keep the real Skiá in check? It’ll be easier if they’re not throwing me off.”
“Need I remind you, I haven’t exactly been a Messenger for a thousand and a half years,” he said. “How am I supposed to be able to determine something that you weren’t even able to do for at least the first thousand? I can’t pinpoint anything.”
Kaius shrugged. “You know how Fos feel, surely.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s practically the exact opposite of that.”
“Great. Just helpful. The absolutely best piece of advice I’ve ever been given.”
Kaius didn’t quite seem to acknowledge the sarcasm in the statement, because he casually responded, “Besides, we’re in a forest. I can’t do it, because I’ll set things on fire. Probably. And Hayze, as a fairy, is the most magically-attuned of us. The two of us are, alas, only magically inept Seothians.”
“Fine, I’ll try. Can you at least try to tell me what I’m targeting? I don’t want to waste energy on just the projections.”
“Simple! If you see a Skiá walking in the opposite direction of the others, shoot it.” Kaius, maintaining a grin, turned around to face the river. “I’ll help Hayze. It’ll be much easier to spot the fakes when they all disappear.”
“I hate both of you,” Tevie grumbled.
“We believe in you!”