After absorbing all of the energy from the two spirits, something within me was stirring.

There was a bottomless hunger for more energy that nagged at me to find another source. Thoughts of overload were pushed aside almost as soon as they came up.

The hunger consumed everything, even reason.

I dropped my mana shield completely, letting Blood Fang’s fire reach me.

The flames came, expecting a fresh feast. They crept up my legs, burning away the already weakened portion of my uniform.

The influx of pain stirred my common sense and rationality, but the hunger was still greater.

As the fire climbed over me, the sensation of pain slowly faded. By the time my body was completely ablaze, all semblance of pain faded, replaced by a subtle sense of satisfaction.

The hunger subsided as flames from around the room were pulled in and sucked inside of me. The process wasn’t entirely different from how I’d absorbed the spirits, only I wasn’t in control.

When the last of the flames had been absorbed the hunger returned immediately.

Ravenous and starving, I searched around for something to eat.

The nearest source abundant with energy was standing only fifteen feet away, its hulking form blocking a doorway.

The beast was already half dead. A dark poison lingered in its veins, sucking away at its life force, while simultaneously filling every fiber of its being with an incredible energy.

MORE!!! I NEED MORE!

Like a crazed animal, I charged toward the big beast.

“No you idiot, don’t eat that.” The voice yelled, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Before I reached Blood Fang, he turned and ran from the castle.

Despite his injuries and weakened state, I couldn’t keep up with the creature, so I turned my attention back inside the castle.

There was only one other nearby source from which I could feed.

Tearing through the halls, I found him.

In a bedroom, Gregor knelt on the floor using his spear hands to dig at the stone floor. Only his arms were still integrated and somehow he hadn’t noticed me yet.

Lunging from the door, I tackled him.

My knees pinned his arms to the floor and I slammed his face into the smooth stone floor.

He still seemed conscious so I bagged his head again, once, then twice.

He stopped moving and his hands reverted to their natural, human state.

“Where is it!” I howled as I flipped his limp body.

The spirit relic he held thrummed with energy, ripe and ready for taking.

Sensing the spirit within, I ripped a pin from the collar of his shirt.

Without hesitation, I consumed the spirit, sucking its energy directly from the relic.

The hunger finally subsided.

I dropped the lifeless relic on Gregor’s chest.

“You need to learn control, boy! If you’d consumed that beast, you’d have doomed us to death.”

“Us… I think it’s time you give me some answers. Who are you, and why do you keep talking as if we’re the same person?”

“All you need to know is that you can call me X.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“No! After what I’ve been through, I deserve more than that.”

“…”

My words echoed off the walls, the only answer coming from below.

“Fey?” Mai’s voice drifted up from a crack in the floor. “Who are you talking to?”

X’s presence seemed to disappear entirely.

That… thing, the thing that came to life with a hunger for energy, it was still there. For now, it was satisfied. I didn’t know what it was, but I could feel the mana it had absorbed swirling around in my chest.

The spiral back spider spirit, stolen from Gregor’s relic, still seemed to be resisting. Unlike the other energy it wasn’t easily assimilated, perhaps that was why the hunger stopped, or maybe its energy was just more pure…

“Fey.”

My attention was drawn back to the hole between my feet. The opening was just large enough that I could squeeze a fist through it. In the darkness below, light from an illuminated CAD reflected off Mai’s face.

Next to her Cole was trying to get a look through the hole. “Where’s Gregor?” He demanded.

I looked back at the boy’s body, he was breathing but still unconscious.

“He’s…” Looking back towards the hole in the floor, I fell through it.

I tumbled, longer than I should have, into a deep darkness that seemed to go on forever.

When I stopped falling, I was standing on some invisible platform.

Alone in the darkness I began to panic.

What is this! Where am I?

If I had been cursed or trapped in some kind of hallucination, then who could’ve done it? Gregor?

… No, he was unconscious. Someone else on his team maybe… no they had all been defeated except for maybe the girl in the woods.

Has she come back? What about my team… Mai!

I had to get back. I could help them – they’d die without me.

“They are safe.” A white fox spoke as she appeared in the space. “I brought you here.”

It was the fox from my previous visions. She sat only an arms length away from me, her pink eyes burrowing into my chest with a fearful wrath.

“The one inside you cannot be trusted… Please, Fey, release me from my prison. It may be too late if you wait much longer.”

Her words came directly into my mind, but I also heard her audible voice.

I didn’t trust X… I wasn’t even sure who he was, but then how could I trust this fox either?

“Prisoners are usually locked up for a reason.”

She shook her head. “There is one, but you wouldn’t understand, and there isn’t time to explain. Please, Fey, pull the crystals from the shield.”

Something didn’t feel right. There was a desperation to her pleading voice that seemed almost tangible in her eyes. There was clear pain and regret that pulled at my heart, but also a glimmer of hate thinly disguised as anger.

I saw it when she first examined me, then again when she said the word prison.

“I’ll think about it.” I said, though I wasn’t sure I would. There was nothing to think about without knowing more about her.

A pink tear dropped to the ground, bursting on the invisible platform.

Along with the tear, the entire space fractured and broke apart.

My eyes opened to another dark space.

I was laying in a quite comfortable bed. Curtains hanging from a canopy were closed around the bed.

Just as my hand touched the curtain, Cole started speaking.

“Why does it matter? Fey survived, that’s good. Gregor’s tied up, and there’s no sign of his team or Blood Fang. Whatever happened, it seems like Fey saved us.”

“I know, but what Audrey said—” Carletta began, but Cole didn’t let her finish.

“I don’t know where she heard that crap, but if she grew up believing it, it’s no wonder she’s such a nabler, always running at the first sign of trouble…what did she even come to Sky Haven for?”

“Who knows, but if what she said is true… if Fey is really one of them…”

“If it’s true, then wouldn’t she be as well? Otherwise how the hell does she know all that and how can she see what we can’t? It just doesn’t make sense.”

I’d heard enough. I was curious about what Audrey had told them, but more annoyed that Carletta seemed to doubt me.

Yanking aside the curtain, I stepped out of bed without a word.

Immediately the two stopped talking and snapped their heads in my direction.

Carletta smiled awkwardly then said, “uhm… good morning.”

“Do you think I’m a rogue?” I shouldn’t have asked, but the words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.

That single question might change the course of our relationship, and maybe my life, forever.

If she thought I was rogue in league with spirit reapers and their ilk then I’d never feel safe around her; the same was probably true in the reverse but at that moment I didn’t care how she felt.

I’d already shown I could be trusted. I hadn’t ever done anything worthy of suspicion. My only fault was the gift of unfamiliar magic, received without knowing what I was getting, from an unfamiliar source.

“Well I…” Carletta opened her mouth, but the words stalled in her throat.