After nearly a full day of following the raven feathered beastkin, we came to split in the road. The guide circled overhead several times before he landed among our group.

“This is where I leave you. From here you can find your own way to either the mantis,” he motioned towards a forested path as he said this. Then pointing to the other route, which ran along the outskirts of the tree line, he said, “or the reapers. Neither takes kindly to outsiders, but the mantis, being an interloper himself, may receive you better.”

“Are there no other places we could go?” I asked.

The man shook his head. “The way you look, I’m surprised my chief let you go. I don’t know what you told her, but…”

The bird man’s gaze fell on Audrey. Tilting his head back and forth he approached her. “What’s this?”

With each step he took, I could see her anxiety building. There was much we didn’t know about Audrey, but something about the man’s tone didn’t feel right.

“Crimson red hair, forest green eyes… Ahh, but you don’t have the—” he shook his head. “No, it couldn’t be.”

“It couldn’t be what?” Fin demanded.

The bird man waved his feathers and shook his beak. “Nothing, nothing. Her appearance just reminded me of an ancient legend. Have any of you heard of fairies? It’s said they are relatives of spirits.”

“A relative of spirits?” I questioned. “Audrey isn’t anything like the ‘spirits’ I’ve fought, so how could she be related to them?”

“Yeah, well… wait, you’ve fought spirits?” Now the bird's focus was on me.

Emilia stepped between us. “Weren’t you leaving? We need to decide on a destination and get moving before someone else finds us, right?”

“Yes, of course.” The bird squawked with a shudder, flew into the air and headed back towards the ruined city.

Emilia turned toward me with a severe expression. “You can’t trust anyone out here. Be careful how much you share and definitely don’t be caught unaware. The world outside the SAFE zone is not the same world you know.” The fire in her eyes would melt a glacier.

Feeling too embarrassed to respond verbally, I nodded and dropped my head.

“That’s all well and good, but are you seriously debating about which way to go?” Mai asked.

“Yea, I mean, isn’t it obvious? We should go to the mantis.” Carletta added.

“The beast kin don’t need to know that. If they want to find us again, I doubt it would be to invite us back for tea and biscuits.”

Audrey pulled out a mechanical tent, and Cole tossed a fireball on the ground. I found a log that looked more comfortable than the rocky soil and sat down.

“What are you doing? We need to keep moving.” Emilia declared. “Until we reach the mantis, we have to assume we could be attacked at any moment. We can’t camp somewhere so exposed and obvious.”

She was right, but my tired legs didn’t care. By the expressions everyone wore, it was clear they shared my sentiment, but Emilia didn’t let us rest. She took the tent from Audrey before she could activate it and kicked rocks onto Cole’s fireball. “Let’s go.” She commanded.

I knew better than to protest any longer. If Emilia had to tell us again, it wouldn’t have been with words.

The path through the forest showed signs of frequent travel, so once we’d made sufficient progress, we ventured off the road to find a suitable place to stop for the night.

The foliage was thick, so we didn’t have to stray far from the road. As long as we stayed quiet and didn’t light a fire, no one would notice us.

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It wasn’t the flash of spells, the snarling or the smell of beast blood that woke me. No, it was a zing, an electric shock from X that roused me from my sleep.

Wolves and other beasts overran the camp. Everyone except Audrey was up and fighting, at least thirty carcasses already littered the camp.

A large number of creatures continued rushing toward us as if drawn by a beacon.

“Don’t fight them. You need to run.”

“Are you okay?” I asked Audrey who was trembling next to me.

She nodded.

“Can you fight?”

“No.” She whined.

Why did I even ask?

Mai was only ten feet away. Her chains defended Audrey and me, but that was about all she could do on her own against so many beasts running wild.

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Fin and Cole both held positions a little beyond her. Fin fired bolts of lightning from his blade that arced between creatures as they approached. Emilia raced after each bolt, slicing the electrified beasts to ribbons.

Cole was spreading fire around the camp in a vain attempt to frighten off the beasts while Lenora defended him.

I took a position near Mai.

“I told you to run.”

“I won’t leave my friends,” I snapped back.

“Fine, but you’re not ready for what’s coming.”

“How do you know what’s coming?”

“…”

“So we’re back to this then. Ignoring me won’t make me listen.”

One of Mai’s chains slammed down on a raptor as it neared me, wrapping around its neck and hurling it away. “Why are you standing there talking to yourself? Get a weapon and help.” Mai yelled.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to use a CAD, but I figured now was a good time to find out.

To activate, it only needed mana. Usually that was filtered through a mage, but if I could send mana into the device then it should work all the same.

Taking the CAD I’d worn like an ornament all this time, I willed mana into it.

Shaping mana into a sword with the CAD was a thousand times easier than I’d expected. When I’d used a mana blade in the prison cell I had to constantly focus on its form, but with the CAD I only had to focus while the blade formed. After that the sword maintained shape on its own.

With ease, my blade sliced through wolf, bear, and even raptors, but not one of them attempted to scratch, nip, or bite me. Something wasn’t right. “Stop!” I shouted. “Let them pass.”

Mai looked at me strangely, but did as I said. Her chains stopped lashing at the beasts and gathered around her.

Seeing that the creatures ran past us harmlessly, the others stopped fighting as well.

With a dumb look, Fin asked, “What’s going on?”

The last of the wolves scampered through our camp whining and whimpering on their way.

Flocks of birds raced from the trees, joining others already fleeing.

Behind them, a white mist rolled over the land.

“Run! RUN!” Emilia screamed, already running away herself.

We raced back towards the main road then followed it, but the mist moved faster than we did.

When I looked back, the mist ghost was right behind me. I reached for Mai’s hand, but I was swallowed by the mist before I could grab her.

There was no longer any point in running.

Whispers swirled around me as the mist thickened.

I’d heard rumors of many horrors that happened within these white clouds, though no two stories were the same.

Once caught in the mist, it was anyone’s guess what might happen.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked X.

“I did. You didn’t listen.”

“You could’ve told me what was coming.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me. Even if you did, you wouldn’t have run if you couldn’t convince your friends.”

He was right—they’d have never believed me. I probably wouldn’t have believed him either.

The whispers in the mist grew louder until it was impossible to ignore them.

“…architect…not born…here…fairy return…” the ghost hissed, from all around me at once.

It spoke a language I didn’t understand except for a few words. What I did understand made such little sense I was sure I’d interpreted it wrong.

A pair of blood red eyes appeared before me, but the rest of its form remained undefined within the white cloud.

“…Kisanna…see…”

“It’s taking us to someone I’d rather not meet now. You need to get us free.”

“You understand this thing?”

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant. It’s taking us to a place where the spirit world bleeds together with yours. If we go there now, it’s all but certain you will die.”

“What do you expect me to do? As far as I know the only way out of the mist is to wait until it either devours you or drops you off somewhere.”

“Yes, that’s true for most, but this creature isn’t all that different from a spirit. If you steal its essence, then—”

X didn’t have to finish for me to understand. Immediately I began drawing in energy from the creature.

“—wait, you’re going to…”

If he said anything else, I couldn’t hear it. The only thing that registered was pain. I couldn’t say where, why, or how it felt. Only that it was a terribly overwhelming sensation like I’d never felt before.

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(Audrey’s point of view)

While the others slept soundly, I sat wide awake. It was a mistake coming here, but I didn’t have the heart to tell the others. Where else were they going to go?

If I left the group, then they might make it to the mantis safely, but with me present, they’d suffer. It might have been okay if I hadn’t been recognized by the guide, but I was—now it was only a matter of time.

I thought of running away, but that would only be saving myself. I’d already condemned my friends and unless I could break the seal on my neck, the only thing I could do was die with them.

It wasn’t long after the others went to sleep before I knew something was wrong.

What they called mana was actually spirit energy and it was flowing through everything.

As a fairy, I saw the world through this energy and not in its physical form, but that isn’t how I knew something terrible was coming.

It was the quiet that gave it away. The forest was too still, like something had all the beasts on edge. Not a single creature moved or made a sound, and like me, all of them were focused on a single being.

There was only one man who traveled with mist ghosts. He was the most ruthless bounty hunter in the wildlands.

The next half hour felt like it passed in a single second. The beasts fled past our camp. I wanted to stay with the group, but when I thought of home—what happened to my parents—I ran.