CHAPTER 94

I wake to light and the final wisps of smoke rising from an ashy and haphazard circle of stones. Essa is on her side, her back to the fire’s remains. Hilde leans against a tree, mouth open, snoring softly. The smell of smoke and ash lies heavy in the air.

“Crap.”

I say it as I stand, head swiveling. The woods extend in all directions, old growth trees keeping vigilant watch over their competitors, all reaching for the same brilliant sunlight. Even in the day, the canopy is too thick to permit much light from reaching down to the ground. The forest is a half-world ruled by shadows that cast reality in grey and black and menacing shapes. My hand darts to the side, reaching for Rue, and finds him gone. My chest tightens…

Here.

The thought is accompanied by a soft buzz from above. I look up, and there he is, a small dark blob sitting on a low branch.

Gods, Rue. I thought they’d taken you.

Who’d taken me, Malco?

I… Someone. Anyone. I don’t know. You’ve been keeping watch?

Yes, Malco. Rue snakes along the branch until he’s directly above me. But there was little to watch after Hilde fell asleep. Please catch me.

He lets himself fall down, courses through the air, and lands on my palm with a little splat, like overripe fruit.

Nothing? I ask.

Not nothing. There were birds. And trees. And a little cat that watched you from the shadows there, but I don’t think it meant you harm.

I smile.

I guess that’s alright. As long as it didn’t mean harm. No humans?

Rue buzzes, bobs up and down in his imitation of a shrug.

No humans, Malco. And everything else went away eventually except for the trees and the owl.

Owl?

One of the birds. Big round eyes. She was… A thin tendril extends from his blobby surface pointing up again. There.

It takes me a moment to find what he means: an owl watching me, hidden up on the highest tree branches. Her soft, round head his completely turned my way, and big, intelligent eyes watch me with mistrust.

Did it do anything? I ask.

She watched. Rue’s buzz takes on a higher-pitched busy tone that I associate with worry. Should I have killed her?

No! No. How do you know it’s a she?

Bob up, bob down. Shrug. The owl maintains her watchful stance, without a hoot or a peep or a ruffling of feathers. Her eyes seem to me judging, slightly offended, and entirely displeased. Not the most pleasant bird I’ve met.

“Is everything alright?”

Essa shifts in a pile of leaves. Little clumps of dirt cling to her dark skin, and though she looks as tired as I feel, her body is tense, ready for anything to go wrong at the slightest provocation.

“It’s fine,” I say. “Rue was just telling me about that o—what the hell is that!”

My shout carries through the woods. Distant birds grow silent, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hilde comes out of her fitful sleep with a snort, repeating ‘I’m awake, I’m awake!’. Rue’s buzz accelerates into a frenzy. Essa stands, clasping her weapon and levelling it in every direction danger might issue from. Only the owl remains still, though the contempt in her eyes grows visibly.

“What? What is it!” Essa finishes a complete turn around herself to look me in the eye. I stare right back at her. Or rather, at the thing in her hands.

“That! That’s—”

The Black Sword. Obrein’s legendary sword and Valkas’ symbol of office. In two separate occasions it was used against me, and I found its dark, oily tip, angled somewhere at my sternum, to be extremely menacing. Even though Essa was holding on to it.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Essa asks with a grin. “It’s extremely light, but the balance is perfect.”

“You took it?” I ask, horrified.

“Yeah?” Essa grins. “It was just lying there. I bet Valkas wasn’t planning on dying like that.”

Oh, gods. Valkas’ sword, the symbol and namesake of the godsdamned Black Sword guild. I think back to the flashes of green we saw last night from Roark’s stables. The army descending on us.

I shake my head.

“No,” I say. “You did right. They were coming for us anyway, but…”

The Black Sword’s domain is precarious. It all hangs on the man’s shoulders.

“It’s just so much, it’s… good. It’s great!”

Essa nods, smiling, and wipes a speck of dust off the blade. Only Hilde doesn’t seem too impressed, giving the sword a cursory look before standing and stretching. She frowns.

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“Why is there so much smoke in the air?”

I point down to our wisping campfire, but at the same time catch a lungful of air. My arm drops.

“You’re right. I thought it was the campfire, but it’s too much.”

We look around, searching for a source, but none reveals itself. We’re left staring at each other.

“He wouldn’t…?” Essa begins.

“He would,” I nod.

Valkas. If the forest stood behind him and his goal, be that us or Lysander, what would he do? Simple. He’d burn the woods down and sift through the remains.

As one, we come to the same conclusion. We must move. Packing up is a matter of minutes, and we waste little time kicking away the ash of our fire. If they find it, they find it. Right now, the goal is not to get trapped in an inferno.

In the smoky half-light, we make better time than in complete darkness. We run in a line after Essa, who scours the ground for hints and clues of earlier passage and complains endlessly of how she doesn’t have time to do the job right. So mostly, we run straight, away from rather than to.

We quickly find ourselves going down a steep incline into a small valley. It’s Hilde who finds a narrower and hardly-used track through thornbushes that slice and scratch at us as we make our way up the other side of the incline to a clearing. We stop, breathing deep of the slightly cleaner air, though the smell of smoke is impossible to get away from.

We are at a higher point than where we started. From here, we can see much of the forest, green and brown and lush, a single unit stretching into the distance. But a spear has cut through a swathe of this single piece of fabric. A blackened triangle, growing wider, sends thick plumes of smoke up into the air and plunges ever deeper into the heart of the woods.

Mossgreen must be heartbroken. Wherever he is.

“We should go,” I say after a minute. “We’re far from where we started. I can’t see the village. But there are no hills that I know of close to Lysander’s place, so we must have gotten off-track.”

Essa groans.

“We can’t just keep walking in circles. It’s dangerous, plus a waste of time and energy.”

“I don’t know where Lysander’s place is!” my arms shoot out to my sides, scarecrow-like. “There? There? I have no clue. If you have a better idea than just searching, I’m all ears!”

Essa narrows her eyes and opens her mouth, in all likelihood with a ready answer in her lips. Hilde holds up a hand, interrupting.

“Hum. I thought we could just follow Valkas’ directions.” She points towards the smoking triangle. “He’s not burning down the forest, he’s using pyromancy to burn through it. Wherever he’s aiming at, it’s probably where we want to go if we want to rescue your elf.”

“That’s…” Essa smacks her lips. “That’s a very good idea.”

“Yeah,” I say, embarrassed. “It is. Let’s go, then, we should…”

“Wait,” Hilde interrupts. “Before we do, I’d like to do something else. I checked the book of fog this morning and I gained something. After last night, I assume,” she smiles, still beaming pride at her accomplishment. “There are a few options. Let me read through them, and maybe I’ll find something we can use.”

“Sounds good,” Essa says with a quick shrug. “The Black Sword league isn’t aiming anywhere near here. I think we should be alright to wait a few minutes.”

After my agreement, Hilde settles down to read. I watch as the lines of her face crease and her eyes move from side to side, reading the words only she can see.

As we wait, I notice a sudden movement above, and watch as an owl lands on a spindly, hopeless-looking tree. It turns its disappointed eyes to me.

“Hey, maybe read it aloud?” Essa asks, interrupting my perusal of the bird. “We can help you decide.”

Hilde nods.

“There are a few interesting Intermediate spells for the Dark, Combat, and Stone traditions, which I’m already an initiate in, or I can pick a new tradition out of Ice or Light. Then there’s… Perks. These are… Oh. They’re all related to caligomancy. Wait, I’ll read them aloud.” She clears her throat, then continues. “’Lord of Dim Places: as well as turning into a Caligor, you can use caligomancy like regular magic, learning the Caligomancy tradition along with two Basic and one Intermediate spell from the list. Using this magic consumes the darkness you’ve absorbed.’” Hilde pauses, apparently feeling the allure of that particular option. “’Kind Bearer: you can sense and absorb heavy of encumbering emotions from others around you. These can be used in replacement for the darkness you absorb to power your caligomancy.’ And finally, ‘Wrathful Darkness: give a shape to your Caligor. This decision is permanent.”

Hilde pauses, staring straight ahead.

“I think the Lord one sounded nice,” I say. “More magic is…”

“No,” Hilde says decisively. “Not that. It’s good, sure, but caligomancy is costly to use. The time I had to spend in darkness to do what I did yesterday… I have to think in terms of what’s urgent, and what I really need is to speed up the charging process. Kind Bearer.”

After a moment, Hilde blinks, smiles, and stands, dusting off her robes.

“Ready?”

I stare in awe.

“It took me days to choose my first Perk!”

Hilde looks at me, confused.

“It was the only option. These things are always incredibly vague, so you never really know what you’re picking. More spells are always good, but none drew my eye, so I focused on fighting caligomancy’s worst flaw: the time it takes to absorb enough darkness. That’s Kind Eater.”

“Very methodic,” Essa mutters with a half-smile. “Can we go now?”

“Well…” Hilde is still watching me, head turned to the side. “In a moment. Malco?”

“Hum. Yes?”

“I feel it.” Hilde takes a step towards me. “You’re… something’s weighing you down.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hilde steps closer. Hand raised, fingers trembling slightly, like she’s using them to taste the air between us.

“I think I can help. Lighten the load, so to speak.”

Brow furrowed, I look at Essa, who looks equally uncomfortable. She shrugs.

“If it helps Hilde do whatever she did yesterday, I say go for it.”

Hilde waits, expectant. Her expression is strange. Eager, almost. Though she’s keeping a polite distance away from me, there’s a hesitance there, like she can’t wait to cross that barrier.

Swallowing, I nod.

It comes immediately. A feeling of gentleness. Of release. Like something I didn’t know I was carrying was suddenly lifted from my shoulders.

“Is it done?” Essa asks.

“How do you feel?” Hilde asks.

I breathe in.

“Good?” I taste the word. The world seems new somehow. “Very good. Happy? I feel happy. About what we’re doing. About what we’ve done.”

“What do you mean?” Essa asks.

A manic grin crawls up the sides of my face.

“We took everything from Valkas. Do you realize that? In a single night he lost the sword and three Challengers. Don’t you see? This is the war!” I look at them both, Hilde and Essa, and the confusion in their faces. “The war Arbiter told me about! You!” I yell up at the owl, who blinks slowly. “You’re hers, aren’t you? You’re here because it’s happening! I…”

“Malco, I don’t think the bird knows what you mean,” Hilde begins. “Plus, it’s far-fetched. The Black Sword guild is the largest in the world. They’re not going to tumble from their perch just because a few kids and a glorified kitchen knife went missing.”

I slice my arm through the air dismissively.

“You don’t get it. You know how Godtouched are. Always plotting. Always looking for angles, to take their cut. The other guilds will see this as weakness! And Wyl’s people, they’re sure to use this as well. It’s going to be chaos. War. That?” I point at the growing triangle of black smoke. “That’s desperation. Wherever Valkas is going, we have to get there first. You with me?”

While Rue agrees with vehement excitement, I watch Hilde and Essa share a look. Worried. Hilde looks down at her hands.

“Malco, maybe I rushed this,” she says slowly. “I thought I would make you feel better, but maybe I took something important.”

“No,” I shake my head, smiling. “Thank you, Hilde. I’m better. I’m happy. I know we can do this.”

The worry is still there. No mind. If they don’t get it now, they will soon. I turn away and, bounding down the sharp incline, begin to run.