Chapter Three

Despite the urgency we packed, we didn’t move much faster than before. Understandably, we were tired from hours of travel already—no point in exhausting ourselves so much that we can't do anything once we reach the forest.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t highly nerve-racking watching the sun slowly fall beyond the horizon, the thought of not making it to the trees creeping deeper and deeper into my thoughts.

But make it we did, the final vestiges of the light disappearing as we met and then passed into the tree line.

The forest was more like a copse of maybe twenty or thirty trees than an actual forest. The trees were roughly 10ft tall and had thick wide branches.

As soon as we stopped, I immediately fell to my knees and started dry heaving, spit, tears, and snot flowing freely from my face onto the grass. Waiting to make sure nothing comes up before rolling onto my back. Wiping the sweat from my eyes as I struggle to regain control of my breathing.

Looking over, Lantos leaned against a tree trunk, breathing heavily, eyes constantly scanning his surrounding area. "Boy," he starts between breaths," you think you can drag yourself and Anna into a tree?"

Daniel was doing the best of us only breathing slightly harder than normal, and his hair and clothes were not even matted with sweat. And that’s with him carrying by far the most weight. Ridiculous.

He turns to look at one of the trees before saying unsurely, "Maybe?"

Lantos pushes off the trunk. "That will have to do. Get moving. We have precious little time." Moving quickly to a medium-size tree and begins to climb it slowly. Daniel places his staff against the tree and does the same on a nearby tree.

After he gets up into the branches, Daniel digs through his pack and pulls out a rope. It took a moment for me to catch on to what he was trying to do. Wobbly standing up, my legs burned as my chest began to tighten.

By now, the sun had fully set. The moonlight lit the copse casting long soft shadows across the ground.

Daniel says, lowering the rope, "Make sure the knot's tight."

Pushing down the bile rising in my throat, I nod and tie the rope around myself. Doing my best to make it secure. Gods, I hope this works.

Signaling to Daniel to pull me up, I hear what sounds like a mix between a hyena laugh, the scratching of glass, and the low rumble of a landslide coming from where we came.

Did the Beast follow us? But then, how did it gain so quickly, it was miles away?

No, if that were the case, we would have noticed. It was simply too large for us to have missed it barreling after us. This has to be a second Beast.

Looking up, Daniel is struggling, the long day making him weaker than usual. But slowly, he managed to lift the tree—inch by inch.

Once up, I hold on to the branch and lie flat and hold on as hard as possible.

The second Beast roars again, closer this time.

“Remain calm. I’m blocking our scent. It shouldn’t know we’re here.” Lantos’ voice seemed to come from between Daniel and me despite being in a different tree.

Before we can question how he is projecting his voice, a large form enters through the trees.

Revealed by the moonlight, the Beast moved on all fours. Nearly seven feet at the shoulder, it was covered in dark shaggy fur, walking on human-like hands and its back legs ending in hooves. Its head was hairless, with tight, thick skin covering its skull. Its mouth was in a permanent feral grin revealing the creature’s sharp teeth.

Lumbering, head lowered to the ground as it seemed to track something unseen. It breathed heavily, weaving through the trees, mist coming out in puffs with every breath.

Petrified, the world faded away. I focused solely on the Beast. My exhaustion was forgotten as blood pumped loudly in my ears. A chill climbed up my spine.

A feeling of unnaturalness rolled off the Beast like a malignant smell.

It lumbers closer and closer, ever so slowly approaching toward us, overturning grass and dirt in its wake.

It stops some twenty feet from our tree, lifting its head and panning over the area.

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I hold my breath, praying that it doesn’t notice me.

Growling slightly, it turns around and begins to walk back out of the forest. Letting out one last ear-piercing roar before disappearing from sight.

---

We stayed in the tree uncosted for the rest of the night though I barely managed to catch any rest despite that. The Beast stayed locked in my thoughts, keeping me from sleep, and what little I was able to capture were interrupted by nightmares.

When day broke, everyone came down from the branches and silently worked to get ready to move again. I didn’t have an appetite, but Lantos forced Daniel and me to eat. It sat poorly in my stomach but stayed down for now.

Daniel had deep bags under his eyes, getting about as much sleep as I did.

On the other hand, Lantos seemed calmer than he did leave the village. He goes over his map one more time before we set out.

Daniel is the first to speak up, leaving the trees, “How did you do that?”

Lantos continued, not even looking back, “Boy, you are going to need to be more specific than that.”

“Last night, when you projected your voice and blocked our scent, you said?. How did you do any of that?”

Sighing, Lantos stops, looking over his shoulder at Daniel, “Really, that’s what you're questioning from last night?” Continue forward, “ Like I told, your friend-,”

Daniel interrupts, “ My sister.”

“Your sister, whatever,” He spoke in an annoyed tone, starting again, “As I said to your sister, I am an adept Elementalist. Meaning I can perform magic to a standard level set by the Royal Academy of Magic. Or to dumb it down for you since I can tell you’re struggling to comprehend all the big words. I know magic.”

Daniel took the insult in stride. He thought about what Lantos said for a long moment before replying slowly, “That doesn’t answer the question, though.”

“Fine, for the projection, I used wind magic to transport the vibrations in the air to a space near you two and simply whispered what I wanted to say. The second thing was even easier. I made a low breeze in a bubble around you and a separate one for myself. Trapping your scent to a space the Beast couldn’t sense. Did that answer your question.”

Daniel smiled, “Yes, sir, thank you for the answer.”

“Good, I don’t want another till we reach San’hallon.”

The morning passes without event. We travel slower than yesterday, Lantos seeming not wanting to rush. Noon comes, and we stop for a short rest.

Lantos says we should arrive at San’hallon in another day of travel. Unfortunately, there isn’t a forest to hide in for the rest of the way. I had never hated the landscape of the Outlands before, but the idea of being out in the open at night made me sick to my stomach.

“So,” Lantos says, “we will travel for another couple hours, and then Anna, you will begin your first magic lesson.

I blinked, “I thought I would learn magic at the Academy?” I wasn’t complaining. I just didn’t understand why he wasted time when I was to learn whatever he taught me later.

He looked at me like I was an idiot, “ Did you really expect to travel for a month or more to the Capital and not learn anything about it along the way.” My face burned with embarrassment. “Besides, traveling is dangerous. I can’t afford for you to be useless forever.”

I flinch at that, it hurts but he’s right. I was too useless to get in a tree last night. What if Daniel wasn’t here, like he nearly wasn’t, or he wasn’t able to pull me into the tree. The thought sickened and frightened me in equal measure.

“She's not useless,” Daniel said, taking a step toward Lantos. He didn’t have to lie, but the thought was appreciated.

“Whatever you say, child. Let’s get moving. We're burning daylight.”

---

We couldn’t reach one village’s waystations before we stopped for the night. Yesterday’s events still taking its toll on us.

Lantos sat me down in the grass off the path, him sitting in front of me. “So before we start there are four rules generally to a human’s magic. Other sapient races have different rules but are still bound by the first rule: Like attracts like. Meaning magical creatures can sense other magical creatures, whether naturally or through training.” He spoke in a lecture drone as if repeating from memory.

“Is that how you found me, sir?” I asked. I wondered about this before. I just didn’t think there was an actual reason beyond luck.

He looked slightly surprised, “ Yes, well, no,” he said haltingly, “ I’m not very good at sensing, but the fact that magic occurs more often in women and that screechers don’t like the sense of heat-based Elementalist gave me a good start.”

Oh. How many false positives he gets from that?

He continues,” The second and third rules are the most important, so make sure you listen.” He pulls the two glass orbs from his side and holds one in each hand. In his right was the orb with the fine black powder. The sphere on his left was empty save for small, almost inky black clumps at the bottom. “The second is the rule of conduits. A conduit, in this case, is anything that channels magic, and for us, the most important conduit is primordial essence,” holding up the two orbs. “ I have primordial ash,” gesturing with the right orb, “and primordial air, this time with the left. “If you don’t have primordial essence you can’t use magic. Aids like my wand,” patting the velvet-lined box on his right hip, “ and my glove counts as conduits, but they aren’t as necessary to perform magic.”

So the essence is like fuel to a fire, and the aids help somehow, maybe with focus or control? He could have said that in a faster way but simple enough to understand so far.

“The third is affinity, simply put, Elementalist holds an, let’s say, exclusionary bias to an element. Most have an affinity to at least two elements. Some only have one, and almost no one has three. The fourth and final rule is that one can not start a magical effect inside another creature. For example, I can’t take the air from your lungs away but I can take away the air surrounding your head so you can’t breathe.” He continued to lecture me till sundown.

We hid in a ditch Daniel dug during my lesson at night, Lantos masking our presence again. As I lay there trying to sleep the previous night with the Beast once again entered my mind, the last thought I had before was that I would never let myself feel that scared or helpless.

And magic is how I’m going to change things.