“You still don’t realize what you did, do you?” Makka asked me.

A few quiet days had passed since the challenge ended. The whole town had been put on pause. It seemed like life left not only Drak’oora Kasd but all other Drak’ga.

We had no official parting ceremony. I was expecting to have a public lecture about the wrongdoings of Kasd, about his decision to risk Inkers’ lives for the sake of an empty chest. But that never happened.

Two days passed by peacefully in my room. Food was left at our doors and we were told not to roam unless absolutely necessary. I missed the baths. I missed being able to meet with Yaira and Makka. Being alone was a curse, a trauma that I still had no got over.

When they finally let us free, I immediately decided to meet them. Unanimously, our voices almost overlapping into a single one, we begged each other a visit to the baths.

It was not the most cheerful meet up, but it certainly was relaxing. For the first time in a week I felt all the tension associated with the challenge wash away. I closed my eyes, forgot about time and other mortal worries, and let the warm water sooth me.

I forgot they were there, and would have fallen asleep if not for Makka’s question.

“Hmm?” I hummed as as I barely managed to come back to reality. “What do you mean?”

“You might not remember, but three days ago, right before the challenge closing ceremony, you were right here working on the formation.”

“I remember,” I whispered. “Actually, I remember there was a crowd around me?”

“So you do remember,” Yaira chimed in. “But you don’t seem to be aware of what happened. Right?”

I tilted my head and forced myself to recollect the events of that day. I knew that the experience was otherworldly. That the feats I achieved that day I’d have said were impossible just a week before. They didn’t know what I had done, but something else must have happened.

“There is something I still have to explain you,” I recognized, “and it might have something to do with what you mean. But I am not sure. What happened?”

She straightened, pulled Makka closer to me, and moved herself to a dangerously near spot. Her mouth approached my ear. I heard her lips moving, her breath chilling my bones.

“It was amazing.”

She paused for so long that I was afraid she was teasing me. That she wouldn’t let me know the rest and I’d have to beg for an answer. Luckily, she was not so vile of a person.

“That day, what we saw there, was not an Inker. We saw a master working on the masterwork of a century. From the moment you closed your eyes, the water around you formed ripples. That alone would have caught the attention of the whole baths, and it did, but the best was yet to come.“

She hadn’t moved an inch from my side. I felt her agitated breathing. How obviously excited she was to be telling me her recount of the events. Makka was a bundle of nerves. He splashed water as he tried, and failed, to stop his legs from involuntarily moving.

“You started drawing the most complex formation we have ever seen. At some point Makka tried to understand what was happening, and he failed. Yet the pinnacle came when we realized that the Drak’gath pen you were holding hadn’t moved at all.

“I’m sure you know that tattooing without a fountain pen is something everyone with enough knowledge can do. And I’m also sure you know how strongly discouraged it is. You risk damaging tissue, the drawing itself, Ink. It’s just not possible to get the small details right. I would venture to say that everyone present that day would only be able to draw some small knife, if at all.“

She paused, and I committed the error of turning and looking directly at her eyes. They were sparkling, filled with hope, uncertainty, and… fear. There were tears dropping from them.

“Yet your Drak’gath didn’t move. Ink obeyed you to extremes that I don’t think are possible. To an expertise that I doubt even Drak’ooras at our town have.”

There was a silence. Far from awkward, we all used it to think of the implications of what Yaira just described. I was sure that my experience with true sight had everything to do with it—I followed the string of Ink that represented the formation.

“I’m not proud of it,” Makka suddenly broke our concentration, “but when you went up there to challenge Drak’oora Kasd… I was not afraid for you. I think I should have been. I should have stopped you. But with what I had seen, how could I doubt that you had the answer?”

“It’s my fault, I should have told you sooner. Instead… I just explained what Drak’oora Layan had schemed. I focused on my problems and forgot that you must have been worrying about me. Or not,” I smirked as I looked to Makka. “I didn’t know anything of this happened, but I don’t find it hard to believe.”

I was about to say come closer, I have to explain you something that can’t leave here, but then I was remained how close Yaira already was when her leg caressed mine. Close enough already.

They both already knew of my sight, how I could see Ink and where it linked to, which made the following explanation much more simple. It was, I thought, an extension of what I could already see. But better, more intimate and powerful. When I entered communion—true communion if I was not mistaken—the channels of light that represented Ink transformed into tangible strings.

I could pull them. Drag them. I could follow their path and read them like an open book. I still was not sure I could actually understand what was written in them, but I could certainly let Ink take control and copy it. Old glyphs, sigils, formations, everything I could have ever imaged was laid out openly in those strings.

I could not stop myself from drawing parallels. Drak’ga were said to live bare-chested so that people could see their tattoos. I was going one step beyond that and proclaiming that it was a new tradition that was birthed when Drak’ga could no longer enter true communion and see Ink itself.

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There are no secrets if you can openly read Ink, no way to hide them from the eyes of any other individual. When the Empire diluted Ink to a point that true communion was no longer possible, the Drak’ga went for the next best thing; showing them openly.

I kept pulling on that particular line of thought. True communion allowed you to see all Ink. It wasn’t far-fetched to think that, at some point, I would be able to understand exactly what every glyph and formation meant and did. And, if I could, why wouldn’t just anyone else be able to?

The Empire had engineered a formation to secretly spy on its people. To be immediately warned if someone tried to spread the secrets of the old ways. What if what they wanted to prevent was much more than that?

By diluting Ink you stop people from entering communion, and from any added benefits that could bring. Because, if there was something I was sure of, is that I had just scratched the surface of what communion could do. However, if you can’t enter true communion, and you are not granted this Ink sight, then you cannot discover that the Empire is controlling everything and everyone.

“That’s worrying,” Yaira said. “I mean, it alone is wrong in so many levels, but I think we don’t even know half of what’s going on. You remember the book I was reading, right? The great beasts of the East.”

I did. After all I had already shared notes with her and even superficially read it once.

“I believe,” she continued, “and mind this is mostly speculation at this point, that Ink originates on the East. The reason why the Empire keeps sending soldiers there, why they have diluted the existing Ink, why there has not been any distribution recently… I am convinced everything points to the East.”

“The East…” Makka repeated slowly after Yaira finished speaking. “We, Setalan, have always known that there was something wrong. The official versions never made truly sense. Squadrons full of young soldiers not returning, ever, and what for?”

The heavy atmosphere weighted on us. We were realizing the magnitude of the situation was beyond our wildest dreams. It was not about the Empire hiding the old ways, but about them digging a hole so deep that the whole truth about Ink could not be found.

“I have to go back,” Makka suddenly yelled.

Yaira and I, both, quickly grabbed the already standing Makka by his arms.

“Back where!?” Yaira exclaimed.

“Home! Where else? My family…” The normally calm and cheerful Makka, the very same one who never knew when to stop talking, had ran out of words. “My family is still there…”

Yaira looked at me, and I looked at her. I didn't have any family. My mother had died. Spare had died. But I knew what it was to love someone. I knew that I would leave everything and run to a certain death if there was the smallest chance to save them. I had done so with Spare.

“Makka, you can't.” I was an hypocrite. “If you go now you won’t accomplish anything.”

“And what? I just wait here until the inevitable happens?”

“If you go now, you will die.”

“I won't! I need to get them out of the-”

“You don't understand!” I shouted, forgetting I was in the public baths, as I broke into tears. “You don't understand…”

A hand landed on my shoulder and moved to caress my cheeks, stopping my tears from rolling down my face. I knew it was Yaira without having to look.

The pull on my arm stopped; Makka was looking at me with a broken smile.

“What is it that I don't understand?”

Just two days ago I had decided that I would carry the burden myself. That they would not have to know their lives were at stake. And just now, I had to break that promise that I did to myself.

“The Empire knows,” I got each word out in between sobs. “Drak’oora Layan knows. If you go now, she won't refrain anymore and the Empire will come after you.”

I didn't make much sense. I left too much unsaid. But Makka understood it all. The Empire was aware they were looking into the old ways, into communion, and now even knew about secrets that should have never been told.

If they were alive, it was only because Layan decided so. Because I had something to do for her, and if any of them died, I wouldn't. If Makka left, however, Layan would be free to do as she wished—what if Makka had decided to spread all the information?

“You are my only friends, and I can't let that happen. But now… I can't do anything now.”

It was hard to say. Friends. I had never truly had any of those. The closest was the neighbours’ kid back in Lamar's inn, and I can't say he was more than a playground mate. Malla and Yaira, in the short period of time I had been here, had become indispensable parts of my life.

Makka was still looking at me. Perhaps trying to contain his rage; I wouldn't blame him for feeling that way.

“I promise, Makka, I'll go there myself with you. I will train every single day until I can't not even hold myself upright. I will beg Layan if need be that we can go there. I'll do everything it takes. But I need time.”

“And I'll come with you,” Yaira said immediately after me without even spending a second to think over how crazy of an idea it was.

Mamma closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He released the air over the next five seconds, and reopened his eyes.

“You are too my friend, Tarar.” I could not helpt but cry again. “I can't say I'm happy with waiting, but I can say I trust you. As long as I don't receive any worrying news from there, I shall wait until you tie everything down.”

Given the circumstances, that was all I could as for. Time. My fighting classes were being arranged and I would start within the week. I would study glyphs until my head exploded. And I would have to convince Drak’oora Layan to let us go there.

The last one worried me. But then again, wasn't she who gave us the book The great beasts of the East? If she didn't want us to go there, then it was a useless effort and a waste of time to read that book. I could probably negotiate with her, and for the right price she would surely allow us to go there. Or so I hoped.

Makka left, leaving Yaira and I alone in our small patch of water. Albeit she was not as close to me as she had been a few minutes ago, thankfully.

“I should have told you before, sorry.” I apologized to Yaira for not telling her either. “I thought you wouldn't need to know for now, that I could protect you from Layan and the Empire. But…”

“Yes you should!” Yaira said a bit more cheerfully than I was expecting her to. “You said it yourself, right? We are friends. I need you to trust me. To trust I can defend myself and that I can also defend you. Don't try to do everything by yourself.”

She was absolutely right, and we both knew it. They were equals, and I had to treat them as such. Not as some defenseless kid I had to protect against the dangers of the real world. They had been there for me when the traditionalist Drak’ga threatened me, sacrificing their own time and risking their own integrity. I could not repay them by keeping them out of matters that had to do with their own future.

“I will, I promise. I’m really not used to saying it…” I blushed as I recalled how I had just said it, “but you really are my friends. I don’t want to betray our trust.”

She smiled and did the one thing I was not expecting. A wave of water hit my face as the rest splashed elsewhere on her wake. She recklessly got up while raising her arms, and wrapping them around me she hugged me.

It was not a new feeling, my mother usually did it. Spare also did it. But none of them would do so anymore.

For the same time on the short span of fifteen minutes I once again became a mess, crying on her shoulder as she pressed harder on me. It was comforting to know I was not alone, that there was people who cared about me.

We stayed there for longer than I dare admit. For longer than I feel comfortable writing in these pages. I will only say it was magical. It was a breaking point in healing my open wounds, a giant step in my emotional maturity.

When I finally let go she said nothing about it. She smiled, warmly and lovely. We said our goodbyes and then I slept for the whole day. The exchange had left me exhausted, and even if the previous days had been monotone and boring, I still managed to sleep until the next day.