Her morose mood that she put herself into didn’t improve. What was worse was the decision to start traveling again since her condition was under control - she was still confined to the cart as she was still too weak to walk more than a few steps. Furthermore, the enchantment Laell put to manage the pain was limited to the cart itself. Aris already struggled during the short time away from the cart just to relieve herself.

She had to spend long stretches of the day bouncing uncomfortably on the cart as Verne pulled it down what feels like the rockiest trails they could find.

“You have rocks for eyes, my dear,” Camaz had said when she complained. “We are avoiding detection by taking a discreet path.”

“And you’re not the one p-pulling the cart,” she heard Laell mutter.

“Neither are you,” Aris said.

“You’re the one s-sitting on it,” Laell shot back.

“You’re welcome to join me.” Aris looked in the direction of the runist’s voice. “Or are you too disgusted with me to even do that?”

The woman didn’t answer, her warm gold-yellow solute flickering in what Aris interpreted as annoyance. It was her only form of entertainment during the miserable traveling. Laell was the easiest to aggravate and Camaz reacted predictably if she pressed the right buttons. Only Verne was a hard nut to crack.

“How do we know your ‘friends’ aren’t going to find us and eviscerate us all?” Aris asked Camaz randomly when they found a spot to stop for the night.

“I killed them all,” Camaz said, his voice calm by the crackle of the campfire.

“Oh, with your abilities?” Aris asked. She watched his solute blanch at her words as if squirming to get away from her. “The one where you make people do things they don’t want to?”

“Yes, that one.”

“How would I know that you’re not manipulating me right now?” she asked airily. “You are a master at manipulation. I’m your prime target.”

“Because,” he said tightly, “you’re still talking.”

A cold smile crossed her face. “How did you let your ‘friend’ kidnap your students? I thought you and your super abilities could get anyone to off themselves. Are you growing soft with age?”

“Moulu and his men had some sort of talisman that stops abilities,” Camaz said. “It stops manus abilities too. It was like it deactivated us. It was only because of Laell’s quick thinking we managed to destroy the talismans.”

“Something like that happened to Nilda,” Aris suddenly remembered aloud. “The night the castle got attacked. I saw it with my own eyes. Her abilities couldn’t touch our assailant.”

It was a single thread connecting the Bringers to the attack on Caelis.

“How did you disable them?”

“The talismans were made of wood. Laell made an enchantment that would burn up wood and tricked them into stepping into it, burned it enough to ruin the markings on them.”

Aris let out a snort. “Why would they let a runist make any kind of markings?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“We convinced them that the only way to find you was to make some sort of tracking spell. They believed us.”

“Your Bringers must have wanted me badly.”

“Mo - Moulu told me their god won’t tolerate your existence. He called you an obstacle to something they called the Final Solution. Aris, do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

Aris didn’t like it, but she did, in fact, have some inkling over what he was saying. Everything that Doran said to her that day before the Story Stones in the Munna village clicked to what Camaz was saying to her. Doran had said one of the Parts wanted vengeance against Gaians and that he created her as a solution to a problem.

One of the Parts is dreaming. Was this what the genocidal Part was dreaming about? The Final Solution?

If she told Camaz about her conversation with Doran, he would surely piece together what happened. “Your friend was mad,” she offered as a response.

There was a stretch of silence. Both Laell and Verne were asleep as both were exhausted from travel. Interestingly, Aris noticed solutes don’t change much even when one was sleeping so she wasn’t certain they were truly asleep.

“You shouldn’t provoke Laell like that,” Camaz said quietly, breaking the silence.

“I don’t provoke her.”

“You do and you shouldn’t. She’s done a lot for you, much more than normal people would. Same with Verne, that young man basically nursed you back to life.”

“What about you then?” she said. “Are you gonna tell me you’ve done a lot for me as well?”

“No.”

“Good because none of this would have happened if you hadn’t kicked me out in the first place,” Aris shrugged. She kept prodding him, hoping to goad him into doing… something.

“It’s funny,” Camaz said coolly. “I recall you wanted to leave.”

“I wanted the freedom to leave the island, not be shunned by the Academy.” She couldn’t believe she had to spell it out like that. “Don’t you dare put this on me.”

“And why couldn’t you just leave if you wanted to leave?” Camaz pressed. “Why did you have to perform morally questionable things in protest? Hm?”

“It wasn’t just about leaving, it was about doing something,” Aris said. She balled her hands into fists. “Instead of just floundering around pointlessly reading books all day. I want Caelis back, Camaz. I want what was mine back. What’s so wrong to make things fair again?”

“Well we can’t always get what we want,” Camaz said. She heard him stand to get closer to her, his voice strained and angry but he still kept it down to not disturb the sleeping duo. “None of us do. Life is unfair to everybody, it’s what’s most fair about life. The difference is most of us don’t go around hurting others in retaliation.”

“You got what you want,” she replied. “You hated being a Sekrelli spy so you ran from it. You didn’t like something in your life so you changed it, you even left your kingdom. Why can’t I do that? Why is it when I strive for what I want, I’m suddenly the one that’s doing everything wrong?”

“I ran away to stop from hurting others,” Camaz said furiously. “But it seems like you did it to keep doing it. That’s the fucking difference. If you can’t see that, I can’t help you.”

“You don’t have proof I’ve done anything.”

“What, you mean that growth on your very face and the changes in your solute? Don’t make me laugh, Aris, you killed someone - something - and absorbed them just like you did the Shade. You have blood stained hands.”

Aris didn’t let herself become shaken by the truth of it. “Of course you would be the expert at killing and solutes. Tell me, do you feel the same thrill when you grope my solute?”

“Stop it, Aris.” Camaz's voice was flat. His solute became still and solid, like it was bracing for something.

“What was it you just said? Morally questionable things? I’m sure you’re an expert at that as well,” she tinged her voice with sarcasm. “C’mon Camaz, the sooner you embrace it the sooner you can thoroughly enjoy who you really are. You can shout off the mountaintops how you enjoy watching someone peel their own skin off!”

She could feel Camaz studying her. His solute remained infuriatingly calm even if it was starting to show signs of irritation. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he finally said. “But if you’re trying to aggravate us to force our hand into hurting you, it’s not going to happen.”

She gave him a forced smile. “Of course not. Simply because I never get what I want.”