Ral felt every muscle in his body tense as he focused hard on closing the Gate. A mangled body lay underneath the flat circle of black fire but with no indication of runes around it: this was a ‘naturally occurring’ Gate, as the people of Sansre and Rask had taken to calling it. Although Ral failed to see anything natural about any of this.

“Fight, son of suns, and fail,” the eerie voice beyond the dark fire hissed at him. “Fail…”

Trembling, he crushed the solute fueling the Gate’s opening and the black fire flickered out. He’s seen what’s beyond the Gate: endless tendrils of madness and disembodied body parts. He had no desire to confront that infinite monstrosity again. The three Unseeing bodies behind him dissolved like melting snow into the ground along with the disappearance of the Gate. Rask and Ral had continued to witness again and again that the monsters were regular Gaians that turned with the appearance of the Gate.

None of that information really helped the situation. People were still dying, people were still scared. Gates still opened in random spots out in the area previously known as Caelis: the kingdom Ral would have ruled with his sister. He staggered down onto the ground next to the rubble and corpses left behind in the little town.

This was the third Gate they had closed since arriving at Sansre. They were late in two other instances where the Gate had closed on its own. Regardless whether or not he closed a Gate didn’t matter as Ral never felt like it was enough.

“You are making a difference,” Rask would say to him on the journey back with any survivors. “I want you to remember that.”

But it was difficult seeing the scenery he remembered as a boy and even harder to see the bodies strewn on the ground after every incident. He had envisioned returning home to have less death and suffering and that the difference he made would involve more… kingly things instead of spending his days fighting monsters and closing other worldly portals. Then again, what would ‘kingly things’ look like? Neither he nor Aris were trained to be royals.

There were three survivors in that town. One of them was hiding in the forest and wasn’t injured at all except for shock. Another had his arm wrapped in bandages from an Unseeing trying to gnaw it off. The third was on the brink of death and had to be carefully transported in a seat designed to strap a patient in yet allowed them to be carried on horseback.

Ral helped the Sansre men secure the heavily injured man and pulled himself onto his horse to ride back. Sansre seemed overwhelmed with horses: refugees often arrived with any stray horse that had ran away from any Gate openings and left them there, thinking the villagers would find use for them. The way Tlatt begged people to take a horse or two was a stark contrast to what he had to deal with weeks ago at Alkkes.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The sun had led him down a path where there were first no horses and now too many horses. If he was a Somas, this would be no coincidence and would hold much meaning. But he was no Somas and the Wisdom wasn’t there to confer with him.

They returned to Sansre with Kevel shouting for healers. They had developed a kind of system for injured intakes, placing them in specific rooms depending on the severity of their injury. With practiced speed, the villagers of Sansre had the severely injured man unstrapped and carried into a sterilized room for further assessment while a more junior healer attended to the man with the bleeding arm.

“Freerunner, Tlatt needs to see you,” a young girl scurried over. She looked to be carrying bundles of clean bandages for the healers. “In the main hall. He said it’s urgent.”

Rask and Ral exchanged glances as they hitched their horses and went into the main community building, a wide and spacious wooden house that served as a dining hall or extra space for the injured. There was also a very small spare room at the back for the occasional surprise guest. Ral never had to use it as Rask had a small house specially reserved for him in the corner of Sansre.

Ral sorely wanted to wash up and take a nap, but followed Rask instead to see Tlatt. The village chief was a burly, hairy man half a head shorter than Ral. Despite the constant reminder that he didn’t want to be chief, Tlatt was holding down the fort adeptly for someone with no experience in managing a town. He had a kind of inherent ability for leadership and people simply looked to him for direction.

Rask had said Ral’s father, the previous Solaris, had many of the same qualities. Ral took the captain’s word for it as he could barely remember what his father sounded like. Tlatt had tried multiple times to have Rask make executive decisions and to stay permanently in Sansre as de-facto village chief as it was an open secret who Rask really was. However, curiously, nobody seemed to suspect who Ral really was.

Of course, the entire Caelisian family is supposed to be dead. “It’s unnecessary for anyone to believe otherwise, don’t you think?” Rask had said when Ral made a comment.

He thought that he would care. These people would technically be under his rule if he ever re-established Caelis as a kingdom. He had considered that maybe his father would be disappointed he didn’t try to ‘rule’ these people. But in the context of Gates, monsters and death, why did any of that even matter? He had a job to do with his one, amateurish ability that nobody else knows how to use. Was it kingly to simply focus on that? All Ral knew was that it was saving lives. It’s all he could think about.

So he slotted himself into life alongside Rask in Sansre, taking up the staff like a Freerunner and killing monsters. It will have to be the sun-guided path for now, until another path shows itself.

“Gentlemen,” Tlatt rumbled when he saw them. He rose to his feet from the giant carved desk he made himself in his previous occupation as carpenter. Sheaths of paperwork cluttered the table, alongside tomes of records. He looked to be in the middle of writing a letter. The whole bureaucratic look starkly contrasted his robust appearance that looked more fitting behind a workbench. “There is someone you need to meet.”

He led them to the back of the building to where the spare room sat beside a modest store room. Ral briefly wondered what guest would have them go to them in the tiny spare room instead of meeting them in the spacious area out front, but his questions were answered when he saw the Sekrelli man tied up in the corner.