We slept around Castille that night. Dugan burned through most of his will, getting her to a stable condition. I fell asleep in the underbrush, and Isla didn’t want to be alone. In the morning, we limped back to camp. With Dugan and Castille bedridden, Isla and I cleared the campsite of the dead. She was mostly fine, her attempt at healing leaving her more tired than usual. I didn’t question how she used two different types of Landbound magic, but our conversation about bowl sizes crossed my mind.

The next day, we decided to stop healing Castille. We were vulnerable to ambushes in camp and on the road. Tiring out our mages with healing that could be done naturally only left us more exposed. So, while Castille healed, Dugan and Isla fortified the camp, and I patrolled.

I was happy for the time alone. I needed time to think and train.

“What is a weapon?”

I wondered the question aloud as I weaved between the trees, moving through the underbrush without a sound as I hunted rabbits for our evening stew.

“A master of utility, misdirection and ruthlessness,” I whispered, wiping my dagger on my fourth kill of the day.

And that was the problem. I didn’t know if my definition of ruthlessness was correct. Sin wasn’t around to tell me. If I was ruthless, should I have let Castille die instead of saving her? No, she was useful… and saving her felt good.

I frowned. Feeling good made me suspicious. It was too much like being weak.

I sighed.

Sin… why did you leave?

When I wasn’t stalking through the forest, I was practicing Landbound magic. Isla shared the exercises from her early mage training. The exercises taught focus, one of the three factors that affected will. Maintaining focus did not increase your will but allowed you to use it more efficiently. The exercises were eerily similar to the training Sin drilled into me from an early age.

All this time, she had been training me in the fundamentals of magic, preparing me to be a weapon. For what purpose? For who? I had been so blinded by my own goals that I never thought to ask her.

After a few days of Isla’s training, I figured out how to create fire, conjuring tongues of flame that hovered just above my hands. That didn’t stop the pain. Each time I drew on the spirits of the land, my hands burned with the phantom pain of Cythnia’s last memory. I would have to accept it for now. The only way to fix it was to fix my home, which wouldn’t happen until after we completed the quest. Would Rugar still be hunting me by then?

After a week, Castille recovered enough to ride. We kept to the main roads, taking the Northwestern trail that would lead us into the Dellends. Despite our run-in with the beastkin raiders, morale was high. No, our morale was high because of it. By working together, we survived an ambushing force that outnumbered us four to one with no casualties. Gren wouldn’t believe me if I told him the story.

My lips twisted into a pained smile from the back of Dugan’s horse. We were a proper pack now, hunters, not the hunted. Ahead of us, Castille and Isla rode side by side. The rift between them was mended; saving each other's lives tended to have that effect. The two made polite small talk, never digging too deep into each other's past.

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At least they made small talk. In front of me, Dugan was as silent as ever. You didn’t need to talk when a glance carried more weight than the average conversation. The only sound from our end was the occasional grunt from Thor, who trailed at our side. The pair was as much a mystery as the women riding in front. Their connection was magical. How else could he sense the boar's location and launch that reverse ambush in the woods? Not to mention Thor tracking Castille and their matching bark armour. It must have something to do with Dugan's Landbound magic, the magic of farms and livestock.

After weeks of travel, we finally reached the border of the Dellends. There were no physical markers or signs for the area, only the curse's effects. The forest along the road withered, the trees becoming gnarled and ashen grey. The grass mottled to a sickly yellow, springing up in clumps between large tracts of grey-brown earth in the land ahead.

"How does anyone survive here?" I asked.

"One step at a time," Isla said, her voice quieter than usual.

"C'mon! There's no use standing around half-sheathed," Castille said, urging her horse forward. Her mare didn't move; even the horse was spooked.

She tried again, and the animal took hesitant steps forward. I could sympathize. Something was wrong in the air: a sickly-sweet smell you could taste. Dugan rode forward next, followed by Thor. Isla waited another moment, gripping her staff until her knuckles turned white. With a deep exhale, she advanced, riding next to Dugan and me for the first time in weeks.

"Don't chicken out on me now," I said, flashing her a reassuring smile.

She returned a faint smile, her eyes lingering on the contaminated ground. I knew that expression well. Like a poison, I had learned to tolerate Isla, building up a resistance to the disturbing emotions she triggered in me. Through gritted teeth, I could even say I enjoyed being around her.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“What did you say all those weeks ago? It's different when you feel it. Something terrible is happening in this land.”

Ominous.

“And we’re here to stop it.”

“How can you be so confident?”

I’ve already lost everything.

“The stupidity of youth,” I lied.

She smiled again, wider this time.

“You know, I’m only a few years older than you.”

My smile turned brittle.

Like Cynthia.

“Then I bow to your intellect.”

I swept my hand in a mock bow.

She giggled.

“You always know the right thing to say to make me feel better.”

She sat straighter in her saddle and galloped forward to ride with Castille.

Dugan glanced at me over his shoulder.

I shrugged.

“I have a gift.”

I put Isla out of my mind and focused on our surroundings.

The Dellends were somehow worse than I expected. I expected the desolate wasteland, the forests of dead, leafless trees. I didn’t expect the silence. There were no bird calls, croaking toads or even buzzing flies. Decades of lead and arsenic poisoning in the land killed off the wildlife or forced them to leave for greener pastures. Occasionally, we passed patches of rust-coloured ground, copper ore that turned the surrounding pools of water deep green.

Along the road, an old farming village was arranged like a corpse that had been picked clean, its straw-thatched roofs bleached bone white by the sun. Our mood darkened as we entered the village. We rode past ransacked buildings with broken doors and clay walls that collapsed inward. Like the rest of the Dellends, the village was deathly quiet. The people had left, become miners, or haunted the land beneath our feet.

Castille raised her hand, signalling us to stop. I strained my ears for any sounds.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

The sound of wood on wood echoed in the distance. It was too rhythmic; someone or something was making it. I dismounted and walked up to Castille’s horse.

"You heard it too?" She asked.

"Yeah, should I scout?"

She nodded.

“Be careful.”

I was off the second she nodded, sneaking on foot while the rest of the party trailed several minutes behind.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I moved toward the noise, checking the abandoned windows and collapsed walls for signs of life.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

The sound led us to the centre of the village, where I saw something I would never forget.