1.

Around ten minutes had passed since we limped away from the battleground, and ash and Kite’s fading cries hounded us as we trudged through the forest. But no wolves or other beasts did. It was a spark of luck in the encroaching darkness of the night.

I didn’t want to stop walking. Preferably, I wanted to make it all the way back to the academy. But we had to. May tried to keep her face neutral. Yet in her own words: ‘You’re not fooling anyone,’ I said.

‘Screw you,’ she said, smiling.

She flipped me off. But despite the mirth with which she did it, she was not alright. I looked down at her leg. I couldn’t see the skin of her calf through the tear the wolf had made in her robe. It was covered in blood.

I chose to rest when we neared a fallen trunk that could function as a bench.

‘Let me see,’ I said, taking out the bandages in my pouch.

If there was anything I was not, it was a first aid expert. But this was a nasty wound. Even while sitting, May had to angle her foot and keep it off the ground as much as possible. Dirt stained her open flesh as well.

Her defiance in the face of death had been a spectacle, but she had rolled all over the forest floor in the process. Blood loss was the most important factor. But I needed to clean this before I wrapped her up.

My chin lifted towards the sky. Our chances of making it home before dark had been slim at most already, so we would be stuck outside if I took care of her.

‘I can create a small fire,’ May said.

It took a moment before I realised what she was implying.

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘At least we’ll have light.’

That was one of our biggest worries gone. I breathed out. Don’t hesitate, Djina, I heard my mother’s voice. I’d done so in the fight, and it’d nearly cost me my life. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

My hands were dirty, too, so I couldn’t use them to clean the wound. I had no more maura to create water either. Instead, I cut part of my robe, which was the least stained with blood and grime, and turned it inside out.

‘This will hurt,’ I said.

She huffed and puffed to prepare herself.

‘Do it,’ she said.

May winced as I rubbed the wound free of dirt, but she did not cry or scream. The moment was strangely intimate. Me, silently cleaning her wound. Us, in a dark forest filled with monsters that could be hunting us at this moment. If I slowed down and listened closely, I could hear Kite.

I glanced up at May to keep the wails away. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was facing the ground. What must her background be, I wondered, for her to be so soldier-like? I didn’t voice the question. Not yet. Maybe when we reached a safe place.

I couldn’t wipe away all the dirt, but I got most of it. Afterwards, my bandage deftly rolled around her calf, sealing the wound. We wasted no time after the bleeding stemmed.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

I nodded and propped up her shoulder again.

‘Let me carry that,’ I said.

She handed me her blade. She lifted her free palm towards the sky. After breathing in and out, a flame tinier than that of a torch appeared in her hand. It lighted the dark forest directly around us with a child’s scream of defiance.

We walked.

2.

image [https://i.imgur.com/BtwdZRN.png]

Wandering the forest seemed like a death wish, but heading straight to the academy wouldn’t lead us to shelter. So, we tried our luck again, pushing into the undergrowth and between the trees.

I don’t know which god blessed us this time, yet we found a slope, which led towards an emerald lake with a cave entrance on the side. My throat shrunk the moment we stepped onto level ground and neared the entrance. The trees above us cast long shadows around the emerald lake.

May and I paused and scanned the borders of the lake, which seemed too still in the dim moonlight. There was a small patch of land sticking above the surface of the lake in the centre, which acted as an island. But beyond that there was nothing. Not a hint or sign of a predator…so why did the place unsettle me so?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The realisation hit me a moment later. If there were no predators, there should be prey. But this place, it had none. Instead, it was completely quiet. Oh, there was the occasional drop of water falling from stalactites, yes. Yet that was all.

This silence was too immense for an area this big.

‘Dangerous,’ May said.

Despite stopping the blood, her voice had grown weaker the longer we walked. It was barely a whisper at this point. She needed to rest.

‘It is,’ I said.

But did we really have a choice? If—no. When—May slipped into the realm of the dreamers, I wouldn’t be able to carry her. Leave alone being too weak to shoulder her entire weight. Adrenaline was trying all it could, but my eyelids were drooping, too.

We had two options. Either tread further into the cave, or camp on the island in the water. The water, though…a gut feeling told me the waters were the source of the eerie silence.

‘We should venture deeper,’ I said.

May nodded without glancing at me.

May’s fires had died out right before we reached the slope. But they were no longer required. Moss grew on the ground and cavern ceiling. They were bio luminescent and lighted our way. Together with the cool breeze, which grew more present with every step, it was almost a warm welcome.

But the hairs on my neck rose. Despite the air being devoid of ash and smelling floral, I didn’t know what was worse: trudging through this soundless place or staring into the eyes of the alpha.

Once or twice, I thought I caught a shadow moving. I wilfully ascribed it to my nerves and tiredness. We discovered a set of well-worn stairs that carved into the flank of the cavern. Manmade stairs, surely. That could be good or bad. We took our chance.

My heart hammered harder and harder as we ascended the staircase. That dreaded quiet was on our heels the entire way. Then, the staircase narrowed and ended in a stone landing, which connected to a second, smaller staircase. At the top was a door frame that had seen better days.

After going up further, we discovered a sign on the wall. On it was the symbol for a bed and a single phrase.

Retreat for initiates.

1. K.

I nearly collapsed to my knees right after reading that first sentence. However, there was some type of round face next to the initials, which confused me enough to stop me from doing so.

‘Is that a smiley?’ I asked.

May weakly shook her head.

‘Don’t know...’

I pressed my ear to the door. Silence. I pushed it open, revealing a dimly lit study with stone bookcases packed with scrolls and parchments. We slipped inside, eyes darting around, half-expecting someone to leap from the shadows.

No one did. We strode further in and noticed a desk on top of which was an unfurled map. Unlike the rest of the place, the map did not look old.

May’s eyes had found a bed on the opposite end of the room. She looked at it as if it had proposed to her. I understood her wholly. But I called on everything inside me to get us to that desk.

May cursed. I ignored her and ran my fingers over the plot of the land.

‘This is fresh,’ I said and frowned.

Now, even May pulled a face. She opened her mouth before her face whirled back towards the bed. She pointed into the shadows.

‘Clothes.’

We limped over, and she lifted a pair of used student robes laying on the sack.

Those could be used to refresh the emergency bandages I’d applied on her calf, I thought. Then, I studied the room again. So. Either this place was recently abandoned, or we had just strolled into someone’s hideout. But who could it be? Class had started today, and not many of the students had seemed eager to leave the academy, let alone spend the night outside its gates.

Several glinting pieces in the bookcase caught my eye. I frowned. There were a bunch of pouches stacked on top of each other. Academy pouches. The same as ours.

May noticed them, too. She loosened herself from my hold, leaned against the wall beside the bed, and pointed at the drawer of the desk.

I checked it.

‘A journal,’ I said.

I flipped through the pages. The first few pages were nothing but straight lines. After every set of four, one crossed the set diagonally. Markers for the number of days? This person had been here for a while if so—more than a year at least. Yet I hadn’t heard anything about older students being on the island.

I scanned the rest of the pages and shook my head.

‘It’s in a foreign tongue. I can’t read it.’

May motioned me forwards. I handed the journal to her.

‘Neojave. Eastern,’ May said.

That did not mean anything to me. I was aware of there being an eastern continent. However, the time I had not spent sailing with Mother around our island, I had actually spent on our island.

May rifled to the end of the booklet.

‘Something about a dungeon…or a secret entrance. Needs a…key. Initiate key?’

I tilted my head.

‘Our tokens?’

‘Maybe.’

May peered at the rest of the page closely, her eyebrows scrunching.

‘…acquiring…will be easy. Take of…I don’t know what they’re saying. They think they’ll get what they need easily if they just wait.’

My eyes went towards the pouches again. Get easily, huh. If this was indeed a disciple that had stayed on the island for longer than a year, they would have spent that entire time training or at least surviving the monsters outside. They would be quite formidable. Formidable enough that none of the fresh initiates would stand a chance.

We were dealing with a shark. A head on collision was out of question.

‘Either we ambush them,’ I said, ‘or we leave and find a different hideout.’

One look at May’s state was enough to decide.

I took the journal and tried my hardest to remember if it had been upside down or facing up when I grabbed it. Face down, I thought. I retraced our steps through the room. No traces, except for a smudge of blood here and there. I wiped those away. I did the same for the staircase directly outside.

This had been the student’s home for years, and they had not seen a need to booby trap the place. That signalled confidence in their own abilities. The initiate would undoubtedly have a skill related to stealth or detection. Hopefully this was enough, though.

Besides, we were out of maura, so our energy signature should be faint at best. Our timing would also work in our favour. Who would expect two new initiates to stay outside on the first night? Even if they did, to find this place and lay a trap? Highly unlikely.

That’s how I tried to convince myself of our plan.

‘We hide under the bed,’ I said.

There was nowhere else to hide, after all.

I gave May one of my daggers.

‘Give me your blade,’ I said. ‘I’ll hide it. It’ll make too much noise.’

She nodded and handed me her sword. I placed it between the gap the bookcase created with the wall. Then, we slipped underneath the bed and waited.