As it turns out, there is a certain difference in perspective that comes with standing at a considerable height. It can mask just how far away certain things are, especially when combined with supernaturally good eyesight.

I had been able to catch a glimpse of the storm on the horizon from high up in the tree. But when Glaustro’s troop left the city to find the golem causing the storm, I learned the storm front was much, much farther away than that glimpse had led me to believe.

The reach of the singular golem Crewe had killed was absolutely stunning. We marched for three days through an area completely clear of any gale-force winds or sand trying to grind us down to the bone.

I enjoyed this period of time thoroughly.

After my second day of flying lessons, Methialia had declared me ready to start pushing more. Meaning that once our troop set out, I could join her in the skies as we soared above the trudging group of demons far below us.

I still wasn’t a perfect flier. I could barely handle basic maneuvers, and my wings would start to ache after just a couple hours of sustained, strenuous flight. I was getting better at prodigious speed, however, enough so for Methialia to tell me outright that she was impressed!

The time spent with her also let me get to know the demoness a bit better. She really wasn’t as much of a slob as she liked to act. It was more of a role she fell into, as well as a way to justify her need for all the extra rest.

I couldn’t quite figure it out yet, but I was pretty convinced there was more to her situation than she let on. The kind of bone-deep exhaustion I frequently saw lining her face wasn’t something that could be waved off as laziness or overwork.

She didn’t share, though, so I didn’t pry.

Mia did not follow this simple logic. The cat girl wasn’t exactly pushy about the time I was spending with Methialia, but she did seem deeply disgruntled that she couldn’t continue to perform the task Glaustro had set for her. In her own words, “He gave me a job, and I’m going to do it.”

This, for some reason, amused Glaustro greatly when he overheard it. In fact, he looked like he’d sic the cat girl on me even harder if I dared to try and do something stupid again.

My inability to spend as much time around the cat girl as she would have liked translated directly into how clingy she got for the rest of the day. The first day, when I barely managed to stay up in the sky for three hours before I needed a long break from putting pressure on my new limbs, she just sat unusually close to me at the fire that night.

The next day, when I managed to double my uptime thanks to my enhancement and strengthening techniques, she literally stuck to my side.

The third day, when I managed to make it all the way to the end of our patrol and got to greet the sunset hovering over the desert? Well, she resorted to the cat-patented solution of ‘If you want it to stay still, sit on it.’

That’s how I found myself sitting next to our small fire that night, across from a very smug Bronwynn, with a lazy cat girl sprawled over my wings. She held her bowl of stew firmly in hand, making it disappear mouthful after dainty mouthful.

“You are getting better at this,” she said, gracing me with one of her rare compliments on my growing culinary skills.

Under the circumstances, I did not feel particularly touched. “Spill stew on my wings and I’m throwing you into the campfire.”

She scoffed, clearly doubting my ability to follow through with the threat. I started to turn, trying to pull off a decent glare by looking awkwardly over my shoulder, when I caught sight of Glaustro from the corner of my eye.

The sergeant was approaching with a frustrated look on his face, gaze alternating between our little group and the storm we were on the verge of entering.

“Glaustro, please come sit,” Bronwynn offered readily, already moving to scoop some stew into a bowl for our commander. I considered calling him out on giving away someone else’s food, but I was too busy observing to do it.

I had no clue when it had happened, but the duo were much closer than they used to be on Berlis. Well, that was a given, considering they hadn’t even known each other back then, but still.

There was a familiarity in the way Bronwynn looked at Glaustro, and in the way the commander returned those looks, that hinted at a deeper understanding than I would have expected.

Then again… how often did I see them together? I racked my brains, trying to conjure up all the occasions when I’d seen the two interact. To my surprise, those were rather limited, at least when it came to anything that could be referred to as a private setting.

“Ah, thank you.” Glaustro awkwardly accepted the bowl and sat down to join us. Then he just sat there, picking at his food, eyes fixed on the horizon and the storm that ruled there.

Not that he didn’t like the food or the company, of course. He was slowly eating the stew, and even grunted a couple times at Bronwynn’s attempts to drag him into a conversation. Still, I could tell from the way his brow kept furrowing that Glaustro wasn’t fully there with us.

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After a few minutes, I decided I didn’t like the idea of just watching him wrestle in silence with whatever he was dealing with.

“So… how exactly are we supposed to track down these other mega golems?” I asked.

“Mega golems?” Glaustro blinked at me, then shook his head a little before refocusing on the present moment. “I don’t remember that term being used.”

“Mega golems, bigger-than-normal golems, super golems, whatever you want to call them,” I quipped cheekily. “You didn’t answer my question. How do we find them?”

Glaustro sighed, tapping his spoon against the edge of his bowl as he considered me. “Well, ultimately, the same way we discovered the first one.”

“You mean… through that seer you know?” I felt confusion slip into my voice. Glaustro hadn’t said much about the seer, but for some reason, I had a distinct feeling that he couldn’t easily call on a favor from them again.

“Technically, he’s not a seer. Well, he is, but it’s not that particular gift that made his little device work. It was his clairvoyance that helped us track down the origin of our attacker, and will hopefully be what helps us find these golems, too.”

“You never did explain how it works, though,” I pointed out.

“Well, for that first jinn, he used soul shavings,” Glaustro said. “He attuned the tracker to the residual energy the jinn’s soul left behind while travelling. This guaranteed a powerful connection to the target that’s unlikely to break. Obviously, it’s also not an option this time. What we’re relying on now is sympathetic magic.”

“Explain.” Mia suddenly poked her head over my shoulder, then planted her chin on it. Her chin was kind of pointy, but I decided to endure it quietly.

Glaustro sighed again, but he did explain. “Well, in theory, the caster can use a sample of a spell, a magical signature, soul, ward, or even the makeup of something to look for duplicates. It is a slightly finicky spell, but it works on particularly unique things. In this case, the unique item we’re looking for are golem cores.”

Immediately, I could see several problems with that. “But, wouldn’t that try to lead us to all the golem cores out there? Including the smaller ones that the jinn used for their base model golems? We’re not going to be very successful if we keep picking up every construct the jinn made and dispatched, ever.”

“Correct, which is why we won’t be doing that. We… or, well, Crewe has samples of the unique golem core. They were used as the focus of the tracking ritual imbued into the compass this time. So, it should only lead us to similarly unique and powerful constructs out there. It’s not guaranteed to work. But then again, even if it leads us to powerful constructs other than the golems, at least we can take out jinn weapons before they can deploy them.”

“That makes sense.” Mia nodded like he had revealed an important secret. “Why do you look like someone stabbed you, then?”

I wanted to snicker, but Glaustro really did look constipated, at the very least. When the demon’s smile grew slightly more brittle, I knew Mia was right for calling him out.

“Because things can never be simple, can they?” Glaustro growled, and wow did he sound bitter. “With our recent successes and my ostensible promotion, never mind that it came with barely any tangible benefits, I’m not sure that we need to worry solely about the jinn and their golems anymore.”

“Do you really think someone would try something? Now? With the lieutenant general’s attention still fixed on us?” Bronwynn demanded, though he sounded more outraged than shocked at the prospect.

“You didn’t see some of them, Bronwynn. If they could have taken me out then and there, they would have.” Glaustro turned to me. “Which is why I have to ask: how good have you gotten in the sky?”

The question seemed downright abrupt to me, but I still answered it honestly. “I’m getting there. I’m no expert flier, but at least I can properly keep myself in the air. My stamina’s made a ton of progress, too.”

The look Glaustro shot me before his next question was almost pure guilt. “Tell me, with all that you’ve gone through recently, how’s your sand resistance? Do you think you could maybe fly through that, too?”

He didn’t have to gesture towards the storm in the distance, because his tone of voice did a good job of indicating what he was talking about. Really, ‘hesitant and guilty’ was not a good look on Glaustro at all.

I didn’t rush to reassure him, though. I could guess that he wanted me up in the sky in lieu of our sleepy fire demoness, seeing as she’d get torn apart up there very quickly with her minimal resistance to the anti-mana sand. But would I fare any better?

I honestly didn’t know. Already, before the latest round of enhancements and getting my wings, the sand had done surprising amounts of damage. Did my wings even count as flesh-and-blood limbs, or were they more in the line of mana constructs?

So…

“I don’t know,” I admitted, figuring that honesty continued to be the best policy. “Maybe? I haven’t done a ton of testing lately. If I still have most of my resistance, then… probably? It’s definitely not a no, but I would need to try actually flying in that mess to tell you more.”

“That’s expected, I guess. Neither time nor opportunity for experimenting recently, huh?” Glaustro shook his head. “Well, other than testing the limits of your own mortality, but I’ve lectured you enough on that.”

He really had. He never slacked off in sharing his profound disagreement with my recent actions, not even once we started travelling. Mia loved it, of course. I just wanted him to stop looking at me like he was expecting me to do something profoundly stupid at all times.

Like, say, flying off into a storm. Not just any storm, either.

Still, I wanted to try, and I told him as much. “I don’t like the idea of not being able to fly at all while we’re out there doing our job. I have no clue how I’ll do it, but even if it doesn’t work at first, I’ll figure something out. Practice makes perfect, right?”

Glaustro dubiously agreed, finished his meal, and headed back towards his tent for the night. Bronwynn hurriedly excused himself too, then went after the commander. They broke into whispers the second they thought we couldn’t overhear them.

Unfortunately, they were both smart demons with keen insight about the limitations of mortal hearing, so they were right.

That left me chewing my lip and wondering if I had made a mistake.

—

I had made a mistake.

The next day, for our first test, I tried to snap my wings open to catch the updraft. I hoped it would take me far beyond the worst of the storm’s effects.

This turned out to be a severe lapse in judgment.

As soon as my wings unfurled, I was dragged sideways then up. It felt like I was stuck in one of those old games with ragdoll physics. This wasn’t anything like being buffeted around by the wind. It was physics itself that had me gripped tight in its unrelenting despair.

It was a good thing we had decided to do this test at the very edge of the storm. I didn’t dare picture the results otherwise. Thanks to this bit of foresight, I was ‘merely’ spat out after a few agonizing minutes and sent tumbling over the sandy dunes. When I finally came to a stop, the world was spinning wildly, a decent percentage of me hurt like all get out, and I was pretty sure one of my wings was broken.

Aha. So… flight through a magic sandstorm is not going to be an easy thing to master.

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