I splashed in the water and felt my soul sever from my body, separating like fragments as if it had been cut into twenty pieces, but adrenaline and fear and desperation made me run faster regardless. All I cared about at that point was Kyro.

I’m not sure why.

I barely knew the guy for a couple of weeks at most, and he was shit-faced the entire time, ranting about this and that, making my life hell during training.

But…

I reached Kyro, and instead of Khor pulling the tiny fairy away from me as I expected, he dropped him into my hands. I pushed through the body dysesthesia and held him up, then collapsed into a shallow section of the spring, examining him.

He wasn’t breathing, and I was so scared, so fucking scared.

Because Kyro was genuine. That obviously wasn’t all. He was in pain because he sacrificed his body to save me. And he had defended me before coming on this suicide quest. And… I didn’t know. There was more to it. Kyro was… good to me. And he was annoying and brusque at times, but he treated me well. He was a friend.

I hugged him against my breast and fell back into the water, holding him tight and praying for him to wake up.

Kline walked up to the water hesitantly, and despite absolutely abhorring the water, he stepped into it, letting his body increase in size as he walked so he wouldn’t have to swim as he came over to us. He approached and nudged Kyro with his nose. He still wasn’t breathing, but…

His cheeks…

His cheeks were still flushed red despite not breathing. I activated my soul channel visualization technique and saw something strange. His soul core was churning and getting larger.

“Kyro…” I said with tears in my eyes. “Wake up…”

I put my fingers on his chest and back and squeezed him like a condiment bottle in double pumps, feeling silly and almost like I was humiliating him as I sank into the water. I barely noticed that my body had returned to normal. It was chilly in the water, so chilly, but I didn’t care. I just kept pumping his body.

“Kyro… I… don’t want you to die. Not ‘cause I need you. I… won. I succeeded. We’re… here. But… it feels… hollow without you. So please… come back and we’ll drink and get drunk and… God. You finally did it, you know? You paid back Brindle. And… you’re free. So don’t fucking die…”

Kline rubbed his face against Kyro in a way that only cats can do, and then we waited and waited and waited until I thought it was over—

—but then something amazing happened. The strange soul patterns on his hands disappeared, and new neara in the water entered his veins in streams, cleansing his body and going into his core. The expansion of the soul core turned out to be a bad thing because it started contracting, getting smaller and smaller until it was the size of a small marble in his chest. Then it grew brighter and brighter, and his chest finally pushed back against my hands.

Suddenly, Kyro flushed with vitality and his heart beat against my fingers. He took a deep, strained breath that sounded… terrible but was far better than nothing.

“Kyro!” I screamed, and the disoriented fairy looked at me like I was a giant preparing to eat him and said… “Who the hell are you?”

My stomach sank. “Mira. Don’t tell me…”

“Ugh… amnesia… never truly comes back. I hate… wait… Mira… Oh no… The problem child… ugh. I thought I had escaped my torment.”

“Hey!” I cried, squeezing him.

“Hey! You ‘hey!’ Don’t prove that my hey was warranted, you idiot!”

I realized how hard I was squeezing him and let go, screaming, “Sorry!”

“Hey!” Kyro splashed in the water and sank for a moment before floating to the surface on his back. “Don’t drop me… Yakana… why’d you choose this brat?”

“Hey!” I cried. “I saved you, I’ll have you know!”

“Ugh… now I owe her a debt.”

“You certainly do not!”

He cracked his eyes and looked at me. “Huh?”

“You saved me, idiot. And you helped me get here. So just… enjoy your debt-free existence. But if you want to thank me… get over here.” I grabbed him and pulled him against my chest like a stuffed animal.

“Is this necessary?” he groaned.

“I was so scared…” I whispered.

“I swear to Yakana, if you cry…”

“Just… shut up, okay.” I held him tighter. It was a rough road to get to where I was, and I just wanted to celebrate my victory. We survived certain death time and time again to the point that it felt like it was the most normal thing in the world, and I just wanted to revel in the fact that my friend was alive. Even if he hated me or complained, I was going to call him my friend and enjoy the moment.

Kyro sighed and let his body fall limp, and let me seatbelt him for about twenty minutes before he actually relaxed and fell asleep. Kline saw he was okay and left the water, shaking off his fur and grooming himself before walking to the stone tablet and studying it for the next hour.

It was only once my little warrior returned that I released Kyro, who I realized was sleeping.

He coughed, so I grabbed him again, and he said:

“Gods. Just evolve already. We’re running out of time.”

I paused and thought about it and cringed. I could be out for an entire day when I evolved, and I didn’t know how long it would take for this one.

Kyro sensed my hesitation and pulled out his tiny flask, which I had kindly put into his coat pocket, and said, “Listen, Mira. If Thorvel tries to harm you, I’ll sic the Drokai on his ass. I may be crippled, but Nethralis’ll remind the bastard that he’s still a kitten.” He took a drink and groaned and shivered and kissed his flask. “I’ll also fight for you so… fuck ‘em. Just evolve. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I took a deep breath and squeezed him tight.

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“Okay…” I closed my eyes, but before I started, he said, “Wait,” and I froze.

“What?” I asked.

“That Teelia elixir…” Kyro said. “It’d usually make a first evolution’s core explode, but… you’re pretty much drowning in miracle juice right now. In fact, you should probably just dump half the soul cores you have into this spring. These plants aren’t just rare—they’re impossible to preserve without a bunch of raging souls feeding them. That’s why the creator built this place here. It’s special, so you might as well use it.”

I pulled out my cores from my sopping backpack and grabbed a handful. They stung my hand and sizzled like they did with Kline, and I dropped a few. I reached after them, and my burning hand instantly healed.

“See?” Kyro said.

“Yeah…” I dumped half the cores into the water, each boiling the water and turning it to fog as if I had poured water on sauna coals. Then I swallowed nervously and pulled out the light blue Teelia elixir and studied it.

“It’ll be fine,” Kyro said sleepily, yawning widely and swimming to my shoulder, where he grabbed some of my hair to keep him anchored while he slept. I wasn’t sure if it was cute or offensive, so I split the difference and ignored it.

I turned to Kline. I’ll wait for him.

I closed my eyes and started churning soul force, cleansing it and wrapping it using the techniques I was given. Then I heard Kline splash into the water and turned to him.

“You ready?” I asked as I cracked the lid on the elixir.

Kline meowed.

I cupped my hand and filled it with the blue liquid, allowing Kline to lap a bit down before he choked and sunk into the water. He looked fine, so I looked at the intimidating mason jar of elixir and shut my eyes and chugged it down.

The effect was immediate and surreal. Ice water spread through my chest and into my limbs, leaving me with intense chills.

Then my heart chugged like a piston as my soul core spun out of control.

I coughed and dropped the last fifth of the liquid into the water.

“Churn, you idiot!” Kyro suddenly yelled in my ear. I thought I would’ve noticed, but I realized that I couldn’t see. The world was black and then I suddenly felt water crash all around me as my soul core burned out of control.

Churn!

I silently screamed, spinning my core like a food processor, blending everything around me. Then I activated the cleansing spell, the beginner one that whipped everything together like mixing scrambled eggs, and threw it into overdrive.

Suddenly, a force pulled on my back, and I rocketed out of the water. I opened my eyes hesitantly and saw a plant tendril wrapped around me. I turned and saw Khor in his tiny Omoxilain form. He had picked me up and casually put me back into place.

“Pay attention, you idiot!” Kyro said, putting his tiny hands on my back.

I swayed. “What are you…”

A sudden force hit my back like a fastball, and my soul separated from my body. From that astral projection form, I could visualize my mana and saw Kyro forcefully spinning it faster.

“I said it was miracle water, not a solution,” Kyro said. “Idiot. I’m spinning it as fast as you need to go to live, so keep up!”

I prepared myself, and when Kyro took his hands off me, my soul snapped back into my body—and I almost had a heart attack. My core was moving so fast that it felt like I fell off a moving car and had to continue running sixty miles an hour.

“This is my fault,” Kyro said, collapsing on the ground. He didn’t black out, he just groaned and drank and said, “Sorry. But, I mean… you got this.”

“How long do I have to keep this up?” I cried.

“I don’t know. Ummm… twelve hours? A day? I don’t know.”

“How!” I screamed.

“By evolving, you idiot. Your current core can’t handle it—but your new core can. So just start… you’ll see.”

I trembled and clenched my fists and clamped my eyes shut. Then I took a deep breath and recalled the runes—and began.

That made things worse.

So much worse.

My core burst like a breaking dam in the first part of the spell, allowing all the water and herbs into my core. Hallucinations flashed through my brain in fragments, and I felt like I was living hundreds of lives where I was running from some crazed beasts that required me to keep in motion—

—then came the aura. It felt like blades, and I awoke, focusing on threading to keep myself sane.

“That’s it,” Kyro said as he swam forward. He plucked a pink flower out of the water and crushed it up and used essence extraction. “Let it all in.”

He put the crushed petals in his hand and blew at me. As soon as I inhaled the essence, my whole body went numb, and my spinning core was a simple fact, something I took for granted, like driving in a moving car, and I disappeared into the evolution spell.

That’s how the first five minutes of my evolution played out.

2.

Aiden sighed as he lay under a tree on a mountaintop, watching Halten fly. According to his friend, this was likely the last time he would fly freely.

“You better get go~ing,” Elle said from above him. The colorful fairy was kicking her legs on a branch, watching Halten as well. “Three days is optimal. More than this ’n you’re gonna make all the richies angry with the auction.”

Aiden sighed again.

“Aw, cheer up grumpy gus!” Elle fluttered down from the tree and sat on his stomach cross-legged. “Halty’s only a goner if you let ‘em.”

“He’s not coming back.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m never going to do that again! says every person with a hangover ever. You emotion-dwellers are all the same.”

“Is Thorvel gonna say that?”

“That depends!”

Aiden sat up, and Elle flew back. “On what?”

“If Mira’s alive and she manages to bridge the forest.”

“If?”

Elle clicked her tongue three times, wagging her finger. “Don’t you start asking questions now, ya hear? My little sparkly self can’t tell you nothing.” She used a strange Southern accent and then giggled.

“Of course not…” He looked north, trying to imagine the place that Mira had gone and whether she could survive it. “But if she is?”

“May~be. You won’t know if you don’t get your butt up and do the work.”

Aiden pushed himself up and whistled. Halten did a final circle and flew down to the mountain, perching on it.

“You ready?” Aiden asked.

Halten chuckled lightly and looked away. As ready as I can be.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Aiden loaded up and flew to the Bramble, where Thorvel and the wyverns intercepted them. Aiden expected an altercation, but they just moved aside with hostile expressions, shaming Halten as he flew over the Bramble without resistance.

“It’s not fighting back,” Aiden said.

It doesn’t attack its own, Halten said. And today, we’re guests.

“Aren’t you worried people’ll see this as an opportunity?”

No. Because it doesn’t matter. Guests can leave—but they can never return. You witnessed that firsthand.

Aiden remembered the trauma of entering the forest and nodded.

Now hold on. I’m stronger, but the curse is still absolute.

Aiden held the reins as Halten flew high toward the gate, piercing the heavens before leveling off. And what he saw on the other side sent waves of horror shivering through him.

All the greenery in the Third Ring had been blotted out with tents and moving people, milling about, speaking over campfires that billowed black smoke in the air. It had grown—spreading for miles. There weren’t a few thousand people here. There were maybe a hundred thousand people catering to the Harvesters. It made him realize that neither he nor Mira could understand the true scope of that year's Black Harvest.

It would get messy. That was a certainty.