I had six days to kill Kal Melhan in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, and I couldn’t jump right into it. If I were committing premeditated murder, I would at least have to mask it to avoid the magical CSI teams that the Melhans would send to investigate. I couldn’t let myself forget: this brat was the spoiled prince of an 11th-century monarch, demanding a plate of only the chicken’s wings as the peasants died of the plague. Repulsive as he may be, he was still a prince, and once he died, there would be hell to pay.

Since Kline couldn’t just dispatch them, and riding off to prepare right after the fight wasn’t an option, I decided to sit down and mine information about Kal from the others trying to trade from me.

The woman Kal shut down seized upon the opportunity as soon as I pulled out my ingredients again.

“Hi… are you busy?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Oh, then would you mind if we discussed a trade? My name is Felio of the Hellara family. We are prominent alchemists, and we’re very interested in your calba root. Is it for sale?”

“Ummm… yes,” I said. “Though I’m only accepting trades. I don’t have much need for money at the moment.” I sent a sidelong glance to Tyler, who was salivating. “Though I suppose a bit won’t hurt.”

Tyler’s eyes lit up.

Felio giggled at his reaction. “Excellent. We actually expected you to say that, so we brought practical necessities. While they do not hold the same value in trade, they hold higher value in use, since you can’t get them in the forest. Take this for example.”

Her guard pulled out an apothecary bottle filled with blue crystals.

“This is clax, it’s a mana permeable emulsifier. It’s critical for topical compounds. Simply using it will boost the efficacy of your essential balms and creams by a factor of four.”

My muscles tightened as I stared at it. I had never experienced such a sudden and voracious hunger for something so simple. I was officially an alchemist.

“We also brought other alchemic staples as well…” The guard showed a full backpack of multicolored jars. “We figured you’d need them because your delivery…” She stopped herself and then awkwardly smiled.

“Ended up in the Bramble,” I said.

She smiled tightly.

“But you’re right,” I said. “That’s what I need. Do you have a preservation chamber for the trade?”

Felio trembled with excitement. “Of course! Here, please take the ingredients.”

Her guards passed me the massive backpack full of alchemy supplies, and I fell forward when we exchanged hands. It wasn’t that the bag was too heavy—it was too light. It felt like cotton.

The inside wasn’t so soft. My head cracked into the back, jangling the jars inside.

“Gods! Are you okay?” Felio cried.

“Ow…” I said reflectively, even though I didn’t feel the pain. “What’s up with that thing?”

“This?” She paused with her preservation chamber in hand. “Oh! Are you talking about how light it is?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that’s because it’s a gravity repulsion pack,” Felio said. “You can’t make objects smaller, but magic can make them appear lighter. You can carry three of these backpacks and not even feel them.”

My heart thumped in a positive rhythm as I stared at the bags. There were different types, including a utility belt.

“The backpack is yours, silly,” Felio said with a giggle. “You don’t think we brought you loose jars did you?”

“Seriously?” I cried.

“Of course.”

I accepted her empty preservation chamber, unsealed it, and put three roots into it under her buggy eyes. She put up her hands to decline, but I said, “These are for the staples.” Then I picked up the rest of them and put them into the chamber. “And this is what you’ll get if you spend all day talking alchemy with me.”

Her eyes sparkled and she cupped her hands to her chest in the most precious gesture I have ever seen. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Hey!” Tyler said. “Aren’t you supposed to show me around?”

“When people are throwing around spells and killing each other?” I asked sarcastically. “No way. I’ll take you out tomorrow… maybe.”

He turned his head and brooded like the teenager he was.

I rolled my eyes and offered Tyler a piece of cleansed jerky. “Eat this.”

“What…” He sniffed the meat and took a bite. The reaction was immediate. Veins webbed up his arms as he hit the ground, groaning and moaning and snaking around like a worm.

“Is he… okay?” Felio asked nervously.

“He’s fine,” I said. “Now then. Alchemy?”

Felio sat down nervously, but soon, we were idly chatting about this and that, sinking hours away as other people approached and left me with gifts. She told me all about the forest and the most important Areswood biota for her family—not in trade, but in use. It turned out that the Hellara family didn’t want or need the miracle ingredients I was giving to Elana because the complimentary components necessary to process such powerful ingredients were equally expensive.

“Cost goes both ways,” Felio explained about rare elixirs. “Even if we managed to make something that expensive, it would take centuries for someone to buy it.”

“Why don’t you sell it in the upper domains?” I asked.

“‘Cause it won’t make it past customs. Resources are categorized by purity and impact. An elixir with a high purity will kill someone without the mind or core to handle it, so they’re restricted for sale. An elixir with high impact is forced through legacy channels. Even if we wanted to sell something up the line, the Melhan would block it.”

“The Melhan…” I peered into the western forest where Kal had started his hike. “Seems it’s learned behavior.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Felio’s face tightened, and she looked down. “You probably shouldn’t talk too much about it. Usually the legacies rein their kids in if their behavior’s bad for business, but Kal’s different.”

I leaned forward and whispered, “Why?”

“Because the investment’s too steep.” Felio glanced at Brexton, who was sitting on a tree branch, kicking his legs childishly between drinks. “See Brexton?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a Scion. That means he has a patron god—and that’s very rare. The domains usually go millennia without having a new Scion, but somehow, the First Domain has two Scions at the same time, and the Melhans are mortified that their heir’s son’s not one of them. So they’ve invested everything into him, hoping to capture their god’s attention while they’re watching the harvest.”

“Oh…” I whispered.

“Yeah… I hear they spent a diamond heirloom on him.”

My lips curved into a complex smile. I could theoretically grasp the value of a diamond in the outside world, but I couldn’t understand it. I still had six specialized diamond requests and three diamond free requests, including one I got for my level-up post-evolution. Lastly, I still had a diamond skill reward. That chalked up ten generational “heirlooms” under my belt, and I was fairly certain that Lithco wouldn’t let me level up without at least a platinum, as levels were a reward system, not a unit of measurement, and up until that point, my achievements were so high, and my opportunities were so plentiful that I was forced into a high-risk, high reward leveling system.

Felio must have sensed my thoughts because her eyes flooded with curiosity. I had to change the subject.

“What’d they buy him?” I asked.

“Oh… they didn’t announce it, but I heard Kal was boasting about some book. I think it identifies poisons automatically.”

I gripped my pants reflexively.

“You know something about it?” she asked.

I snapped out of my dark and lamenting thoughts of not being able to poison that little prick and turned to her. “Oh… that?” I chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah. It’s probably the Big Book of Poisons. It’s practically the only reason I’m alive.”

“Really? It really points out poisons?”

“Points out… I’ll do you one better. It highlights things.” I turned to the forest. “And let me tell you, half the forest’s purple.”

Felio giggled, and then we chatted for a few hours. Tyler’s teacher, Kalas, came by to touch base with me. We discussed Tyler’s progress like a parent-teacher conference, and then he said he would take Tyler into the forest the next morning and invited me to come. I agreed.

I needed to distance myself from Kal and find some way to get a hold of Kyro. He couldn’t get involved in the Harvest by Drokai law (as one harvester seeing one of them would ruin their greatest ambush trump card), but Kal’s threat, as a legacy with my advantages, could tip the scales.

At a very minimum, he might be willing to get me some freeter spores while I was in the opposite direction. Turning that arrogant gaggle of assholes into an Areswood 1-Melhan 0 poster would probably be more powerful than them simply disappearing. So I would ask for a favor.

It was evening when Felio finally had to join her family. I snuck her some extra resources and some of my cleansing creams, and she gave me some lip balm that felt like I was kissing ice-dusted with sugar. It gave me energy and vibrancy. I loved it.

Tyler was restless and jonesing for the jerky I gave him earlier, so we went into my tent and cooked marinated meat on the magical heating pit inside, swapping stories about our daily lives.

Mom and Dad were “boring as ever,” according to Tyler, and “twice as naggy.” They had allegedly put a “stethoscope up his ass” since he started training, constantly fussing over his health, then punishing him for being alive. He recounted a genuinely harrowing tale about how Kalas had broken and healed his legs fifteen times one day to strengthen his bones, but Mom still made him do chores when he got home. According to her, “Life doesn’t stop for the sick. If you push yourself too hard, it’s going to hurt the rest of your life, and I refuse to encourage such behavior.” Tyler scoffed and said, “Do you think I want this?” but she didn’t listen.

It was an interesting story to reflect on. On the one hand, I was living proof of her worries. If Kline weren’t around me, I would have died using Nymbral on the brivelts during the Trial of Worth. On the other hand, if I didn’t push myself that far, we would have both died. It was a complex viewpoint, and I determined that the validity of that argument would be on a case-by-case basis, and it was truly unreasonable to do so when Kalas was forcing the lessons.

But just as I determined that Mom was wrong and Tyler was right, I asked, “Did she know he broke your legs?” to which he said, “Of course not! Are you insane?” and the whole thing came full circle.

We laughed as I served the food. Five minutes later, Tyler was lying on the ground, moaning like an addict after a plunger full of black tar heroin.

I was just glad he didn’t ask about Kline because I didn’t want to lie to him. Thinking so, I activated Root Wide Web. Kline was back at camp, watching over us from a tree.

Oh Kline… I thought.

I got up once Tyler fell asleep and walked to the edge of the Mouth, staring into the forest. I couldn’t look into the trees or give it away, but I let him know, under his watchful, loving eyes, that I was thinking about him. Then I went to bed. It would be a long day on the morrow.

The morning brought a thunder of activity. All the legacies were leaving into the forest after the “culling” period, so elites sat around cookfires, eating racks of soul meat that they had started cooking the prior afternoon in preparation.

Felio offered me a cup of tea, and I drank it.

“You joining them?” she asked.

I nodded. “My idiot brother’s going, so I guess I gotta… Actually…”

In a sudden flash of inspiration, I came up with a potential solution for dealing with Kal. What I needed was fallbacks and witnesses. Having a legacy member around to establish my innocence regarding Kal—and verify my “guilt” in dealing with bad actors during the harvest—would be useful.

I turned to her. “Wanna join? If we get Aiden, we could probably cover fifty miles on a foraging event.”

“I would love to…” she said nervously. “But…” her eyes turned to her guards, “I can’t leave my people.”

“Would taking one do?” I asked. “We have a Dante guard, and if we get Aiden, we could probably… Hey, Aiden.”

Aiden was locked in a tense conversation with his fellow beast tamer—and perhaps rival—Railain, so there was a lag before he looked over and nodded and then came over.

“Everything good?” I asked.

“Of course. Railian was just expressing how magnificent I was. She strangely decided to do so with phrases like, I won’t let you beat me again, and Watch your back. I actually think she’s in love with me.”

My eyes drifted to the forest, mind blank and formless as I tried to process the bullshit that Aiden just thrust into my brain. His fake optimism game had evolved so much that I was genuinely unsure if he was serious or not until I saw a slight smile on his lips.

“Yeah, I think she does,” I said, scoffing. “Make sure to get her dad’s permission.”

“Oh, but that’d ruin it. Forbidden love’s only exciting if—”

“Hey,” I interrupted. “Do you wanna go foraging with us? You could probably pick up some beasts along the way.”

He glanced at Felio, her guards, and the lurvines. “I know you wouldn’t be asking me to join so I could conveniently convince the lurvines to let you ride them,” he remarked with a slight smile, “but are you doing that?”

My lips curled into a guilty grin. “To be fair—this is what friends do. They automatically assume they are going to do things together, then take advantage of that fact.”

Aiden’s eyes drifted into the forest with a smirk, but it soon turned into a gentle smile. It was really hard to claim I was just using him when I went to war with a family on his behalf. So he just shrugged and nudged his head at the lurvine.

“What’s in it for them?”

I smiled. “Cooked soul meat and gratitude.”

Aiden took one glance at the lurvine and laughed. “They’re in. Ah-ight. Feed ‘em a snack and we’ll head out.”

“Yus,” I said, pumping my hands.

Aiden saw my cuteness and rapidly turned away. “I’ll get ready.”

It was a strange exchange that stuck to me like a wet leaf to a jacket, holding tight for a minute before falling off and drifting away. Then I forgot about it as I convinced Felio’s guards to let her and one guard leave with me. They were adamantly opposed until they learned that Tyler’s Dante guard was joining us, and they reluctantly let us go.

And that’s how, as the sun spilled over the howling, winding trees of the Areswood Forest, Aiden, Tyler, Felio, Kalas, and two overpowered guards mounted gigantic third evolution beasts and flew into the Black Harvest with me like bad tourists, prepared to see the aftermath of the culling.