Catherine had explored Mount Priscilla for a few hours before deciding to move on as the sun rose. She hoped to find a village, but wasn't willing to spend any more time searching. Her goal was to be far away from Misyrea, and quickly.

They wouldn't care about her if she had just left, but she had taken their most feared and profane artifact with her. And she had quite possibly set fire to their temple, since she did nothing to stop her small fires from spreading.

At least one of the Holy Knights of Misyrea had been assigned to track her down and bring her to justice, of that she was sure. They wouldn't be expecting her to actually leave the mountain, though. Not after all of the times she had made such a fuss about helping its people. No, they would expect her to be hiding among the poor folk, trying to start a rebellion or something. That would buy her some time to get away.

They especially wouldn't fathom her audacity to brave the myst; that was suicide. Even the path she took by the coast was too dangerous for most people. And only the most foolish or insane would enter the myst directly.

Catherine didn't disagree with that, but it didn't stop her, either.

The descent down the southern slope of Priscilla wasn't difficult. She was able to walk or slide down most of it until she was nearly into the valley, at which point she had to jump from a ledge and into a tree. The visible distance was surprisingly far until she neared the very end of the mountain's base, at which point she could hardly see more that seven feet at some times. Never before had she allowed herself to explore this deeply into the fog. It would certainly mean her death, but she was excited as well as scared.

Few had ever entered the myst without sacrificing either their life or their sanity. There was no ignoring that fact. But now that she had entered into it willingly, Catherine's curiosity was greater than her fear.

Her sword was unsheathed. It still felt awkward in her hands, but she had practiced a little in the early morning and was confident that she could kill with it if needed. She used it to mark her path as she passed through trees and thorny bushes. Without a compass or view of the sky, she was only able to guess her direction. Of all the people that had entered the myst and were never seen again, she wondered how many had simply lost their way.

After passing through several trees, she entered a clearing that seemed to go on forever. She was deep into the myst now. There was occasional movement just beyond the farthest she could see. Some of it could have just been the wind moving parts of the fog, but there was no way to tell. Once the trees had disappeared into the gray nothingness behind her, it dawned on her that even if she could find her way back to her marked path, it didn't lead back to an exit, only to where she started. There was no turning back.

The wind seemed to change direction randomly at times as she moved. Smells were mixed in, seemingly with no connection with each other. She recognized a smell like butter, one of autumn leaves, something like rotten eggs, and quite a few that she didn't recognize.

Deep in her gut she felt a growing sense that she was becoming more lost with every step.

A shape approached from her left. She stood as still as she could as a large, spider-like creature with four legs slowly walked into view, then passed her by and vanished again into the endless gray. It wasn't like any animal she had ever seen before. The size of it! How close it had gotten without her notice had left her startled and shaken.

It was only then that she realized how silent everything around her was.

The myst didn't just conceal things from sight, apparently. When she felt confident enough to walk again, she picked up rocks as she found them along the way. Eventually she found a boulder and tossed rocks at it as she passed by, listening for the sound of their collision. At the point where the boulder began to become obscured by the fog, she could no longer hear when the rocks hit its side.

There could be any number of wild things around her, growling, roaring, or even screaming for help, and she wouldn't have any way of knowing.

Something passed over her from above. It was several feet away, but she ducked anyway. From what little she saw of it, it appeared to be a tentacle. Still crouched, she waited. When nothing else appeared after several seconds, she took a step forward.

Then she was on her back, the breath knocked from her lungs. She raised her sword in time to prevent teeth from closing around her head. Her arms shook as she forced the thing's face away from her own with the sword she held in its mouth. With a burst of speed and strength, she kicked up at the thing on top of her and rolled out from beneath it, then slashed away at where it was.

Her sword only met air.

Once again she waited. The thing had been something like a wolf from what little she saw of it. It had no tentacles, so there were at least two things nearby that she couldn't see or hear.

Little by little she backed away, then spun around when something touched her back. It was a tree.

There were more beyond it, so she moved quickly from tree to tree just to be out of the open area. The ground beneath her rose higher in this direction, so she let herself hope that she was moving uphill. Eventually she came upon what appeared to be a puddle. As she tried to step around it, however, the puddle began to rise.

It took on a vaguely humanoid shape. Catherine barely had time to examine it before it lunged at her.

She thrust her sword as she backed away, and felt it stab into flesh. There was a scream, but Catherine could not tell where on its body the scream had come from. As the humanoid reared back, she could see blood leaking from a wound on its stomach.

It was a pale, twitchy thing. The smell it gave off was disturbing, though Catherine could definitely say that she had never smelled anything like it before. The dagger-sized spikes on its limbs moved anxiously like the stingers of bees. It had no eyes, nose, or mouth that she could see, but several pores on its body widened and shrunk as if breathing.

It moved toward her again, but Catherine stabbed it away. She felt something from the sword in her hands. Not a warmth, but something like it. She thought about that as she forced the humanoid back a third time. This weapon was supposed to have some sort of cursed magic power, if stories were to be believed. How to use it was something she should have tried to learn already, but had no idea where to begin.

Stolen novel; please report.

The humanoid jumped up into the trees, swung through the branches and landed behind her. It attacked again with its spiky arms, but Catherine was quickened by her adrenaline. Before it hit, she slashed halfway through the arm as she knocked it away. The feeling was there again. Her sword was reacting to something as it struck.

Every time she wounded the creature, her sword felt lighter, and she felt less tired and more alert. She had cut into trees and bushes before and not felt this strange reaction. What was different about this time?

She didn't wait for the creature to strike again, and stabbed into its chest before it could move. The sword sank in deep but no blood escaped the wound. It screamed again, the sound becoming weaker as it struggled to free itself from the blade.

Then Catherine saw what was happening. As blood tried to escape the creature's body, the blade was drawing the liquid into itself, feeding. The "warmth" she felt was the blade sharing the stolen life being drained from its victim. Catherine realized that she could feel this happening, in much the same way that she could feel the sensations of animals she bonded with when conjuring.

For the first time, she felt its thirst. Overpowering, all-consuming thirst for every last droplet. It needed blood like a dehydrated man lost for days needed water, except it hadn't endured this thirst for mere days. It had been years. Finally, after all this time, it had what it needed. The feeling was glorious. For a moment, she lost herself in the sword's ecstasy of finally having that water of life. Pure bliss began to spread through her, then suddenly stopped.

Catherine came to abruptly, unsure of what had just happened. The sword was still embedded in the humanoid's corpse, which was now a shriveled husk. The sword had drained it not just of blood, but of most if not all of the fluids in its body. Catherine pulled the sword free, shaking as she did so. She had never been so thirsty. The sword was greatly unsatisfied. It needed more, but from where?

Her eyes darted about desperately in search of another blood-filled creature. She began to run, looking for any living beast she could find. The need was far greater than her fear of the myst.

Then she realized, there was blood already nearby. Catherine hugged the sword against her, feeling her heartbeat. So much blood, and she was so thirsty. It would feel so good, and her skin was so thin, so easily pierced. She knew, she had cut herself numerous times. This would be no more difficult, but so much more satisfying.

With a scream, she threw the sword away from her and slapped herself in the face. Staggering backward, she tried to force back what was coming but soon doubled over and threw up everything in her stomach. It took several minutes for her to catch her breath.

"No! Just no!" she said. "The myst is going to kill me today, not you. If I make it out of this, you can have your turn then."

Catherine didn't think the sword could actually hear her, but speaking to it as a separate entity helped to split their minds. She was not the sword. The sword was not her. Catherine had heard rumors of conjurers that bonded so deeply with their creatures that the death of the conjured meant the death of the conjurer as well. She didn't suspect it might be true until now. Never before had she lost so much of her sense of self.

Once she felt confident about doing so, she grabbed the sword and prepared for another mental takeover. The sword had apparently calmed, as she felt nothing from it. For now, her mind was safe.

She considered a possibility. The entire episode could have been a hallucination brought about by the myst. People were known to see and hear unreal things when the myst was near. This had felt far too real, however.

She shrugged and sighed. If her sanity was slipping, there wasn't anything she could do about that now, anyway.

As Catherine got to her feet, she realized that she must have lost control of her bladder while her mind was consumed by the joy of drinking the humanoid's blood. The smell of urine and the lingering taste of vomit were going to be her companions for the rest of this journey.

Catherine walked a ways through strange plants until coming to a large flat rock, covered in what seemed to be glittering dust. Carved into the sides were symbols she didn't recognize. She was quick to use this to her advantage, and drew symbols of her own on its dusty surface.

However, her conjurer's sense proved to be as blind as her eyes in this fog. After several attempts, she wasn't able to summon anything. Either there were no animals nearby that she could detect, or they were well hidden. She kept trying though, and made a mistake when drawing her current sigil. When she reached out with her mind she didn't find what she was looking for, but instead found something… quite different.

Catherine did not know what it was, but called it to her anyway. What emerged before her was some sort of plant-like insect, with crystals on its back.

"Hello. You're an odd one, aren't you?" she said as she walked up to it, confident in her mental connection. "I summoned you by accident, but let's be friends, okay? I might be the first person ever to summon one of whatever you are."

The plant bug had a snakelike body, larger than a horse, that was covered in what seemed to essentially be a wooden exoskeleton. Catherine ran her fingers along its body, searching for a place where it wouldn't mind being pet, saying, "Easy now. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want your help." She found a mossy part where its ears would have been that enjoyed her touch. Now that she was close, she examined its crystals and saw that they weren't actually attached to its body, but levitated in place of where wings would be.

"Wait here a second, I'll be right back," she said, and returned to the flat rock. She unzipped one of the extra pockets on her jacket and poured in as much of the glittering dust as she could fit. Then she returned to her new friend. "Let's see how much weight you can carry," she said, and began to carefully climb onto its back. "Open your mind to me. You can't talk so I need to feel what you feel."

Once she had found a good position, she checked the plant bug's thoughts and found that it would have no trouble carrying her. The wing crystals began to vibrate, and together they rose into the air.

Catherine giggled. With this, she could just fly to the next mountain and avoid any other predator on the ground. She just hoped that she didn't end up on Mount Priscilla again, as she had completely lost any sense of direction.

They sped through the myst, just above the treetops. Catherine didn't want to risk flying too high as that would mean losing sight of the trees, and she didn't know if a myst-bound creature like the one she rode could actually leave the myst. She knew the plant bug wasn't born here, though. In the plant bug's memories she could see an endless hive somewhere outside of the myst that seemed to span the entire visible world. Where such a place could be, or how it could possibly exist, she had no idea.

The ground below them seemed to be rising steadily, meaning they could soon be free. Catherine pet the plant bug's mossy bits. "Almost there! Do you want to come with me? 'Tis not like your home but I can take care of you. I owe you a lot, friend."

Something massive suddenly flew out of the fog to the left. Catherine tried to warn the plant bug to move but it was too late. It slammed into the plant bug's side and sent Catherine tumbling into the air. As she fell she caught a glimpse of a tentacle wrapping itself around her friend and pulling it into the myst. Several branches pelted her on the way to the ground, breaking her fall painfully.

As soon as she was on the ground, she reached out mentally for the plant bug, but felt nothing. The connection was broken. She tried to replicate the misdrawn symbol she had used to summon it and repeated the ritual, but her mental search could not find any sign of her lost ally.

She cursed. This was her fault for not commanding the bug to fly higher. As she rose to her feet, she checked herself for injuries and found nothing significant. "I'm sorry," she said, and kicked the sigil she had drawn.

Visibility became gradually better as she continued on foot. She had to climb some of the distance that she couldn't walk, but it wasn't too difficult. Eventually she looked back and breathed a sigh of relief when she could see the top of the myst below her.

She had done the impossible. She had crossed the myst and survived.

If only she had any idea where she was.