Tag: Fantasy

16. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Once I finally met up with the others, I was out of breath and sweaty from hauling the supplies in as much of a jog as I could manage. Larina could tell something was wrong before I even spoke, and quickly took the supplies from me and divided them up so that they would be easier to carry. I gasped out what had happened to me in the town between heaving breaths. Silden and Lyre glanced at each other, frowning. “If it’s caused a panic at the base here, maybe the patrols will be called back. We should move into the desert now,” Silden said.

“It has to be now anyway,” Larina said, sounding exasperated. “Do you think they’re not looking for her this very moment? We’ve just poked an ant’s nest!”

“Yes, we need to go,” Lyre said, pulling on the moccasins I had bought for them. I pulled my own on, a little tight over the foot coverings I already wore, but the extra cushioning was nice for once. I took the pack that Larina offered me. I was still out of breath, but we needed to keep moving. We looped away from town, as far as we could manage before pushing into the desert. Maybe it wasn’t far enough, but we were desperate to get to where no one would want to follow us.

The hard packed dirt and scrubby brush was just giving way to softer sand dunes when I heard a shout behind me and the soft whoosh of an arrow narrowly missing my head, burying into the dirt in front of me. I gasped as I turned to see more arrows loosed at us, could hear Larina cry out and shout and wave a hand through the air, a sudden gust rising and knocking them off target. Lyre and Silden both turned, inexpertly pulling the rapiers from their belts, a glow surrounding them as they began readying their own spells, and I raised both of my hands, preparing to summon the lightning that came most naturally to me.

The soldiers were almost on us – a small patrol group, five men dressed in the blue and grey tabards, riding on horses. Just as the glow sprung up around each of us, something burst from the sand of the nearest dune, rearing up as an ominous shadow before snapping down on the hind legs of the nearest horse, lifting it bodily into the air and sending its rider sprawling as the poor creature screamed in pain and terror.

“Dunslyth!” I heard one of the soldiers yell, as they turned their bows toward the giant snake-like creature that had pulled back again, hissing loudly.

It looked almost like a cobra with spikes along the edge of its frill, only larger – much larger. When it pulled back it loomed at least 15 feet above the ground, a menacing hissing shadow. It screamed as the soldiers’ arrows pierced its skin. It moved to strike, almost lightning quick, but something about its movement must have telegraphed where because the soldiers moved expertly out of the way despite its speed.

That was a Dunslyth? “You could make so many shoes from that thing!” I said out loud, my brain hardly able to process my shock at its size. Lyre and Silden glanced at each other, then both turned, Lyre grabbing my arm to pull me along as we all began to run into the desert. One of the soldiers cried out and a stray arrow whooshed harmlessly past us, but then they were too preoccupied with the giant snake to follow.

Even though it was fall, the sun overhead was brutal. Larina summoned water as a constant drizzling mist over each of our heads, keeping us damp and hydrated. I glanced up when she had started the spell, almost expecting a cartoonish cloud to be hovering over my head, but there was no cloud – just droplets of water forming out of the sky in a hovering spritz.  It occurred to me that we should have also invested in better covering – I’m dark enough to tan nicely before I burn, but by the end of the day my skin felt like it was radiating its own heat and was splotchy and red.

It was also the first time that we traveled through the entire day, so we were all very tired when we settled down for the night. It was still early evening and quite warm, but I suspected that it would be nearly freezing once the sun set. “Could you dry us off?” I asked Larina. She seemed a bit confused until I explained why, but then quickly set about expelling the water. I set about performing the healing spell for the others – even if I couldn’t benefit from it, there was no reason for them to suffer from sunburns.

Although I had remembered the basic fact about deserts, I had never actually been in a desert at night. Knowing a fact is one thing, and experiencing the reality of the freezing cold is something else completely. Lyre decided to chance summoning a fire for us to huddle near, and we bundled together under the blanket I had brought, very similarly to how we had slept after that first night of running.

I had trouble sleeping at first, wondering about the Hunter that had followed us to the border. It didn’t sound like the soldiers were devoted to chasing us down, and I hadn’t killed anyone in my escape, so I didn’t think they would help him further. But would he continue to follow us into the desert alone? I thought about his mismatched eyes and the scar, about leaving Junel behind to fight him. At some point I must’ve fallen asleep, because I felt Larina grip my shoulder and shake me awake very gently. “It’s your turn for watch,” she said.

Nodding, I shifted a little apart from the group to let her slide into place between me and Silden. The fire had been put out at some point. I didn’t move far, not wanting to lose the warmth of the blanket, and stared out at the landscape around us. I heard something that sounded like a normal pack of coyotes, something I had heard a million times at home, and it was almost comforting until one of their calls was cut short in a series of frightened, pained yips. The night filled with growls and thrashing sounds, and I tensed, trying to gauge how close it was.

I stood carefully and moved toward the top of a nearby dune, keeping low to avoid being seen, and strained my eyes against the darkness. The light from the moons was enough to illuminate some of the desert in soft light, and I could see the shadows of the remaining coyote pack running off to the south. Something large shifted on the ground, and I ducked low, listening to the sound of ripping, a wet visceral sound of tearing flesh. I watched the shadowy silhouette of giant wings raise into the air after a moment, could hear the feathers fluttering against the ground, and watched the figure rise into the air.

Whatever kind of bird it was, it was larger than a coyote. I watched it easily lifting the remains of its kill in one large, taloned claw. I pressed myself close to the sand, feeling my heart thump wildly in my chest, wondering if it was loud enough to be heard. But it either didn’t notice me or was already satisfied with its catch – once in the air, it silently drifted away.

I lay very still and realized I wasn’t breathing. I forced myself to take a breath, shivering in the freezing night as I strained my eyes at the sky, searching for any other shadows. As my panic lessened, I realized that out here, the stars were quite beautiful, vivid and clear and unfamiliar. I hadn’t wanted to wander the ship abovedeck at night, not feeling particularly safe with the crew. And during our travel to the desert, I had been so focused on reaching our destination that I hadn’t spent much time looking up.

But now, here, terrified that something might swoop down on me from above, I was really studying the sky. I hadn’t thought I’d be able to tell one night sky from the other – the only two constellations I knew back home were Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, and it always took me some minutes of searching to find them. Despite that, I somehow knew that this wasn’t the sky I had been raised under.

I had noticed the three moons before. Two were smaller, misshapen lumps, floating close together, with a small ring drifting around the two of them, like a loose infinity symbol in the sky. The third was larger, rounder, and almost like our moon, though the craters and plains of it were different, the coloration just a little more coppery gold than silvery blue. Beyond the moons, I could even make out the dusty, sprawling loop of the galaxy we were in, realized that some of the stars were the far side of that loop – and there, small but still particularly bright, was what I realized was the center of the galaxy, a bright star set in a strange darkness separated from the ring of stars that surrounded it. It was hard to see, because the stars on the opposite side of it still filled the night sky, but on this clear night in the desert, the shape of it was just barely visible.

I gaped in wonder at the alienness of it and was finally struck by how completely separated from home I was. I studied the sky some more, but when the cold became too much to bear, I slid back down the dune and settled under the blanket again. For the rest of my watch, I kept a watchful eye on the sky above for any ominous shadows.

I warned Silden about the giant bird when I woke him for his turn at watch, and we let the others know about the danger when they woke in the morning.

As Silden began casting the water spell to keep us cool and hydrated, I shaded my eyes to look up at the sky, already bright and promising another blistering day. “We should have bought some head coverings to keep the sun off of us,” I mused out loud, knowing it was too late to really do anything about it. My face still felt warm to the touch from the sunburn I was just beginning to feel. Lyre frowned for a moment, looking at my reddened skin, and then pulled off his billowy yellow shirt, pulling it over my head and using the sleeves to tie it in place. I laughed, and tried pulling it off, shaking my head in protest. “You’re paler than me, you’re going to burn faster,” I said.

He grabbed my hands to stop me from yanking the shirt off. “You’re the one that can heal these burns. The rest of us won’t have to worry about what the elements do to us thanks to you, but you can’t heal yourself, so you should take any extra precaution you can think of.” I stared into his very blue eyes for a moment, and couldn’t think of an argument. He smiled, pulling my hands down away from the tied shirt sleeves, and then let go.

I rubbed my hands together briefly, frowning, then readjusted the shirt to offer better face covering and gathered my own supplies.

There was no sign that anyone was following us amid the shifting sands and dunes. We kept a wary eye out for anything unusual, and could see large shapes out far on the horizon, but for most of the day nothing approached us. Our pace to the desert had been set by our need to escape, to reach a place that we wouldn’t be caught and enslaved. We were still wary of the dangers of the desert and kept a good pace, wanting to pass through as quickly as possible. Still, the stress and tension seemed to have released – my companions talked very openly now, laughing and telling jokes and stories, and talking about what we might find in the Empire. From my understanding, the human kingdoms had very little contact with them.

Late in the afternoon, we were approaching a stationary dark blot on the horizon. We debated looping around, but since it was similar to the other shapes we had seen in the distance before, we decided to investigate. “At least we’ll have a better idea of whether we should avoid these places or not,” Silden noted. As we got closer, we could see that it was a forest of cacti – larger than any I had seen before, clumped together and on top of each other, a strange misshapen mass of fleshy green bulbs and spines. Closer now, we also realized there was movement, and dropped low to the ground to avoid being spotted. A large beast of some kind walked amongst the succulents, looking almost like a brontosaurus, except the legs were planted too far apart and it had feathers or fur covering it. It had a flat head and extended brow ridge that looked dense and bony. It stretched its long neck up and bit off the top corner of one cacti, chewing despite the spines.

“What is it?” I asked. Larina glanced at Silden and Lyre for the answer, but Lyre only shook his head and Silden shrugged. I watched it eat some more of the cactus. “Maybe it’s not carnivorous? Could be a safe spot to take shelter on occasion.”

Larina pointed suddenly off into the distance. We all turned to see what had caught her attention – a strange shadow was rushing in toward the giant animal. It was also large, though not as large as the creature we were watching. It had the lithe form of a lion, with little to no fur – in fact, it appeared to be covered in spines. It pounced forward, letting loose a growling scream that instantly gave me goosebumps.

For a moment I felt sorry for the large fuzzy lizard, until it turned to meet the spiny cat head first, letting loose a rumbling roar. It swung its armored head around and slammed the cat into the sand, then began using its large hind legs to thump down repeatedly, rapidly, faster than I had expected for a creature of its size, apparently not bothered at all by the spines. The stomping and thrashing raised the sand around it in a cloud. When the sand settled down, we could see that the spiny cat was a dark misshapen lump, could just make out the creeping shadow of its blood soaked into the sand.

Then the lizard bent its neck low to the ground, lapping at the carcass with a long green tongue. We watched in silence for a moment. “Maybe we should loop around…” Larina said in a loud whisper, gesturing for us to stay low behind the dunes. When we were well past the cactus forest, she spoke in a more normal tone to say, “We should avoid those areas, if they attract more creatures like that.”

“Plants could mean water,” I said, automatically voicing a survival concern that had always been ingrained in me back home. She gestured to the drizzling mist above her head and I grinned sheepishly. “Point taken,” I conceded, and we decided to avoid the cactus forests.

15. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

We were nearly out of supplies again as we neared the border of the desert. “We could stop outside this town and you could buy some more food. Then we can sneak across the border in the night,” Silden said, pointing at the map. Looking down where he pointed, I could see the town was named Owassus.  It was larger than the last place we had stopped, less of a gathering place for farmers and more like a proper township. But of all the towns bordering the desert, it was the most remote.

Once again, a list of supplies was made up for me. This time, remembering the things that had made me seem so suspicious to the previous shop clerk, I made sure to summon water to wash up more thoroughly the night before, and washed and brushed my hair and tied it back into twin braids, my hair being too short for a single long one. I also washed the clothes I planned to wear the evening before and let them dry. When I made my walk into town, I carried only a little more money than I would need to buy the supplies, and even if I looked a little disheveled, I was still presentable.

I walked through as though I had every right to be there and smiled politely at people I passed, but still had the paranoid impression that I was garnering more attention than I wanted. At one point I heard a brief whispered conversation and turned to see a little boy running off across the street behind me. I paused, wondering if I should just turn around and leave town, but then decided that it couldn’t have anything to do with me and continued on to the store. Everything seemed to go smoothly while I was shopping, and I did not get any strange looks from the clerk as I recited my shopping list, aside from a brief comment that travelers didn’t come through often, as remote as Owassus was.

I spotted some foot coverings, very similar to leather moccasins, made from a slightly stretchy material. Shoes weren’t on the list, but I decided I had to have a pair for myself, and also felt the need to get some for the others as well. They weren’t as expensive as proper shoes or boots, but they would provide better protection. Besides, even if the others were used to walking in their bare feet, I wasn’t sure how they’d fare with the temperature extremes of a desert. As I admired the material, the shop clerk said, “That’s a local commodity. They make it from Dunslyth skin.”

“Dunslyth,” I said, aware that he was just trying to make the sale because he wasn’t aware that I was already sold. “What kind of creature is that?”

“Desert snake. They tend to live close to the borders of the desert, so they’re easy to hunt.”

“I see.” I ran my fingers over the stitching of the strangely smooth material, wondering how many snakes they had to kill to make this many shoes.

I was feeling extraordinarily proud of how well everything was going until I stepped out of the store to find a pair of soldiers waiting for me. They were wearing matching blue and grey tabards over their armor, with a pattern of a wolf’s long body stretched across the blue side. “Miss, would you come with us?” one of them spoke, stepping forward. I smiled nervously at them, wondering if I should just drop the supplies and run. Maybe cast a spell to get them off my trail? I weighed my options. We needed the supplies, and I couldn’t risk leading anyone back to the others.

But maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to escape from them with all my supplies at a later point?

I nodded, and plastered the most confused smile I could manage on my face. “Sure. What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

I was led to a building that was just outside of town, on what looked to be a small military compound that had training grounds, a couple of barracks, and a large communal building. Inside the back of the communal building, which seemed to lead to a cafeteria on one side and a row of offices on the other, there was a wide room with a table and chairs, some chests for storage, and a few small holding cells with bars. The soldiers placed the items I had been buying on the table, then had me sit in one of the chairs. Then they stood by the door and waited.

After several minutes, a woman arrived – a tall woman with brown hair that was greying in streaks. She did not wear the same tabard, but did wear armor that was in good working order, well kept if not entirely new looking anymore. She approached, sparing a casual glance at the supplies in front of me before taking a seat across from me at the table.

The silence stretched for a long moment. I stared at her evenly – I had no intention of talking first. Finally, a smile spread across her face. “That’s a lot of foot coverings for one person traveling alone.”

My eyes flitted over to the pile of supplies, the shoes settled on top. All different sizes. I did my best to not give anything away in my expression, but I could feel my jaw clench despite myself.

“There’s a Hunter that insists that a woman of your description is traveling with a group of escaped slaves. That she’s dangerous. He’s requested the help of the border guard in finding and detaining any suspicious individuals.” She eyed me carefully, as though to determine whether I seemed dangerous enough.

“And you take orders from Hunters?” I said, hazarding a hope that Hunters and soldiers might have jurisdiction issues.

The smile never left her face. “Not typically,” she said.

Remembering something that Silden had said before about Hunters, I asked, “And it’s just the one, working alone? How do you know he hasn’t gone rogue?”

“From what we’ve been told by his Guild, he’s not performing an official duty. They have decided that the individual he’s looking for is not worth chasing, no matter how many slaves she has in tow. A strange decision that they refuse to explain.”

I frowned, glad to know that we were being allowed to escape but frustrated that I had been caught anyway. “Then why detain anyone? I’m not the one you’re looking for, but apparently if I was, you have no reason to keep me here.”

She shrugged. “He’s been a long time friend of the border guard, and apparently someone higher up owes him a personal favor.” She paused, as though she expected me to say something more, but when I didn’t she went on. “We’ve just sent word to him that we’ve detained someone matching his description, and he is coming to confirm your identity. If you truly aren’t the individual he’s looking for, he’ll take one look at you and tell us to release you. You won’t be here longer than a day or two, and then you can go safely on your way.”

I squashed the panicky feeling that began to stifle my throat. “And what if I don’t have the time to stay in your town a day or two?” I said, lifting my chin and narrowing my eyes. I hoped I sounded more imperious and less scared than I felt. Had he chased us all the way to the border, or had he simply come out here directly and demanded his favor from his friend higher up? I had truly thought we were in the clear, and knowing that he had been out here, just waiting…

“You’ll have very little choice in the matter,” she said, unperturbed. She gestured to the soldiers still standing at the door. They both stepped forward – one began placing my items in a chest, and the other opened one of the cells and then grabbed my arm to direct me into it. “Do you have traveling companions that will be worried for you, stranger? We can let them know you’re being detained.”

I glared at her and shook my head. She glanced again at my supplies as they were being placed into the chest. “Curious,” she noted, and then she left the room.

The soldiers remained to stand guard.

I paced in the cell for several minutes, trying to decide how to handle the situation. I was mad that I had been spotted so easily. Usually I considered myself nondescript – I had shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes and was often mistaken for other people by strangers I’d never met. But then travelers didn’t come through here often at all. One of the reasons we chose Owassus as our last stop before the desert was its remoteness, and apparently that had worked against us. I wondered if the kid I had seen running off before had been the one to get the soldiers.

If I waited too long, Lyre might try to come into town to find me. Even if he had the sense to wait until the cover of dark, how would he know where I had been brought? If the soldiers were on the look out for runaway slaves because of me, that made it even more dangerous for them. I’d have to get out, soon, preferably with our supplies. I walked over to the front of the cell and gripped the bars as I leaned against them, studying the soldiers that had brought me here.

They stood by the door, staring back at me in an almost bored way that said they could stay at their post patiently for hours. I sighed and wracked my brains. The stereotypical escape plan for characters in my situation involved acting sick, but would that really work? Dad had always seen through my acting so instantly when I was a teenager.

(You could put them to sleep) the voice in my head said. I jerked so suddenly I slammed my forehead into the bars with a clunk, surprised to hear it for the first time in weeks. I pulled away, letting a breath out in a pained hiss as I rubbed at my head. Sometimes I wondered if I had simply daydreamed the voices, and had worked to put them out of my mind. I looked up at the guards – both were frowning slightly at my obvious surprise, and one shifted uneasily.

I turned away and closed my eyes. How? I thought.

Once again, similar to when I had learned to heal, it was like I simply knew. I turned around to face the bars again, could see the glow envelope me as I reached for my magic. Both guards moved instantly, surprised but recognizing the light for what it was, one moving to a weapon rack for a bow and the other letting a dagger fly with an underhand toss. They started to shout, and I felt my heart jump into my throat as I thought of who could be listening. By the time I stepped out of the way of the dagger, they had both dropped to the floor in what I knew was a magically induced slumber. I froze, my eyes on the door, trying to quiet my panicked breathing as I listened for any sign that others were coming at the sounds of the shouts.

After a very tense minute, no one else appeared. I forced myself to take three deep breaths.

I wasn’t sure how much time I had. I felt instinctually that this spell was meant to wear off by itself. I didn’t want to cause more noise and risk bringing the entire base down on me, so blasting my way out seemed unwise. I also wanted to collect the supplies. I finally settled for magically summoning the keys on one of the guards over to me. They were attached to his belt and didn’t want to come off, so I pulled harder, and his entire body started to scrape across the floor. I grimaced at the sound of metal against stone, wondering if being dragged across the ground would wake him, or if someone else would hear this noise, but soon enough he was within reach and still sound asleep. I pulled the keys off him and started trying them one by one until I found the one that unlocked my cell.

Once that was done, I gathered the supplies from the chest.

Then I stood, holding everything in my arms as I thought over my next step. The office was set in the center of the base, with the barracks arranged behind and the training grounds out front. I looked at the sleeping guards for a moment. The glow surrounded me again, and I prepared myself to cast my newly learned spell as many times as I needed to.

I opened the door to the holding cells and looked down an empty hall. So far, so good. I walked down the hall, careful of any rooms or doors that I might be visible from, but was lucky to find that all the doors were closed. At the end of the hall was the front room, where a bored looking soldier sat at a desk. I cast the spell at him before he even saw me, and watched him slump into a slumber.

I slipped into the room, staying close to the wall – the cafeteria on the far side was quiet for the moment, though I could hear the sounds of someone moving around out of sight in the kitchen. I stepped toward the front doors and glanced out. The training grounds out front was full of people, some sparring, some walking to whatever business they had next. In fact, some were approaching the building I was in.

I wondered at the limits of the spell. I closed my eyes again, focusing, trying to imagine casting the spell in a wave away from myself, for as far as I could manage. Behind me, I could hear the familiar voice of the woman I had spoken to earlier saying, “What are yo—MAGE!” I opened my eyes and pushed the sleeping spell out as I had imagined, could nearly hear a soft boof! like an audible pressure being released as a wave of light flowed out around me. I could see the woman, glaring as she stepped forward, a hand on the pommel of her sword. Her eyes widened, but before she could say anything or pull her sword, she stumbled and slumped to the ground.

I turned and pushed the door to the building open, and could see that the spell had taken effect more impressively than I could have imagined. The soldiers across the entire training grounds were all fallen over, asleep. I could hear shouting at the edge of what must have been my range, of other soldiers reacting to seeing their brothers in arms falling to the ground around them, but it was silent where I was. I quickly moved away from the base, and just as I stepped around one of the sleeping guards at the gate, I could see him begin to shift, heard groans and confused mutterings from behind me as others also began to groggily wake. I picked up my pace, moving away from the town in as much of a run as I could manage, to where I had planned to meet up with Lyre and the others.

14. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

We ran the remainder of the day and most of the night and only stopped when we were all too exhausted to continue. When we finally stopped, we were deep in the forest, and it was still dark. We huddled together under the blanket I had brought, not daring to produce any light or use any magic for fear the glow would be seen. Lyre stayed awake first, still too keyed up to really sleep, and woke Silden a few hours later to take a turn at keeping an eye out and listening.

The dawn was cold and grey, the light of the sun having difficulty finding us through the trees but still bringing a relieving visibility. Silden stood and stretched as we started to wake, and began walking out to see if there were any nearby sign of habitation such as trails or roads, but he found nothing.

My feet were hurt and bleeding and I had a number of small scrapes from running through the underbrush and the trees of the forest. In fact, we all had small lacerations and scrapes across our faces and arms and legs. I closed my eyes to focus on healing, not wanting to walk on sore feet all day – and found that I couldn’t. Worried, I turned and placed a hand on Lyre’s arm – he frowned for a moment until the small cuts across his skin knit closed, and then he smiled gratefully at me. I sighed with relief, glad that I hadn’t lost my power at least, and performed the healing for both Larina and Silden as well.

But when I tried to heal myself again, the spell failed to take hold. Larina stared at me the entire time, her blue eyes full of worry as she realized what was happening. “You can’t heal yourself,” she said, which caused Lyre’s head to snap around as he focused on me, his eyes darting over me as he looked at each visible wound I had.

I shook my head and shrugged, allowing the glow to drop as I stopped concentrating on the spell. “I guess not.” A thoughtful look crossed her face, and Larina stood and walked for a bit, searching through the underbrush. Lyre reached out to run a finger along one of the larger cuts on my forearm, wiping away some of the clotting blood and causing fresh beads of crimson to bloom. “I’ll be okay,” I told him, almost feeling annoyed, but the deep concern on his face softened that feeling. He took one of the rags from the crate and summoned some fresh water to wet it, then set about cleaning my cuts as best as he could. I sat quietly through his ministrations.

After a few moments, Larina came back with a few plants, and using two stones that she had also found and a bit of summoned water, began to grind the plants into a paste. I watched her curiously. When she was done, she pushed Lyre gently out of the way and began rubbing the green paste across each visible cut and all over the bottoms of my feet. Whatever it was, there was no sting when it touched the open wounds – first there was a warming sensation, and then a cooling sensation. Most notably it almost immediately helped how sore my feet were. “There are some people that can focus their magic on making these things work faster,” she said as she worked, Lyre hovering over her to watch, “Nothing as effective as your magic, and I don’t even know that spell anyway. But the paste should still help with the pain.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back and patted my knee, then shifted over to begin sifting through the crate, tossing clothes out at Lyre and Silden. She was shorter and slighter than me, so she had difficulty finding any clothes that would fit her. I gave her the blue tunic I had found before and my black leggings. I folded some of the ripped up fabric of old shirts to wrap around my feet and pulled my socks over them to hold them in place. As I worked on that, Lyre and Silden dressed. They both wore brown breeches, though Silden’s were a little short on him and looked more like capris. Larina had tossed Lyre a faded yellow shirt that was quite billowy and had buttons at the sleeves and near the collar, and Silden was wearing a faded green tunic that was almost too tight across his shoulders. Once we had rummaged for everything we wanted from the crate, Lyre tossed the robes into it and, speaking softly, set the entire crate on fire.

As we sat near the flames for warmth, Silden revealed what was in the bag he had grabbed from Wrasker’s cabin – a map and money. “Are any of the coins going to be useful in the Empire?” I asked curiously as Silden stowed the coin bag back into the larger bag he had brought.

“The Empire has different money, but the metal will surely still have value. Gold is gold, no matter it’s shape,” Silden said as he laid out the map. After studying it for a moment, he pointed. “We left the ship here, and entered this forest. I don’t know how far we’ve come, but we haven’t exited the woods yet.” He drew his finger across the map, a distance that made my heart sink. “The nearest border of the Empire is here.”

Lyre and Larina both leaned over to study the map as well. I could see some of the symbols and guess at the geological meaning of them – mountains, forests, cities. But I still had trouble reading all of the text. “We could cross the desert,” Larina suggested, drawing a line a bit south of where Silden had slid his finger across the map. “It’s not inhabited.”

“For good reason,” Lyre said ominously. But then he sighed, rubbing a hand against the side of his head. “But we could avoid capture by humans, as long as we were wary of the danger.”

“And what danger is there in the desert?” I asked. We could all summon fresh water, so we wouldn’t die of dehydration at least.

“Large beasts, that hunt other large beasts, and get hunted by even larger beasts,” Silden said absently, tapping his finger on the expanse that Larina had gestured to. “But because of that, no people, no roads, no trade routes. If we get past the soldiers that guard the perimeter, no one would know we’re there. And they only have soldiers there to keep the monsters in, not to keep people out.”

“Wrasker bought each of us based on our offensive capabilities,” Larina said. “With the spells the three of us know, surely we’d be safe.”

They both looked to Lyre. He was staring at the map, a frown creasing his brow. He glanced up at me. “As strong as we are, we’d still have to be careful. There’s also the problem of the ravine.” He pointed at a feature on the map that cut through the desert close to the Empire side.

“It’s a very wide natural feature, created by the Edlun River. It starts high in the steep mountains here,” Lyre pointed and traced a winding line down until it reached the desert, ”Forms deep cliffs through here, and then opens out into valleys and plains south of the desert. The mountains would be almost impossible to cross. The cliffs of the ravine would be especially hard…  we may be able to manage hiking down into the canyons and out across the other side. But travel too far south…” Lyre traced down near the southern end of the desert. “The valley leading out of the canyons are very lush farm lands. We’d start running into humans again.”

As we sat in silence, Lyre nudged at the pack he had given me, and when I handed it over he pulled out some jerky. He shared it around. We sat, chewing on the tough meat in silence as we stared at the map. “We need to be moving. The hunter could still be alive and after us,” Silden said after awhile, standing and brushing off the pants he was wearing. He stretched his legs out for a bit, frowning. “I’ve never worn pants before,” he said. “Feels kind of restricting.”

“Only slaves wear robes. Cassandra was right to bring these – we’d stand out too easily without them, even at a distance,” Larina said. “I suppose I could have improvised a dress of some sort for myself though,” she added as she waved a hand, her voice taking on the echoey quality as she snuffed out the flames. The fabric was ashes now, the remainders of the wooden crate a charred skeleton.

“Would you have really wanted to hang on to it though?” I asked. Lyre and Silden each took one rapier. They didn’t have belts, so some of the remaining fabric was used to improvise something like a belt to hold their weapons in place.

She grimaced, and kicked at the ashes contemplatively. “No. Not at all.”

And then we continued moving.

We kept going at a clipped pace and reached the edge of the forest by that evening. Although we hadn’t discussed it much more, we did seem to unanimously decide the desert was best, and so had looped generally toward the southern edge of the forest. Once there, we paused to study the map before exiting the haven of the woods. There was some concern over whether we should travel on the road or not before we even reached one. Lyre thought it best to avoid the roads, but Larina pointed out that we ran the risk of crossing someone’s farmland, and that some humans disliked trespassers on their property. Still, their hair was cut short and the tips of their ears were easy to see, so running into anyone on the road could be disastrous. We spent the next couple of days cutting through fields and forests and avoiding houses and villages, but stayed close enough to the road so that we didn’t lose our course.

Midweek our rations were starting to run out, as Lyre had only intended to pack enough food to feed one person. We had wondered for a bit if we should steal something from a nearby farm, when Larina pointed out that I was human. “You could take the coins and buy provisions in the next village.”

Lyre was shaking his head, ready to protest, but before he could speak, I said, “It makes sense, and it’d be easier and less risky than being caught stealing.” Silden was already pulling out the bag of coins to plop down into my hands. It was heavier than I was expecting. I frowned. “What should I get?” I asked.

Larina composed a short list for me, and when I expressed some uncertainty about what price I should expect, she gave me a good ballpark figure to run with. “We should have kept the robes,” Lyre grumbled. “Then one of us could go with you at least.”

“Too late to fuss about that now,” I said, tucking the list in with the money. I wandered into town – a small village called Feldbern that worked as the central community to the local farms sprawled across the area. It had a general store and a town hall, a blacksmith, a small schoolhouse, and a few homes. A tiny inn sat next to the general store. Once inside the store, I pulled out the list and, knowing just a bit of the alphabet, I attempted to sound out the words awkwardly to the clerk that offered to help me. Frowning and irritated, the clerk held his hand out for the list, and I handed the short scrap of paper over to him. He gathered the items for me as I waited at the counter.

“Traveling through?” he guessed. I wasn’t sure if it was just because he didn’t recognize me or if the provisions were a giveaway, but I nodded. He frowned, looking me up and down, and I realized I probably looked like quite a mess, in dirty clothes and improvised footwraps, my hair disheveled, my face and arms covered in cuts with the green paste staining my skin. He frowned more deeply as I produced the heavy bag of coins to pay. “How did you come by all that?” he said, his voice dripping with disapproval. I realized belatedly that I should have taken just as much as I needed and not the whole bag.

I wondered briefly how I should explain, and settled for hardening my expression and saying, “That’s none of your concern,” as menacingly as I could manage.  He grimaced and did not look threatened in the slightest, but asked nothing more.

As he was near to finishing up, I asked, “Do you have any belts?” He did, so I bought two. It was a bit of effort to heft everything and carry it out of town by myself. As I was on my way out, I glanced back to see that the clerk had left the store to stand in the middle of the road and watch me, his arms crossed, his expression still disapproving. I wondered nervously who he would tell about the strange woman buying traveling supplies. Just outside of town, I closed my eyes and took three, steady, calming breaths. Then I hurried back to my companions. When I met up with the others the weight got more evenly redistributed and Lyre and Silden had proper belts to attach their rapiers to.

We moved on from that village quickly. Despite my misgivings, there was no sign that we were being followed. The next several days was a routine of walking, mostly through the evenings, most of the night when we could manage it safely, and through the mornings. We followed the road, but stayed mostly off of it, and looped far around habitations. When there were stretches of woods, we’d travel through for the cover they provided. We had enough provisions at this time to last us until we arrived at the edge of the desert, and then we planned to buy more.

Annoyed at my lack of reading ability at our last stop, Lyre and I started the reading lessons again using the slim red book I had taken from the ship. My grasp of written Blest was stronger every day, and reading even this small tome was helping to expand my vocabulary. There were even some days when Lyre wouldn’t cast the translation spell, and the three of them would take turns having conversations with me to give me practice. One evening we were sitting very close together so he could see the page over my shoulder. Before I could start sounding out the words, Lyre cleared his throat. “We can skip this section,” he said. I frowned and considered the story leading up to this page, and then really studied the section in silence for a moment before feeling my face heat up. I realized it was a very vividly described sex scene.

I remembered suddenly the Captain’s joke about reading lessons and Lyre’s initial discomfort about using the book to teach me and realized that I was learning to read from what basically amounted to porn. In the same instant, I realized exactly how close I was sitting to Lyre and said, “Oh!” I pulled back quickly and flipped the book shut. He stayed very still and continued to stare at it, his face and the tips of his ears turning slightly pink, and I felt my entire body warm with embarrassment. “Why didn’t you just tell me what kind of book it was?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows and looked up at me. “I wasn’t sure we’d get very far into it. Besides, it’s a bit hard to explain.”

“You could have just said it was the Captain’s smut.” I could hear Larina stifling a giggle from where she was supposedly sleeping, and Silden quietly shh’ing her. I ignored them.

Lyre coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like he was cutting off a laugh. “I was quite surprised that was what he gave you to read. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it if you knew.” I sighed and flipped the book back open to where I had left off. “What are you doing?” Lyre asked, a slight frown on his face.

“Reading. Apparently I just got to the good part,” I said. Lyre froze, his eyes wide, his features reddening even more. I read silently for the most part, but a few moments later had to hold the book out to him. “What’s this word?” I asked, my tone dripping with innocence as I pointed to the page with a finger. With context, I could guess, but I wanted to see if he would say it out loud.

Silden chuckled and Larina did not successfully hide her laughter as Lyre turned away and curled up to sleep, completely ignoring my question.

13. Interlude

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

It was a normal morning for Jennifer Brand. She let her daughter’s geriatric golden retriever Larry out and watched him walk in circles to find the perfect spot to do his business, sipping at her coffee as she stood at her back door. Then she went through the motions of her light morning exercises – a  little yoga, a little jog on the treadmill – before jumping into the shower. She could hear her phone going off just before she stepped under the steaming water, but opted to ignore it for the moment. She dressed and prepared for the day, picking up her phone to check the time and see who had called earlier. Her daughter’s flight was arriving this morning, and she was going to pick her up from the airport.

Frowning, she saw that she had received several text messages and had missed calls from three separate people, two of which had left voicemails. A sense of dread crept up her spine – one of the calls had been her ex-husband as well, and he rarely called unless it was something dire. Swallowing hard, she opened her text messages and read them quickly, then immediately moved to the living room, grabbing the remote to turn on the television. She flipped to the news. She half hoped that it was some sick coordinated joke arranged by her friends and her ex, but she knew that was a vain hope even before she watched the flashing banners declaring the breaking news. News that Stateside Flight 5071 had suddenly and mysteriously gone missing overnight.

Flight 5071. Cassandra’s flight.

She stood, staring at the television, her mouth opened into an ‘o’ of shock, until they displayed pictures of the flight crew and passengers. Even as a small grainy image on the television, Cassandra was instantly recognizable to her – her shoulder length wavy brown hair, her high cheekbones that she had inherited from Jennifer, the heart shaped face. She felt like she had been punched in the gut, and sank into the nearest chair – a comfortable loveseat. Larry ambled over to her and placed his head in her lap, staring up at her with large worried eyes, and she absently stroked his fur as she continued to stare at the screen in shock. “I guess you’re staying with me a bit longer,” she said to him, and he briefly wagged his tail and whined. It wasn’t an important detail, but for a moment it was all her mind could grasp. But after a few more moments, she shook her head to rouse herself.

She ignored the other calls and texts that she received after that, not really wanting to speak to anyone. She knew that going to the airport wouldn’t help – they didn’t know anything yet, and there was nothing for her there. There were already people out searching for signs of a crash, and she didn’t think she was going to make a difference there either. Instead she sat, glued to the news or searching for details online, the day disappearing into a blur of focus like it used to prior to her retirement. She reached out to a few contacts she had that could tell her if the authorities had any information beyond what was reported to the news, but everyone seemed stumped. There was no crash site. No wreckage. The flight had reported hitting some mild turbulence, and then had disappeared from radar and, as far as anyone else knew, from existence. It had happened somewhere over Utah, or perhaps even crossing into Nevada. The entire plane and everyone and everything on it just… disappeared.

In the afternoon, the story shifted as people began to wonder if the plane had somehow been hijacked by terrorists. But that idea never seemed to pan out. She heard from one of her contacts that security had been amped up for certain areas just in case, but no one had claimed responsibility or come forward with demands or threats. The only unusual thing about the flight was that it carried a famous actress, and some of her fans seemed to think she’d been kidnapped. But it seemed excessive to take an entire plane full of people just to target one individual.

Hours later, no one had found anything, heard anything. If the plane had been hijacked, it may have been landed somewhere, but what could have made that particular flight a target? Jennifer sat, frowning as she rubbed at her temple and considered everything she had researched, hoping to find some missing piece to the puzzle to why she wasn’t picking up her daughter from the airport today. She heard Larry whining at the back door, and jumped up to let him out, feeling slightly guilty at having ignored him for so long. Had she even fed him? She glanced at the time, and once he came back in, she fed him and made sure he had enough water, then let him up onto the couch to fall asleep halfway on her lap.

Feeling the need to act in some small way, she set about returning phone calls and emails and text messages into the evening, letting others know that she had heard about the disappearance, that she had not received any more news, accepting well wishes and condolences (which she thought were a tad premature as there was no confirmed deaths, but what else could be expected, given the circumstances?). Eventually she fell asleep on the loveseat.

The next few days were a similar blur and a growing mystery, a constant topic on social media and television.

What had happened to Flight 5071?

No one was certain how long the website had been streaming before it was discovered. It was a simple page, displaying four simultaneous streams at once, set 2×2 and centered. At the top of the page, a bold font simply stated, “Ye are to be judged by they.” It garnered attention first and foremost when people began posting links to it on social media with screenshots showing Peyton Hobbs, the actress that had been on the flight, in one of the streams. “Is This Legit???” one famous post had asked when sharing the link.

The other three were quickly identified as well. Alexandra Saint, a young girl also known as AlphaSaint to her stream and game review fans, and another passenger on Flight 5071. Lucas Kearney, a man in his mid to late 30s who worked as an accountant in Reno, also a passenger of Flight 5071.

And again, her face visible on another screen, identified by internet sleuths. Cassandra Murphey. A passenger of Flight 5071.

People began recording the Stream almost immediately – there was even one individual that had a backlog of it mere hours after it had started, and their uploads were considered the source authority. Many people tried tracing where it came from. But no one was able to figure out where the site was hosted – or where the Stream originated – or what had happened to the other passengers of Flight 5071.

There was a theory that the missing plane was a publicity stunt by Peyton Hobbs to advertise this elaborate internet show. The other passengers and flight crew were looked into as people attempted to justify the theory, assuming that the rest of the missing were actually acting as behind the scenes crew or extras. But the families of the missing were very real and very vocal about their desire to find their loved ones.

The streams were pored over, watched and rewatched. People began to devote entire channels to summarizing and analyzing the events of the Stream. People began to screencap moments and turn them into memes. There were even people making music videos or compilation reels of themed moments, with much of the initial focus being on Peyton and Lexie since they already had an established fanbase. Though as the Stream continued, fan pages and trending tags for Lucas and Cassandra also started to gain traction.

Jennifer became obsessed with it all. She had never been a fan of internet culture, that had been a thing of Cassandra’s generation, but she found herself immersed in it now. There was a lot of focus on Cassandra too – why was she alone? How had she become separated from the others?

There was also analysis and complaints on why those specific four had been chosen. Was there something that linked them? Some people griped that it was all Americans, until it was pointed out that while she could do an impressive American accent, Peyton Hobbs was actually Australian. Some griped that Alexis Saint acted “too white” or was simply a token. Some people complained that there was a lack of LBGTQ+ representation. People from Eastern countries complained about being judged according to the actions of Westerners. The only real link anyone could find: all four had been on Flight 5071, a flight traveling from Ohio to Nevada, a flight that had disappeared and taken 132 people in total with it. And no one knew what had happened to the other passengers.

People also spent a lot of time theorizing and arguing about what the page meant. If it wasn’t real, where were they filming? How were they keeping a 24/7 stream going and adding all the special effects so quickly? Was this all prerecorded? And more terrifyingly – if it was real, what did it mean that they were all to be judged? Was that everyone in the world, or just everyone that watched the Stream? What did judgement entail? What was the time frame of this judgement? Some people thought God was behind it. Others thought demons, and spoke forbiddingly against watching the Stream in fiery sermons. Quite a lot thought aliens. Given the presence of magic and elves in the Stream, some thought it was the Fae. Everyone had a theory.

Jennifer watched every moment she reasonably could. She started to coordinate her sleep schedule to Cassandra’s, and would still watch summaries of the past several hours once she woke. During slower moments of her daughter’s day, she would watch videos of internet commentary about the Stream. It felt strange. Once, she had been so focused on her career that she hardly had time for Cassandra. She had missed a lot of important moments when Cassandra had been growing up, had missed a lot of time at home in general. It had driven her husband away (though she suspected, given how many times he had married after their divorce, that he would have cheated eventually anyway). She often guiltily thought of herself as being a bad mother, and that guilt had been a part of her decision in moving to Reno, to follow Cassandra and be closer to her.

But even here in Reno, she sometimes had trouble being there for her daughter. They were completely different people. Cassandra always had her head in the clouds, was always reading books with dragons and magic, and playing games that held little to no interest for Jennifer. She made a point of meeting up with her daughter for dinner and quality time once a week, but it was often an awkward and quiet occasion. They didn’t like the same foods, could rarely agree on a movie they would both enjoy watching, and had such vastly different life experiences and interests that they could rarely a hold conversation that lasted more than a handful of sentences.

Now though, her entire life had become about Cassandra.

There were practical things to take care of as the days went by. Stateside Flights had a lawyer reach out to clarify the terms of refunds on missing or crashed flights, but Jennifer didn’t much care about the money and succinctly told the lawyer to go to hell. Since it was clear that Cassandra wasn’t going to be able to come back anytime soon, Jennifer closed out her utility accounts and spoke to her apartment manager, who was understanding of the situation and didn’t require funds for the broken lease. She had Cassandra’s furniture and belongings moved into storage, which she was quite happy to pay for, and she had Cassandra’s car stored in her own garage. Instead of the temporary set up she had for the dog, she stocked up on supplies and touched base with his vet to let them know she was now his caretaker.

Soon, another lawyer reached out to her – strangely, an estate lawyer. “I’m reaching out to you in regards to your daughter’s will and a letter that she left for you to read in the event of her death.”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, my daughter is not dead,” Jennifer had said tersely.

There was an awkward pause on the phone. “Yes, it’s been a very unusual situation. It’s especially hard for the people who are still technically missing, but in regards to your daughter’s case, given that we know where she is and that it’s been stated in the Stream that they will not be able to come back to our world, we’ve decided to execute your daughter’s will. She left behind a series of letters for friends and family, and has left the remainder of her monetary estate to you as well.” Jennifer frowned, and agreed to meet at the lawyer’s office, setting up a time and date she would be by, and wondered why her daughter had been so prepared for her death.

After completing all the legalese and securing the electronic transfers through the bank and finally closing out the remainder of her daughter’s accounts, Jennifer found herself sitting in her car, staring at an envelope that had Cassandra’s familiar sprawling loop on it. Cassandra had quite a bit of money in her account – apparently she had cashed out the 401k that Jennifer insisted she open, which is how she had been paying for the extra time off work and the trips she had been taking lately, including the one to visit her father. “For Mom” the envelope said. She tapped the envelope a couple of times, feeling conflicted about reading it. She saw Cassandra on a screen every day, would see when or if her daughter did die. A part of her wanted to rip the letter open and read it immediately, but another part of her felt that it was supposed to be saved for Cassandra’s death.

And Cassandra wasn’t dead yet.

Once she was home, she put the letter away so it would be safe and out of sight, and no longer a temptation. She decided she would reach out to her financial advisor the next day and see about having her daughter’s money put in an account where it could at least usefully accrue a decent interest. Because her daughter wasn’t dead. And she intended for her to be able to step back into her previous life if she did find a way back.

Jennifer also decided she would do what she could to help.

In her life before retirement, she had worked as a handler in the CIA, had even been a field agent once upon a time before starting a family. She still had security clearance and contacts in the office, and she intended to use them. If there was already a team researching the Stream and attempting to find the missing passengers, she intended to be a part of that team.

And if there wasn’t one yet, she intended to spearhead that initiative.

12. Lucas

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Sometime around the beginning of our fourth week, as the glow of the compass spell and the image of the last Grace faded, Raella quietly said, “She’s been walking much of the time we check on her, and the figure is getting larger day by day. She’s approaching our borders.” I had noticed that the figure had shifted slightly away from me, but if the glowing figure had been growing larger, it had happened too gradually for me to tell. I hadn’t thought anything of it until Raella had pointed it out.

Zolambi looked disturbed at this assessment. “What could that mean? Do you think she’s fleeing danger?”

Raella tapped a finger to her chin pensively, considering. “It could mean that. It could mean any number of things. Perhaps she has learned to cast and has heard that elves are mages as well, and wishes to learn more. She could just be coincidentally traveling to another place within human lands that is closer to our borders. Regardless, it will mean that we won’t have to travel as far into foreign territory to retrieve her. And if she is in danger, or seeking us out on purpose…”

“Then it’s time for us to leave,” Greyjon said.

Raella nodded. “We’ve got a plan for this. We need only pack the supplies. We should be prepared to leave at dawn.”

At dinner that evening, Master Zern visited as we sat in our own little dining area, and gifted each of us with normal looking knapsacks that could hold more than expected. “Like a bag of holding,” Lexie said in awe after Zern had explained the gift to us. She held her bag up and looked into it.

Peyton had also curiously reached into hers, but shook her head slightly. “I can feel the bottom, so I doubt it has the same capacity or rules as a true bag of holding.” She poked at the insides of the bag and I could see where her hand pressed out against the sides, although it was an odd effect because she was leaning her entire arm in up to the shoulders. It made it look like her hand ended a little above her elbow. She seemed to realize that the others were watching her curiously, and quickly pulled her hands out of the bag, folding it in her lap. There was a slight flush to her cheeks. “A most generous gift, Master Zern. Thank you so much,” she said, once again all poise excepting the telltale pink of her cheeks.

“You will be doing so much more for us,” Zern noted with a warm smile.

“Will we be returning here after we find the last Grace?” Peyton asked.

Zern shook his head. “No. After finding her, you will be traveling on to the seal. Owing to the difficulties of the past several hundred years, the seal is no longer within elven lands. You will initially be on a diplomatic mission to see if we can reach it. Raella shall be in charge there.”

“So straight on to saving the world then,” Lexie said, her artificial cheer only barely hiding the nervousness we all felt.

“And once that’s done? Will we be expected back here again?” Peyton asked.

I noticed that at her question, Chase and Greyjon both looked carefully at the table, as though something about the question made them nervous. There was a moment of hesitation, but then Zern said, “When it’s all done, you will be free to go where ever you please.”

“For now, we have many preparations, and you should pack whatever you don’t wish to leave behind,” Raella said, effectively ending the conversation.

As soon as we were alone again, Peyton and I exchanged worried glances. She opened her mouth to speak, but I glanced over to Lexie, who had returned to eating her meal. Peyton frowned, and directed a forkful of meat into her mouth instead, chewing thoughtfully. Lexie picked a dinner roll apart slowly, seeming to consider each piece carefully before popping the bread into her mouth. “I caught it too, you know. You guys don’t have to treat me like I’m dumb,” she said once she had swallowed. She put the bread back on her plate and looked up at us. “What’s going to happen to us once we do what they want?”

Peyton sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Should we be trying to run away?” Lexie asked. Her eyes were wide with worry, but she managed a level of calm I couldn’t imagine having at her age.

“I don’t know,” I said, echoing Peyton. “But we should go with them far enough to find the other person from our world and help them out too. The four of us are going to be in this together.”

“Yeah. I guess the four of us are kinda like family, being from the same world.” I wasn’t sure if I would use the word family, but I had the feeling that would feel truer the longer we were together. Lexie returned to eating her meal, seeming satisfied with my answer and her reasoning.

The knapsacks made packing easy. We each had three sets of clothes that had been gifted to us, but I still packed the clothes I had arrived in as well. I also took my wallet, phone, and keys – useless, but strangely sentimental. I shoved them into the very bottom, knowing I wouldn’t need to reach them anytime soon. I also took some personal care items wrapped carefully in a small face towel, and finally packed away my sneakers as well. Although more comfortable, I suspected the unusual style would give me away as a foreigner of some sort. If we were going to be traveling in public, it was finally time to get used to the leather boots.

I glanced around the room, wondering what else I would need to take with me. As far as personal belongings, that was all I had to my name here. Assumably the food and traveling supplies were being arranged by Raella and the others, as well as anything else we could need. I paced my room for a moment, like I used to pace hotel rooms before checking out, nervously wondering if anything would get left behind and lost. It was still light out, and felt too early to sleep, but I wondered if I should try anyway. I have no idea when I’ll be in a bed next, I realized. I should sleep in one while I have the chance.

Instead, I walked out of the room.

My thoughts raced. I could maybe defend myself in a physical fight if I needed to, but I still hadn’t managed any sort of casting. How dangerous was the world beyond? I had felt so stifled at the idea of being in the tower as a prisoner at first. And now I was terrified at the idea of leaving and traveling out in the world. I thought of every monster I had ever encountered in a fantasy game. Would there be giant rats? Giant spiders? Giant… giants? There was any number of mega-fauna in a game.

And not just giant creatures. What about living plants, or ghosts, or demons?

I walked up the stairs. I had heard that Master Zern’s quarters were in the upper floors of the tower. Just around the bend from the floor Peyton and Lexie stayed on, I ran into the barrier again.

I frowned as I absently rubbed at my nose, wondering if it had stayed up the entire time. They had allowed us to roam freely since the initial tour, but I realized I had never tried to go to the top of the tower after that. I tried to picture in my memory the spacious room where we had been summoned as I placed a hand on the barrier. I very lightly put my fist against it, wanting to punch it. There had been a time when I was younger and angrier that I might have. But what purpose did that really serve?

With a sigh, I turned and walked back down the stairs slowly. I decided to leave the tower, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when I was actually able to exit at the bottom. The barrier being present up top had put me a bit on edge, almost making me feel as much like a prisoner as I had the first night here.

I decided to make my way out to the stables. Partly, I wanted to go and familiarize myself a bit more with my horse. But I also knew that Peyton spent most of her evenings there as well.

I didn’t spot her at first as I entered, as they had many animals handled here, but as I stepped further in to where my horse was kept, I passed by Peyton in the stall with her horse. She was feeding it from her hand, murmuring quietly to it as she did so. I leaned against the entrance to the stall and studied her. She had a very angular face, with high cheekbones and a long thin nose. She also had a very strong jaw and chin for a woman, and even without make up, she had enviously clear skin.

Sensing my presence, she glanced up at me and smiled. “Hello Lucas,” she said. I nodded in response, feeling a bit too tongue tied to respond properly. We didn’t spend a lot of time together one-on-one, and it still sent my mind reeling just thinking that in our own world she would never have any reason to speak to me, and I would never have the guts to speak to her. She glanced out at the fading light of the day. “Should probably head back to the tower soon and try to sleep early. Could be the last time we’re in a proper bed for who knows how long,” she said, echoing my earlier thoughts. I nodded again, my mind drifting back to everything else I had been thinking earlier as well.

She continued rubbing a hand along her horse’s neck, and frowned at my extended silence. “Are you okay?” she asked, sounding sincerely worried.

I considered all the things running through my mind. I didn’t want to share all of it – maybe it was insecurity, maybe it was just that I didn’t think she’d really care. So I settled for saying, “I was just thinking about how many giant animals there are to kill you in fantasy games.”

She smirked. “I had my suspicions that you were a full on nerd, but you really don’t say much.”

“Well, you know. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

“Hmm. Who said that originally?”

“No clue.”

She chuckled, but then kind of grew contemplatively quiet herself. “You know… if Lexie and the other one don’t know, we’ll never be able to find out where that quote is from.”

I considered that for a moment, and wracked my brain trying to remember the source of the quote. Finally giving up, I said, “Well, we’re in a new world now, so maybe it’s mine. I said it here first. Maybe we should just claim all those little nuggets of wisdom as our own? Publish an entire book of quotes, attribute them to ourselves.” I grinned, and with an overexaggerated dastardly tone, added, “No one would ever know.”

She gave a brief laugh, and then seemed to consider the idea further and descended into a fit of contagious giggles. I found myself laughing along, though I found the idea more sad than funny. But maybe that was the funny part. Then shaking her head, she dusted her hands off on her pants and whispered good night to her horse.  She turned to face me, practically glowing in the light of the setting sun, the copper in her auburn hair glinting. “I’ll walk you back to the tower, if you like?”

Seeing how beautiful she looked, thinking about her laugh, I felt slightly taken out of the world again. Something like this would never happen to someone like me. It had to be a simulation. “Oh, no, you go ahead. I’ll head back later. I came down to check on my own horse.”

“Fair enough. Goodnight, Lucas,” she said, “Don’t stay out too late.” And then she walked past me and out of the stables. I watched her go, rubbing at the side of my head, then walked over to my own mount’s stall and started to brush her out. I didn’t have a lot of experience with taking care of a horse, although one of the stable hands had shown us before and I had watched others do the same things. Regardless, Drifter, the mare that had been assigned to me, was very patient with my ministrations.

I went back several minutes later, took the last bath I was sure to have for awhile, and settled into my bed. I stared at the ceiling that I had become used to over the past few weeks.

I didn’t get a wink of sleep.

I heard movement out in the dining area and Lexie’s muffled voice enthusiastically thanking Alissa for the food and I groaned. It had been an awful night of feeling like I should drift off at any moment, without that moment ever actually arriving. There were no windows so I couldn’t see the lightening of the sky, but I knew that it was happening even if I couldn’t see it. I could just feel the coming day laughing at me. But I couldn’t clear my mind. It wasn’t just the dangers of the world, but what was going to happen to us if we completed our mission. Or if we’d even be able to complete our mission if I never learned to cast. Or what would happen in this world if we chose not to complete our mission. I had wondered what kind of person the fourth Grace was. I wondered how uncomfortable sleeping in the woods would be, especially after riding all day on horseback. I wondered if Raella teaching history was as boring as learning history back home.

Finally, I forced myself up and splashed some water on my face and went to go eat breakfast. Peyton raised an eyebrow as I sat down at the table. “Didn’t get much sleep, I take it?” she said.

I grimaced at her in response and shoved a sausage into my mouth to chew it silently. She did her best to suppress a smile and continued to eat her own breakfast. “Wow, you look like shit, Lucas,” Lexie said cheerfully after she swallowed her own food.

I gave her a long, flat wordless stare.

After breakfast, we said our final goodbyes to Alissa and Quince. Alissa presented us with some new clothes and said we might want to change into them before we left – more comfortable travel and riding clothes. “Since part of the mission is a bit diplomatic, I’ve also given Raella some more presentable clothes for you to wear at a royal court,” Alissa said.

“You’ve been so kind to us, Alissa, Quince. Thank you for taking such good care of us, and for everything you’ve done,” Peyton said.

For a moment, Alissa seemed to want to say more, but then Quince placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled at us. “You’ve been the ones that have been kind to us,” he said simply.

“It’s been an honor,” Alissa said, her eyes bright with tears.

After that, we left for the stables.

They had a wagon and our horses saddled nearby. “First, we’ll perform the compass spell to get our bearing,” Raella said, all business. They arranged us and began casting, the light of magic springing up around us. Once again, the fourth Grace was walking, and did seem to be slightly larger in size. She was still mostly south west of us. Greyjon mounted his horse as soon as the spell was finished, as did Zolambi. Raella and Chase climbed into the wagon and sat up front. “We do have your horse ready for you,” Chase said cheerfully to Lexie, gesturing to the animal tied to the back of the wagon, “But I figure you’d be more comfortable riding in the wagon?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Lexie said, giving her placid mare a wide berth to hop into the back of the wagon. I watched Peyton easily mount her horse in one fluid motion, patting it on the neck and whispering in a low voice to it as I clumsily pulled myself up onto Drifter. I wondered how sore I was going to be by the end of the day.

“Well, if we’re ready then,” Greyjon said. Zolambi was very quiet and very pale in the morning light, and though his face was calm his horse was skittishly shifting back and forth, like it could sense his nervous energy. I wondered what it was like for a former slave to knowingly return to the land that had enslaved him. “Let’s be on our way,” Greyjon directed, and started out at the head of our procession.