Three months had passed since Dain hauled the Witch into this cave, and winter had finally closed its fist around the forest, hard and dry, with no snow—just earth gone iron and air that made his ears ache.

  Old Hugo said it was the coldest winter in decades. He didn’t know if that was true or not. Like every other child in Corvalenne, he was born in war, and war meant thunder streaking across the sky and burning the air every day of the year.

  ‘... So this is what ‘winter’ feels like,’ he thought to himself. He had to hug himself and chew his lip just to stop himself from shuddering, but that was probably because he wasn’t dressed enough to be venturing out into the forest at night.

  The Witch, in contrast, was as carefree about the cold as ever. Tonight again, she sat cross-legged on the round table he’d nailed to the floor trading with her gods. It turned out she didn’t have just one Altar; she had seven wooden boards propped up along the walls of the cave in a circle around her, so she could trade with seven different pairs of four-hands at once.

  Tonight, she fed the bronze-plated hands coming out of the amber portal pouches of dried herbs and chips of ore that he’d given her a few days ago. The hands returned a see-through pouch of marble-like relics. As usual, he had no idea what she was trading, and what for. Her physical injuries had long since healed, but… maybe there were deeper wounds he couldn’t see? Maybe the relics she was obtaining from the Curator Gods were helping her recover.

  Regardless, he leaned against the mouth of the cave, staring at her work with his arms crossed. He told himself he was only here because she’d told him to stay. In her words, she might ‘need him for another material run’. She always needed something. Water. Beadmoss. Clayheart. Anything obnoxiously specific.

  He wasn’t here because the relics were slightly interesting. He wasn’t here because those seven portals opened around her made his skin tighten in a way that wasn’t wholly fear.

  Definitely not.

  The dying hearth in the corner of the cave coughed and sputtered, then sulked to embers. He could feel the cold looking for cracks in his tunic, so he leaned harder against the stone and watched his breath leak away in cold white clouds.

  The Witch must’ve felt him staring, because she suddenly looked up, lips quirking, eyes full of stars and mischief.

  “... Bored, kid?”

  He scowled. “No.”

  “Here,” she said, like a woman tossing a dog a bone. “Look at this.”

  She reached under her cloak—her ‘Endless Cloak’, or so she called it—and threw him a small metal rod. He barely caught it with both hands. The rod was sleek and beautiful in that no-nonsense way all fine tools were, and in the middle, there was a window showing off the blue fluid pulsing gently inside.

  His brows furrowed, though he couldn’t quite keep the curiosity from leaking through his voice.

  “What is it?”

  The Witch smirked, leaning back and gripping her toes. “A fun little thing. Active-type relic. You know how to move mana around?”

  “No?”

  “First, you close your eyes.” She snapped her fingers. “Close them.”

  He obeyed, gripping the rod tight in both hands.

  “Good,” she murmured. “Now, imagine a small, swirling whirlwind in your chest. It could be calm, it could be violent, but the thing about wind isn’t whether you can measure it, but whether you can feel it. Can you feel the wind churning inside you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Guide that wind down. Imagine it swirling around your arms and sliding onto your fingertips—like winding a coil around a rod—and then push that wind into the relic.”

  So he tried. He closed his hands around the rod, imagined pushing the ‘wind’ in his chest the way he sometimes pushed at splintered wood when it wouldn’t come free, and the blue liquid inside started to fizz.

  It boiled with a heat that wasn’t heat, flaring yellow in a sudden snap—then a crack of lightning spat from the tip of the rod and struck the cave’s dying hearth.

  The fire leapt alive.

  Dain flinched so hard the rod clattered from his grip onto the stone floor. His arms prickled as if a thousand needles had crawled under his skin, but the Witch laughed, bright and sudden, before sighing into the warmth of the new flame.

  “Oh, that’s warm.” She groaned, stretching her arms over her head. “Thanks for that, kid.”

  His scowl was carved from stone.

  “... I’m going home,” he muttered. “The kids need math lessons. They need me. You don’t. Take care of yourself from now on.”

  He stormed towards the mouth of the cave, shoulders sharp with anger.

  “Hey!” the Witch called after him. “Aw, come on, that was just a joke! Don’t be like that! I’ll show you more funny relics, so don’t go and help me fetch more ores!”

  But Dain didn’t turn. As he left the cave, his hands trembled so badly he stuffed them under his arms, but they wouldn’t stop trembling. He couldn’t stop feeling the jolt still crawling up his arms, couldn’t forget the crack of lightning—so close, so familiar, yet so… so wrong.

  The instant that rod spat lightning, that accursed memory came rushing back: the golden thunderstorm that destroyed half of Corvalenne.

  He walked faster, fists tight, his breaths shaking in white ribbons before him.

  … But this feeling in his chest wasn’t anger.

  It wasn’t even hate.

  Was it… fear?

  Or something else entirely?

  Dain left the inn at noon the next day with Anisa and Yasmin. Wenna hugged him so hard his ribs complained, Marr pressed an extra loaf into his satchel with a ‘don’t argue’ glare, while Karr shook his hand like a man who owed him a life and couldn’t fit it into a handshake. Many others waved from scaffolds and rooftops, faces dusted white with lime and hope. He didn’t really know what to say to the rest of them, so he simply waved back until the street bent towards the northern edge of town.

  He’d buried his cracked and damaged Altar at dawn—two spades down beneath an elder pine just outside of town, its location completely unmarked. Only the gods knew he had enough of his own to carry.

  I don’t need the Altar, anyways.

  Best to get rid of it as soon as possible… even if I’d like to investigate how I managed to make an Altar to Belara in the first place.

  At the north gate, the end-of-week caravan was already stamping and snorting itself ready. The young boy, the driver of the sole wagon waiting there, couldn’t be more than fifteen years old, but he had the square jaw of someone who’d taught himself to look older. He sat a little too straight on his driver’s bench and tried to keep his voice from breaking when he called, “Caravan to Braskir! Caravan to Braskir! Setting off in two minutes!”

  The four-horned mountain ram hitched to the front of the carriage shook its massive antlers and pawed the ground. Dain had to admit, he hadn’t realized the most common carriage-pulling beast in Obric was this massive. It was easily as tall as the carriage itself and twice as large, almost comical in its size and complete with a battle-crest of four horns like a crown.

  With this beast pulling the carriage, even a giant bilefrost centipede would think twice before attacking them on the road.

  “Half of the fees in advance,” the boy asked, palm out, as the three of them approached the driver’s seat.

  Dain counted out the curons in three pouches before sliding them into the boy’s hand. “And we’ll act as blade-hands if trouble shows,” he said. “Write us in as freelance guards.”

  “Sure thing. Names?”

  “Dain,” he said.

  “Anisa Ha—” The princess paused, caught herself, then smiled sweetly. “Anisa.”

  And her steward’s mouth barely moved. “Yasmin.”

  The young boy thumbed over his shoulder. “Just the three of you this week, huh? I’m Drenn. Hop on, and I guarantee you’ll be in Braskir by the end of the week after the next.”

  That was perfect for Dain. The end-of-week caravans probably ferried dozens of travelers on average, but given most outsiders had already hurried back home after hearing about Corvalenne’s destruction, it was just Drenn and his single wagon this week. He could hardly call this a ‘caravan’, but it wasn’t like the three of them minded having more space on the wagon to themselves.

  So, they clambered up onto the wagon—which was really just a plank-sided box with two benches, a knee-high rail, and tons of supply sacks at the front—before Drenn whipped the reins with a shout.

  The ram started trudging forward, and Granamere slid rearward. Roofs became low lines, scaffolds thinned into sticks, and then the road north unspooled.

  As Dain made himself comfortable on his bench, stroking the feathers of his silverplume wingcloak, Anisa pulled a knee up on the opposite bench and hugged it, humming a tune he didn’t recognize. Probably a palace lullaby disguised as a marching song. In stark contrast to the two of them, though, Yasmin sat rigidly beside Anisa, gripping her swordstaff tight and ticking her eyes at every bush they passed by.

  She’s worried about an ambush, huh?

  I guess I’d also be worried if I were tasked with guarding the Second Princess alone.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  But now that he was staring at the two of them face to face, he wanted to check something first.

  Eye of Belara.

  ***

  Name: Anisa Hallowmortar

  Grade: Common-5

  Title: Monarch

  Title Ability: Lineage

  Acquired Skills: Stonehorn Swordsmanship, Stonearm Archery, Harp Playing, Needlework

  Might: 12 (+10)

  Swiftness: 12 (+8)

  Resilience: 11 (+21)

  Clarity: 12 (+9)

  Mana: 350/350 (+9.5/hr)

  Relics: Forging Crossbow (Common-4), Amulet of the Stoneheart Dragon (Exquisite-9)

  ***

  Name: Yasmin Roven

  Grade: Common-5

  Title: Guard

  Title Ability: Oathbound

  Acquired Skills: Herbcraft

  Might: 19 (+2)

  Swiftness: 18

  Resilience: 22

  Clarity: 19

  Mana: 82/82 (+4/hr)

  Relics: Soilwrought Swordstaff (Common-5), Manalight Lantern (Common-1), Beast-Repelling Perfume (Common-3)

  ***

  His right eye hurt and stung a little as he checked both of their Tags at the same time, making him wince.

  Ow.

  So overusing using my title ability or using it to see multiple Tags at the same time hurts my eye, I guess?

  At least it tracks with all of my abilities having cursed effects.

  Still, the pain didn't last, and he eventually raised his brows as he scrutinized their Tags.

  The crowns really do live in a different world.

  Anisa's attribute levels are incredibly high for Common-6 because they're being enhanced by her Lineage title ability and Yasmin’s Oathguard title ability, and her mana is also insanely high because she's been drinking high grade Manabrew Potions since she was around fifteen years old.

  She can also afford to spend materials on Skill Tags like… harp playing?

  Aside from Anisa's acquired skills, Yasmin’s high attribute levels also surprised him. In basically all aspects but clarity, she had higher attribute levels than him. Resilience especially, though he supposed it only made sense. Her title ability, ‘Oathbound’, boosted one designated person’s resilience by her own—which was her lady in this case—so in that regard, he probably shouldn’t be surprised that the bodyguard-slash-steward would be much stronger and tougher than him if all of their relics were stripped off.

  He was surprised, however, at something else.

  “Why doesn’t the Second Princess, of all people, carry around a few more defensive relics?” he asked, looking at Anisa squarely. “You’d think the crowns could afford to give their heirs a few necklaces that’d automatically deploy mana barriers when they’re in mortal peril. An amulet that revives you once is good and all, but…”

  “Father did make me wear four defensive necklaces wherever I went,” Anisa countered with a smile, “but I broke them all save for my amulet. I was not aware they could be damaged if they are activated too many times in too short a span.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “Remember the day you first found the two of us stumbling through the forest, trying to reach Corvalenne?”

  “Oh.” He was no longer surprised. “But your amulet… that thing only revives you if someone else uses it on you within ten minutes of your death, and the activation cost is ten thousand mana. What, is Yasmin alone supposed to activate it for you if you get assassinated?”

  “Of course not. Normally, I am surrounded by enough guards and generals to fend off a small army,” she said plainly. “If each of them pitch in around fifty mana, the amulet will activate easily.”

  “How I envy the crowns,” he muttered. “Two hundred bodyguards surround you at all times?”

  “And now I only have two, but I would give anything in the world to keep it that way. I feel unbelievably free,” she chirped. “Your right eye has two pupils now. Why is that?”

  He felt his mouth stiffen before he could stop it. “Does it?”

  “Does it?” she echoed, amused. “Did you get a new relic with your Altar while we were not looking, or, perhaps… a Title?”

  He didn’t give her the satisfaction of a wince, which was difficult, because his instincts felt personally insulted. He’d spent years not blinking wrong in front of even the most glib of traveling merchants, but one pretty princess and suddenly he was…

  Damnit, Dain Sorowyn.

  You mustn’t be charmed by her.

  So he angled his face towards the road and drum-tapped fingers on his knees.

  “They say there are three kinds of secrets in the world,” he started. “The kind you mustn’t say, the kind you must say when someone you love nags you long enough, and the kind you take to your grave.” He waved in her general direction, generous. “I’m not sure which category this last secret of mine is yet, but I do know one thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “I don’t love you.”

  Anisa’s mouth shaped a soft circle that was half shock, half something unladylike. Then the circle closed into a grin that threatened mischief.

  “Not yet.” She leaned forward, peering at his face with a teasing smile—at his right eye, specifically—like she might spot the trick hidden there, and he couldn’t help it. His metal palm twitched closed over his Bloodlight Eye, reflex like tucking a coin deeper. “But truly,” she murmured, “it is like you have three eyes.”

  “And how’d you get that number?” he said, deadpan. “Last I checked, I’m only missing one.”

  “You have two pupils in your right eye,” she counted, tapping the air once, twice, like a little metronome, “and a third eye down here.” She pointed at his closed metal palm. “That makes three eyes. You are the Three-Eyed Man.”

  “What… vivid imagination you have.”

  “I pride myself on it. Now!” She leaned back, a little queen on a plank bench. “Since we are on the road and there is nothing better to do than watch trees pass and keep our throats warm, I have many questions for you.”

  As the hours passed with Dain answering questions about more details regarding Corvalenne’s destruction, while deflecting complicated questions about his relics—or more specifically, the true nature of his relics—sunlight started slanting copper. Dusk was about to arrive. Drenn reined in the carriage by a clear creek next to the main road, while the mountain ram blew steam and shook its crown of horns as if blessing their stop.

  Drenn glanced around soon after, looking the three of them over with a polite smile.

  “I can get dinner going with dried things,” he said, already pulling up one of the supply sacks, “but I’ve only brought along enough food to last five to six days. It’ll take us two weeks to reach Braskir, so if you three can scare up some meats and greens while we’re on the road, I can turn whatever you harvest into something actually nice.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dain said.

  “Oh yeah. I’m gonna be the best cook on the continent one day, just you wait.” Drenn thumped his chest proudly. “So, if you find interesting beast bits or shiny tubers you don’t recognize, bring me a few to experiment with. I wanna stew them. Or pickle them. Or age them.”

  Dain clapped the boy’s shoulder as he hopped off the carriage with Anisa and Yasmin. “Good dream. Anything else you need us to do while you cook?”

  “There’s a tarp and some beddings in one of these sacks. Help me turn the carriage into a homely tent for the night?”

  Anisa brightened immediately, turning to Dain. “Then I shall help Drenn with the tarp roof. You did teach me how to rig tents, remember? I would like to put those lessons into practice.” Then she turned to Yasmin before the steward could object. “Follow Dain. He might need an extra pair of hands while he searches for ingredients.”

  Yasmin’s brows knit together. “My lady, it is better I remain by your side.”

  “I will be safer by the main road,” Anisa said, firm but smiling. “Go on. Protect him like you would protect me.”

  Yasmin hesitated a long beat—eyes tightening with reluctance—before eventually giving a single, sharp nod.

  Dain smirked faintly at the exchange—he didn’t think he’d need protection from Yasmin—but said nothing as he adjusted the strap on his satchel. A moment later, the two of them peeled away from the creek and stepped into the forest.

  The Elderhush Forest with its eternally blue fog was behind them now. Here, the trees were thicker and bronze-barked with amber leaves glinting overhead. It was almost like a metal forest, humming with a different weight entirely, and…

  He just now realized he didn’t know what the forest was called. He’d never gone beyond the Elderhush Forest, after all.

  “What do they call this place?” he asked after a while, tapping a trunk with his knuckles. It rang dull, not hollow, but not quite wood either.

  Yasmin answered without slowing her pace. “Not every forest in Obric has a name. But this stretch, from here to Braskir, is called the Copiccia Forest, because…” She stopped beside a trunk, set her boot against the roots, and pried at the bark with her staffblade. It took effort, a grunt, and a crack before she peeled a strip free. Underneath, the insides gleamed gray. “...The trees are filled with tin.”

  Dain’s eyes widened. He reached out, touched the sheen, and then looked up at the steel-colored canopy rustling above. “Tin-blooded trees. Well, that explains Obric’s reputation. Land of earth and metal indeed.”

  “Now let’s find food,” she said curtly.

  “Food,” he agreed dryly, “and offerings, if we can.”

  They combed the undergrowth, keeping the creek’s sound close behind them. Dain crouched to tug pale mushrooms out of muddy hollows, shaking soil off their roots and dropping them into his satchel. Yasmin kept her eyes up and occasionally plucked down a bundle of berries, sniffing them to see if they were even remotely safe to eat. He trusted her to watch his back, and she trusted him to watch hers—they didn’t really have to talk to each other.

  About thirty minutes later, the trees opened into a low meadow where a herd of beasts grazed: small yellowstriped gazelles with bodies plated in dull tin, legs thin as reeds, and soft snouts brushing the amber grass.

  “Not worth gutting,” he whispered, the two of them hiding behind a tree for cover. “Their parts aren’t used in any offering recipes I know of, and I don’t think they taste good, either… right?”

  Yasmin lowered her staffblade but kept her gaze sharp. “Noted.”

  So they turned around—no point killing something they wouldn’t enjoy eating anyways—and as the day dipped towards dusk, the forest started going copper-dark. Yasmin turned on the lantern at her waist, while Dain’s satchel grew even heavier and heavier with fungi, roots, and a few weeds that looked somewhat edible—or at least exchangeable.

  He wanted to find some interesting magic materials in this new part of the Obric, but it was probably time to call it quits for tonight.

  “It’s getting late,” he said, shaking mud off his boots. “We should head back before Drenn burns the beans.”

  They pivoted at once towards the main road—and then something caught in the corner of his eye.

  A bluish-white glimmer, faint but undeniable, slipping between the trunks like a coin glinting at the bottom of a river.

  His grin was instant.

  “Well, hello there.”

  Yasmin followed his gaze warily. “What?”

  “Will o’ wisp,” he said, already stepping after it. “Not particularly rare, but they’re good side-offerings since you can use them to get spirit-type relics, and spirit-type relics are the only weapons that can deal with spirit-type monsters. I’d like a spirit-type relic just in case we run into a banshee or a black cap, so… feel free to go back first. I’ll be right behind—”

  “No,” Yasmin said flatly, torn but stubborn. She exhaled through her nose. “My lady told me to follow you, so I will.”

  Dain glanced back at her.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He raced after the drifting blue wisp, Yasmin right behind him, but the wisp darted just far enough ahead to tease his reach. Every time he felt like he was close enough to capture it in an empty glass bottle—the same bottle that’d he gotten back from Belara after downing her Manabrew Potion—it’d bob just a little bit further, mocking his speed.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “Stop running already.”

  They slipped deeper, trailing the wisp further and further away from the main road, and just as he stretched out his bottle and was about to swipe the wisp out of the air—it suddenly gave a shrill, insect-like screech.

  Dain flinched as the ‘wisp’ turned around, showing off its insectoid belly.

  Tch.

  It’s just a lumenglobe firefly, huh?

  As the firefly fluttered away, he let out a long, annoyed sigh.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled. “Guess I’m not getting my—”

  The ground rumbled beneath him.

  Not like loose soil. Like the forest itself had taken a breath.

  Dain’s balance jolted. He snapped a glance at Yasmin—her eyes widened, her swordstaff lifted—and then the world behind them tore open. Earth geysered upward, and from it surged something massive, plated and dark, with sensory whiskers whipping the air like hungry strings.

  … Hah.

  Hook, line, and sinker.

  And before either of them could move, the giant beast lunged forward and swallowed them whole.

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