It took a second for the words to register. He looked around to see if anyone might’ve heard, but they were alone. The northern edge of the camp’s farmlands was now to their right, the road slanting northeast. Flocks of birds moved across the sky, in numbers Zach had never before seen.

  Like the road heading south to the military base, they walked down what must’ve been an old highway, connecting to different cities that had once made up Tettralis. It was easy enough to see where Camp Twelve’s boundaries ended.

  The arable land had gone over to the other side of the road, until an imaginary jagged diagonal line marked the northern end of the land, the road creating a natural break between the two areas where the northern edge stretched east.

  Enforcers on horseback rode back and forth, keeping a watchful eye on the vacant lands that stretched beyond their borders.

  They walked past two enforcers who were stationed on the road. They barely spared them more than an accusatory look, and they barely more than an acknowledging glance. Zach kept his eyes on the road until they were well past the enforcers before he looked at Noah. And he still couldn’t find anything to say.

  Noah exhaled softly through his nose.

  “You’re wondering why we’d help you if you’re wearing an Emery face?” he asked, voicing thoughts Zach hadn’t known he’d had. “Firstly, because we’re not children. Oliver and Leo had nothing to do with it, you—they—were only children when it happened. And secondly, I told you some secrets aren’t my own. I still can’t share them with you. I won’t.”

  Zach shook his head. Had he thought this would make it easier for Zach to trust them? All he’d heard was that they had a reason to betray him, to set him up and get their revenge. Not children, he thought.

  “If we were going to do something, I wouldn’t have told you that. I wouldn’t have put you on guard,” Noah said with his frown.

  I guess that’s true.

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Zach asked.

  “I said might have,” he said. “We never found anything concrete. Not that it would matter now. Justice is a concept that only works when people aren’t forced to work day in and day out to eat.”

  Zach looked back over his shoulder to where the enforcers on the road straddled their horses, their heads fixed in their direction. Get over yourself. You’re paranoid. The road only goes in this direction. Where else are they going to look?

  “So, that’s why you were interested in them? I thought it might’ve been something more... spiritual,” he said, remembering the silver in their apartments, both the Emerys’ and the Rades’.

  “We do have other reasons for helping you,” Noah went on, “but it would be a lie to say we didn’t consider the fact that you have Oliver Emery’s face.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, Oliver was their son. He might’ve heard something, seen something, that could either confirm or deny our suspicions.”

  Zach swallowed. “I told you I don’t have all his memories.”

  “You did. But you also said the more you interact with things, the more they come to you.”

  Great. As if I didn’t have enough to figure out as is. Still, he had a better understanding of why they were so adamant about helping him. His mind still tried to piece out the other reasons Noah refused to talk about. But he at least had a reason.

  “I found a book underneath Oliver’s bed,” he began. “A journal.”

  “Oliver’s? The one his unknown friend said was stolen?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “It was written by someone named Caridnel Emery. If I understand it right, he arrived in this country before it even existed.”

  He told him about the entries he’d read. About the message on the first page, about the ship arriving, about the monarchy Cardinel had found on this land—his frown deepened at that bit of news—and about naming the country Tettrlias after he’d observed the landscape.

  Despite the fact that Noah had opened up a bit, he still danced around the fact that Cardinel had been a transmigrator as well. The only reason for his fear was the possible connection to himself.

  Though he suspected Noah valued logic and proof over religious superstition, he knew it was always better to be safe than sorry. Noah’s words still echoed in his mind. External forces here to corrupt souls.

  “I knew the Emerys were old, but this...” Noah studied the ground. “I wonder if this is what Lucas was talking about.”

  “Lucas knew about the journal?” Zach asked, suddenly terrified he’d been the one who’d raided Oliver’s room.

  “No,” Noah said, his expression showing that he was searching through his memories. “A couple of months ago, Lucas said he’d heard of a fight between Eve and the Head. Apparently, the Head was angry she’d taken something from the House. But as far as Lucas understood it—he’d heard Eve talking with Ava at the ward—she had no clue what the Head was talking about.”

  “So, someone stole it? Either Oliver, or Eve, or John, or even Leo?” Zach muttered.

  “I’m not sure. We don’t even know if they were talking about the journal. All I know is that since then, they haven’t spoken a word to each other. It’s like John and Eve aren’t even part of the family anymore. Not that they were ever close. This happened before Leo went to the execution block.”

  Leo.

  Did that have to do with what the Head had said? She’d accused him of trying to forget something, something to do with Leo. But Oliver’s memories were still blurry. Could he ask John or Eve about it? Or maybe even the Head?

  “Why would they have fought about a journal?” Noah wondered aloud.

  Because it mentions there was a transmigrator in the family, Zach answered inwardly. There could be no other reason. Noah clearly went down a similar path.

  “There has to be some secret hidden in there. That’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

  Zach adjusted the pack, pulling the strap tighter around his shoulder. He hadn’t noticed it before now, but it felt heavier than when he’d taken it from Krager. Noah seemed to be having the same problem. He removed the bag, slinging it over his left shoulder instead.

  “What did they stuff in here to make it so heavy?” he asked, glancing down at the strap.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Zach was about to voice a similar thought when Noah paused, jerking the bag off his shoulder and throwing it to the ground. “That’s strange,” he said. “Was that—”

  The bag started bulging, the fabric stretching to its limit as something within expanded, rapidly pushing outward.

  “It can’t be,” Noah muttered, slowly leaning in with narrowed eyes.

  The bag split down the middle, bursting open as a dark brown creature clawed its way out. The creature chirped and chattered as it crawled onto the road. Its eyes looked like small black beads fit into a head far too small for the rest of its body.

  “What is that?” Zach asked, just as his own bag started shifting and bulging against his back.

  He hurriedly removed it from his shoulder, throwing it down beside the animal on the ground. A second later, the same creature came clawing its way out, the bag tearing like paper beneath those razor-sharp claws.

  “Angal,” Noah said, eyes widening.

  Hearing their name, Oliver’s mind filled in the rest. The creatures were wild and native to Tettralis. Scavengers. Cathemeral, active at various times of the day. They were known to be incredibly moody and were dangerous once agitated. A state of mind they easily flipped to.

  Their first line of defense was that they went limp at the first sign of danger, their weight gradually increasing until they decided a fight was the only way out. Seeing them now, it was clear which state they were in.

  The creatures seemed to greet each other, tilting their heads at odd angles as if wondering why the other was there.

  The important thing to remember with these animals was that you had to keep a respectable distance. He took a step back and noticed Noah doing the same when both animals finished their inspection of each other, turning their attention to the bags they’d escaped from.

  When they looked up, Zach could swear there was pure accusation in those small beady eyes. A kind of sentience no animal should have, no animal had ever had as far as he was concerned.

  Their mouths opened at the same time before they let out blood-curdling screams, the kind that sounded like a woman being burned alive. For the small size of their heads, it was amazing how wide their jaws opened, especially as it revealed the wide tunnels that were their throats.

  “Oh, shi—”

  Without any run-up, they launched themselves through the air, somehow managing to cover that distance in one leap. Further proof of their sentience was the fact that they each attacked the owner of the bag they’d crawled out from.

  Zach had no time to watch Noah’s reaction as he instinctively brought his arm up to guard his face. Pain blurred his senses as the angal’s claws sank deep into his forearm, the creature’s open jaws coming up over his arm, aggressively trying to snap at his face.

  He tried to shake the thing off, but that only made the claws sink in deeper. He couldn’t stop the scream that tore from his throat then. Somehow, the claws were burning inside his flesh. That’s when he remembered they had poison glands in the pad of their paws that could be injected with a scratch.

  He brought up his other hand and started beating on the thing’s skull again and again. Still, it tried to snap at him. His arm throbbed, and he swore he could feel the poison moving up his arm, swirling through his veins.

  In a sudden panic, he reached behind the creature’s head, gripping the scruff of its neck and pulling until the claws slid out of his arm, each tip dripping with his blood. He tossed the angal away, his attention temporarily going to his ravaged forearm.

  Ten puncture holes oozing blood, each of them burning like hell itself from the inside out. That horrific scream tore through the air again, and he knew then that throwing the creature had been a mistake. A better move would’ve been to kill it while he’d had it in his grip.

  He looked up a second before it jumped, again clearing that distance in one leap. Zach pivoted to the side, the creature scratching his cheek before he landed on the road, spitting at him with a dry, hissing sound.

  Behind him, he heard Noah grunting and the angal with him growling and snarling. But he couldn’t focus on that. His own creature started crawling toward him, its head lowered so it almost touched the ground.

  He stood frozen, waiting for it to make the first move. Meanwhile, he strained his leg, tensing it with as much strength and speed as he could muster.

  His arm was still burning. A general numbness, spreading out and deadening his nerves there. Focus! You can deal with your arm later. Focus! He didn’t tear his eyes off its legs, not until he saw the claws scrape against the road, retracting as it crouched low, readying itself for its jump.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  The creature jumped at him, its claws on all four legs extending longer than before. Zach stood still for a moment, waiting until it came exactly within reach, then brought his right leg up, his foot almost as heavy as stone. He closed his eyes and winced as it made contact with the creature’s abdomen.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the angal land somewhere in the cropped grass to the left of the road. He waited with held breath, sure the animal would get up angrier than before, but there was nothing. Just that unmoving lump of fur.

  He flexed his hand, trying to get the feeling back into his fingers to no avail. Noah’s panting caught his attention. Zach found him lying on the road, holding the creature away from his face by holding its legs wide just above those threatening claws.

  “A little help,” Noah grunted out.

  Zach ran over, straining his foot once more, and kicked the thing across the road as he’d done with his own. Noah lay there, his arms dropped to his side, closing his eyes and breathing in relief.

  “Thank you.”

  Zach nodded, flexing his arm again at the numbness that was still there.

  “Was that supposed to be part of the training?” Zach asked, fighting the rising panic. “They wanted to see how we’d handle wild animals?”

  He had to keep talking.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Noah said, pushing himself up to his feet. “Angals can kill you. If you didn’t have Severity, I don’t know if we could’ve survived that.”

  “So, what? Someone snuck them in?”

  That made the most sense. Angals were far too wild to have snuck into camp by themselves. They were known to avoid human-populated areas.

  Noah shook his head, looking down at the ruined bags. It had been stuffed full of old clothes that now lay strewn in the road, some of them blowing with the wind. He bent, trying to stuff as much as he could back into the bag without them coming through the torn hole. Zach thought if they kept that part of the bag firmly against their backs, it could work.

  “It scratched you,” Noah said, taking note of Zach’s arm. “Is it numb?”

  “Numb and burning.”

  “I thought you healed?” he asked. “Does it usually take this long?”

  “Last night, it happened faster than this,” he said, genuine worry seeping in now.

  Why wasn’t it healing?

  But... wait. He could feel something.

  “What?” Noah asked, his frown deepening.

  “I can feel the poison,” he said in disbelief.

  Somehow, he understood the reason his wounds hadn’t yet closed, why the blood hadn’t yet clotted, was that his body was busy fighting the poison, which should’ve done more than numb his arm.

  “When I was learning to use the Central, I realized that it had to do with my mind. I could do things unconsciously, but it was always stronger when I intentionally focused on it. Your mind is very important.”

  Noah was right. With an injury as complex as this, it seemed Severity wanted him to focus. Needed him to. It held the poison’s effect at bay, but when he closed his eyes and zeroed in on the sensation, he could feel it pushing the poison out.

  In his mind, he followed the process until a clear liquid started oozing out of his puncture wounds. It burned as it dripped across his skin and onto the road. But the burn, too, didn’t last very long. It faded even as his blood started clotting, the bleeding ceasing immediately.

  He pushed harder, but try as he might, he couldn’t close the puncture wounds. He pushed, feeling like he was trying to lift a great weight. Finally, he gasped, feeling tired and light-headed. Noah had to grab his shoulders as he almost fell over.

  “You can’t push yourself too hard,” he said. “Haven’t you been training?”

  Zach shook his head, mumbling, “I’ve been busy.”

  Noah sighed. “There are limits and restrictions. For me, it’s the annoying fact that I need my hands. That’s why I couldn’t do anything against the angal. The first step in training any Creational Force is finding your limits and restrictions.”

  Zach shook his head as the lightheaded feeling slowly faded. “I know one of my restrictions. I get tired if I strain myself too much. Really tired.”

  It seemed as though he’d found a restriction in regards to his healing as well.

  He looked down at himself.

  It would be difficult to explain why he had holes in his forearm that weren’t bleeding. Of course, it would be even more difficult to explain why his sleeve was covered in so much blood.

  Limits and restrictions, he thought bitterly.