“Wake up!” Zuri’s panicked voice and frantic shaking woke me up. I sat up with a jolt and saw Lumi poking at Sorine’s cheek.

  Sorine wasn’t moving.

  “What happened to her?” I asked, fumbling over the blanket I was using—effectively tripping me as I tried to stand up.

  “Her ether has started to deplete. She must have overexerted herself yesterday.” Zuri moved over to Dimitri, whom she repeatedly smacked in the face. I had to be thankful that she woke me up more… gently.

  Come to think of it, we hadn’t eaten yesterday after arriving.

  “Someone needs to get her food,” Dimitri said, half awake.

  “Elaina and I will go.” Zetta had her arms crossed. She was leaning against a nearby tree, and looked almost disinterested in the situation.

  “I’ll go with Elaina,” Zuri said.

  “No. If something happens, your Talent will be useful. Besides, it gives me and Elaina here some bonding time.” She smacked me on the back, causing me to launch forward. Why would she want to spend time with me?! She already admitted she hated me! This felt like some sort of trap. Maybe she gave Sorine some type of sleeping potion or something.

  “Dimitri can go,” Zuri insisted. She must have really hated Zetta if she was suggesting Dimitri…

  “And what happens if they come across something they can’t handle? Elaina still doesn’t know how to use her magic—”

  I sent a fireball whipping past her face that she narrowly dodged. Part of me wished it had hit.

  Zetta blinked at me, taken aback. “Goddess, you know we’re on the same side, right?”

  “Just wanted to make sure you knew that I can use magic fairly well,” I answered smugly. Right, if I could handle Maverick, I could handle Zetta.

  I could not handle Zetta.

  Her pace was much faster than what we had been going yesterday, and I was struggling to keep up so early in the morning. Whatever time we had woken up at, the sun was out. Considering its position in the sky, we probably didn’t have too much sunlight left.

  “Hurry up,” Zetta snapped at me.

  “Do you even know where you’re going?” I asked, out of breath.

  “There are more plants in this direction, meaning one of them may be a source of food.”

  The ground beneath me began to shake, and I could see ripples beneath the dirt, as if something was about to surface. Two, no, three areas were like this. Three skeletal figures jumped out of the ground, reminding me of both a fish and a snake. Zetta was quick to summon dual pistols and shoot at them. I was confused about what the bullets would do to bones with a lot of spacing in between, but I was surprised when actual fire launched out of the guns.

  Before I could even do anything, the three creatures were dead.

  “Try to do something other than stand there next time, okay?” Zetta sheathed her guns before they outright disappeared and continued walking.

  I wanted to say something back—something snarky or witty, but I couldn’t think of anything. Even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. She’d either ignore it or have some comeback of her own that I wouldn’t be able to come up with a response to.

  “I’m sorry, it’s difficult for me to do anything when you’re just so efficient at your job!” I fake-gushed.

  She turned back to me to raise an eyebrow before she continued walking. Ha! She won’t get a rise out of me! I’ll have to remember this one for Maverick.

  “What can you tell me about my future?” I decided to ask. Maybe if she put more focus on talking, she’d spend less time focusing on sprinting ahead. Then the burning in my legs would finally stop. Sorine’s heart probably would too, but that wasn’t important right now.

  “Can’t tell you anything, already told you.”

  “Well, you seem pretty pissed at my future. Don’t you want to change it?”

  “And potentially screw it up even more? That’s always the risk. You’ve seen it yourself already. The whole reason Rosalie had that vision of Earth being destroyed was because she reacted to the vision. If she hadn’t done anything, you wouldn’t have had that awkward goodbye with your family.”

  I tensed. How did she know about that? Did Sorine tell her? Or had she seen it herself? Why would she even see it? Why would either of them have seen something like that? And why would she bring it up?!

  “If Rosalie hadn’t reacted to that vision,” I paused as I tried to relax my body, “then I wouldn’t have met any of you.”

  “And then you wouldn’t be out here killing the woman who kidnapped you.” Was she trying to turn me against Sylvis?

  “Technically, we’re not doing that yet.”

  “But you will. One day, Elaina Thomas, you will kill that lady.”

  Thomas. I hadn't told anybody my last name.

  A shiver fell down my spine. Was this a trick? She just said she couldn’t tell me my future. It certainly wasn’t a very nice thing to say, regardless.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  We finally reached the area of plants Zetta was running towards. Two bore small red fruits that Zetta insisted multiple times were safe, and another plant’s leaves were apparently not only edible, but also nutritious—oh my. Zetta pocketed them and held a few extra fruits in her arms. She insisted I keep my hands free in case anything happened.

  “Hey…” I asked, as we started walking back. “Why were you so insistent on coming with me? And why did it have to be me?”

  “Because of this.” Zetta nodded ahead. Five skeletal creatures with hoods and capes covering the top of their heads and backs were running towards us.

  I instinctively backed away and looked towards Zetta. She was bouncing between her heels and toes with a huge smile on her face, still holding the fruit in her hands. “Someone has to hold the food.” She shrugged at me, still smiling. She meant for me to defend the two of us?!

  Okay… No big deal. We already learned that fire magic was more than effective against these things, so I’ll just— Oh. The fireball disappeared as soon as it touched them.

  “Did I forget to mention their cloaks protect them from fire? Oops,” Zetta said all too casually.

  I grumbled something incoherent as I used earth magic to make the ground underneath their feet rise up. Unfortunately, they jumped up before diving down under the raised ground, and resurfaced a couple of feet later.

  “What do I do?!” I panicked as I turned to Zetta, who was way too calm for the situation. She knew that if I failed, she would die too, right?

  “You tell me.” She shrugged again.

  I gritted my teeth as I turned back to the creatures who were going to be on us at any moment. Not knowing what else to do, I used a gust of wind to send them backwards. Okay, that bought me some time, but they were already trekking back.

  “They’re attracted to the fruit,” Zetta explained.

  “Okay, then chuck the fruit and let’s go!” I beckoned to her as I started running in the opposite direction of the skeletons.

  I could hear her voice call out to me. “Can’t. Then Master won't have anything to eat.”

  I took a deep sigh before walking back.

  “Is all you know elemental magic?” Zetta asked.

  “Kind of,” I answered. I mean, there was that time I cloned myself when I fought Avaline, but I wasn’t sure if I could do that again. It didn’t matter anyway without a weapon.

  A weapon… That could help me.

  The skeletons were quickly approaching us, but I closed my eyes and tried to block them out. I forgot who it was that told me I couldn’t just picture the weapon I wanted and it would come to me. Whatever my weapon was, it would have to choose me regardless of my bias. I held my palms out in front of me and tried to call out to my weapon with my soul.

  A cold metallic texture landed in my palms, and I opened my eyes. Was this… some sort of rod? It was long and skinny and had an orb at the end.

  This was perfect!

  I dashed forward, feeling the wind guide me as I ran. One after one, I swung my rod at them, knocking each of them to the ground. The last one fell down, but I could see one of its bones still moving, so I hit it again. And again. And why was it still moving? And again—

  “Okay, that’s enough. Their feet sometimes continue to move when they’re dead,” Zetta called out.

  “…Aren’t they already dead?” I asked. I mean, they were skeletons!

  “Mostly dead.”

  “How is that different from—”

  “I really gotta hand it to you…” She smiled as she shook her head. This smile was genuine and filled with humor. “You have no idea how that weapon of yours works, do you?”

  “I’d say it worked pretty well.” I shrugged.

  We started walking as we talked.

  “Your weapon is kind of similar to mine and Aidan’s.” She knew about Aidan? She must have seen his future. “It powers your magic up. Though unlike me and Aidan, who can only use elemental attacks with our weapons, your weapon powers up all of your magic.”

  “Really?” I looked at it, giving it a proper once-over this time. It was cream colored with beautiful jewels engraved near the orb. The orb itself was a semi-transparent pink, with a bright white light in the center.

  “It’s one of the rarest weapons you can get. Supposedly, Alina wielded the same weapon.”

  I recalled Sylvis using a rapier when she fought against Avaline. Avaline had fought with spears. Had they both lost their ability to use this weapon?

  “The reason I came with you is that it wasn’t guaranteed you would summon your weapon otherwise. In fact, you may have never learned how to summon it. And a future without your weapon is… Well, you don’t want to know.”

  “Now that that future has been avoided, you can tell me, right?” I goaded.

  She shook her head. “If you know what the future was not, you could figure out what the future is.”

  I sighed. Sometimes I wondered if she just liked hogging her power to herself.

  We returned to the others where Zuri carefully, but also quickly and forcefully, fed Sorine. Lumi had apparently fallen back to sleep, and Dimitri was tracing the dirt with a stick.

  Sorine woke up flustered and mumbled what I assumed was supposed to be an apology? It was mostly her berating herself about how she should’ve been taking better care of herself, and something, something embarrassing being saved.

  “Are you okay?!” Zuri grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me up and down.

  “Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I answered. “I learned how to summon my weapon—”

  “Why did you even need to do that in the first place?!” She shouted as she shook my shoulders. Before I could reply, she sighed and released me. “Listen, don’t ever be alone with Zetta again, do you hear me?”

  “Why?” I asked. I mean, I didn’t want to be alone with Zetta either, but something was bothering me about how scared of Zetta she was.

  She glanced around, probably making sure Zetta wasn’t within earshot. “It’s not unusual for Zetta to kill people whose future she doesn’t like.”

  My heart stopped—or at least it felt that way. If that was the case… then why hadn’t she killed me earlier? She seemed to have a hatred towards me, so wouldn’t it have been easier to just remove me from the picture? Or is she waiting for the right time, just right after I’m useful?

  We continued walking once the rest of us finished eating. Truthfully, we had barely grabbed enough for everyone. The sun had started to set when we left, and we’d have twenty-two more hours of darkness ahead of us.

  A few hours later, we finally reached the city that Sorine had been guiding us to. And man, was it huge. It may have been even bigger than New York City and Los Angeles. There were skyscrapers as far as the eye could see, along with lampposts, neon signs that seemed suspended in the air, and dozens of screens. It seemed like every block had a screen that would broadcast either the news, music, or some sort of celebrity. Cars traversed the street while something that looked similar to a bus or a train traversed the sky. It felt like I had stepped into the future, and one that wasn’t too far off.

  “There should be a motel that we can stay at around here,” Sorine said as she began inspecting the buildings.

  “Motel?” I raised an eyebrow. Seemed a little shabby for an established organization.

  “Master is too poor to afford a hotel,” Lumi answered.

  “Lumi!” Zuri snapped.

  Sorine’s hand twitched. “I-I’ll have you know that the Magus of Historia does not want for money! …At least not after I inherited N’s power…” she mumbled that last part just loud enough for me to hear.

  We stumbled across two hotels that we instantly walked out of after Sorine heard the price, making me question her last statement. Finally, we came across a motel. The others didn’t seem to be too tired, but I was exhausted from having walked all day. Not to mention my near-death experience! It made me wonder if Zetta would have let me die if I had failed to summon my weapon… Surely there was a timeline where that happened, right?