The morning sun didn't do much to cut through the chill of the damp forest. Max walked steadily, though his legs dragged and his stomach rebelled with hunger.

  Beside him, Miranda, the witch, kept rubbing her neck where Dorin had gotten ahold of her. Max saw no visible bruising or welts, but he couldn't imagine the memory of an encounter like that fading quickly.

  “How bad is it?” he asked genuinely. “You keep touching it.”

  She flinched, dropping her hand. "Reminds me of home," she said absently. "In the Golden Plains, there were these creatures called Bark Boas. Large constrictors that draped themselves from the gnarled trees of the oases." She shuddered, the memory vivid. "They focus their energy on hiding their aura, waiting for prey to brush against them. Usually, it means death."

  Max glanced at the forest canopy, instinctively looking for snakes. "Sounds awful. How do you handle them?"

  "You learn quickly to double-check the branches and keep a sharp knife within reach."

  Max looked back at her. She looked haunted. Not just by the events of the previous day, but by something else.

  “Are all witches from the Golden Plains?” Max asked absently. Miranda flashed him an irritated look.

  “What did you call me?”

  “Um... a witch? That's what you are, right?” Max stammered, now realizing he may have insulted the woman. “Those that consort with fate, that wield chaotic magics.”

  Miranda looked at Max with both offense and amazement. “No Max, I'm not a witch. We are Arcanists. We study the lost language of creation. I don't boil newt eyes… a witch… seriously.”

  Fully embarrassed by his blunder, Max fell silent, his face flushed red. He had never even heard of the term Arcanist; all his knowledge of magic came from the travelers and woodcutters that frequent Weatherbreak Inn. Quickly he thought of a way to change the subject.

  "Last night…," Max said. "I thought you were dead. You were… like really gone. I've never seen someone sleep that hard."

  Miranda fell silent. She stared into the distance, letting her irritation melt from her face. "I... I was dreaming," she whispered. "I never dream, not anymore."

  Max let the conversation die for a moment, unsure how to reply to her comment. Then a thought popped into his head.

  “The assassin chasing us yesterday said I was hard to read.” Max said. “And you said you can't get anything from me. What does that mean?”

  Miranda stopped to look Max up and down like she was giving a formal assessment. "I am not sure," she said finally, continuing to walk. Max followed, keeping himself shoulder to shoulder with her. "I don't know why, but it would seem you have no aura."

  "Well, how does that make me immune to these divinations? I know I blocked that other witch's magic the other night."

  "Divination, like all magic in our world, interacts with the physical by interacting with the soul, or your aura," Miranda explained. "We cannot interpret your future because you have no aura to look for."

  Max frowned. “So I'm invisible?”

  “No,” Miranda said with frustration. “Invisible I can find, eventually. You are a void, nothingness where something should be.”

  They came to a fork in the game trail they followed and stopped. Max looked down either stretch. To the left was mostly clear and steadily descended. To the right, the path disappeared behind a thicket. Miranda closed her eyes for a moment, divining before letting out a deep sigh.

  “You choose,” she said finally.

  “Me?”

  “If I choose I will follow whatever is the most probable path,” she said, sounding exhausted. “My kin can track that logic, but you have nothing to track. With no destiny, you disrupt the whole system just by choosing which direction to go."

  Max looked at the two paths again. It seemed ridiculous that such a simple decision could be a tactical one. Pissing off the people that destroyed my farm does sound fun though.

  A smirk crossed his face. "Well, let's go right then," he said, gesturing towards the thicket. "Let’s mess some stuff up."

  Miranda actually smiled, a quick fleeting thing. “Right it is, farmer.”

  Together they ventured into the thicket, deeper and deeper into the woods. Max led the way, pushing past briars and dry, dead branches. He glanced at Miranda and wished he had gear like hers. She appeared fine in the harsh underbrush, every bit of skin on her body covered by thick cloth and leather. Only her hands, neck, and head were exposed.

  Every time they hit a clearing or a fork in the game trail Max would choose a direction at random. He was more concerned with being unpredictable than the general direction they were heading. And each time he chose the way forward, Miranda's shoulders would lose even more tension. It was like his chaos was washing away some unseen magical pressure.

  At noon they discovered a small stream and broke for a rest. The sun was high and Max’s stomach was starting to roar with hunger. He bent down and splashed some cool water on his face. He washed mud and dried blood from his hands. Dorin's face flashed in his mind. Quickly he blinked away the vision and stood.

  Screech!

  Max whipped his head around at the sudden haunting noise. He searched for the source of the horrible sound. Miranda was sitting cross-legged at the edge of the creek just a few feet from him. She held a small river rock to the ground; her other hand was wielding a thick instrument. It looked like a fancy quill, although it held no feather; this device looked metal. It was black and perfectly hexagonally cut. Runes marked its sides and glowed as she used its crystalline tip to cut into the stone. Is that a diamond?

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  “What are you doing?” Max asked, covering his ears for a moment as she etched another line. He couldn't tell what she was carving. It looked like some strange geometric shape.

  “Arcanists cast spells by writing the language of creation on an object. Then when we are ready we speak them aloud and offer some of our energy,” she explained, examining the stone intently before carving another line.

  “What spells are you making?” Max asked, leaning to peer over her work, inadvertently blocking the light. Miranda sighed and glared at him. “Sorry.”

  “It's fine, it's just stone isn't the best medium.” She finished the rock she was working on and started on another. “It's unstable, and difficult to inscribe. If I'm not careful the magic will find a flaw in the stone and detonate the whole thing in my face.”

  “Yikes, alrighty then.” Max let her finish her work before he spoke again. Which was only another ten minutes. In all, she carved three stones and slipped them into a pouch on her waist. She capped the stylus with a metal cap and stowed it as well. She can really fit a lot in that outfit, I wonder if they make them my size. His stomach rumbled, distracting him from the thought.

  "Too bad we don't have anything to eat," Max said finally, looking around the brush.

  Miranda started pacing around the small clearing searching the bushes for something to forage. She studied the plants, a few roots, even the shallow stream.

  “I don't know these lands,” she muttered with frustration. “Everything here is green; in my home, green usually means poisonous."

  Max scanned the trees himself. He ignored the undergrowth and looked instead to a large patch of briars next to a heavy oak. He grinned from ear to ear and rushed over.

  "Here we go!" he said, pulling a handful of the purple fruit from its thorny branches. He ignored the small scratches it left on the surface of his skin and plopped them in his mouth. They were tart; early in the season, but the juice was welcome.

  "Wait!" Miranda shouted. "Thorns, serrated leaves, that vibrant purple. It could be toxic."

  Max just laughed, his mouth already stained purple. "No, no, it's okay," he said, waving her comment away with a hand. "They're just blackberries. A little sour. But that makes the best pie."

  A flash of warmth and the smell of fresh-baked pie filled his mind as he recalled his home. Sitting on the front porch as his mother cooled a fresh pie in the summer sun. Then his smile returned and he shook his head clear. Max grabbed another handful and walked to Miranda and extended his hand. She recoiled instantly.

  "I'm not trusting that," she said nervously, eyeing the berries like they were going to attack her.

  "Suit yourself," Max said, shrugging. He tossed the handful in his mouth before grabbing some more. Miranda watched him intently, then a loud groan erupted from her stomach. Finally, she relented, picking small berries from the closest bush, and popped one in her mouth. She flinched from the sour then slowly the satisfaction of sugar relaxed her face. She raced to gather more, eating them as fast as she picked them. On one of the last berries she plucked she accidentally nicked her finger on a larger thorn.

  “Ow!” She exclaimed as the sudden cut pooled blood on her finger. The drop of blood dripped from her finger and landed on a leaf on the forest floor. Max looked back to Miranda’s hand, which was now completely healed.

  “How?” He started before she quickly put her hand behind her back. She ignored his question and looked to her other hand, covered in the blackberries' sticky juice.

  “They're messy,” Miranda said quickly, changing the subject. She quickly walked past him and down the trail. Max hesitated for a moment before following. Was that more magic? I've never heard of magic that heals, except the paladins of course. He decided to let the incident go; they had plenty of time for him to get answers. There was still so much he didn't understand, for all he knew this could have been completely normal for an Arcansist. Then why was she hiding it?

  “Um, anyways,” he said, finally catching up with her. “Messy? Don't you have berries in your home?”

  "Not really, not like this," Miranda replied. “In the savannah, resources can be scarce. We adopted an efficient system of drying and preserving our food. Fresh ripe berries would be considered a luxury our Conclave doesn't usually indulge in.”

  "Huh…" Max said as he pushed past some low-hanging branches. They were wet and collapsed with the slightest touch. They released an odor so foul he brought his elbow up to cover his mouth.

  “What is it?”

  Max didn't answer and kept walking down the trial, the stench growing the further he went. As he walked he encountered more dead plants, whole trees rotting where they stood, threatening to collapse under their own weight. Even the ferns of the undergrowth were wilted and black, a grey-brown liquid seeping from their stems.

  Miranda approached one of the trees and studied it closer, Max watched her intently. She prodded the bark with her dagger, its blade sinking into the tree with ease.

  “Damn,” she said bitterly. She turned and stormed further down the trail, Max following close behind. After only a brief moment of walking they broke through a treeline.

  Stretched out in front of them was a farm, or what used to be a farm. Fields of what should have been spring grass and wildflowers were now a wasteland of grey rot. In the center a farmhouse stood, its roof caved in and its timbers black and twisted.

  "We should move on," Miranda said tightly. Max ignored her.

  "What happened?" Max asked as he wandered into the field. The stench grew so strong it was almost unbearable; he had to cover his mouth with his sleeve just to stop his berries from coming up. He passed a smaller animal pen and was horrified by what he saw. The livestock… they had been slaughtered, but not for meat. Pigs, cows, chickens, all burst open at the seams. Their ribcages were splayed open like grotesque flowers, the bones twisted outward. He couldn't look any further and instead turned his attention to the farmhouse.

  "They left in a hurry," Max said, his voice trembling. He pointed to the house window. Through the grime, he could see a table set for dinner, the food now a mound of maggots. "Miranda… what is this?"

  "This… is the Conclave of the Fated Death," she said bitterly. "In my lands, they are known as the wielders of the taboo magics. The bits of language no mortal is meant to possess. Necromancy."

  Max looked to Miranda. He saw shame in her eyes. “Are all the Conclaves like this?”

  "No," Miranda snapped. She looked at the ruined house and sighed. "No, Max, they aren't. Most just try to live their lives as researchers and scholars. They trade, celebrate, and live. This is the work of one man, one High Magistrate willing to break all the rules and bend nature to his will to see his quest complete."

  "What quest?"

  "Immortality, Max," Miranda said with defeat in her voice. "It’s what they fear the most. Death."

  Miranda walked to the other side of the house; Max followed. “What I don't understand is this damage looks weeks old, I've only been in the area for a few days at most. What were they doing here? What terrible ritual did they complete in this poor home?”

  Snap!

  Max spun on his heels. Miranda motioned for Max to stay quiet and they slowly snuck up against the back wall of the house, peering around the corner. Max’s heart froze as he heard voices emanate from the treeline they had just exited.

  Three bounty hunters staggered out of the woods, weapons drawn. They didn't appear to have noticed Max or Miranda but seemed on high alert. Another man then exited the treeline and Miranda gasped. Max looked at her as she mouthed the words.

  ‘Verick of Valewood’