Justus gripped the fabric of Katherine’s robes, fingers clenched so tightly his hands shook. He saw the look of shock on Katherine’s face morph to confusion, then fear. He shook her when she didn’t answer.
“My Jade guidestone! I know you took it, so where is it!”
“I don’t—it was in my pocket…”
“You left it on Earth?”
“I didn’t know what would happen, I swear, I just—”
“Why did you take it!” Justus interrupted, shaking her again.
“I… I thought you would leave us. I knew what it could do, and I… I wanted to be a hero.”
The word hit Justus like a slap to the face. He pushed Katherine away, worried he’d actually hurt her if he didn’t calm down. Katherine yelled and fell to the muddy ground. Justus focused on his breaths, trying to think.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“Shut up,” Justus snapped. “I’m done. I’m sick of having to deal with you two. When we get to that town, I’m heading back to Talon. Alone. Consider that thing you left in my inventory as your payment.”
“But—”
Katherine cut off as he glared at her. She lowered her head.
Justus turned his back to her. He wiped the unshed tears from his eyes, regaining his composure. He set his jaw and turned back to Katherine.
“Hold on, we’re taking the quick way out.”
Justus pulled her close, perhaps a bit more roughly than he should have, then Blinked. Again, the two were transported high in the air. This time, Justus immediately followed it up with his other Movement Affinity skill.
[Gate of Rates]
Warp space in a small area to greatly affect the acceleration of an object.
Charges: 5 of 6 remaining
Charge Cooldown: 45 seconds
Justus created a Gate of Rate right beneath them in the air. The air blurred as the space itself began to move. He balanced on the Gate, which pushed him up constantly, not unlike a waterspout. He’d made this one at only a fraction of its full power, so it wouldn’t shoot him in the air.
The skill was limited. While he could create Gates with different strengths of effect, he couldn’t dynamically change their power. Once a Gate was made, its strength was set. Luckily it was offset by the fact that it was a charge skill.
Justus created a second, much stronger Gate. He created this one right on top of them, at about a forty-five-degree angle. The effect was immediate as they surged in an arc towards the mountains to the northwest, towards the camp. He compounded their acceleration with another max-strength Gate just a few seconds into their flight, then another, and another.
Each Gate doubled their current acceleration, meaning that using four in a row resulted in eight times the speed of using just one, which already provided a significant burst of speed.
The air billowed past them as they sailed through the dark sky. Katherine clutched onto him, clearly terrified. Maybe he should have explained his skill and how they’d be traveling, but he didn’t much care to speak to her at the moment.
The two of them began slowing as they reached the height of their arc. They were just over the treeline of the swamp. Justus waited a few more seconds, then readied his Blink.
He guided the pathing, choosing a spot only a few hundred yards out from the campsite. It was quite a long distance for a Blink, one he usually wouldn’t do since the cooldown from it would likely be several minutes long. But he could see quite a ways in any direction, and there were no signs of any threat.
The Blink carried them towards the ground but didn’t stop their momentum. That was why he’d waited until they were at the apex of their flight. There was little downward momentum. He mostly had to worry about their forward momentum. He used one last Gate of Rate, but this time he faced it toward them, so when they passed through it, their acceleration slowed greatly.
The ground was still fast approaching. He’d Blinked fifteen feet in the air to give him time to make a Gate, and not all of their forward momentum had been arrested. They hit the soft ground of the marsh, Justus’s legs bearing the brunt of the impact. He grunted at the shock of the landing, but his Jade body was able to handle the impact that would have broken the ankles of a normal human.
Katherine wasn’t so lucky. She groaned, clutching her shoulder and falling to her knees. Justus started walking towards the camp, not bothering to wait for her.
When he got to the camp, he reached to the side, pulling out a bedroll from his inventory. He laid the roll out on the ground and then headed to his tent. Once inside, he zipped the opening shut behind him.
Justus lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the tent. His mind buzzed with unwanted thoughts.
He knew why he was so angry. He just didn’t want to admit it. That stone had been a gift from Boris. It was one of the few tangible things he had left of his mentor. Justus wasn’t a sentimental person, but even he had things that were precious to him.
He still hated Boris for what his mentor did. Like everyone else, Boris had left. The fact that he died a hero, protecting Justus and an entire town, didn’t matter. If anything, it made it worse. It meant Justus was partly responsible.
After his mentor’s death, Justus told himself he’d never make that mistake again. It was better to not grow attached to anyone or anything. It only made the pain worse when they eventually left him. Justus could manage just fine on his own.
And yet, sometime during the past two orbits, he’d started caring for the two outsiders. He had resisted the feelings at first, but he did enjoy training them. He felt a vicarious sense of achievement when they overcame their shortcomings. Even now a treacherous part of him felt proud of Katherine. She’d fought a Spirit beast over a full rank stronger than her and had not only survived but had also been crucial to killing it. Few Opals could claim a feat like that.
No, Justus wasn’t angry at losing the stone. Stealing was a common occurrence in the streets he’d grown up in. If you wanted to survive, you learned not to take it personally. The anger went deeper than that. The Jade guidestone mattered, but it wasn’t something that could cause the level of anger or pain he’d felt. He hadn’t been that upset when he noticed the stone missing yesterday. Rage had only bubbled up when he’d decided to confront Katherine. Part of him must have known he’d react like that. Why else would he wait until they were alone?
Justus heard the sound of muffled crying outside the tent. She was trying to stifle the sound, but he could hear it clearly in the silent night. A knife of guilt twisted in his gut.
When he unzipped the tent and stepped outside, he saw Katherine stiffen. She was sitting on the bedroll, her knees pulled close to her chest. She looked away, wiping at her eyes.
Justus walked over to her and crouched down. He reached to the side, pulling out an item from his inventory. He held it out to her: the thing she had put in his inventory. Katherine looked down at it, then looked away again. Justus set it on the bedroll next to her. He sat down on the dirt, unsure what to say.
“What is it?”
“...An e-book.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a library. One you can carry around.”
“Hmm. Sounds neat.”
“Yeah…”
Katherine didn’t reach for the device. She didn’t even glance at it. She stared out into the dark marsh. Her robe and shawl were ripped at her right shoulder, where the beast had grabbed her. Justus reached into his inventory and pulled out water, bandages, and gauze wrap.
“Let me see your shoulder,” he told her.
For a few moments she ignored him, but then she unclasped her shawl and loosened the top of her robe before sliding it down. The wound on her shoulder was deep. Thankfully, Spirit-beasts were surprisingly sterile, so there was little chance of an infection. Her Opal rank would do a far better job of dealing with any potential infection than a normal human. Still, he wet the wound before beginning to dress it. Katherine didn’t wince as he might have expected. She was silent as he cleaned the injury.
“It looked like my mother. I saw her face. Heard her voice.”
Justus paused. “It had a mental affinity. It used your thoughts to create illusions. Some monsters do that. Spirit-beasts with a mental affinity aren’t very physically strong for their rank, so they rely on tricks to catch Spirit Artists off guard or to separate groups.”
“How did you find me?”
“I had a hunch after you said you heard someone outside. I set an alarm to wake me up every hour. When I woke up you were gone, so I went looking. I got to a vantage point and saw the fire.”
Katherine reached out, scratching at the packed dirt. “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to.”
“Most people don’t.”
Justus finished bandaging the wound. He lifted her arm and told her to keep it up while he wrapped the injury. Katherine picked up a small pebble with her left hand. She picked at the dirt that clung to it.
“I’m sorry for losing your stone. I wasn’t thinking. I was scared.”
“I know,” Justus said. “You said you wanted to be a hero. Why?”
Katherine shook her head. “That’s… I did when I was a kid. Superheroes are like celebrities. People look up to them. They save lives, and everyone loves them. Every kid dreams of getting superpowers and being a hero.”
“You’re not a kid.”
“I was. And some dreams don’t go away, even if you stop thinking about them. When I saw what your stone could do, what you could do… I felt like maybe it could make that dream come true.”
Justus finished the wrap and let her drop the arm.
“I don’t know how things work on Earth, but you should give up on that dream. You can be an adventurer and do some good, but heroes don’t last long here.”
Katherine flicked the stone away, then rested her head between her knees. “Maybe. Does it really matter to you what I do from here?”
Justus paused. Did it? He thought of leaving the two behind and going back to Talon, back to his old life. It would be safer. Smarter. Yet it would also be lonelier. That had always been a tradeoff he accepted. But since landing on Earth, he’d been dragged into something. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt like he wasn’t even seeing the surface of it yet. He didn’t even know what was at the center of it all yet. His curiosity itched to find out, but his instincts screamed at him to get away from it all before it was too late.
In the long stretch of silence after her words, rain began to drip from the dark clouds above. Justus stood up and pulled out one of the two spare robes he had left, offering it to Katherine.
“Come on. We still have a long way to go before we reach Talon. You won’t get enough rest out here in the rain.”
Katherine remained sitting, staring out into the dark. He set the folded robes beside her. He turned and left for the tent. After a few minutes, Katherine climbed inside. The light rain became a downpour soon after.
___
When Justus awoke, the rain was still going. His alarm shut off automatically when his guidestone detected that his mind had sufficiently awakened. Katherine was pressed against the side of the tent away from him, facing the tent’s wall and snoring quietly.
He’d hoped the storm would pass by now. Rain was a rare sight in most of Solidusk, but he’d heard the southern hemisphere experienced more. It had something to do with volatile ocean currents and wind. At least that’s what he’d heard. A small part of him was paranoid about another apocalypse-beast. He doubted the weather was a sign of one. As rare as rain was, apocalypse-beasts only appeared once every few phases across the entire empire, and they usually formed around the provinces of larger settlements, not the middle of nowhere.
Cold air poured into the tent as he unzipped the flap. Justus stepped out, zipping it back up. The bedroll he left out was still on the ground, which was now mud. Tattered and bloody robes were flapping under a large rock. He grabbed the filthy items and put them in his inventory, making sure to store them in the partition he’d made for dirty items.
He looked towards the mountains, barely visible as shadows on the dark horizon. If all went well, they’d be able to reach the base before the next resthours. He’d wanted to spend some time training before heading out, but this weather wouldn’t permit that. It would be a fantastic opportunity for the two, and even himself, to learn how to fight in this rainy and muddy setting, but he only had two more sets of clothes. Practicality would have to win out.
Justus noticed a new notification tab in his field of view and opened it.
Quest Update
Save Earth
Hidden Objective Complete - 1/1
Find and destroy the Persistant that attacked the village tradesmen.
Reward:
Set of Clothes x9
Reward added to [Inventory]
Justus blinked in surprise. He moved the display off to the side and brought up his inventory. Sure enough, there were nine more items than there had been before. Searching for the clothing brought up a list of all the clothes. There were numerous new sets of clothes, paired together as a bundle list. The sets came with footwear, underwear, and even accessories for Ashen winters. In total, there were six masculine sets of clothes and three feminine sets. Each of them had been given three different fashions popular in three kingdoms: Solidusk, Greatide, and Crestkept.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
This wasn’t normal. Quests didn’t give rewards like that. You were almost always paid in coin. You were supposed to go to a guild hall or bank and have them transfer the payment into your inventory from their connected system. As far as he knew, there was no way to transfer inventory items without a link device. Clearly, he didn’t know enough.
The clothing as rewards was disconcerting as it was, but it became downright unnerving when he considered his worries moments before checking the notification. It felt like it was responding to his needs, which would mean that the system might still be breached by whatever had given him this quest and sent him to Earth. Was it watching, even now? Or had it installed some other subsystem into the stone just for the quest?
He returned the clothing to his inventory and began a diagnostic check on the stone.
When the diagnostic was finished, it found nothing out of the ordinary within the system. That didn’t give Justus any comfort, since it only meant whatever was wrong was covert enough that the system couldn’t detect it.
For a short time, he considered turning the stone in and reporting the problem. If that happened, though, it would likely be deactivated. The guild would give him a new guidestone of equal quality, but Boris’s data would be lost. The guild wouldn’t risk transferring any of the data, in fear of infecting another stone.
He couldn’t let anyone know about the quest. Not even Katherine and Simon. Not yet. He’d have to tell them eventually, but now wasn’t that time. Once he got back home and things settled down, he would tell them.
For now, he’d handle things one step at a time. Caution had always served him well. Mostly.
*****
Katherine woke to the comforting sound of rain against the tent. It reminded her of the videos she’d play when she had trouble sleeping. It didn’t sound as comforting in person. What she loved about rain back in Parton was that it made the loud city quieter. Things were quiet enough on this planet so far.
Justus wasn’t in the tent. That didn’t surprise her. He was always awake early. Katherine unzipped the tent and looked out. The three others were sitting by a fire that burned inside a pit at the center of a small gazebo. The top of the gazebo flapped in the strong winds of the rainstorm, but the legs must have been grounded with pikes, as it resisted the winds' attempts to sweep it up into the air. The chairs had no backs, just a small leather seat tied between three intercrossed legs that were driven into the ground.
There was one more folded portable chair leaning against one of the gazebo’s legs. She wondered briefly where all of it had come from, then remembered how many things Justus kept in his inventory.
She stepped out of the tent and quickly walked over to join them under the gazebo.
“Hey,” she greeted.
Simon jumped in surprise, nearly kicking his feet into the fire as he twisted around to see Katherine standing behind him. He hadn’t heard her coming over the sound of the rain and had been sitting with his back turned to her tent.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing the last seat.
As she unfolded the chair, she reached to adjust the seat and winced, reflexively reaching toward her right shoulder. Simon got up.
“I’ll get it; you can take mine.”
Katherine nearly reflexively denied the help, but a wave of dizziness convinced her to only nod and take his seat.
“Thanks.”
“You okay? Justus told us what happened,” Simon asked.
Katherine glanced at Justus, who was looking back at her. She couldn’t read his expression. How much had he told them? Did he tell Simon that she was a thief?
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
“I heard you kicked ass. Mind giving me an invite next time?”
“I… wouldn’t have minded the help. Though I’d rather there wasn’t a next time.”
“The rest of the way to Teshustoq should be quite uneventful, I hope,” Heshsesh said. “I’ve made this journey eight times before now and have only encountered Spirit-beasts on two occasions, including this one.”
“Are we going to wait for the rain to pass?” Simon asked the tradesman.
“Usually no. I feel this rain might not let up for some time. It could take a full orbit for this rain to pass. I’d say we should push through, but… well, with her injuries, it would be best to wait for our companion to heal.”
“I’m fine. I can still move.”
“Good. Then let’s eat up and get moving,” Justus said. “The faster we get moving, the less time we’ll need to spend in this weather.”
Hishet frowned. “Justus, I don’t think she—”
“She said she’s fine. I checked the wound; it’s not as serious as it looks. She’ll be okay.”
Katherine wasn’t sure if Justus’s support was for her benefit or his own, but she was glad for it anyway. She wasn’t looking forward to jogging with the injury, but the thought of holding everyone back for days made her want to drown herself in one of the marsh’s small puddles.
Hishet looked back at Katherine, and she nodded.
Within ten minutes, they were off towards the mountains.
Though the sun here never moved, it wasn’t in the middle of the sky. It was at an angle to the northwest, the same direction as the mountains. Since the mountains cast a permanent shadow, they created an incredibly localized area of cold, lifeless dirt.
In the dark of the rainstorm, it was impossible to see the shadows, but Katherine could tell where they’d be. The grass suddenly disappeared, the temperature plummeted, and the marsh became nothing more than mud and ice slurry and partially frozen puddles. They marched on through the cold, following Hishet.
Katherine welcomed the cold. Her shoulder was hurting worse than her lungs and legs, but the frigid air helped numb the discomfort. After hours and hours of jogging with few breaks, Hishet finally began to slow. He looked back and yelled over the rain.
“We’re close now! There is a small grotto in the rock ahead!”
Katherine wished he hadn’t said that. Knowing the end was so close made it all the harder to keep moving. She forced herself onward. Mercifully, when Hishet said they were close, he meant close. It was only a few long, painful minutes until the tall tradesman stopped by a crevice in the rocky mountainside.
Katherine slowed down and followed the group inside. It was almost pitch black, and she had to trail her hand along the stone wall to keep her bearings. The darkness didn’t last long, as a warm light flared in front of her, then dimmed. Justus was holding a small metal lantern. He set it on the ground and adjusted the light until it was bright enough to see most of the cave.
She fell to the ground, gasping. The cave felt like a walk-in freezer, but she didn’t care. Her entire body felt like it was screaming at her for the abuse she had just put it through.
When it finally felt like she wasn’t on the verge of puking or having a heart attack, Katherine opened her eyes and took notice of where she was.
The grotto was tiny, only the size of a bedroom. It was clearly carved, as the walls were too smooth and there were large rounded recesses in the stone. The shape and size of the recesses made Katherine think they were meant for sleeping in.
There was a shallow but wide bowl in the center, which stood on a thick but short pillar. Small holes were carved in the pillar that led into the bowl. Hashesh was currently placing cut logs into the bowl. Katherine noticed the ceiling was sloped, leading to more small holes. Katherine figured the holes were for ventilation; otherwise, any fire would smoke out the entire cave.
Once Hishet started the fire, she, along with Simon and Justus, gathered around the flames to warm up. She couldn’t help but let out a sigh at the warmth.
Hishet pulled out a long rod from his inventory. The sight of him pulling the long pole out from what seemed like nothing but air reminded Katherine of a clown trick.
Hishet reached up and situated the pole’s ends onto two small hooks embedded on each side of the cave wall. He began pulling off his clothes and hanging them on the rod. Katherine looked down, focusing on the fire.
Taking off her freezing wet robes did sound nice, but stripping to her underwear in front of people, let alone a group of men, wasn’t something she’d do even under threat of death. Justus and Simon, however, didn’t have the same qualms as she did. They followed Hishet’s lead. Katherine fixed her gaze on the fire, feeling incredibly uncomfortable and a bit jealous. Despite her feelings, she had to fight the urge to sneak a peek at Simon.
Katherine was incredibly relieved when Justus brought out blankets for them to wrap up in. He even noticed she hadn’t gotten out of her clothes and offered to hold the blanket up for her while she took them off. She hesitantly accepted.
Once the clothes were off, she grabbed the blanket from Justus and wrapped it around her, gripping it tight to ensure it covered her and wouldn’t slip. She gave a quiet thanks.
Hishet had started cooking. Her stomach ached for some food, but Katherine was too exhausted from the long day of travel to eat. She asked Justus for a bedroll, which he pulled out of his inventory and placed in one of the sleeping hovels. It did little to cushion the hard stone, but Katherine was too tired to be picky. She crawled in the hovel and was asleep in minutes.
____
The rain passed some time during the night. When Katherine woke up, dim light poured into the cave. It was still cloudy, and the light was dim and diffuse, but it was far brighter than it had been the day before.
“Quarter,” not “day,” she mentally chided herself. It was still difficult to think in those terms.
Once again, she was the last one to wake up. The others were all sitting around a fire, having a quiet conversation.
They sat on the floor of the cave, thankfully robed now. Only one set of robes was still hung up on the clothesline. She walked over, still covered by her blanket, and reached up for them. Pain shot through her shoulder as she moved her arm too quickly. She nearly stumbled but caught her balance. Thankfully she hadn’t dropped her blanket.
After getting her robes with her uninjured arm, she pulled them on underneath the blanket, then gave it back to Justus.
“The storm is gone?” she asked.
Hishet nodded. “It seems so. There is a small chance it might rain again for a short while, but I don’t think so. We’ve made good time, but the path ahead can be narrow and dangerous. It might be necessary at times to slow down. Still, we may be able to make it to Teshustoq before the resthours come.”
“I don’t mind slower,” Katherine said, a small amount of her anxiety vaporizing at the realization that she wouldn’t be forced to jog literally beyond her body’s natural limits.
“Preach,” Simon chimed in between spoonfuls of soup.
“Can’t you just heal yourself when you get tired?” Katherine asked.
Simon sighed dramatically. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Apparently the healing doesn’t work on fatigue. It keeps me from getting sore, but I still get tired, and it doesn’t stop the pain when I’m running. Don’t ask me why.”
“Soreness is caused by microscopic tears in muscle,” Justus said. “Exhaustion is caused by a lack of energy, and the burning from intense exercise is caused by internal acids. Your skill likely causes your body to accelerate its natural healing.”
“Didn’t ask why either, but thanks, I guess.”
Justus frowned. “It’s important to understand how your healing skill works. Few healing skills work on every injury, disease, or condition. You don’t want to rely on it and have it not work.” He went back to eating his soup.
Katherine grabbed the bowl left out for her and filled it. She didn’t feel like eating, but she’d need the energy.
There was still a pit in her stomach. It writhed and gnawed and made her feel like she wanted to vomit. The pit seemed to pull on her mind, trying to suck her in and making it impossible to fully focus on anything else.
Her guilt at having lost Justus’s guidestone was worse than the injury from the monster’s claws. She had completely forgotten about what she’d done after all that happened. The jade stone hadn’t crossed her mind even once since leaving her apartment that night.
She stole a glance at Justus, who ate silently, staring into the crackling flames in the fire pit. He seemed so calm now. It was difficult to see him as the same person who had yelled at her. Whatever he seemed, it was clear that he wasn’t as in control of himself as he acted. Not completely.
She wasn’t sure where they stood now. He clearly wasn’t as angry as he’d been before. He’d lost his temper, but even shortly after, he’d seemed back to normal. Normal for him. She could understand that, though. Katherine also had a tendency to overreact when she was upset. She’d probably do the same if he had stolen something from her.
For the hundredth time since he’d confronted her, Katherine wondered why she’d taken his stone. It wasn’t like her to steal. There hadn’t even been a plan. Adrenaline, shock, and fear had been driving her actions. Even given the situation, she couldn’t help feeling like scum for losing the stone. Justus had every right to hate her.
As Katherine stared at the soup, her mind began to wander. It began drifting slowly towards places she didn’t want it to. Memories she’d rather forget. Some were repeated over and over, some were thrown only once, and some were flashes and feelings more than true memories.
Justus, furious and terrifying as he interrogated her in the swamp and outside her school. The terror she’d felt when she thought she was going to be killed. Chased, overwhelmed, lured like a moth to fire. The crushing loss of hope and joy when she’d realized her mother hadn’t come back to her. The sobs from her mother that day years ago. The burning pain that still throbbed in her shoulder. The feeling of being held in the air, knowing she would die without ever touching the ground again. Her brother. Sobs.
She felt like she was going to be sick again. Each spoonful of soup made it worse, and the cool air of the cave caused her skin to feel clammy. It felt like the walls were spinning. She needed to move and do something before she puked.
The three others looked up from their meals as she stood abruptly. She swallowed down her nervousness. Even in a group this small, she hated being the center of attention.
“I’m going to go train for a bit before we head out,” she said, already moving.
“I’ll go,” Simon said, setting aside his bowl. “I could—”
“No,” Katherine said, wincing internally at how forceful the rejection sounded. She hadn’t meant to snap; she just wanted to get away, and quick. “Sorry. I’d rather train alone, is all.”
“Oh. Alright. No problem.”
“Stay close,” Justus said.
Katherine walked briskly out of the cave. The path was slightly sloped and was plenty wide enough before it dropped off into a much sharper incline. She walked down the path, the same way they’d come. About forty feet away was a large boulder jutting from the mountainside.
Her fist crashed towards the stone, her full weight behind it. She activated her skill just before the impact. Her knuckles pressed against the rock, all the momentum vanishing the instant her skin made contact. She forced her breath to come, slow and deep. Her hands were still shaking.
Katherine relaxed her fist, laying her palm flat against the cold stone. She rested her forehead on the cool rock, letting it take the heat from her body. The seconds passed one by one as she counted them in her head. As those seconds passed, her anxiety faded little by little.
The kinetic energy from the punch churned inside her, kept in place by her Spirit. The frenetic chaos of the energy somehow countered the frantic panic that scratched at her insides. The seconds passed.
Her skill came off cooldown. She felt the notification and opened her eyes to see it in the corner of her vision. Off cooldown, but the energy was still stored inside. She took a steady breath. She pushed herself off the rock and readied herself mentally. Without being on the verge of a panic attack, it was difficult to convince her mind to do something like this.
With as much force as she could manage, Katherine kicked the boulder. She twisted, using every muscle that moved to carry her leg forward. Her shin made contact with the stone and stopped suddenly. No pain, not even a feeling of pressure. Just a gentle contact where there should have been the snapping of bone.
She siphoned the energy into the well of kinetic force that was already trapped. The well didn’t grow; it wasn’t made of matter. Rather than growing, the energy got more intense. Her Spirit adjusted to the influx. It was still less energy than a single one of Justus’s kicks, and it was nowhere near as much energy as she’d stored during the real fight.
For now, it was enough. This is how she’d train today. Her goal was simple. Carry this energy without losing it. Not for an hour, not until they took a break, and not even until she went to sleep. Her goal was to carry it until she used it, no matter how long that would be. She’d keep practicing until she could hold it in as easily as she breathed.
Katherine wasn’t sure if it was possible, but she would try. The effort would give her something she could always focus on—something to keep her busy when she wasn’t training. And whenever it stopped being enough, she’d find something else. Anything else. There was no other choice.
There is one other option. Her mind whispered to her.
She tightened her hold on the energy and walked back to camp. The journey was far from over yet.
Should Hishet become a new member of the main cast!? Or should he be thrown into the fires of the Ashen Mother as a sacrifice in hopes to delay the next Ashen Winter?!?
