Her face was turned away from me, but I thought I could see the corner of her face turning a brighter shade of red in the dim light of the Underworld's gray sky.
"Because I promised his mother the day we left on that expedition that I would be with him if anything happened, and I was afraid I wouldn't make it in time," she said, trying to hide her bashfulness. "Ah, so that's why you jumped. I hadn't expected that level of honesty, but I'll take it," Irun said with a light chuckle of disbelief.
Is that why she was crying? Wait a minute, when the hell did they make that promise? I thought, still keeping my mouth shut to not to make matters worse.
"Last question," Ysevel began after clearing her throat and regaining her composure. "The real reason for your second mission to abduct Thoma; what is it?" she asked. Irun scrunched his features a little as he thought about his answer.
"The Masked One said that he sensed great potential in him when he saw him at Coltend Castle and that he'd rather have that kind of talent on his side," Irun replied. "And which side is that?" I asked, finally breaking my silence.
Irun paused for a few moments but ultimately didn't answer me with much more than a solemn shake of his head.
"Your silence is more of an answer than you realize, Irun," I began calmly. "Is the Masked One working for the Undergod or for himself?" I asked, knowing he likely wouldn't answer me right away. To my surprise, however, he looked right at me and cocked his head to the side. "And what if he were working for himself?" he asked in return.
To say that I was surprised would be doing the intensity of my internal reaction a tremendous disservice.
"Are you saying that the Masked One has been working against the Undergod this whole time?" Ysevel asked, her genuine curiosity fully unleashed. "I'm not saying shit, but I wouldn't go so far as to say working against. He's certainly got plans of his own, that much is for sure," Irun replied carefully. "And what about you? Why did you join him in the first place?" I asked, not bothering to beat around the bush with my question.
His expression shifted into something I'd never seen him wear before, like a mixture of regret and indecisiveness, as his eyes darted back and forth across the floor.
"I… I don't want to talk about that right now," he said, deflecting my question and never once meeting my eyes.
Is he embarrassed about it? I paused for a heartbeat.
"It's alright. You don't have to right now, but you're going to have a lot of explaining to do," Ysevel said, stepping in towards him. He looked deep into her violet eyes, and I could have sworn I saw something break inside him. "But, we have a much more immediate and larger problem that I can't deal with alone. Can I trust you two not to kill each other for a moment?" she asked, glancing at both of us.
I looked at Irun carefully. The rage I still felt for him, having betrayed us back when he was still a Synner, burned deeply, but I let out a deep sigh instead of lashing out.
Ysevel must see something that I'm too blind with rage to see. I know she can be childish and playful, but she's being far more mature than I think I could be in this situation. I don't have much of a choice but to trust her right now, I thought as I looked at her expression that was all but begging me to trust her.
"You can let us out of this… whatever the fuck it is," Irun said first, surprising both of us. Ysevel, clearly pleased with how she handled the situation, smiled warmly and released us both simultaneously. Since she had caught us while we were moving, we both stumbled a little bit once she released her spell. However, she didn't release everything, as the dome was still active.
"Keeping that was a good idea," Irun said, pointing upward. "We're probably still being watched, though," he continued, looking around momentarily to confirm his suspicions. "Watched by what, exactly?" I asked, sheathing my sword. Irun cocked his head, but after taking note of my gesture of trust, he reluctantly did the same.
"Putting it as simply as I can for now, the Undergod essentially rules this realm by sheer force, keeping an ever-watchful eye on as much of it as he can using creatures that heed his command," he said, gesturing up towards a dead tree a reasonable distance to my right.
It was perched at the top of a massive tree, and even though I couldn't quite make out any specific details, its silhouette closely resembled that of a wyvern.
It's a little hard to gauge how far that thing is, but according to Taegin's lessons, we should always assume it's bigger than we would typically give it credit for, I sent Ysevel, recalling a lesson from my early days as a Synner.
"Do you think it's a problem if he sees us walking away from here together?" Ysevel asked. "Most likely, but that's provided he sees us moving together in the first place. He knows I'm here because I used the portal, but I don't think he's got much more information than that," he replied.
"So, he's not omniscient, but he can still see enough of the land for the creatures that live here to think he is," I surmised, hoping that my understanding was correct. "Precisely. Although, not all the creatures who live here are mindless, killing machines. Many of them have intelligence that far exceeds what you might expect from them," he nodded.
Suddenly, his eyes opened wide in what I could only register as fear as he saw something happening behind me. I turned to look in the same direction to see what it was he seemed to be so afraid of, but before I could even register anything, I felt a wave of dark mana rushing behind me as I was picked up by my waist and carried over to a hollowed out stump of a large, dead tree just outside the dome.
Ysevel released her spell quickly, realizing that whatever it was that was happening needed our presence to remain hidden. Without a word, Irun put a single finger to his lips, gesturing for us to be quiet. A few moments passed, and then we heard it.
The sound of flapping wings passed overhead, making the ground tremble with the sheer amount of air being moved.
It's fucking huge, whatever it is, I thought, gauging its size by the sound of its wings moving the dead air around us and the barely visible shadow moving across the ground outside.
Luckily for us, however, it passed just overhead and continued on its vectorial path leading away from us. We all took a few extra moments to make sure it wasn't circling back around and sincerely hoped we were right. Irun, who likely knew this creature's habits better than Ysevel or I, peeked out of our little hiding spot to ensure it was gone.
"We're clear for now, but there's no telling whether it'll be circling back. We need to get somewhere safe and quickly," he said, maintaining his hushed tone. I looked at him skeptically, as I still couldn't fully bring myself to trust him. Ysevel, however, must have read my expression and placed her hand on my forearm softly. "Thoma, we don't have much of a choice but to trust him. He knows this place better than we do, and we still have no idea how to get back to the Between," she said softly.
I breathed out heavily through my nostrils, knowing she was right.
"Look, it's a lot more likely that we'll be found and killed before discovering a way to get back. We have to trust him," she continued, almost pleadingly. Irun, however, moved forward and outstretched his hand. "I know it's hard to believe it right now, but I'm going to stand by what I said about not trying to kill you," he said, glancing down at his hand quickly and then back to me.
"If you betray us…" I trailed off. Irun shook his head and allowed himself a short chuckle. "If I were going to, I'd have left you out there for the oversized bat, but a lot has changed since then. You'll see what I mean," he said cryptically. I still eyed him carefully but clasped his forearm to finalize our truce.
"Good, now that that's settled, we need to take inventory of what you have on you. I can live off the land until we come up with a plan, as I've grown accustomed to it, though I can't say the same for the two of you," he said, glancing back and forth at us. "I only have about a four-day ration of dried meat and some water," Ysevel said, looking in the small leather pouch at her waist.
"I have the same," I said, looking into my own. Just as I was closing my pouch, however, I noticed the metallic lid of the flask Ren gave me before leaving for Caegwen still sitting in the side sleeve.
Shit, I completely forgot about that thing, I thought, half-amused by my own idiocy.
He'd told me to drink it as soon as I got to Caegwen, but it clearly slipped my mind, even after all this time. I wonder if Bernar still has his, I thought, remembering he'd given one to my brother as well.
"Damn. It's not a lot, but it should be just enough for us to get there if we move quickly," Irun said pensively, apparently doing some kind of calculation in his head. "Wait, where is there?" I asked, eyeing him curiously. "It's a village that's a few-cycle trek from here just over those mountains," he said, gesturing to the distant range. "Aaaand what the fuck is a cycle?" I asked bluntly, not bothering to hide my confusion.
"Think of it like a day. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there is no sunlight here, only the gloom from the sphere of dark mana in the sky," he began, gesturing upward. "It might look dead, but its energy fluctuates enough to cause violet lightning to appear whenever the sphere completes a revolution. When that phenomenon happens, we know that one cycle has gone by," he continued.
"How long does that usually take in comparison to the Between?" I asked, genuinely confused. "It's hard to tell. Time works very strangely down here, depending on your environment. It's something to do with the density of the dark mana," he said distantly as if he were unsure of the answer himself. "Oh, I see," I replied with more questions racing through my head than answers.
With that brief explanation, I peered out from the safety of the hollowed-out trunk and took a much better look at the sky with the new information I had. Without the light of the sun or night stars to guide me, I quickly came to the brutal realization that I had no idea how to navigate this realm and that we really did need Irun's help.
No choice now, I thought, acknowledging our predicament.
"If we can make it to the village, we should be able to avoid the Undergod's creatures that might be spying on us. Well, most of them, anyway," he continued. "You said there's a village?" Ysevel asked curiously. "Well, I call it a village, but they call it a hollow," he said, doing a final check on his gear. "Who are they?" I asked, unsure of who or what he could possibly be talking about.
"They are hegraphenes. Those creatures you all saw me with up in the Between? That's them. I'm taking you to the home of the Iron Plume clan. We'll be safe there," he replied after making sure that the creature was no longer near us.
Safe? It sounds more like going up Shit River without a paddle in sight, I thought as we stepped out from our hiding spot and into the gloom of the Underworld's gray, lifeless sky.